Saints fans had high hopes for the 1984/85 season but they would once again suffer the almost traditional poor start.

The summer had seen some changes at the Dell, Ken Armstrong had moved to Birmingham after only a season at the club, but there was a big arrival, Joe Jordan had come in from Verona to replace Fran Worthington who had continued his travels elsewhere, Saints also had a change on the shirts with Draper Tools blazened across the front replacing Air Florida.

A year earlier Saints had a toughie to open up the campaign, this one was seen as a lot easier, a trip to Roker Park and Sunderland, the North East Club had only escaped relegation by four points the previous term and where expected to be there or thereabouts for the drop this coming season, indeed they would eventually go down a long way adrift of safety winning only ten games, sadly this would be one of them.

A decent turn out of Saints supporters made the long trip North to stand on what was considered at the time one of the worst away sections in the top flight, at least in terms of weather, a big open terrace only 1/2 a mile from the North Sea and with the cold winds from that expanse of water blowing across it, luckily for Saints it was a reasonably warm day.

But if it was hot on the terraces it was scorching on the pitch for Saints, Sunderland had an unexpected clamour to see the games both in the home and away sections and at kick off time there were still big queues, the 18,000 crowd being around 6,000 more than had seen the fixture a year earlier, therefore many Saints supporters missed their side going a goal down after only 3 minutes, some unfortunate sould missed the home sides second as well on 8 minutes when future Saint, Barry Venison doubled the advantage and with their heckles up and the home supporters basking in what they considered a heat wave, it was going to hard for Saints to get back into the game.

I truth they never looked like doing it and when on 70 minutes Proctor got a third the game was well and truly up, a last minute Dave Armstrong goal doing nothing other than making the score look more respectable and making Saints fans wonder whether it would be a long season or if this was just a temporary set back, history shows that it was temporary, but 7 points in the first 8 games made it hard to make up lost ground, the 5th place finish was as high as we got all season, with a better start perhaps another 2nd place could have been achieved, 5th was good enough for another UEFA Cup spot, sadly though events at Heysel Stadium meant that all English Clubs would be banned from Europe and it would be another 18 years before Saints graced the competiton again.        

Photo: Action Images

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