Bob Stokoe. Ian Porterfield. Jimmy Montgomery. One of the greatest FA Cup shocks of all time — and Stylo Matchmakers beneath the red and white stripes.
May 1973. Wembley Stadium.
Sunderland were not supposed to win.
Bob Stokoe’s side were playing in the Second Division. Across from them stood Don Revie’s Leeds United, one of the most powerful teams in English football and overwhelming favourites to lift the FA Cup.
Football had already written the script.
Sunderland tore it up.
Ian Porterfield scored after 31 minutes, controlling the ball inside the Leeds penalty area before driving Sunderland into the lead. Then came one of the defining moments in FA Cup history: Jimmy Montgomery somehow denied Trevor Cherry before recovering to push Peter Lorimer’s thunderous follow-up onto the crossbar.
Sunderland held on.
Leeds United 0. Sunderland 1.
For the first time since 1937, the FA Cup was heading back to Sunderland. Stokoe’s team also became the first Second Division side to win the competition since West Bromwich Albion in 1931.
It remains one of English football’s great underdog stories.
And look closely at the Sunderland players from that era.
There is another piece of British football history beneath those famous red and white shirts.
Stylo Matchmakers.
Football boots before football boots became marketing campaigns
There were no boot launches built around social-media teasers.
No limited-edition colourways.
No players changing boots every few weeks because a marketing department had created another campaign.
A football boot had a simpler job.
It had to fit.
It had to grip.
It had to survive.
And then it had to get out of the footballer’s way.
During this period, Stylo Matchmakers had become one of the distinctive names in British football footwear, with boots associated with some extraordinary players.
Pelé wore Stylo.
George Best wore Stylo.
Kevin Keegan wore Stylo.
Billy Bremner wore Stylo.
And Sunderland players wore Stylo Matchmakers too.
Different footballers. Different clubs. Different personalities.
Same basic test.
Could the boot do its job?
Sunderland were built for exactly this kind of football
The 1973 side did not need mythology invented around them.
The truth is better.
They were a Second Division team facing one of the strongest sides in Europe.
Leeds had Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter, Peter Lorimer, Johnny Giles, Allan Clarke and a manager in Don Revie who had turned the club into a force.
Sunderland had belief.
Stokoe understood his players and his city. They defended, competed and refused to behave like a team lucky simply to have reached Wembley.
Porterfield scored.
Montgomery saved.
The rest of them fought for everything.
When the final whistle came, thousands of Sunderland supporters had witnessed something generations would continue talking about more than half a century later.
The trophy returned to Roker Park after a 36-year wait.
Look at the photographs
This is why the surviving images matter.
They are not recreated heritage.
They are heritage.
Red and white striped shirts.
Long hair.
Heavy pitches.
Packed terraces.
Photographers crowded around players rather than players posing for content teams.
And black leather football boots.
Among them, Stylo Matchmakers.
There is something important about seeing the brand there because it places Stylo where it actually belongs: inside football history rather than alongside it.
The boots do not need to be credited with winning the FA Cup.
That would miss the point.
Footballers win football matches.
Porterfield’s finish mattered.
Montgomery’s hands mattered.
Stokoe’s management mattered.
Eleven Sunderland players refusing to accept the expected result mattered.
The boot’s responsibility was much simpler.
Be trusted enough to be on their feet when history happened.
The other side of Wembley
There was another connection that afternoon.
Sunderland’s opponents were Leeds United, another club deeply woven into the Stylo Matchmakers story.
Stylo had strong links with Leeds football during the era, with players including Billy Bremner associated with the boots. Norman Hunter would become another great name connected to Stylo’s history.
So the 1973 final sits inside a remarkable period for the brand.
This was an age when British football footwear was not merely fighting for space in the game.
It was part of the game.
The players wearing Stylo Matchmakers included European champions, internationals, hard men, entertainers and working-class heroes.
There was no single type of Matchmakers player.
Perhaps that was the point.
From Roker Park to Wembley
Sunderland’s route to Wembley had already told everyone what kind of team they were.
They defeated Notts County, Reading and Manchester City after replays, followed by Luton Town and Arsenal before meeting Leeds in the final.
Then they produced the result that made them immortal.
The photographs still carry the feeling of it.
Stokoe running across the Wembley turf.
Players disappearing beneath supporters and
