SUNDERLAND, ENGLAND - APRIL 18: Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray looks on during the Sky Bet Championship between Sunderland and Huddersfield Town at Stadium of Light on April 18, 2023 in Sunderland, England. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Sunderland mourns the passing of ‘Singing Winger’ Colin Grainger.
Grainger, who played for Sunderland for three years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was nicknamed the ‘Singing Winger’ for his ability to combine a successful football career with a stint in showbusiness.
In the 1950s, he recorded for the HMV label and featured on the same Manchester bill as The Beatles in 1963, as well as headlining at the London Palladium.
His football career began with Sheffield United, where he earned the first of his seven England caps, scoring twice in a 4-2 win over Brazil at Wembley Stadium.
In addition to scoring against Brazil, he also scored against defending World Cup holders West Germany in a game played in Berlin in 1956.
He joined Sunderland in February 1957 for a sum of £17,000, with reserve winger Sam Kemp heading in the opposite direction, but was a member of the club’s first relegation team.
In the following season, he scored Sunderland’s first-ever Second Division goal against Lincoln, and in April 1957, he received his seventh and last England cap while playing for Sunderland in a Wembley victory against Scotland.
He was a Football League representative twice, and he left Roker Park in the summer of 1960, having scored 14 goals in 124 first-team appearances.
“I was doing something I loved and getting paid £12 a week for it,” he remarked in an interview with The Northern Echo in 2000, after retiring to Skelmanthorpe. Football nowadays is extremely cutthroat, and the money is insane.”
After a disagreement with manager Alan Brown, he left Sunderland for Leeds, and then transferred to Port Vale for £6,000 in October 1961.
He helped Port Vale shock Sunderland out of the FA Cup four months after going to Vale Park, setting up two goals in a 3-1 fourth-round replay win.
After his playing career ended, he became a scout and was frequently seen at Eppleton monitoring Sunderland Reserves.
