​As a youngster growing up in a family of five boys and one girl, it wasn’t often that we were whisked away somewhere beyond the reach of our parents or grandparents. Of course, we went out to play, and more often than not we didn’t need anyone else to fill the numbers because we ourselves were the numbers. When the Wilsons headed off on holiday, the whole street seemed to be at a loss, because the football fixtures were practically decimated by the absence of our usual impromptu squad. We would rise on a Saturday morning with only one instruction on offer: be careful and be back for teatime. It’s funny how some folks still struggle to imagine life before mobile phones.
This particular day stood apart, for we were bound for Sunderland at Roker Park with our “big brother.” He’d been going to matches for a few seasons already, but had just returned from university, so our parents likely thought he could be trusted to take us all to a game. I have no exact memory of the date or the match, so I pressed our big brother for details to anchor this tale. Living in North Shields, we walked to the ferry landing and crossed to South Shields, a route my brother preferred for match days. From there we caught a bus to Roker Park, and it is there that certain images, scents, and moments have lingered in my memory ever since.
From what I’ve since learned, it was 4 February 1967, and we were there to see Sunderland face Liverpool. Liverpool had established themselves as a big club by that time, even though they had only been promoted to the top flight in 1962. It was also the season after England had clinched the World Cup, a success that had boosted interest in football nationwide and helped attendance rise. That particular day drew a crowd of 45,301, well above the season’s average of about 32,000.
The first sight that greeted me as we approached the Main Stand was the throng of people, the long queues and the bustle. Yet stepping into the ground felt almost magical, as if I had stepped into a living painting. I’d never encountered so many people in one place before. The Fulwell End loomed large in all its glory, bending upward in a wave of heads and flat caps. It was a male-dominated era, and long overcoats were common as well. The grass looked greener than any I’d seen, a stage-set for football’s drama. The red and white latticework of Archibald Leitch’s design, and the big clock on the opposite side of the pitch—once known as the Clock Stand—stood out vividly from my seat in the Main Stand.
Sunderland 0 v Chelsea 1, an old League Division Two clash, remains vivid in my memory. I recall being swept up by the atmosphere, the sense of occasion, and the sheer scale of the ground. There were moments of awe, too, as I watched boys even younger than me down near the front, their enthusiasm uncontained and infectious, their devotion already a glimpse of what football would become for them. The day etched itself into me, not merely as a match day but as a touchstone of how football could command a whole town’s heartbeat, how it could stitch together multiple generations in a shared memory. Even now, those early experiences at Roker Park feel like living pictures: the green of the pitch, the hurry and hurry of the crowd, the steel-gray November air of the north, and the quiet, steady rhythm of Saturdays that carried us along the road to football and beyond.