Aston Villa v Sunderland

A football club born not from ambition, but from a cricket team's reluctance to go indoors for winter.

On 21 November 1874, members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel in Handsworth, Birmingham, formed Aston Villa Football Club. They needed something to keep the cricket team together through winter. Five years later, in 1879, a group of schoolteachers in the north-east founded Sunderland and District Teachers Association Football Club. Two clubs born from modest beginnings, neither with any notion of what lay ahead.

Villa were there when McGregor's letter changed football forever; Sunderland arrived two years later and matched them stride for stride.

Aston Villa director William McGregor wrote his famous letter proposing a league competition, and in 1888 the Football League was born with twelve founding members. Villa were there from the start. Sunderland joined in 1890, elected to the First Division, and immediately made their presence felt. The fixture between the two was established as a meeting of genuine equals.

Seven titles from ten. In the 1890s, English football belonged almost entirely to these two clubs.

Between them, Villa and Sunderland won seven of the ten league titles on offer during the 1890s. Sunderland claimed three consecutive championships in 1892, 1893 and 1895, earning the nickname 'Team of All the Talents'. Villa matched them stride for stride, winning the league in 1894, 1896, 1897, 1899 and 1900. Their head-to-head matches during this period were the biggest fixtures in English football.

Villa Park's curtain rose in the same year the club claimed only English football's second ever Double.

In 1897, Aston Villa became only the second club to win the League and FA Cup Double, beating Everton 3-2 in the Cup final. That same year, the club moved to Villa Park in the Aston district of Birmingham, the ground that would become one of English football's great theatres. It has hosted more FA Cup semi-finals than any other venue, and remains the stage for this fixture today.

Eleven titles between two clubs; the rest of England was simply watching.

Sunderland claimed their fifth league championship in 1913, with Villa having won their sixth and final title in 1910. By this point, the two clubs had amassed eleven league titles between them. No other pair of clubs could match that combined haul. The fixture carried genuine weight: two of the most successful clubs in the country, meeting twice a season as a matter of course.

Montgomery's double save and Porterfield's solitary goal humbled mighty Leeds; Villa, meanwhile, were scrapping in the Third Division.

By the early 1970s, both clubs had fallen on hard times. Villa dropped to the Third Division in 1970, their lowest ebb. Sunderland, meanwhile, were in the Second Division but produced one of the great FA Cup upsets in 1973, beating Leeds United 1-0 at Wembley. Ian Porterfield's goal and Jim Montgomery's extraordinary double save remain among the competition's most iconic moments. The two clubs would not meet in league competition for several years during this period of shared adversity.

Peter Withe's solitary goal in Rotterdam was enough to conquer Europe; Sunderland went down the same season.

Villa's resurgence under Ron Saunders brought the First Division title in 1981, and the following season Tony Barton led the club to the European Cup, beating Bayern Munich 1-0 in Rotterdam. Peter Withe scored the only goal. It remains one of the most remarkable achievements in English club football. Sunderland, by contrast, were relegated from the First Division that same year. The two clubs' fortunes had diverged dramatically.

Villa finished second in the very first Premier League season; runners-up before most clubs had learned the new name.

Both clubs were present for the inaugural Premier League season in 1992-93. Villa finished runners-up to Manchester United that first year, their best league finish in over a decade. Sunderland were relegated but returned in 1996 and the fixture resumed its regular place in the calendar. Through the 2000s and early 2010s, the two sides met frequently in the Premier League, with Villa Park providing the backdrop for some tightly contested encounters.

Seventeen points and a record low; Villa's 2015-16 relegation marked their worst ever top-flight campaign, with Sunderland's own decline soon to follow.

The 2015-16 season saw both Villa and Sunderland in desperate trouble. Villa were relegated with just 17 points, their worst ever top-flight campaign. Sunderland survived that year but went down the following season, and then dropped to League One in 2018. Two of the Football League's founding giants found themselves outside the top two divisions simultaneously for the first time.

Forty-one years without European football, then Emery arrived and Villa were back at the top table inside two seasons.

Under Unai Emery, Aston Villa qualified for the Champions League in 2024, finishing fourth in the Premier League and returning to European football's top table for the first time since 1983. Sunderland, promoted back to the Championship in 2022 after four years in League One, have been rebuilding steadily under new ownership. With Sunderland pushing for a return to the Premier League, the prospect of this historic fixture resuming at Villa Park carries real anticipation.