On This Day (15 April 1970): “So Near, But Always Too Far”

A general view of Roker Park Stadium, Sunderland. (Photo by S&G/PA Images via Getty Images) | PA Images via Getty Images It still amazes me, five decades and more later, and with all the relegation battles that have come and gone since, that we gave ourselves a chance going into the final game of this dreadful campaign. The start of the 1969/1970 season had been bad by any definition — we’d had failed to score a goal in our first four games and did not win a game until September 20, eleven league games into the season!

A 2-1 win against Nottingham Forest was quickly followed by our first away victory of the season (one of only two that campaign) courtesy of an own goal by Mike England just before half-time at Spurs. It should’ve signalled take-off, but it would be another twelve league games before we would taste victory again. Despite taking honourable draws off the top three at Roker Park, our season was littered with drawn games that we could’ve won, and games we lost that we should’ve drawn.

Apart from a very brief two-week period in January, Alan Brown’s team spent the whole of this season from August 23 in the relegation zone! As the season entered its final phase, Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday were battling it out to avoid being the team that accompanied us down to the Second Division (as far as the football world was concerned, we were certainties for the drop). A hard-fought 2-1 victory against Wolves at Roker Park in March suggested our team hadn’t given up the fight and even though we lost our next game against Ipswich at Portman Road, we went five games undefeated after the Wolves game, with draws against champions Everton and second-placed Leeds, as well as Newcastle and fourth-placed Derby County.

We also beat Manchester City and drew at Coventry away from home over this period to give ourselves a chance of escaping what had seemed an inevitable relegation — all we had to do was beat Liverpool at Roker Park! If we could manufacture a victory we would leapfrog Crystal Palace, whose season had already finished, a point ahead of ourselves. With Sheffield Wednesday propping up the rest of the table and hopefully not picking up enough points in their remaining two games, we would be safe; if we could get a victory over the Merseysiders, the Owls couldn’t catch us.