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We were at home to West Ham, who had won the F.A. Cup two days earlier by beating Arsenal 1-0 with a Peter Brooking header. To be fair to West Ham, they were fielding a strong team against us.
I was living in East Finchley in London at that time and had tried but failed to get a ticket for the game from the S.A.F.C.S.A. London Branch. I’d even got it together for the first and last time in my life to send them a telegram. Money was thin on the ground in those days so on the day before the match I hitch-hiked up to Sunderland. I managed this okay but when a couple of cops stopped their car as I waited at a motorway slip-road, they gave me a good grilling when I said I was from Sunderland. This was the time of the Yorkshire Ripper and Sunderland males were of particular interest then. I hitched part of the way with another lad from Sunderland whom I’d just met and, having given him my parents’ address, he happened to call in when I was out on the following day and had a beer with my dad. I never saw him again.
We went into the match with a thirteen-game unbeaten run behind us and nine days earlier I’d been among something like fifteen thousand Sunderland fans at Ninian Park for our 1-1 draw with Cardiff. I’d been in a packed crowd many a time before but that Cardiff match was the most packed I’d ever experienced. You could literally take your feet off the terracing and be borne around. I remember seeing a lad wearing a jacket emblazoned on the back with
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