‘Unsung hero’ Dave Turner was Brighton captain at 22

DAVE TURNER, one of Brighton & Hove Albion’s youngest ever captains in the 1960s, had already been at the Albion just over five years by the time I got to see my first game.

Over the course of eight and a half years with the club, he played 338 games, scoring 34 goals. In old-fashioned parlance, Turner was a wing half – what today would be known as a predominantly left-sided midfield player.

Born in Retford, Nottinghamshire, on 7 September 1943, as a youngster he played for Notts Boys and had two trials for England Boys before joining Second Division Newcastle United straight from school as an apprentice in 1960.

He was part of the Newcastle side which beat Wolves 2-1 in the 1962 FA Youth Cup, playing alongside Toon’s future legendary captain Bobby Moncur and long-serving Northern Irish full back David Craig.

Newcastleunited-mad.co.uk says he was “highly thought of when he helped Newcastle win the Youth Cup in 1962, but never broke into the first team”. In fact, that wasn’t quite true because he was given his first team debut in the very last game of the 1961-62 season, a 3-0 home defeat to Leeds United.

He made one more appearance for the Magpies under new manager Joe Harvey but became Archie Macaulay’s first signing for a fee when he headed to Sussex in December 1963 for the princely sum of £6,000.

Turner made his debut in a 2-0 home win over Darlington on 7 December 1963 and, in only his second season at the Goldstone Ground, he made 40 appearances and scored twice as Albion marched to the Fourth Division championship.

“That was a great season,” Turner told Goal magazine in 1970. “Bobby Smith (former Tottenham and England international) was with us then. I was very surprised he joined Brighton, but what an asset he was.

“We scored plenty of goals, the crowds flocked back, the atmosphere was great.”

The following year, Dave was appointed captain – the youngest Albion ever had.

*Albion’s matchday programme introduces the new young captain*

“I was surprised but very pleased,” Dave told the magazine. “There were several players older than I was, so it was a great honour to be made skipper.

“I was a bit frightened at first but after a game or two I realised that the rest of the team were backing me up, so everything was all right.”

It was only when the experienced former Preston North End skipper Nobby Lawton arrived in 1967 that Turner relinquished the job.

“He had a fine reputation and I asked to be relieved of the job, suggesting Nobby should take over,” he said.

Remarkably both Turner and Norman Gall, another player hailing from the North East, reached the milestone of their 285^th Albion game at the same time.

Brighton were looking odds on for promotion under Freddie Goodwin in the 1969-70 season and it was rare for a Third Division team to get coverage in Goal, a popular national football magazine at the time.

The article began: “Dave Turner is one of the unsung heroes of Brighton. He has played nearly 300 games for the club, been involved in a Fourth Division Championship victory, and is now in the middle of another bid for glory.

“Brighton are fighting hard to get into the Second Division and the 26-year-old midfield star is a key man in their battle.

“Ever since he joined them from Newcastle in December 1963, Turner has played a vital role in the Brighton set-up.

“Stars like Rodney Marsh, Hugh Curran and Bruce Rioch, all of whom have gone on to better things, have played against (and been overshadowed by) Brighton’s non-stop wing half.

“It is Turner’s consistency which is helping Brighton in their promotion struggle. And he thinks they can do it.”

Turner told the magazine: “I’m pretty confident we can go up. But so can any of the top 10 at the moment. We’ve been playing well all season, but early on we just couldn’t get the right results. Everyone was getting a bit disappointed.

“Then everyone started getting stuck in a bit more – it began to pay off. We had a long undefeated run in the League after November and conceded only one goal in nine games. Even that was a penalty.

“The defence has been playing well and the whole team has been coming back and doing its share of the work. It would be nice to score a few more goals but if you don’t let any in it means you have at least one point before you start.”

Unfortunately although Brighton were top after a 2-0 win over Reading on 27 March 1970, they blew the chance of promotion with four defeats in the remaining five games and ended up fifth.

In the following two seasons under Pat Saward, Turner was hard hit by injuries and only made 19 appearances in the 1971-72 Third Division promotion campaign, appearing in his suit in the champagne-raising dressing room picture after promotion was achieved.

In its pen pictures of each of the members of the squad, the Argus said of him: “Turner never knows when he is beaten and few players have achieved greater popularity with the Goldstone crowd.”

The arrival of the cultured Brian Bromley to occupy his midfield berth meant Turner was given a free transfer in the summer of 1972 and, together with Kit Napier, he joined Ken Furphy’s Blackburn.

Turner made 25 appearances for Rovers but his injury issues returned and he was forced to retire in 1974. He followed his former boss Furphy to Bramall Lane where he was youth coach for a while. He then moved on to Aldershot before heading to Canada.

He coached at Toronto Blizzard under former Watford and Sheffield United midfielder Keith Eddy and stayed under Eddy’s successor, Bob Houghton, who was a former Brighton teammate. Houghton was at the Goldstone in 1969-70 although he didn’t feature in the first team. He famously managed Swedish side Malmo when they lost 1-0 to Nottingham Forest in the 1979 European Cup Final.

Turner stayed in Canada with Toronto Blizzard and had a season with Toronto Dinamo but he returned to the UK in 1990 and rejoined the coaching staff at Aldershot.

Pictures from my scrapbook show Turner leading out the Albion at the Goldstone, as featured in Goal, part of a team line-up in 1969-70, a portrait from the Argus in the 1971-72 season, joining in the 1972 promotion celebrations alongside Ian Goodwin with Brian Bromley (front left) and physio Mike Yaxley.

Turner the coach: at Toronto Blizzard with Bob Houghton and some well-known English players, and at Sheffield United and Aldershot.

Goals flowed for Manchester United starlet Andy Ritchie after Brighton-Leeds swap

Ritchie v Lpool TEENAGE Manchester United striking sensation Andy Ritchie had big boots to fill when he replaced Peter Ward in Brighton’s forward line.

After a slow start, 18 months after his arrival on the south coast he was the Albion Player of the Season but he missed out on Brighton’s historic journey to the FA Cup Final in 1983 when he opted to move to Second Division Leeds United in exchange for Terry Connor.

With just 26 goals in 102 top flight appearances for the Albion, it would probably be fair comment to say the best years of his footballing career were still to come and he claimed the move to Elland Road was to ensure he continued playing first team football.

He went on to enjoy great success the other side of the Pennines during Oldham Athletic’s time amongst the big boys.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Born on 28 November 1960 in Manchester, the son of a postal worker, Ritchie showed no early signs of a becoming a professional footballer and in fact went to Moseley Hall Grammar where only rugby was played.

The young Ritchie did play football as a cub, though, and then progressed to a Sunday league side and it was there that he was spotted by former Man Utd captain Johnny Carey, scouting for his old club.

After some trials Ritchie signed on as an apprentice at Old Trafford and soon earned a regular place in United’s Central League side.

At Christmas 1978 he made his league debut in United’s 6-2 win over Everton. He never managed to hold down a regular place in the first team but in total played 33 games for United, scoring 13 goals. Amongst those, he memorably scored two hat-tricks, against Leeds and Spurs.

It was in October 1980 that Ritchie became part of a triangular swap of strikers, when Garry Birtles moved from Nottingham Forest to Old Trafford, Ward transferred to the City Ground from Brighton, and Ritchie headed south. “Andy was only 19 but I saw great potential in him,” said Brighton manager Alan Mullery in his autobiography.

Ritchie made his debut in an away game at Aston Villa on 22 October 1980 and, after going seven games without scoring, opened his Albion account….against Man Utd. Unfortunately his goal in the Goldstone clash against his former club on 22 November was just a consolation as the Seagulls crashed 4-1.

Doubtless Mullery expected a greater return from the young man than the six goals he had mustered by the end of the 1980-81 season, but thankfully one of those came in the 80^th minute of the final game of the season when a 2-0 defeat of Leeds meant Albion retained their top flight status by a whisker.

When Mullery quit over the sale of Mark Lawrenson to Liverpool that summer, the defence-minded Mike Bailey came in and steered Albion to their best ever finish – 13^th of 22 – but at the expense of entertainment.

Ritchie top-scored with just 14 goals and was voted Player of the Season and a personal highlight came in March when he was selected to play for England under 21s against Poland. He played alongside Mark Hateley who scored both England’s goals in a 2-2 draw at Upton Park.

What Ritchie found puzzling was that the England side’s boss was Dave Sexton – the very manager who’d been happy to let him leave Manchester United. But it turned out to be his one and only cap. An Albion commitment prevented him playing in a subsequent game when he was called up to play Scotland.

Although he scored in the opening 1-1 draw of the 1982-83 season against Ipswich, he didn’t find the net again until December – by which time Bailey had been sacked.

The replacement managerial duo of George Aitken and Jimmy Melia opted to play three strikers – Ritchie, Michael Robinson and Ward, who had returned to the club on loan from Forest – but results were not great and Ritchie’s form in front of goal remained poor.

Melia, not exactly a shrinking violet when it came to the media, let it be known he was not impressed and the next thing Ritchie declared he wanted away. While relegation beckoned, Albion continued to make progress in the Cup and Ritchie played in the quarter final win over Norwich. Then, almost out of the blue, Melia organised a straight swap with Ritchie going to Leeds and Connor joining the Seagulls.

The decision was puzzling to say the least because Albion were still in the Cup and, with Connor cup-tied having played in the competition with Leeds, and an extension of Ward’s loan refused by Brian Clough, Brighton had to go into the semi final and the final with only one recognised striker in Robinson.

Of course, as we know, midfielder Gordon Smith was moved up front to partner Robinson – and if you don’t know what happened next you’ve been living on a different planet!

In the pre-match wall-to-wall coverage of the Cup Final, as was commonplace at that time, amongst the multitude of different angles appeared an interview with Ritchie in Match Weekly about the clash between his two former clubs. “I’m glad for both teams that they have made it to Wembley and I just hope that the best team wins on the day,” he said diplomatically.

“Obviously I’ll have a few pangs of jealousy when the lads walk out at Wembley knowing that I might have been involved, but I feel I have made the right decision in attempting to secure my future in first team football.”

Ritchie was sore he had missed out on a Cup Final (v Arsenal) when he was at Man Utd so it was certainly a mighty decision he took. “I knew I was taking a gamble when I joined Leeds just before the semi final but I felt my future outweighed the possibility of Brighton getting to Wembley and I have no regrets,” he said.

Indeed events would prove him right and back in his native north he thrived over the next four years at Elland Road, scoring 44 times in 159 appearances before moving onto Oldham where he stayed for eight years and played a part in one of the club’s most successful periods.

His prolific goalscoring for the Latics meant by the time his playing career came to a close in 1999 he had registered 210 goals in 661 games, a tidy record by anyone’s standards.

Ritchie’s career as a manager never reached the same heights as his playing career – he had spells managing Oldham, Barnsley and Huddersfield – and his later involvement in football was as a pundit for BBC Radio Leeds and MUTV.

1 ritchie in cally shirt 2 ritchie other breakfast 3 ritchie villa stretch 4 ritchie v sunderland 5 Ritchie Oldham

Pictures from my scrapbook and Albion matchday programmes show Ritchie sporting Albion’s British Caledonian sponsored kit, breakfasting at home with his wife, two action images, a portrait in Oldham’s colours, and a montage of newspaper and magazine articles about the striker.

Midfielder Jim Walker discovered the other side of injuries

THE MAN largely responsible for extending the football career of gifted Irishman Paul McGrath briefly had a place in Brighton & Hove Albion’s midfield.

Jim Walker spent 13 months with the Albion after six years at Derby County. He was later Aston Villa’s physiotherapist for 17 years.

Despite Brighton beating Crystal Palace in the opening game of the 1974-75 season — Peter Taylor’s first in sole charge following the controversial departure of Brian Clough — subsequent early season results were poor.

With close season signing Ernie Machin nursing an injury, and Peter O’Sullivan out of the side for a disciplinary issue, midfield reinforcements were needed.

Taylor returned to his old club in September 1974 to sign Walker and youngster Tommy Mason for a combined £25,000 fee.

Having made an almost wholesale change to the squad at the end of the 1973-74 season, it was perhaps not surprising Taylor turned to some players he knew.

Walker had played his part in Derby’s rise from Second Division obscurity to First Division champions under Clough and Taylor but was essentially a squad player. In seven years at Derby, he only made 42 appearances.

He collected a Second Division Championship medal in 1969, when he played 26 games, and was part of the squad which secured the club’s first ever Division One Championship title in 1972. In 1970 he had been loaned to Clough and Taylor’s old club Hartlepool where he played 10 games.

Walker HS As well as Walker and Mason, Taylor also brought in former Ram Alan Lewis as cover at left back for Harry Wilson, and ex-Derby striker Ricky Marlowe, who had moved to Shrewsbury, followed the old assistant manager to Brighton.

Doubtless with an eye to an upcoming transfer, Taylor also knew he would need midfield reinforcements because Billy McEwan and Ronnie Welch were the makeweights in a deal to land right back Ken Tiler from Chesterfield.

In only his second game for Brighton, Walker got on the scoresheet in a 2-1 defeat away to Charlton. In the return fixture the following March, an Evening Argus photographer captured a great picture of him on a rain-soaked afternoon at the Goldstone splashing through the mud.

Walker was a regular through to the middle of March but apart from one other start was then substitute through to the end of the season. Although he was still at the club for the start of the following season, he played only twice before being sold for £6,000 to Peterborough United.

As a native of Cheshire — he came from Northwich and played for the local non-league team Northwich Victoria before joining Derby in 1968 — he hankered for a move back to the north west and in November 1976 linked up with an old friend, Alan Oakes, the former Manchester City stalwart who was the manager of Chester City.

Jim made the left back spot his own at Sealand Road and clocked up over 170 appearances in five years in a side which had Peter Ward’s former strike partner Ian Mellor up front and a young Welsh striker called Ian Rush beginning to show some promise!

Eventually an achilles injury brought a premature end to Walker’s career at the age of 34 and he became a physiotherapist and coach with the club.

In 1983 he joined his former Derby teammate Dave Mackay in Kuwait as a coach at Al Arabi and after two years returned to the UK to become physio at Blackburn Rovers. In 1986 he took over as physio at Villa.

Walker worked for six different managers at Villa Park, including Ron Atkinson and Graham Taylor, and it was his careful handling of former Manchester United defender McGrath that made him the Irishman’s best friend.

When asked in the Villan on the Spot feature on avfc.co.uk who was the biggest influence on his career, McGrath replied: “No question about it, Jim Walker the club physio in my time at Villa Park. He was brilliant for me and was responsible for me playing as long as I did. Most of the time spent at the training ground was lifting weights with my legs to strengthen the quadriceps which helped protect my knees. I also did lots of exercise bike work, probably three or four times a week.”

In the One-on-One feature in FourFourTwo magazine: McGrath declared: “The Villa physio Jim Walker, who is more than a friend – a hero of mine – is basically the one that kept my career going. If I hadn’t had Jim on my side, I would have probably finished playing about four seasons earlier than I did.

“Jim created a regime where I just went in and did 10 minutes on the bike each morning and that was about it. Some days I would just have a bath. The games would look after my fitness.”

Walker’s time with Villa came to an end when he became assistant manager to Paul Merson at Walsall in 2004. After that, he briefly returned to Peterborough as physio before taking up the role of senior physio at the famous golf resort hotel The Belfry.

In an interview with the Royal Sutton Coldfield Observer five years ago, Walker told them: “I have been lucky in my career because I was an average footballer who went on to work with some top managers.

“It was a great advantage to have played because I knew what the lads were going through. I understood what it felt like to be injured and not playing football and I understood the frustration that after six weeks of injury you need to be patient and build up your fitness levels instead of walking straight back into the first team.”

Flying winger Tony ‘Tiger’ Towner immortalised in children’s TV programme

2-towner-takes-on-argus IF ART is the sincerest form of flattery, Tony Towner can count himself amongst the privileged few to be forever remembered on film.

That it was done by two of Rotherham United’s most ardent celebrity fans is neither here nor there – it’s not everyone who can say their prowess has been portrayed in an episode of Chucklevision.

Towner and fellow Millers hero Ronnie Moore were at the centre of a classic knockabout episode of the children’s TV series in which Rotherham supporters Paul and Barry Chuckle constantly get involved in slapstick scrapes.

In Football Heroes, made in 1996, the Chuckle Brothers meet Towner and Moore (actors playing them rather than the footballers themselves!) on their way to a game and accidentally end up with their invitation cards to play in a veterans match, leading to them ending up on the pitch.

*Towner earned plaudits for his Rotherham performances in this Shoot magazine feature – pipping one Danny Wilson!*

It was Towner and Moore’s starring performances in the Rotherham side that won promotion from the old Division 3 as champions in 1980-81 that earned them cult status.

Over three seasons, Towner appeared over 100 times for the Millers and even all these years later is still remembered with affection.

Take, for example, comments made on the Millers Mad website a couple of years ago. Ivor Hardy said: “Tony (Tiger) Towner was one of the best and most talented footballers ever to play for us.

“He was instrumental in us winning the league in 80/81, along with doing the double over our near neighbours Sheffield United in the same season.

“We were lucky to get the services of Towner and Seasman from Millwall, and only did so because the Lions were in financial turmoil that season and had to get some money in fast. He will always be a legend with the older fans, along with team mates Seasman, Moore, Fern, Breckin, Mountford etc.

“Tiger gave us some great memories.”

Meanwhile, kevthemaltbymiller said: “Great player for us, very tricky winger with lightning pace. Happy memories.” And sawmiller added: “Tiger was a super player – good winger who created a real buzz in the crowd when he got the ball and ran at players.”

Towner himself considered his time at Rotherham to have been his best playing days. In an Albion matchday programme article, he told Roy Chuter: “They were probably my best years, my most consistent, anyway. I was 26, 27 years old – at my peak. I had three tremendous years.”

Initially playing under Sunderland’s 1973 FA Cup Final hero Ian Porterfield, he also enjoyed working with the former Liverpool legend Emlyn Hughes, when he took over as manager.

Brighton fans also have good memories of the local boy made good. Sussex youngsters making the grade with the Albion have been pretty few and far between over the years, but Towner and defender/midfielder Steve Piper were two who did it in the 1970s.

In Albion’s 1972-73 season in the second tier, Piper had already been blooded in the first team in the November. Towner signed professional on 29 December 1972 and, with Albion having been knocked out of the FA Cup by Chelsea in the third round, manager Pat Saward arranged a friendly against Stoke City on fourth round day, 3 February 1973 (Stoke had been beaten 3-2 by Man City) and gave Towner his first team debut in a 2-0 defeat at the Goldstone.

The following Saturday he made his league debut aged just 17 at home to Luton Town. Albion went into the game having suffered 14 defeats on the trot (12 in the league plus the games against Chelsea and Stoke) and, rooted to the bottom of the table, relegation was inevitable.

Saward gave the side a shake-up, dropping three established players – goalkeeper Brian Powney in favour of loan signing Tommy Hughes from Aston Villa, right back Graham Howell (to the bench), and experienced striker Barry Bridges.

Piper made only his sixth first team appearance and he was joined by winger Towner and forward Pat Hilton. It was Towner’s brilliant display on the wing that really caught the eye as Albion finally mustered a win, beating the Hatters 2-0.

Towner kept the shirt until the end of the season and it was the launchpad for a 15-year professional career in which he made over 400 appearances. After that Luton debut, he scored his first goal in a 2-1 home win against Huddersfield on 10 March.

“I was an Albion fan as a kid, in Bevendean, and I joined them straight from school at 15, as an apprentice,” he said. “I already had the ‘Tiger’ nickname when I got into the team in 1973 – I think it was one of Alan Duffy‘s. I must have tackled him a bit too hard in training, or something. Tiger was a great nickname, and I loved it.”

One of the few survivors of the great Brian Clough cull of the playing staff in 1974, Towner was a speedy, skilful winger who could put in terrific crosses for his teammates. The fact he was a local lad endeared him greatly to the crowd.

In five years, he had plenty of challengers for his place. In the early days, Gerry Fell competed for the wide berth and later Eric Potts, but Towner still managed 171 games (+ 12 as sub) for the Albion and scored 25 goals.

“Gerry was the opposite of me, though still a winger – he had loads of pace, though not too much skill,” Towner recalled. “He’d knock the ball ahead of him and run past the defender to get it, a bit like Stuart Storer. I’d try to trick my way past.”

In John Vinicombe’s end of season assessment of Peter Taylor’s first season in sole charge (1974-75), he said: “It is with no disrespect to Taylor that I suggest that the three most consistent players were those he inherited – O’Sullivan, Towner and Piper.

“Towards the end, Towner tailed off a little but he struck up an intuitive partnership with Fred Binney.”

In fact Towner was third highest in the squad for appearances that season, playing 47 games in total plus four as sub and with 10 goals was second highest goalscorer behind Binney.

It was the arrival of Gerry Ryan from Derby in September 1978, which finally prompted his departure. George Petchey, who later joined Chris Cattlin’s backroom team at the Goldstone, took him to Millwall for £65,000.

Unfortunately, while Brighton won promotion to Division 1 in 1979, Millwall went the opposite way out of Division 2, and Towner found himself back in the third tier.

After 68 appearances for the Lions, in 1980 he was sold to Rotherham along with teammate John Seasman for a combined fee of £165,000.

Towner scored once for Rotherham’s near neighbours Sheffield United in a 10-game loan spell in 1983 and although he had missed out on Brighton’s eventual elevation to the top tier, he managed it with Wolves in 1983-84 having been signed by the Black Country side for £80,000.

He then joined Charlton Athletic but in the 1985-86 season was loaned to Rochdale where he once again linked up with his former Rotherham teammates, Moore and Seasman. He made five appearances for Rochdale and MikeMCSG on clarkechroniclersfootballers.blogspot.co.uk recalls: “He came on as sub in a home game and made an instantly good impression by beating the full back with his first touch.

“He went on to play a blinder in the draw at Halifax on Boxing Day. Unfortunately Tony didn’t want to uproot to the North and couldn’t be persuaded to make his stay permanent. When Cambridge came in with an offer he signed for them instead although he only made eight appearances for them in total.”

Towner’s final Albion appearance had been in a 4-1 defeat away to Leicester in September 1978 but his final appearance at the Goldstone came in a memorable FA Cup 3^rd round tie on 4 January 1992.

Albion beat then Southern League Crawley 5-0 and Towner earned a rousing reception from the 18,031 packed into the Goldstone when, at the age of 36, he came on as a substitute for the visitors.

Crawley were one of several non-league clubs he played for: he also turned out for Gravesend, Fisher Athletic, Lewes, Newhaven and Saltdean.

Interestingly, Towner reflected: “I could definitely have played for a few more years at league level, and perhaps I should’ve done. I’d got a bit disillusioned with it though.”

After his playing days ended, Towner ran his own Brighton-based removals business and watched the Albion as a fan. In October 2015, Brian Owen interviewed him for an Argus piece ahead of a game against Cardiff when former Albion winger Craig Noone was in opposition.

Towner reckoned Albion made a mistake letting him go but added: “It’s good to see Brighton making good use of wingers.

“That’s the way I was brought up, using the wide men.

“It’s all right having midfield men or attack-minded full-backs. But what gets the crowd on its feet is a winger going past the full-back and crossing.

“You can have all the formations you like but, if you see a winger getting past his full-back, it excites people.”

Tony Towner certainly came into that category.

Pictures mainly shot by Evening Argus photographers and then reproduced in the Albion matchday programmes show a happy Towner congratulated by manager Pat Saward after his league debut, in familiar pose taking on a full back, getting in a trademark cross, in full flight on the wing, and finally on a Wolves album sticker.

All-time Albion hero Peter Ward scored inside a minute of debut

ward v bpool

ARMS aloft in familiar salute to yet another goal, the smiling footballer in a black and white picture on a Florida football club’s website dates back 40 years!

All around the world, it seems, Peter Ward’s goalscoring exploits for Brighton & Hove Albion are still the stuff of legend.

Four decades may have come and gone but the memories of this mercurial talent have never dimmed.

FC Tampa Rangers say of their youth coach: “During the 1976–77 season at Brighton, he scored 36 goals, beating the club record and winning him the golden boot.

“He is still revered by Brighton fans who sing a song dreaming of a team in which every player is Peter Ward: ‘We all live in a Wardy Wonderland’.”

If the word legend gets bandied about a little too frequently, where Peter Ward is concerned it is perfectly apt.

1-ward-scores Few Brighton players have managed to approach the esteem in which this extraordinary talent is held by supporters who saw him score the goals which took the Seagulls from perennial third tier also-rans to a place among the elite.

It takes genuine talent, bravery and skill to score goals at all three levels but Ward delivered. In 220 games for the Albion (plus seven as sub) he scored 95 goals.

In his splendid 2007 book, A Few Good Men (The Breedon Books Publishing Company Limited), Spencer Vignes refers back to 1980 and says of Ward: “No centre forward since has managed to steal his crown. Some have come close – Garry Nelson and Bobby Zamora spring to mind – but Wardy remains special, the golden boy of what proved to be a golden time for the club.”

I was sorry to have missed Ward’s latest return to Brighton when in 2016 he joined some of the Goldstone heroes of the past at the Theatre Royal.

Impishly donning a curly wig on top of his now bald pate to make his grand entrance, Ward showed he’d still got something of the showman about him.

There was never a shortage of superlatives to describe his skills on the pitch. While his dad Colin was a compositor on the Tamworth Herald, his son’s talents with a football filled dozens of column inches in a variety of football publications.

PW green BW Alan Mullery, the manager who benefited most from his audacious skill and compared him to the great Jimmy Greaves, said: “He was just the skinny little kid who could do fantastic things with a football.”

Mullery told Shoot: “Peter has the ability to kill a ball no matter how it comes at him. His pace over short bursts is incredible and he shoots powerfully and accurately with either foot.”

He continued: “Above all else, Peter’s strength on the ball, for a player of his stature, is remarkable. He fools defenders who believe they can easily knock him flying.”

Two of Ward’s former teammates told Vignes what made him so special. “He had this long stride that just seemed to take him away from people,” said Peter O’Sullivan. “One step and he’d be gone. Once he got goal-side of a player, that was it really – bang! Nobody ever seemed to be able to catch him, even in training.”

Brian Horton joined the club around the same time as Ward and said of his younger teammate: “He was this thin, scrawny little player that needed to learn the game, but his finishing was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.”

Nottingham Forest fans will have less happy memories of a player the managerial duo of Clough and Taylor took to the City Ground as they strived to replace Garry Birtles and Trevor Francis with any pairing from Ward, Ian Wallace and Justin Fashanu.

It just didn’t work out for Wardy at Forest although he tells Vignes in A Few Good Men: “I had a great time at Forest. I got on well with the lads and had a laugh.”

While he always got on well with Taylor, his relationship with the erratic Clough was a lot stormier which meant he was in and out of the side.

When Lichfield-born Ward left school he was only 4’8” and because he was told he was too small to make a career playing football he got a job as an apprentice fitter at Rolls Royce and played local football in the Derby area.

The detail of those early years can be discovered in Matthew Horner’s excellent biography of Ward (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media).

Scout Jim Phelps recommended Ward to the then non-league Burton Albion manager Ken Gutteridge having worked with the freescoring player at a Sunday afternoon side, Borrowash United.

After joining the newly-promoted Brewers initially in the Reserves, the 1974-75 season was only a month old when he made his first team bow alongside former England internationals Frank Wignall and Ian Storey-Moore – and promptly scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over Tamworth, his hometown team.

By the middle of November that season, with 10 goals to his name, Ward’s scoring exploits had attracted the attention of league clubs and Brighton boss Peter Taylor, with plenty of contacts in the area, put in a bid.

The Burton chairman, Jim Bradbury, went public on the approach – which Gutteridge found completely unacceptable. He promptly resigned… and before long was appointed to Taylor’s backroom staff!

In the meantime, Burton resisted Brighton’s money and it later emerged that Gutteridge had told Taylor he would only take up the post on condition that Ward would eventually be brought to the Goldstone.

Taylor stuck to his word and eventually signed Ward for £4,000 in the close season of 1975.

The rest, as they say, is history and in researching for this piece it was difficult to sift through the multitude of material from my scrapbooks, programmes, books and other places to condense it all into something manageable.

Because of his popularity, most of the story is familiar to fans of a certain generation anyway and anyone who has not yet read Horner’s book should get themselves a copy because it is rich with material from Ward himself and others who played alongside him or observed him.

Scoring within 50 seconds of his Albion debut away to Hereford United in front of the Match of the Day cameras couldn’t have been a better start and the partnership he struck up with beanpole Ian Mellor was key to promotion from the old Division 3.

For what at times seemed like a fantasy coming to life, it’s intriguing to learn that Ward’s watching of the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me on the eve of two games was followed the next day by him scoring hat-tricks.

In the 1977-78 season, he saw it before making his England under 21 debut at the Goldstone against Norway in a 6-0 win, and, later the same season, he saw it again before an away game at Mansfield and scored three once again!

It seemed a natural progression that Ward would make it to the full England team and he did eventually – winning one cap for a six-minute substitute appearance against Australia in May 1980.

In fact he made the full England squad three years earlier for a game against Luxembourg but wasn’t involved in the match itself and, by his own admission, reckons he blotted his copybook with manager Ron Greenwood by being ill in the room he shared with Trevor Brooking after going out drinking with Brian Greenhoff.

ward cover In the way that all good things must come to an end, the beginning of the end of the fairytale came as Albion struggled to come to terms with their first season at the top level.

Ward was certainly not as prolific as he had been lower down the football pyramid although, as reported in my previous blog post, the arrival of Ray Clarke helped him rediscover his form to finish that season as top goalscorer with 17.

However, a return to his Midlands home territory looked increasingly likely. He nearly went to Derby in November 1979 but a swap deal with Gerry Daly fell through, and Forest also wanted him but Clough walked away from the deal.

Eleven months later, though, Clough and Taylor were back in for him when Birtles was sold to Man Utd, paying the Albion £450,000 for his services. Andy Ritchie, being displaced by Birtles’ move to United, promptly replaced Ward at the Albion.

Ward made just 33 appearances for Forest, scoring seven goals, and in 1981-82 went on loan to Seattle Sounders.

In the autumn of 1982, Brighton brought him back to the Goldstone on loan and it was in the fourth game of a 16-game spell that he scored (above) what he considered his favourite goal, the winner against his boyhood idols Manchester United at the Goldstone on 6 November 1982.

Ward was part of the Albion line-up that won that memorable FA Cup fifth round tie at Anfield en route to the 1983 FA Cup Final but it was to prove his penultimate game as the eccentric Clough quashed Ward’s desire to stay with the Seagulls and that potential trip to Wembley.

At that time, Clough’s Forest hadn’t been to a FA Cup Final and he told Ward: “Son, I’ve never been to a Cup Final and neither will you.”

That spelled the end of Ward’s time at the City Ground and by the end of 1983 he was sold to Vancouver Whitecaps for £20,000; the beginning of what became a 13-year career playing mainly indoor football in America, where he still lives.

• Pictures from various sources: the matchday programme, Evening Argus and Shoot! / Goal.

Ajax legend Ray Clarke helped Ward get back on the goal trail

BRIGHTON’S early season form in their first ever season playing in English football’s top tier prompted thoughts of an automatic return to the Second Division.

The status earned so memorably via that 3-1 win at Newcastle on 5 May 1979 was but a glorious memory once the new season had kicked off.

Buried 4-0 by Arsenal in the opening game, the glimmers of hope were few and far between and Peter Ward, the talismanic striker who had been scoring goals for fun in Divisions Three and then Two was struggling to find the back of the net.

Help was soon at hand though in the shape of an Englishman who had been a sensation in Holland. Only the season before, Ray Clarke had been carried shoulder high by the fans of Ajax of Amsterdam for his goalscoring exploits.

The striker was anxious to bring an unhappy five-month spell at new club Bruges to an end and a £175,000 fee saw him reunited with his old Tottenham teammate Alan Mullery.

In Matthew Horner’s excellent biography of Peter Ward (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media), Clarke says: “I’d been playing abroad but was looking to come back to England because my wife wasn’t very well. I nearly signed for West Ham but then I heard that Brighton were interested too.

“I had been at Tottenham when I was younger and Alan Mullery was the captain then. So when we met it didn’t take long to tie up the deal.

“When I joined, the team had played 14 games but had only seven points and were bottom of the table.

“Wardy and I got on really well: he was sharp and quick and I could get him the ball. He was a good finisher and a great lad.”

ray clarke BW Clarke replaced Teddy Maybank, who was sold back to Second Division Fulham for £150,000. The new man up front scored Albion’s only goal in a 4-1 home defeat to Liverpool but after that unlikely 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest on 17 November (ending the European champions 31-month unbeaten home record), gradually the fortunes began to change — and, crucially, Ward found his scoring boots again. He notched 18 by the season’s end, Clarke himself weighed in with nine, and the Seagulls finished a respectable 16^th of 22.

In He Shot, He Scored, Ward said: “Ray was a good player — not at all flash, just a sound, straightforward, target man.

“I hadn’t had a regular partner since Ian Mellor in the Third Division and it helped to have some consistency.

“When I played alongside Ray, I probably played the best football of my Brighton career — it was a shame he left so soon.”

It was from an excellent Dutch website, football-oranje.com, that I discovered what prompted Mullery to sell Clarke to Newcastle at the end of that season. I had always thought he was simply making way for the £400,000 arrival of Michael Robinson from Manchester City.

However, football-oranje.com reveals: “In July 1980, following a visit to a specialist, Clarke was sold to Newcastle for £180,000. The news from the specialist had been grave; his hips were in a poor condition and his career could be over in either 12 months or four years. The ramifications for club and player were immense. At that time, Clarke was uninsured and Brighton would not receive a penny if he broke down whilst on their books. After playing only 14 matches for Newcastle United in the 1980-81 season, Clarke was forced to retire aged just 28.”

The website’s Hall of Fame piece about Clarke is fascinating, if too detailed to repeat at length here.

Clarke joined Ajax in July 1978 and, in spite of having to step into the striking boots of Ruud Geels, who had been sold to Anderlecht after being the Eredivisie top scorer for four consecutive seasons (30, 29, 34 and 30 goals respectively), he stepped up to the plate and netted an impressive 26 league goals for the Amsterdam club, six in the Dutch Cup and six in the UEFA Cup.

When the Ajax board controversially decided to sell him to fund the arrival of new players, their legendary former player Johann Cruyff, no less, had this to say: “Those people who wanted to sell Ray Clarke don’t understand that Clarke could take away two or sometimes three defenders on his own because of his vision. The board should have seen Clarke as a goalscorer or a playmaker. He made sure that Tahamata and Ling could play well – and he still scored 30 goals in one season.”

Born in Hackney on 25 September 1952, Clarke was spotted by Spurs playing in Islington schoolboys football and was part of the north London club’s 1970 Youth Cup winning team which included Steve Perryman and Graeme Souness.

It took them two replays to overcome a Coventry City side who had future Aston Villa European Cup winning captain Dennis Mortimer in midfield and, in goal, David Icke, who became a BBC TV sports presenter then professional conspiracy theorist.

Clarke scored bucketloads of goals at youth and reserve level, but with Alan Gilzean and Martin Chivers blocking his path to the first team, he only managed one senior appearance, as a substitute.

Manager Bill Nicholson sold him to Swindon Town for £8,000 in 1973 but he played only 14 times for the Robins, scoring twice, before he moved on a year later to Mansfield Town in the old Fourth Division.

In Mansfield’s league title winning season of 1974-75, Clarke scored 30 goals in 53 matches alongside Terry Eccles, who got 20. Clarke continued rattling in the goals at the higher level, finishing the Division 3 season with 29 goals in 58 appearances.

Then, at 23, he hankered for a return to higher level football and Mansfield made a major return on their £8,000 investment by collecting a £90,000 fee from Sparta Rotterdam.

After two seasons at Sparta, and Clarke’s scoring ratio being close to a goal every other game, Ajax took him north to Amsterdam where, to refer back briefly to football-oranje.com, he earned club icon status.

“Although Ray Clarke may not have been the highest goalscorer in Ajax history or even their greatest striker, what endeared Clarke to Ajax fans was the importance of his goals,” the website says. “Clarke was a player who never went missing in a big game and his performances were the key to ensuring trophies for Ajax.

“One of the most memorable examples of this took place on June 4th 1979, when Clarke scored the only Ajax goal in the 1-1 game at AZ ’67 that would secure Ajax the Eredivisie title. The moment was preserved in a famous photograph of the aftermath of this match, with the Ajax fans carrying the Englishman up on their shoulders.”

When Clarke’s playing days were brought prematurely to an end, he built a new career in football as a renowned scout, including working under Gordon Strachan at Coventry and Southampton and also for Souness when he was at Saints, and his successor, Paul Sturrock. His LinkedIn status says since March 2020 he’s worked as a freelance recruitment agent prior to which he was technical director of Cypriot team Omonia Nicosia for just short of six years.

Cattle auctioneer Kevin Bremner gave clubs a promotion prod

bremner-portrait AS GOALSCORING partnerships go, the pairing of Kevin Bremner and Garry Nelson was something of a masterstroke by Albion manager Barry Lloyd.

Having to readjust to life back in Division 3 after relegation in 1987 meant cashing in on some of the better players – the sale of Terry Connor, Danny Wilson and Eric Young raised over £400,000 – and replacing them with bargain buys.

At £65,000 for Bremner and £72,500 for Nelson, Lloyd showed how shrewd an operator he could be in the transfer market. When Nelson was injured and sidelined for a while, £80,000 was paid to bring in Paul Wood to play alongside Bremner.

Bremner was born on 7 October 1957 in Banff in the Scottish Highlands and worked as an auctioneer in the cattle market in his home town as well as playing Highland League football.

He didn’t make his start in the English league until the relatively late age of 23. That was with Colchester United and he made his debut in a 2-2 home draw with Barnsley in Division 3 on 11 October 1980.

He went on to make 93 consecutive appearances for Colchester in the third and fourth divisions and scored 35 goals while Bobby Roberts was in charge. All was going well until Bremner got in a dispute with the club and found himself out of the side.

Division 1 Birmingham took him on a month’s loan and, after he’d scored a goal in his four games there, Roberts’ repplacement at Colchester, former Ipswich and Northern Ireland centre half Allan Hunter, recalled him to Layer Road. However, former boss Roberts had moved on to Division 3 Wrexham, and he took Bremner on loan at the Racecourse, where he also got on the scoresheet.

“He wanted to take me on permanently but they couldn’t afford it so my next stop was Home Park, and a spell at Plymouth Argyle,” he told the Albion matchday programme. “It was touch and go whether or not I’d stay there in the long term, but once Lincoln and Millwall showed an interest I knew that I’d soon be on my way.”

He chose Millwall – “it was closer” – and joined the Lions in December 1982 for a £25,000 fee. He was one of eight new signings made by manager George Graham as Millwall were floundering at the bottom of Division 3 at the time. In a remarkable turn-round, they picked up 27 points in 12 games to escape relegation.

He was then part of the Millwall side who won promotion from Division 3 in 1984-85. In total, Bremner scored 33 goals in 87 games for the Lions. “It was a fabulous couple of years even though the side was struggling when I joined,” he said. “Playing at The Den is great – it’s wicked for away teams because the atmosphere is so strong.”

Next stop was Reading for a £35,000 fee. He spent two seasons with the Royals and enjoyed a successful partnership with lofty Trevor Senior which helped the Royals to promotion as champions from Division 3 in 1986.

I can remember going to watch Albion play Reading in November 1986 and Bremner scored twice in a 2-1 win for the Royals at Elm Park. He finished the season with 15. Albion signed him from Reading for £65,000 in July 1987.

Brem flow After a flying start with Brighton, in which he scored 11 goals, the league goals dried up for Bremner but strike partner Nelson couldn’t stop scoring as Albion powered their way to automatic promotion.

Second spot behind Sunderland was clinched via a 2-1 Goldstone win over Bristol Rovers on 7 May, Bremner finally ending his goal drought with a diving header, and Nelson, inevitably, getting the winner – his 32^nd goal of the season.

What was all the more remarkable about the pairing was that it was the first season Nelson had played as an out-and-out striker.

Back in the second tier in 1988-89, Albion struggled to make an impression against better quality opponents although Bremner did score 15 goals, including a hattrick in a New Year’s Eve 4-0 mauling of Birmingham City. In September 1988, he took over the goalkeeper gloves (below) at home against West Brom when Perry Digweed was forced off with a serious groin injury.

In a matchday programme interview, Bremner said: ”I’m probably enjoying the game more than at any time before. I regret not coming into the professional game earlier but I’m delighted at the way things have turned out.

“We always thought we could do well at the Goldstone and after two years of hard work I’d like to think that we can put the club back on the map and, besides, I’d like another try in the First Division.”

The programme notes declared: “It’s his consistent scoring record that has opposing defenders on tenterhooks. His total commitment invariably creates an opportunist goal and he is a popular player with the fans.”

Brem run Bremner scored 12 in the 1989-90 season, five of them coming in the space of a week at the start of the season! He was virtually ever-present but Albion struggled in the lower half of the table for most of the season. His goal in a 1-1 draw away to Blackburn in the final game of that campaign was his last for the club. In 134 games (plus three as sub), he’d scored 36 goals.

He moved on to Peterborough United in the close season as manager Lloyd had a new strike partnership up his sleeve in the shape of John Byrne and Mike Small.

After a year at Peterborough, Bremner moved back to Scotland to play for Dundee but in the spring of 1992 had a month’s loan spell at Shrewsbury Town.

Back in the far north of Scotland he had spells as player-manager with Brora Rangers and his old club Deveronvale then in 1995 he became youth team manager at Gillingham and stayed for eight years, and was then academy coach at Millwall for three years. He subsequently coached youngsters in Kent, at an academy and at an independent school.

Pictures show the front page of the Evening Argus following Albion’s promotion from Division 3 in 1988 with Bremner diving to score; a shot of Bremner in action against West Ham that appeared on the front of a matchday programme, a portrait from a matchday programme at the beginning of the 1989-90 season, and other action pictures from matchday programmes.

Gary Lineker cleaned defender Larry May’s boots

larry may wednes INJURY cut short Larry May’s playing career at Brighton but, during a purple patch of his four-year spell at Barnsley, he impressed his peers to the extent he was in the 1986-87 PFA team of the year.

Alongside him in that selection were Lee Dixon, the ITV football pundit who in those days played for Stoke City prior to his move to Arsenal, and former Albion full back John Gregory, who was playing in midfield for Derby County at the time.

Centre back Larry began his career with Leicester City and played over 200 games for them between 1977 and 1983. When given a run in the first team by former Rangers manager Jock Wallace, Larry’s boots were looked after by none other than Gary Lineker: the Match of the Day host being a Filbert Street apprentice at the time.

Leicester’s club historian John Hutchinson – who said of May: “He was very strong in the air, a powerful tackler and had pace” – drove down to Brighton in 2015 to interview Larry about his time with the Foxes and published the story on foxestalk.co.uk.

Leicester had spotted him playing for a local youth team in Birmingham and invited him for a trial. Aged 17, he made his debut in the top division against Bristol City when one of his teammates was Frank Worthington, another who later played for the Albion.

In the following season, Jimmy Bloomfield, the manager who gave him his debut, departed and was replaced by Frank McLintock, who didn’t give May much of a look-in.

Screenshot — *May played in front of ex-Norwich goalkeeper Kevin Keelan for the Tea Men*

He went to play for New England Tea Men (a franchise owned by the Lipton tea company) in America under ex-Coventry manager Noel Cantwell to get some games but ruptured a cruciate ligament which some thought might end his career before it had even got off the ground.

Back at Leicester, McLintock was succeeded by Wallace and he paired May at the back with John O’Neill – a partnership that endured for the best part of five years.

In those early times, though, May admitted he had to play through pain and regularly ice his knee.

Not only was May ever-present in the 1979-80 side that won promotion from Division 2, he headed the only goal of the game at Leyton Orient on the last day of the season to clinch the title. Striker Alan Young, who played for Albion in the 1983-84 season, was another ever-present.

Leicester only survived a season in the top flight and following relegation Gordon Milne replaced Wallace as manager, guiding them to promotion in his first season. May, though, didn’t see eye to eye with the former Liverpool midfielder and ended up handing in a transfer request.

In an Albion matchday programme, May said: “”We fell out over something and nothing really but at 24 you think you know it all and there was no future for me once I’d asked for a transfer. “Thinking back, I realise that I should have got on with it.”

As it was, in August 1983 he dropped a division and joined Barnsley for a fee of £110,000, signed by the legendary former Leeds hard man, Norman Hunter.

larry may bw “For a man with a reputation of being one of the fiercest characters in football it was unbelievable – I’d say he was definitely the nicest fellow I’ve ever played for,” said May.

While on the books at Oakwell, with a nod towards a longer future in the game, May took his full FA coaching badge.

He told foxestalk.co.uk: “I was happy at Barnsley but, in retrospect, I should have bided my time and stayed at Leicester really. But I was a bit young and naïve. I loved it at Leicester. Leicester were the best club I ever played at. It was my best time in football and I loved it there.”

After three years with Barnsley, former Albion winger Howard Wilkinson took May to Sheffield Wednesday. He had just turned 28 and the move represented a step back up in standard.

“It was an important move at that stage in my career but looking back it was never brilliant for me at Hillsborough,” he said.

Amongst the competitors for his place was Nigel Pearson, later to be better known for some eccentricities in management with various clubs.

At the start of the 1988-89 season, a move south to Brighton was mooted but Wilkinson held onto him because of some early season injury problems. However, Barry Lloyd got his man towards the end of September 1988 and May joined Brighton for £200,000.

His debut in a 2-1 Goldstone win over Leeds brought to an end a run of eight defeats at the beginning of the season but it was back to losing ways – both 1-0 – in the following two games which, ironically, were against his former clubs, Barnsley, at home, and Leicester, away.

monoMay

The return fixture with Leicester was a happier outcome for May, though, because he was the sponsors’ man of the match in a 1-1 draw.

In his programme notes for the Barnsley game, manager Lloyd said: “I know he’ll have a big impact on the way we play….at 29, we know he has a lot of football left in him.”

Captain Steve Gatting had a programme column that season and he also welcomed the central defender, adding: “His experience in the top two divisions is bound to rub off onto some of younger players. When we’ve played against Larry in the past he’s tended to be the man of the match and I’m sure everyone at the Goldstone wishes him and his family every success.”

Understandable sentiments, of course, and such a shame that before the season’s end, after only 25 games, the cruciate ligament in his right knee was shattered in an accidental collision with teammate Paul Wood during a magnificent 2-1 home win over Man City.

“I knew straight away, having had knee trouble before, how serious it was,” he said. “It wasn’t Paul’s fault. It was just one of those things.” He was carried off on a stretcher and it was his last game for the club.

It was in the matchday programme for Albion’s game v Ipswich Town on 27 September 1989 that news of his forced retirement was announced.

“The sudden decision has stunned 30-year-old Larry and his family who were beginning to settle in the Brighton area after moving from Wakefield last year,” the announcement read. “In a 12-year career in the game, Larry has made more than 400 senior appearances, 364 in the league.”

A dejected May told the programme: “It hasn’t sunk in yet because I just don’t believe that I’m finished. I honestly thought that I could carry on playing at league level until I was 35. I’ve always been fit generally and never had a weight problem and this has really hit me.

“When the specialist told me that I shouldn’t play again my first reaction was that it had to be wrong. Now I’ve got to rethink and I’m not really sure about my future.”

Manager Lloyd added: “The announcement that Larry May had been forced to retire from playing was a particularly sad one. He performed very well for us last season and put heart and soul into everything around the club.”

Thankfully Larry was able to put that coaching badge to good use when Lloyd made him reserve team coach and, after a time working for the Surrey FA, he later returned to the club as Head of Sports Participation for Albion in the Community.

His links to the club also extended to his sons: Chris was a young goalkeeper who once had to replace the injured Michel Kuipers during a game and Steve was a centre-back who was in the youth set-up.

1-larrymaystripes 2-argusmayintheface 3-may-quits 4-coach-may

*Larry and his sons Steve (left) and Chris*

• Pictures include Larry May in matchday programmes; captured by an Evening Argus cameraman getting a hand in the face; the programme announcement of his retirement; in an Albion team line-up as a coach, and with his sons.

Steady Eddie Spearritt ‘Mr Versatility’ and a long throw specialist

2-signed-eddie-spearritt IN THE days before managers had a bench of substitutes, players who could slot into virtually any position were a major asset. One of my favourites was Eddie Spearritt.

A wholehearted, tough character, Spearritt was equally comfortable playing in midfield, at full back or sweeper, would occasionally get on the scoresheet, and even turned his hand to goalkeeping when necessary.

Long before anyone had heard of Rory Delap, Spearritt was a top exponent of the long throw which could sometimes be as effective as a free kick or corner. It was a skill which earned him a place in a Longest Throw competition staged by BBC’s sport show Grandstand in 1970-71, although he didn’t win it.

Born in Lowestoft on 31 January 1947, Spearritt started out at Arsenal but on failing to make the grade there, switched to Ipswich Town as an apprentice in August 1963.

On prideofanglia.com, Tim Hodge details Eddie’s Ipswich career. He made his league debut in the 1965-66 season in a 1-0 win away to Preston in the old Division Two.

Over the next two years, he made a total of 69 appearances (plus 10 as sub) for Bill McGarry’s side, scoring 14 goals along the way (Spearritt is pictured in Ipswich squad photos above, including the side who were Second Division winners).

A 1-0 home defeat to Spurs in October 1968 was his last for the Suffolk club and three months later, surplus to new manager Bobby Robson’s requirements, was one of Freddie Goodwin’s first signings, for £20,000, just a few weeks before my first ever Albion game. ES debut Crewe

He made his debut in a 3-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra (above with the superb backdrop of a packed EastTerrace at the Goldstone Ground) and kept the number 10 shirt to the end of the season, by which time he had scored five times, including both Albion’s goals in the 2-2 draw at home to Tranmere Rovers.

1-spearritt-v-wolves-69-copy In the 1969-70 season, not only was he part of the Third Division Albion side who pushed his old manager McGarry’s First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers side all the way in a memorable third round League Cup tie, it was his header from Kit Napier’s free kick that put the Albion 2-1 ahead just before half-time (aftermath pictured above).

Scottish international Hugh Curran scored twice in eight second half minutes to clinch the win for Wolves but a bumper Goldstone Ground crowd of 32,539 witnessed a terrific effort by their side.

ES Shoot action

A few weeks’ later, in a marathon FA Cup second round tie with Walsall that required three replays before the Saddlers finally prevailed 2-1, Spearritt took over in goal during the second replay when a concussed Geoff Sidebottom was stretchered off on 65 minutes. Albion hung on for a 1-1 draw.

Spearritt was a midfield regular in his first two seasons but Goodwin’s successor, Pat Saward, switched him to left back halfway through the 1970-71 season and that’s where he stayed throughout the 1971-72 promotion campaign. Player-of-the-season Bert Murray generously declared the award could have gone to Eddie for his consistency that season.

In the close season after promotion, Spearritt tied the knot with Penelope Biddulph, “an accomplished professional dancer,” the matchday programme told us, and they moved into a new home in Kingston-by-Sea.

Spearritt started out at left back in Division Two but after ten games was ousted by the arrival of George Ley from Portsmouth. He then switched back into midfield, but by the end of that relegation season was playing sweeper alongside Norman Gall (for nine games) and Steve Piper (for two).

He scored, along with Barry Bridges, in a 2-0 win at Huddersfield on 14 October but the team went on a disastrous run of 16 games without a win, although Spearritt did get on the scoresheet three times, including notching two penalties.

When Albion went to that footballing outpost Carlisle on 16 December, they had lost five in a row without managing a single goal. Carlisle were 5-0 up, goalkeeper Brian Powney was carried off with a broken nose, replaced between the sticks by Bert Murray, then Albion won a penalty.

Spearritt took up the story in a subsequent matchday programme.

“I used to be the club’s penalty taker but, after I had missed an important one at Mansfield in 1970, I lost the job. Penalty-taking is really all about confidence,” he said. “After I had missed that one at Mansfield, which cost us a point, the players lost confidence in me and the job went first to John Napier and was then taken over by Bert Murray.

“Bert would have taken the penalty at Carlisle. He has already scored two this season. But he had gone in goal and it was decided it was too risky to fetch Bert out of goal to take the penalty.

“Nobody else seemed to want to take it so I just picked the ball up and put it on the spot. We were 5-0 down by then but I thought from a morale point of view that it was extremely important that I scored. You can understand my relief when I saw the ball hit the back of the net.

“Everybody was beginning to wonder when we would score again. I suppose with the run of bad luck we have been having it was almost inevitable that we should break our goal famine from the penalty spot.”

Albion finally returned to winning ways with a 2-0 win over Luton on 10 February, and then beat Huddersfield, Carlisle and Swindon, prompting Saward to refer to “some outstanding individual performances” and adding: “I have been particularly pleased with the way Eddie Spearritt has been playing in recent weeks.

“He has maintained a high level of consistency this season and his work in defence and in midfield has been invaluable as the side has plugged away trying to turn the tide of results.”

Spearritt was Saward’s captain at the start of the 1973-74 season back in Division Three and with the return of central defender Ian Goodwin and then the emergence of Steve Piper in the sweeping role, he was soon back in midfield.

When Saward was sensationally replaced by Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in October, Spearritt was part of the side who capitulated 4-0, 8-2 and 4-1 in successive games against Walton & Hersham, Bristol Rovers and Tranmere Rovers. He was dropped for six games, along with Ley (who never played for Albion again) as Clough went into the transfer market and brought in midfielder Ronnie Welch and left back Harry Wilson from Burnley.

Spearritt was restored to the team in mid January and had a run of seven games — including his 200^th league game for Albion — but when he was subbed off in a home win over Hereford United on 10 March 1974, it was to be his last appearance in an Albion shirt.

In five years he’d played 225 games (plus seven as sub) and scored 25 goals.

In common with lots of players from the Saward era, Spearritt was a victim of the great Clough clear-out. Perhaps surprisingly, though, his next step was UP two divisions to play in the First Division with then newly-promoted Carlisle United.

One of his teammates there was defender Graham Winstanley, who later joined the Albion. The side was captained by Chris Balderstone, who was also a top cricketer. Journeyman striker Hugh McIlmoyle played up front while John Gorman, who later played for Spurs and became Glenn Hoddle’s managerial sidekick, was also in the team.

They memorably topped the division after three games….but predictably finished bottom of the pile by the end. In his two-year stay with the Cumbrians, Spearritt played 29 times, was sub twice and scored a single goal.

He moved back south in August 1976, signed by Gerry Summers at Gillingham, and made his debut against Reading, going on to make 22 appearances in his one season at the club, scoring once, from the spot, against Rotherham United at Priestfield.

One of those games was against the Albion on December 29 1976, when the home side won 2-0 on a slippery, snow-covered pitch.

Eddie emigrated to Australia the following summer and settled in Brisbane where he played for and managed the Brisbane Lions before retiring. He subsequently became estates manager for L’Oréal.

3-spearritt-graydon 4-spear-pen-v-black 5-gill-eddie-v-mellor-dec-76

Pictures from my scrapbook show him celebrating after scoring in the League Cup against Wolves; an autographed Goal action shot in the white with blue cuffs kit — when I was an autograph hunter around the players’ tunnel before a game, Eddie was always happy to oblige; a Shoot colour shot of him in action against winger Ray Graydon in the famous 1972 televised win over Aston Villa; from a matchday programme, Eddie’s successful penalty kick in a 2-1- home defeat to Blackpool in December 1972 nestles in the back of the net, with ‘keeper John Burridge beaten, and, from the Argus, challenging Ian Mellor playing for Gillingham against the Albion in December 1976.

Taylor walked out on Burton and Brighton to join Clough

P Taylor smile 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.

nervy Taylor 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.

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