Old Boys

By: Stephen | December 10th, 2008

What would I ever do without Youtube? I was surfing around yesturday while watching the Champions League games. (Boy wouldn’t it be fun to see the Black Cats in the Champions League?) And stumbled upon some Sunderland stuff. Naturally, being the writer that I am, I figured why not turn it into a blog?

What a better thing to talk about, than one of our greatest days? May 5th, 1973. For most young Sunderland Fans, that’s the day when we won our last FA Cup. It’s especially fun to think we beat Leeds. But the great thing with the Internet is that you can find amazing amounts of stuff about anything. The side was led by the amazing Bob Stokoe.

It was a one goal game for the Black Cats. Fortunately, that’s all was needed to bring home the second FA cup in club history. 31 minutes into the game, Sunderland took the lead as Vic Halom chested down a corner from Billy Hughes. Halom took a ball through two defenders and kicked the ball ahead. The high ball controlled by Ian Porterfield, who took the ball past the Leeds goalie David Harvey for the only score of the game.

Now, wouldn’t it be great to go back and see that game? Unfortunately science hasn’t progressed to the point where we can go back in time. However, with the use of Youtube, we can get a feel for the game.

As I have said above, that was our second FA Cup, the first one coming in 1937. So historically speaking the next time you’ll see an FA Cup paraded in Sunderland, 2037. Yikes. I hope, that like usual my math is off. Could we with the right gaffer (SGE?) do it in the next three years? Oh boy I hope so. To take away a cup from one of the big clubs, would be a great slap in the face in of the establishment.

Isn’t it nice to finish a game 1-0? It means, three points, or a Cup win!!! It also shows at least to my eyes how good our defense could be turning back run after run. Now, would our current side be able to do that? Hmm, outside of the Manchester United game, I don’t know. I hope so, but we’ve only had two clean sheets this year. Middlesbrough (why do they exist?) and Fulham. While the Black Cats won’t hold everyone goalless, it would be a great step for the club to get some more wins under their belts. Let’s start the next winning streak against West Brom Albion.

I plan to make a historical blog every week, because we must never forget where we came from. We must always respect our old boys, and remember what the good times were like, so the younger generations can fully understand what it means to be a Sunderland supporter.

Before I leave for today, I’m going to leave you with the FA Cup.