In the other 41 games we got the same points as Coventry and had a better goal difference. You then fixed your last game and finished ahead of us.
Were you there?
I was. Last time Sunderland fans came on here it was like a urban myth and the Chinese Whispers have got completely out of hand over the years.
The game was delayed because of crowd congestion and under police instruction. I was there and that is what happened. It was reported in the local papers too. A lot of fans had been delayed. Can't quite remember if there had been an accident or what, but it had definitely been delayed because of this.
There was no conspiracy there, no match fixing going on. To say that the game was fixed is just a pure lie. If the game was fixed how come we went 2-0 up and looked well on our way to winning the game?
Where we were at fault was when the Sunderland score was displayed on the scoreboard. At that point the game ended as a contest and was played out to a very tame knockabout draw and believe me, I was on the terraces there screaming at the City team to go and get the winner when it was at 2-2 and I was not at all happy with what went on.
As someone else said though, I bet 99% of all teams would have done exactly the same thing in similar circumstances. Anyone who says otherwise is just a pure liar.
No-one set out to cheat that is perfectly clear. What happened was that a spur of a moment decision was made with about 15 mins to go and both clubs entered into an agreement that of course should never have been made.
As I say, I was screaming at our team to carry on playing and win the game.
Bottom line is though, it was THIRTY FIVE FOOKIN YEARS AGO. Just how sad has anyone got to be to still be bitter about this after all those years and also to have a go at supporters when it was absolutely nothing to do with them and they had no influence on what took place.
Make up all the urban myths you like, but some of us actually went to the game and
know what happened.
imp:
