Relegated for the first time in their history the previous season, Sunderland commenced pre-season training for the 1958/59 campaign on this day, and the Journal’s Malcolm Usher was invited in to get an up-close and personal look at what the first day back entailed.
This was a brave and unprecedented move by manager Alan Brown, with supporters
still reeling from the relegation and the club struggling to absorb the impact of the ‘Mr Smith’ scandal. Any bad press could have backfired on the players and manager, with supporters understandably feeling outraged given everything that had occurred in the previous 12 months.
Also, for those who were not familiar with Malcolm Usher, he was no pushover as a reporter. Power and fame meant little to him if there was a story to be told.
Usher’s exposé was only three or four paragraphs on the back page, but he still managed to give his readers an illuminating and informative glimpse of what, for the players, can sometimes be a dreaded first day back.
Usher’s day started in the Roker Park car park, where he bumped into Don Revie.
Sunderland’s star centre-forward looked fit and sun-tanned and, with the rain pelting down, greeted Usher by saying: “It’s nice to be back.”
But where had Revie been?
Usher found out later in the day that Revie had been given permission by the club at the end of the season to join his previous club, Manchester City, on a tour of North America for almost four weeks. It was certainly a generous gesture by Sunderland.
Revie was undoubtedly one of their most prized assets and, to effectively loan him to another club for the best part of the close season, seemed above and beyond neighbourly. It was even more bizarre when you consider that Revie had left Manchester City on bad terms with manager Les McDowall and the City board.
However, loan him they did, as a guest player to fill in for City’s star forward Bobby Johnstone (part of the renowned ‘Famous Five’), who had sustained an injury just before the squad was due to leave.
Revie featured heavily in all four games from 18 May to 8 June. Transatlantic travel was by ocean liner in those days and the RMS Mauretania delivered the tour party back to the UK in mid to late June.
If Usher found Revie pleased to be back, he encountered the rest of the Sunderland squad “bursting at the seams, all set for action and the chance to show that the club can boomerang back to the First Division”.
The reporter noted that some of the first-team players had already started pre-season by attending voluntary sessions alongside youth players on Wednesday evenings. These sessions took place at the club’s new training facility at Cleadon, and this day would see the whole squad start using the pitches even though the facility had not yet officially been completed, with work still ongoing on the changing rooms and other buildings.
The need for a new training facility had been supported – nay, driven – by Alan Brown as part of his stem-to-stern, top-to-bottom revamp of the club following the ‘Mr Smith’ scandal. For the moment, at least, he appeared to have the backing of new chairman Stanley Ritson and the rest of the board.
The club had purchased a plot of farmland in Whitburn, known locally as “the Old Gun Site”, or, more accurately, as the “Lizard Farm Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery Site”. At a cost of £13,500 (including a £10,800 mortgage), the land was cleared of all military hardware, barbed wire and defensive barriers before being levelled. It was then reseeded and cultivated to create two quality training pitches.
The project repurposed the old wartime military barracks and other buildings into changing rooms, a medical room, kit storage and administrative offices for the coaching staff. In many respects, the use of an ex-military site suited the coaching persona of Alan Brown who, whilst considered one of the foremost coaches in the country, infused this with “commando-style” fitness training.
The new amenity was state-of-the-art in purpose but spartan in appearance. It was originally known as the Cleadon Training Ground until 1990, when it was re-christened the Charlie Hurley Centre. (The iconic wrought-iron gates are now permanently installed outside the Stadium of Light.)
The facility remained the club’s training ground until 2003, when it was replaced by the Academy of Light at a total cost of £13 million (compared with the £13,500 cost in 1958/59).
On this day, the players and coaching staff changed at Roker Park and then, not unlike modern-day pre-season – though the metrics are probably far more complex – the players underwent some basic recording of height and weight. Whilst this kind of task is still common today, what was unusual, and possibly unique, was that Brown allowed Usher to reproduce these recordings in his article.
Alan Brown then hustled his players onto a bus and off they went to Cleadon to begin what Brown termed his “get-fit-quick routine”. Usher described this as “commando-style training which incorporated a five-mile non-stop run around the training fields… whilst it rained cats and dogs.”
He went on to report: “Give the manager a pat: everything the players did, he did. When he stopped, everybody stopped. The Boss was one of the Lads.”
The afternoon session involved a lot of high-intensity ball work and drills, along with an 11-a-side game “to give the players an early look at the ball”.
Brown was 43 at the time and often led the way during the longer runs on the training pitch, as well as being a fierce competitor in training games. He developed an ethos of no-nonsense professionalism in training before introducing drills and activities that developed tactical intelligence, physical endurance and finely honed muscle memory.
His pass-and-move style – arguably the forerunner of tiki-taka – demanded elite fitness so players could constantly rotate positions and support the ball.
Despite two hard sessions, Usher reported: “I heard no complaints from the players on the return trip to Roker Park. Most of the time was spent praising the ground at Cleadon.”
Full-back Jack Headley was quoted as saying: “It’s a beauty. There are two pitches – both in wonderful condition with a lush covering of grass.”
The day ended with Brown ominously telling Usher: “We will be sticking to a five-day soccer week for the next few weeks with training twice a day. The schedule will be tough, but football is supposed to be a man’s game.”
In another sign of the times, Brown also told Usher that Alan O’Neil, the club’s top scorer and breakthrough player from the previous season, would probably be called up for National Service in November. (The Korean War had seen National Service extended to two years for young men aged 17 to 21.)
Not such good news, but, more positively, defender Fred Chilton would be demobbed from the Army in approximately two months.
It was a fascinating glimpse into the life and routine of Sunderland’s players at this time, with plenty of comparisons and sharp contrasts to today’s game.
Don Revie, who was the first player encountered in the article, may have arrived sun-tanned and fit, but he lasted only nine games, scoring once before a dressing-room bust-up with Alan Brown at Rotherham. He transferred to Leeds in November 1958.
Veteran defender Jack Headley started the season at right-back but eventually lost his place to youngster Colin Nelson.
Alan O’Neil played only 12 games, scoring three goals before being called up for National Service. However, another young forward, John ‘Ralphy’ Goodchild, enjoyed a breakthrough season, making 27 appearances and scoring 16 goals to finish as the club’s second-highest scorer behind Don ‘Rhino’ Kitchenbrand (21 goals).
Fred Chilton did return from National Service but did not trouble the first team that season. The emergence of Len Ashurst severely restricted his opportunities and he transferred to North Shields in 1959.
Sunderland would not “boomerang back” to the First Division after just one season. Alan Brown’s policy of replacing ageing, experienced players with young, aspiring athletes would take time to bed in, with Sunderland finishing a disappointing 15th in the Second Division.
Their time would eventually come, though.
