It’s a happy 53rd birthday to ‘Super’ Kevin Phillips today — and what joy and memories he’s given all of us that are old enough and lucky enough to have seen him.
I say that last bit as a nod to the late Kevin Keegan (a player admired and idolised on Merseyside and Tyneside) as youngsters today that are twelve years of age and already in high school, weren’t even born when Keegan hung up his boots.
Time passes and waits for no man, and I have to keep reminding myself of my age, as I could easily take
for granted, that I saw Keegan in his pomp at Anfield alongside John Toshack. So yes, I was lucky enough to have seen Super Kev in his heyday at the Stadium of Light, alongside Niall Quinn.
He’s in the top ten of so many Sunderland rankings and but for our illustrious past, would top many of them, but in the ‘modern era’ (make your own definition up), he’s our most prolific striker.
Cashing in with 130 goals from 235 appearances, he’s sixth on our all-time scorers list, ahead of Raich Carter but behind icons like Bobby Gurney, Charlie Buchan and Dave Halliday. Phillips also boasts the seventh best strike rate, was the fifth fastest to reach fifty goals and lies ninth for hat tricks. He’s in the company of true club legends but this was all achieved in the modern Premier League days.
Phillips was quite a diminutive forward at 5”7, and only eleven stone in old money.
Born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, he started his career at Southampton but was released after being unable to make the breakthrough. He went to non-league Baldock Town where his performances earned him a move to Watford in 1994, and it was from Vicarage Road that we snapped him up for (even then) a paltry £325,000.
If our current ‘model’ was a thing back then, Phillips certainly would’ve fitted the bill as we would later make a tenfold profit on him, selling him back to Southampton (who’d previously dismissed him) for £3.25 million following our relegation from the Premier League in 2003.
No-one had heard much about him at all when we signed him in 1997. He was still learning his trade, but at twenty four, was slightly older than someone “making it” at a big club for the first time.
The mention of the name “Super Kev” will immediately conjure up images of fantastic strikes on goal. I used to watch him during warm ups before a match, in awe of how he constantly found the top corner of the net with every attempt at goal he had.
He was just a natural goal scorer, with quick, nimble feet and rapid speed — especially over the first fifteen metres or so. My go-to match goal will always be the screamer against Chelsea in 1999 — sublime twenty-five yard dipping shot scored as part of that memorable 4-1 victory.
Earlier that same year, there was the deft chip at St James’ Park during the 1-2 derby win in the pouring rain against Ruud Gullit’s Visitors, as well as a four-goal haul against Bury to secure promotion in April 1999 and a memorable hat trick against Derby in our 0-5 victory.
And so it goes on. Happy and exciting times, that’ve only recently been matched at our glorious club.
He was the club’s player of the season in both 1997/1998 and 1999/2000 (the season he became the first English player to win the European Golden Shoe, after thirty Premier League goals), sandwiching his strike partner Niall Quinn in 1998/1999.
That was a strike force double act, the like of which was rarely seen before or since. Little and Large. The chemistry was just there and I remember listening to an interview with Quinn about it, and how they worked on it.
He said he didn’t know how they did it, but that there was almost a telepathy between them and the only thing he recalled was that if a ball came to him on the left hand side of the pitch, he would head it to the right, and if he’d wandered to the right, he would head it towards the centre to the left. Otherwise, it was just two highly aware professionals that had a connection with each other.
In our first seventh-place finish in the Premier League, they accounted for 77% of our goals between them. In my lifetime, I can think of Eric Gates and Marco Gabbiadini as another successful front pairing, but although Peter Reid tried to recreate the ‘little and large’, two up front scenario with the likes of Tore Andre Flo, it never worked.
These days, of course, 4-4-2 is largely frowned upon, but I often think it would be a great tactic to use every so often — Brian Brobbey and Wilson Isidor up front, anyone?
He also won eight England caps and I still remember being way more invested in the national team whenever a Sunderland player appeared.
There was a game under Kevin Keegan in 1999 when both Kev and Mickey Gray appeared in the same England team, his debut coming when we were still in the Championship. That couldn’t happen today, I don’t think. Proud moments indeed and hopefully one day, it’ll happen again.
Kev continued to do relatively well in front of goal after leaving Wearside, scoring twenty two goals in sixty four appearances at the Saints before a bit of a blip at Aston Villa and finding his form again at West Brom, scoring thirty eight goals in seventy one matches. He continued a roughly one goal in three strike rate at Birmingham (2008-2011) and Blackpool (2011-2013) before age started catching up with him.
After disappointing stints at Crystal Palace and Leicester, he hung up his very famous boots in 2014. He scored a total of 287 competitive goals in 662 senior appearances — a truly fantastic return.
Since then, he’s dabbled in management at South Shields, Hartlepool and most recently AFC Fylde, but is now concentrating on youth coaching and ambassadorial appearances. His name is often thrown into the hat whenever we’ve had managerial shortlists, but I’m not sure that’s an area he’ll ever succeed in.
He can occasionally be seen on our screens giving his analysis during games. Whenever he’s spotted at the Stadium of Light, the cries of “Super Kevin Phillips” can still ring around the ground and of course, he’s been honoured on our new Legends’ Way.
There’ll come a time when we’ll all be able to muse about seeing Super Kevin Phillips: “I remember when…”, “When I was your age”, “I was there”, etc.
So it’s a very happy birthday, Kev, from all your Sunderland family. I’m sure we’ll see you around these parts again soon.
