Born on this day is former Sunderland and Chelsea winger Clive Walker, whose career saw him play an outstanding 1,000+ matches overall!
Walker was a tricky winger with bags of pace. His ability to beat his fullback was second to none, making his name at Chelsea, including a Man of the Match performance against Liverpool in the FA Cup in 1978. The mercurial attacker scored arguably the most important goal in Chelsea’s history; the only goal of the game in a victory over fellow strugglers Bolton, when defeat would have meant almost certain relegation. Walker was key at Chelsea for a number of years, until falling out of love with the club in 1982.
After becoming disillusioned at Stamford Bridge, Walker joined the lads for around £70,000 in 1984. In a home game against Manchester, United, Clive Walker made headlines against Ron Atkinson’s men. After going 2-0 down fairly quickly, Walker pulled one back after 16 minutes. Remarkably, Walker scored another two goals within three minutes of each other, both being penalties! After beating goalkeeper Gary Bailey to his left once, Walker repeated the feat by firing his second penalty to the keepers left again to seal his hat trick.
In the Milk Cup semi-final, Walker famously scored against his former club at Stamford Bridge, causing an enraged fan to chase him around the pitch! The ex-Chelsea man helped Sunderland to a 5-2 win on aggregate, sending the lads to Wembley. However, in typical Clive Walker fashion the winger went on to miss a crucial penalty in the final, hitting the post as Norwich City won 1-0, with Sunderland defender Gordon Chisholm unfortunate to score an own goal.
After leaving Sunderland, Walker wound down his career at QPR and Fulham before ending up playing non-league football with Woking and Cheltenham Town. He holds the record for being Cheltenham’s oldest ever goalscorer, at 41 years old!
