Man United 3 Sunderland 2

Man­chester Uni­ted 3 Sun­der­land 2, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Lea­gue Sec­ond Di­vi­sion, Nov­ember 30, 1974. Mar­tin Bu­chan had an­oth­er ex­cel­lent ga­me in the middle of the de­fence as Man­chester Uni­ted edged out fel­low pro­mo­tion hunters Sun­der­land 3-2 in front of 60,000 spec­tat­ors at Old Trafford. 

Man­chester Uni­ted entered this Sec­ond Di­vi­sion fix­ture af­ter suf­fer­ing a sur­prise 2-0 de­feat at the hands of Hull City at Booth­ferry Park the week be­fore, whi­le Bob Stokoe´s Sun­der­land had over­come Notts Coun­ty by a sol­id 3-0 mar­gin at Roker Park in their last mat­ch. In what proved to be a tough-fou­ght en­counter at Old Traf­ford, Man­chester Uni­ted took an early lead in the tenth min­ute cour­tesy of a well-pla­ced shot from for­mer Hull stri­ker Stu­art Pear­son which flew pa­st Sun­der­land goal­keeper Jim Mont­gomery and in­to the bot­tom left-hand cor­ner of the net, on­ly for Billy Hug­hes to equal­ise for The Roker­ites wi­th a clo­se ran­ge ef­fort on el­ev­en min­utes be­fore the same play­er fou­nd the net ag­ain two min­utes la­ter fol­low­ing a fine com­bin­a­tion wi­th Bry­an “Pop” Rob­son. Then, ten min­utes af­ter the in­ter­val re­fresh­ments, Pear­son cros­sed the ball in­to the pen­alty box where on-run­ning wing­er Wil­lie Mor­gan ma­naged to score from a few yards out. As the sec­ond ha­lf pro­gressed, Man­chester Uni­ted took more con­trol of the ga­me and the at­tack minded ho­me si­de ev­entually sco­red the win­ning goal one min­ute pa­st the hour ma­rk when North­ern Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al Sam­my Mc­Ilroy ham­mered the ball ho­me from in­side the area af­ter a low cross from fel­low mid­field play­maker Ger­ry Da­ly. In oth­er Sec­ond Di­vi­sion fix­tures, West Brom­wich Al­bion over­came re­cently pro­moted Old­ham Ath­let­ic by 1-0 at The Haw­thorns, Notts Coun­ty de­feated Mill­wall 2-1 at Mea­dow Lane, Hull City be­at Bris­tol City 1-0 at Booth­ferry Park, whi­le Ori­ent and Not­ting­ham For­est drew 1-1 at Bris­bane Road in North East Lon­don. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Al­ex Step­ney, Al­ex For­syth, Stew­art Hou­s­ton, Jim Hol­ton, Mar­tin Bu­chan, Bri­an Green­hoff, Lou Ma­cari, Wil­lie Mor­gan, Sam­my Mc­Ilroy, Stu­art Pear­son, Ger­ry Da­ly. Sub­sti­tute: Ron Dav­ies. Sun­der­land Te­am: Jim Mot­gomery, Dick Malone, Ron Gu­thrie, Den­nis Long­horn, Bob­by Mon­cur, Dave Wat­son, Ian Port­er­field, Bobb­Kerr, Billy Hug­hes, Vic Ha­lom, Bry­an Rob­son, To­ny Tow­ers. Sub­stitue: Tom Finney.

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