On this day in 1930 Sunderland went to Anfield and beat Liverpool 6-0 with Bobby Gurney scoring four.
The 1929-30 season got off to a massively poor start and we were in danger of suffering our first ever relegation as a football club, spending most of late September to late December inside the bottom two.
The lowest points during this time were definitely a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Middlesbrough and a 4-1 thrashing at Roker Park courtesy of Leeds United (who were only a nine year old club at this point). We did beat Newcastle United 1-0 as a bit of a bright spark though.
From Boxing day, our form picked up and we went unbeaten in eight to just about allow ourselves to keep our heads above the dropzone.
Three defeats in four came afterwards however, which included heavy losses to Newcastle and yet again at the hands of Leeds.
But luckily this didn’t cause us to sink back into trouble and we managed to come good once again, embarking on a run of six wins out of eight prior to this visit to Anfield.
The game itself got off to a flying start with Gurney, born in Silksworth, giving us the lead in minute one.
He had his brace in the fifteenth minute and we went into the break with a two goal advantage.
Five minutes into the second half George Lawley made the win certain with another goal for the Rokermen and just four minutes later Gurney earned his hattrick.
A brilliant fourth was secured for the striker on the hour mark and the victory was rounded off with Albert Wood also getting himself on the scoresheet with five minutes left.
Bobby Gurney is famous for being our all time top goalscorer, with 228 goals in 390 appearances. He won three trophies for Sunderland, our sixth league title in 1936 as well as a Charity Shield in the same year and our first ever FA Cup in the next year. Bobby was the First division top scorer in the 1935-36 season and also scored our first goal in the 1937 FA Cup final against Preston North End.
Born on the 13th October 1937, he sadly passed away on the 14th April 1994 aged 86. There is a mural of him in his birthplace of Silksworth.
This huge win over Liverpool kept our good form going and we would win our next three matches. Despite defeats in our final two games we still ended the season in 9th place. Finishing inside the top half was a great achievement considering where we had been for most of the campaign.
