OTD: DANNY ROSE BORN

Born on this day is former England international, Danny Rose. Rose joined Sunderland on loan from Spurs and was named our Young Player of the Season, before tarnishing his reputation slightly by signing for the M*gs later in his career...

When he arrived on Wearside, he was coming off the back of the 2012 London Olympics where Danny played in a Great Britain XI. The loanee made his debut in Red and White in a 1-1 draw against Liverpool and featured heavily throughout the season. He really was a class act during his year-long spell here.

Rose’s one and only goal for the club came in an infamous 6-1 defeat to fellow relegation candidates, Aston Villa. The attack-minded fullback swept home an equaliser to make it 1-1 at the time, but a tidy finish was not enough to stop the Villa onslaught.

The attack-minded fullback featured in Sunderland's first win at St James’ Park in 13 years, a game where David Vaughan of all people scored an absolute screamer! Paulo Di Canio led the charge against Alan Pardew’s men, and celebrated each goal in typical Di Canio fashion.

Since returning to Spurs from his loan spell, Danny Rose became a mainstay at left back for many years and played over 100 games for Tottenham. One of those games was the 2019 Champions League final where his side lost to Liverpool in Madrid. He also collected a runners-up medal in the 2015 League Cup, when Spurs were defeated by Chelsea.

On the international stage he collected 29 England caps, the most recent coming in October 2019. When Sunderland hosted England vs Australia in 2016 he was an unused sub - funnily enough, Bailey Wright played in that game four years before he'd sign for SAFC himself. Anyway, five of Rose's caps came during the 2018 World Cup including a substitute appearance in the semi-final against Croatia.

However, Rose seemed to have fallen out of love with football and in 2018 announced that he had been suffering with depression. He also went on to claim that he wanted to end his career due to racism in football. In the following years, Rose struggled under new manager Jose Mourinho, and footage emerged on an Amazon documentary of the pair having major problems with each other. This culminated in a tense meeting where Rose asked Mourinho what his problem was, before storming out.

Despite these set-backs, Rose still managed to be selected in the PFA Team of the Year in two years consecutively for Spurs. After being at Spurs for seven years without a loan move, the left back then surprisingly joined Newcastle (boo) on loan in January 2020, where he played 11 times in half a season. He then joined Watford on a permanent deal in 2021.

He spent the 2021/22 season with the Hornets, where Rose and Watford had turgid seasons both collectively and individually as Watford were relegated. The defender was frozen out by Claudio Ranieri in December, claiming Rose had to improve his fitness levels. He retired from football after being released by the Yellow Army in September 2022. It's a shame to see a player fall so far out of favour, after showing immense potential on Wearside and being highly rated for so long at Spurs.

Danny trained with York City for a while to keep his fitness levels up but formally announced his retirement from professional football in the summer of 2024, five years after claiming he "couldn't wait to retire" due to frustrations over racism in football. Happy birthday Danny.