On This Day (18 April 1998): Red, White And Crewe As Sunderland Stay In The Hunt!

1997/1998 was the first season that Sunderland played in their new home at the Stadium of Light. We’d been relegated the season before after our final game at Roker Park and I always remember thinking how fitting it would’ve been for the Lads to play in the Premier League during our first season at the new stadium, but it wasn’t to be. In hindsight, it was the best outcome in the long term, for it enabled us to build a team that was more than ready for the top flight.

Peter Reid had saved us from a second stint in the the third tier in the 1995/1996 season, and got us promoted the following year — probably far too early to cope, as it turned out. So to have gone straight back up again and as romantic as it would’ve been to grace the new stadiun with Premier League football, it was probably for the best that we just missed out — but boy, how we did just miss out! It was very tight at the top of the table; a four-way shootout between Nottingham Forest, Middlesbrough, Charlton Athletic and ourselves.

Only six points separated the top four clubs with four games to go and this win over Crewe Alexandra was much-needed after two damaging draws allowed Boro to leapfrog us into an automatic promotion spot. In the eighty fifth minute, the outstretched leg of Lionel Perez saved the victory for the Lads after a shot by Kenny Lunt. No wonder it was Perez that captain Kevin Ball ran straight towards after the final whistle.

He knew that final save had lifted the Lads back into the top two. For much of the game and before those nervy final minutes, Reid’s claim that the pressure wouldn’t get to his young team seemed to be a correct assumption. Indeed, if there had been any nerves at all, they vanished after Ball put us ahead after only four minutes, and it was man of the match Allan Johnston who got it started, showing fast, nimble feet on the wing before putting in a low shot.