Born on this day in 1973 in Hendon, London is former Sunderland and Republic of Ireland centre-back Gary Breen.
Breen began his football career in Charlton Athletic’s youth system but would make his professional debut for Maidstone United in 1991.
After a season at the Stones he made a move to Kent with Gillingham where he had a successful two years. Gary caught the eye of Peterborough United because of this and, for a fee of £70,000, he completed a move there.
A season and a half later, Breen continued to impress and a much larger offer of £250,000 came in for him from second tier Birmingham City in 1996. His form at the Blues earned him his first cap for the Republic of Ireland national team. Seemingly never liking to stay in one place for very long, the Irishman packed up his bags and left for Coventry City of the Premier League for 10 times the amount of his previous transfer after only a year in the Second City.
His time at the Sky Blues would end up being the lengthiest time he spent at any one club in his entire career as he spent a whole five seasons at Highfield Road. During this period he was called up for the 2002 World Cup in Japan/South Korea with Mick McCarthy at the helm and Ireland were narrowly knocked out in the round of 16 stage on penalties vs Spain. In the penultimate season of this spell, Coventry were relegated from the Premier League but he remained for one season in the First Division.
The defender made his way back to his home city and the top flight, in the form of a free transfer to West Ham but unfortunately this was very unsuccessful as the Hammers finished 18th and were relegated.
Connections with ex-RoI manager Mick McCarthy paid dividends when his next move (also a free) ended up being to a then First Division Sunderland managed by the Irish manager. We were defeated in the play-off final in his debut campaign but went up as champions of the newly renamed Championship in the following season for which he captained the squad and was named in the PFA Team of the Year. His final season was definitely one to forget as we finished rock bottom on just 15 points and only managed three Premier League wins all season. When Breen started for the club (on 113 occasions) we actually won 53% of those games and this clearly continued to keep him in a good light in the eyes of McCarthy as when he left Wearside following this relegation, he tagged along with our ex-manager to his new job at Wolves.
He hardly missed a game in his first season at Wolves and in the next he was made their captain but struggled with an injury that saw him sidelined for several months. Breen was involved in a post-match incident with his long-time manager in March 2008, which ended a great relationship on a very sour note. As 2008 came to an end, his career also began to wind down with him becoming a player-coach at League Two Barnet and then a year later becoming player-assistant manager in his final season as a professional footballer.
Three years later, the ex-footballer carried out his last foray into the footballing world becoming a coach at his ex-club Peterborough United.
Overall he made a big impact at Sunderland and with his national side, managing a total of 63 caps and scoring seven goals. Irish fans would often sing a song about Gary Breen to the same tune as our famous song about Gary Rowell.
