The Battle Of New Year’s Day

As I was growing up, a lot of songs and chants which were commonplace around Roker have since disappeared.

“We hate Nottingham Forest, we hate Liverpool too (and Leicester)
We hate Man United, but Sunderland we love you”

To the tune of “Land of Hope and Glory”, fans could obviously insert different teams to suit.

One of our most missed tunes is “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, sung to the Christmas carol of the same name. I don’t hear it at our place anymore, but I’ve heard it at Mags matches. It stems from the times when derbies were most often held on New Year’s Day and Easter Sunday. It goes like this:

“Hark now hear the Sun’l’nd sing,
The Mags have ran away.
And we shall fight for evermore,
Because of New Year’s Day”

And the Mags transpose the names of the teams. Interestingly still singing “the Sunderland ran away” rather than “the Mackems ran away”.

It’s a bit of a myth that derbies were often played on New Year’s Day, as I can only see three instances of the fixture taking place then. Firstly in 1904, then 1980, and most recently in 1985.

This latter date was my first taste of the derby – and an away one, to boot. I had managed to get my sweaty 19-year-old hands on a ticket, and me mam organised family friends to take me there and back from Washington. As there’s never any public transport on New Year’s Day in the north-east. Imagine my dismay when I discovered these so-called friends were all Mags.

We were in dismal form running up to the game, having lost our previous five out of six games.

Len Ashurst was the manager and was making a pig’s ear of the season after chairman Tom Cowie had despatched Alan Durban the previous season. The bulk of Durban’s team remained, with Chris Turner, Barry Venison, Nick Pickering, Colin West, Mark Proctor, and John Cooke all playing. Ashurst had brought in Peter Daniel, Gary Bennett, Steve Berry, and Howard Gayle the previous summer.

The atmosphere was raucous and Jackie Charlton’s Newcastle set about us right from the off. Bennett set the tone, getting booked in the first minute. It wasn’t long before Peter Beardsley opened the scoring on the quarter-hour, slipping the ball under Turner at the Leazes End.

The reception given to our two black players (Gary Bennett and Howard Gayle) was disgusting. Neither player could cope with the extreme provocation, each being sent off due to two yellow cards. The number of bananas on the pitch was astonishing to a wet-behind-the-ears woke lad like me.

Beardsley completed his hat-trick on 81 minutes, with Colin West offering a consolation for the red-and-whites. It could have been worse as Turner saved a second penalty from Beardsley on 59 minutes.

Needless to say, the resulting trip back to Washy was a miserable one I will never forget.

Thankfully, I have had happier visits to St James’ Park since, being there to witness Tommy Sørensen save Alan Shearer’s penalty in November 2000 — but this baptism to the Tyne-Wear derby adds to my hatred of the black-and-whites and why I will never want to see them do well.