On This Day (15 March 1937): Sunderland Make Their Own Luck On The Road To Cup Glory!
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Sunderland’s humbling at Vale Park last week seems to have underlined just how poor the Lads have been in the FA Cup over recent years — yet it’s a competition that holds plenty of fond memories for the club, which for years saw the prize become the ‘Holy Grail’.
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League champions on multiple occasions and one of most influential names in the game, we were a force to be reckoned with in the early years of the sport and yet for some reason the FA Cup — created by a Sunderland man no less — somehow managed to keep eluding us after a string of semi-final appearances and a loss in the 1913 final.
Mystified as to why the team kept failing, some supporters even believed there to be a travellers’ curse hanging over the Wearsiders, who would supposedly not win the cup until a ‘Scottish lassie’ became the Queen of England.
Not everyone took such talk seriously, but football fans can be a superstitious bunch and surely one or two sceptics would’ve raised an eyebrow when in December 1936, Queen Elizabeth, the daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, ascended to the throne alongside her husband George VI.
The Lads then began their latest tilt at the cup just a couple of weeks later, and a sixth round second replay that took place on this day was to be a major step towards finally bringing a successful end to the quest.
Inseparable at the end of ninety minutes at Molineux and extra time at Roker Park, the teams were forced to settle the tie via a hotly anticipated Hillsborough rematch where seated tickets were sold out well in advance.
Supporters could still pay on the gate for terraced sections however, so there was a rare instance of poor weather actually being of assistance to those wanting to attend, with March snow putting many Wearside shipyards out of action and giving workers an unexpected day off.
Arriving for duty as normal at 07:30 only to be told their shifts were cancelled, those without enough time to go home and change were happy simply to head straight to the train station in their heavy-duty work gear.
There, they joined those already waiting eagerly for excursion services to Sheffield, mixing with the more stereotypically-attired match goers on the jam-packed platforms.
“Rosettes, knitted caps of red and white wool, red and white scarves, top hats painted with red and white stripes, were everywhere and there were more than a dozen ‘crakes’”, advised the 18:00 edition of the Sunderland Echo And Shipping Gazette that evening, whilst regular shouts of “Ha-way Gurney” had been heard in the booking hall when train tickets had first gone on sale in the morning.
Also at the station waiting to travel to the game was Mrs Prior, wife of Col. J.Prior, “one of the most popular directors of the club”.
In her bag, she carried a ‘charm’ that “was carrying Sunderland’s fortunes” in the form of a red and white scarf knitted by the wife of another club director, Mr I.G. Modlin, who was also club doctor and had been left behind in error when the board travelled down to watch Sunderland’s league fixture at Portsmouth a couple of days prior.
Telling The Echo’s representative that she was ‘guarding the bag with her life’, she stated the scarf “has been washed and wrapped up carefully especially for the occasion, and I will wear it myself this afternoon”.
Panic broke out temporarily when a guard incorrectly placed an indication board on the wrong side of the platform and sent hundreds of waiting passengers scrambling over seats and partitions, but the mood had lightened again by the time the last train steamed along its arrival track to the sound of three cheers from those now back in the correct position.
Its departure was then delayed by almost two minutes as approximately 600 fans clambered on, all creating a din through “songs, rattles, bells and bugles”. Also presumably revelling were the LNER office staff that were now able to cash up around £700 in fares, whilst ‘retailers in favours’ that had swarmed around the premises were also reported to have done a good trade.
As well as by those able to get there in person, the Lads seemingly had plenty of people backing them in spirit back home.
The Echo estimated that there were hundreds of fans ‘thronged’ around their Bridge Street and West Wear Street offices and they were only too happy to share the good news as it came through the wires.
“Increasingly louder cheers” welcomed the updates as they arrived, with one man that had bought a copy of the paper and was about to read excerpts aloud being rushed by a dozen other excited followers that were so anxious to learn the score that they accidentally tore it to shreds!
Down in Yorkshire meanwhile, the team was busy creating those news flashes.
They’d travelled to Sheffield straight from Hampshire the day before, encountering several snow, sleet, rain and windstorms along the way, so were unsurprised to find the Hillsborough pitch in poor condition as a result — yet despite the soft going, they dominated the early stages, sewing things up before the break with three clinical finishes.
With ten minutes played, Bobby Gurney controlled a Len Duns free kick, beat his man and drove a shot into the net to make it 1-0, and whilst it was some time before the next goal, Sunderland were still looking good, with Johnny Mapson making an excellent save to prevent an equaliser from a rare counter and both Duns and Eddie Burbanks being a tiny fraction away from scoring with efforts that hit the woodwork.
It was Raich Carter — an injury doubt beforehand — that did then score, with his strike quickly being followed by a goal from Patsy Gallacher, who turned a Duns corner over the line seconds before half time.
During the break, contented Sunderland fans began a loud rendition of County Durham folk song Blaydon Races, but once the teams reappeared, the action became stunted, with the heavy surface and referee Mr Twist’s apparent bias towards Wolves slowing the Rokerites up.
Nevertheless, despite having gone through two very tight encounters already, this decider was a lot more one-sided. Sunderland emphasised their dominance with a late Charlie Thomson penalty and with another semi-final berth confirmed, it was time to head back north.
Whereas the fans were perhaps wanting to get home to assess their chances of earning some money the following morning, those that had stayed behind in the town had been told to expect the players to appear at around 22:30 and were soon readying themselves to provide a suitably warm reception.
Whether it was the lifting of the ‘Scottish lassie’s’ curse, the presence of Mrs Modlin’s scarf or simply the fact that their team possessed several extremely talented players, something was creating history and everybody connected with the club wanted to mark it.
Millwall would be dispatched soon enough — back in Yorkshire but at Leeds Road on that occasion — and following another mass exodus in May to see Preston North End vanquished, Wembley was the location for Sunderland’s eventual lifting of the cup.
The moment brought great joy and the memories will surely live on when some of those involved form part of the newly-announced Legends’ Way plaza at the Stadium of Light — a more fitting tribute to our history than some of the more recent cup showings…
Monday 15 March 1937
FA Cup Sixth Round (second replay)
Hillsborough
Attendance: 48,960
Sunderland 4 (Gurney 10’, Carter 40’, Gallacher 44’, Thomson 84’)
Wolverhampton Wanderers 0
Sunderland: Mapson, Gorman, Hall; Thomson, Johnston, McNab; Duns, Carter, Gurney; Gallacher, Burbanks
Harry Thompson, who played at inside left for Wolves in this match, moved to Sunderland in 1938 and had scored the final goal in the original replay.
Guy Wharton, who represented Sunderland during World War II, featured in the first instalment of this trilogy.