He was to reward them with twelve League goals, twenty in all, before the season-end and such was the impact that he was called up to the national side at inside-left against England, in what was to be the high-point of his career, albeit in a game with Scotland 2-4 up away at half-time that they contrived to lose. In fact at Leicester overall he was not to do badly at all, top-scorer in 1920-21 with seventeen and again in 1921-22, albeit joint with only eight. However, in March 1922 he was on his way, to Sunderland be replaced in the summer and by the legendary Fifer, Johnny Duncan.

However, there may have been two simple explanations for the move to Wearside. Firstly, it was upwards, into the First Division. Secondly, it was easier to get home, for in 1920 he had married local girl, Christina Smart, with whom he was to have a daughter. Indeed, at Sunderland he was able to settle once more, with in 1922-3 forty-two starts and twenty-four goals, Charlie Buchan alongside him playing forty-three times and hitting thirty-one and the Black Cats going from mid-table to runners-up spot. 

Yet for Paterson at least it was not to be repeated. The following season, as Buchan stormed on and Sunderland would still finish third he would make just nineteen starts, scoring nine-times. And this pattern of being called on to play only half the games was to be repeated at the beginning of 1924-5, at which point he must have been unhappy and looking for a move. It came in October, was sideways to Preston North End and a mistake, ending in April 1925 with relegation and release.

By then Paterson should have been in his prime but in fact was on the slide, perhaps with injury. He had the best part of a season with Mid-Rhondda in the Welsh League, a gap, a season and a half with Queen's Park Rangers, at it finished bottom of the Third Division South and therefore the League, was re-elected and then hauled itself up to mid-table. Then there were a few months with Mansfield outwith the English League altogether and then home to a month with Montrose and at thirty-one retirement. And at that he slipped into working for the Dundee's Works Department until retirement. Indeed he would remain in the city until Christina's death in 1966 at the age of sixty-eight and his own, recorded as an Engineer, in 1973 in his seventy-seventh year.