Past Sunderland AFC heroes Jordan Pickford, Jordan Henderson, Gary Rowell and more immortalised in new 2019 calendar - and you can win one

Freelance graphic designer, caricaturist and illustrator David Wright has created a 2019 calendar based on former Sunderland AFC players entitled “Homegrown Heroes”.

The calendar features caricatures of former favourites such as Craig Russell, Shaun Elliott, Gary Rowell, Colin Todd and even current England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, who now plays for Everton.

It is a labour of love for David, who grew up in Roker and still has a season ticket at SAFC.

“This is the third calendar I’ve done but for the first two years Sunderland’s fortunes had really dipped with their relegations,” said David, 38.

“This year I decided to focus on some of the finest players to come through Sunderland youth system over the years, I believe they’re the sort of players that supporters have a real affinity with - everyone likes to see a local player come through the system and do well for the first team, and in the cases of Jordan Pickford and Jordan Henderson, go on to make a real impact at international level.

“This calendar features stalwarts of Sunderland’s past such as Stan Anderson, players who made an impact as teenagers such as Colin Todd and Martin Smith, and those such as Gordon Armstrong, who played for the club for over 10 years.

“Each caricature takes around 10 hours to complete, they are all hand drawn, and coloured digitally on a Wacom Cintiq tablet.

“The older players are the trickiest to do as source images are a great deal harder to come by.”

Despite now living in Darlington with his wife Emma, 34, and sons Harry, three, and Ronnie, one, David still manages to get to plenty of Black Cats games.

“I’ve managed to get to quite a few away games this year,” he said.

“I think the novelty of being in League One will wear off if we are still next season, but I’m confident we will go up.”

The calendars are available on David’s website at www.dw-caricatures.com along with prints and mugs paying tribute to players of Sunderland’s past.

The calendars are priced at £8.99, plus postage and packaging.

They are also in stock at SAFC Supporters Association and The City Art Store in Sunderland.

WIN A CALENDAR

We’ve got three copies of the Homegrown Heroes Calendar to give away.

To be in with a chance of winning simply answer the following question.

Q. Which Sunderland player moved to Liverpool in the summer 2011 transfer window?

a). Jordan Pickford

b). Jordan Henderson

c). Simon Mignolet

Entries should be emailed to [email protected]

The deadline for entries is Tuesday, November 27.

Usual competition rules apply.