“That 105-point season was fantastic - it felt like the start of a new chapter in the history of Sunderland AFC,” says Peter Reid, as he casts his mind back 25 years to the record-breaking season which saw the Black Cats run away with what was then known as the First Division as they returned to the Premier League.
In the late 1990s Sunderland fans had lived through a new dawn with the move from the historic but dilapidated Roker Park to the brand-spanking new Stadium of Light in 1997.
And, after a false start in 1997-98 as the club suffered play-off agony and missed out on promotion, the 1998-99 season is the one that stands out in the memories of fans mesmerised by the football produced by the likes of Allan Johnston, Nicky Summerbee, Lee Clark, Alex Rae, and of course the goals scored by the legendary strike-pairing of Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn, as that team swept all before it.
“Even now, all this time on, it’s the season that fans think back to and that everyone has such great memories of,” says Reid.
“When I look back, I loved the seasons that came after when we went up to the Premier League and we were competing with the top clubs, they were always my favourite.
“But of course I can understand why fans loved that 105-point season - you can’t take anything away from it, it was just amazing.
“In the end we only lost three games - Barnsley, Tranmere and Watford - and we set what at the time was a new points record for any club in the top four divisions.
“We played some great football as well!
“We set standards that season that were absolutely massive - really, really, high standards.
“The support was always outstanding wherever we went, but it was only our second year at the Stadium of Light and when there were 40,000-odd fans there every week and we were winning game after game, it was something else that season.
“It gave us a confidence and a feeling that we were just never going to get beat and that spread to the terraces as well.
“Wherever we went, the Sunderland fans just expected us to win and I think if you speak to any of the players involved that season they’d tell you the same thing.
“The record that we set with 105 points was a statement by the football club - certainly by the players.”
The promotion season famously followed one of the biggest disappointments of Reid’s seven-and-a-half year reign, when his side finished third in the table and then suffered the heartbreak of a Wembley defeat on penalties against Charlton Athletic, after the game finished 4-4 following extra-time in what is regarded as the greatest play-off final ever.
“I was gutted - devastated - after the play-off game, but the 105-point season really sprung from that disappointment,” says Reid.
“After a devastating setback like that, you don’t know which way it is going to go.
“But I’ve got to say that the lads came back in for pre-season and their attitude was absolutely fantastic.
“I remember the first day of pre-season and there was a real atmosphere about the place.
“My assistant Sacko [Bobby Saxton] was brilliant with the players, he took care of business, and between us we just had a feeling about it going into the new season.”
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Sunderland ended the season as the division’s top scorers with 91 goals despite having to cope for three-and-a-half months with their own goal machine Phillips which is testament to the strength of the squad Reid had assembled.
Phillips had scored 29 goals in 42 league games the previous season but this time round he suffered an injury in mid-September which sidelined him until the New Year yet still ended the campaign with 23 goals from 26 league outings.
“I remember, yes!” Reid exclaims. “He got injured against Chester, our kid’s team [Reid’s younger brother Shaun played in midfield against Sunderland that day], in the League Cup.
“I wasn’t going to play him, I was going to change the team, but he came to see me and said ‘play me’, and I did.
“So you can imagine how I felt when he then picked up a metatarsal injury and spent about three months out!
“It just goes to show, though, when you’ve got four strikers and the other three are Quinn and Danny Dichio and Michael Bridges, as a manager that was amazing because I could shuffle it about.
“Kev had been our top scorer the season before and of course it was a blow to lose him because he was a fantastic striker but there was never a feeling that we were in real trouble because he had got injured, and that was because of the quality of the other lads I had available.
“They all came to the party, they were magnificent.
“It’s not just the strikers, either. You can say the same throughout the squad because whenever we had an injury, whoever came in did the job like you wouldn’t believe.”
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With Phillips returning in January, Sunderland soon embarked on a 17-game unbeaten run to close out the season which included the 5-2 win against Bury at Gigg Lane in mid-April which clinched promotion, followed three days later by a 3-1 win at Barnsley which secured the First Division title.
“The Sunderland fans just took over Gigg Lane that night, didn’t they?” Reid remembers.
“Stan Ternent, who is a big friend of mine and who has Sunderland connections, was the Bury manager at the time and his assistant was Sam Ellis, who had been my assistant at Man City.
“But with the squad I had and the team I had at the time, I just had every confidence that we would go there and get the job done. That’s not me being big-headed, I just knew I had a good team and so did Stan and Sam.”
The 105-point campaign was Sunderland’s second promotion in four seasons under Reid, having previously marked his first full season in charge by leading them to promotion to the Premier League in 1995-96, heralding the Black Cats’ first season back in the top flight since it was rebranded.
But while it is the 105-point season that everyone remembers, Reid finds it difficult to choose between the two promotions when it comes to weighing which was the greater achievement.
“Which was the bigger achievement? That’s a good question,” he sighs, “a really great question.
“It’s a hard one to call.
“For the first promotion in 1996 I had almost the same team that had only just stayed up the year before when I came in with seven games to go - I think my only major signings were Brace [Paul Bracewell] and Dave Kelly, who got injured, - and of course that promotion season was at old Roker Park as well which always has a place in my heart.
“But the other side of the coin is that by the time the 105-point season came around the squad had changed massively and we were at the new stadium.
“It’s very difficult to split them because, emotionally, Roker Park was fantastic while the 105-point season at the Stadium of Light was fantastic - it felt like the start of a new chapter in the history of Sunderland AFC.
“I find it impossible to choose between them, to be absolutely honest. They were both great achievements in different ways.”
There was one major difference, however, and that concerned what happened next.
After winning promotion in 1996, Sunderland were relegated from the Premier League after one season - the first team to suffer that fate despite amassing 40 points.
Whereas after the 105-point promotion, Sunderland went on to finish seventh in the top flight and repeat that feat the following season - and, almost a quarter-of-a-century on, they remain the club’s highest league finishes since the mid-1950s.
“The momentum from the 105-point season definitely helped when we went into the Premier League,” says Reid, who was 42 when Sunderland won promotion and turns 68 next month.
“It meant we went into it full of confidence, even though we knew it was a big step up.
“I also thought that signing Steve Bould from Arsenal that summer was a big factor, too - even though I only had six months working with him.
“In that time, though, you could just see he was class in the middle of our defence. One of my biggest regrets was that he got that injury in January and had to finish because he was magnificent and, like Niall Quinn and the other senior players, he was unbelievable in the dressing room.
“I think the way we handled the 105-point season, the promotion, and then when the players saw people like Bouldy and [fellow summer arrival] Stefan Schwarz walk into the dressing room, that gave them added confidence and it all played into the seventh-placed finishes.
“But none of that would have happened without that 105-point season. It was just fantastic.”
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