Well I've moved on to the early part of the 1980/81 season now, and next up for me was a show from September 1980.
The featured game was Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest, in truth hardly a thriller with Arsenal securing a 1-0 win. A few points of Palace interest though. As Brian Moore explained, it was Kenny Sansom's first Arsenal appearance in front of the ITV cameras and he put in a typically assured and buccaneering display, marauding forward regularly and linking well with Graham Rix on the left. In fact he should have scored after playing a 1-2 on the edge of the box but then poking just wide as Shilton rushed out to block. Due to an injury to Pat Jennings George Wood played in goal for Arsenal. Forest did not have a meaningful shot on target though throughout the extensive highlights so other than dealing with a couple of crosses and whatnot there was no real opportunity to assess Wood's credentials. It ended badly for him at Palace of course but he was actually a good servant for us through that transition period from Mullery to Coppell.
Finally, who should be refereeing the game but our old friend from the 1990 cup final Allan Gunn. He had his moment of controversy too, allowing the winning goal from a shot that fairly clearly did not cross the line even allowing for the more limited replays and camera angles in those days. Peter Shilton was not happy about it after the game so perhaps it was for the best. As an aside Steve Gatting played and was said to have been selected ahead of David Price, who would of course join us later in the season to form the dynamic 'pathetic shark' midfield alongside Brian Bason.
Next we moved on to Roker Park for Sunderland against Leeds in front of an absolutely jammed in crowd, one of those ones you used to get when the wide angle camera shots of the terrace show the crowd swaying around in waves like a wheat field in the breeze. Sunderland had started the season really well following promotion the previous year, briefly topping the nascent league table as we had done the year before. They ran out easy 4-1 winners here in front of a delirious crowd against an ageing Leeds side which was starting its slide towards second division mediocrity. A few of the old legends were still there but clearly past their best - Eddie Gray, Trevor Cherry - and another had just taken over as manager in Allan Clarke.
From a Palace perspective we had two future managers on the pitch. Sam Allardyce played football as he managed - ugly but effective - and he clogged away merrily in the Sunderland defence. On the other team we had Paul Hart, a much more cultured defender who found himself pushed up as an auxiliary striker as Leeds chased a game which was running away from them. The Sunderland ranks also included Stan Cummins who had a busy game, he always looked a good player for them and I was excited when he signed for us a few year later only to be underwhelmed by his contribution.
Finally on this game the last Sunderland goal was scored by their centre forward Alan Brown. This is the second time I have seen him play - and score - in these 'revisited' programmes and both times he's had an absolutely awesome game. He looks like the complete centre-forward - powerful and physical but also mobile, a good touch on the deck and a calm finisher. His goal in this game was a lovely first time finish into the bottom corner from the edge of the box after latching on to a through ball. I had no recollection of this guy from my football following at the time so I looked him up - could he have been one of the England greats whose career was cruelly cut short in its prime? It seems not, he was only 21 at the time of this game so must have been seen as promising but his goal tally for Sunderland was a less than prolific 23 in 103 games. He went on loan to Newcastle in 1981 which must have been an interesting experience but he did well there with 3 in 5. After that though his career faded away with spells at Shrewsbury (where he probably scored against us) and Doncaster before he did in fact have to retire early due to injury at the age at 26. He does share the same birthday as me though so there you go.
The final game was from the Hawthorns, where WBA came back from a goal down to beat Kevin Keegan's Southampton 2-1. The most interesting thing about this game was the weird camera angle, we were watching the action from a low pitchside position roughly in line with the edge of one of the penalty areas. Therefore any goalmouth action at the other end of the pitch gave you that authentic 'what the hell is going on down there' experience of standing on the Holmesdale unless the cameraman used his zoom facility.
Saints had a really attacking team in those days, somehow squeezing Keegan, Charlie George, Mick Channon AND the prolific Phil Boyer into the starting line-up. It looked like a kind of 4-2-1-3 formation with Keegan floating around behind the front three in which Channon played as an orthodox right-winger. A lot of work for the midfield duo of Nick Holmes and Graham Baker to get through.
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