Born on this day in 1960 in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) is Iain Hesford.
To say that the death of Iain Hesford came as a shock would be an understatement – footballers are sportsmen, and as such are therefore fitter than the majority of the population. Also, because they are sportsmen in general and footballers in particular, they are regarded as immortal in some way. Unfortunately for them, they are only human and this means that they are susceptible to the same diseases and frailties as the rest of us mere mortals. Iain’s passing at the young age of 54, the suspected victim of a heart attack, enforces that sad but irrefutable fact.
Players don’t have to be part of a side that wins something big or significant to become a part of a club’s history, or part of the memory of the fans, but Iain was at the club at a significant time in its history. He was born in Rhodesia into a real sporting family – his dad Bob included the 1938 FA Cup final as one of several hundred appearances in goal for Huddersfield, his brother Bob junior played rugby union for England, and other brother Steve had a long stint at Warrington playing rugby union. Arriving from Sheffield Wednesday (where his only appearances came while on loan at Fulham and Notts County) for £80,000 in September 1986, it quickly became apparent that he was a bit of a character. We’d heard that on his league debut as Blackpool’s youngest keeper, he’d become involved in a bit of what we now describe as “banter” with the opposing Oldham fans. Flicking the Vs at a football crowd at the age of seventeen takes some guts – or are all goalkeepers just a bit mad? He won seven England U21 caps while beside the seaside.
Despite being a keeper signed by Mackemenemy, which is usually a bad thing, he started well with a clean sheet in a 2-0 victory at Mick Buxton’s Huddersfield (Frank Gray and Dave Swindlehurst scoring in the space of two second-half minutes),but had an inconsistent season - as did most of his teammates. That season we remember for all the wrong reasons, but Iain picked himself up, won his place back from Steve Hardwick who’d been brought in by Denis Smith, and was a key figure as we won promotion from the third division. One of my lasting memories was of a game against Bishop Auckland at their old Kingsway ground, when he faced up to the penalty shoot-out wearing his gloves over his boots. The Durham Senior Cup semi-final had been halted ten minutes into extra time as Bish had no working floodlights, so the sides agreed to the shoot-out, in which Ian saved two with his bare hands as we won 4-1. Others will remember him gracing the front cover of the Sunderland fanzine, Wise Men Say, with the caption “bringing the game into disrepute.” This referred to the photograph, which clearly showed a Wigan player kicking the ball out of our keeper’s hands prior to their last-minute equaliser – March 1988, the day of the famous mudslide.
After 112 games over two and a bit seasons, in which he was only booked once, he was involved in the complicated deal that saw him and Billy Whitehurst go to Hull, and Tony Norman come to Roker. Obviously, he played a storming game when we met at Boothferry Park on New Year’s Day 1990, although he later admitted that Gary Bennett’s effort, which he was credited as saving, was “two yards over the line.”
After relegation with Hull, Iain had a couple of years at Maidstone Utd where he made the record books by scoring the winner in a 3-2 victory over Hereford. This was his last spell playing in the UK, as he went way out east to forge a good career over the following six years, winning a host of trophies in China. He returned to the UK in 1998 and did some coaching, and latterly ran a hotel near Rochdale.
While at Sunderland, he’d lived where most of the Lads lived, in Shincliffe near Durham, and was very much part of the social scene (he wasn’t scared of a pint, apparently), and was always welcoming to the supporters. The fact that he played the game as a sport, meaning that he took it seriously but always gave the impression that he’d happily turn out on a Sunday morning (and afternoon) if you asked nicely, endeared him to a lot of the fans. If you were a youngster setting out on your Sunderland supporting journey in the late eighties, you’d have taken to Iain Hesford as a sporting character. A sportsman in the real sense of the word.
