What were you doing 28 years ago today, well some of us might remember as we take another look back at the legendary 1983/84 season.
The previous Saturday Saints had gone up to relegation threatened Wolves and won 1-0 courtesy of a Steve Moran goal that had cemented them into six place and as Sunderland arrived at the Dell the feeling was that Saints had a run of winnable games ahead of them, not to mention a friday night trip to Blackburn in the FA Cup to come the following weekend.
Sunderland arrived at a cold St Mary's and it was clear from the kick off that they had come for one thing and one thing only and that was to try and keep a clean sheet and go home with a point, attacking was not a part of their strategy, the bottom three were well adrift of the rest of the league and the North East side were certainly not going to lose a few games and find themselves dragged back into it.
So it was a tight game with Saints camped in the Sunderland half and the visitors defending deep and relying on the odd counter attack, on 63 mins Saints got the breakthrough there possession deserved when Danny Wallace was brought down and Steve Moran despatched the penalty kick and that looked to be enough.
But it wasnt to be, with 9 minutes left Chapman scored for Sunderland and once again they firmly bolted their stable door to ensure the horse wouldnt bolt again and the game ended in a disapointing draw.
Lawrie McMenemy remarked rather icily afterwards that he could not recall a game when the opposition had not had a corner and that perhaps summed up Sunderland's strategy for the game.
League wise Saints stayed in sixth, although they were now level with QPR but behind them on goal difference, 4th were Man United with 48 points all three of these teams having played 26, the top three had all played a game more, West Ham on 50, Forest 52 and Liverpool on 55, if Saints harboured hopes of catching any of them it was games like this they couldnt afford to drop points in, however most of the 16,968 present truly believed that glory for Saints lay not in the league were a place in Europe was the goal and not top spot, but in the FA Cup and all eyes were now on the televised game at Blackburn Rovers in six days time