Man United 5 Sunderland 0

Man­chester Uni­ted 5 Sun­der­land 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion, Nov­ember 26,1966. Da­vid Herd was Man of the Mat­ch as Man­chester Uni­ted re­cor­ded their biggest ho­me vic­tory of the 1966-67 cam­paign wi­th a de­served and con­vin­cing 5-0 tri­umph over Ian McColl´s Sunderland. 

Da­vid Herd had began his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer at Third Di­vi­sion North si­de Stock­port Coun­ty where he net­ted six goals in fif­teen Foot­ball Lea­gue ap­pear­ances be­fore he joi­ned Ar­senal for a trans­fer fee of £10,000 in the sum­mer of 1954. He de­b­uted for The Gun­ners in a 1-1 Fir­st Di­vi­sion draw ag­ainst Lei­cester City at Fil­bert Street on the 19th of Feb­ruary 1955, but his break­through came in the 1956–57 sea­son when he amassed 18 goals in 28 fir­st te­am mat­ches. Af­ter hav­ing notched up an im­press­ive total of 97 goals in 166 Di­vi­sion One ap­pear­ances for the Lon­doners, he was bro­ught to Man­chester Uni­ted by Matt Busby for a fee of £35,000 at the be­gin­ning of the 1961-62 cam­paign and made his Fir­st Di­vi­sion de­but for the club in a 1-1 draw to West Ham Uni­ted at Up­ton Park on the 19th of Au­gust 1961. Af­ter net­ting his fir­st goal for Uni­ted in a 3-2 Di­vi­sion One vic­tory over Chel­sea at Old Traf­ford on the 23rd of the same month, the pro­lif­ic front­man went on to hit 17 goals in 32 fir­st class ap­pear­ances dur­ing his in­aug­ur­al sea­son wi­th the Man­chester team.

In their last Fir­st Di­vi­sion fix­ture, Man­chester Uni­ted had de­feated up­starts South­ampton 2-1 at The Dell thanks to a brace from Wor­ld Cup win­ner Bob­by Charl­ton. Sun­der­land, for their part, had beaten Burn­ley 4-3 at Roker Park cour­tesy of a double by Scot­tish wing­er Ge­orge Mul­hall and a goal each from fel­low coun­try­men Neil Mar­tin and John O’Hare. At Old Traf­ford, Sun­der­land man­ager Ian Mc­Coll could on­ly sit and watch in dis­be­lief as Matt Busby´s men out­classed his si­de by a 5-0 mar­gin thro­ugh four goals by Da­vid Herd and a single from De­nis Law. Herd opened the scor­ing ac­count for the ramp­ant ho­me te­am when he be­at Sun­der­land goal­keeper Jim Mont­gomery wi­th a fe­ro­cious shot af­ter 20 min­utes of play and then ad­ded a sec­ond goal in the fi­nal min­ute of the fir­st ha­lf. Fol­low­ing the re­start of ac­tion, Law made it 3-0 to Man­chester Uni­ted in the 48th min­ute of the clash be­fore Herd went on to score in the 80th and 88th min­utes re­spect­ively to give the hosts a 5-0 win. The res­ult meant Man­chester Uni­ted were now sit­ting in sec­ond place in the Fir­st Di­vi­sion ta­ble wi­th 25 points gain­ed from 17 mat­ches played, level on points wi­th lead­ers Chel­sea but wi­th an in­feri­or goal av­er­age. The Roker­ites, on the oth­er hand, re­mained in 14th po­s­i­tion wi­th 15 points col­lec­ted from 18 ga­mes, level on points wi­th Ar­senal and re­cently pro­moted clubs South­ampton and Man­chester City but wi­th a su­per­i­or goal av­er­age. Then, at the bot­tom end of the stand­ings, West Brom­wich Al­bion, Ful­ham, As­ton Vil­la, and New­castle Uni­ted were all locked on 13 points from 18 fix­tures, whi­le Black­pool were last wi­th 10 points from the same amount of en­coun­ters. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Al­ex Step­ney, Bob­by Noble, To­ny Dun­ne, Da­vid Sad­ler, Pad­dy Cre­rand, Nob­by Sti­les, Ge­orge Best, Bob­by Charl­ton, Da­vid Herd, De­nis Law, John As­ton Ju­ni­or. Sub­stitutes: No­ne. Sun­der­land Te­am: Jim­my Mont­gomery, Char­lie Hur­ley, Cecil Ir­win, Len Ashurst, Ge­orge Herd, Dave El­li­ott, Ge­orge Kin­nell, Jim Bax­ter, Neil Mar­tin, John O’Hare, Ge­orge Mul­hall. Sub­sti­tute: John Parke.

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