On this day in 2002, Sunderland utterly destroyed Cambridge 7-0 in the 2nd round of the League Cup, in a game which still is our biggest ever margin of victory in the League Cup as well as being Thomas Myhre’s first outing for the Lads.
It was hardly a draw that would bring much excitement to the Sunderland faithful as they made the long journey to Cambridgeshire to face the fourth tier side, although it would hopefully give us some confidence as we sat 16th in the Premier League with two wins from eight.
The lineup brought news that Thomas Myhre, a goalkeeper who had signed that summer from Besiktas, would be making his debut.
Claudio Reyna gave us the lead in the 21st minute via a curling 25-yard free kick and four minutes later Gavin McCann capitalised on a David Bellion cross and also scored from 25 yards out to double the lead.
As the half time whistle blew, you’d be forgiven for thinking the game would quieten down. The job was surely done against a side three leagues below and the players would want to preserve their energy for those more important Premier League fixtures coming up.
In the 54th minute however, that assumption was proven to be incorrect, when Julio Arca sliced an effort through the legs of the Cambridge goalkeeper to make it 3-0.
Just nine minutes later, Marcus Stewart made it 4-0. He was set up by substitute Thomas Butler and Stewart struck home. Stewart completed an impressive evening for himself as he secured a brace after just two minutes, he fired home from another cross from Bellion to put the game even further beyond doubt at 5-0.
Tore Andre Flo’s shot in the 75th minute took a deflection to push the ball away from the goalkeeper to secure our sixth goal of the day and then he also came away with a brace in the 83rd minute as he ran past their defence and found the net.
Unfortunately, this game would hardly be a turning point in our season as we ended up being relegated bottom of the league with just 19 points and didn’t win a league game after December.
We lost our next game against Arsenal and then Peter Reid was given his marching orders a day later. We did fare slightly better in the League Cup that season, achieving a shock 3-2 victory away to Arsenal in the next round before crashing out to second tier Sheffield United in the fourth round.
