
John McCormick writes: Nine years ago years ago I was in Sunderland and wondering what the future held. In particular, what the next season would bring. All three of the North East’s teams were in the relegation mix. We had two games to play, at Portsmouth and the the last of the season against Chelsea – sitting in the top three after a long unbroken run of wins. The others had only one. ‘Boro couldn’t catch us (nor could WBA) but they could overtake Newcastle, who in their turn could overtake us. Hull, too, were below us, by only one point. The extra game gave us control of our destiny but if we didn’t win it and the last day’s results went against us we would go down.
Here’s what Pete Sixsmith had to say about it on 17th May 2009, the day before our game at Portsmouth, with M Salut providing the introduction. He titled the piece “Bordering on insanity”