Next Game – Sunderland (away)

Marcus Stewart

Stan Ternent is gannin yearm, taking his team to take on the club he supported as a youngster and a club that twice recently tried to persuade him to leave Turf Moor to replace first Peter Reid and then Howard Wilkinson. We could so easily have been facing him.

He’s been there with Bury but I suspect it will be a memorable moment for him when he takes his place on the bench tomorrow.

It is somewhat difficult to believe that we are playing Sunderland to be honest, only three years ago they were riding high at the very top of the Premiership whilst we were looking to keep a place in the top six in Division Two.

But the last couple of years or so have not been kind to the Mackems and they were official recorded as the worst ever Premiership club last season when they were relegated with just 19 points and 21 goals – both records and changed manager twice.

Peter Reid finally succumbed after an embarrassing defeat at Arsenal but Sunderland then shocked the football world with the ridiculous appointment of the FA’s Technical Director Howard Wilkinson with Steve Cotterill has assistant.

It didn’t work, nobody was surprised other than Wilkinson himself, and a second change saw Mick McCarthy take over and he didn’t win a single point in the Premiership.

In fact Sunderland picked up only one Premiership point in 2003, a 0-0 home draw against Blackburn, picking up just that one point from the last twenty games. Two more defeats at the beginning of this season saw them on the verge of a new record of successive defeats but a 2-0 win at Preston brought it to an end one short of Darwen Town’s record.

The Sunderland of today is nothing like the Sunderland of last season. A total of nineteen players have left the club since the end of last season whilst another six are currently out on loan.

They include some big names too as they were forced to at least attempt to balance the books and names such as Kevin Phillips, Michael Gray, Claudio Reyna, Thomas Sorensen, Gavin McCann, Jody Craddock and David Bellion will not be found on the team sheet any longer.

There have been new signings. Jeff Whitley was first to arrive from KKMC and he has been followed by Gary Breen (West Ham), Colin Healy (Celtic) and more recently Tommy Smith from Watford.

Three of those players have been around during a couple of our recent set backs. Breen and Healy both played against us on the last day of the 2001/02 season when we failed to score enough goals against Coventry and Smith scored the crucial first goal in the FA Cup defeat at Watford last March.

To add to that they currently have Alan Quinn from Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough’s Stewart Downing on loan with Downing apparently in impressive form.

Sunderland have had something of a stop/start season so far when they seem to have good runs followed by some poor results. But they certainly don’t conceded many goals at the Stadium of Light and to date only four have gone in against them in nine home matches. They have kept clean sheets in each of their last four home games although three of those games have ended in 0-0 draws with the other a 1-0 win against Walsall.

Their last game though was away, at Crewe, and they came away with a 3-0 defeat after dominating for much of the match. McCarthy said after the game that they had battered Crewe but for the fact that they couldn’t score goals.

The Sunderland team was: Mart Poom, George McCartney, Joachim Bjorklund, Stephen Wright, Jeff Whitley, Julio Arca, Colin Healy, Alan Quinn (Michael Proctor 70), Stewart Dowling, Tommy Smith, Marcus Stewart (Christopher Black 83). Subs not used: Ben Clark, Michael Ingham, Paul Thirlwell.

Burnley will be hoping to bring to and end Sunderland’s run of not conceding at home. Leighton James was the last Claret to score a league goal at Sunderland (Roker Park) in February 1979.

Click HERE to see all Sunderland’s results this season.

Past Results in the last 20 years

Click HERE to see more results against Sunderland all the way back to their first ever league game in 1890.

One from the past

Sing up for the Clarets

Sunderland 0 Burnley 4 (Harris Coates 2 Irvine)
Football League Division One – Saturday 13^th November 1965

As Burnley prepared to visit Roker Park in November 1965 there had been calls for some improvement in the atmosphere at Turf Moor. One 15 year-old wrote to the Burnley Express and suggested that Burnley should have their own anthem and so the search began.

Our local paper ran a competition to come up with a suitable anthem and it was finally won by a local pensioner. The winner was Mr. Archie Evans who penned the following lyrics to be sung to the tune of "I’m forever blowing bubbles".

We’re forever winning matches
Always beating rival teams
When goals are scored
You’ll hear such a roar
Clarets and Blue we all adore
Fortune’s always smiling
We’re the leading lights
We’re forever winning matches
Those good old Turf Moorites

Yes this was to be the Clarets anthem although I’m not so sure how long Mr. Evans’ effort lasted – did the Cricket Field End really sing this?

Man of the Match Brian O'Neil

But to Roker and what a day, what a performance and what a result. Our local reporter Keith McNee from the Burnley Express was so thrilled with the performance that he wrote,

"The people of Burnley should be over the moon with delight about their football team of all talents. This win at Roker Park followed another fabulous, championship class display, and if the Clarets can keep up this great form they must have an outstanding chance of winning major honours this season.

"I will go down on record as saying that this is already a better Burnley team than the McIlroy-Adamson inspired outfit which won the championship in 1960."

And before any of you knock Keith’s words the fact is that this team did end the season with 55 points, the same number that six years earlier had won us the league title. This team might have finished third but it was no misplaced judgement to compare them.

Brian O’Neil went back to the north east and turned in a performance that was described as magnificent. He won the ball and prompted just about every Burnley attack where the two wingers Willie Morgan and Ralph Coates were in brilliant form.

The first goal came when Coates set up O’Neil and somehow the Sunderland keeper kept it out but Andy Lochhead squared for Gordon Harris to rocket one in to the top corner.

Coates himself got the second when he got on the end of a Morgan corner and had two bites at the cherry after the keeper parried his first effort.

But then came the third and it is back to Keith for this one. He wrote:

"In the 59^th minute Burnley scored a goal the like of which I have never seen before. It was patterned in ‘Hungarian’ style with Coates again the key man of a move fit to win the FA Cup Final.

"Man of the match O’Neil began it by drifting to the left touchline just inside his own half to take a pass from Merrington. With marvellous timing O’Neil pushed the ball forward with his left foot and it seemed to curl round full back Irwin as he ran back.

Willie Irvine - scored that superb third goal

"Coates who throughout the game showed terrific enthusiasm, strength and speed, left the lanky right back trailing as he gathered the pass and cut inside. Instead of shooting Coates flicked the ball forward to Lochhead who had his back to the Sunderland goal.

"Coates kept on running across the edge of the penalty area and as Lochhead hit the ball back to him he produced the master stroke by again first timing it to IRVINE who in the complete confusion that was Sunderland’s defence was unmarked.

"The Irish lad doesn’t miss those sort of chances very often and he fired in another goal to put Burnley three ahead.

It was Ralph who completed the scoring eight minutes from time and what a result on my first ever visit to Sunderland.

"How on earth England manager Alf Ramsey can leave O’Neil out of his team is beyond me," wrote Keith. It was beyond all of us Keith, it really was.

And just to sum it all up, we had been and murdered one of the more affluent clubs in football, one of the money bags teams who were forever buying new players.

And as Keith McNee ended, "A final thought: isn’t it a wonderful tribute to Burnley’s youth policy that with a team that cost precisely £110 (on signing on fees) they could so easily defeat a club who have spent well over a QUARTER OF A MILLION POUNDS in the last two years on players?"

What we wouldn’t do for a day like that tomorrow.

The teams on that wonderful day at Roker Park were,

Sunderland: Alex McLaughan, Cec Irwin, John Parke, Martin Harvey, Jim McNab, Jim Baxter, Mike Hellawell, George Herd, Neil Martin, Tom Mitchinson, George Mulhall. Sub not used: Len Ashurst.

Burnley: Adam Blacklaw, John Angus, Mick Buxton, Brian O’Neil, Dave Merrington, Brian Miller, Willie Morgan, Andy Lochhead, Willie Irvine, Gordon Harris, Ralph Coates. Sub not used: Sammy Todd.

Referee: E. Crawford (Doncaster).