On This Day (6th April 1994): Keller Becomes Roker Target After Clash With Don
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Sunderland had just drifted aimlessly since dropping out of the top tier in May 1991. Reaching the cup final in 1992 provided a big distraction from just how bad things were, but we ended up with a manager in Malcolm Crosby that chairman Bob Murray just didn’t want.
Roker Park was falling to bits, there was nothing in the coffers to rebuild, that lot up the road were on the journey with Keegan and the Honey Monster and things looked bleak.
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Despite his record as player-manager of Coventry City and the fact he was brought to the club by his predecessor, it says a lot that there was an initial excitement around the appointment of Terry Butcher. Although it may have been anticipation of him not appearing in the back four after he gave Julian Joachim a thirty-yard head start at Filbert Street and was still beaten to the ball.
If nothing else, Butcher was ambitious. I’m still not sure how he pulled it off, but Denis Smith had been given virtually nothing to spend in his time in the Roker hotseat, but the new man was handed the credit card in the summer of 1993 and was told to go nuts.
Alec Chamberlain arrived from Luton Town on a free transfer, which offered value for money given the age of first-choice keeper Tony Norman. Another arrival from Luton was striker Phil Gray who was wanted by a few clubs, which pushed the value up to around £750,000.
Butcher went up to his old stomping ground north of the border and took highly rated Derek Ferguson for around the same price from Glasgow Rangers. Defender Andy Melville signed in a swap deal plus cash from Oxford United that saw Anton Rogan move in the opposite direction, and highly-rated Ian Rodgerson signed from Birmingham City.
All this happened in one summer which hadn’t been seen at Roker for some time. There was even a thought that we might actually be headed for better things. But in the days leading up to the opening day of the season against Marco Gabbiadini’s Derby County at the Baseball Ground, all of the new signings were involved in a car accident.
We lost the game a few days later 5-0.
By late October we were 11th in Endsleigh League Division One, and considering we’d survived the drop on the last day of the season by goal difference the previous year, this was a decent start. Then we took on Ron Atkinson’s Aston Villa at Roker in the League Cup, having already knocked out Howard Wilkinson’s Leeds over two legs, but Mark Bosnich did his thing as we battered them in a 4-1 defeat.
We lost the next five successive league games which saw us drop to one place and one point above the drop zone and we were drifting once again towards relegation. Butcher was sacked and up stepped reserve team coach Mick Buxton, who had previously seen success at Huddersfield Town as manager.
The players immediately responded to a new voice and we won six of the next nine games, which provided the safety of mid-table. By the time Sunderland were due to travel to Mick McCarthy’s Millwall on this day in 1994, we were just six points off a play-off place.
Sunderland started brightly and should have been ahead when Martin Smith was sent through by Derek Ferguson, but saw his shot tipped wide by Kasey Keller. Around ten minutes before half-time Sunderland fell behind. Future Sunderland defender Kenny Cunningham sent over a cross that David Mitchell headed beyond Chamberlain.
Five minutes later the lead had doubled when Mitchell again won a header in the box, this time from a corner, and this time it needed a deflection to beat Chamberlain but the result was the same. Buxton changed things up at half-time and Don Goodman replaced Brian Atkinson and it was looking to be paying off when Andy Melville looped a header past Keller to halve the lead with around twenty minutes left on the clock.
All it needed was for us to get the ball back to the centre circle and get going quickly – which Goodman attempted to do but Keller wouldn’t let go of the ball. The Millwall keeper then elbowed Goodman in the face, and the Sunderland striker retaliated and punched him in the face. As is often the case, the referee only saw the final act and Goodman received a red card while Keller – yep, you guessed it – received no punishment.
A few minutes later Alex Rae came on as sub for Millwall on a bench that also had ex-Sunderland goalkeeper Tim Carter, but the game ended 2-1 to the home side in a result that probably extinguished any small hope we might have had to make the play-offs that year.
Wednesday 6th April, 1994
Division One
Millwall 2-1 Sunderland
[Mitchell 37’, 41’ – Melville 66’ (Goodman sent-off 66’)]
The New Den
Sunderland: Chamberlain, Kubicki, Bennett, Melville, Ord, Atkinson (Goodman), Ferguson, Ball, Smith (Armstrong), Gray, Russell
Millwall: Keller, Cunningham, Dawes, Roberts, Van Den Hauwe, Stevens, Hurlock, Allen, Kerr, Mitchell, Berry (Rae) Substitutes not used: Carter, Verveer
Attendance: 10,244