CECIL IRWIN was Sunderland’s right back, rampaging and much respected, throughout the 1960s. Len Ashurst, no less loved, almost always joined forces to his left.

“Cec and Len, Cec and Len, Flowerpot Men,” the innocent-age Roker End would chant. “They were characters on children’s television, nowt to do with hippies and that,” Cec unnecessarily explains.

That he managed just five goals in 349 appearances – one in the right end, four at the other – worried them not a jot. “A fine prospect from the beginning,” says a Sunderland history. “A splendidly reliable right back who enjoyed a strong, determined tackle and a good positional sense.”

He’s now approaching 76, barely a peck above his playing weight, has a bit of arthritis in his feet – on which he blames a diminished golf swing – and announces that he’s a bit corned beef.

Come again? “Deef,” says Cec, as a Cockney might suppose himself mutton. It’s a rare example of rhyming slang in the Ashington area, a linguistically unparalleled part of the world in which invariably he answers to See-sel, or to friends simply Seece.

He counts his blessings. Two or three of those 60s favourites are dead, another has cancer, another Alzheimer’s, several Meccano metalwork.

“I’ve been very lucky,” says Cec. “Every night when I was nine or ten and said my prayers, I’d ask that I could play for Sunderland, Arsenal and England.”

Later he turned down Arsenal – “a hell of a long way in those days” – made eight England youth team appearances, would feature in any Sunderland hall of fame. “It’s been a canny life,” he admits.

HE lives with wife Margaret in Ellington, four miles north of Ashington, where once the pit employed more than 2,000 men and was the last deep mine in the country when the door banged shut in 2005.

In the smart detached house there’s just one visible reminder of glory days, a photograph taken at Leeds United of Cec winning the ball from the great John Charles with Bully Bremner off the pace.

“His name rings a bell,” says the taxi driver from Ashington, uncertainly, though Cec is happy to keep a low profile. Under “notable residents”, indeed, Wikipedia lists only a Roman Catholic cardinal accused of sexual impropriety and said to be in a church-owned bungalow thereabouts.

It’s also the village where Cec was born, his mum happy to head back to her own mother’s for the delivery– “no health service in those days” – and for an extra pair of hands/

“It’s changed no end. There were just four rows of terraces and a few houses going down towards Cresswell,” he says, and might have added that place is now so gentrified that the sole village pub now feels able to charge £3 40 a pint.

As a boy he’d support Sunderland – like a surprising number of others in that part of the world– and Ashington, then playing at Portland Park in the North Eastern League, when Sunderland were away.

“There was a wall near the bus station, we’d climb that and watch over the fence,” he remembers. “When they opened the gate to let everyone out, that’s when we went in.”

He played for East Northumberland boys, left school at 15, did an eight-week mining induction. “They’d put you in a completely dark room, take your lamp away and see how long you lasted. It was as frightening as hell; I think the record was about a minute.”

Like many another North-East lad he went on trial to Burnley, where Ashington lad Jimmy Adamson was captain, was on the point of signing when Sunderland manager Allan Brown came in.

“He said that whatever I did not to sign for Burnley. It was Browny who’d turned Burnley around. He said he was going to do the same for Sunderland.”

THAT most Northumberland folk remain black-and-white was illustrated by a match at Portland Park when a young Cec landed the job, coveted by the kids, of taking the scores blackboard around the surrounding greyhound track. “I think you got five shillings,” he recalls.

It was March 3 1956. Newcastle, the holders, were simultaneously playing Sunderland in the FA Cup quarter-final, more than 61,000 shoehorned into St James’ Park and neither side in stripes.

Sunderland scored, Cec set off. “I got pelted with apples, oranges, peanuts, all sorts. When Sunderland scored again in the second half, I told them someone else could do it.”

Wonderfully nostalgic Pathe News footage on the internet shows Bill Holden’s two goals; a period piece photograph has red-rosetted Sunderland fans joyously invading the pitch at the end.

Holden, an England B international, had signed for £12,000 from Burnley just three months earlier. After an under-achieving seven goals in 19 games he was discounted, half price, to Stockport. Sunderland lost to Birmingham City in the semi-final.

HE was just 16 years and 165 days old, remains Sunderland’s youngest outfield debutant, when called into the team at home to Ipswich. Len Ashurst and the late Jimmy McNab made their debuts the same afternoon.

Sunderland lost 2-0, one of the goals following a mistake by Alan O’Neill. “I remember (centre half) Charlie Hurley getting really angry, chasing after Alan, pulling his shirt. It was quite frightening, really, for a lad of 16.”

In 1963-64 he helped Sunderland to promotion, team regulars earning a £1,500 bonus. Brown left soon afterwards. “I don’t think he got the same bonus that we did,” says Cec. “It upset him and it unsettled us.”

He became Yeovil Town’s player/manager in 1972, his only regret that there wasn’t a Roker Park testimonial. “Bob Stokoe had promised Olly Burton a match at Newcastle and couldn’t do two.

“He did send a team down to Yeovil, but it wasn’t the same attraction down there. Olly got £30,000 and I got £3,000.”

Having twice guided Yeovil to second place in the Southern League – “£50 a week and a house, good money in them days” – he returned north in 1975, played for Gateshead, bought the Ashington paper shop where his wife worked and began the first of three spells as manager of the team they call the Colliers.

“We had nowt,” says Cec. “I remember playing at South Bank, down Middlesbrough, and someone wanted a team photograph. I wouldn’t let him because the kits were so torn and shabby. They weren’t even properly washed, we couldn’t afford the laundry.”

Former club chairman Jimmy Lang recalls going on holiday to Lake Garda ahead of the second appointment. “I tellt them they could appoint anyone except Seece, I just didn’t like him.

“When I rang up they’d appointed Seece and, to be fair, I was wrong. He got us promotion to the Northern League first division.”

So how did he enjoy 25 years as a newsagent? “Like a bloody caged lion, six in the morning till six at night, but it meant security for the family. Football never could have done.”

HE and Margaret still watch every Sunderland home game. “I’m not one of those former players who goes around shouting about how things were better in their day, but I do worry,” says Cec. “They don’t seem to start playing until they’re two or three goals down, it’s the only time they show much spirit.”

Lovely chap, he’s now content to play his golf and walk his dog. “It’s been a good life,” says Bill – or was it Ben? – “mebbe them prayers were answered after all.”