Former Sunderland player Connor Wickham was born on this day in 1993 in Hereford. He’s a player who has been around for years and it’s easy to forget that we signed him when he was just 18 years old. That was way back in 2011. He scored 15 times in 90 appearances overall - not a great record for a striker, but he did play a massive part in our Great Escape.
Before his arrival on Wearside, in a deal that would rise to £12 million, he was one of the best young prospects in the EFL. He was the youngest ever player to play for Ipswich at 16 years old and in 37 first-team starts and 35 substitute appearances, found the net 15 times.
A great deal of his goals were excellent as well and with his overall style of play, a bit of finesse enhanced his relatively unimpressive goal return. Not to say it was a bad goal return, the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland have skewed the expectations of how many goals a teenager can be expected to score, as Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney did for a generation prior. In our stat-heavy age, his goal return doesn’t scream ‘sign me for 12 million’ but that is just what we did. Sort of. It was an initial fee of 8 million pounds. Still, he was unproven at Premier League level and we needed a player who could fit right in, having lost some key forwards.
Under Steve Bruce, we initially had a brilliant goalscorer in Darren Bent but he had jumped ship to Villa for a payday, Danny Welbeck had returned to Manchester United after his successful loan spell, Asamoah Gyan had left leaving only Fraizer Campbell from our previous, relatively successful season under Bruce. In addition to Wickham, we drafted in Nicklas Bendtner on loan from Arsenal and Ji Dong-Won from Chunnam Dragons but these two failed to match the goalscoring exploits of Bent. In fact, Wickham managed just one goal, Ji got two (though one was very iconic) and Bendtner finished our top scorer with just eight goals.
Naturally, Wickham was sent out on loan and went to Sheffield Wednesday initially for a month. A day after joining he made his debut, then exactly a month later he scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 win away against Leicester City in what was the last game of his loan spell. Just as he had scored, he had to pack up his bags and leave Sheffield.
His next moment of any real significance came much later when his late goals prevented an embarrassing early cup exit at the hands of Milton Keynes Dons. Wickham scored twice and assisted Jozy Altidore's goal as we scored four times in the last 20 minutes to win 4–2. I remember this game vividly and Wickham had a decent game, perhaps demonstrating that he could do it against smaller sides but just couldn’t cut it in the Premier League. To be fair to Wickham, the same could be said for Jozy. Connor was a lot better than him.
Another loan to Wednesday ensued, where he fared better in front of goal, scoring eight times in 11 games before being farmed out to Leeds United, also on loan. However, with Steven Fletcher injured and Jozy just, well, completely useless, Wickham was recalled. Could the man who had never really done anything notable in his Sunderland career, except spare our blushes against lower league opponents, score the goals to keep us up?
The answer was yes, yes he could. Wickham suddenly had all the goalscoring urges that he seemed to lack before. Easily bullied for his size too often, the striker had toughened up. As anyone who watched him in the time period between can attest, he was a transformed player. He scored a brace in a 2–2 draw with Manchester City, just three days later, he scored the club's first goal in Sunderland's 2–1 win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, ending that famous Mourinho home record and then scored another brace in our 4–0 thrashing of Cardiff. Obviously, he was named Premier League Player of the Month for April for his proficiency in front of goal. He also teed up Larsson for his goal in our win against United at Old Trafford. So, Wickham had his best month of football in his entire career, a fact still true to this day.
He signed for Palace and did fine, until he didn’t and had to be sent to Sheffield Wednesday presumably because sending him there sort of worked in the past for us? He was released from Palace eventually after injury struggles, then he joined Preston, suffering the indignity of another release from the Championship side. Now seemingly completely washed up, he signed for MK Dons. Visibly overweight, he returned to the SOL for the Dons and of course, scored his first goal for Franchise FC against us. Because of course he did.
He then had a brief spell with newly-promoted Forest Green where he scored nine in 20 games. Not a bad return to be fair, and he also scored an unreal goal from the halfway line in the FA Cup against South Shields. His contract expired in January 2023 and he's now back in the Championship, with Cardiff City. Happy birthday Connor. Please don't score against us next time we play Cardiff...
