The 1968/69 season saw Sunderland equal an unenviable record. With only one away victory all season; at Burnley in the penultimate game of the season, this was the worst travelling performance since 1965/66. The average attendance of 25,438 was the second lowest post war, 1959/60 being the lowest.

Sunderland would eventually finish 17th, just 4 points above the dreaded drop zone, but there would be a silver lining. New arrivals included Mick McGiven from Newcastle United, Bobby Park, Ritchie Pitt and Keith Coleman. The end of the season would see King Charlie Hurley given a free transfer to Bolton Wanderers.

The season didn’t start too badly. 3 defeats, 3 victories and 6 draws was pretty good in comparison with previous, recent seasons. But one result in particular was horrendous.

19 October 1968 was a dark day for Sunderland. We travelled to the Boleyn Ground, home of West Ham United and crashed 0 v 8. The man who did most of the damage that day was Geoff Hurst, who netted 6 times, the first put in with his hand.

The West Ham United team included a very young Trevor Brooking and the current Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp. We were well and truly slaughtered.

The Spurs game on 16 November 1968 was interesting as all time England legend Jimmy Greaves scored 4 of Tottenham’s goals in a 1 v 5 thrashing. In his previous 4 games against Sunderland the great man had hit the net 6 times.

Basically London was a very poor city for us that year. As well as the above 2 results, we were dumped out of the FA Cup at Fulham, the League Cup saw our exit at Highbury and Chelsea put us to the sword 1 v 5. From 26 December 1968 until April 12, Sunderland won 1 match out of 15 games.

The silver lining was the capture once more of the Youth Cup against counterparts from West Bromwich Albion. It all looked bleak after the first leg however when we returned from The Hawthorns with a 0 v 3 beating, but how the tie would change. The Baggies were trounced 6 v 0 by a rampant Sunderland side, who, on the day, were just too good.