Port Vale Stun Sunderland in FA Cup Giant-Killing: Bottom of League One Into the Quarter-Finals
Port Vale Stun Sunderland in FA Cup Giant-Killing: Bottom of League One Into the Quarter-Finals
Bottom of the table. Eleven points adrift of safety. Six league wins all season. And now, improbably, impossibly, irresistibly — in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. Port Vale’s 1-0 victory over Premier League Sunderland on Sunday 08 March 2026 was one of the great giant-killings in the competition’s 145-year history. Ben Waine, a 24-year-old New Zealand international and boyhood Newcastle United fan, headed the only goal of a match in which a side ranked 57 places below their opponents in the football pyramid defended with the stubbornness of champions and attacked with the belief of a team who had nothing to lose. Vale Park, Burslem, population 10,685 on the day, will never forget it.
How Port Vale Did It — The Match Report
Sunderland arrived in Burslem as overwhelming favourites. Régis Le Bris made just two changes from the side that beat Leeds United in midweek to move up to 11th in the Premier League. A squad featuring more than £150 million worth of talent was expected to brush aside the League One basement side without breaking sweat. The FA Cup had other ideas.
The visitors could have taken the lead inside four minutes. Joe Gauci, Vale’s goalkeeper, inadvertently punched a corner back across his own goal. Eliezer Mayenda met it with a close-range header that crashed back off the post, and Kyle John scrambled the ball behind. It was Sunderland’s best chance of the entire match.
From that point on, Port Vale grew into the game. Jon Brady’s side set up in a deep, disciplined low block, inviting Sunderland to try to break them down — and the Premier League side simply could not. Vale’s players won every second ball, every header, every 50-50 challenge. When they had the ball, they counter-attacked with numbers and intensity. When they did not, they defended in banks of four with the commitment of a side playing for their lives.
The decisive moment arrived in the 28th minute. It was born from a Sunderland error. Waine had already forced Luke O’Nien into a panicked long-range back-pass that left goalkeeper Melker Ellborg scrambling — the Swede ended up heading the ball over his own crossbar. From the resulting corner, the ball was flicked around the box before Waine rose to loop a header over Ellborg and into the net. Vale Park erupted. The noise was deafening.
Sunderland pushed for an equaliser in the second half. Gauci blocked Nilson Angulo’s header and then tipped over Dan Ballard’s effort. Ellborg was arguably lucky not to be sent off when he escaped with only a yellow card after bringing down George Hall with a two-footed challenge. But for all their possession — 69.2% of the ball — and their 17 shots to Port Vale’s nine, Sunderland created precious little of genuine quality. Waine’s header was Port Vale’s only shot on target in 90 minutes. Nobody inside Vale Park cared. One was enough.
Ben Waine — The Hero of Burslem
The goal capped a remarkable week for the 24-year-old New Zealand striker. Five days earlier, Waine had scored the extra-time winner against Championship side Bristol City to send Vale into the fifth round for the first time in 30 years. Now he had slain a Premier League giant. His mother’s family hails from the north-east of England, and Waine grew up supporting Newcastle — Sunderland’s bitterest rivals. The irony was not lost on him.
“I didn’t even clock it was the quarters we got into, to be honest! I just heard that. It’s amazing,” Waine told BBC Sport afterwards. “It doesn’t get better than that. That was something I’ve never even dreamt of, for it to go that way I think my family will be happy!”
Waine arrived at Port Vale after spells at Wellington Phoenix in New Zealand’s A-League. He has been a revelation in the cups, scoring the goals that matter most when the stakes are highest. Asked about the team’s recent run after a tough old season in the league, he was defiant: “Over the last couple of weeks we have come together as a team and found something to drive us forward. We’re sticking together.”
Jon Brady — The Man Behind the Miracle
The architect of this extraordinary cup run is a 50-year-old Australian who most football fans had never heard of before January. Jon Brady was appointed Port Vale manager on 06 January 2026, replacing Darren Moore, who was sacked on Boxing Day after a 5-0 thrashing at Huddersfield Town left the club ten points adrift at the bottom of League One.
Brady’s managerial career has been spent almost entirely in the shadows. He managed Brackley Town in the Southern Premier Division for six and a half years, winning the league title and seven trophies before joining Northampton Town’s academy. He eventually took charge of Northampton’s first team, guiding them to automatic promotion to League One and the club’s highest finish in 16 years. He has managed over 500 games without ever being sacked — a rarity in modern football.
His impact at Vale Park has been immediate. Since taking over, Brady has won six of 14 matches in charge. Four of Port Vale’s six league wins this season have come under his management. In the cups, he is unbeaten — three wins from three in the FA Cup (Fleetwood, Bristol City, Sunderland) and a creditable run to the EFL Trophy quarter-finals before elimination by Stockport County.
After the Sunderland match, Brady was still trying to process what had happened: “In a bit of shock, really, to be honest. We worked out a game plan, worked very hard — we knew we would suffer without the ball and the pitch would help us.”
He continued: “I asked Granit Xhaka: have you ever played on a pitch worse than this before? He said yes, I’ve played on worse!”
On his players, Brady was effusive: “Our top goalscorer was taken and sold to Luton, another boy goes to Plymouth and 55 per cent of our goals and assists went away from us. We have injuries in the backline and I have the smallest guy in the middle. But the last six games we have done well, we’re undefeated.”
And on the meaning of the result for the club: “The fans have been through a lot. Our owner Carol (Shanahan), she is one of the most amazing ladies in business I’ve ever met. She said it’s a game of snakes or ladders. If you go down, it’s big snakes. If you go up, big ladders. That was a great analogy from her today.”
Port Vale’s Remarkable 2025-26 FA Cup Run
The Sunderland result was the culmination of a cup run that has provided the sole source of joy in an otherwise miserable season. Here is every round of Port Vale’s 2025-26 FA Cup campaign:
| Round | Date | Opponent | Score | Scorer(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Round | 02 Nov 2025 | Maldon & Tiptree (Isthmian North) | 5-1 | Paton (2), Hall, Cole (2) |
| Second Round | 06 Dec 2025 | Bristol Rovers (League Two) | 1-0 | Waine |
| Third Round | 09 Jan 2026 | Fleetwood Town (League Two) | 1-0 | Shipley |
| Fourth Round | 03 Mar 2026 | Bristol City (Championship) | 1-0 (AET) | Waine |
| Fifth Round | 08 Mar 2026 | Sunderland (Premier League) | 1-0 | Waine |
All matches played at Vale Park, Burslem. The fourth-round tie was originally scheduled for 14 February but was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch. Brady’s first match as manager was the third-round tie against Fleetwood.
Five matches, five wins, five clean sheets after the first round. The only goal Vale conceded in the entire run was Annisuis Lewis’s early opener for Maldon & Tiptree, the Isthmian League North side who were 99 places below them in the pyramid. Since then, the defence has been imperious. And Waine has been the man for every big occasion — three goals in the last three rounds, each one a match-winner.
Watch: Port Vale Shock Sunderland in the FA Cup
The BBC captured the moment Burslem went wild. Here is their report on Port Vale’s stunning FA Cup victory over Sunderland — a result that sent the League One basement side into the quarter-finals for only the second time in their 150-year history:
Port Vale and Sunderland have a history of cup encounters. Here are highlights from the two sides’ 2021 Carabao Cup meeting at Vale Park — a game Sunderland won 2-1. This time, the result went the other way in spectacular fashion:
Video: Highlights from a previous Port Vale v Sunderland Cup encounter. Official 2025-26 fifth-round highlights may become available via the Emirates FA Cup YouTube channel.
Video: Port Vale v Sunderland, Carabao Cup 2021. Official 2025-26 FA Cup fifth-round highlights may become available via the Emirates FA Cup YouTube channel.
What Went Wrong for Sunderland?
This was an embarrassing afternoon for a club with genuine Premier League pedigree. Sunderland, two-time FA Cup winners, had not reached the quarter-finals since 1973. This was supposed to be their chance — a home draw against League One’s bottom club. Instead, they produced one of the most passive, pedestrian performances of their season.
This was an embarrassing afternoon for a club with genuine Premier League pedigree. Sunderland, two-time FA Cup winners, had not reached the quarter-finals since 1973. This was supposed to be their chance — a draw against League One’s bottom club, away from home at a threadbare Vale Park pitch. Instead, they produced one of the most passive, pedestrian performances of their season.
Former Sunderland midfielder Andy Reid was scathing on BBC Radio 5 Live: “We know Sunderland are going to be in the Premier League next year, so this is in a lot of ways a free hit where they could go and really concentrate on the FA Cup. They put out as strong a team as possible and they just never really got going today in terms of any quality.”