'Big Pink Dress' to pay tribute to Kevin Keegan on Great North Run - by doing it in a spectacular Sunderland and Newcastle outfit

The mega-fundraiser from South Shields has designed a dress which is half Sunderland’s red and white and half Newcastle’s black and white colours.

And he has done it as a tribute to the great Kevin Keegan who ran the first ever Great North Run race in the colours of the Tyne-Wear rivals 40 years ago.

Kevin was one of the runners in the first race in 1981.

Colin said: “I was there. I remember that and when I was thinking of it when I was thinking of some way to mark an iconic part of the Great North Run.

"I am planning to bring back that back in my own way for the 40th run.”

The dress took him five weeks to make but Colin has plans to make the dress even more colourful – by planning a friendly contest between Newcastle and Sunderland fans.

They can sponsor a ball in their team’s colours and it will be stuck on Colin’s dress.

People can either sponsor a black and white ball or a red and white ball. Ten balls of either colour classes as one goal for that team.

"I want to see what the final score will be in my ‘derby’,” said Colin who will be raising money for two causes – Disability North and the Bradley Lowery Foundation.

Online sponsorship links for the two charities are expected to be announced in the next few days.

Colin has done so much to help others over the years and has raised £144,000 for worthy causes, but he has done all that while suffering from serious health issues himself.

In July 2019, Colin was rushed to South Tyneside District Hospital after suffering a problem with a valve in his heart and high blood pressure.

He had a scan and now has to take tablets to control the problem for the rest of his life. Amazingly, he recovered sufficiently to do the Great North Run that same year.

Now he is back once more to run the event in its 40th anniversary but only after suffering another health setback just weeks ago.

It was only in June that he went through an operation to remove a mole which left him with 16 stitches and a four-inch scar, and with experts telling him he needs to be checked every three months for skin cancer.

He said: “

‘Big Pink Dress’ won the Special Recognition category at the 2018 Best of South Tyneside Awards for raising £104,000 while doing charity runs.

Modest Colin said back then: “I am just a bloke who puts a dress on and runs a marathon or two.”

But the whole of South Tyneside knows he’s much more than that.

Colin has made dozens of incredible frocks - and then ran in them ,even though some weighed more than 2st - to raise funds for Breast Cancer Now, as well as a range of other causes close to the hearts of people in the borough.

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