On This Day (25 April 1979): Sunderland Blitz The Blades!

Ten minutes later, a raucous Roker Park crowd watched as Lee struck to make it 4-1.

Sheffield’s skilful Alex Sabella reduced the lead with a thunderous shot that went in off the underside of the bar and eight minutes later, the crowd were all on their feet, applauding a superb save from Siddall.

Bruce Rioch touched a free kick to Gary Hamson, who sent a ferocious shot goalwards. It took a deflection but even so, Siddall was able to show his amazing reflexes, saving the ball cleanly on the line.

Ken Knighton Sunderland Manager 1979

With only three minutes remaining, Brown sent Rostron through, who was brought down in the box, and for the second time in the game, he sent Conroy the wrong way to make it 5-2.

A minute later, the crowd went berserk as Rostron struck again with a blistering left foot drive, completing his hat-trick — but the drama wasn’t over as in the dying seconds, Ashurst brought down Anderson and referee Richardson pointed to the spot for the third time in the game.

Hamson stepped up for the kick, only for ‘Super Siddall’ to fling himself to the right and make a brilliant save. It preserved the four goal cushion we needed in order to top the division.

However, Sunderland boss Billy Elliott should’ve known better than to make predictions at that tense stage of the season.

We want locking up if we don’t go up now — that’s the best feeling I’ve had since I came back into English football.

I said a few weeks ago that we would go up as champions, and now we’re in a great position to do just that. I am confident we can take full points from our last two games, and then nothing can stop us.

Well, no-one was locked up (I don’t think), but there was to be more end-of-season agony for the Rokerites — somehow, I can’t imagine such confident predictions from Régis Le Bris?

Elliott went on to praise a Sheffield team that played far better than their bottom three position might suggest, and gave a special mention to their Argentinian Sabella, saying he was the best player from that country of the lot, and even better than Ossie Ardiles. High praise, indeed!

However, Ken Knighton (who later would go on to fill Elliott’s shoes) was a little more cautious.

We shouldn’t get carried away with ourselves, and our main concern now is bringing the lads back down to earth.

Obviously it’s a fantastic feeling at the moment, and it would be great to go up as champions, but our main concern was just to win the match, so that amazing performance at the end was simply an unbelievable bonus.

Unfortunately, we lost our next game at Cardiff, yet could still have been promoted if the final games of the season had gone our way, but it wasn’t to be. Still, the everlasting memory of 1979 for me was beating the Mags 1-4 at St James’ Park, thanks to that Gary Rowell hat-trick.

Every cloud…

25 April 1979

Division Two

Roker Park

Attendance: 29,822

Sunderland 6 (Rostron (3), Lee, Brown, Gilbert)

Sheffield United 2 (Kenworthy, Sabella)

Sunderland: Siddall, Ashurst, Rostron; Docherty, Lee, Elliot; Gilbert, Brown, Coady; Arnott, Whitworth