Born on this day in 1965 in Bridgend, Glamorgan, is Colin Pascoe. Colin arrived at Roker on deadline day 1988, when deadline day was in March, for £70,000.
Denis Smith brought the Welsh international from Swansea, who he’d joined as an apprentice from Afan Nedd schoolboys. He’d already scored 13 times in 34 games for the Swans, who went up into Division Three (League One in today’s money) via the play-offs, so when we were promoted at the end of the season into Division Two (the Championship – keep up at the back!) he’d played a big part in two successful campaigns. His debut came at Smith’s old club York – managed by Bobby “Minging” Saxton – when he was a half-time replacement for another debutant, Dougie Maguire.
Those 45 minutes were the sum total of Maguire’s Sunderland career. Colin’s 83rd minute goal proved only a consolation as we lost 2-1, but there were a further three as we stormed to the league title, with Rotherham, Grimsby, York, and Doncaster going down.
He’d played in all four divisions for Swansea and won the Welsh Cup, his first start being at Anfield, so he knew what going up and down was all about before he joined us. Over the next five seasons his clever footwork kept us entertained, and he was the first Sunderland player I saw execute a Cruyff turn- at the Fulwell, when he did it on the corner of the box and curled a left-footer into the far corner against Palace in September ’88. We ended that season in mid-table obscurity, with Colin’s 12 goals in 47 games proving vital in attaining that position. Top two, in the second tier? Man City and Chelsea.
The following campaign brought another 42 games and we went up via the play-offs and Swindon’s dodgy accountancy. He contributed 5 goals in 28 games in ’90-’91 as we found life in the top flight pretty tough, and finished second bottom to add a fourth relegation to his CV. There were 23 appearances in ’91-’92, but nearly half were from the bench, and at the end of the season he went back to Swansea, initially on loan but signing permanently a year later. In 1994 he was part of the Jacks team that won the Autoglass Trophy at Wembley. While with us, he gained eight of his eleven Welsh caps, was our first Welsh international since Ray Daniel in 1957, and was a player who was very enjoyable to watch.
After three years at Swansea, he played a single game for Blackpool then moved to Merthyr Tydfil for a year before joining Carmarthen Town. When he eventually retired from playing in 1998, with a dodgy ankle precipitating the end, he joined Cardiff as youth team coach, seven years later returning to Swansea. Another seven years behind the scenes followed, he followed manager Brendan Rogers to Liverpool as assistant gaffer. In the summer of 2015 he was relieved of his duties “after an end of season review” and dropped out of top-level football. A brief spell with Barrow is about all he’s done since then.
