The 1977/78 season had not gone to plan! Sunderland had been relegated from the top tier the previous season, but had staged a marvellous effort to preserve their status in the First Division under Jimmy Adamson. He had wheeled and dealt with the squad he had inherited and with a clutch of younger players up from the Youth system, as well as Mick Docherty from Manchester City for a real bargain fee of £10,000, the team had thrilled us with a run from February to the very last game of that season in a heart-breaking finish.
We might have been relegated, but such was our thrilling form and skilful displays, that many of us thought we were certainties to come back up in 1977/78.
A bad start and some inconsistent performances, especially away from Roker Park cost us any chance of promotion and we spent most of the season in mid-table.
Similar to the previous season though, we closed out this campaign with a stirring run that saw only one defeat in seven games as we found some form and consistency!
Jeff Clarke’s return from injury in December of this campaign certainly improved our performances, though Barry Siddall, Mick Docherty and Gary Rowell I would argue had generally been consistently good throughout the whole of the season.
Another player who I felt had been right on top of his game all season was Joe Bolton. If there was a better left-back in the division I had not seen him! Joe had a reputation for being a ferocious tackler, tough as teak and this was true, but there was much more to his game. He had a great ability to hound and harry opposition players without giving away a foul. He also was some sight on the break down his flank, a literal express train that took some stopping. I always thought he and Gary Rowell had a good understanding and Kevin Arnott was quite happy to invite Joe forward with a teasing ball into any space that might appear on the left-flank. Joe was a canny crosser of the ball and wasn’t averse to hitting an early diagonal cross. He also had a right-foot and an ability to go charging forwards with the ball and cut in and have a shot, (his goal at West Ham in 1976/77 was shown for a number of years on the Match of the Day credits and is a good example of this ability). Joe scored twelve goals in just over three-hundred appearances for Sunderland, not bad for a full-back, his assist count would have made interesting reading too, had we been charting such things back then.
So we came to the last game of this campaign, a home game at Roker Park against Charlton who had been embroiled to a certain extent in the relegation tussle.
Our improved form had seen us rise up the table to sixth coming into this match and just short of 17,000 fans had been enticed along to witness the contest.
Reporting on this game in the Sunday People, Len Shackleton said “Charlton can count themselves lucky they got away with a three-goal hiding”. They had very few attempts on our goal in the whole game. Ten minutes in, Barry Siddall made a good save from a Peacock shot and ten minutes from the end Shiperley hit the bar. In between these it was all Sunderland and had we taken even half the chances created, we might have doubled the score.
We did score three very good goals and served notice albeit too late in this season, that we were a team to be feared.
On eighteen minutes Joe Bolton charged forward to lend himself to our attack and beat Jeff Wood in the Charlton goal from eighteen yards out to open the scoring. It was a shot that a goal-laden forward might have made and had the net not stopped it, could have done serious injury to one of the kids on the Roker End front fence!
On forty-three minutes as we approached half-time, a lovely bit of inter-passing between Bobby Kerr and Gary Rowell saw Joe pop up again in the attack to strike a cracking drive for his second of the game. It was a confident strike from our left-back, Bob Lee, Roly Gregoire and Gary Rowell himself must have been wondering if Joe was looking for a positional change for the next season!
The second-half was only six minutes in when we were awarded a penalty by referee Tony Jenkins. My memory of this always tells me it was a lovely bit of team play and close quick passing that led to the foul in the box on Wilf Rostron, but the stats on this game say that Rostron was subbed at half-time by Shaun Elliott, so I am not quite sure what game I am confusing this with (I am sure many readers will have experienced this phenomenon, especially the more experienced older fans who have a lot of games under their belts to enmesh, so please forgive my confusion).
What I am not confused about is what happened next. The crowd started chanting for Joe Bolton to take the penalty, Gary Rowell our penalty-taker extraordinaire looked as if he was leading the on-field debate for this to happen. There was great cheering and applause when Joe was handed the ball and I was wracking the recess of my memory for the name of any full-back who had scored a hat-trick in a competitive game, as Joe began his run up to the penalty kick that would forever afford him this accolade.
I bet there are some readers who will know Gary Gillespie would manage this feat in a game against Birmingham in 1986. Steve Staunton, a left-back to trade scored a hat-trick for Liverpool against Wigan in the League Cup in 1989 and Dennis Irwin scored three goals for Man Utd in a European game. But as Joe sauntered confidently forward, I could think of no full-back that had achieved this feat at this time.
The whole of Roker Park held their collective breath in anticipation of a tumultuous celebration, Joe moved smoothly up to the ball and skied it high and handsome up the back of the Fulwell End (thank goodness he did not hit the ‘Welcome To Sunderland’ sign, he might have broken it!).
I am an unashamed admirer of Joe Bolton, one of the things I loved about watching him play was his temperament. He was a “cool dude” and as that ball sailed up into the back of the Fulwell End and his moment in history was gone, he appeared to just flick his eyebrow and smile knowingly at all of us in that end of the ground, before turning and jogging back to his left-back berth to probably more cheering than he might have got had he scored!
It is a moment in my many Roker Park memories that I have never forgotten. I made a promise to myself right there and then, that should I ever be in his position and miss a penalty or a sitter for a hatty, I would “do a Joe” and crack on with my game with the style and panache that he had.
We were still musing about Joe’s miss when we scored again a few minutes later. This strike was no less a goal than the first two and involved a really good bit of play between Bobby Kerr and Mickey Henderson down our right flank, which saw a bullet of a low cross into that corridor of uncertainty that all defenders and goalkeepers hate. It was Gary Rowell who got on the end of the cross, ghosting in as he was wont to do and scoring as good a diving header as I have seen to finish the scoring in this game.
We had a number of good chances after this to add to the scoring, but Wood made a number of good saves including a couple from Gary Rowell that could have seen him coming away with a hat-trick (especially if he had taken the penalty).