On this day in 2009, Sunderland defeated Liverpool at the Stadium of Light in the Premier League. The only goal of the game came through Darren Bent, assisted by a beach ball. Bolo Zenden also featured for the first time in a Sunderland shirt.
We took the lead in only the fifth minute. Andy Reid found Darren Bent in the box, Bent directed a tame effort towards goal that should have been easy pickings for Pepe Reina in goal. On its way towards the Spanish goalkeeper however, a beachball (which had been thrown onto the pitch by the travelling fans located behind the goal) intercepted the ball and redirected it away from the Liverpool shot stopper and into the back of the net. Naturally, the away team weren’t too happy with this because the goal really should have been disallowed. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for us, neither the referee or the linesman had seen what had caused the goal and so they gave it.
Bent nearly doubled the advantage on two occasions throughout the game. The first of these chances was a headed effort which went barely wide of the post, then another opportunity saw him actually hit the post. Craig Gordon prevented a late equaliser, performing two saves in quick succession to prevent both Dirk Kuyt and David Ngog.
Liverpool’s manager, Rafael Benitez, surprisingly didn’t blame the poor decision for the goal on the result of the match and he said this when interviewed:
“It is a technical question, but if you look at the opposite and the ball went wide, then a goal would not have been given so on this occasion it has to be a goal and that is it. We have to do better if we want to win these sorts of games.”
As for the beachball, it’s now on display in the National Football Museum captioned with:
“This beach ball made its way onto the pitch during the game between Liverpool and Sunderland at the Stadium of Light in 2009. Darren Bent's shot towards goal rebounded off the beach ball and beyond a baffled Pepe Reina. To the bemusement of many, the goal was allowed to stand, and the Black Cats would run out 1-0 winners. The goal was credited to Bent rather than the beach ball.”
The result itself saw us move up to seventh in the top flight, one point ahead of the eighth placed Reds. Now, of course, we wouldn’t maintain that and we finished in a still comfortable 13th, a whole 19 points behind Liverpool.
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