Reading v Sunderland

[Alonzo Drake]

Last night a MOTD camera focused upon an elderly chap, and the commentator said the he'd probably remember the first ever meeting between Reading and Sunderland some 40 years ago, in 1973, when Sunderland went on famously to beat Leeds in the Final.

The comment made me feel ancient because I remember this Reading-Sunderland tie vividly -- and with good reason.

In 1972/73 Rovers battled away to make a rare appearance in Round Three of the FA Cup. We beat Bury 3-1 at home in the first round (Kitchen, Elwiss, Rabjohn). Round Two provided an amazing away day at non-League Scarborough, then managed by Colin Appleton.

Sealand Road was packed with 7,000 plus, and estimates were that 4,000 had travelled from Donny for a day at the seaside. It was a cracking tie, and we won 2-1 thanks to Kitchen and Elwiss.

Round Three -- drawn on a Monday lunchtime in those days, by old chaps rattling balls around in a bag!

Man U? Liverpool? Spurs? With typical Rovers luck we drew fellow Div 4 team Reading Away!

The original Reading third round tie was postponed, so we knew that a win at Elm Park in the re-arranged game would hand us a fourth round tie with Sunderland at Roker Park. What a grand away day that would make -- even better than Scarborough!

The 3rd round Reading tie took place on Wednesday night, Jan 17 at Elm Park. I was a Plant lad in those days, so me and my Wagon Shops mate Bob Chappell (who Donnywolf knows) travelled down to Berkshire on the train with our free passes.

Then as now, Reading were our bogey team and although we outplayed them on the night we lost 2-0 in front of a 10,000 plus crowd. I recall that their keeper, Steve Death (pronounced Dee -- ath), played a blinder.

Bob and I dispiritedly trekked back to Balby and Stainy, and Reading undeservedly went up to Roker Park for the fourth round tie. I recall that they drew there, but were beaten by Sunderland in the Elm Park replay.

There was another Rovers connection in the Sunderland-Rovers tie that would never be in 1973, as Sunderland's Chief Scout in those days was the one and only Peter Doherty. However, I did get up to the Northeast for a cup tie some 10 months later.

Rovers surprisingly won 4-3 at D2 Notts County in the League Cup first round in 1973/74, thanks to a Kitch hat trick, and we were drawn at Newcastle in Round Two. Malcolm Macdonald et al beat us 6-0, and we were lucky to get nil!

[Surrey Rover]

Great Nostalgia Alonzo, Steve Death who had many a good game against Rovers in the seventies sadly died in 2003 at just 54 years old.. and look at Seamer Road now, very sad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XElR871lq_c

[RobTheRover]

Last night a MOTD camera focused upon an elderly chap, and the commentator said the he'd probably remember the first ever meeting between Reading and Sunderland some 40 years ago, in 1973, when Sunderland went on famously to beat Leeds in the Final.

The comment made me feel ancient because I remember this Reading-Sunderland tie vividly -- and with good reason.

In 1972/73 Rovers battled away to make a rare appearance in Round Three of the FA Cup. We beat Bury 3-1 at home in the first round (Kitchen, Elwiss, Rabjohn). Round Two provided an amazing away day at non-League Scarborough, then managed by Colin Appleton.

Sealand Road was packed with 7,000 plus, and estimates were that 4,000 had travelled from Donny for a day at the seaside. It was a cracking tie, and we won 2-1 thanks to Kitchen and Elwiss.

Round Three -- drawn on a Monday lunchtime in those days, by old chaps rattling balls around in a bag!

Man U? Liverpool? Spurs? With typical Rovers luck we drew fellow Div 4 team Reading Away!

The original Reading third round tie was postponed, so we knew that a win at Elm Park in the re-arranged game would hand us a fourth round tie with Sunderland at Roker Park. What a grand away day that would make -- even better than Scarborough!

The 3rd round Reading tie took place on Wednesday night, Jan 17 at Elm Park. I was a Plant lad in those days, so me and my Wagon Shops mate Bob Chappell (who Donnywolf knows) travelled down to Berkshire on the train with our free passes.

Then as now, Reading were our bogey team and although we outplayed them on the night we lost 2-0 in front of a 10,000 plus crowd. I recall that their keeper, Steve Death (pronounced Dee -- ath), played a blinder.

Bob and I dispiritedly trekked back to Balby and Stainy, and Reading undeservedly went up to Roker Park for the fourth round tie. I recall that they drew there, but were beaten by Sunderland in the Elm Park replay.

There was another Rovers connection in the Sunderland-Rovers tie that would never be in 1973, as Sunderland's Chief Scout in those days was the one and only Peter Doherty. However, I did get up to the Northeast for a cup tie some 10 months later.

Rovers surprisingly won 4-3 at D2 Notts County in the League Cup first round in 1973/74, thanks to a Kitch hat trick, and we were drawn at Newcastle in Round Two. Malcolm Macdonald et al beat us 6-0, and we were lucky to get nil!

Alonzo, my Dad was a crane driver in the wagon shops at that time.  I was born in 1970.

[BobG]

And my Dad drove me and him up to St James Park after work/school for that 6-0 match. They had Malcolm McDonald and John Tudor upfront. and a certain Frank Clark was one of their fullbacks. LB I think tho I could be wrong. He'd played for them for about 70 years and never, ever scored even a single goal for 'em. You can guess the outcome then.

Wor Malcolm and John Tudor were pure class. Brilliant players. Way too strong, too fast and too clever for us....

BobG

[rovgers]

My father worked in the Wagon Shops until he passed away in 1981 and it just so happens ! Ive bin back there for the last 13 year.Theres a few zigger zaggers in there

[Alonzo Drake]

Good to hear from fellow Rovers veterans, and also Rob’s and Rovgers’ mention of the Wagon Shops.

I started there as an apprentice fitter in 1967, shortly after the Wagon Shops had moved from the bottom of Carr Hill to the Plant Works. In those days the Wagon Shops was truly a Dante’s inferno, and the work was physically demanding, to say the least.

The work was tough, and in shocking conditions, but there was a great camaraderie amongst staff, which manifested itself socially and culturally. We Wagon Shop workers enjoyed a very active fishing club, a football team which I turned out for in the late 1960s – I played up front and modeled my style on Keith Webber! – an annual Wagon Shops dance at the Top Rank, and it was also a place which boasted many, many Rovers fans, just like now Rovgers.

My love of all things Belle Vue was further nurtured by veteran Wagon Shops fitters and wagon builders who had been going to Belle Vue, and the Intake and Bennethorpe Grounds, for 50 years plus. In fact one old fitter, who I worked with in the wheel bay, told me how he rarely missed a game at the Intake Ground in the 1912-15 period, as he sneaked in for the games under some loose fencing. He also volunteered to construct terrace banking when the Bennethorpe Ground was built after Rovers reformed after WW1.

I probably knew your Dads, Rob and Rovgers, and I’ll PM you for their names.

[Belle-Vue-Ghost]

Best thread I've read in ages.

Love a bit of Rovers history 

[neil grainger]

Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane Alonzo - great stuff.

I was at two of the games you mentioned - the away trips to Scarboro and Newcastle. You've brought a smile to my face because my memories of those games have nothing at all to do with what happened on the pitch.

At Scarboro, I remember buying fish and chips before the match and whilst eating them as I walked towards the ground, a seagull did a ruddy huge dump on me from up on high. It splattered the front of my parka and ricocheted straight onto my fish 'n chips.
I remember trying to gingerly pick out those bits of my lunch that weren't contaminated by the seagull s**t.

As if that wasnt bad enough, when I gave up and chucked the fish 'n chips away, I thrust my hands sulkily into my parka pockets only to find that a large portion of the seagull s**t had landed right inside one of the pockets.
I tell you, you would not believe how big a seagull's dump is.
Welcome to the seaside.....

Then at Newcastle, I remember leaving the ground a couple of minutes before the end of our humiliating defeat, in order to get back to my Supporter's Club coach before the rush.

Four or five other Donny fans had done likewise and were already on the bus when I got to it. The driver must have got out to stretch his legs or summat, but all of a sudden this crazy Newcastle fan came onto the bus and started shouting back to his mates, beckoning them to join him.
I didn't understand a lot of what he said in his broad Geordie accent, but I understood enough to know that his intentions were not to exchange pennants with us.

Fortunately his mates must not have been as keen as he was to smash our heads in, so he got off the bus to go and persuade them, just long enough for our driver to return and lock the door.

"Ruddy Hell" I remember thinking, "what if we'd won?!"

[ch-ch rover]

Alonso i played against plant works mid to late 70s were you still playing then?

[AlonzoDrake]

I'd left the Plant by that time ch-ch, but didn't play for the Plant. I played for the Wagon Shops, which had its own football team for many years up until the early 70s when I turned out for them -- the Carr Wagon Shops was a separate entity to the Plant, before it transferred to the Plant Works site in 1965. The main complaint from the old time Wagon Shop workers back then was that at the Plant, they could not go out and hunt/catch wildlife like they had when located down Carr Hill

[Alonzo Drake]

Thinking back 40 odd years to those old Wagon Shops days, has revived more Rovers and football memories.

We had a Scottish labourer in the Wagon Shops back then, a really nice guy named Jock Gray, whose son was one hell of a centre back for Rovers. Laurie Mac took Stuart Gray with him to Grimsby, and he played over 300 games for the Mariners.

There was also a Wagon Shops fitter back then called Derrick Downing, whose son, also Derrick Downing, played for Middlesbrough in the 60s and 70s. Also, I worked with Graham Watson's dad, fitter ‘Ginna’ Watson -- so I heard plenty of interesting stories about Maurice Setters in the early 70s – plus some other juicy Rovers stuff – before Graham Watson moved onto Cambridge United in 1972, where he became somewhat of a legend making over 200 appearances for them.

The fans who have complained about the Board in the past 18 months or so, should think themselves so lucky to have John Ryan et al at the helm now, compared to the Board as it constituted in the early 1970s, as the club was seriously de-invested following its 1970/71 relegation to D4. The good thing about those days though, when I sprinted across the Plant Bridge each morning to clock on at 7:30 am before the buzzer stopped, was that Setters, despite shortcomings, had a great eye for talent, and nurtured such as Kitchen, Elwiss, O’Callaghan, Uzelac, Brookes and Reed.