In 1949/1950, the Lads came within a whisker of winning the league title, and whilst the following season would ultimately see Sunderland drift out of the championship race, we still managed an opening-day victory to get things up and running.
There had been a tour of Turkey immediately after the previous campaign, but with no formal pre-season games to assess how things had shaped up since then, the visit of Derby County had been hard to call before kick-off. Remarkably, though, there were very few
cobwebs to be seen in the early stages at Roker Park, and despite having to contend with a stiff breeze, Sunderland came out of the traps with a blistering start.
At it from the first whistle, Bill Murray’s team were straight into the Rams.
Len Duns burst clear and had an early effort whilst Ivor Broadis drove the ball across the face of the goal, but whilst there was nobody on the end of it that time, it wouldn’t be long before there was somebody in the right spot, and that just happened to be Len Shackleton.
Second top scorer the season before, Shack was able to capitalise in the eighth minute on some more clever wing play and a smart dummy from Tommy Reynolds that made the space for him to control and then strike the ball into the net.
Several other chances followed as the Lads piled on the pressure, but the longer they went without extending their lead, the more nervous the side became.
By the second half, the hosts found themselves dropping back deeper and deeper, and with Willie Watson unavailable — he was still on cricket duty for Yorkshire — it was difficult to mount many counterattacks. When we did break out, it was Duns that tested goalkeeper Harry Brown the most, yet it was the visitors that looked most likely to score next.
With former red and white Ken Oliver helping set the pace, Stuart McMillan’s side provided tough opposition. Their well-maintained offside trap hinted at a summer well spent on the training ground, whilst Jack Lee, a new arrival from Leicester City, looked to have settled in quickly.
The forward was unlucky to see one attempt at goal strike his teammate Jackie Stamps, but the man most responsible for keeping him off the scoresheet was centre half Bill Walsh, who was the pick of Sunderland’s defence.
Reg Scotson did well also, shackling Derby’s dangerman Johnny Morris and reducing Johnny Mapson’s workload in the Sunderland goal considerably, and having seen the afternoon end with two points in the bag, the majority of the crowd went away reasonably happy with how their side appeared to be shaping up.
There were over 50,000 in the stands at Roker on a day when an aggregate of 1,189,401 across the Football League constituted a record for a non-Bank Holiday fixture programme, and with the likes of Shackleton hitting the ground running, the Rokerites seemed as if they were going to continue drawing in the crowds.
A damaging home defeat to struggling Manchester City had scuppered hopes towards the end of the 1949/1950 charge, but on this evidence, another title push was on the cards, and it was only in the following weeks that the hangover began to kick in and things took a turn for the worse.
The return in December brought a remarkable 6-5 defeat in Derbyshire, and by the end of the new season, more games had been lost than won.
Saturday 19 August 1950
Football League Division One
Roker Park
Attendance: 52,452
Sunderland 1 (Shackleton 7’)
Derby County 0
Sunderland: Mapson, Stelling, Hudgell; Scotson, Walsh, A. Wright; Duns, Broadis, Davis; Shackleton, Reynolds
