Salut! Sunderland wishes all readers a happy Christmas and fabulous new year
Pete Sixsmith writes: no true loves, no birds in trees or leaping lords, just 12 games we have been involved in on each of the twelve days that make up the winter festival of Christmas – some I saw and some that I didn’t. I’ll leave you to work out which ones are which as the series progresses …
1 25/12/56 Aston Villa (h) Won 1-0
This was the final league game played on Christmas Day. Can you imagine football on Christmas Day? Some clubs would kick off at 11am so that fans could walk to the ground and then get home for their Christmas dinner.
I imagine that this one would be an afternoon kick off, so there would be lots of bloated stomachs in the 18,543 who turned up at Roker Park to see Billy Bingham score the only goal of the game.
That crowd was 10,000 down on the previous home game two weeks earlier when we beat Luton Town. It was followed by a disaster at St James’ Park, where we received a Bruce like walloping by the Mags, going down 6-2 in front of 29,558, a crowd that was a long way behind the 51,032 who had squeezed into Roker in August, to see the Mags chalk up the first part of a double.
This season was our penultimate one as the only club “who had never played in any other than the First Division”. We escaped relegation by three points over Cardiff City. What are the chances of that happening again?
1 thought on “Sunderland’s Twelve Days of Christmas: (1) Aston Villa”
I was 7 days old when this happened, I don’t think my Dad took me to this one but I may be wrong….Happy Christmas & a healthy New Year, Ha’way The Lads!
I was 7 days old when this happened, I don’t think my Dad took me to this one but I may be wrong….Happy Christmas & a healthy New Year, Ha’way The Lads!