Colin Randall

Pete Sixsmith scoured the recesses of his mind for something positive to say about the abysmal defeat at Stoke. He finally came up with one consoling thought: the gloriously optimistic suggestion that we may lose at Chelsea by only one goal..

What a disappointment! We’re all pumped up after defeating the Mags for the first time since the old King was on the throne, and then we go and play, as Keano put it, our worst football of the season so far, in the Potteries.

You can’t say we weren’t warned. Everyone knows what to expect from Stoke – long throws, ball played up quickly, fierce tackling and an in your face attitude that is unpleasant but perfectly legal.

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How to forget Stoke (though we’ve plenty to say about that, too)?
Let’s try. Gloryhunting comes in many forms. Brian Kerrigan, an esteemed Canadian colleague with uncertain knowledge of English football, wrote on Facebook: “Hull City AFC. all the way baby! Go Tigers!” Ray Knight* decided as a lad that he’d support Chelsea. But that’s a bit unfair on both. Kerrigan, for all I know, is Jason De Vos’s best mate and even has a David Bowie-related excuse**; Ray may have grown up in wondering whether to support Arsenal or Spurs (though why not Barnet?) but qualifies as a real Chelsea supporter on the old-fashioned grounds that his dad was one too. In this outstanding contribution to Salut! Sunderland‘s Who Are They? series, he

* tells of a heartwarming encounter with a fan he mistook for a homicidal Mag

* blames Liverpool’s deserved win last weekend on a fluke goal and bad refereeing

* praises Keano for channelling his “psycho” aggression psositively and buying well.

When not supporting the Blues – albeit only when they play at home – Ray is a railwayman based at Kings Cross and active trade unionist. He sits in the East Stand upper tier next to David “Sid” Millward, who supplied an entertaining preview to the same game last season; Sid describes his mate as “a thoroughly good guy, Guardian-reading, cryptic crossword-doing railwayman with an encyclopaedic knowledge of late 60s rock”. Before his team faces the might of a team that nearly avoided defeat at Stoke, Ray tells his own tale …..

Shall I start with something controversial? Well, let’s have a go – a football fan is defined as much by the teams he or she hates as well the one that is the object of his / her adoration.

I am 57 years old, and a Chelsea supporter for 45 of those years so you might think I should know better. A person of my age should be able to show a bit of maturity in these matters, and be able to discuss reasonably with one’s fellow fans the finer points of the game.

Well bollocks to that, especially when your lads have just lost a magnificent unbeaten home record to a flukey deflection. My good friend and fellow season ticket holder Sid, who like myself holds a responsible position in society, pays his taxes and always remembers to vote, tried that today, ie reasonable debate and appreciation of the opposition’s qualities. Sorry mate, I just want you to agree with me when I froth about the cruel injustices of the game, and why the referee’s parents were never legally joined in matrimony.

So there you have it – I hate Scousers (but only the red ones), I hate Mancs (but only the red ones) and I hate North London teams (but only the red ones – be fair Spurs have given us so much light relief lately, who could possibly hate them?). But teams from just the right side of Hadrian’s wall (oops, more controversy!) – well I don’t hate any of you (not even you red ones). I know you all hate one another with a passion and intensity that an outsider like me cannot even begin to understand, but I look away, not wanting to get involved in family business. I was however made brutally aware of your passions on a tube train on Nov 12 1983, an encounter that I initially thought would be my departure from this life. But I digress, you want to hear my thoughts on Sunderland.

First things first, I have to confess that I have never visited either of your grounds, because I basically only go to home matches. In the monochrome days before compulsory pre-booking, I might venture over to Highbury, White Hart Lane or Craven Cottage but that was about as far away as I went. It may have something to do with the time I did spend Good Friday 1968 at Maine Road and had the crap kicked out of me. Ok I did go to Grimsby to see us crowned 2nd division champions in 1984, and just lately I have been able to go semis and finals in occasionally exotic locations, but you will appreciate that these, like our beloved London buses, have only come recently after a hell of a long wait.

It also has to be said that since 1965, the year of my Stamford Bridge initiation, Chelsea – Sunderland matches have, as far as I can recall, been mostly run-of-the-mill league encounters of little incident, that have left little impression on my memory. The first one I can remember attending was in 1969, where, to quote the famous Norwegian commentator, “your boys took one hell of a beating”, 5-1 with four goals from Bobby Tambling and one from Alan Birchenall. But I’m buggered if I can remember any of them.

The one exception of course is the two-legged League (Milk, Rumbelows, Coca Cola, Trotters’ Independent Traders – can anybody remember?) Cup in 1985. Having to watch the away leg on my mother-in-law’s telly and my language, I distinctly recall the hapless Dale Jasper giving away, not one but two penalties. At the time it brought to mind Oscar Wilde’s epigram about losing one’s parents (one’s a tragedy, two is carelessness, if my memory serves me well). A substitute on the night for first choice central defender Joe McLaughlin, poor old Dale’s career never recovered after that. Then of course, the second leg at the Bridge.

It started promisingly – we were rampant and David Speedie (formerly of Darlington, the second best team in the North East, yes?) gave us the lead, but then it all went wrong. Into the Judas Iscariot role stepped Clive ‘Flasher’ Walker, ably assisted on the pitch by Metropolitan police personnel, both two- and four-legged and out we went. As it happened, both our seasons finished in disappointment, missing out on European qualification by a whisker, Sunderland losing the final and Chelsea losing the last league match at home. Norwich were the party poopers in both cases. Now there’s a team we can both hate! In fact, that was the year of Heysel, when apart from the tragedy of the evening, the Scousers managed to get us all banned from Europe. There’s another reason to hate them!

However, Flasher is back in the family, and yes you actually paid us money for Gareth Hall so all is now sweetness and light. But before I finish, I must return to Nov 12 1983. Just to recap, it was in 2nd Division days, we had an excellent team (Speedie, Dixon, Nevin to name but three) an excellent manager in John Neal, and we were riding high, scrapping with Sheffield Wednesday, Man Citeh and the Bar Codes for top spot and promotion. According to the press hype this was the BIG ONE – we were entertaining Newcastle with Kevin Keegan playing for them, most probably as Captain.

It would be tight, no quarter given, no prisoners taken, could Chelsea handle it? etc etc etc. No offence to my press chums, but you guys don’t half talk crap at times……..we absolutely stuffed them, 4-0, KK running around all match like a puppy chasing that elusive bog roll.

Getting on the tube after the game feeling like a dog with two thingummies, I found a quiet corner of the carriage, took out my programme and started to read.

It was then that I noticed a brick shit house sitting in the opposite corner. He noticed my reading matter and then lurched across to engage me in conversation, speaking to my horror in what I correctly took to be a North East accent, but being a poor Cockney, I was unable to pinpoint the precise origin of his vowels. He asked me the score: “four nil” I said as my mouth dried up instantly. “Who to, man?” he continued. By now, his very muscle-bound bulk seemed to block out all the lights in the carriage. “Chelsea” I croaked as I suddenly rediscovered religion. At that point, his hand came down on my shoulder, but which to my surprise was still in its socket, where it had always been. Then, and only then did I relax as I saw that this man-beast was actually laughing, no cackling, as he uttered the words I shall I remember for the rest of my days “Bloody fantastic mate….I’m a Mackem and I bloody hate those Geordie bastards!”

As I said at the beginning, it’s as much about hate as love.

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Alan, 2nd left, and
the Animals’ finest hour
Picture: blackmagicplastic

Wear Down South** found itself listening to the story of a Sunderland supporter, if no longer through and through (more of that later) then at least of impeccable origins.
It was an interview that took me to the suburban London house of the man responsible for one of the two most familiar organ solos – I’d put it alongside Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale, but please feel free to tell me I’ve got it wrong – in British pop. Meet Alan Price…

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