Joe Baker was born in Liverpool to Scottish parents, but they made the move North of the Border when Joe was young, which is where he was raised and thus grew up with a strong Scottish accent.
It was while playing as a junior for Coltness United that he began to get noticed, and an early trial at Chelsea didn’t come off. But he did get signed at Hibernian and very quickly became one of the rising stars of Scottish football.
At just 17 years old, Baker scored all four goals in a 4-3 victory over Hearts in a Scottish Cup quarter-final and played in the final against Clyde. During the next few years, he went on from strength to strength and was the club's top scorer in the next four seasons. This caught the attention of Alan Brown in the late 1950s, and there was a chance Sunderland could have signed him for around £4,000, but it didn’t work out.
In 1961, a bigger move did come his way, but mainly as a result of Hibs not backing down when he placed a request for an increased wage of £5 on top of his current wage of £12. This resulted in a transfer request, but even Baker couldn’t have seen what deal was waiting when the Italian side Torino agreed a fee of £70,000 in the same summer that Dennis Law signed for the club.
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The deal involved a £12,000 signing-on fee, an Alpha-Romeo car and an apartment in Turin that he would share with Law - a long way from behind denied a £5 pay-rise.
However, Baker and Law returned to the UK after only a year, and it was Arsenal who confirmed Baker’s signature, with Torino not playing him following a car accident that required a lengthy recuperation.
In the capita,l he became one of the most prolific strikers in Arsenal’s history and was close to making Alf Ramsey’s 1966 World Cup squad, and you listen out for one of Kelvin’s tales regarding Baker’s England career on this week’s edition of “On This Week” on Haway the Podcast!
After a couple of years at Nottingham Forest, it would be on this day in 1969 that Baker would finally sign for Sunderland, and it was a strange summer for Alan Brown at Roker. Following promotion in 1963-64, Sunderland languished at the wrong end of the First Division for five years, where the highest position was a lofty 15th.
The summer of 1969 had already seen Colin Suggett sold and Ian Porterfield fall out with the manager and signs weren’t good for the season ahead, and although the transfer of Baker provided some optimism, it didn’t work out as planned and for the second time in the clubs history, Sunderland were relegated from the top flight.