The Scottish influence on Sunderland is a long and highly influential one. It was James Allan who introduced the sport of football to Wearside in 1879. Ever since the son of Ayrshire arrived into the town as a teacher the impact of Scottish people to the game which arouses such passion has been immense.
Scottish Heroes of ‘73
So many of Sunderland’s most successful periods have been based on a nucleus of talented Scots. The club’s last major honour in 1973 saw a Scot score the only goal of the FA Cup final from a corner taken by another Scotsman. For good measure the skipper was also Scottish, with the fourth member of the team from north of the border being the defender who cleared the ball after Jim Montgomery’s marvellous double save. Ian Porterfield, Billy Hughes, Bobby Kerr and Dick Malone were the quartet of cup-winning Scots.
The previous era of silverware came in the 1930s when the FA Cup triumph of 1937 followed the league title which had come twelve months earlier with the Charity Shield collected in between. That great side of course included legendary local lads Raich Carter and Bobby Gurney, but the Scots were so important. Five of the cup final side as well as manager Johnny Cochrane were Scottish: Sandy McNab, Alex Hall, Bert Johnston, Patsy Gallacher and Charlie Thomson being the men in question.
Charlie Thomson was one of three Scots in Sunderland’s previous FA Cup final in 1913 – Harry Low and James Richardson being the others. These ‘Thomson Twins’ playing in cup finals almost a quarter of a century apart were not the same player! Not even related, the two Charlie Thomson’s played an almost identical number of games for the club – 264and 263. Although the 1913 Charlie Thomson finished up with a cup final loser’s medal, like his 1930s namesake he did win a league title with the club, doing so in the same season of his cup final appearance – when a total of seven Scots appeared.
Team of All Talents
Regardless of the considerable contribution of Scots in all of the successes discussed so far, the peak period of Scottish influence on the club came in the early years of league football as ‘The Team of All The Talents’ put Sunderland firmly on the footballing map. Ever since the great side of Victorian times Sunderland have been rightly considered as a giant of the game. For far too long this has been as a sleeping giant – but a giant nonetheless.
When Sunderland became the first club to be admitted to the Football League for its third season in 1890 almost the entire team were Scottish. This was the team who won the league title three times in four years between 1892 and 1895, capping that off by being proclaimed ‘world champions’ to put the icing on the cake of that third league triumph. At this time only England and Scotland were playing the game to a good standard. Although the cup winners of the respective countries had met before in such ‘world championship’ clashes, when Sunderland visited Scottish league champions Hearts in 1895 it was the first time the winners of the leagues had met in such a game. Sunderland won 5-3 to establish themselves as the best team in the world.
The stars of the ‘Talents’ are names that have largely now faded into the foggy mists of time but they must not be allowed to disappear, for these are the players who made Sunderland great. When modern day fans proudly chant, ‘Six league titles and still going strong’ remember that it was ‘The Team of All The Talents’ who won half of them. Johnny Campbell was the top scorer in the country in each of the three seasons Sunderland won the league in the 1890s. John Auld and later Hughie Wilson captained the team while the likes of Andrew McCreadie, James Gillespie, Donald Gow, John Harvie, Jock Scott and James ‘Blood Hannah’ were all important Scottish players in this greatest of eras.
Scottish Stoppers
Sunderland have a great tradition of goalkeepers, one of the relatively recent being Scotland great Craig Gordon who the club paid a British record fee for a goalie for in 2007. One of the greatest goalkeepers Sunderland have had was the renowned Ted Doig. He was the Talents keeper and added to his three league titles of the 1890s by becoming one of only two men to win four titles with Sunderland in 1902 when the manager was Scotsman Alex Mackie. The only other player to win four league titles with the club is Doig’s fellow Scot Jamie Millar. Forward Millar was the first man to score five goals in a competitive game – something he did in the club’s record 11-1 win. Only four players (to March 2025) have scored five goals in a peace-time competitive game for SAFC, the only one since the war being yet another Scotsman, Nicky Sharkey, in 1963. The following season Sharkey would be one of a quartet of Scots in the club’s first ever promotion winning side along with George Mulhall, George Herd and Jimmy McNab.
Later in the mid-sixties they were joined by arguably the most talented player ever to come from the land of whisky and heather: Jim Baxter. ‘Slim Jim’ was on Sunderland’s books on the famous day in 1967 when Scotland defeated world champions England at Wembley when Baxter impudently taunted England by doing ‘keepy-uppies.’ Baxter had also played against England at Wembley for ‘The Rest of the World’ in 1963 although sadly having come to Sunderland with the nickname ‘Slim Jim’ by the time he left he was better known as ‘Bacardi Jim’ due to his battles with alcohol. Thismeant his time at the top of the game as a world class footballer was shorter than it should have been.
The Modern Era
Coming into the Stadium of Light era, the record breaking 105 point team of 1998-99 featured midfielder Alex Rae and winger Alan ‘Magic’ Johnston who broke into his international team that season. More recently the 2022 promotion winning side relied on the cutting edge of Ross Stewart who scored the killer goal in the play-off final. When we talk about great Scottish goal-scorers one who scored even more than Johnny Campbell’s 154 is 1920s goal machine Dave Halliday. Incredibly he scored 165 in just 175 appearances for the club, including a club record seasonal total of 43 in 1928-29.
Currently Scots are conspicuous by their absence in the Sunderland side, but the time will come again when Scottish players become key men in the Sunderland strip they have sported with such distinction and success ever since the earliest days of the club when club founder James Allan once scored 12 goals in a single game.
Photo by Ogden’s/Alamy
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