A lasting legacy – lifting Black Cats when they really were in disarray

Nov 21 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

He took over Sunderland at their lowest ebb and did such a good job he even got a standing ovation when they were relegated. Stuart Rayner speaks to Denis Smith.

SUNDERLAND Association Football Club have had some pretty hard times of late, but the younger fans who wallowed in the depression of breaking the Premier League record for least points in consecutive campaigns did not know they were born.

In the summer of 1987, Sunderland were in real disarray.

Relegated to the Third Division (the equivalent of present-day League One) for the first time in their proud history, the once-great club was on its knees, yet the feeling on Wearside was that the downward spiral was not yet over. Into that situation walked Denis Smith, whose biggest achievement in management had been to lead York City to the Fourth Division title in 1984-85.

That Smith remains a popular figure in Sunderland 17 years after the club sacked him is testament to the job he did in reviving – albeit temporarily – the Black Cats’ fortunes. It is typical of his tenure that six months after it ended, the team he rebuilt reached an FA Cup final from the Second Division.

Smith, who turned 61 on Wednesday, has looked back on his eventful career to write Just One of Seven and the autobiography makes his affection for Sunderland obvious.

“Managing Sunderland has got to be one of the highlights of my managerial career,” he says. “It was my first big club.

“I’d been at York City, so to go to a club the size of Sunderland – although it was on its knees at the time – was fantastic. I knew if I couldn’t get Sunderland out of that division I needed my backside kicked, although nobody else seemed to think so.”

Smith was so convinced he gambled £10,000 on it. When Sunderland approached York about taking their manager, the Minstermen’s £20,000 compensation demand threatened to kill the move. Anxious not to miss out on his big managerial break, Smith suggested the Rokerites pay £10,000 up front and the rest at the end of the 1987-88 season. If Sunderland went up, they would pay. If not it would come from their manager’s pocket.

While Smith was confident, few of his new colleagues were. “It had gone,” he states. “It was ridiculous. I’d never seen so many people so low. The dressing room, the board, the tea lady, everybody thought we’d gone down last season and we’d go down again.

“Why did I think differently? It’s Sunderland. The crowds they could get in were massive. And there were some good players there too. They hadn’t been playing at their best but we had people like Eric Gates, George Burley, Mark Proctor and Frank Gray.

“We just needed to get the right balance. We hadn’t got that goalscorer but we brought in Marco Gabbiadini and the thing took off. John MacPhail made a big difference too. Generally I’m one of those to say don’t go back to your old club (to buy players). I also brought MacPhail in who I’d worked with at York but he’d been at Bristol City in the meantime and he started at Sheffield United so he was used to playing for reasonably big clubs. Gabbiadini hadn’t and the fans were quite sceptical.

“If you’re Sunderland and you sign a player from York, you don’t expect him to be any good. But I’d worked with him since he was at school and I knew what I was getting.” What he got was 37 league goals – 21 from Gabbiadini, who signed as an unknown 19-year-old and left a Roker Park hero. Sunderland won the title, falling only seven points short of the 100 York managed three seasons earlier.

Smith’s time at Roker Park was not an unqualified success – having fortuitously made it to the top-flight in 1990, they were relegated 12 months later. Even that ranks among Smith’s favourite Sunderland memories.

“The two promotions were the highlight,” he says. “But the one thing that sticks in my mind was the reception I got when I came off the pitch at Man City and we’d been relegated. The whole away end was up chanting for me, they normally want to lynch you! It brought me to tears, I don’t mind admitting it. I think it showed they could see what I was doing and the constraints I was working under.

“Then there was the time we beat Newcastle (in the 1990 Division Two play-off semi-final) to reach a final. When you’re Sunderland it doesn’t get much better than that, does it?” That play-off victory set up a Wembley final against Swindon Town. Sunderland lost but went up when the Robins were found guilty of illegal payments to players. “I must admit I wasn’t that surprised when the Swindon thing came to light,” he admits. “Everybody was looking at the players they had thinking, ‘How can they afford them?’

“We finished sixth that season and weren’t really ready to go up.”

Now living in Stoke, Smith remains a huge fan of Sunderland as a football city. “It’s a big club and a great area – a fabulous area to be involved in football,” he says. “I always say to people, if you want to learn to be a manager, go and do it in the North East. You learn to deal with the media for starters.

“I used to have a Press conference every day at half past nine and another at two o’clock. I’d come into my office at nine in the morning, look through the papers and think, ‘What story can I give them to get rid of them straight away and get on with my proper job’. Now the media are lucky if you get to see a manager more than once a week.”

Just One of Seven: The Autobiography of Denis Smith is published by Know the Score.

Page 2: Sacked before signings had chance to bed in