Three games in four days ... not in this day and age!

There was a time when the Easter weekend was the busiest of the season and titles, relegations and promotions could be won or lost in the space of a few days.

Nowadays though, in the Premier League it is just another routine weekend of fixtures, no different to any other time of the year with just the one game scheduled last Saturday against West Ham.

The first Easter fixtures I ever experienced was in the late 70s when we played Newcastle at home on Good Friday, Leeds away on the Saturday then a much-needed Sunday off before facing Manchester United at Roker Park on Easter Monday.

Three games in four days and there is no way that would happen today.

Having just broken into the team on a regular basis, it didn’t bother me in the slightest.

We never really gave it a second thought as that was how it had always been and anyway, the more games the better!

We drew with our biggest rivals 2-2 after being 2-0 up and dominating the game only to let a precious derby win slip away late on, then got a good draw away at Leeds before producing our best performance in a 2-1 win against Man United, a game that is one of the favourites from my career.

Of course it was hectic and hard work, but at the same time exhilarating and exciting as big matches against those sort of clubs gets the adrenaline going like nothing else.

There is often talk about too many fixtures these days but at least they are evenly spaced out now.

There would never be two games in two days and certainly no chance of three games in four days.