OTD: SUNDERLAND 2-1 MAN U

On this day in 1977, Sunderland defeated Manchester United 2-1 at Roker Park in the First Division. Goals from Kevin Arnott and Tony Towers either side of a Gordon Hill equaliser earned us the two points and lifted us out of the bottom three.

Bob Stokoe had led us to promotion at the end of the 1975/76 season via the Second Division title but he resigned early on in 1976/77 after we opened the campaign winless in our first nine league fixtures.

Temporary boss Ian McFarlane was in charge for our first league win, as we beat Coventry City away 2-1 at the end of October (imagine being able to beat Coventry, especially away from home now). Unfortunately we only managed one other win during his seven game spell, a 2-1 home victory versus Tottenham Hotspur. That left us occupying 20th place of a 22 team league, the bottom three at the end of the season would be the ones moving down a division.

New permanent boss Jimmy Adamson wasn’t able to change our fortunes quickly though, as he failed to win any of his opening 13 matches (including two FA Cup matches against Wrexham) with ten of those games being defeats. In fact this run of games remains our longest ever league goalless drought, nine games without scoring. A Mel Holden winner when we hosted Bristol City in mid-February brought that to a close however, alongside ending our winless streak.

Our players then seemingly remembered that football wasn’t like golf and the highest scoring team did in fact win, we found the back of the net 16 times across the next three matches. The wins (all at home) were a 4-0 against Middlesbrough, a 6-1 against West Brom and, our biggest win of the season, a 6-0 demolition of West Ham United. These results moved us up to 18th at the start of March, our highest position since we’d been in the same spot as August turned into September.

The last fixture of March dragged us back into the danger zone though, a 4-1 loss to Aston Villa. Four points from the next three (this was still when wins put two points, rather than three, on the board) against QPR (a 1-0 win), Newcastle United (2-2) and Leeds United (1-1), wasn’t quite enough to lift us to safety but we were in pole position of the last three to escape the relegation spots.

Manchester United were our opponents and they were familiar to us because we’d already faced them four times in the 76/77 campaign. We’d played them once in the league, a three all draw, and three times in the League Cup, two two all draws and a 1-0 defeat. The League Cup back then had replays and second replays.

This is how we lined up:

Barry Sidall, Mick Docherty, Joe Bolton, Kevin Arnott, Colin Waldron, Jackie Ashurst, Tony Towers, Shaun Elliott, Mel Holden, Bob Lee and Gary Rowell… plus Michael Coady on the bench

The first goal of the game came just three minutes in when Joe Bolton sent a low cross into the box. The United defence couldn’t clear it away and Kevin Arnott fired it home. The visitors followed this up with an equaliser on the 15 minute mark, David McCreery was felled in the box and the referee pointed to the spot. Gordon Hill took full advantage. Less than five minutes had elapsed when we found, what would turn out to be, the winning goal. We were awarded a penalty of our own via a foul on Mel Holden. Tony Towers stepped up and scored the spot kick.

Sunderland kept control of the game until the break and after that the red half of Manchester were unable to capitalise on several good chances. It was 2-1 to the lads at full time and things were looking up with six games remaining of the campaign.

Two wins and three draws from the next five kept our heads above the water going into the final day of the season but, alas, a final day defeat to Everton and some late kickoff shenanigans at Coventry City meant we were sent down on the final day by just a one point margin.