descriptions of roker


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:D

Not the best result for us but you get an idea what Roker Park was like

Note comment from ESPN at 5:39

Alladyce :rolleyes:

Was that the game Sourness should have been sent off for decapitating Elliott?[DOUBLEPOST=1392409143][/DOUBLEPOST]
Wasn't lucky enough to ever see the roker end when it was like that, just saw it when it was the little un

In many people's minds we have a bigger stadium now. But in mine I was in crowds of 52000 several times at Roker, with unbelievable atmosphere.
 
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You really just have to be old enough . Jumpers for goalposts and all that......

But for me, along I imagine with all younguns who entered that place for the first time in the sixties or seventies, Roker Park was anything but the broken old has been of a ground it looked like by the time it was closed.

It was astonishing as any ground is to a kid of course. But once you had been in there with a big crowd, and crowds everywhere used to vary widely those days, you would buzz for days on end. All culminating in the cup run of '73 when the favourites City were sent home packing with some of their players (all internationals) saying after the game that they had been utterly unnerved by the bedlam they had played in.

That's how it was. Not pretty, if better than many by the standards of the day, but often cold, hostile, very, very noisy, tight, atmospheric and ours.

And it always smelled of Bovril!
 
Used to take my 15 yr old daughter with me in the fulwell , she couldn't wait for us to score !
Absolutely loved reappearing 10 yards away from where she started once the bedlam calmed down.
She went to all the away games with me as well until on the way to arsenal the knob running the coach ( won't name the branch ) insisted on playing a chubby brown live video !
She was sat right in front of the tv as well , prick wouldn't turn it off.
She never went again!
 
Total garbage. I stood on the Roker End for nearly 40 years and never saw that once. It was probably you pissing yourself.
Why the aggression? A bit of poetic licence perhaps but it is fact that the terraces were often used as a latrine simply because you couldn't move to get to the toilets. That said as soon as someone whipped out their nob to have a piss almost miraculously a space appeared from nowhere! Remember now?
 
Roker Park filled the senses. Your heart always missed a beat the first time it came into view, it was home. The smells of bovril, pies and hot dogs hung around the place before the matches, the sounds of programme sellers and turnstiles echoed around. When you entered the ground the pitch was like a carpet and expectation built right up until the roar as the players came out. Sound moved around the ground in waves as the paddocks, Roker, Fulwell and even parts of the Main stand seats fought to be heard and lead the songs. The welcome to Sunderland sign, the manual half-time scores, the Roker Review. Surges that lifted you off your feet on the terraces, knowing everyone for 10 seats around you in the seats. In the West Stand paddocks turning to see replays in the boxes. Beats on the wooden floors in the Clock stand seats (We will rock you). Until the last few seasons end Roker Park was heaven.

We had to go though, the taped off wooden seats in the Clock stand, the reduced capacity, the clapped out facilities, the 70's corporate areas. Nothing was good enough anymore.
 
Roker Roar, ear splitting. Say no more

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Biggest killer of atmosphere is the pre-match experience at games. Shit music blaring over a PA system, daft raffle draws or kids playing football (good experience for them, I suppose), dear and scrap food and alcohol, soulless stadiums etc. Everything's too sanitised now. Dare I say it, too focused on kids and families. At Roker the "lads would go out earlier, have a couple of pints then be in the ground a good 60-45 minutes before kick off with their mates, chanting and laughing, the general hustle and bustle was as much as part of the atmosphere as the singing. Sellers going around the ground "peanuts, tanner a bag" and they'd got chucked up, the money would be thrown in return. Football was the pinnacle of the week for a lot of people. They worked hard all week and would then meet up with their mates at the match. It was a chance to let off steam and do stuff that you wouldn't normally do during the week. The world and football is a different place now.

This.
 
Never went. Would have liked to have gone just to experience it

The SOL is to me, what Roker is to a lot of you

You would have loved everything about the place. The bogs at the Roker end needed modernising that's all :lol:
 
I loved the clapped out old 'tannoy' system fixed to the floodlights (with barbed wire around them to stop people climbing!!). They were like old megaphones and had a really tinny sound to them.. Loved listening to UB40's can't help falling in love with you' at halftime!
 
Holte End - Villa Park - f***ing enormous. Anyone remember us going last game of the season in 1974 or so when we needed to win to go up and we lost. 17k SAFC fans there that day?
 
Dad got me season tickets for the 95/96 and 96/97 seasons (as a 12 ands 13 year old respectively), very pleased I got to see the place before it closed.
 
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