Born on this day in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland is former Sunderland goalkeeper Trevor Carson.
His uncle was the popular Irish comedian Frank Carson. There is a story that before becoming a comedian on the northern workingmen’s club circuit, that Frank was poor at his job as an electrician, once cutting off a large amount of Belfast’s electricity after severing an important cable. Shortly afterwards, he fared no better as a plasterer, but he avoided the sack due to his natural ability to make people laugh. His employers realised the lads worked harder when Frank was around.
Perhaps this runs in the family, for Trevor Carson was around the Sunderland squad for an awfully long time without making an appearance. He was an unused substitute an incredible 62 times. He was at the club since his arrival from Killyleagh Boys in 2004 and he left in 2012, meaning that if he had held on for another two years he could’ve probably made English football history by being the first player to have a testimonial match without kicking a ball for the club.
The infinitely better Irish comedian, Spike Milligan, once asked the question ‘what’s the difference between Frank Carson and the M1?" Answer: "You can turn off the M1". Perhaps the higher-ups at our club thought similarly about Carson’s nephew for a while – “we can’t get rid of him, but we can loan him out” because Carson spent a lot of time out on loan. Things may well have panned out differently if we didn’t have a surfeit of decent keepers in his time at the club- Craig Gordon, Simon Mignolet, Martin Fulop, Ben Alnwick and Darren Ward were all above him in the pecking order at different times.
He would return from loans at Chesterfield, Lincoln, Hull, Brentford and a couple of stints at Bury always to find a couple of goalkeepers more favoured by the manager than himself. Despite this, he impressed at Bury more than anywhere else and they were happy to sign him on a free after we released him in the summer of 2012. He was number one at Bury until injuries, as well as the arrival of new signings, kept him out of the side. He was told he could leave and joined Portsmouth on loan.
Bury released him and many thought Portsmouth would make a move for him, having made 39 appearances for the club that season, but it never transpired. Instead, he joined Cheltenham Town, again, promised the number one slot. Even though Cheltenham were relegated to the National League, Carson was voted player of the season.
On the back of this, Trevor secured a move to Hartlepool United, a move which brought him closer to his family. In his first season, Carson was awarded Hartlepool United's Player of the Year and Hartlepool Mail Player of the Year. He was also named in The Northern Echo's North-East Team of the Season. His form earned him a call up to the Northern Ireland squad, although injury kept him out of contention. He did manage to make his international debut in 2018 against South Korea, eight years after his first call up. Injury had hampered his international career and he suffered many false starts, but it must have felt brilliant to finally represent his country after a long time in England’s lower leagues.
In the brief Sam Allardyce era, Carson started in goal against us for Hartlepool in a pre season friendly, conceding three. Defoe got two and Khazri another. The lineup that game represents a squad at a curious middle passage, Jermaine Lens, Jack Rodwell and George Honeyman featuring as well as ephemeral SAFC players such as Rees Greenwood, Charles N’Zogbia and Tom Beadling. Carson made a couple of great saves that night in his first game against us.
After Hartlepool, Carson went onto have success at Motherwell, playing in a Scottish Cup final defeat to Celtic and racking up the exact amount of appearances as he had for Hartlepool – 57, before joining Dundee United. No stranger to a loan, as of January 2022 Carson finds himself at Morecambe until the end of the season.
Carson has been open about his addiction to gambling, which started at Sunderland. Niall Quinn helped him out incredibly, asking the keeper to write down his debt and just forget it. Today he keeps on top of his addiction, attending regular Zoom meetings. The way in which he has spoken out over the last few years is remarkable and hopefully his advocacy for a forgotten area of football has been valuable to current and former players, as well as the general public more broadly.
