On this day in 2003, former Sunderland player Joe McDonald sadly passed away. He joined us in March 1954 for £5,500 from Falkirk, where he’d made 79 appearances at left back after arriving from Bellshill Athletic in 1951. Originally a goalie, he moved forward to the full-back positions, of which he could fill both.
At 5’8” he wasn’t the biggest of defenders, but was hard to get past and made his debut in a 2-2 draw with Sheffield Utd a few weeks after he signed, in which Billy Bingham and Stan Anderson (pen) scored. He kept his place for the 0-0 at Boro and the return Blades fixture at Brammall Lane, which we won 3-1 thanks to a brace from Ted Purdon and a penalty from Billy Elliott, who’d taken over spot-kick responsibilities in the absence of Anderson. He missed the season’s finale against Burnley, but in ’54-’55 missed just one league game as we finished fourth(despite his scoring of an OG in the 1-2 defeat at Stamford Bridge) and got to the FA Cup semi-final, losing to Man City and thus missing the mags in the final.
The following campaign brought Joe another 46 appearances, and another OG, and in ’56-’57 he managed 35 appearances, even scoring at the right end in a 3-3 draw at Pompey as we finished third bottom, beating the drop by just two points. There were 21 appearances in ’57-’58, and as we were relegated Joe was sold to Forest for a straight five grand after amassing 155 games for the Lads, and winning a couple of Scotland caps along the way.
At the end of his first season with Forest, he was part of the side that lifted the FA Cup, despite playing nearly an hour of the final with ten men – nee subs back then – after scorer Roy Dwight (uncle of Reg, AKA Elton John) broke his leg. After three seasons, in which he played 124 games, he moved to non-league football with Wisbech Town, and once his playing days were over, he had a couple of years managing Yeovil Town before emigrating to Australia where he passed away in 2003, aged 74.
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