Chelsea’s Unstoppable Assault Seizes Champions’ Lead!

Alex Rae, Sunderland {C} has words with Steve Clarke,{R} Chelsea & Frank Sinclair, {L} Chelsea (Photo by Chris Turvey/EMPICS via Getty Images) | PA Images via Getty Images It was almost like the football gods conspired to create a season like this. When Sir Bob Murray kicked off plans to build a new stadium for Sunderland at the old colliery once the Nissan site had fallen through, it seemed a little bit ridiculous. Since relegation in May 1991 from the top flight, we’d struggled to stay in the second tier.

All the while there was a party at the top of the pyramid with the introduction of the Premier League – a party that our friends up the road had managed to join and even Middlesbrough were part of in its inaugural year. But even though the plans to move from Roker Park were moving quickly off the pitch, the club was drifting on it. Mick Buxton might have been tactically astute, but the club needed a shot in the arm as we were drifting towards relegation.

A last throw of the dice was rolled with the signing of Brett Angell for a princely sum of around £600,000 and a loan move that saw Dominic Matteo arrive from Liverpool – a move that would almost lead to a points deduction. The change was made after a defeat at Barnsley where both players were in action, and for the first time since the summer of 1987 Sunderland made an external managerial appointment. In late March 1995, Peter Reid was appointed as the new manager and he went to work keeping us out of the relegation places at the end of the season.

The following year nobody knew what to expect – and we went and won the league title. Talk about sliding-doors moments. We went from potentially dropping into the third tier again, which had it happened might have indefinitely put the plans for the new stadium on hold.