On Sunday, we covered an early game from 1935/1936 — a season when Johnny Cochrane’s patient team building paid dividends.
After taking over in 1928, the Sunderland manager spent the best part of a decade carefully crafting what would become one of the club’s greatest ever sides, and although the project took time to truly flourish, there were regular reminders along the way that things were shaping up well.
In 1933/1934, for example, there were goals aplenty and although the defence could be leaky
at times, the forwards were obviously starting to click. An entertaining 3-3 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers in January was a classic example of this. Ironically enough, it had ended a mini-goal drought for the Lads, but it was when the sides had met earlier in the season that fans got a true sense of Sunderland’s potential.
On 9 September, Cochrane took his side to the West Midlands for what turned out to be another goal bonanza, and on that occasion, things were a lot more one-sided. The Black Cats ran out big winners to supercharge what up until that point had been a fairly ordinary start to the campaign, and they did so in style, with the only downside being that in an era where few supporters travelled to away games, not many got to see it for themselves.
The following weekend, the team followed it up with a superb performance at Roker Park as Sheffield United were blown away 5-0, but as with the Wolves salvo, many had to make do with their trusty Football Echo, which proudly led with a front-page headline that shouted “Sunderland Top Scorers in All Divisions”.
Below that were the final scores from across the country, the accompanying tables and one or two smaller match reports, whilst Argus’ rundown of the main events at Molineux could be found on the back page — and boy did it need the room in those column inches!
Within a couple of paragraphs — or eight minutes in real terms — Sunderland were well on their way to a handsome victory.
A strong run and pass from Alex Hall saw the ball shifted out to the wing, with Jimmy Connor carrying on the move and playing it into Patsy Gallacher for the first in the fifth minute. He swerved past a defender and blasted in a shot, and while some sources recorded the strike as an own goal at the time, the initial attempt was clearly goalbound and has subsequently been formally credited as Gallacher’s.
Another smart attack down the left then brought the second moments later, with Bert Davis firing into the net after Bobby Gurney’s first-time effort was charged down.
The visitors pushed on again after their whirlwind start and could’ve easily found themselves further ahead, so was an element of shock therefore when Wolves were given a penalty after Bill Murray had challenged Billy Barraclough.
However, once the latter dispatched the spot kick, the mood changed to anger as several Sunderland players disputed the award of a goal with the officials — their argument being that goalkeeper Jimmy Thorpe had not only got a hand to the ball, causing it to loop up, but also managed to spring up and catch it before it crossed the line.
Unfortunately, referee Mr Hull of Burnley was adamant that Thorpe’s acrobatics had not been quite enough, and so the away side resolved themselves to reestablishing their two-goal cushion in a more obvious way.
Seconds after the furore had died down, Sunderland had Wolves pinned back and when Davis put the ball into a packed area, Connor was able to stretch out a leg and guide it just inside the posts to make it 3-1. That was it in terms of goals until the final thirty minutes of the match but in the meantime, Wolves valiantly looked for another way back — if with a little less panache than their guests had displayed — and were having to cling on at the back.
It took an exceptionally brave dive at the feet of Gurney from stopper Jack Ellis to prevent his adversary from scoring, yet the intervention proved futile as Silksworth’s finest scored when he latched onto a poor back pass.
His first strike of the afternoon showed what a fantastic goalscorer’s instinct he had. The the ball was in the air and having diverted it away from Ellis with his head, Gurney nodded it into the net before it had been allowed to touch the ground, and he quickly followed it up with his second, and Sunderland’s fifth, with a more conventional finish, tapping Davis’ cross over the line after Ellis had fumbled.
Frustrated with the showing and now evidently well beaten, the Wolves fans began barracking their side at that point, and the atmosphere took a further nosedive when the Black Cats twisted the knife, with Gallacher heading in to capitalise on intuitive teamwork between Davis and Benny Yorsten.
The effort from Gallacher, who’d been one of his fellow Scot Cochrane’s first ever buys at the start of his Wearside undertaking, appeared for a while as if it had rounded things off, yet a final flurry almost brought one last goal.
Seemingly determined to further enrage their supporters, Wolverhampton came within an inch of scoring past themselves without any Sunderland pressure, with a comedy of errors in defence forcing Ellis to scramble the ball away. Gurney was then denied a hat trick as Cecil Shaw cleared his shot off the line, and whilst there were further Sunderland appeals to the referee — this time claiming that the ball had gone over — a six-goal haul had been more than enough to be going on with!
Saturday 9 September 1933
Football League Division One
Molineux
Attendance: 32,839
Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 (Barraclough (p) 29’)
Sunderland 6 (Gallacher 4’, 73’, Davis 7’, Connor 31’, Gurney 60’, 64’)
Sunderland: Thorpe, Murray, Hall; McNab, McDougall, Edgar; Davis, Yorston, Gurney; Gallacher, Connor
*The first team weren’t the only ones in the goals, with Sunderland Reserves also running out 6-1 winners.
Hosting Annfield Plain in front of around 5,000 Roker Park spectators, the second string mimicked their clubmates even more impressively, scoring twice early on in a first half that finished with them 3-1 ahead.
George Ansley (2), Cliff Thornley (2) and John Foreman put the reserves in control with Len Duns, who would in time become another key part of Cochrane’s plans, wrapping things up in the final minutes.
