With Newcastle and Liverpool still to visit Roker the Arsenal game on 9 March 1985 produced the Mackems largest home crowd of the season which was odd when you consider the home team were 5th off the bottom and we were 5th off the top.What had happened though was that Sunderland had just reached the League Cup Final; their first major final since that famous day when they had beaten Leeds United in the FA Cup Final in 1973.
Days before Arsenal cruised into town Sunderland had beaten Chelsea in the League Cup semi final 2nd leg 3-2 at Stamford Bridge giving them a 5-2 aggregate win and a chance to play Norwich City in the final two weeks later.
Sunderland manager Len Ashurst wrote in his programme notes that he was writing them before the game at Chelsea so was blissfully unaware of reaching the final saying 'I wonder what the outcome will be'! Such was the whacky world of publishing deadlines I guess.
The 1st leg against Chelsea had been a firey affair off the field with the Arsenal programme posting a couple of letters from fans who had been upset with the incidents they had seen including the obligatory 'I probably won't go to another game'! All that was missing was some old duffer calling for the birch or national service. I wonder who the Sunderland equivalent of Max Kester was?!
Their last home league game had seen over 14,000 fans turn up for the Stoke game; with a Cup Final in the offiing the crowd doubled against the Arsenal as fans realised they had Wembley tickets to buy.We didn't have many travel that day and the few we had we split between a pen on the open terrace and a few seats to the side.
I was in the seats and behind us were a few Sunderland lads, so much for segregation, and after the game, a 0-0, they come up and asked us for the vouchers that had come with the programmes as these were needed for ticket applications.
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