
On this day in 1955 Charlie Fleming played his first match for Sunderland in a 0-0 draw at Bloomfield Road. The Scottish forward was nicknamed “Cannonball” because of his impressive shooting ability.
Scoring 71 goals in just 122 appearances, Fleming is one of the most lethal strikers in Sunderland’s history. The Scotsman signed for £20,000 plus Tommy Wright from East Fife in 1955, at 27 years old. Whilst at East Fife, he was very succesful, winning two League Cups in 1949 and 1953, reaching a Scottish Cup final in 1950 and scoring 117 goals in 173 games. He scored his first goal for the club in an FA Cup draw away to Swansea, heading home Billy Bingham’s cross.
In another FA Cup tie, Fleming scored a hat trick. This was the first of his career, as well as the first of any Sunderland player post-war as Third Division side Norwich City were beaten 4-2. Despite Fleming’s goals, Sunderland were eventually relegated from the top flight for the first time since joining the Football League in 1890 in 1958.
“Cannonball” was phased out by new manager Alan Ball, scoring his last goal in red and white against Aston Villa. He then played his last match for the club against Everton, before joining Bath City in the Southern League where he scored 216 goals in 300 appearances. He played with Tony Book, who had also played alongside the likes of Francis Lee, Colin Bell and Rodney Marsh. However, Ball later claimed he had "never seen anyone time the ball as well as Fleming”. His goalscoring accolades at Bath make him their all time record goalscorer and the player who has scored the most league goals for the club in a single season (37). In 1964, Fleming briefly played in Canada for Toronto City as part of the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League. He left Bath in 1966 and retired from football after this.
On the international stage he earned one cap and scored two goals for Scotland. The sole cap came in a 3-1 win against Northern Ireland in the 1953/54 British Home Championship, the game also doubled as a qualifying match for the '54 World Cup too.
Charlie died in 1997 aged 70 years old, in his home country Scotland. There are only a select few players in Sunderland history with a more clinical goalscoring record than 'Cannonball Fleming', and certainly none in recent history.