Born on this day in 1942 is Cec Irwin.
Ellington-born Cec was a childhood Sunderland fan, and when he got himself the coveted job of carrying the scoreboard around Portland Park during Ashington games, was initially happy with the pay (5 shillings, that’s 25p) but when, in 1956, Sunderland played the mags in the FA Cup quarter final, he had a problem. Cec set off round the dogtrack 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 spent a while on a mining induction course, football seemed a better option. He made his debut against Ipswich 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, and still our youngest outfield debutant). 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 in ’59-’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 ’61, but broke his wrist early the following campaign. He missed only three games in the ’63-’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 Forest in the autumn of 1968, and galloped towards the Roker End. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as it transpired) he outpaced his team-mates 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 14 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 ‘74, 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 ’75, played for Gateshead, bought the paper shop where his wife Margaret worked, then had three stints managing Ashington.
Until recently the couple watched every Sunderland home game, and Cec is a keen golfer and member of the Former Players’ Association, looking as fit as fire.
HAWAAAAAY CEC!
