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SAFC Milk Cup Heroes Reunite For 40th Anniversary Celebration

Placid Casual 31 said:
Remember it well. Forest at home was a great game. Went to Watford, Chelsea and the final. My Wembley ticket cost me £5 standing.
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12.50 in seats. Directly opposite the Royal Box.
Can still remember the Norwich captain lifting trophy.....😢
stockton said:
84-85 was a dire season. From being 7th in October, I think from December we only won a further 3 games in the league all season. Ashurst a poor manager (although Cowie probably gave him buttons to spend).
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We had a very good start. 7th as you say. Remember thinking, wow we're really going to do something this season....naivety of youth!
 
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Logan5 said:
Ah yes, the Milk Cup run of 84-85...

After a couple of low-key 2nd round games with Palace and the 3rd round away at Forest, it felt like the cup run really got started with the Forest replay...

3rd Rnd Replay: Sunderland 1 Forest 0

We’d beaten QPR 3-0 on the Saturday and the game had been shown on The Big Match on the Sunday afternoon. That, coupled with upbeat newspaper headlines talking about the return of the Roker Roar, contributed to the crowd jumping from 16,000 for the QPR game to 23,000 and the Fulwell being louder and livelier than it had been for a good while. Game went to extra time and from my vantage point at the back of the Fulwell, Gayle’s winning goal at the Roker End seemed like a run from about half way to the edge of the box and then lashed a shot that dipped and swerved away from the keeper into the corner.

4th Rnd: Sunderland 0 Tottenham 0

Biggest crowd of the season so far (27,000) turned up and the Fulwell End wall of noise put in an appearance when we had 5 corners in a row in front of the FE but we were lucky to get away with a 0-0.

4th Rnd Replay: Tottenham 1 Sunderland 2

No one gave us a chance in the replay and not many travelled down. Tottenham away mid-week in December was not exactly an exciting prospect considering some of our dodgy visits there in the late 70s-early 80s. Only 2-3 TC coaches and 1-2 SA coaches there and when we parked up there was no escort so most melted away into the night. Apart from a group of about 15-20 of us (some just wearing SAFC shirts) who, despite walking along outside the Shelf singing, made it to the ground with nothing more than a few verbals.

We had just the end section in the corner but it ended up pretty much full so there must have been about 1,000 there - the majority being exiles who lived in the south. I can’t remember a great deal about the game but in the 2nd half Tottenham seemed to have chance after chance with us hanging on to a 2-1 lead. Turner had one of those nights that only come along once in a career including a penalty save. Due to a combination of being in the corner and the fences, roof stanchions etc all I saw was the Tottenham player running up to take the pen and Turner diving to his right and the ball cannoning away. At the time I didn’t know if Turner had saved it or if it had hit the post.

Have to admit that my main memory of the second half was of repeatedly telling my mate that if we win we’ve had it - meaning if we didn’t get an escort back to the bus we wouldn’t make it (my mate being one of the daft sods just wearing a SAFC shirt). We hung on for a famous win but the celebrations at the end were tempered a bit by the thought of making it back to the bus.

Police seemed to let us out surprisingly quickly at the end with masses of Tottenham fans still streaming down the road. Inevitably a few skirmishes with those, although it seemed like the Tottenham lads most interested in us had gathered on the other side of the road but the mass of Tottenham fans still streaming down the road meant they couldn’t get any closer. I suppose that might explain why the police opened the gates so soon (might be giving them more credit than they deserve there though).

We ended up stuck outside the ground. Don’t know if most of our fans were still in the ground, or had gone back into it, or had melted away into the crowd, but it seemed like there was only about 100 of us left outside of the ground with a few police between us and a street full of Tottenham fans. Bottles coming over from the other side of the road smashing against the wall behind us and showering us with glass, while some of the older more sensible fans were shutting up the younger ones who were reacting to the Tottenham fans. The younger ones wouldn’t have experienced our dodgy visits to Tottenham that the veterans of 77-82 had. Things eventually calmed down and we got escorted out of the vicinity. Looking back, we got away with it off the pitch at least as much as we did on it that night.

5th Rnd: Watford 0 Sunderland 1

Another mid-week trek to the other end of the country but now we were starting to believe and a good 5,000 made the journey. We had half of the covered end (2,000+) plus a terrace along the side with another 2-3,000 on it. Constant noise from behind the goal for the entire game. Winning goal at the other end when Walker’s shot deflected in off Pickering’s back. Great celebrations at the end. Highlights were on MWSS and I could clearly see myself when they showed us celebrating at the end. There was a feeling almost of disbelief walking through the allotments afterwards thinking we were in the semis...

TO BE CONTINUED...
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Remember that Gayle goal v forest as if it was yesterday
 
macum1920 said:
Was in the RAF in London at the time and went to every game in the run, was convinced we’d win at Wembley as we’d beaten some good teams on the way, Europe here I come. Still haven’t forgiven Clive ‘Baldy’ Walker, wouldn’t have got into Europe either as British teams banned next season 🤷‍♂️
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We should’ve been in in 1992 as Liverpool had a 3 year extra ban. But the FA didn’t want us representing them in Europe in the first year of the Premier League.
 
Six teams played in the competition - five from the top flight and one the old Second Division. Has any finalist had that sequence of fixtures to reach a final ?
 
A CONTINUATION OF THE ABOVE...

Semi-Final First Leg: Sunderland 2 Chelsea 0

These were the dark days of 1985. Chelsea sold just over 6,000 of the near 10,000 allocation they had due to League Cup rules and a large proportion of that 6,000 who made the journey up to RP came looking for trouble. IIRC it started in Bishop Auckland in the afternoon and continued from there. Inside the ground, the Chelsea fans allocated the MS Roker Wing seats (again, due to League Cup rules) were chucking stuff down on our fans in the paddock below during the game and then started ripping seats out at the end. Outside the ground, the Blue Bell incident got most of the headlines the following day when a coach load of brave Chelsea "Headhunters" arrived at a pub in a posh suburb on the outskirts of Sunderland an hour after the game when the only people in there were local residents of that posh suburb and included a large proportion of women. By the end of the night there had been about 80 arrests. On the pitch, two pens from West gave us a decent lead to defend for the 2nd leg and it seemed like the entire FE was rocking singing ‘Wem-ber-ley’ after the goals.

Semi-Final Second Leg: Chelsea 2 Sunderland 3

Chaotic night that has been done to death on here - so all I’ll say is that Ken Bates highly dubious decision to not to make the second leg all-ticket meant that thousands of our fans didn’t get in to Stamford Bridge as police were turning them back miles away from the ground. Despite most of our fans not getting into SB that night, lets just say several Chelsea pubs in the vicinity got a bit of 'payback' for the BB incident after the first leg...

Final: Norwich 1 Sunderland 0

We were initially allocated 32,000 tickets which were sold as were an additional 5,000. Thousands of Norwich’s allocation ended up in the hands of SAFC fans who occupied what seemed like at least half of the lower tier of the Norwich end. Thousands of the neutral tickets were acquired by our fans as well so there must have been more than 50,000 of our fans at Wembley that day.

The match, of course, was a huge disappointment. For me, personally, I have to say that my highlight was probably Gary Rowell (at Norwich by then) getting a belated send-off from our fans when he stood in front of our end after the game and raised the cup in one hand and a Red’n’White scarf in the other, while ‘There’s only one Gary Rowell’ boomed around Wembley stadium...

Oh to have had that scenario in different circumstances...

Lo Ursem said:
Six teams played in the competition - five from the top flight and one the old Second Division. Has any finalist had that sequence of fixtures to reach a final ?
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Doubt it - and also all six rounds involved an away game and five out of six were 300 miles away.

That's the equivalent of a London/Southern club getting to a final after playing away at Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, newcastle, and Sunderland...

London clubs even get to play the bloody final at home...
 
Wrenthorpe Mackem said:
12.50 in seats. Directly opposite the Royal Box.
Can still remember the Norwich captain lifting trophy.....😢

We had a very good start. 7th as you say. Remember thinking, wow we're really going to do something this season....naivety of youth!
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At the point during that season when in consecutive league home games we had beaten Luton 3-0, QPR 3-0 and Man Utd 3-2, there was no way you could see relegation happening.

Proctor getting injured (away at the Mags?) was a big impact that season.
 
englishman abroad said:
Ashurst dropping west for Wallace, unforgiveable
Westy would have taken the penalty as well
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I was in a direct line with the pen so still see it coming off the post. Westy would have missed the pen it would have been the same as his home semi one but he wouldn't have got the rebound :( And ffs don't get me on about effing Wallets
 
My first memory of the match isn't the miss from penalty spot or Corner losing possession
.... but one of the parachute display team crashing through the Wembley's roof... such a memorable day!... will he be there for the talk in?
 
I was 16, first ever trip to London, first trip to Wembley. Went with my Dad on a shit bus that broke down in Ferryhill! Match was a non event but the occasion and the day out was magnificent…
 
stockton said:
At the point during that season when in consecutive league home games we had beaten Luton 3-0, QPR 3-0 and Man Utd 3-2, there was no way you could see relegation happening.

Proctor getting injured (away at the Mags?) was a big impact that season.
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My first three games as an 8 year old, thought I'd never see us lose a game after those. Went expecting another 3 goals and a nice easy home win against Leicester 😂
 
Was 13 when me and my mate went to the Chelsea home match,first match with a mate rather than my dad,stood at the very front of the fulwell,always spot myself when West runs up to the crowd after one of his penalties.After the game had finished we took ages getting out of the fulwell end,and at the top of the steps we turned around to see the Chelsea fans ripping the seats out,a copper said to me and my mate I'd run home if I was you,we did!Feels like it was yesterday where does the time go.
 
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