On This Day (2 May 1981): Survival Secured As The Lads Win At Anfield!

Even Anfield couldn’t have heard many roars as loud as the one that went up at the end of this match — only this time it wasn’t from The Kop but from the 6,000 travelling Sunderland fans at the Anfield Road end. The Lads needed to get something out of this game to avoid relegation from the top flight. They’d previously been relegated after just one season in Division One following promotion four years earlier, so they were desperate to keep a foot hold in the elite league.

As in the final game of that last relegation season, the match was on Merseyside, only this time at The Reds’ home ground, and not Everton. The man who made sure we didn’t have to rely on events elsewhere, was ‘Little’ Stan Cummins. He was to fly out that following week for his season with Seattle Sounders, leaving the Sunderland faithful with a glorious memory to relive throughout the summer.

Cummins scored many a vital goal for us, including the clinching goal at the end of the previous season as we beat West Ham at home to a packed out crowd — I know, because I was locked outside with a gate of over 20,000 more people than the usual attendance. This one was just as sweet, and perhaps more impressive, in the thirty second minute. Gary Rowell started the move just inside the Liverpool half, which sent Cummins down the left wing.

He’d already shown the Reds that he was in the mood, with several determined runs down the flank, but Colin Irwin ignored the warning signs and insisted in backing off from the little magician as he ran into the box, and the extra yard of space was all the encouragement Cummins needed to drive a rising shot past Ray Clemence’s near post. It was Sunderland’s last real chance, although Alan Brown and Rowell sent headers over the bar, but at the same time, Liverpool never looked like pulling a goal back. At the start of the day, everyone thought that Sunderland’s poor away form would be the death of them, but they also didn’t expect a Liverpool side lacking some experienced players, and some actually on the pitch, such as Terry McDermott and Ray Kennedy, whose minds were clearly elsewhere.