Sunderland Greats: Billy Hughes — A legend of the 1973 FA Cup-winning side

19/04/2024 07:00

Mark Wood looks back at the Sunderland career of a true human club legend - FA Cup winner Billy Hughes. Where does he rank on your list of all-time greats?

Born in the post-war years, Billy Hughes hailed from Coatbridge in Scotland.

He was spotted by Sunderland scout Tom Rutherford while playing for a schools side and invited south to join the lads when he was 16.

Billy like the rest of his family was a huge Celtic fan, and had an offer from the Glasgow giants too, but his brother John already played for them and was a huge star for the hoops. Not wanting to be at a club where he would be endlessly compared to his famous brother, Billy looked to make his own way and settled on Sunderland.

His youth team coach when he first arrived at Roker Park was none other than Brian Clough - that is until for reasons that remain a mystery to this day, the Sunderland board released Clough from his contract.

Despite this, Billy found himself part of a youth side packed with talent and they reached the final of the youth cup in 1967, before winning it in 1968. Meanwhile, he had also made his first team debut in a 2-2 draw with Liverpool in February 1967.

He made six appearances for the first team from then until the end of the season, and struggled to make the starting line up in the 67-68 season too, but the following year was when Billy started to establish himself as a regular first teamer. He hit his first goal for the first team in a 1-1 draw away to Wolves on 14th September 1968 as new manager Alan Brown looked to move on some of the more established senior pros in the side in favour of young talent, with the then 20 year old Hughes fitting the bill.

However this was a Sunderland team struggling to stay in the top flight, a hard place for any young footballer to learn their craft and when manager Alan Brown sold leading scorer Colin Suggett in the summer of 1969 the team struggled severely. Relegation for only the second time in the club's history followed the following season.

The following couple of seasons saw Sunderland making no big waves in the Second Division but Billy was cemented in the first team at this point and by now chipping in with regular goals. He was predominantly a pacey winger who could shoot with either foot and would sometimes play as a striker. He certainly possessed outrageous skill, but this was somewhat tempered under the strict disciplinarian leadership of manager Alan Brown.

It took Alan Brown's departure and the arrival of the relatively unknown Bob Stokoe at the end of 1972 to change the course of Sunderland and take Hughes's performances on an upward trajectory. Hughes himself had never heard of Bob Stokoe, but said: "You just knew there was going to be a difference when he arrived. I certainly felt that."

Bob Stokoe was a manager who would pump the players full of confidence, to make them feel that they were better than they actually were. With a maverick talent such as Billy Hughes, he now had a manager telling him not only how good he was but giving him the freedom to show it.

Also his brother John had been signed by Stokoe to be Sunderland's new centre forward, but injured his knee on his debut in the first minute against Millwall. He tried to play on before going off in the second half, but had caused such damage to his ligaments that he never played again. Thus Stokoe had to return to the transfer market and this time signed Vic Halom.

What followed of course was Sunderland's incredible run to lift the 1973 FA Cup, during which Billy himself scored four goals - the best of which was one of the two he scored at Roker Park in the fifth round replay against Manchester City.

Billy Hughes was a big character off the pitch and in the dressing room - he was renowned for being a practical joker. In the build-up to the final with the Sunderland players being interviewed on live television a reporter asked Dave Watson if he was as good as playing up front as he was at centre-half. Hughes chose that moment to activate a laughing box and didn't switch it off for at least a minute.

It brought home to the watching nation just how relaxed the Sunderland players were and enjoying the day - in complete contrast to the Leeds team.

With Stokoe's encouragement, over the following seasons Billy played his best football for Sunderland and hit double figures in goals every year from 1972-3 to 1974-5. On September 7 1974 he hit his first and only hatrick for the lads in a 5-1 win against Bristol Rovers at Roker Park, in a season where Sunderland pushed hard for promotion but fell away in the final weeks of the season.

The next year Bob Stokoe's men made no mistake and ran away with the Second Division title although Billy did not feature for long stretches of the campaign due to injury.

The 1976-77 season was Billy's last with Sunderland, as Sunderland struggled back in the top tier. With his old mentor Bob Stokoe leaving early in the campaign and much of the 73 team moved on, he made his last appearance for the first team on January 8 1977 in an FA Cup tie against Wrexham at Roker Park. New manager Jimmy Adamson looked to move him on, and he left for Derby County after making 287 league appearances and 73 goals. All of his 4 FA Cup goals came in the 1973 cup run.

Billy struggled with his health in the final years of his life and he died at a too young 70 years of age in 2019.