On this day in 2000, Sunderland dumped Manchester United out of the Worthington Cup after coming from behind to win in extra time.
Sir Alex Ferguson played a second-string team, although it still included Phil Neville, John O'Shea, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Dwight Yorke (more on him later). Peter Reid selected a strong team but still made a couple of changes, with Danny Dichio coming in for Niall Quinn and Julio Arca replacing Kevin Kilbane on the wing.
We kicked off following a minute's silence in honour of Len Shackleton, who had died the previous day. United managed to keep us at bay in the first half, limited to two speculative efforts from Alex Rae.
We seemed to grow into the game, but after half an hour Peter Reid’s men were pegged back by a typical Man United counter-attack. Quinton Fortune played Solskjaer through who then found Dwight Yorke. The future Mackem would, after a bit of a scramble with Jody Craddock, smash his shot into the roof of the net for 1-0.
Just before half-time, Super Kevin Phillips’ curled effort struck the bar. And after the interval another of his well-struck shots was saved by goalkeeper (and future Sunderland coach) Raimond Van der Gouw.
Julio Arca brought the game level after 74 minutes, converting Super Kev’s cross with a stooping header. To make things worse for the Red Devils, Yorke would be sent off for a very strong tackle on Brazilian defender Emerson Thome. It was a straight red on 82 minutes, and we would need extra time to settle the cup tie.
It was John O’Shea who brought down Phillips in the box after 100 minutes. Our legendary striker picked the ball up and took the spot kick himself, beating Van der Gouw.
Manchester United struck the bar twice through Danny Webber and future SAFC man David Healy, but Sunderland managed to hold on to the win and progress to the next round. A crowd of over 47,000 turned up on that midweek game in November to see us defeat United for the first time at the Stadium of Light!
