Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DAY TO MACKEM PROUD LIKE ’73
V
Preston Sunderland
Championship, tomorrow, 3pm BY
TONY MOWBRAY has urged his play-off hopefuls to be inspired by the 50th anniversary of Sunderland’s FA Cup triumph on May 5, 1973.
The Black Cats head coach loves his players to study football history and wants his current crop of kids to grab their own part in Mackem folklore.
Hero keeper Jim Montgomery – whose wondersave helped Second Division Sunderland beat the then-mighty Leeds 1-0 at Wembley – watched the lads train ahead of the must-win clash with Preston tomorrow.
Sunderland also need Coventry and Millwall to slip up to set up a play-off bid. Mowbray (above) said: “Jimmy is part of an iconic moment. In this city, it will live forever.
“I give our young footballers a message, ‘Make your own history. Can you score the goal that can take us to the Premier League? And then, in 10 years, we win the league and the Champions League, and the moment that got us there was your goal’.
“There is a chance for every young footballer to do that. I want them to love the game and be a part of history.
Sometimes being young, you can’t see the future.
“But your career is gone like that [snaps fingers]. My Boro debut, Newcastle United, St James’ Park against
Kevin Keegan and
Mick Channon, 33,000 there. We drew 1-1, September 1982. It lives with me forever.
“Gone, whoosh. I tell them to immerse themselves in their careers.
“I still sit with Gary Pallister in Yarm with a mug of coffee on
SIMON BIRD
my day off. He talks about Old Trafford, I talk about Sunderland. Why are we mates? We had success on a football field together. These lads can have mates for life from doing it here.”
Mowbray is focused only on winning at Deepdale. If Sunderland do reach the play-offs, it will be more than was expected of the season.
He added: “The fanbase is pretty pleased with the season we’ve had.
“There should be an expectation Sunderland, with 40,000 supporters, will be strong in the division.
“There are other clubs scrambling not to get pointsdeductions, and they have to take their budgets down rather than up.
“We have a fair bit of scope to take the budgets up gradually, and to bring in better footballers and players who can give the squad a demand.”
Yesterday, on the 50th anniversary of the Black Cats’ FA Cup celebrations, Mowbray added: “Fifty years, gosh! It seems a long time because I can remember sitting there, watching the game. It was one of my first proper memories.
“The World Cup in 1970 was a big memory, the FA Cup in 1970, Leeds v Chelsea, but 1973 was probably the next massive memory of football for me, as a nineyear-old kid then – seeing Ian Porterfield score the winner and Monty’s amazing double-save.”