Born on this day in 1951 in Newcastle is Mick McGiven, who turned pro with us in 1968 and took only a season to become a regular across the back line following his part in our FA Youth Cup win at the end of the ’68-’69 season.
Tough in the tackle and defensively versatile – in the days when shirt numbers actually indicated a position on the field, he wore 2, 4, 5 and 6 in his first season, as Len Ashurst simply wouldn’t let anyone else get in at left back. Following his debut on the opening day (alongside fellow debutants Joe Baker and Colin Symm), he was ever-present in the league – which is some achievement for a teenager. He even weighed in with four league goals, only outscored by Gordon Harris with seven – and four of those were penalties.
With defensive competition featuring Hurley, Pitt, Irwin, Harvey, Ashurst, and Todd in Mick’s first seasons, and Watson, Malone, Guthrie, Coleman, and Bolton after that, Mick’s appearances never again came close to his first season. In ‘70-‘71 he played 16 times, 19 the following campaign, and 18 in ’72-’73. In that successful FA Cup campaign, he played just once, and that as a midfielder as we beat Notts County in the third round replay at Roker. Having made five appearances the following season, he went on loan to West Ham in November ’73, and impressed enough in that month to command a fee of £20,000 to make the move permanent, joining former Sunderland colleague Keith Coleman, who’d arrived in East London for the same fee a few months earlier.
The boots Mick was expected to fill were those of Bobby Moore (ask anybody), who played his final West Ham game in January ’74. Over the next four seasons, though, competition from John McDowell and Frank Lampard (snr) - and Keith Coleman - was fierce and, coupled with injuries restricted this him to 48 league appearances before he hung up his boots in 1978, joining the Hammers’ coaching staff. There was a spell looking after the Chelsea youth side before he joined John Lyall, his old West Ham boss, at Ipswich, acting as assistant manager for three years. In 1993 he was to all intents and purposes managing the side as Lyall moved upstairs to become one of England’s first directors of football. I’d call it gardening leave.
There followed about a decade back at Chelsea with coaching roles at various levels before, in 2009, becoming a scout for another lengthy period. He left Chelsea in 2018, but maintained a connection as his son Paul worked on the coaching staff at the Bridge as well as following his dad into scouting.
Mick’s Sunderland career brought 126 games and a dozen goals – and just the one sending off, for a second booking (in those pre-card days). That was at Huddersfield in September ’72 as Ian Porterfield’s overhead kick from about halfway (memory embellishes these things, and it was a long time ago) earned us a 1-1 draw.
