When Shorts Were Short S2 E08 - David Snowdon on Sunderland 1981-84

This episode (part 1 of 2), a look at Alan Durban’s ultimately doomed efforts in the early 80s to help Sunderland’s then young side realise its immense promise. David Snowdon, author of Give Us Tomorrow Now, is the go-to authority on Alan Durban’s Sunderland tenure. His 2018 book looked at Durban’s arrival at Roker Park in the summer of ’81 and his attempt at waking one of English football’s eternal sleeping giants.

Durban, a title winner with Derby under Brian Clough and a future guest on this podcast, gave up his secure managerial post with Stoke for the North East and in this first part of our interview, David Snowdon tells us about Durban’s battle to lay down the foundations of future success in his opening season, the 1981-82 campaign, as the boardroom grew impatient with both manager and chairman.

When Shorts Were Short only concerns itself with what was actually a very narrow window in football history when teams wore, well, short shorts. The podcast will only cover football from 1954, when Umbro made their first England kit with shorter shorts, a design that was widespread within English football by the mid-fifties, to 1992 when short shorts were all but finished as Umbro's baggy shorts for Tottenham's new kit, ahead of the '91 FA Cup Final, quickly caught on.

If the shorts weren’t short, we don’t talk about it.

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Show Links

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David Snowdon – Alan Durban’s Sunderland Team

Give Us Tomorrow Now (Pitch Publishing)

Give Us Tomorrow Now (Amazon)

Sunderland v Brighton, Div 1, 1981-82

Nick Pickering Compilation

Sunderland v Man City, May 1982

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