Stokoe epic still worth a replay 35 years on

A year on the Wear:'You'd be surprised at how many we sell of these," said the big Geordie in the shop in Newcastle city centre. He was holding a DVD of the 1973 FA Cup final. "But then," he said, "if you're of a certain age, this is part of all our lives, not just Sunderland's."

Magnanimous and true. Sunderland's unforgettable FA Cup win over Leeds United was one of the stand-out cup occasions of the 20th century.

It seemed worth rewatching this week, although when someone of the stature of Reading's Dave Kitson became the latest to downgrade the cup's importance, he was lending even greater distance to the 35 years that have passed since Ian Porterfield volleyed his and Sunderland's way into English football folklore.

No one playing then would have vouched for the purity of the professional game, but compared to the contrived media razzmatazz of now, the corporate bell-ringing and staged Motsonisms, this was a different age.

Re-viewing the game, including an on-pitch interview with Sunderland's manager Bob Stokoe before kick-off, was to be transported back.

"We're going to take a lot of beating, we're going to die out there," a smiling Stokoe said. It may not have been better then, but it certainly wasn't worse.

What was most striking initially was the pace of the game. Yes, the Wembley pitch was damp and skiddy, adding zip, but we are forever being told how slow the old days were. This wasn't slow, this was adrenalin-fuelled.

Only the great Eddie Gray looked slack and he was having an off day and was eventually substituted. Dennis Tueart and Sunderland's relentless skipper, Bobby Kerr, were most definitely as swift as Dave Kitson.

The backpass rule - which allowed the goalkeeper to pick up the ball - did not stifle the rhythm because Sunderland's Jimmy Montgomery and Leeds' David Harvey got rid of it as soon as they got it.

Had Leeds taken the lead then it might have been different and the backpass would have been used to waste time and destroy any potential Sunderland momentum. But, of course, things did not turn out that way.

This, as Brian Moore says over the World of Sport footage, "was good for Sunderland and, with all due deference to Leeds United, good for football."

Hearing Moore's voice again also takes you back. His commentaries on the Big Match on a Sunday afternoon were part of the soundtrack to the 1970s. Here he had Jimmy Hill alongside on the gantry - both, incidentally, missed the fact Montgomery's historic double save was a double save. As the replay shows Peter Lorimer following up Trevor Cherry's parried close-range header, Hill informs authoritatively (at first): "It turns out to be an incredible miss. No! It's a save, a fantastic save!"

And that was that. Moore did not rave about it thereafter, he did not refer to it again. But on the Sunderland bench, trilby and beige overcoat adorning his vivid red tracksuit, Stokoe knew what miracle Montgomery had just performed.

Stokoe had won the cup as a player. It was as a Newcastle United player, though, and his appointment late in 1972 was about as popular on Wearside as Sam Allardyce is on Tyneside today. There were around 11,000 at Roker Park for Stokoe's first game in charge, which was lost, but by the time of May's cup final there were 40,000 regulars again.

"There's Bob Stokoe," says Moore during the lap of honour. "Many thought of him as a jobbing manager who might not work again. Now Sunderland will never want to let him go."

Hill, acting as tactical analyst, had praised Stokoe at half-time for Sunderland's "simple, logical, commonsense football", while back in the studio, a panel consisting of Jack Charlton and Johan Cruyff - chalk and cheese - talked up hitherto little-known Sunderland defenders such as Richie Pitt, Dick Malone and Dave Watson.

All except the Sunderland team had arrived at the day anticipating slaughter. Leeds, the cup holders, were so good you can still name their team: Harvey; Reaney, Madeley, Hunter, Cherry; Lorimer, Bremner, Giles, Gray; Clarke and Jones.

Few beyond the Wear could name Sunderland's side then or now. Porterfield and Montgomery are cup legends but Pitt, Malone, Ron Guthrie, Vic Halom? Even the captain, Kerr, is not famed. They were a second division side about to finish sixth. And there were no play-offs then.

Leeds - "smooth, confident and efficient", as Moore has it on kick-off - were top-heavy favourites, one of the greatest teams in Europe. The ball was a yellowy-orange, a one-off that contrasted nicely with Leeds' all-white Real Madrid kit. Don Revie was not regarded as a "jobbing manager" but as a ruthless specialist, a stern genius. As a player - once of Sunderland - he was known as a thinker, but as a manager he was like a James Bond villain.

As the rain fell he put a blue towel over his head, a McClarenism in the days before Steve McClaren. But Revie did not look perturbed. It was only a matter of time.

But, as bulletins came through from Hampden Park - "and Celtic have gone ahead against Rangers after 24 minutes, Kenny Dalglish" - Sunderland settled. Seven minutes later came Porterfield's strike. "And look at 'em!" Moore says of Sunderland's delirious supporters. "After all the thin years, how can you deny them?"

And the thin years had been just that. When Sunderland joined the First Division in 1890 they stayed until 1958. It was England's record stay, and relegation was so shocking that the local Pink newspaper was printed in white the day it happened. Something that had always been there had been taken away.

It was six years before Sunderland got back up. They went down again in 1970. The yo-yo had begun, the search to rediscover soul and excellence had begun. In 1973 Sunderland found it, briefly, but fabulously and warmly, which explains those DVD sales 35 years on.

Even in Newcastle.