Dave Halliday holds the record for the most goals scored by a Sunderland player in a season.
He bagged 43 goals during the 1928-29 campaign. Halliday was so prolific that in the ‘poorest’ of his four full seasons at Sunderland he scored more goals than anyone else ever has in their best season!
Not even Phillips, Clough, Gurney, Buchan, Campbell or anyone else can match Halliday who is the only player at any club to ever score 30 top-flight goals in four successive seasons.
In each of those years with the red and whites between 1925-26 and 1928-29, Halliday hit at least 35 in the league alone.
Sunderland AFC are supporting a campaign to see Halliday inducted into the Scottish FA Hall of Fame. Supporters can assist efforts to have Halliday inducted via this weblink.
Top Football League scorer with Sunderland in 1928-29, Halliday became the last of only two players to top the English top tier scoring charts as well as the Scottish equivalent. Halliday was top scorer in Scotland in 1923-24 while with Dundee where he hit 38 goals in 36 games. In 1924 he represented the Scottish League against the Football League.
A year later, he joined Sunderland and promptly bagged 10 goals in his first four games!
That head-start helped him to become the player who still holds the record as the fastest to score 100 top-flight goals in England, something he did in just 101 games – and all while playing for Sunderland.
In total, Halliday scored 165 goals in only 175 games for Sunderland – and only one of those goals was a penalty.
Of players to ever score over 200 English top-flight goals in total only the great Dixie Dean of Everton has a better goals per game record than Halliday’s career English ratio of 0.82 goals per game
Sunderland were one of 10 clubs Halliday served as either a player or manager. All ten of those clubs support the campaign. Born in Dumfries in 1901, Halliday started at Queen of the South and played for St. Mirren and Dundee before coming to Wearside.
After Sunderland he represented Arsenal, Manchester City, Clapton Orient and Yeovil when they were Yeovil and Petters United which is where he began his managerial career.
As a manager, Halliday became the first man to take Aberdeen to the Scottish title (Alex Ferguson was the second) and he also steered Leicester City to the second division title.
Close to being one of the 11 inductees at the inaugural Sunderland Hall of Fame dinner this summer, Halliday is certain to become inducted into the club Hall of Fame in due course. With your help he can join former Sunderland players Jim Baxter and Ally McCoist in the Scottish Hall of Fame so please click on the link and help Halliday.
