Page 93 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

up from the Paddock below the main stand in order to attack some Bolton fans above, with whom they’d been engaged in heated debate.
Anyway, we managed to turn things around and finished the season a decent sixth. That was one of the classic periods at Roker Park for me because there was always a group of my mates standing together on the same spot in the Roker End. Even if the game was crap, and it often was during those grim seasons, we always kept ourselves amused, with gallows-humour being the order of the day. Sometime in 1977-1978 I went over to the match but just as I approached the Roker End I realized I didn’t have enough money in my pocket and as I was by myself I couldn’t get in.
In October 1978 I was working at a children’s home in Sunderland and I took two of the little lads along to one home game; I think it was the 2-1 win against West Ham on 30th September. We were in the Roker End when a group of pissed guys were horsing around and bashed into one of the kids who was sitting on a crash barrier and knocked him to the ground. Ironically the culprits were local bus crews who’d recently been making a song and dance about public violence against them. One of them did later apologize to be fair. On a happier note, at that time there was an interesting group of early middle-aged guys who used to stand near us in the Roker End and they had their own very esoteric chants. I saw them once chanting in what sounded like Clingon while holding one arm above their heads with the palm horizontal. I
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