Page 13 - 358264 LP231909 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 (Issue 257)

VENNA & THAT PENNA
BY GILES MOONEY
When I was young, football was an old man’s game. Even the young players looked old. Hair was either absent or totally unkempt and everyone looked knackered. I don’t mean after 90 minutes; I mean as they walked to the pitch. Then, one day, this player appeared who, to me, was different. Barry Venison was always going to be popular with someone
like me because he was young, from Durham, supported Sunderland and let’s be honest, was beautiful. That hair would look good on a catwalk but, on a cold Roker afternoon standing between Mark Prudhoe and Ian Atkins he looked like Michaelangelo’s David. And, importantly he was properly good at football. He broke play up and got it started again
in the other direction. With players like him and Shaun Elliott, and later Benno, we had footballing defenders rarely seen
in the 80s. His appointment as captain seemed entirely logical. He was the mature head even though he was only
20. Telling players like Pop Robson and Clive Walker what was expected of them, leading the team to Wembley as if he was born to do it. The day will obviously be remembered as one of disappointment but, hey, it’s Sunderland at Wembley, that’s normal. But for a Durham lad to have come through
the ranks and taken Sunderland to Wembley was incredible.
I felt a similar pride when Henderson lifted trophies for Liverpool. They’re one of our own and that matters. There was an inevitability that a club would pick him up and take him to places we simply couldn’t hope to. Off he went to Liverpool, without the success Henderson would go on to achieve and then, sadly, Keegan took him to Newcastle. I have to be honest, I wanted Kilcline, Beresford, Howey, all of them to lose, but I was quite pleased for him and Brace when they had successes. Somehow, I could isolate them from the black and white. His attempts to be the next Saint or Greavsie alongside a young Gabby Yorath failed and, I believe, he moved to the bright lights of Los Angeles, one of the few places on earth his hair would be considered average.
THE LITTLE GENERAL
BY SOBS
The Mini with the Rolls Royce engine. Skips (honest). So many complimentary names have been bestowed on our FA Cup winning captain
that even he probably doesn’t remember them all. Bobby Kerr joined us as a bit bairn in 1963 from the romantically named Balloch Juniors, turning
pro a year later. He scored on his debut against Man City in December 1966, a few months after reaching the FA Youth Cup final, and managed seven in his first eleven games. Breaking the same leg twice in a year interrupted his progress, but he was back in the team in September ’68. After our relegation in 1970 the captaincy passed to Martin Harvey then to Bobby, whose early injury woes were well behind him. Over the next eight seasons, he missed only 23 games, and played in all nine FA Cup ties in ’73, culminating with him raising the cup and three years later the Division Two trophy. Only 5’5” tall, he was a tenacious competitor on the right of midfield, had a productive partnership with full- back Dick Malone, and could put in tremendous crosses. His boundless energy meant that he could be relied on to produce lung-busting runs right up to the last minute, and he constantly demanded
his team-mates’ best efforts, recognising that different players contributed in different ways. In his penultimate season of ’76-’77, he was the wise old head that allowed the trio of Rowell, Elliott, and Arnott to breathe new life into the side, and Bobby set away that amazing springtime run as he starred in the 0-0 at Arsenal, famously diffusing a dodgy situation by kissing Pat Rice. Possessing the most famous facial hair in our history, the wee man left for Blackpool in 1979, and ended his playing days at Hartlepool.
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