{"id":2317983,"date":"2026-03-08T06:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2317983"},"modified":"2026-03-08T06:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:26:14","slug":"on-this-day-8-march-1980-no-goals-but-plenty-of-entertainment-on-wearside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/on-this-day-8-march-1980-no-goals-but-plenty-of-entertainment-on-wearside\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day (8 March 1980): No Goals But Plenty Of Entertainment On Wearside!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"\">Sunderland\u2019s 1979\/1980 promotion campaign was built largely on the back of some excellent home form, with the visit of Jock Wallace\u2019s high-flying Leicester City proving to be another positive on the Roker record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Both teams were battling it out near the top of Division Two and would eventually go up at the end of the season, so to take a point off the Foxes was a big step \u2014 particularly so given that the Lads came under some intense pressure in the final half an hour.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Although the match ended goalless, both sides carried a threat and enjoyed spells where they were in the ascendency, with the hosts able to put together some of their best attacking play in months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It was only the performance of visiting goalkeeper Mark Wallington that stopped them running away with the game before the break, and whilst his opposite number Chris Turner also had plenty to do, the Foxes wouldn\u2019t have had much cause for complaint had the best home record in the Football League been enhanced by another Sunderland victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Turner had just been handed a national Robinson\u2019s Barley Water \u2018Young Player of the Month\u2019 award (including an inscribed silver salver valued at \u00a3100 plus a cheque made out for \u00a3250 to a charity of his choice) and seemed to be full of confidence when he made a crucial early save that sparked his teammates into life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Soon, it was Sunderland threatening a goal, with Kevin Arnott and Jeff Clarke twice putting Wallington to work before he had to take emergency action to prevent a badly-hit backpass from Larry May from creeping in.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Pop Robson \u2014 who on the Friday had been given a gold watch for recently making his 550<sup>th<\/sup> appearance in the Football League \u2014 was having a dangerous afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">During the presentation, his manager Ken Knighton waxed lyrical about the forward\u2019s professionalism and determination, and Robson responded with an excellent display, his next involvement seeing him put a wicked low cross along the goalline that his strike partner John Cooke was just a fraction from turning over.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"content-figure\">\n<div class=\"content-image\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"lightbox-btn\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"lightbox-expand\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Image Lightbox\" class=\"lightbox-overlay\" aria-modal=\"true\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"fig-caption\"\/><\/figure>\n<p class=\"\">Robson and then Shaun Elliott were next to test Wallington as the chances continued after the break, and even when the stopper\u2019s handling did let him down, prompting him to drop a cross in the 54<sup>th<\/sup> minute, Claudio Maraongoni was unable to make anything of the subsequent scramble.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Wallington had regained his composure when another bout of pinball broke out in the final seconds, finally smothering the Lads\u2019 last opportunity, whilst in the meantime it was Turner that had been on alert.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He was also full of praise for Steve Whitworth when the former Leicester man did well to intercept a through ball intended for Gary Lineker, and then made his own intervention to block an Andy Peake attempt when the visitors looked to snatch a winner of their own.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Although unsuccessful in finding one, they\u2019d at least contributed to one of the more entertaining 0-0 draws and both sides were able to come off the pitch feeling buoyed by their efforts against stiff opposition, and ultimately being able to keep them out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It later emerged that prior to kick off Gary Rowell, who wasn\u2019t expected to feature anyway, had been sent away from the ground by Knighton after recently submitting a transfer request.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Rowell himself had already stated that his preference was to stay at his boyhood club and would only agree to move if he was unable to force his way back into the team in the coming weeks, but had he ended up witnessing the match, his fears of remaining on the fringes may well have grown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Sunderland looked very sharp indeed and whilst Rowell was then introduced from the bench in the next game, had proven themselves capable of clicking whether their talisman was involved or not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">When it was put to Wallace \u2014 described as being as \u201cpolite as a jagged bottle\u201d by one local paper on the following Monday \u2014 that the hosts had shaded things, he grew rather dismissive but the evidence was there for those on the terraces to see, and few supporters were surprised when the two clubs did what they did in May. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"content-blockquote\">\n<div class=\"blockquote\">\n<p class=\"\"><em>Saturday 8 March 1980<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>Football League Division Two<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>Roker Park<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>Attendance: 29,487<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>Sunderland 0<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>Leicester City 0<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em><strong>Sunderland: <\/strong>Turner, Whitworth, Clarke; Hindmarch, Hinnigan, Arnott; Elliott, Marangoni (Dunn 69\u2019), Cummins; Cooke, Robson<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunderland\u2019s 1979\/1980 promotion campaign was built largely on the back of some excellent home form, with the visit of Jock Wallace\u2019s high-flying Leicester City proving to be another positive on the Roker record. Both teams were battling it out near the top of Division Two and would eventually go up at the end of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2317984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[361646,449132,449130,449133,449129,449131,449135,348649,449134],"class_list":["post-2317983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-chris-turner","tag-football-league","tag-jock-wallace","tag-ken-knighton","tag-leicester-city","tag-mark-wallington","tag-pop-robson","tag-sunderland","tag-the-foxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/On-This-Day-8-March-1980-No-Goals-But-Plenty.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2317983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2317985,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317983\/revisions\/2317985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2317984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2317983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2317983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2317983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}