On This Day (22nd April 1935): Vintage Performance From Remarkable Urwin

Preston North End were the opposition in this 1934/35 season. Jimmy Connor had picked up an injury in the game at Birmingham just two days earlier in the hectic Easter programme of three games in four days and with the ‘mighty atom’ Patsy Gallacher absent through suspension, the call went out for replacements. George Goddard would fill in for Gallacher and with the squad pushed to its limits, veteran winger, “junior team” coach/assistant trainer and masseuse Tommy Urwin was drafted in.

Sunderland had beaten Preston at Roker Park just three days earlier by three goals to one and now the rematch at Deepdale would see a last hurrah for the remarkable Tommy Urwin, twenty-two years after he made his league debut for Middlesbrough. Tommy Urwin was born in Haswell, County Durham on 5 February 1896. He lived most of his early life in the Sunderland area.

In the 1901 Census he was living at 7 South View, Ryhope. By 1911 he was living with his parents at 39 Eglinton Street, Monkwearmouth, with his parents, however the census records that five of his nine siblings are deceased. Tommy, recalling his childhood, fondly remembered starting to play football with a milk tin or “a penny bullock’s bladder on killing day”, dreaming of playing for Sunderland and hoping for a ticket to their next game.

He played schools football in Sunderland and in 1910 played for Sunderland Boys in the English Schools Shield at Roker Park, impressing enough to win an English Schools cap shortly afterwards. He played for Fulwell FC in the Sunderland Non-Conformist League, also turning out for Lambton Star. In 1913 he was working as an engine fitter at the colliery and he signed amateur forms with Shildon and was persuaded to sign professional forms in early 1914.