With wins over Manchester United and Stoke City in their two most recent Roker Park outings, Sunderland went into their latest fixture trying to secure three home wins in a row.
A tough test was expected, however, with Liverpool arriving as reigning Football League champions, and in centre forward Albert Stubbins, they possessed one of the best players of the era.
Stubbins was already well known at Sunderland.
He’d grown up in the North East and previously played for Newcastle United, and having been
a guest for The Lads during World War II, had since been linked with a permanent move to Roker Park. He’s better known now for featuring on the album cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band but had been a star during his playing days and his return to the region had been hyped up heavily in the press in the days leading up to the match.
As expected, Stubbins was a threat to Sunderland throughout the game.
The problem for Liverpool fans however was that he didn’t get much help from his friends, and what was supposed to be a tight encounter ended up more like a procession for the hosts against an otherwise out-of-sorts away side.
A good morning on Wearside had left the pitch in decent condition, and having won the toss, the Merseysiders were able to play with the bright sun on their backs and not in their faces, but they still went behind early on and struggled thereafter to get any better.
It was Dickie Davis that got the first goal of the game after eighteen minutes, latching onto an mis-hit clearance and putting the ball into the net from the edge of the penalty box.
His strike was a relatively tame effort that crept through a series of legs, and having already failed to clear the danger, Liverpool heads suddenly dropped.
Their mood was compounded soon afterwards when Willie Watson — being given a go at centre forward as manager Bill Murray experimented with his forward line — linked up well with Len Duns and headed in off the underside of the cross bar to make it 2-0, and whilst Billy Liddell did manage to reduce the arrears before the break, it was clear who was playing the better football.
Watson’s score, funnelling the ball out wide and then running into the area to get onto Duns’ centre, was described in one match report as the best Sunderland had scored all year.
Although Stubbins had gone close on a couple of occasions, Liddell’s response was still described as a shock, and the home dominance continued in the second half even though the sun was no longer as bright and therefore not as much of an issue for the players that had switched ends.
There was a flurry of near misses as Sunderland aimed to reestablish their two-goal advantage and in the fifty sixth minute, they broke through when a powerful Albert Quinn drive was mishandled by Ray Minshull and dribbled over the line. Quinn then got a second when he hit another thunderbolt, this time from twenty five yards out as a rebound sat up for him, and in the final moments, Davis wrapped things up with another goal when he was first to another Duns cross.
Murray’s team had been criticised in recent weeks for a lack of goal threat but had turned that on its head with a fab five star showing.
Whereas Stubbins had been forced to battle hard with little support, the Sunderland forwards had worked as a unit, although problems still remained; the hat trick of Roker victories had taken the team up to sixteenth yet they invariably struggled on the road, rarely performing when leaving home.
Just two away victories all season held the club back and meant that a team capable of beating the champions still finished at the wrong end of the table.
*Left winger Eddie Burbanks, although unable to get on the scoresheet, had an excellent game on this day.
While his Sunderland career was coming to a close, he continued to play senior football for many years afterwards and will always have a place in history having been on the scoresheet when The Lads beat Preston North End in the 1937 FA Cup final.
The next episode of Ha’way The Podcast’s Roker Rewind series focuses on Burbanks’ career, and will be dropping soon, so keep an eye out!
Saturday 15 November 1947
Football League Division One
Roker Park
Attendance: 37,258
Sunderland 5 (Davis 18’, 85’, Watson 31’, Quinn 55’, 82’)
Liverpool 1 (Liddell 44’)
Sunderland: Mapson; Stelling, Hudgell, McLain; Hall, Wright, Duns; Davis, Watson, Quinn; Burbanks
