Sunderland's last FA Cup derby with Newcastle in 1956 had a shock hero

It is the first time in the FA Cup that these footballing foes have faced each other since 1956 when, in a star-studded match, a Boxing Day panic buy turned into an unlikely hero and won the day.

It was a quarter-final tie, played on March 3, 1956, at St James’s Park. Newcastle were riding high, third in the First Division and still holding the cup which they had won at the end of the previous season at Wembley – in fact, Newcastle were the kings of the cup, having won it three times in the first five years of the 1950s.

By contrast, Sunderland were starting to slide, both on and off the field. At Christmas 1955, they’d been beaten twice by Newcastle in two days: 6-1 on Boxing Day at Roker Park and 3-1 at St James’s Park on December 27.

After this humiliation, they won only two more league matches that season, although the slide off the pitch was even more worrying: there had long been suspicions about the finances of the “Bank of England club” and these came to a head in 1957 with the “improper payments” scandal. The club was heavily fined for breaching the financial rules and plunged to its first relegation in its 68 year history.

So when the clubs were drawn together just two months after Sunderland’s Christmas catastrophe, Newcastle fans were supremely confident. Thousands queued outside St James’ Park when tickets went on sale on Sunday, February 26 – usually sales started on a weekday, but the club had put it back to the Sabbath after appeals from local factories which feared an epidemic of absenteeism if tickets had gone on sale on a working day.

Fifty thousand were released to Newcastle fans, and 10,000 to Sunderland – the official attendance was 61,474 – and on matchday outside the stadium, 2s 6d tickets were changing hands for 30 shillings on a “thriving black market”.

Inside St James’s Park, the pitch was cleared of the protective layer of straw that had kept off the elements for the week, and the fans, all wearing cloth caps, spilled down the open terraces onto the grass to within inches of the white lines of the pitch.

All 22 players were from the British Isles, with both sides fielding iconic names.

At left-back for Newcastle was Alf McMichael, one of the Magpies’ most capped players of all time. At centre-back was Bob Stokoe, who, like McMichael, played for 14 seasons for Newcastle. Stokoe, of course, swapped rivers and went on to manage the Wearsiders to their unlikely 1973 FA Cup triumph.

Bob Stokoe would go on to win the FA Cup with Sunderland (Image: The Northern Echo)

Up front for the Tynesiders was Bobby Mitchell, known as “the Bobby Dazzler” due to the speed of his feet on the wing. He scored 100 goals in his 11 seasons at St James’s, but the real star was Jackie Milburn – “Wor Jackie” – who was the Tyneside idol. His 200 goals in 397 appearances puts him kick for kick alongside a later generation’s idol, Alan Shearer, who scored 206 goals in his 405 appearances.

Not to be out-done, Sunderland also had expensive international players all over the pitch: from £20,000 Scot George Aitken at full back to £26,000 Billy Elliott on the left wing. He would go on to manage Sunderland in two spells in the 1970s before taking charge of Darlington.

In midfield, Sunderland had Billy Bingham, who would go on to manage Northern Ireland, and upfront, they had Len Shackleton, the "Clown Prince of Football", one of the greatest entertainers of all time whom they’d signed from Newcastle for a British transfer record fee of £20,050 in 1948.

With so many legends of the game on display in a knock-out match, it should have been a classic.

But football being football, it wasn’t. 

Newcastle never got going, their illustrious forwards snuffed out by Sunderland’s resolute defenders, and the Black Cats won 2-0.

The Northern Echo's action shots from Sunderland's victory in 1956 (Image: The Northern Echo)

The Northern Echo had two reporters at the match, one writing from a Newcastle perspective and the other from a Sunderland point of view.

Tynesider wrote: “Against all form and in the face of most of the prophets, Sunderland brought off the win of the day – and what a turn up for the book it was – to beat the cupholders, Newcastle United, on their own St James’s Park. After the first quarter of the game there was never any doubt that Sunderland were the better side and Newcastle were but a shadow of the team that has shown such brilliant form lately and of that which overwhelmed the Roker side in the two Christmas games.”

Wearsider agreed, saying that apart from the two goals, “there was not a great deal else to write about in this game which failed to live up to its boosting as the possible game of the century. 

“Indeed, it did not reach any heights in the football sense and it failed to rouse the enthusiasm that had been expected of such a big occasion.”

Both goals were scored by probably the least known player on the pitch: Bill Holden. In the 41st minute, he rose above Newcastle’s defence and headed home Shackleton’s cross. In the 84th minute, he put the game beyond doubt, cutting in from the right, drawing out the keeper and flicking the ball past the last despairing defender and into the net.

The Sunderland board of directors had signed him for £12,000 from Burnley in panic on Boxing Day night following the 6-1 thrashing. He’d travelled to the North-East in the early hours of December 27, and had made his debut that afternoon, scoring, but unable to prevent Newcastle inflicting a 3-1 defeat. 

He had then struggled to fit in, and hadn’t scored another goal until his brace in the FA Cup quarter-final.

Sunderland's match winner Bill Holden (Image: The Northern Echo)

“Holden certainly wiped out his £12,000 transfer fee with a sound display in which his wandering paid dividends,” wrote Wearsider approvingly.

It was, though, just a fleeting moment of glory. In the semi-final a fortnight later, Sunderland were beaten 3-0 by Birmingham City and their dreams of Wembley fell at the last hurdle – just as they had the season before.

Holden never commanded a regular place at Sunderland. He made 19 appearances and scored five goals, but ten months after his panic Boxing Day transfer, he was sold at a considerable loss to Stockport County in the Third Division (North).

He retired in 1963, ran a driving school, a coffee bar and a university recreation centre before taking on a guesthouse in Morecambe where he died in 2011.

The two goals that knocked Newcastle out of the cup were the highlight of his career – who will be the hero of this weekend’s match?

Newcastle: Ronnie Simpson, Ron Batty, Alf McMichael, Bob Stokoe, Bill Paterson, Jimmy Scoular, Jackie Milburn, Reg Davies, Vic Keeble, Bill Curry, Bobby Mitchell.

Sunderland: Willie Fraser, Jack Hedley, Joe McDonald, Stan Anderson, Ray Daniel, George Aitken, Billy Bingham, Charlie Fleming, Bill Holden, Billy Elliott, Len Shackleton.