A derby double ensures festive cheer for United
FOOTBALL in 1955, like much else in life, was very different to the 2020 version. Take the Christmas fixture list of 65 years ago.
Newcastle United were scheduled to play a match on Boxing Day.
Nothing unusual there – but, incredibly by today’s standards, they would play another competitive game just 24 hours later.
Just to make things even more interesting, the opponents on both occasions would be Sunderland!
The first encounter would take place at Roker Park and a day later the two sides would lock horns again 13 miles away at St James’ Park.
The First Division derby doubleheader, midway through the 1950s rock’n’roll decade, came at a time when both United and Sunderland were still two of English football’s big guns.
Earlier that year, the Magpies had lifted their third FA Cup in five years – while the Wearsiders at that point had never been relegated from football’s top flight.
Illustrating the drawing power of North East football at the time, a staggering 116,781 fans would watch the Christmas Tyne-Wear battle of the titans over the two days.
Newcastle went into the fixtures sitting 15th in the league, with Sunderland in fifth, but it was the Magpies who would earn major bragging rights during a dazzling festive run.
There were 55,723, including a 15,000-strong Tyneside contingent, at Roker Park on Boxing Day to watch the Black and Whites run riot.
Running out 6-1 winners, and equalling 1920’s biggest victory over the old enemy, Jackie Milburn (2), Vic Keeble (2) and Bill Curry (2) were all on target for United.
Keeble started the rout in the second minute and Newcastle were 4-0 up by half-time.
Four of the six goals were headers and as one report noted, “everything they hit went in.”
The two teams were at it again just 24 hours later at St James’ Park, where 61,058 fans were shoehorned in.
It would be United’s day again. In a 3-1 stroll, Milburn and Keeble pounced for the second successive day, Len White also netting.
The two victories capped a wonderful festive haul for the Magpies.
Not only had Sunderland been tamed on December 26 and 27, but United had been in action on Christmas Eve, thrashing Preston North End 5-0 at St James’.
At the time, the aggregate 9-2 success over the Wearsiders was seen as belated revenge for Sunderland’s infamous 9-1 win at St James’ Park in 1908.
In quite probably the most bizarre Tyne and Wear derby in history, after being level 1-1 at half
time, the Red and Whites took injury-hit, nine-men Newcastle to the cleaners in the second half, scoring eight times.
What makes the result more astonishing is the fact Newcastle would finish that season as champions of England, lifting their third title in five campaigns.
If that 1908 9-1 defeat has long slipped from living memory, in 1955 many would still be able to recall the game from 47 years earlier, much like many of us in 2020 can remember Newcastle United games from 1973 and the Supermac era.
Reflecting on the Magpies’ prowess over the 1955 festive period, the Chronicle’s Newcastle United man Stan Bell wrote on December 28: “Six points in four days (two points for a win then), a double over Sunderland and a win over Preston North End, with 14 goals scored and two conceded, gave ‘Geordie’ the happiest Christmas in years.”
What price a tiny bit of happiness for ‘Geordie’ in 202021?