Page 68 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

Knoxhall, a Wearside comedian who’d got involved with Sunderland’s team single; a dreadful dirge-like ditty that failed to make the charts. I have a copy of course.
We ended up losing track of time and just after 2.45 we were still there. My mate asked me to hang on a bit while he went to the bog and as I was ambling down to meet him a stranger asked me if I had a ticket. I replied, “No chance” and was amazed to hear him say, “£8.” I hardly had time to think and before I knew it I’d given him £6, had bidden my mates goodbye and was being directed by the stewards to my £4 seat near the front and close to the goal-line. The teams were being introduced as I took my seat and tried to come to terms with all that had just happened.
I was sitting on a hard wooden seat and on my left was a posh older man and his daughter, the latter of whom had clearly never been to a match before. When I thought of all the Sunderland fans who’d been going to games for years and who’d never had much chance of getting a ticket for the game, it annoyed me that dilettantes like her could pick one up. The system has got better in recent years but there are still far too many tickets getting into the wrong hands.
My heart was thumping as the game kicked off. Leeds were in their usual all-white strip, based on the mighty Real Madrid, and we were in our red and white stripes. I always think it weakens any team somehow if they’re not in their usual strip. We had the same team as we’d had in the previous
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