Football: Phillips illuminates Stadium of Light

Sunderland 3 Manchester City 1

The last time these two slumbering giants clashed, in May 1991, Niall Quinn scored twice in a match that sent Sunderland into the old Second Division and placed a Manchester City side managed by Peter Reid fifth in the top-flight.

Last night Quinn struck the 17th-minute shot which illuminated Wearside's Stadium of Light with its first ever goal and provided the headed assist which allowed Sunderland to brighten the vast majority of the 39,000 faces crammed into their sparkling new home with a victory.

For an hour and a quarter Quinn's opener looked like being sufficient to beat the club he left to join Reid at Sunderland precisely one year ago yesterday. But then, with quarter of an hour remaining, the counter- threat posed by Georgi Kinkladze finally materialised into something tangible.

The Georgian was nudged to the ground as he ghosted round Kevin Ball, the home captain, but his penalty conversion merely sharpened Sunderland's cutting edge.

First, with seven minutes left, Quinn headed down for his new striking partner Kevin Phillips to celebrate his debut by lashing in Sunderland's second.

Then, in the final minute, Lee Clark, at pounds 2.5m the most expensive of Reid's summer recruits, sent the locals home happy with a third - a fine driven shot by the Newcastle old boy.

Thus the scoreline assumed an accurate reflection of the night's play, which had been delayed by 15 minutes because of the crush to see Sunderland's first league game in their new ground.

Even before City were reduced to 10 men, when Alan Kernaghan was red- carded for his second foul on Phillips midway through the first half, Sunderland had taken control. They received generous assistance from Tony Vaughan, the City left-back, whose wayward back-pass left Quinn with a simple side-footed finish after 17 minutes.

Only the safe hands and sound reflexes of Martyn Margetson kept Frank Clark's numerically inferior side in the game - and obliged Quinn and his colleagues to provide further, urgent, illumination in the dying minutes.

Sunderland (4-4-2): Perez; Makin, Melville, Ord (Williams, 38), Gray; Agnew (Aiston, 83), Clark, Ball, Byrne; Phillips, Quinn. Substitute not used: Mullins.

Manchester City (4-3-1-2): Margetson; Brightwell, Kernaghan, Symons, Vaughan; Brannan, Wiekens, Horlock (Summerbee, 75); Kinkladze; Rosler (Van Blerk, 32), Bradbury. Substitute not used: Weaver.

Referee: E Wolstenholme (Blackburn).