Sunderland legend Peter Reid reveals the single most important moment of his seven-year reign

Yet those empty seats might not have existed at all if it was not for the arrival of one man in March 1995.

Peter Reid (he has an alternative theory for where much of the credit lies) became Sunderland manager with the club arguably enduring gloomier times than they do today.

The Black Cats’ sacred Roker Park ground was beginning to creak through age, a move to the former Wearmouth Colliery site had still to be rubber-stamped and the team themselves were facing relegation to the third tier with just seven matches remaining.

With a 1-0 win over Sheffield United providing instant momentum, safety was confirmed with a game to play before Reid’s red and white rollercoaster ride really began.

Two promotions (admittedly with a relegation sandwiched inbetween), two successive victories at Newcastle United (derby wins were rationed back then) and two seventh-placed Premier League finishes (still the club’s highest top-flight positions since the 1950s) all followed during his seven-and-a-half-year reign.

Then there was the eventual move to the plush Stadium of Light, a narrow League Cup semi-final defeat by Leicester City in 1999 and penalty-shoot out heartache at Wembley in the 1998 play-offs. Phew.

All this and more are up for discussion when Reid returns to the city later this month with fellow club legend Niall Quinn to take part in a talk-in at the Sunderland Empire.

Speaking about the evening, which will be hosted by former Arsenal winger Perry Groves, former England midfielder Reid says: “Obviously there will be plenty about Sunderland, I have a few stories about England and Niall has got stories about Ireland. It will be mixture of the serious and light-hearted.”

Reid and Quinn’s association goes back to their playing days at Manchester City in the early 1990s.

The former soon became the latter’s boss at City before signing the beanpole striker for a then record £1.3million on the eve of Sunderland’s first season in the Premier League in 1996.

It was a campaign – and Reid’s command of some rather industrial language towards players and officials alike – which became subject of the BBC’s Premier Passions documentary series.

Does he think such tactics can motivate today’s players?

“As society moves on, football moves on and you have to alter your behaviour,” says Reid, now technical director at Wigan Athletic.

“You have to be careful what you say although there is still room for a rollicking.

“I remember in Premier Passions it showed me having a go at Craig Russell and Michael Bridges during a game against Arsenal and their centre halves Tony Adams and Martin Keown, two great players.

“I wanted a reaction and I got a reaction and I think we end up winning 1-0 against a very good Arsenal team.

“But you can’t do that all the time otherwise players will get used to it and switch off.

“And I didn’t. There were 40 other games when I didn’t do that, but that doesn’t make for good TV.”

Those seventh-place finishes in 2000 and 2001 were followed by a narrow escape from relegation in 2002 and Reid was eventually dismissed in October the same year with his side again struggling near the foot of the table.

He is coy about whether he deserved more time to arrest the slide – “football is a results business” – but adds: “When I was at Everton, I remember that Howard Kendall was close to the sack and yet six months later we won the FA Cup and the following the year we won the league.”

With the Sunderland Empire audience also having the opportunity to ask questions at Sunderland Empire, this season’s arrival in the English game of Video Assistant Referees (VAR) – “I can understand the principle but not the practice” – is also likely to be debated.

Would, for instance, VAR have spotted Diego Maradona’s infamous handball goal during Agentina’s World Cup quarter-final victory over Reid and his England colleagues in 1986?

“Undoubtedly. It was clear and obvious to me. Even Argentinians would tell you that it was a clear and obvious handball. About the only people who didn’t see it were the referee and his officials,” says the 63-year-old Scouser.

The conservation understandably then moves on to Maradona’s second and ultimately clinching goal, in which he slalomed around the England back four with Reid in fruitless pursuit from the halfway line.

Would the then Everton player have done anything differently in hindsight?

“Come down to the Empire when me and Quinny are on stage and you might enjoy my version of that goal.

“I can’t let readers of the Sunderland Echo know everything beforehand.”

There is another question, however, that he is happy to answer now and one which Sunderland devotees may want to briefly guess the answer to before reading on.

What was the most important moment during his reign?

Perhaps the signing of his old mate Quinn or Kevin Phillips’s promotion-clinching four-goal salvo at Bury in 1999?

Or what about the pair’s goals in the rain at a sinking St James’s Park as Sunderland came from behind to defeat Newcastle in the league for the first time in nearly 20 years?

Think again.

“Martin Smith’s winning goal against Swindon not long after I joined,” is the emphatic response.

A 1-0 victory in April 1995 which all but ensured that Reid’s initial mission to save the club from relegation was accomplished.

Reid, who doesn’t swear once during our 15-minute conversation, adds: “We had to win to stay up, Swindon were down the bottom as well, Steve McMahon, who I knew from Liverpool, was their manager.

“That win allowed me to stay on and for us to do all the brilliant things that followed like promotion, the move to the Stadium of Light, the new training facilities, the 4-1 victory over Chelsea and those wins against Newcastle.

“All of that was possible after Martin Smith’s winning goal.”

And has he told Smith, dubbed the Son of Pele by Sunderland fans, of his appreciation?

Reid adds: “He knows how much that goal means to me. I reminded him again when we shared a few beers at the Ramside recently.

“He must have been pleased. He bought me a round for the first time.”

:: Sunderland Legends – In Conversation with Niall Quinn and Peter Reid is at the Sunderland Empire on Thursday, November 28.

Tickets are priced from £20 in person at the box office in High Street West from noon-4pm, by phone on 0844 8713022 or online at www.ATGtickets.com/Sunderland.