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into the crowd from a large cache they carried between them. One of the girls in particular obviously found it a great physical strain to jog at a snail’s pace and some predatory fans saw an easy opportunity and they raced on to grab a few balls before they could be thrown into the crowd.
At the end of most seasons we were invariably locked in either a promotion or relegation clash and in the 1978- 1979 season it was the former. I’d moved back to London in January 1979 but was in Sunderland for a break when we had a crucial home game against Blackburn on Easter Monday. We lost 0-1 in a very frustrating game. I always remember it for the unfortunate part played in it by our young striker Roly Gregoire who’d hardly had a game prior to that but who was a bundle of nerves during the match and could’ve made much better of a number of chances. He’s a black guy and there was a lot of racial abuse raining down on him in addition to the usual vitriol, which was horrible to hear. He never played for us again as far as I recall.
I was at our final match of the season against Wrexahm on 5th May and it was a great afternoon. I was there with Col and Gary and we fought back from being a goal down to win with goals from Rostron and Brown in the last ten minutes. When that second goal went in, Col punched the air forgetting that we were in a very low-ceilinged stand and his fist hit a girder. Our fans were on the pitch as the whistle went and ugly rumour played its part again as a wave of joy flowed over the crowd when it was reported that Crystal
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