Avid Sunderland fan Bob Dixon has spent more than 60 years amassing memorabilia which charts the up and downs of his football club.
That includes items from Sunderland’s 1937 FA Cup final win over Preston which includes the match ticket, the town’s Football Echo paper for the game, photographs and season fixture card.
There is also the match programme autographed by Bobby Gurney, who scored the first goal in Sunderland’s 3-1 victory and is the club’s all-time top goalscorer having netted 228 times in 328 games.
The 1937 items, rated at £400-£600, will be sold on Wednesday at Boldon Auction Galleries in South Tyneside along with other lots from Bob’s collection which mark the milestones – good and bad – in the club’s history.
They include:
- Keepsakes from Sunderland’s 1973 FA Cup final win over Leeds United, including the match programme and those from qualifying ties, the final ticket, press cuttings and autographs, and the song sheet -with the verses for The Lambton Worm and Blaydon Races -
with a value of £100-£150.
- Programmes, ticket and signed ball from the last season and final game at Roker Park.
- Complete run of programmes, including signed programme from the opening match, of the first season at the Stadium of Light.
- Complete run of programmes from 1987-88 – Sunderland’s first in the old Third Division and the club’s first season in the Second Division.Other lots include 13 bound volumes of complete season runs of programmes; a signed 1964 promotion publication; programmes for the testimonial game for Sunderland legend Charlie Hurley and Brian Clough; signed biographies of Sunderland players such as Len Shackleton and Dave Watson and early fanzines.
Retired taxi driver Bob, 73. who lives in Houghton-le-Spring , is keeping his first ever Sunderland programme for an FA Cup third round tie with Everton at Roker Park in 1958.
As his hobby grew, Bob briefly ran a football programme shop at Chilton Moor.
“There have been good times and bad but I don’t think there will be a collection for sale like this again,” he said.
“I am selling because if something happened to me it may be that nobody would have a clue about the worth of the collection.”
Boldon Auction Galleries Tom Robson said: “This collection is an important historical archive for Sunde land football club.
“It will bring back lots of memories of key seasons and milestones for what have often been long-suffering Sunderland fans.”
