Whether referring to themselves as the Black Cats, the Mackens, the Wearsiders or the Rokerities, Sunderland have travelled south over 50 times since their first game here in 1891. However, this is their first visit to Deepdale since 2006 when we won 4-1.
We have won half of the matches, with 26 victories, 14 draws and 13 wins for Sunderland. That first game ended goalless, but there has only been one such score-line since and that was way back in 1937.
In the 53 league games to date, goals have been a regular occurrence, with our 103 goals countered by 71 by our visitors.
Our biggest defeat was over 100 years ago, when Sunderland won 3-0, but we have recorded some heavy wins over the years. When we met twice in the calendar year of 1896, we won 4-1 and 5-3; there were also eight goals in our 6-2 victory in 1953. Three years later, we recorded our biggest win by 6-0. In total, we have scored four or more league goals against Sunderland on seven occasions here at Deepdale.
Charlie Wayman recorded a hat-trick in the 1953 match and Tommy Thompson repeated the feat in our 6-0 win, whilst Richard Cresswell did it in the first half of our 3-2 win back on new year’s day 2005.
We of course welcome back Simon Grayson and last season’s player of the season Aidan McGeady, but they are far from being the only connections between our two clubs. Simon was preceded by David Moyes as Sunderland’s manager, whilst players for both clubs include Tommy Miller, Ross Wallace, Jim McNab, Mel Holden, Brian Mooney and of course Jordan Pickford.
On This Date – 30th September
Dean Barrick, left back in our 1996 promotion side, is 48 on Saturday. Since retiring ten years ago, Dean has trained as PE teacher and has worked in Poland and Thailand as well as the UK.
Two players who only made two appearances each for North End also celebrate their birthdays on 30th September, Lee Briscoe (42) and Scott Leather (25).
Until the visit of Swansea City in 2008, we had never lost any of our previous seven home league games on this date.
Graham Cross spent a year at Deepdale in the late 1970s and played his last game for North End on this date in 1978, whilst Alan McCormack made his last appearance for us 11 years ago.
Last Five Games At Deepdale
Preston North End 1 (Ormerod) Sunderland 0, Sat 6th Jan 2007
Preston North End 4 (Dichio, Alexander (pen), Whitehead (og), Whaley) Sunderland 1 (Varga), Sat 14th Oct 2006
Preston North End 3 (Cresswell, 3) Sunderland 2 (Elliott, Thornton), Sat 1st Jan 2005
Preston North End 0 Sunderland 2 (Thornton, Stewart), Sat 23rd Aug 2003
Preston North End 1 (Kidd) Sunderland 1 (Angell), tue 15th Aug 1995