BRIGHTON fans never got to witness the best of prolific goalscorer Gary Rowell who, to this day, Sunderland fans eulogise in the same way Albion fans still sing about Peter Ward.
He died aged 68 on 13 December 2025, exactly 50 years to the day of his first appearance for the Black Cats following a long battle with leukaemia.
Rowell has a place in Sunderland’s best all time XI selection, in 2005 he topped a Football Focus poll as Sunderland’s all-time cult hero and, in 2020, was inducted into the SAFC Hall of Fame, which he described as ‘the best night of my life’.
There is a website that details every one of the 103 goals the Seaham-born footballer scored for the Wearsiders in 297 games after making his debut as a 71st minute substitute for Mel Holden in a 1-0 Sunderland win over Oxford United at Roker Park.
Unfortunately, the free-scoring striker-turned-midfielder was struck by a knee injury which hampered the latter part of his career, including his spells with Norwich City and the Seagulls.
Having left Sunderland on a free transfer after 12 years at the club, Rowell tore ligaments in his right knee on a pre-season tour of Scandinavia with Norwich before he even managed to kick a ball in anger.
In a year at Carrow Road, he made only six appearances – four as a substitute – and scored just the once, coming off the bench to net against Aston Villa. Typical of this spell between August 1984 and July 1985, he was substituted after only 16 minutes of his reserve team debut.
The following season, a £35,000 fee took him back to the North East to play for Middlesbrough, but, at the time, they were in the middle of a financial crisis and lost their second-tier status. Rowell top-scored with 10 goals in 27 appearances – two of them against the Albion at the Goldstone in January 1986 – but Boro were relegated in second-to-last spot (Brighton finished in 11th place that season).
Brighton were not exactly flush with cash themselves in the summer of 1986 when Alan Mullery, the manager who’d previously led them from third tier to the elite, returned to the club to replace Chris Cattlin.
Mullery found a very different set-up to the one he’d left acrimoniously in the summer of 1981. With little money available to be spent on new arrivals, hard-up Albion, not for the first time, had turned to the supporters in an effort to raise transfer funds.
Money from a scheme called the Lifeline fund went towards buying goalkeeper John Keeley for £1,500 from non-league Chelmsford, Darren Hughes for £30,000 from Shrewsbury Town, and Rowell from Middlesbrough on a free transfer (the Lifeline funds being used to help with his relocation to the South Coast).
Mullery explained the Rowell signing thus in his programme notes: “I see his role with us as coming forward from midfield and adding to our power in the box.
“We know he can get goals and he is a versatile player. When we further improve the squad, we may use him a little differently.”
Rowell , who discovered Mullery had tried to sign him back in 1979 (but Sunderland hadn’t informed him), joined just after the start of the season, in time to be given a place on the bench for the away 1-1 draw with his former club Sunderland. He went on for Kieran O’Regan with 18 minutes left.
He kept the bench warm for two more matches before getting his first start in place of Northern Irish centre-forward Gerry Armstrong in a 2-2 draw away to Plymouth Argyle on 13 September.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before Mullery was reporting his absence from the side because of an ankle injury sustained in training.
Nevertheless, interviewed by Tony Norman in the matchday programme, Rowell, who was 29 and married with two small children, said: “I’m delighted with the move. I’ve found it to be a very friendly club and people have gone out of their way to make us feel at home. Now I want to repay the club by playing well for the team.”
The longest run of games he got in an Albion shirt came in November and December 1986 when he took over from winger Steve Penney for six matches (two wins, two draws, two defeats).
A broken toe and a troublesome hamstring made him feel injury-jinxed but, during his run back in the side, he had what Mullery described as “his best game since joining us” in a 3-0 win over Shrewsbury Town on 21 December. Six days later, the toe went again, and he didn’t play for the rest of the season.
Mullery was then controversially dismissed the following month and Rowell had to wait until the start of the following season for successor Barry Lloyd to select him.
He featured in three pre-season friendlies, all of which ended in defeats and wore the no.4 shirt in the opening two fixtures of the 1987-88 season, but those were his only first-team starts that campaign. His midfield berth was taken over by the experienced Alan Curbishley.
By October, the matchday programme reported Rowell and fellow midfielder Dale Jasper had been placed on the transfer list following long discussions with Lloyd. Curiously, it added: “However, both players are keen to stay with the club, regardless of any offers made, and will be battling hard for first team places.”
Rowell subsequently appeared seven times as a substitute for the first team, but he was largely confined to the Reserves for whom he made 20 appearances and scored once. In February 1988, he moved to Dundee on trial, but, when not taken on, moved the following month to Carlisle United.
After just seven games for the Cumbrians, he finished his professional career at Burnley, where he scored once in 19 appearances.
Born in Sunderland on 6 June 1957, Rowell grew up in the mining village of Seaham, became an apprentice at Sunderland in 1972 and two years later turned professional.
In 1976, when Sunderland were struggling in the First Division, manager Jimmy Adamson gambled on the introduction of the 19-year-old Rowell: it paid off in spades as he scored 44 goals in two and a half seasons.
During that prolific spell, Rowell was in the squad for two end of season England Under 21 Championship preliminary matches; he went on for Laurie Cunningham in a 1-0 win over Finland in Helsinki on 26 May 1977 but wasn’t involved in a 2-1 win over Norway in Bergen six days later. This was an England side including future full internationals Peter Barnes and Peter Reid.
He was also a non-playing member of Dave Sexton’s squad that assembled at the Goldstone Ground three months later, but he had to watch as an over-age Peter Ward (22), playing on home turf, of course, scored a hat-trick in a 6-0 win over Norway. The aforementioned Curbishley was also a non-playing onlooker in that squad.
Undoubtedly, the stand-out moment of Rowell’s Sunderland career came when he scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over arch rivals Newcastle United at St James’ Park, which he referred to in a profile article (see above).
In a vote for Sunderland’s best players of the 1970s, Rowell was described as “a lovely footballer. Though not blessed with blistering pace, he would ghost into goal-scoring positions and his finishing was deadly.” Rowell was an expert penalty taker, scoring 25 of 26 he took for Sunderland.
Some observers reckon but for injury he would surely have gone on to gain full England international honours. However, his career was severely disrupted by a serious knee injury sustained in a March 1979 game against Leyton Orient.
After a lengthy recovery, he resumed scoring goals regularly but there were doubts over his being able to maintain fitness for the duration of a whole season.
As part of a big team rebuilding exercise carried out by manager Len Ashurst in 1984, Rowell was allowed to move to Norwich.
After his playing days ended, Rowell became a financial consultant in Burnley and those loyal Sunderland supporters still got to hear their hero because, for a number of years, he was a commentator on Sunderland games for Metro Radio.
- Pictures mainly from matchday programmes. Sunderland profile article: footballinprint.com.
WHEN MICKY Adams returned to the Albion for a second spell as manager, he brought in a number of players who, for whatever reason, struggled to deliver what was expected of them on the pitch.
It didn’t seem to stop him being the joker in the pack during training, though, on one occasion taking the key to loan signing Robbie Savage’s Lamborghini and hiding it. Former teammate 
Well-known Albion watcher Harty observed: “I cannot think of any player, in recent years, who had a better first 45 mins for the club, vs Crewe in August 2008… then had an Albion career peter out in the manner it did.”
“The bigger the atmosphere, the more I like it. For instance, my best two games this season were against Arsenal, and in the replay there was a crowd of 47,000.”
Between them, they literally couldn’t stop scoring goals, and the success of their striking partnership restricted Morgan to only two starts in 1976-77. He was on the sub’s bench throughout that first promotion season under Alan Mullery, and he scored just once in 16 appearances as the no.12.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement – “a vaguely skillful midfielder in an era featuring some of the poorest Albion players of all time” – Stewart nonetheless reckoned for the five seasons he was at the club he was “probably our most talented player”.
Having successfully worked his way through the ranks, Minton was given his first team debut by boss Peter Shreeves on 25 April 1992 in a game that turned out to be Gary Lineker’s last home match for Spurs.
In parallel lines 