Ross Stewart closing in on Kevin Phillips' post-war Sunderland goalscoring record

Can Ross Stewart carve out a piece of Sunderland history for himself?

Ross Stewart has a chance at creating history for Sunderland as he closes in on a goalscoring record.

Stewart scored the injury-time equaliser at Shrewsbury in the FA Cup to help Sunderland to a dramatic 2-1 win.

It was the fifth game in a row in which Stewart has found the back of the net for Sunderland, and that means history is just starting to appear over the horizon.

That post-war club record is jointly held by Kevin Phillips and Tommy Wright, both of whom scored in seven consecutive games for Sunderland.

Many fans will remember Phillips’ scoring run. It came during his first season at the club – the season in which he scored 35 goals yet ended with play-off heartbreak in that game against Charlton.

He actually scored 11 goals during that seven-game blast, including four in an away FA Cup win at Rotherham. Curiously, that game was the first time he had managed to score more than one goal in a game for Sunderland.

The run came to an end in game eight, when Phillips failed to take the record outright in a 1-0 FA Cup defeat to Tranmere.

#onthisday in 1998 Kevin Phillips scored @MCFC to equal Tommy Wright’s post-war record of scoring 7 games in a row pic.twitter.com/fMu6AuQ80z

— Sunderland AFC (@SunderlandAFC) January 17, 2016

You have to go all the way back to the 1953/54 season for Tommy Wright’s goalscoring feat, which came between August 26 and September 19. He scored eight goals in seven consecutive games.

Whether Stewart will be able to join those two names, or even surpass them, will be an interesting sub-plot in the coming weeks.

Sunderland have two home games now against Swansea and Middlesbrough before an FA Cup fourth round tie.

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Kevin Phillips’ post-war record goalscoring run 

1	December 13, 1997	West Bromwich Albion (H)	W 2-0 (1)
2	December 20, 1997	Crewe Alexandra (A)	W 3-0 (1)
3	December 26, 1997	Bradford City (H)	W 2-0 (1)
4	December 24, 1997	Oxford United (A)	D 1-1 (1)
5	January 3, 1998	Rotherham (A) - FA Cup	W 5-1 (4)
6	January 10, 1998	Sheffield United (H)	W 4-2 (2)
7	January 17, 1998	Manchester City (A)	W 1-0 (1)

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