OBITUARY : Bob Stokoe
A successful football manager who took Sunderland to the FA Cup final
Brian Glanville
Tuesday 3 February 2004 02.57 GMT
Think of Bob Stokoe, who has died aged 73, and an indelible image comes to mind. It is Wembley in May 1973. Against all the odds and expectations, Second Divison Sunderland have just beaten mighty Leeds United 1-0 in the FA Cup Final, and on to the pitch, overcome by irrepressible joy, runs Stokoe, in his familiar trilby hat. He had many satisfactions in his long career as the Newcastle United centre-half, and manager of a string of clubs, but this surely was the high point.
Stokoe was born at Mickley, Northumberland, and joined nearby Newcastle. He made his debut as a centre-forward against Middlesbrough - he was an emergency choice - on Christmas Day 1950. Standing just under 6ft and weighing just over 11st, he was no giant, but prevailed with his quick anticipation and prowess in the air. Altogether he made 288 appearances for Newcastle.
For a time, he was switched to right-half, but it was at centre-half that he won an FA Cup Final medal of his own, when, having succeeded the big Scottish international Frank Brennan in that role, he was a member of the Newcastle team that beat Manchester City 3-1 in 1955.
After that, Stokoe had a spell with Hartlepool, before beginning his long managerial career at Bury. There he stayed from 1961 to 1965, scorning, as he once revealed, the offer of a bribe from the late Don Revie, then the Leeds United manager, to lose a match.
He then went south to manage Charlton Athletic (1965-67), with limited success. He had three spells in charge of Carlisle United (1968-70, 1980-83 and 1985-86). In between, Blackpool appointed him in 1970, and he took the club to two Anglo-Italian cup final games in 1971 (where they beat Bologna 2-1) and 1972 (where they lost to Roma 3-1). Two years later, he became manager of Sunderland, a job he held until 1976.
Sunderland's victory in that 1973 final made them the first Second Division team to win the trophy since West Bromwich Albion in 1931, but their achievement was much the more remarkable. Not only were they facing a Leeds team that had dominated English football with its galaxy of stars, but where West Bromwich had been about to rejoin the First Division, Sunderland rose to victory from deep in the Second Division. It was their first FA Cup triumph since 1937, when they beat Preston North End.
One of the ironies of the match was that the Sunderland goalkeeper, Jim Montgomery, who could seldom have handled the ball so ineptly, was destined to make one of the finest saves ever seen in a Cup Final. This when a ferocious shot, close in, from the formidable right foot of Leeds's Scottish international right-winger Peter Lorimer was somehow turned by Montgomery on to the Sunderland bar.
Territorially, and perhaps inevitably, Leeds had much the better of the exchanges, but it was to Stokoe's credit that Sunderland showed such uncompromising grit. Oddly enough, it was what seemed to be an error by little Bobby Kerr, the Sunderland midfielder, which led to the goal.
Electing to shoot from 30 yards, rather than pass to the unmarked Vic Halom on his right, he saw the Leeds keeper, Harvey, cautiously turn the ball over the bar. Hughes took the corner, Halom flicked the ball on, and with the Leeds defence in confusion, Ian Porterfield calmly brought it down and scored with his supposedly weaker right foot.
In the 1975-76 season, Sunderland won the Second Division title with 56 points and returned to the top division. Stokoe managed Rochdale in the 1979-80 season, before his final years at Carlisle.
He had been suffering from senile dementia for several years. His wife Joan predeceased him.
· Robert Stokoe, footballer and manager, born 1930; died February 1 2004
Commenti
Posta un commento