OTD: BOULD SIGNS

On this day in 1999, Sunderland signed decorated centre half Steve Bould from Arsenal. He arrived as a 36-year-old and ended his playing career by helping us to a seventh-placed Premier League finish. It was a brief spell here but he had a massive impact.

Bould turned professional with his boyhood club Stoke City in 1980, making his debut away to Middlesbrough a year later. Still a youngster, he was sent to Bruce Ricoh’s Torquay United to gain more experience. Upon returning from Torquay, Bould was moved from right back to centre back, a move that turned out to be a masterstroke. The defender excelled for the Potters, and was regularly described as the best defender in Division Two. This excellent form attracted the interest of both Everton and Arsenal, with Bould opting to join the latter in 1988.

At Arsenal, Bould became part of their famous back four alongside Tony Adams, Nigel Winterburn and former Stoke teammate Lee Dixon. In August 1992, the defender scored Arsenal’s first ever Premier League goal. It came at Highbury against Norwich City, although the Canaries went on to win 4-2.

Injuries meant that Bould was often left out of the team and was second-choice behind Martin Keown when Arsene Wenger took over in 1996. However, the Frenchman's arrival ignited a revival for Bould, who became a key player in Arsenal’s team that won the double in 1997/98.

In 1999, Andy Melville left Sunderland to join Fulham, alongside club captain Kevin Ball. In an effort to replace Melville, Peter Reid brought in Bould for £500,000. He soon named the experienced defender as our new club captain following Bally’s departure. Age wasn’t on his side, admittedly, but Wenger’s innovative nutrition and training regimes had given Bould a new lease of life and he would later go on to describe his time at Sunderland as "him in his prime"!

The defensive partnership of Steve Bould and Paul Butler was extremely formidable, as Sunderland took the Premier League by storm in the first half of the season. We were fifth in the league in January before Bould had to drop out of the side due to injury. It was a real shame and we ended up dropping down to seventh by the end of the campaign.

The following season saw Steve play just once (in the second game of the season, against Man City) before injury forced his retirement. His final game tallied his total up to a round 500 career league games, with exactly 400 of those coming in the top flight. Only 21 of them had come with SAFC but the defender’s experience was instrumental in helping develop youngsters such as Jody Craddock, Darren Williams and Darren Holloway.