BURTON and Brighton and Hove Albion have more in common than you’d think, and it’s not just the name Albion: Peter Taylor walked out on both clubs to work with his old pal Brian Clough.

Fascinating then that Clough’s son Nigel declined to walk away from the Brewers when given the opportunity to go to manage Nottingham Forest.

Forest was goalkeeper Taylor’s first club as a player, joining them during the Second World War. During a 10-year spell (1945-1955) at Coventry City (he played 86 games but was mainly the reserve ‘keeper) he built the foundations for his future career by learning from manager Harry Storer.

Transferred to Middlesbrough in 1955, he made 140 appearances in six years, and struck up his friendship with the opinionated centre forward, who was six years his junior.

Much of the detail of how they spent hours together talking football, discovering their shared beliefs about how the game should be played, is covered in a great book, Nobody Ever Says Thank You (Orion Books, 2011) by Jonathan Wilson.

It’s also viewed from a more personal angle in For Pete’s Sake: The Peter Taylor Story Volume One (Matador, 2010), written by Taylor’s daughter Wendy Dickinson with author Stafford Hildred.

“For Pete’s Sake is set in a footballing era light years away from the one we know today,” says the book’s publicity blurb. “The maximum weekly wage was £20, players walked to work together because no-one had a car and Peter worked as a brickie in the closed season to make ends meet.”

Taylor moved on from Boro in 1961 and spent a season at Port Vale, playing only one game. He arrived at Burton in May 1962 and was appointed manager in October the same year.

In shades of what he and Clough would do later at Brighton, in 1963 Taylor completely overhauled the squad, retaining only four of the existing players.

One of his signings, Richie Barker, became a legendary goalscorer for Burton, netting 159 goals in 270 appearances, and Taylor subsequently signed him for Derby.

Having created one of the most successful sides in Burton’s history, and led them to win the Southern League Cup in 1964, the following year Taylor answered Clough’s call to rejoin him in the North East, at what was then known as Hartlepools United, even though he’d only just signed a new, better paid three-year contract at Burton.

Many TV programmes and newspaper column inches have been filled over the years covering the managerial exploits of Clough and Taylor and there is not sufficient space here to cover them in detail.

Instead, let’s fast-forward to the summer of 1974. Clough and Taylor, who had sensationally joined Brighton the previous autumn after their acrimonious departure from Derby, had endured a wobbly start to their managerial reign at the Albion.

Clough publically condemned many of the players inherited from Pat Saward and cleared the decks at the end of the season, with the exception of youngsters like Peter O’Sullivan, Steve Piper and Tony Towner. However, Clough was itching to get back onto a bigger stage.

Even though he had been happy to take chairman Mike Bamber’s money when he was out of work, he always hankered for a swift return to the big time and never hid his ambition, constantly creating back page headlines in his efforts to get away from the Goldstone, regardless of having put pen to paper on a five-year contract.

When Leeds United ignored protocol and lured Clough to Elland Road, the other half of the famous partnership made a stand and stayed put. Taylor told Shoot incorporating Goal in August 1974: “I didn’t go to Elland Road because I felt I owed something to Brighton. They had given Brian and myself a super deal and I was anxious to repay them.

“There is work to be done here and I intend to stay as long as it takes me. In nine months at the Goldstone Ground we have done a lot. But much has yet to be done, so I made up my mind to carry on and complete the job.”

In a great Evening Argus feature at the time, Taylor said: “When we both knew it was all over, Brian kissed me. This did not embarrass me. After all, we had become part of each other’s lives.

“There was nothing soft in what he did. He was very, very upset. You won’t hear me say one word against him. He is my closest friend and will always remain so.

“It simply boiled down to this: Brian needs the big time. I felt I had an obligation to Brighton after the way they have treated me. Now I must get on with the job that I am paid to do.”

The opening fixture of the 1974-75 season was at home to newly-relegated Crystal Palace, managed by Malcolm Allison, who Taylor had got one over on when he had been manager of Bath City.

Even though five players were making their Albion debuts, Palace were beaten by a single goal scored by new arrival Ian Mellor in front of a bumper crowd of 26,235 – not bad for a Third Division fixture.

It didn’t last, though. Mellor and centre forward Fred Binney weren’t prolific enough on the goalscoring front and Taylor couldn’t seem to get the formula right.

According to centre back Andy Rollings, Taylor spent too much time behind his desk and never got involved in training. “Before games, he would try to motivate us but he just couldn’t do it,” Rollings told Spencer Vignes for his book Bloody Southerners. “He was a deep person and would talk about all sorts of things in team talks but he didn’t know how to get the best out of us.”

A disappointing season ended with home crowds down to around the 10,000-11,000 mark and Albion finished just two places off the relegation places.

With the popular blue and white striped shirts restored as the first choice kit the following season, there was a complete change in fortunes, and, with three automatic promotion places up for grabs, Albion looked favourites to go up for much of the campaign.

Binney was on fire and finished the season with 27 goals and Northern Irish international striker Sammy Morgan, a £30,000 signing from Aston Villa, was added to the forward options, scoring a memorable double as promotion rivals Crystal Palace were beaten 2-0 in front of a sell-out 33,300 Goldstone crowd.

Midfield dynamo Brian Horton arrived from Port Vale in March and away at eventual champions Hereford United, a youngster called Peter Ward scored within 50 seconds of his debut, to earn a draw, and finished with six goals in the last eight games.

With four games to go, Albion were in third spot but a 3-1 defeat at fellow contenders Millwall let them in. Brighton could only draw the remaining three games and they finished fourth, three points behind Millwall.

A wounded Taylor added the experienced defenders Chris Cattlin and Graham Cross to his squad, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He went on holiday to Majorca for six weeks, where his friend Clough was also holidaying, and then, four weeks before the start of the new season, dropped the bombshell news that he was quitting.

He told Shoot: “I first started to ask questions inside myself round about Easter when we lost to Millwall. We’d been in a leading position all season but doubts began to cross my mind and I had said when I took over at Brighton that I would give myself two years to win promotion and, if I didn’t, I would resign.

“I have certain principles and targets for myself. I didn’t have to leave Derby County. We were second from the top of the First Division at the time, but I believe I was right to leave them and I believe I was right to leave Brighton.

“Football is the only thing I have known all my life, as player and manager and I know there is no room for sentiment in this game.

“I signed two players gambling on them to win us promotion [presumably that was Horton and Morgan]. We didn’t get it, and the only consolation I have in leaving is I feel I have helped build a good team which is capable of going up next time.

“The most difficult thing has been to make this decision because my family have settled better at Brighton than anywhere else before and I am very sad to leave the club and the town.

“Also, Mike Bamber, the Brighton chairman, who I respect tremendously, and the board have been absolutely magnificent, and I had a very emotional meeting with Mike when I told him of my decision. I never want to go through anything like that again. He tried desperately to dissuade me, and this was the most difficult thing to confront him with.

“I am certain there will be some regrets on my behalf but I can only run my life on my principles, whether it’s at Brighton or Derby. I always play it straight down the line.”

His departure was unsurprisingly front page news for the Argus and he dead-batted speculation linking him with Clough. “I have no plans at all, except to take the dog for a walk,” he told Peter Fieldsend. Two days later, Taylor became Clough’s assistant at Forest.

And, as they say, the rest is history, as together they enjoyed some glorious successes at Forest before their well-documented parting of the ways.

In the circumstances of his – and Clough’s – departure, you can probably only imagine the unbridled delight of so many associated with the Albion when, on November 17 1979, Forest, then the champions of Europe, lost an unbeaten home record stretching back 31 months to that same Brighton and Hove Albion who had been there for them in their hour of need.

After retiring in May 1982, within six months Taylor was back in football – as the new manager of Derby County! The famous falling-out between the pair centred around Taylor signing John Robertson from Forest behind Clough’s back. The pair never spoke again and Taylor died suddenly aged 62 in October 1990 on his beloved holiday island of Majorca.

A statue of the pair now stands outside Derby’s stadium and in October 2015 the main stand at Forest’s City Ground was renamed the Peter Taylor Stand.

As for Brighton, there can be no doubt that Taylor, probably more so than Clough, laid the foundations for what were to be the greatest days in the history of the club.

At least three of Taylor’s signings – Ward, Horton and Cattlin – were to play pivotal roles in that rise to the top. Ward, of course, became a goalscoring legend and the other two later returned to the club after their playing days were over for managerial spells.

• ANOTHER former Burton boss also ended up in Brighton’s dugout: Ken Gutteridge was no. 2 to Taylor and his successor Alan Mullery before being reunited with Taylor at Derby.

Gutteridge is largely credited as the man who discovered Ward, having given him his debut when manager of the then non-league Burton during one of the most successful periods in the club’s history, particularly in 1974 when he led them to a rare promotion to the Southern League Premier Division.

In fact, we learn from Matthew Horner’s excellent biography of Ward (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media), it was one of Burton’s scouts, Jim Phelps, who recommended Ward to Gutteridge having worked with the freescoring player at a Sunday afternoon side, Borrowash United,

Gutteridge died in a Burton residential home in 2012 aged 83.

Pictures show the Argus feature after Taylor took sole control of the Albion; the headline in Shoot, a happy Taylor signing Brian Horton, and the front cover of For Pete’s Sake.

TWICE voted Sheffield Wednesday player of the year, Eric Potts was a busy winger who became something of a supersub during one season with Brighton.

The diminutive, ginger-haired Potts had been Wednesday’s man of the match when a packed Goldstone crowd of 30,756 saw Albion beat Wednesday 3-2 on 3 May 1977 to clinch promotion from Division 3.

Manager Alan Mullery clearly saw something in his performance that memorable evening to persuade him to part with a £14,000 fee to bring the wideman south for the Albion’s assault on Division 2.

It was a level Potts had played at before – under two different Owls managers, Derek Dooley and former Albion player Steve Burtenshaw.

Potts had spent seven years with the Owls and played 159 games but he had grown tired of being selected as a substitute and was itching to get some starts.

“I want to go places…not sit on the substitutes’ bench like I did eight times in the Third Division last season,” he told Shoot! magazine. “The First is my aim and that’s the reason I’m delighted to be joining Brighton.”

The season began well enough for Potts as he lined up in the no. 7 shirt for the first 21 matches of the season. But home grown winger Tony Towner came back into contention in November and took over the shirt, meaning Potts had to resort to that familiar place on the bench.

He was to have only five more starts in the rest of the season, getting on the scoresheet in three of them, but it was from the bench that he made most impact.

Fifteen times he came on as a sub between December and April and scored goals in three of them. Against Sunderland he actually got two in two minutes to turn what was a one goal deficit into a 2-1 win.

Older fans will recall Albion narrowly missed out on a second successive promotion in 1978 but, despite his involvement across the season, Potts didn’t stay in Sussex.

Canny Mullery returned a decent profit on his investment as Preston North End paid £37,000 to take Potts to Deepdale where he spent two seasons.

His next move, for £20,000, was to nearby Burnley in September 1980, as manager Brian Miller sought to bounce straight back to Division 2 following relegation to the Third Division.

A wonderfully detailed profile of Potts, written for clarets-mad.co.uk by Tony Scholes, recorded how Potts scored seven goals in 58 appearances for Burnley, plus nine as a sub.

Born in Liverpool on 16 March 1950, Potts was brought up in the city and attended Anfield Comprehensive School just a stone’s throw from the famous football ground.

But it was slightly further afield where he started his career: as an amateur with Blackpool. When nothing came of it, he went into non-league football with New Brighton and Oswestry Town. His form at Oswestry attracted Wednesday who bought him for £5,000.

He made his debut for Wednesday in October 1970 but didn’t establish himself in the first team until towards the end of the 1972-73 season.

Once he was a regular, the Hillsborough faithful took to him and voted him player of the season in 1974-75 and 1975-76.

After his season on the south coast, Potts went on to collect a Third Division championship medal with Burnley even though towards the end of his time with the club he lost his place to Trevor Steven, who would later play for Everton, Rangers and England.

After just short of two years with Burnley, he moved to Bury, where he played for a further two years before retiring.

Scholes recalls how Potts played over 350 games for five clubs scoring a total of 42 goals and later played non-league football for Witton Albion and Clitheroe.

Both of his sons have played football. Eldest son Colin was initially with Preston but played all his first team football in non-league.

His youngest son Michael started as a schoolboy with Manchester United, before moving on to become a member of the Blackburn Rovers team that reached the semi-final of the FA Youth Cup in 2008-09.

Released in 2011, he signed for York City in the summer of that year at the age of 19 and on the opening day of the 2012-13 season, as a substitute, he made his Football League debut for York in a 3-1 home defeat against Wycombe.

In 2008, ‘surf’ on pne-online.net reported that Potts senior was a taxi driver in Preston.

Pictures from my scrapbook show Potts in action in Albion’s away kit and an article in Shoot! in which the winger talked about why he made the move south.

DEAN Bowditch made his Brighton and Hove Albion debut against MK Dons, who he eventually joined for arguably the most succcessful spell of his career.

It was in November 2006 when he came on as a second half substitute for Tommy Fraser as Brighton beat the football franchise outfit 4-1 in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

Bowditch, who after a promising start had struggled to gain a regular place at Ipswich Town, joined Dean Wilkins’ League One Seagulls on loan on the recommendation of two former Albion players.

Darren Currie and Dan Harding, who were Portman Road teammates at the time, convinced Bowditch it would be a good move to make.

“They told me about the club and said it’s a really nice place to be as well, and that I would really enjoy it, so that’s what made my decision,” he told the Argus.

Wilkins was clearly chuffed to capture the Ipswich youngster and told the Argus: “He’s been involved in ten Championship games this season, albeit coming off the bench sometimes, so it is a really good signing for us.

“Dean’s got good awareness and ability on the ball. He’s lively and he’s just under six foot. We are bringing in somebody who is very talented who maybe at some stage has lost his way a bit at Ipswich.”

Bowditch, who was only 20 then, also came off the bench in the following Saturday’s league game at Bradford City and netted the winner as Albion secured a third successive win on the road 3-2.

I was at Valley Parade that afternoon and remember Bowditch’s instant impact, laying the ball out wide to Alex Revell (another who went on to play for MK Dons) and then getting onto the end of Revell’s cross to steer the ball past the erratic City goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts.

Cue scenes of jubilation in the away end – and the astonishing sight of an over-zealous steward removing injured goalkeeper Wayne Henderson, who’d been standing with the fans, for the exuberance of his celebration!

It looked like the start of something good for Bowditch but sadly that was to be the only goal he scored for the Albion!

A teenage sensation when he made his Ipswich debut at 16 against fierce rivals Norwich City in 2003 (he set up both goals as a second half substitute in a 2-0 win), he represented England’s under 16, 17 and 18 teams playing alongside the likes of Aaron Lennon and James Milner.

Over two seasons between 2004 and 2006 he played 46 games at Championship level but, by his own admission, he didn’t deal with it well when manager Joe Royle left him out of the side.

When Jim Magilton took over, he gave Bowditch some starts at the beginning of the 2006-07 season but with the side losing he was dropped and then used mainly as a substitute.

Before arriving at the ‘Theatre of Trees’, he had already been to Burnley and Wycombe Wanderers on loan, neither of which worked out well.

But on arrival at Brighton, he sounded upbeat about the temporary move. Interviews he gave to the Argus hinted at lots of promise (‘Bowditch vows to help Albion reach the play-offs’ was the headline on one piece) and he told Andy Naylor: “They don’t deserve to be in this league, they deserve to be in the league above…the amount of quality and desire in the team is fantastic…it’s not a very nice league and they need to be back up there playing against some really good teams.”

When his initial loan was extended to a second month, he told Naylor: “I love the club. It’s been brilliant so far. I’ve really enjoyed it here. I’ve come here a different person with a different mentality about the game, about how hard you have got to work.

“I’ve set standards and set myself a target of trying to make myself a better player but also getting into the team and scoring goals and getting games under my belt.”

But he was hampered by a niggling groin injury and actually only managed one start in addition to a couple of substitute appearances.

The following season he went out on loan again and his appearance tally got into double figures with Northampton Town. Wilkins then brought him back to Brighton for a second loan spell early in February 2008. He played five times but failed to get on the scoresheet.

The following season he was loaned to Brentford where he scored twice in nine appearances. When finally released by Ipswich in 2009, he joined Yeovil Town and at Huish Park he started to get into the groove. He managed to string some games together and, by the end of his first season, was the club’s top goalscorer.

Indeed his scoring rate for Yeovil was one every three games (25 in 75 appearances) but at the end of his second season in the West Country he declined the offer of a new contract and moved to MK Dons.

Now in his sixth season with them, he’s enjoyed the most prolific spell of his career, netting 48 goals in 218 appearances.

• Argus headlines covering Dean Bowditch’s initial brief loan spell with the Albion.