On This Day (19 April 1992): Lads looking good... well, in a fashion
19/04/2024 07:00
Sunderland had reached the cup final – but a second successive relegation was looking like an increasingly big risk...
There's been a lot of Hummel talk this week, and rightly so. Our 'new' kit manufacturer produced what I rate as our best kits in the past four decades (an honourary mention to Asics here), but would there have been as much demand for the release of the 1992 Cup Final tracksuit top had things gone differently league-wise 32 years ago? Probably not.
And, on this day in 1992, black caps were being dusted down in the north east, as at least one of Sunderland and Newcastle looked destined for the drop to the third tier.
Easter Sunday, as usual, was sandwiched in between an action-packed football calendar, and after Saturday's round of games – which saw the lads go down 2-0 to Grimsby (future Wembley tormentor Clive Mendonca with one of the goals), and Newcastle lose 1-0 at home to Millwall, the exceptionally tight bottom of the second division league table looked ominous.
Sunderland P41 Pts 46
Oxford Utd P43 Pts 46
Newcastle P42 Pts 46
Plymouth P42 Pts 45
Port Vale P43 Pts 44
Brighton P42 Pts 43
While the lads had one or two games in hand, due to our FA Cup run, it didn't provide much encouragement, as our league form had been pretty dreadful since a 'new manager bounce' under caretaker Malcolm Crosby, who took over from Denis Smith at the turn of the year.
Smith had led the club on a rollercoaster ride, taking over ahead of the 1987-88 season in the third tier, spending two seasons in the second, before one in the first. Relegation back to division two had seemed like a small setback rather than a major stumble, but poor form in the first half of the 1991-92 season had prompted Bob Murray to make the change.
In hindsight, he might have made a different call.
Ten points from our first four games under Crossa, however, had eased the pressure on Murray to find an immediate replacement, and while the likes of Neil Warnock and Steve Coppell were chased, neither were announced as the new manager. Instead, we waited, and the cup run created a stage of inertia for Murray.
From the 12 league games that followed, we secured just seven points from a possible 36, and a double relegation looked on.
Over the river, the arrival of Kevin Keegan to replace Ossie Ardiles was only beginning to show the beginnings of what unfortunately followed. Despite only being there for a couple of months, he'd already spat his dummy and walked out, muttering something like 'it wasn't like this in the brochure'. This led to the former season ticket holder at Roker Park, John Hall, to beg the very naughty boy – sorry, messiah – to come back.
If only he hadn't bothered. A 1-0 defeat at Newcastle towards the end of March was looking particularly important for both clubs.
Back at Roker, the cup run, while impressive, masked the appalling league run which would usually have seen the back of any manager, let alone a caretaker.
But Bob Murray — somewhat understandably — didn't want to change manager while the cup run was in full flow. Anything before the West Ham games would have been understandable. Long term planning and all that.
Afterwards, it would have seemed unnecessarily harsh.
But in the league we were in freefall, paying the price of a fixture backlog and resultant injuries, which had seen the likes of Ball, Bracewell and Owers miss games.
After the Grimsby game – and a day before we took on third-placed Middlesbrough at Roker Park in one of the highest-stakes Wear-Tees games for a while – Crosby said:
Three games in five days took its toll.
We are not able to train and just seem to be playing match after match.
That is catching up on the lads.
There were some tired legs out there, one or two players looked shattered.
Fortunately, against all odds, Easter Monday provided some respite – and the lads moved a step closer to avoiding a second relegation to the third tier in just five seasons.
Maybe Hummel should be writing Peter Davenport a thank you card.
