The 1952-53 season saw the end of our indifferent home form. Sunderland lost only once all season at Roker Park, unfortunately against North East rivals Newcastle United. Les Duns had been transferred and Stan An­derson made his debut on 4th October at home to Portsmouth.

The season started brightly with two victories, the second a 2-1 win at Arsenal was our first win at Highbury for 22 years. Then there was a slight hiccup, with three defeats in the next five games, Newcastle defeating us twice in the space of seven days. By the end of September, Sunderland had won four league games, all of them by the same 2-1 scoreline.

One of the results, a 1-0 success over Manchester United, was our fifth successive win at Old Trafford, a Trevor Ford header sealing the two points. October witnessed four games, all unbeaten, and included an away success at Middlesbrough and a good home win over Liverpool. The latter victory moved Sunderland up to second in the table.

It got better the next month, starting with a 5-2 victory at Maine Road. Sunderland were two up after only five minutes. After half an hour Trevor Ford had completed his hat trick. The Stoke City game one week later saw the Welshman notch his 50th league goal for the club.

On 1st December Sunderland travelled to The Dell, to play Southampton in a friendly match. The game was significant because it was the first time that we had played under floodlights in England. Some 15,000 sup­porters witnessed an entertaining 3-2 victory. Nine days later and it was our turn to unveil the lights, with a visit from Dundee. The game was always enter­taining and indeed a novelty for the 34,352 crowd. Surprisingly the Scots led at half time, despite Shackleton scoring the first goal of the game, but we prevailed 5-3.

Following the excitement of the floodlights it was back to league action and Sunderland’s first trip to Ninian Park in 24 years. It wasn’t a happy return as we crashed 1-4 to Cardiff City. The general consensus was that “we were all bad”. Things got no better at the Valley, where we lost 1-3, and our ninth defeat in ten visits to Charlton Athletic.

Boxing Day and our third successive away game, this time at Molineux, and this time we earned a point. The 27th December and Wolves paid a return visit. We promptly hammered them 5-2. Sunderland went ahead after six minutes, from a Davis header following good work from Bingham, and we never looked back. Indeed the visitors had to rely on a penalty for one of their goals.

When the third round of the FA Cup fixtures were announced, Sunderland were already in contention for Championship honours, and played a hard two games against Scunthorpe United. A fogbound Roker Park saw Sunderland draw with their Third Division opponents before catastrophe struck in the replay. In scoring the Wearsiders’ goal Trevor Ford broke his ankle and would be out for two months. Ironically Ford played on for 28 minutes with his injury and actually scored the winner! By the time we played Derby County on 17th January we were top of the league and everything was looking rosy, but then we collapsed in three months of madness.

Sunderland took an early exit from the Cup competition, losing 2-0 to Burnley at Turf Moor in round four. The Clarets Manager Frank Hill’s spying mission the week before at Roker had paid off.

In the league we then went on a run of 12 games without a victory, including three 5 goal demolitions by Portsmouth, Bolton (our highest defeat for two seasons) and Burnley, that left the red and whites in 9th posi­tion, culminating in a last day victory over Cardiff City, notable for the paltry attendance of only 7,469. This was the lowest Sunderland league crowd at Roker ever.

Some of the defeats and performances were desperate.

Leading Chelsea at Stamford Bridge we conceded two in two minutes to end up beaten 2-3. Harris scored a hat trick in 45 minutes at Fratton Park for Pompey. The defeat at Stoke City saw 19 year old goalkeeper Fairley make his league debut. He was powerless to stop three goals flying past him. Looking for our first league victory since 3rd January we led Preston at Roker Park, but succumbed to a goal two minutes from time. At Turf Moor, our second successive five goal hiding saw Holden, Burnley’s centre forward score four, and so it continued.

We eventually won, on 6th April, when we defeated Bolton 2-0. This was followed up in our next home game with a 1-1 draw against Spurs. Billy Walsh scored our goal, his first for the club in 95 league appearances. Strangely enough, for all the poor run we still remained unbeaten at Roker since 17th September, and the reverse against Newcastle United. By the end of the penultimate game of the season, at Hillsborough, and a 0-4 thrashing we had conceded 17 goals in just four away matches, scoring only one in reply. There were however some notable friendly games

On 4th March, East Fife visited from Scotland and in front of 37,565 fans turned us over 1-3, another floodlit friendly. Man of the match was Fife’s McLennan. The left half was superb. Seven days later and we defeated Darlington in the Durham Senior Cup. Gateshead awaited us in the 4th May final.

The 18th March saw Clyde travel to Roker Park from Scotland. In front of 12,861 Sunderland triumphed 2-1. The floodlit friendly matches were now proving popular, although this attendance was on the low side. The adverse league performances were perhaps starting to take effect.

Racing Club de Paris visited one week later. Although the lads triumphed 2-0 the player who really caught the eye was Amalfi, the French club’s incomparable ball player. The Brazilian inside right gave a wonderful display of controlled football that had the crowd enthralled. Nearly 30,000 watched this game.

End of season friendly games included a trip to Scotland to play a select XI, a defeat at home by Middles­brough in front of 5,896 fans and then a tour of Scandinavia. The sequence started on 16th May in Malmo, with a 5-3 victory. It wasn’t however without its cost. Goalkeeper Threadgold was carried off to hospital with a two inch gash in his chin. Then to Gothenburg and a 3-3 draw with a Swedish XI. At half time the hosts had led 0-3 but Wright, McSeveney and Davis brought us back from the dead. The tour finished in Copenhagen with a 3-0 defeat of a Danish XI.

The annual report in June of 1953 showed that the floodlit games had resulted in gate receipts of some £15,800 and that the club showed a healthy profit at the end of the accounting period of some £20,342.

The temporary floodlighting was replaced by permanent fittings during the close season. The experiment had proved successful.