On This Day (14 May 1984) Brutal Ashurst Swings Axe After Season Finale

I have no qualms about being given a free transfer. But it was disgusting to be informed by a letter which dropped through the door in the morning. The letter wasn’t even signed by the manager—just the secretary. I’m also on the coaching staff and I’m certain the manager Len Ashurst had ample time to inform me himself. I know for a fact that he told two youngsters who were getting free transfers, last week. The sickening thing is that there has been a lot of rubbish talked recently about the lack of honesty amongst the players. But even though I’m on the coaching staff, no one had the decency to tell me I’m being freed. If that wasn’t enough, I arrived at the ground and my keys for the coaches’ room were immediately taken off me. And I discovered, that behind my back, it had been arranged for someone else to take the reserves to Stoke. Even though I had been given a free transfer I was prepared to see that through. I was even set to play. What a shabby way to have to depart from the club. I have worked long hours for the club and didn’t expect to be treated like this. I have no axe to grind with the club as a whole or the supporters, I wish them well. I am just disgusted at what has happened over the last few weeks. We were just a couple of players short of being a decent side when Alan Durban was manager. But now Paul Bracewell is going to Everton and three or four others are likely to leave. People will say I’m saying this because I’m an Alan Durban man, but I have been in the game long enough to accept whether people are good enough for the job. Also given a free was Gary Rowell, who’d been top scorer in five of the six previous campaigns. He’d headed off with some of his teammates to Majorca, unaware of the letter landing on his doormat that morning – his wife desperately trying to get in contact with him to relay the news. Meanwhile, Pop Robson had been assistant manager to Durban, and had been caretaker manager before Ashurst’s arrival, but the offer for Robson had been to coach the youth team the following year, a demotion he wasn’t too keen on.

Wholesale changes were envisaged, with skipper Ian Atkins, Barry Venison, Chris Turner, Mark Proctor and Lee Chapman all a rumoured to be available for transfer, with Ashurst deciding a scorched earth approach was needed when in reality it was tweaks to the work Durban had done. Ashurst’s hardline approach hadn’t gone down well. Whether of his own volition or operating under a board mandate to cut costs, he’d cut back on players’ meals and put restrictions on the baths they could have, which didn’t enamour him to the playing squad, which James – who’d been an inspirational figure on the field at times as Sunderland secured safety – confirmed: The last few weeks haven’t really been particularly enjoyable. Senior professionals like myself have been kept in the dark as to their futures, and that doesn’t help. It wasn’t that I was expecting any special treatment, but I would have thought I was entitled to some extra consideration. Ashurst would reshape the side considerably over the course of the summer, with Gary Bennett, Howard Gayle, Steve Berry, Clive Walker and Roger Wylde all arriving at Roker – however the losses of James, Robson, Bracewell, Atkins and Chapman were significant, and ultimately the approach of Sunderland’s record outfield appearance holder Ashurst in the dugout left a bit to be desired, with Sunderland relegated by a clear 10 points come the end of the following season.