OTD: CECIL IRWIN BORN

On this day in 1942, former Sunderland defender Cecil Irwin was born. He made just over 350 appearances for the club between 1958 and 1971, playing a key role in our first ever promotion in 1964.

Ellington-born Cec was a childhood Sunderland fan. When he got himself the coveted job of carrying the scoreboard around Portland Park during Ashington games, he was initially happy with the pay (five shillings, that’s 25p) but when, in 1956, Sunderland played Newcastle United in the FA Cup quarter final, he had a problem. Cec set off round the dog track that surrounded the pitch, Sunderland scored, and he was pelted “with apples, oranges, peanuts, all sorts. When Sunderland scored again in the second half, I told them someone else could do it.”

He progressed through East Northumberland Schools football and caught the eye of several top clubs, turning down Arsenal and spending a month at Burnley. Nothing came of that trial, mainly because Alan Brown jumped in and persuaded Cec that Sunderland was the place to be, so, in 1958, he signed as an amateur with the club he’d supported all his life. Having left school at 15 and, after spending a while on a mining induction course, football seemed a better option. He made his debut against Ipswich Town in September 1958, six months before turning professional, his only outing of the campaign, hardly surprising as he was only 16 (our youngest debutant at the time). His fullback partner, three years older, was fellow debutant Len Ashurst, later to become his defensive marra for over a decade as part of the famous duo Cec and Len, the flowerpot man (ask yer granddad).

There were seven games played in 1959/60 and two the season after that but the lack of Sunderland appearances was compensated for by eight England youth caps. He established himself in the side after replacing Colin Nelson in 1961 but broke his wrist early the following campaign. He missed only three games in the 1963/64 promotion season. There was another spell out of the side, when John Parke was preferred, but Cec stuck it out and won his place back. Thanks to manager Alan Brown’s forward thinking, he was one of the world’s first overlapping full backs and got the Roker crowd on their feet when he bombed down the right and fired in a cross to the likes of Johnny Crossan, Nick Sharkey, Neil Martin or, later on, Joe Baker, Billy Hughes or Dave Watson.

In all those seasons of tough tackling and great positional sense, there was only the one goal, when he took a Charley Hurley pass against Nottingham Forest, in the autumn of 1968, and galloped towards the Roker End. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as it transpired) he outpaced his teammates so had no target and, consequently, just fired a speculative shot in from distance. Some have claimed that the wind got behind it, which I dispute, as the wind always blew off the sea at Roker Park, not onto it. Whatever the meteorological conditions, it flew in. We’ll forget the four own goals, obviously, and remember instead the 13 years of loyal service. Cec was my first real Sunderland hero, as I was awestruck by the sight of a defender bombing forward, and I hope he heard my regular roar (as if I could roar at that age) of "HAWAAAAAAY CEC!" from the Fulwell. I wasn’t to know they pronounced it Ceecil in Ashington, we certainly didn’t on Wearside.

After eventually losing his place to Dick Malone, who carried on the marauding, Cec had three seasons as player/manager of Yeovil Town (“£50 a week and a house, good money in them days” said Cec). For some reason, there’d not been a testimonial, so Bob Stokoe sent a team down to Yeovil in May 1974 but the crowd was only 3,241, probably 10% of what it’d have been at Roker. Sunderland lost, Cec played. He returned to Northumberland in 1975, played for Gateshead, bought the paper shop where his wife Margaret worked, then had three stints managing Ashington.

The couple watched most Sunderland home games until Cec's death on 21st April 2025 and Cec was a keen golfer and member of the Former Players’ Association. In October 2023, it was announced that Irwin would be inducted into the SAFC Hall of Fame.