ECUADOR international Pervis Estupiñán stepped comfortably into the boots of Marc Cucurella when Albion signed him from Villarreal in the summer of 2022.
Rampaging runs down the left wing, pinpoint crosses and the occasional spectacular goal unleashed from distance all endeared the player to the Albion faithful.
A terrific goal he scored away to Crystal Palace in February 2023 was ruled out by VAR – and to compound the injustice, the referees body PGMOL subsequently admitted the strike had mistakenly been ruled out when John Brooks drew the offside line against the wrong Palace player.
“I was very sad about that disallowed goal because I don’t score a lot,” Estupiñán said later. “I remember it was a very equal game, but we played well.” The game finished 1-1.
One that did count, though, sealed Albion’s impressive 3-0 win away to Arsenal on 14 May 2023.
It was a fitting end to what was an impressive first season with the Seagulls during which he made 35 starts and six appearances off the bench.
His performances as the straightforward replacement for the previous season’s player of the year meant Albion could glow in the warmth of having trousered £62m for Cucurella and replaced him with a top quality defender for whom they paid £14.9m.
After he had scored his second goal for the Seagulls in a 4-1 win at Wolves at the beginning of the 2023-24 season, Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi said he believed the defender had the potential to become one of the best left-backs in the world if he continued to improve his first touch and his passing.
“Pervis is one of the most crucial players for us because he started from left-back, but you can find him in a striker position,” he said. “He’s very smart, he’s one of our secrets I think.”
Praising Albion’s recruitment department for “yet again delivering another masterstroke” in signing Estupiñán, The Professional Football Scouts Association declared: “Full of determination, tenacity, energy and running power, his impact has been felt heavily on both ends of the pitch, as his all-round contribution has been a major asset for Roberto De Zerbi’s Seagulls.
“While his defensive work has been solid, with him feisty in his duels, aggressive in the press, good at tracking runners and positionally sound, it’s been his offensive impact that’s really caught the eye.”
The organisation talked about his “devastating and varied movement” and highlighted the way he dovetailed with Kaoru Mitoma in front of him. “The pair’s astute interchanges and ability to create space for each other by drawing or pinning adversaries has been a joy to watch,” it said.
“Be it making headway with wicked infield underlapping runs, blistering overlaps or making room for his colleagues by acting as a decoy, his movement has been a huge source of inspiration going forward for Brighton.”
Brighton certainly felt his loss with a muscle injury over the course of several months in the 2023-24 season, with The Athletic maintaining: “None of the replacements who tried to fill the void created by his absence possess the adventurous Estupiñán’s blend of athleticism, power and stamina.”
In a detailed analysis of his stats, the platform suggested in January 2024 that Estupiñán had a strong claim to be considered the best left back in the Premier League, comparing him favourably against Liverpool’s Andy Robertson, Man Utd’s Luke Shaw and Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko.
Although he scored two stunning goals (in a 4-2 home win over Spurs and a 4-2 win at Stoke City in the FA Cup) within a matter of nine days mid-season, too often on his return to the Albion side in the second half of the season, Estupiñán didn’t look anything like the player fans had enjoyed watching the previous campaign.
And then his season ended too early when he was subbed off in the first half of the 1-1 draw at Burnley in April with an ankle injury that subsequently required surgery, ruling him out of playing for his country in the Copa America summer competition.
De Zerbi reckoned Estupiñán would not be fit enough to start the new season and it remains to be seen when Albion fans might see him return to the starting line-up. In the meantime, another south American, Valentin Barco, has slotted into that position with aplomb.
Born in the coastal Ecuadorian city of Esmeraldas on 21 January 1998, Estupiñán’s footballing journey began aged 13 in the youth set up at Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito, in the country’s capital.
Given his professional debut shortly after his 17th birthday in 2015, he made 40 appearances in Ecuador’s top division and represented his country in the 2015 South American under-17 Championship and the FIFA under-17 World Cup. He was also given an early taste of international club competition in the Copa Sudamericana and the Copa Libertadores.
Not long after being selected in the best XI of the 2015 Ecuadorian Serie A season, Estupiñán joined the Pozzo-family-owned Watford, although he didn’t actually play a game for the Hornets in four years on their books. At the time, the Pozzos also owned Granada in Spain where Estupiñán spent the 2016-17 season on loan.
It was said he would return to be part of Watford’s side for the 2020-21 season but their relegation from the Premier League led to him being sold instead.
In action for Villarreal
When Villarreal’s regular left-back Alberto Moreno was sidelined for six months after rupturing his ACL in pre-season, they signed Estupiñán for £15m to plug the gap. Lowy described him as “an athletic, technically sound left back who marauds up the flank with pace and panache and can deliver a deadly cross like few others”.
Lowy said Estupiñán excelled under Unai Emery as Villarreal finished seventh and won the Europa League for the first time in the club’s history (although Estupiñán was an unused substitute when they beat Manchester United on penalties in the final). He went on to make 74 appearances for them, including helping them to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League.
Having played at under 17 and under 20 levels for his country, Estupiñán made his first senior start for Ecuador in a 6-1 defeat to Argentina in 2019 but he went on the same year to play in that year’s Copa America when they reached the quarter finals and he played in all three Ecuador matches at the 2022 World Cup (together with fellow countrymen and Albion teammates Moises Caicedo and Jeremy Sarmiento).
Through his Irish father Jim, Wythenshawe-born Byrne qualified to play for the Republic of Ireland and he won 13 of his 23 Republic of Ireland caps while a QPR player playing in the old First Division.
His place in the annals of QPR’s history was etched courtesy of following two other greats (Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles) into the no. 10 shirt.
“I was always conscious of the traditions at Rangers and so I was dead proud to wear the Number 10,” he told qprreport in 2008. “I think I did the shirt justice most of the time.”
In the same way Brighton fans remember his highly effective striking partnership with Mike Small in the 1990-91 season, so QPR supporters recall his combination up front with Gary Bannister.
Bannister and Byrne
“I enjoyed playing up front with ‘Banna’,” he said. “He was a great centre-forward, right out of the top drawer. I don’t know how our partnership worked but we just seemed to have a good understanding.
“He was more of a prolific goalscorer than I was. He also had superb quality and awareness for bringing people into the game.”
Byrne, who later became a familiar voice as an expert summariser for BBC Radio Sussex coverage of Albion matches, has always been happy to indulge requests from Rs writers to look back on his four years at Loftus Road.
As would become something of a pattern in his career, it was an impressive performance playing against QPR that led them to sign him. He featured in a two-legged League Cup game for York City against Rangers, and he recalled the game at Loftus Road when talking to qprnet.com in 2013:
“It was so brilliant to play in that stadium under the floodlights and coming from York to run out at QPR was something to remember.
“Afterwards I said to our assistant manager Viv Busby that I would love to play here every week. Lo and behold a couple of weeks later I was!”
The man who took him to west London was none other than Alan Mullery, the former Brighton manager, during his unhappy six months as QPR manager.
It’s now generally recognised that some of the senior pros at the club were none too pleased with Mullery taking over from Terry Venables, who had moved to Spain to manage Barcelona. Byrne admitted: “It was difficult for me to fully understand having been signed by Mullery but you could feel it with some of the senior pros.
“The likes of Terry Fenwick, John Gregory and Steve Wicks were big Venables men and, understandably, as he was obviously a great coach. You got a feeling that a few of them weren’t overly impressed with Mullers at the time.”
As it turned out, Mullery’s time in charge came to an abrupt end and Byrne remembered playing under caretaker manager Frank Sibley before Jim Smith got the job permanently.
“Frank was lovely; he was a really nice man and probably too nice for football management,” said Byrne. “He really helped me a lot, he would always welcome a chat with you and put his arm round you to talk about your game. I had a lot of time for Frank.”
And of the former Birmingham and Oxford boss Smith, who went on to manage Newcastle and Portsmouth, among others, he said: “Smithy was brilliant. I loved playing for Jim. He loved you, he hated you but he would never ignore you or freeze you out.”
It was in 1986 when Byrne suffered the first of three losing experiences in Wembley finals. QPR went down 3-0 to Smith’s former club Oxford United
“Unfortunately we never turned up for the final,” Byrne told QPRnet. “I just remember that after we were introduced to the dignitaries I went off for the warm up and I had nothing in the tank. I had heavy legs before the game and I think a lot of the players felt like that.
“At the end of the day we didn’t perform and Oxford were better than us but there should be no excuses we were a better side on paper and we should have won.”
A far happier memory from that spring of 1986 happened three weeks previously when the Rs thrashed Chelsea 6-0 and Byrne scored twice (Bannister netted a hat-trick and Michael Robinson the other).
“I’ll never forget that day,” said Byrne. “It was just one of those occasions when everything went right for us.
“I remember one of my goals where I picked up possession on the halfway line. It was funny on that plastic pitch, because bodies would fall all around you if you got into your stride. So eventually I wriggled free and slotted a shot into the bottom corner.”
Another of his favourite QPR memories was scoring in two home games against Manchester United, the team he had supported as a boy. Recalling a 1-0 win in March 1986, he said: “I remember lobbing the ball over two defenders’ heads in the box. Then I flicked it back before shooting past Chris Turner in goal at the Loft End. It was great for me – especially being a Manchester lad as well.”
In much the same way as his move to QPR came about, it was in a couple of friendly matches against Le Havre that the French side liked what they saw of him and QPR were happy to accept their bid for the player.
“It was disappointing to leave QPR but I think it was probably the right time to go,” he recalled. Unfortunately, he broke a leg only three weeks into his stay with Le Havre. But when he was fit again, a few English clubs started watching his recovery with interest.
And it was following a friendly Brighton played against Le Havre that prompted Albion boss Barry Lloyd to bring Byrne back to England to play in early September 1990. He made his Seagulls debut for the reserves in a 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic and then went on as a sub for the first team in Albion’s 3-2 home win over the same opponent 10 days later.
He scored on his first start, in a 2-1 win away to Blackburn Rovers, and on his first start at home he netted in a 3-3 draw with Swindon Town, who were managed by Ossie Ardiles.
Crocked in the last game of the league season against Ipswich
How the rest of that season panned out was covered in my previous post about Byrne, as were his subsequent moves, the most successful of which saw him play for Sunderland in the 1992 FA Cup final when Liverpool beat the Wearsiders 2-0.
“I scored in every round except the final then missed a sitter on roughly thirteen minutes twenty seconds; I see that one every day!” he told QPRnet.
Byrne’s future work as a podiatrist came about largely through the network provided by the Professional Footballers’ Association.
“When I finished playing football in the late 1990s, I was hoping to become a physio but couldn’t get a place at university to study it,” he explained. “Then the ex-Manchester United star Norman Whiteside advised me to look at the PFA’s course for podiatry, because he was a podiatrist himself. The PFA said they would help me with finance and backing.”
He went on to graduate from university in 2001 – gaining his BSC Honours degree was the hardest thing he’d done in his life, he said.
“My brain had been dormant for twenty years playing football, but I’ve been qualified now for nearly 10 years,” he said in a 2010 interview with Sussex Life. “I love my NHS career and also the private work I do and I get a lot of job satisfaction improving patients’ foot problems.”
And in his interview with QPRnet, he added: “I was lucky, I look back now and I had a good career, I played for some great clubs and whilst I might have had disappointments with finals I have got plenty of great memories.”
ALTHOUGH I wasn’t even born when Dave Sexton was winning promotion with Brighton, I remember him well as a respected coach and manager.
The record books and plenty of articles have revealed Sexton scored 28 goals in 53 appearances for Brighton before injury curtailed his playing career.
As a manager, he took both Manchester United and Queens Park Rangers to runners-up spot in the equivalent of today’s Premier League and won the FA Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup with Chelsea.
On top of those achievements, he was the manager of England’s under 21 international side when they won the European Championship in 1982 and 1984, and worked with the full international squad under Ron Greenwood, Bobby Robson, Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle, Kevin Keegan and Sven-Göran Eriksson.
Sexton coached under several England managers
On his death aged 82 on 25 November 2012, Albion chief executive Paul Barber said: “I know Dave was an extremely popular player during his days at the Goldstone Ground and, as a friend and colleague during my time working at the FA, I can tell you that he was held in equally high esteem.
“He was a football man through and through. I enjoyed listening to many of Dave’s football stories and tales during our numerous hotel stays with the England teams and what always came through was his great love and passion for the game.
“Dave was a true gentleman and a thoroughly nice man.”
Former West Ham and England international, Sir Trevor Brooking, who worked as the FA’s director of football development, said: “Anyone who was ever coached by Dave would be able to tell you what a good man he was, but not only that, what a great coach in particular he was.
“In the last 30-40 years Dave’s name was up there with any of the top coaches we have produced in England – the likes of Terry Venables, Don Howe and Ron Greenwood. His coaching was revered.”
Keith Weller, a £100,000 signing by Sexton for Chelsea in 1970, said: “I had heard all about Dave’s coaching ability before I joined Chelsea and now I know that everything said about his knowledge of the game is true. He has certainly made a tremendous difference to me.”
And the late Peter Bonetti, a goalkeeper under Sexton at Chelsea, said: “He was fantastic, I’ve got nothing but praise for him.”
One-time England captain Gerry Francis, who played for Sexton at QPR and Coventry City, said: “Dave was quite a quiet man. You wouldn’t want to rub him up the wrong way given his boxing family ties, but you wanted to play for him.
“Dave was very much ahead of his time as a manager. He went to Europe on so many occasions to watch the Dutch and the Germans at the time, who were into rotation, and he brought that into our team at QPR, where a full-back would push on and someone would fill in.
“He was always very forward-thinking – a very adaptable manager.”
Guardian writer Gavin McOwan described Sexton as “the antithesis of the outspoken, larger-than-life football manager. A modest and cerebral man, he was one of the most influential and progressive coaches of his generation and brought tremendous success to the two London clubs he managed.”
Born in Islington on 6 April 1930, the son of middleweight boxing champion Archie Sexton, his secondary school days were spent at St Ignatius College in Enfield and he had a trial with West Ham at 15. But, like his dad, he was a boxer of some distinction himself, earning a regional champion title while on National Service.
Sexton played 77 games for West Ham
However, it was football to which he was drawn and, after starting out in non-league with Newmarket Town and Chelmsford City, he joined Luton Town in 1952 and a year later he returned to West Ham, where he stayed for three seasons.
In 77 league and FA Cup games for the Hammers, he scored 29 goals, including hat-tricks against Rotherham and Plymouth.
It was during his time at West Ham that he began his interest in coaching alongside a remarkable group of players who all went on to become successful coaches and managers.
He, Malcolm Allison, Noel Cantwell, John Bond, Frank O’Farrell, Jimmy Andrews and Malcolm Musgrove used to spend hours discussing tactics in Cassettari’s Cafe near the Boleyn ground. A picture of a 1971 reunion of their get-togethers featured on the back page of the Winter 2024 edition of Back Pass, the superb retro football magazine.
One of the game’s most respected managers, Alec Stock, signed Sexton for Orient but he had only been there for 15 months (scoring four goals in 24 league appearances) before moving to Brighton (after Stock had left the Os to take over at Roma).
Albion manager Billy Lane bought him for £2,000 in October 1957, taking over Denis Foreman’s inside-left position. Sexton repaid Lane’s faith by scoring 20 goals in 26 league and cup appearances in 1957-58 as Brighton won the old Third Division (South) title. But a knee injury sustained at Port Vale four games from the end of the season meant he missed the promotion run-in. Adrian Thorne took over and famously scored five in the Goldstone game against Watford that clinched promotion.
Nevertheless, as he told Andy Heryet in a matchday programme article: “The Championship medal was the only one that I won in my playing career, so it was definitely the high point.
Sexton in Albion’s stripes
“All the players got on well, but a lot of what we achieved stemmed from the manager’s approach. It was a real eye-opener for me. We were a free-scoring, very attacking side and I just seemed to fit in right away and got quite a few goals. It was a joy to play with the guys that were there and I thoroughly enjoyed those two years.”
Because of the ongoing problems with his knee, he left Brighton and dropped two divisions to play for Crystal Palace, but he was only able to play a dozen games before his knee finally gave out.
“I suffered with my knee throughout my playing career,” said Sexton. “In only my second league game for Luton I went into a tackle and tore the ligaments in my right knee.
Knee trouble curtailed his Palace playing days
“I also had to have a cartilage removed. The same knee went again when I was at Palace. We were playing away at Northampton, and I went up with the goalkeeper for a cross and landed awkwardly, my leg buckling underneath me, and that sort of finished it off.”
In anticipation of having to retire from playing, he had begun taking coaching courses at Lilleshall during the summer months. Fellow students there included Tommy Docherty and Bertie Mee, both of whom gave him coaching roles after he’d been forced to quit playing.
Docherty stepped forward first having just taken over as Chelsea manager in 1961, appointing Sexton an assistant coach in February 1962. “I didn’t have anything else in mind – I couldn’t play football any more – so I jumped at the chance,” said Sexton. “It was a wonderful bit of luck for me as it meant that my first job was coaching some brilliant players like Terry Venables.”
The Blues won promotion back to the top flight in Sexton’s first full season and he stayed at Stamford Bridge until January 1965, when he was presented with his first chance to be a manager in his own right by his former club Orient.
Frustrated by being unable to shift them from bottom spot of the old Second Division, Sexton quit after 11 months at Brisbane Road and moved on to Fulham to coach under Vic Buckingham, who later gave Johan Cruyff his debut at Ajax and also managed Barcelona.
Perhaps surprisingly, Sexton declared in 1993 that the thing he was most proud of in his career was the six months he spent at Fulham in 1965. “Fulham were bottom of the First Division. Vic Buckingham was the manager. He had George Cohen, Johnny Haynes . . . Bobby Robson was the captain. Allan Clarke came. Good players, but they were bottom of the table, with 13 games to go.
“I did exactly the same things I’d been doing at Orient. And we won nine of those games, drew two and lost two – and stayed up. It proved to me that you can recover any situation, if the spirit is there.”
When Arsenal physiotherapist Mee succeeded Billy Wright as Gunners manager in 1966, he turned to Sexton to join him as first-team coach. In his one full season there, Arsenal finished seventh in the league and top scorer was George Graham, a player the Gunners had brought in from Chelsea as part of a swap deal with Tommy Baldwin.
When the ebullient Docherty parted company with Chelsea in October 1967, Sexton returned to Stamford Bridge in the manager’s chair and enjoyed a seven-year stay which included those two cup wins.
In a detailed appreciation of him on chelseafc.com, they remembered: “Uniquely, for the time, Sexton brought science and philosophy to football: he read French poetry, watched foreign football endlessly and introduced film footage to coaching sessions.”
In those days Chelsea’s side had a blend of maverick talent in the likes of centre forward Peter Osgood and, later, skilful midfielder Alan Hudson. No-nonsense, tough tackling Ron “Chopper” Harris and Scottish full-back Eddie McCreadie were in defence.
As Guardian writer McOwan said: “Sexton was embraced by players and supporters for advocating a mixture of neat passing and attacking flair backed up with steely ball-winners.”
I was taken as a young lad to watch the 1970 FA Cup Final at Wembley when Sexton’s Chelsea drew 2-2 with Leeds United on a dreadful pitch where the Horse of the Year Show had taken place only a few days earlier.
Chelsea had finished third in the league – two points behind Leeds – and while I was disappointed not to see the trophy raised at Wembley (no penalty deciders in those days), the Londoners went on to lift it after an ill-tempered replay at Old Trafford watched by 28 million people on television.
Sexton added to the Stamford Bridge trophy cabinet the following season when Chelsea won the European Cup Winners’ Cup final against Real Madrid, again after a replay.
But when they reached the League Cup final the following season, they lost to Stoke City and it was said Sexton began to lose patience with the playboy lifestyle of people like Osgood and Hudson, who he eventually sold.
The financial drain of stadium redevelopment, and the fact that the replacements for the stars he sold failed to shine, eventually brought about his departure from the club in October 1974 after a bad start to the 1974-75 season.
Sexton wasn’t out of work for long after parting company with Chelsea
He was not out of work for long, though, because 13 days after he left Chelsea he succeeded Gordon Jago at Loftus Road and took charge of a QPR side that had some exciting talent of its own in the shape of Gerry Francis and Stan Bowles.
Although the aforementioned Venables had just left QPR to work under Sexton’s old Hammers teammate Allison at Crystal Palace, Sexton brought in 29-year-old Don Masson from Notts County and he quickly impressed with his range of passing, and would go on to be selected for Scotland. Arsenal’s former Double-winning captain Frank McLintock was already in defence and Sexton added two of his former Chelsea players in John Hollins and David Webb.
Sexton said of them: “The easiest team I ever had to manage because they were already mature . . . very responsible, very receptive, full of good characters and good skills. They were coming to the end of their careers, but they were still keen.”
Sexton was a student of Rinus Michels and so-called Dutch ‘total football’ – a fluid, technical system in which all outfield players could switch positions quickly to maximise space on the field.
Loft For Words columnist ‘Roller’ said: “Dave Sexton was decades ahead of his time as a coach. At every possible opportunity he would go and watch matches in Europe returning with new ideas to put into practice with his ever willing players at QPR giving rise to a team that would have graced the Dutch league that he so admired.
“He managed to infuse the skill and technique that is a hallmark of the Dutch game into the work ethic and determination that typified the best English teams of those times.
“QPR’s passing and movement was unparalleled in the English league and wouldn’t been seen again until foreign coaches started to permeate into English football.”
His second season at QPR (1975-76) was the most successful in that club’s history and they were only pipped to the league title by Liverpool (by one point) on the last day of the season (Man Utd were third).
Agonisingly Rangers were a point ahead of the Merseysiders after the Hoops completed their 42-game programme but had to wait 10 days for Liverpool to play their remaining fixture against Wolves who were in the lead with 15 minutes left but then conceded three, enabling Liverpool to clinch the title.
Married to Thea, the couple had four children – Ann, David, Michael and Chris – and throughout his time working in London the family home remained in Hove, to where he’d moved in 1958. They only upped sticks and moved to the north when Sexton landed the Man Utd job in October 1977.
He once again found himself replacing Docherty, who had been sacked after his affair with the wife of the club’s physiotherapist had been made public.
Sexton (far right) and the Manchester United squad
It was said by comparison to the outspoken Docherty, Sexton’s measured, quiet approach didn’t fit well with such a high profile club which then, as now, was constantly under the media spotlight.
The press dubbed him ‘Whispering Dave’ and although some signings, like Ray Wilkins, Gordon McQueen and Joe Jordan, were successful, he was ridiculed for buying striker Garry Birtles for £1.25m from Nottingham Forest: it took Birtles 11 months to score his first league goal for United.
Sexton took charge of 201 games across four years (with a 40 per cent win ratio) and he steered United to runners-up spot in the equivalent of the Premier League, two points behind champions Liverpool, in the 1979-80 season. United were also runners-up in the 1979 FA Cup final, losing 3-2 to a Liam Brady-inspired Arsenal.
As he said in a subsequent interview: “I really enjoyed my time at United. You are treated like a god up there and the support is fantastic. I had mixed success but it’s something that I wouldn’t have missed for the world.
“It’s tough at the top however and while other clubs would have been quite happy in finishing runners-up, it wasn’t enough for Man Utd. That’s the name of the game and I bear no grudges over it at all.”
As it happens, Sexton’s successor Ron Atkinson only managed to take United to third in the league (although they won the FA Cup twice) and it was another seven seasons before they were runners-up again under Alex Ferguson’s stewardship.
But back in 1981, United’s loss was Coventry’s gain and their delight at his appointment was conveyed in an excellent detailed profile by Rob Mason in 2019.
The new Coventry boss saw City beat United 2-1 in his first game in charge
“By the time the name of Dave Sexton was being put on the door of the manager’s office at Highfield Road the gaffer was in his fifties and a highly regarded figure within the game,” wrote Mason. “That sprang from the style of pass and move football he liked to play. His was a cultured approach to the game and Coventry supporters could look forward to seeing some attractive football.”
One of the happy quirks of football saw his old employer take on his new one on the opening day of the 1981-82 season – and the Sky Blues won 2-1! They won by a single goal at Old Trafford that season too, but overall away form was disappointing and in spite of a strong finish (seven wins, four draws and one defeat) they finished 14th – a modest two-place improvement on the previous season.
On a limited budget, Sexton struggled to get a largely young squad to make too much progress but he did recruit former England captain Gerry Francis, who’d been his captain during heady days at QPR, and he was a good influence on the youngsters.
Sexton’s second season in charge began well but ended nearly disastrously with a run of defeats leaving them flirting with relegation, together with Brighton. One of his last league games as City manager was in the visitors’ dugout at the Goldstone. Albion beat the Sky Blues 1-0 courtesy of a Terry Connor goal on St George’s Day 1983 – but it was Sexton’s side who escaped the drop by a point. Albion didn’t.
Coventry’s narrow escape from relegation cost Sexton his job (although he remained living in Kenilworth, Warwickshire) and it proved to be his last as a club manager, although he was involved as a coach when Ron Atkinson’s Aston Villa finished runners up in the first season (1992-93) of the Premier League – behind Ferguson’s United, who won their first title since 1967.
Sexton was happy to be working with the youth team, the young pros and the first team. “Mostly I’ve been concerned with movement, up front and in midfield. Instead of the traditional long ball up to the front men, approaching the goal in not such straight lines,” he explained.
The quiet Sexton had a valid retort to the reporter’s surprise that he should be working in the same set-up as the flamboyant Atkinson. “It’s like most stereotypes,” he said. “They’re never quite as they seem to be. Ron’s got a flamboyant image, but actually he’s an idealist, from a football point of view.
“He’s got a vision, which might not come across from the stereotype he’s got. I suppose it’s the same with me. I’m meant to be serious, which I am, but I like a bit of fun, too. And, obviously, the thing we’ve got in common is a love of football.”
Relieved to be more in the background than having to be the front man, Sexton told Williams: “The reason I’m in the game in the first place is that I love football and working with footballers, trying to improve them individually and as a team.
“So, to shed the responsibility of speaking to the press and the directors and talking about contracts, it’s a weight off your shoulders. Now I’m having all the fun without any of the hassle.”
Atkinson had invited his United predecessor to join him at Villa after he had retired from his job as the FA’s technical director of the School of Excellence at Lilleshall, and coach of the England under 21 team.
It had been 10 years since Bobby Robson had appointed him as assistant manager to the England team (Sexton had coached Robson at Fulham). He had previously been involved coaching England under 21s alongside his club commitments since 1977 leading the side to back-to-back European titles in 1982 and 1984. The 1982 side, who beat West Germany 5-4 on aggregate over two legs, included Justin Fashanu and Sammy Lee, and in a quarter final v Poland he had selected Albion’s Andy Ritchie, somewhat ironically considering he had sold him to the Seagulls when manager at United.
In April 1983, Albion’s Gary Stevens played for Sexton’s under 21s in a European Championship qualifier at Newcastle’s St James’ Park, which was won 1-0. The following year, Stevens, by then with Spurs, was in the side that met Spain in the final, featuring in the first of the two legs, a 1-0 away win in Seville. Somewhat confusingly, his Everton namesake featured in the second leg, a 2-0 win at Bramall Lane. England won 3-0 on aggregate. Winger Mark Chamberlain, later an Albion player, also played in the first leg.
After the Robson era, Sexton worked with successive England managers: Venables, Hoddle and Keegan. When Eriksson became England manager in 2001, he invited Sexton to run a team of scouts who would compile a database and video library of opposition players – a strategy Sexton had pioneered three decades previously.
Viewed as one of English football’s great thinkers, Sexton had a book, Tackle Soccer, published in 1977 but away from football he had a love of art and poetry and completed an Open University degree in philosophy, literature, art and architecture. He was awarded an OBE for services to football in 2005.
Sexton was always a welcome guest at Brighton and here receives a reminder of past glories from Dick Knight
ENGLAND World Cup winning hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst gave Colin Pates his Chelsea debut as an 18-year-old – and what an extraordinary footballing baptism it was.
Replacing the injured Micky Droy for a visit across London in a second tier match against Orient, young Pates was involved in a madcap 10-goal match that saw Chelsea win 7-3.
“It was an amazing feeling to go out there but it was chaos, “ he told chelseafancast.com in a 2021 podcast.
And in another interview, he recalled: “It certainly wasn’t a good advertisement for defenders but as long as you come away with the win the fans are happy. It’s one of those days where you’re so fired up it just goes so quickly.
“You come off the pitch at the end and have no recollection of what happened really. I was up against some good, experienced pros and it was quite daunting, but I really enjoyed it.”
That game at Brisbane Road marked the start of a Chelsea first team career that spanned 346 matches, 137 of them as captain, in a turbulent period for the club.
Pates’ future Brighton teammates Gary Chivers and Clive Walker were also in that side at Orient and Walker scored two of Chelsea’s hatful (Lee Frost (3), Micky Fillery and Ian Britton the others).
Pates and Robert Codner celebrate reaching the Wembley final
Fast forward 12 years and Pates was reunited with Chivers and Walker when he joined Brighton on loan from Arsenal in February 1991 to help out after young Irish centre-back Paul McCarthy was sidelined by injury.
Manager Barry Lloyd pulled off something of a coup to persuade his old Chelsea teammate, George Graham, then manager of Arsenal, to loan Pates to the Seagulls for three months.
The Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe described it as a “masterstroke” and doubted that Albion would have made it to the divisional play-off final at Wembley without him.
Match magazine pic of Pates at Wembley
Lloyd’s faithful no. 2, Martin Hinshelwood, said Pates got better and better over the three months, pointing out: “He has steadied us a little bit. He talks to players, he is a great trainer and he has brought a lot to our back four.”
The player himself told Luke Nicoli of the Albion website in a 2021 interview: “Although I was dropping down a division, it didn’t matter to me – I was just happy to be playing football.
“I immediately struck up a partnership at the back with Gary, and it was like the good old days at Chelsea again.
“I spent three months at the club and I loved every minute; I loved the area, the Goldstone, the club, the fans and, of course, we went all the way to Wembley that season in the play-offs – where the turnout from our fans in the final was incredible.
“We lost (3-1) to Notts County, which was one of those games where it just wasn’t meant to be.”
It has since emerged that Lloyd’s insistence on changing a successful formula by playing Romanian international Stefan Iovan as a sweeper in that match upset the players.
But Pates said: “I know we changed formation that day, and maybe that contributed to our defeat, but I didn’t look at it like that – it was just one of those games where it wasn’t meant to be.”
“We came with a fantastic late run in the league, but it proved to be a game too far for us,” he recalled in a matchday programme article. “We made a slow start to the game and that defeat still hurts, knowing what it meant to everyone connected with the club.”
In another interview, Pates said: “The result in the play-off final didn’t go our way but it was a fantastic experience for the team to play at Wembley, the side was so close to the Premiership, or First Division as it was called then.
“I’d been lucky to have played there before but to others it was the pinnacle of their careers.”
Indeed, the last time Pates had played there was five years previously when he made history by becoming the first-ever Chelsea player to lift a trophy – the Full Members Cup – at the iconic stadium (when Ron Harris lifted the FA Cup in 1970 it was at Old Trafford, where the replay had taken place after a 2-2 draw at Wembley). That was arguably the pinnacle of his career.
The Full Members Cup was a short-lived competition between North and South clubs from the top two divisions of the league, with the regional winners meeting in a national final. It was introduced after English clubs were banned from competing in Europe following the Heysel disaster. In truth, it struggled to be taken seriously and it was a surprise it lasted as long as seven seasons.
The most remarkable element of Chelsea’s win was that the game took place the day after they’d played a league game at Southampton – when Pates scored the only goal of the game with a deflected free kick past Peter Shilton in Southampton’s goal.
Chelsea beat Manchester City 5-4 but extraordinarily were cruising at 5-1 before City scored three in the last six minutes (one an 89th minute own goal by Doug Rougvie!).
“When the referee blew his whistle, was I relieved!” said Pates. “It’s great to play at Wembley with thousands of fans screaming their heads off, and once you’re on the pitch you don’t care what cup it is, you just want to win it.”
Born on 10 August 1961 in Wimbledon, Pates went to school only five miles from Stamford Bridge and was a Chelsea fan as a boy. He signed for the club aged 10, starting training with them in 1971, the year they won the European Cup Winners’ Cup having won the FA Cup the previous year. Pates worked his way through the different age levels and as an apprentice cleaned the boots of hardman defender Ron Harris.
He made that first team debut on 10 November 1979, by which time he had already played five times for England Youth that autumn. A further six appearances followed in 1980, alongside the likes of Micky Adams, Gary Mabbutt, Paul Walsh and Terry Gibson. Mark Barham, Steve Mackenzie and Terry Connor featured in the early 1980 games.
Pates in action for Chelsea against Albion’s Terry Connor, a former England Youth teammate
Simultaneously, Droy’s lack of fitness meant young Pates got an extended run in the side. However, because he was comfortable on the ball and could play in a number of positions, manager Hurst often used him as something of a utility player.
For example, in 1980-81, his 15 appearances were spread across all back four positions. But when John Neal took over for the 1981-82 season, Pates was ever present in the centre alongside Droy.
While the side’s league fortunes didn’t improve under the new man (they finished 12th), they had the consolation of reaching the quarter finals of the FA Cup after beating reigning European champions Liverpool 2-0 in the fifth round (Pates had the job of man-marking Graeme Souness).
Remarkably, Chelsea only narrowly avoided relegation to the old Third Division in 1983, and, as a result, manager Neal had a clear-out of the ‘old guard’ and Pates’ performances and attitude earned him the captain’s armband just before his 22nd birthday.
“I think he wanted someone who had come through the ranks and knew the club,” Pates said. “I was fortunate enough to be one of the few players – along with the likes of John Bumstead – who he kept on from before.”
Pates has nothing but praise for Neal and his assistant Ian McNeill (who played more than 100 games for Brighton between 1959 and 1962) and their eye for good players, like Pat Nevin, Joe McLaughlin, Nigel Spackman, David Speedie and Kerry Dixon, who were brought in to rebuild the club.
“I loved John Neal, he was a man of few words but when he said something you listened because it was going to be something poignant or important,” said Pates. “He was a good man-manager and would always take care of you if you had problems and be there for a chat. You wanted to play for him.”
Combined with the new arrivals, Pates and his pal Bumstead were part of a core of local lads Neal relied on (it included Dale Jasper, Chivers and Fillery): they all came from the same estate in Mitcham.
In his first season wearing the armband, “Pates stepped into the role with ease and led the team to the Second Division title” wrote Kelvin Barker.
“Colin’s classy displays in the top division catapulted him into the limelight, his impressive captaincy of a club on the up particularly catching the eye.
“A string of niggly injuries after Christmas led to him missing a handful of matches and his importance to the defence was highlighted when, in his absence, Chelsea slipped to consecutive defeats at Coventry and Ipswich.
“Pates made a total of 48 appearances during the 1984-85 campaign and scored once, the goal coming in a stunning 4-3 win at Goodison Park against the season’s champions, Everton.”
It had been a proud moment when Pates led Chelsea out at Highbury for the 1984-85 season-opener against Arsenal. The game finished 1-1, Paul Mariner opening the scoring for the Gunners on 35 minutes, Dixon equalising for the visitors four minutes later.
Chelsea made a decent fist of their return to the big time, finishing sixth. They also reached the semi-finals of the League Cup only to be knocked out over two legs by a Clive Walker-inspired Sunderland.
Chelsea did make it to Wembley the following year but it would be fair to say winning
that Full Members Cup final ultimately damaged their progress in the league. Chelsea were riding high in the top flight at the time and being spoken of as title contenders but immediately after that trophy win they were beaten 4-0 at home by West Ham on Easter Saturday and 6-0 by QPR at Loftus Road on Easter Monday.
Pates’ future Brighton teammate John Byrne scored twice for the Rs playing alongside Michael Robinson and Gary Bannister, who got a hat-trick. Substitute Leroy Rosenior (father of Liam) scored the other.
Byrne later remembered: “There were some big name players in the Chelsea line-up, including centre-back Doug Rougvie who seemed like he wanted to kill somebody when the score was 5-0! He was certainly looking for blood!
“We had the Milk Cup Final coming up and I remember saying to Banna with about 15 minutes to go ‘I ain’t going anywhere near Rougvie’. And Gary replied: ‘Neither am I!’ So we both ended up playing on the wings with no one in the middle!”
Pates and Doug Rougvie both played for Chelsea and Brighton
There was talk that Pates might force his way into the England squad for the Mexico World Cup that summer but Terry Butcher, Alvin Martin and Terry Fenwick were ahead of him.
Competition at club level emerged at the start of the following season when centre-half Steve Wicks was recruited and Pates was moved to left-back. However, injuries to Wicks meant Pates was soon back in the middle.
In his sporting-heroes.net piece, Barker continued: “As Chelsea’s farcical season went from bad to worse, he found himself being played in midfield again. With the Blues looking down the barrel of a drop into Division Two, Colin was returned to the centre of defence and relegation was averted.”
An injury-disrupted 1987-88 season also saw Pates have the captaincy taken off him and given to fellow defender Joe McLaughlin. Pates actually missed the start of the season having had a cartilage operation and when he returned in October the team were on something of a downward spiral. Injured again at the end of March, by the time he was fit to return, Chelsea were heading close to the relegation trapdoor.
At the time, as part of a restructuring plan to reduce the top division’s number of teams from 22 to 20, the team finishing fourth bottom of Division One had to play-off against the third, fourth and fifth-placed teams in Division Two. The top two in Division Two were promoted automatically and the bottom three in Division One went down.
Chelsea ended up fourth from bottom and had to play Middlesbrough (who’d finished third in Division Two) over two legs.
Boro won the first leg at Ayresome Park 2-0 but Chelsea only won their home leg 1-0, so they were relegated. However, history has since remembered the match more for the riotous behaviour of Chelsea supporters.
gazettelive.co.uk recalled: “There was trouble before, during and after the high-stakes game. Chelsea fans invaded the pitch on the whistle and stormed the away end sparking hand to hand fighting with barely a steward in sight.
“And it was only the intervention of mounted police that eventually cleared the pitch. The trouble didn’t stop there with more attacks outside the ground as Boro fans returned to their cars, coaches and the tube.”
Boro striker Bernie Slaven remembered: “We were locked in the dressing room celebrating promotion for maybe an hour while the police dealt with the trouble and cleared the pitch then we went out and celebrated again with the Boro fans who had been kept back in the stadium.
“The trouble and the ugly atmosphere was a real shame because it took all the headlines away from what we had achieved.”
John Hollins resigned as manager and was replaced by Bobby Campbell. One of his first moves was to sign the powerful central defender Graham Roberts who he made captain.
Pates was given a testimonial as part of the pre-season friendly fixtures (a 0-0 draw with Spurs) but the season was only three months old when he suddenly found himself unwanted at the Bridge.
As Pates returned to the dressing room at the end of a 2-2 Littlewoods Cup home draw with Scunthorpe United, Campbell informed him Charlton Athletic manager Lennie Lawrence was upstairs waiting to sign him, the club having already agreed terms over the transfer (a £400,000 fee).
“It came right out of the blue,” said Pates. “At first, I was taken aback. I have been at Stamford Bridge since I was a schoolkid. Chelsea has become a way of life.”
When the Albion visited Chelsea for a Division 2 league game on 29 October 1988, the matchday programme carried an article headlined ‘Colin’s farewell’, detailing the circumstances.
“The transfer of Colin Pates to Charlton Athletic not only surprised many Blues fans but Colin himself,” it began.
And reflecting on what happened many years later, Pates told Luke Nicoli: “I was allowed to leave and did so with a heavy heart as I wanted to stay.”
Nevertheless, the move at least presented the defender with the chance to return to playing in the top division, and he admitted: “After 11 years at Stamford Bridge, this is a new lease of life for me.”
Charlton, who had to play home matches at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park at the time, finished 14th by the end of that 1988-89 season, but Pates had left for Arsenal by the time the Addicks were relegated in 19th place at the end of the following season.
Despite those moves across London, and to the south coast, Chelsea hadn’t seen the last of Pates, though. He subsequently became head of football at the independent Whitgift School in South Croydon, where he coached most sports and was the first football coach in what had previously been a rugby-dominated school and pupils Victor Moses and Callum Hudson-Odoi both went on to play for the Blues.
Pates was also seen back at the Bridge on matchdays working in the hospitality lounges.
FROM being given his Premier League debut at 16 by one former England manager to being signed by another when only 18, James Milner’s career was on an upwards trajectory from an early age.
Terry Venables, when manager of Leeds, was happy to make Milner the youngest player to feature in the league (shortly after Wayne Rooney had become that at Everton and until the Toffees also gave that honour to James Vaughan).
Then, when Leeds were relegated from the top flight, Sir Bobby Robson took the teenager from his boyhood club to join Newcastle United for a fee of £3.6m. Leeds needed the money even though Milner was reluctant to leave.
The young winger made an instant impression on Robson in pre-season friendlies on the club’s tour of the Far East, expressing his delight with his workrate and desire to run at defenders and support the attack.
Even when Milner missed a crucial penalty against Thailand in a penalty shoot-out, he was confident enough to take another and score in the next game.
“We’re very pleased with him in the two games we’ve seen him in so far,” said Robson. “He’s shown a willingness to go forward and attack his full back, which I like very much.
“He’s got confidence and on this display he is a young talent who is going to be very good for us. I was desperate to get him and we have done. He has a big future, I’m certain of that. He’s comfortable with both feet and he’s versatile because of that.”
Having mainly played on the left for Leeds, Newcastle initially put him on the right wing, but Milner was unfazed. “I really enjoyed myself,” he said. “I can play on the left as well but I would play anywhere as long as I am in the team. It doesn’t bother me.
“At my age, getting experience in The Premiership is all that matters. I have to use that experience to try and become a better player.”
The early positivity didn’t last long, though, when Robson was sacked at the end of August 2004 after five years in charge. His successor, Graeme Souness, didn’t share the previous manager’s view of young Milner and although he made 16 starts for Toon he was a sub on no fewer than 23 occasions.
“It’s very frustrating not playing every week but that’s the same if you are 39 or 19,” said Milner when interviewed ahead of an important England under 21 match against Azerbaijan at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium. “I am hopeful that between now and the end of the season I can show my best form and hold down a regular spot in the side.
“It is an important match for the Under-21s as it is a qualifying game but it is also important for me on a personal basis as it will keep me match fit and ready for Newcastle.
“I hope the manager will be watching and I am determined to show him what I can do in a competitive situation.
“I have got to be patient because there are a lot of high-class players at Newcastle and I have got to wait to get my chance.
“I have got to prove myself to the manager and show that I should be involved in every game.”
Former Brighton manager Peter Taylor, who managed Milner for many of his record 46 appearances for England under 21s, said of him: “You couldn’t meet a nicer, more professional boy. He works his socks off for the team.
“If he is playing wide right and you are the right-back, then you are over the moon because he will put his shift in defensively and always be available when you have got the ball. He has an incredible work ethic.
“He is great to have in your team and he just keeps working and working to improve.
“The beautiful thing about him is when I first got involved with him at under 21 level, I wasn’t sure if he was right footed or left footed!
“He can use both feet and I think he can play in midfield as well as out wide and up front.”
When Newcastle were in somewhat of a slump under Souness, the Scot preferred experience over youth and was happy to let Milner go to Aston Villa on a season-long loan.
Many years later, in a column for the Daily Mail, Souness said: “At Newcastle, I knew him as a young boy. He has matured into a professional you can bet is a ten out of ten around the dressing room. He was upset with me many years ago at Newcastle when I said ‘You won’t win the league with James Milners’ and he took that as me saying he wasn’t good enough.
“I was trying to say that you needed men. He was only 19 at the time. I apologised to him for that and I hope he’s forgiven me. You can never have enough James Milners in the dressing room. He makes other players turn up.”
Milner certainly didn’t bear a grudge, as he described in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2018. “Newcastle was tough – the manager who’d signed me, Bobby Robson, got sacked three games into the season, so a new manager arrived and I ended up going on loan again, to Aston Villa,” he said.
“The first time I finished a season with the same manager who started it was Martin O’Neill at Villa, probably five seasons into my career. When someone has an opinion, even if it ends up misquoted, people jump on it.
“But as a player you love the chance to shut people up. Any time that you’re criticised, it drives you on and you try to prove people wrong. That’s what I did in that part of my career.
As covered in my previous blog post, Newcastle had a change of heart about making the player’s move to Villa permanent in the summer of 2005 and he returned to St James’ Park to become a regular under Glenn Roeder, supplying crosses to the likes of Obafemi Martins, Michael Owen and Mark Viduka.
He made 46 league and cup appearances plus seven as a sub and, in half of the 2007-08 season under Sam Allardyce and the other half under Kevin Keegan, he played 28 games plus four as a sub.
It was during the brief England managership of Allardyce in 2016 that Milner decided to step away from his international career after winning 61 caps. Allardyce told the media:“James has had the chance to reflect on his international career in recent months and consider his next steps, particularly with a young family at home and having allowed himself little free time away from the professional game in the past 15 years. James can be proud of his seven-year career as a senior England player.”
How Milner left Newcastle was a lot less convivial. He said their transfer valuation of him wasn’t reflected in what he was paid at the club, and he was further angered by what he thought was a private negotiation being made public by the powers that be at St James’.
It forced the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association), who were representing Milner, to speak out in his defence. Expressing disappointment that the club had not respected the privacy the player expected, PFA chief executive Mick McGuire said: “All James wanted was a deal that reflected his development and that was in line with Newcastle’s transfer valuation of him.
“Whilst James does have three years left on his current agreement, it is common practice that when a young player signs a long-term contract, this is reviewed and improved on a regular basis with a player’s development, but equally it protects the club’s position in regard to their transfer value.”
As it turned out, Milner got a permanent transfer to Villa that August (2008) and Keegan toldthe media: “He’s a player, in an ideal world, you would not want to lose, but I just want to make it absolutely clear that at the end of the day, it was my decision to sell him.
“We got an offer that I feel was his value. We are all aware James has had a difficult time – he almost signed for them once before and was dragged back.
“But he has always behaved impeccably. He’s a fantastic professional, and there’s no doubt about it, they’ve got an outstanding player and we have got to move on.”
However, in a 2016 Interview with the Birmingham Mail, Keegan’s former deputy Terry McDermott said they only agreed to the sale because the Newcastle hierarchy promised they’d sign Bastien Schweinsteiger – at the time one of the world’s most in-demand players – as a replacement.
But after the Milner sale had been agreed, Bayern Munich wanted £50m for the German midfielder and there was no chance United would spend that kind of money.
“So, we had no one to replace him,” said McDermott. “But he was irreplaceable anyway because he could play anywhere.”
The saga was symptomatic of the strained relationship Keegan discovered working under new owner Mike Ashley and the football operations triumvirate of Dennis Wise, Tony Jimenez and Derek Llambias. Within a few days he walked out of the club.
Injury has restricted Milner’s outings for the Albion
Meanwhile, on completing his move, Milner spoke out about the way Newcastle had handled things insisting their asking price was not reflected in his salary at St James’ Park, saying there was “never” any indication the club were willing to discuss a new contract.
“I enjoyed every minute at Newcastle and working with the manager,” said Milner. “But the way things were going, I knew offers had come in over the summer and the club had turned them down.
“Their valuation of me wasn’t reflected in the deal I was on. Speaking to Newcastle I thought it was the right thing to do to put in a transfer request to show how I felt, seeing they weren’t on the same wavelength as me. They then made the decision to sell me.”
Newcastle fans were certainly disappointed to see Milner leave the club, for example independent online newsletter The Mag said: “His dedication, workrate and energy could never be questioned and the Toon Army loved his wholehearted commitment to the cause.
“His crossing and goal threat needed work but everyone was in agreement that this was a player that the club should be building its future around.”
Reflecting on the numerous trophies the player won with City and Liverpool, the title concluded: “Undoubtedly one of the most successful players that we allowed to slip through our grasp.”
THE RECORD books show James Milner’s most prolific season with Aston Villa came in 2009-10 although the club’s nearly-but-not-quite campaign proved to be a signal for him to move on.
Milner at 23 won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award after scoring 12 goals and assisting 16 more in 49 appearances for the club.
Villa repeated the previous season’s sixth place finish in the Premier League (and qualified for Europe again), reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and were runners-up to Man Utd in the League Cup final (Milner scored a fifth minute penalty but United prevailed 2-1).
Milner also collected the fans’ player of the year accolade that season, after he had successfully moved into a central midfield role, playing alongside Stylian (Stan) Petrov.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “I used to play there a bit when I was younger and obviously played a lot of football out wide since then.
“But I’ve enjoyed it immensely moving into the middle and, having Stan in there, you just seem to get a bit more of the ball and get involved a bit more. I’m still learning the role but enjoying it.”
In March that year, with Villa in contention for a top four finish, manager Martin O’Neill positively drooled about the player after an outstanding second-half performance at Wigan when he fired in a winner on the hour.
“It was an extraordinary performance by a really good player,” said O’Neill. “Since he has stepped into central midfield his game has improved tenfold and he continues to go from strength to strength.
“When you play wide you depend on other people giving you the ball to get into the game but when you have got that determination and energy, you might as well use it in the centre of the field.
“It is something we have been crying out for, a midfielder scoring double figures, and he has been sensational.”
Milner in action for Villa against League One Albion’s Alan Navarro in the FA Cupin 2010
O’Neill walked out on Villa five days before the start of the 2010-11 season and it turned out Milner’s imminent move to Manchester City was the cause. O’Neill later explained that he over-reacted to an about-turn by Villa owner Randy Lerner.
He told the Claret & Blue podcast Lerner had promised to keep Milner and bring in Scott Parker to play alongside him, but within 24 hours the plan was ditched and Milner was sold to City for £26m, with Stephen Ireland going in the opposite direction as a makeweight.
“I have to say I took these things too personally,” said O’Neill. “I brought James into the football club, he’d been out on loan at Villa and done fine but I changed him from wide right to central midfield and he was fantastic for us.”
However, Milner’s rationale for wanting the move was explained in an interview with The Guardian. “Villa came very close to winning a trophy, they had a lot of good players but were just that tiny bit short of getting to the next level,” he said.
“They needed to bring players in but it became clear from Randy Lerner that Villa might have to sell to buy. It made me think City had a better chance of progressing and challenging for trophies. I had a great time at Villa and improved as a player, but City is a club going places very quickly.”
Ever the professional, Milner played for Villa in the opening Premier League match of the season while the finer details of his move were completed and he was even applauded off at the end having been booed at the start of it.
In another edition of the Claret & Bluepodcast, Villa’s former chief executive Paul Faulkner said: “I remember that game and 10 or 15 minutes in there was a 50-50 ball and he went in and it felt like all of Villa Park held its breath but he won the ball, got up and ended up scoring as well and went off a few minutes later to a standing ovation.
“There was that sense of ‘What an individual he is’. He did it for Villa and the fans, because he is a decent person.”
Faulkner added: “His attitude, approach and what he brings on the football pitch – and still does – he’s an amazing guy. He’s a straightforward, stand-up guy and absolutely decent.
“What a player, he would do anything for the team.”
Milner’s first spell in Villa’s colours had come in the 2005-06 season after Newcastle manager Graeme Souness had made it plain Milner wasn’t his kind of player.
Former Toon midfielder Nolberto Solano wanted to return to his old club from Villa so Milner’s old Leeds boss David O’Leary, by then in charge at Villa Park, insisted any deal should include Milner on loan in return.
“Nobody at the club wanted Nobby to leave. So, we initially rejected Newcastle’s offer,” O’Leary told the club website. “But Nobby made it very clear that he wanted to leave. There is clearly no point in trying to hold on to a player under those circumstances.
“We were determined to ensure his departure benefited Aston Villa. We held out for a fee that reflects what we paid to Newcastle and also insisted that James Milner was included in the package.
“When you consider what we’ve got in return for a player who wanted to be elsewhere, we’ve definitely got the best of the deal.”
Milner didn’t take long to get on the scoresheet, scoring in a 1-1 draw at home to Spurs. Three days later he scored twice in an 8-3 mauling of Wycombe Wanderers in the League Cup.
But any hopes of Villa finishing in the top half of the Premier League were dashed by them only registering 10 league wins all season. They finished third from bottom of the table and O’Leary was sacked. Shortly after, the chairman, ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis, ended a 38-year association with Villa by selling the club to Lerner and O’Neill was appointed manager.
It seemed like Newcastle had finally agreed to let Milner join Villa on a permanent basis for £4m but they then pulled out of it at the last minute.
“They accepted a bid for me to go to Aston Villa on deadline day after I’d be on loan there. I went down to Villa, offer had been accepted and then Martin O’Neill said the plug’s been pulled on it,” Milner recalled.
“I started laughing thinking he was joking, he said ‘No, they’ve changed their minds’. So, I went back up to Newcastle, they’d changed their mind.”
O’Neill told the club’s website: “We are disappointed because of the lateness of the decision,”
“Newcastle are entitled to do what they did, but we are disappointed because it came so late in the day.”
Milner duly returned to Newcastle and became a regular but a permanent switch to Villa eventually happened in August 2008, by then the fee was £12m. He signed a month after Steve Sidwell arrived at Villa Park from Chelsea and was Villa’s eighth summer signing.
O’Neill said: “I am not a kid in a sweet shop but this is an opportunity for us. James has got a great spirit about him and I definitely think his best years are in front of him. It was disappointing two years ago not to sign him when we thought the deal was done and dusted but it is nice to have got it all sorted this time.”
Milner expressed his relief that the deal had finally gone through and believed the club was capable of breaking into the top four. “The top four is tough to get into. But a club will get in there at some point and Villa are in as good as position as any,” he said.
O’Neill’s side had a terrific season up to the beginning of February and, after 25 games, were in third place in the Premier League, on course to qualify for the Champions League. But a dreadful run of form in the final third of the season, with only two wins in 13 matches, saw them drop down to sixth by the end.
As mentioned at the top of this piece, fortunes would change in 2009-10 and Milner in particular was earning plaudits for his performances in central midfield.
At the beginning of the season, he had made his full England debut (going on as a sub for Ashley Young in a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands under Fabio Capello) having played for his country at all age group levels from under 16s up, including a record 46 appearances for the under 21s. Over the next seven years, Milner won 61 caps.
Following a man-of-the-match showing in Villa’s 6-4 Carling Cup semi-final, second-leg victory over Blackburn Rovers, Milner declared: “The next step for this side is to win a trophy. The owner and the manager have done a great job and the club has changed massively since the last time I was here on loan.
“Hopefully we are improving year by year and we can show that in the league but also to get a piece of silverware would be great.”
Milner was hoping he’d have a better League Cup final experience than in 1996 when, as a Leeds United fan, United lost 3-0 and their supporters jeered manager Howard Wilkinson at the end. “I was supporting Leeds. I was only 10 and remember being disappointed,” he said.
FORMER BRIGHTON apprentice Kevin Russell enjoyed a 20-year playing career in which he scored 105 goals in 552 games but he had forgettable spells at three South Coast clubs.
As we learned in my previous blog post, England Youth international Russell scored goals for Albion’s youth team and reserves but moved on before making the first team after a falling out with manager Chris Cattlin.
He got on better with Alan Ball at Portsmouth but only played eight games in three years at Pompey.
In March 1994, he was back in the south after a £125,000 move from Burnley to AFC Bournemouth. Unfortunately, his time at Dean Court coincided with dismal form on the pitch and financial pressures off it.
Russell was signed by Tony Pulis, who, it turned out, was in the final throes of his first spell as a manager, having succeeded Harry Redknapp at Dean Court.
The side had a dreadful run of form the month after Russell joined, suffering five defeats and three draws in eight matches. It was in the last of these that Russell finally got on the scoresheet for the Cherries as they picked up a point in a 1-1 draw at Hull City (his only goal in 17 matches).
While Mark McGhee won the Division Two title with Reading and Russell’s former club Burnley won promotion via a play-off final win over Stockport County, the Cherries finished a disappointing 17th in the table.
Cotterill recalled in a 2023 interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk: “I know Rooster very well. I played with him at Bournemouth and he’s a great guy and a good coach.
“I liked him when I played with him because he used to stick crosses on a sixpence for me. I remember scoring a few goals from his crosses.”
Back in 1994, Pulis was sacked early on in the new season and former player Mel Machin took over, but the Cherries had managed only one win and a draw in their first 14 matches by the time they met the Albion at the Goldstone on 2 November 1994.
The game ended in a 0-0 draw and, although they won their next game, by Christmas they’d only got nine points from 21 games. Staring down the barrel of relegation, a last ditch revival in fortunes saw the season go down in memory as ‘The Great Escape’ because Bournemouth managed to avoided the drop by two points.
Russell, who had scored twice in 18 matches, had moved on by then and according to Aspinall, in a September 2011 interview with the Bournemouth Daily Echo: “Mel wanted rid of myself and Kevin Russell.”
Russell, who later had a habit of scoring against the Cherries – he hit four in 10 games against them – said after a 2001 encounter between Wrexham and Bournemouth: “The club was in a bad state when I was there, but Mel Machin and Sean O’Driscoll have turned things round and you know you’re always going to have a hard game against them.
“I don’t try any harder than normal when I play against them, but because I am playing up front and not in midfield or out wide, I get more chances to score.”
Aspinall had a couple of trial matches for the Albion before being packed off to Carlisle, while in February 1995 Russell joined First Division strugglers Notts County where he was reunited with former Leicester teammates Gary Mills and Phil Turner.
Howard Kendall was in charge at the time but County, who got through four managers that season (including Russell Slade for four months), finished bottom of the table having won only nine matches all season.
Russell then returned to his spiritual home in north Wales and, over the next seven years, played a further 240 matches for Wrexham, scoring 23 goals along the way.
One of the most memorable was a last-minute winner at the Boleyn Ground in January 1997 as Wrexham pulled off a FA Cup giant-killing against West Ham. Having held the Hammers to a 1-1 draw at the Racecourse Ground, Russell went on as a 75th minute sub in the replay and scored a screamer in the dying seconds against a side that included Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard.
While the Dragons fans were elated, protesting home supporters spilled onto the pitch in anger at Harry Redknapp’s side’s performance and lowly Premier League position.
Slaven Bilic, later West Ham’s manager, was playing alongside Ferdinand and remembered the game thus: “We were struggling. We weren’t conceding a lot of goals but we couldn’t score and then Wrexham came and they scored at the end of the game, a great goal from 25 yards. After that we signed Johnny Hartson and Paul Kitson and we stayed up.”
When Russell’s playing days were over, he stayed on as a coach and worked as assistant manager under Denis Smith, taking Wrexham to promotion from the Third Division in 2002-03 and winning the LDV (English Football League) trophy in 2005.
That same year his loyalty and service to the club were rewarded with a pre-season testimonial against Manchester United – managed by his former teammate and captain Darren Ferguson’s dad!
Russell played the first 14 minutes of the match against a largely youthful United before being replaced by Ferguson. United won the game 3-1 with goals from Giuseppe Rossi, Liam Miller and Frazier Campbell and one of their subs that day was Paul McShane.
“I can’t speak highly enough of Alex for bringing his side here for me,” said Russell. “I’ve been treated to a special team with a lot of quality. I know there were a lot of young players out there, but you could see the potential they’ve got is immense.”
A crowd of nearly 6,000 watched the match and Wrexham secretary Geraint Parry said: “It just shows how well respected Kevin Russell is after his many years in the game.”
Smith and Russell were sacked in January 2007 but he went straight to Peterborough with Ferguson, who had been appointed Posh player-manager.
“We had an unbelievable time at Peterborough,” Russell told John Hutchinson. “We took them from the bottom league to the Championship in successive seasons in 2008 and 2009.”
There was a brief and unsuccessful spell for the managerial duo at Preston North End in 2010 – they were sacked four days after Christmas with Preston bottom of the Championship – but they weren’t out of work for long because they were re-appointed at Peterborough the following month.
They lost their first game back in charge though – to Brighton. Albion, on course to be league one champions under Gus Poyet that season, beat Posh 3-1: Chris Wood two and Elliott Bennett the scorers while Craig Noone made his home debut for the Seagulls.
After three years at Peterborough, Russell moved back to the Potteries to join the coaching staff at Stoke (below) and stayed for nine years! He mainly worked with the under 18s and under 21s but also helped with the first team in between managerial changes in 2018 and 2019.
In May 2023, Russell joined Cheltenham Town as assistant manager to Wade Elliott. He was in caretaker charge for two matches when Elliott was sacked four months later but didn’t want the job on a permanent basis and left the club in October 2023 when Darrell Clarke was appointed.
Robins chairman David Bloxham said: “I am extremely grateful to Kevin for all his hard work and dedication and for his willingness to step in to manage the side in an extremely difficult period between Wade leaving and Darrell’s appointment.”
Once again, Russell wasn’t out of work for long. In January 2024, he was reunited with former Stoke technical director Mark Cartwright, a former goalkeeper who played 15 matches in Brighton’s 2000-01 promotion winning side, at Huddersfield Town.
Back in the game at Huddersfield Town
He was appointed as B team manager with a glowing endorsement from Cartwright, now Town’s sporting director, who said: “Not only is Kevin a great coach, but he also has a brilliant ability to develop relationships with young players.
“He’s a lively character and he knows how to relate to individuals to get the best out of them. Whilst at Stoke City, he played the pivotal role in developing players such as Nathan Collins, Harry Souttar, Tyrese Campbell, and Josh Tymon, alongside many others.
“He’s been so successful in doing that because he has a great understanding of the qualities that senior coaching staff want to see in young players.”
JAMES MILNER obviously has a thing about passionate Italian coaches called Roberto: It was Roberto Mancini who took him to City from Aston Villa for £26m in 2010 (with Stephen Ireland moving in the other direction as part of the deal).
He went on to win the Premier League title twice, the FA Cup and the League Cup in his five years at the club. In 203 appearances for City, he scored 19 goals and provided 45 assists.
Sadly, a sizeable number of City fans have quickly forgotten the success he was associated with and find it necessary to boo him if he returns to the Etihad in the colours of an opponent. They particularly resented him joining rivals Liverpool and thought it bad form that in 2016 he celebrated rather too exuberantly scoring for the Reds against them, especially because he’d previously not celebrated when he scored for City against his old club Villa.
They also claim not to like his desire to play in his preferred central position, and on more occasions, because they say he didn’t achieve either of those at Liverpool.
When he lined up as an emergency right-back for Albion’s visit in October 2023, sections of the City faithful revelled in his discomfort up against Jeremy Doku and Phil Foden (he was subbed off at half time).
Go back to the beginning of his time with their club and this is the same player who put in a man-of-the-match performance on his City debut – a 3-0 win over Liverpool!
On signing the player at the age of 25, Mancini said simply: “He is a good young player, who can play in every position in the middle and out wide.”
It’s worth checking in on a piece Paul Wilson wrote for The Observer in 2011 when Milner did a question-and-answer session with City supporters at the Mayfield Sports Club home of an amateur rugby league team in Rochdale.
“Milner seems polite, enthusiastic and dedicated, every inch the model professional,” writes Wilson. “Milner is unquestionably the real deal. Even on a night off such as this he does not drink, not even creamy pints of hand-pulled John Willie Lees.”
Milner explained: “I made that decision quite early on. I’ve always dreamt of being a footballer, you only get one shot at a career like this and I want to be the best professional I can.
“Anything I can do that means I can get the best out of my ability is what I’ll try and do. It’s not much of a sacrifice really, we are fortunate to be well paid for doing something that we love and enjoy doing and I want to play for as long as I can.
“As a professional you want to get as much as you can out of your career, play at the top level and win trophies. Playing with top players at Manchester City I’ve got a great chance of doing that, and I just want to keep improving.
“You just want to be able to look back on your career when it’s over, see what you’ve won and feel that you couldn’t have done any more, and that you’ve been the best player you possibly could have been.”
Wilson noted how Milner had showed strength of character to force his way back into the team when left out of the side in his first season with City. “I realised when I joined that competition for places would be intense at City, and I also knew the manager must rate me, because he brought me to the club,” said Milner.
“But if you are not playing you are not happy and you want to know why. So, I asked him what he thought, what I could do to improve to get into his team, then I went away and worked hard on it.”
Understandably, Milner enjoyed being part of the City side that won 6-1 at Old Trafford and acknowledged: “The fans will remember that for a long time, because they have been the underdogs in the city for so long, and it was great to be a part of that.
“But we now have to make sure we don’t get carried away. The fans can get as carried away as they want, good luck to them. It’s our job to carry on winning football matches and try not to get ahead of ourselves.”
Wise words but even then, in his mid-20s, he’d got 10 years’ experience behind him. “It’s all been a bit of a rush, but I think that happens when you make your debut so soon after leaving school,” he said. “You’ve had this dream and suddenly you’re doing it and everything happens very fast and hardly slows down.
“I remember Nigel Martyn joking with me at Leeds, saying he was old enough to be my father, which he certainly was. He said: ‘Make sure you enjoy your career because it will go past in a flash.’ And I was like: ‘Yeah, leave it out, Nige, I’m only 16. I’ve got all the time in the world.’
“Well, here we are 10 years later, and it’s flown. I can’t believe it. Nige is obviously wiser than he looks.”
In five years at City, Milner was in two Premier League title-winning sides (2012 and 2014), collected a FA Cup winners medal in 2011 and a League Cup winners medal in 2014 and was viewed as an integral part of their squad.
Mancini left City in the wake of losing the 2013 FA Cup final to Wigan Athletic and his successor, Chilean Manuel Pellegrini, was also a big fan of Milner and tried to convince him to stay as his contract came to an end in 2015.
Pellegrini told the Guardian: “Milner’s a phenomenon, a guy with big balls and a heart this big.
“Intelligent, great mentality, one of those players that when you leave him out you’re left with this feeling of injustice; it hurts because he should always play but sometimes you need a technical player with other characteristics.
“I hope he stays. If he doesn’t it will be because there’s an important offer.
“The club wants Milner to continue and he wants to stay but maybe he wants more games.
“I understand. I’m Milner’s No1 fan. Find me a more complete English player. There are players who’re better technically, yes. Quicker players, yes. Players who head better, yes. But show me one who does all the things Milner does well. There isn’t one.”
When he decided to move on a free transfer to Liverpool in 2015, teammate Vincent Kompany declared: “You’ll be missed at City brother, as a teammate and a friend! Your drive and passion were inspirational.”
Milner himself hasn’t taken the fan flak to heart and on tribuna.com spoke of his memories of his former side.
“I had a great time at Man City, and I was lucky enough to win every domestic trophy there, play with some great players and I became a better player there,” he said.
“I have nothing bad to say about the club. Obviously, now I think of them a bit differently because they’re big rivals but that good feeling is still there. They’re a big part of my career and a big part of my life as well.”
Football writer Alex Brotherton leapt to Milner’s defence in a piece for the Manchester Evening News in September 2021, declaring at the outset: “There are no two ways about it – Milner was an excellent servant to City during what was an extremely successful period for the club.”
Brotherton reckoned even though Milner didn’t set the world alight in sky blue, “that wasn’t what was expected of him” given he was playing alongside the likes of David Silva, Yaya Toure, Carlos Tevez and Sergio Aguero.
“It was during the unsuccessful title defences of 2012-13 and 2014-15, when City’s attack faltered and their backline creaked, that Milner really stood out,” wrote Brotherton. “He rarely put in less than a 7/10 performance and 100% effort was guaranteed, chasing down lost causes like his life depended on it.”
The journalist also cited “a brilliant battling performance” away at Bayern Munich in the Champions League in 2013-14, capped off by a stunning goal that sealed a come-from-behind 3-2 win. And he remembered Milner’s “tireless work on the left flank” when 10-man City earned a 1-1 draw at Chelsea.
“It was because of performances like this that Milner was a hugely popular figure among City fans, and rightfully so,” said Brotherton.
Describing the booing of Milner as petty, Brotherton added: “Of all the players that City fans could hate, the affable Yorkshireman shouldn’t really be one of them.”
The Mirror’s David McDonnell had presented a similar defence four years earlier, describing Milner as one of City’s “most efficient and reliable players” and “a grafter and one of the most inoffensive players in the money-saturated modern game”.
“There was never a whiff of controversy surrounding Milner during his time at City, as one of the most conscientious players around simply got on with the job of delivering for his team, a recurring theme throughout his career.”
BEING LET GO by the Albion as an apprentice didn’t stop Kevin Russell from going on to enjoy a multi-club league career as a player and a coach involved in no fewer than eight play-off finals and promotions.
A talented teenager good enough to earn selection for the England Youth team, Russell didn’t progress beyond Brighton’s youth and reserve sides between 1982 and 1984.
Although he was a regular goalscorer in the junior sides, a falling out with manager Chris Cattlin saw him depart the club without earning a competitive first team call-up.
Hailing from Paulsgrove in north Portsmouth, Russell returned home and linked up with his hometown club to complete his scholarship under World Cup winner Alan Ball.
Ball also gave him his first team debut but he only had eight first team outings for Pompey. It wasn’t until he joined Fourth Division Wrexham for £10,000 that his career began to take off and he was in the Wrexham side that reached the 1989 play-off final where they lost 2-1 to Frank Clark’s Leyton Orient. In the first of two spells in north Wales, playing at centre forward, Russell scored an impressive 47 goals in 102 games.
Prolific goalscorer for Wrexham
An ever-present in the 1988-89 season, his 25 goals in a total of 60 league and cup matches was recognised by his peers when he was selected in the PFA divisional team of the year.
That caught the eye of David Pleat at Leicester City, then playing in the ‘old’ Second Division, and a fee of £175,000 took him to Filbert Street.
At Leicester he played wide right rather than in the centre but he still had a knack for scoring goals and he eventually became something of a cult hero with Foxes supporters for the goals he scored in City’s escape from second tier relegation in 1991 and in their run up to the 1992 play-off final.
However, only a month after joining Leicester he had to undergo a hernia operation that put him out of action for eight weeks. When fit, he was sent out on a month’s loan to Peterborough …and suffered a broken leg!
When ready to play again, his effort to resume match fitness saw him go on another month’s loan, to Fourth Division Cardiff City. In the meantime, Pleat was sacked and Gordon Lee took over. Russell returned as the Foxes fought to avoid relegation to the third tier.
Perhaps inevitably one of the vital goals he scored (on 6 April 1991) was against promotion-seeking Albion in a 3-0 win that helped the Foxes in the hunt to stave off the dreaded drop.
Two years later, after he had moved on to Burnley via Stoke City, Russell’s first goals for the Clarets (above) were also scored in a 3-0 win over the Seagulls.
Born in Portsmouth on 6 December 1966, the nickname Rooster was coined at an early age because his hair formed something of a quiff when he was a boy – ironically, he went prematurely bald but the name stuck.
Russell’s first appearances in Albion’s colours came in the early autumn of 1982 playing in the junior division of the South East Counties League. He was still a 15-year-old schoolboy at the time.
By the spring of 1983, while the Albion first team were edging towards the FA Cup final at Wembley, Russell had stepped up to the reserves, as the matchday programme reported after he’d been involved in a close game against an experienced West Ham second string.
“Kevin Russell is just sixteen and he doesn’t leave school until he has taken his examinations next month,” it said. “But at Upton Park he found himself playing against such experienced men as Trevor Brooking and Jimmy Neighbour.
“Many schoolboys would have given their right arm to play on the same field as Brooking and there was Kevin playing on equal terms.
“Although we lost 2-1, it should be remembered that in Kieran O’Regan, Mark Fleet, Matthew Wiltshire, Gerry McTeague, Gary Howlett, Chris Rodon and Kevin Russell we had seven players under 20, while the Hammers had Paul Allen, Paul Brush and Pat Holland, all of whom have played in European competition, as well as Neighbour and Brooking in their line-up.”
John Shepherd was in charge of the side, aided by John Jackson, who had been signed as goalkeeping cover and was helping out with coaching too.
Russell’s official arrival as an apprentice at Brighton earned a mention in the matchday programme for the home game with Chelsea on 3 September 1983 and he was one of five apprentices on the staff that autumn, together with Dave Ellis, Darron Gearing, Gary Mitchell and Mark Wakefield. Martin Lambert had stepped up to sign as a full professional that summer.
In those days, the youth team played home matches at Lancing College and were looked after by Shepherd and Mick Fogden before experienced George Petchey was brought in to oversee youth development and run the reserves.
It was while a Brighton player that Russell won the first of six England under-18 caps (five starts plus one as sub), and he scored in the first of them – a 2-2 draw with Austria on 6 September 1984 – and in his fourth game, six days later, which England lost 4-1 to Yugoslavia. His strike partner in that side was Manchester City’s Paul Moulden, later an Albion loanee.
With the likes of Terry Connor, Alan Young and Frank Worthington in the first team, and promising youngsters in the reserves, such as Lambert, Rodon and Michael Ring, it is perhaps not surprising that Russell couldn’t break through.
He did have one outing in first team company, though, in a testimonial match for Gary Williams: he scored (along with Young and Connor) in a 3-3 draw against an ex-Albion XI.
The same game saw defender Jim Heggarty appear: like Russell he also went on to play for Burnley without playing a competitive first team game for the Albion.
While on that theme, a frequent partner of Russell’s in the reserves was Ian Muir, another striker who slipped through Albion’s net and ended up scoring goals for Burnley.
After his departure from the Albion in October 1984, Russell made the most of the opportunity Portsmouth presented him to learn from the former Everton, Arsenal and Southampton midfield dynamo Ball.
“I had three years there under him which was fantastic,” Russell told Leicester City club historian John Hutchinson in March 2018. “He was brilliant as a coach and it was very educational. I got the rest of my (under-18) caps at Portsmouth.
“Alan Ball treated us well. I was playing men’s football at 18. I played a few games in the first team and we managed to get promoted into what is now the Premier League.”
Although disappointed to be advised to move on to get more games, Russell’s switch to north Wales was the launchpad for his career, and the beginning of an association with Wrexham that lasted many years.
“It was a gamble worth taking because it meant first team football,” said Russell. “Dixie McNeill was the manager. He used to be a famous striker for them. He was fantastic for me and was an old school kind of manager; a proper man’s manager. It was a good time.”
Mixed fortunes at Leicester City
After Russell’s part in keeping Leicester in the second tier in 1991, he found himself on the outside looking in when Brian Little replaced Gordon Lee as manager and to get some playing time went on a month’s loan to Hereford United and then spent a month at Lou Macari’s Stoke City.
But Little recalled him in February and in his first game back he once again found the net against a former club, scoring in a 2-2 draw with Portsmouth. He kept his place through to the play-off final at Wembley, where they faced Kenny Dalglish’s Blackburn Rovers, and lost to a “dodgy penalty” scored by ex-Leicester player Mike Newell.
“It was a very scrappy game. Both teams were under a lot of pressure and never really got into their rhythm,” said Russell. “We had worked so hard that season to get to where we did get to. The result was a big disappointment, but it was an occasion that I’ll never forget.”
A promotion winner with Stoke City
It also turned out to be his last game for Leicester because that summer he returned to third tier Stoke on a permanent basis. He is fondly remembered for his part in Stoke winning promotion in 1992-93, scoring six goals in 39 league and cup matches (plus 11 as a sub), but he moved on again, this time to Burnley.
Third-tier Burnley signed him from Stoke for £150,000 (or was it £95,000 – I’ve seen both prices quoted) in June 1993 and, although he only stayed for eight months at Turf Moor, he scored eight goals in 35 games (plus two as sub) in Jimmy Mullen’s Clarets side.
Two of those goals – his first for Burnley – were scored against the Albion. I was at Turf Moor for a midweek game on 14 September 1993 when Russell scored with only a minute on the clock and he got a tap-in on 47 minutes in a 3-0 stroll for the home side. Steve Davis got Burnley’s third.
Brighton were a very different club to the one Russell had left in 1984, though. With a win in a League Cup match their only victory in the opening eight matches, it was the beginning of the end of Barry Lloyd’s tumultuous reign in charge, against a backdrop of financial hardship and boardroom mismanagement off the pitch.
Russell’s habit of scoring against his former clubs manifested itself again two days after Christmas, when he netted in a 2-1 home win over Wrexham. He scored again five days later in a New Year’s Day 3-1 home win over Lancashire rivals Blackpool.
But he was not around to be part of the side promoted via the play-offs, having moved back south, to Bournemouth, for £125,000 in March 1994.
• Another move, a return to north Wales and a career in coaching as Russell’s story continues.
ONE-TIME Arsenal back-up defender Colin Pates had a Gunners legend to thank for persuading him to quit the game before he did any life-altering damage.
Thankfully, Pates took Liam Brady’s advice to bring his professional playing days to an end at Brighton in January 1995 and he went on to have a long and successful career coaching at an independent school in Croydon where he introduced football to what was previously a rugby-only establishment.
“Liam told me that I should think of my health before my playing career and that I would be a fool to myself if I carried on playing,” Pates told the Argusin a 2001 interview.
“My knee had fallen apart and it was the right advice. If I’d ignored it, I could well have ended up not being able to walk.
“Footballers need to be told when it is the end. I’ll always be grateful to Liam for that.”
Pates had played the last of 61 games in the stripes (a 0-0 home draw against Bournemouth) only six weeks after he was presented with a silver salver by former England manager Ron Greenwood to mark his 400th league appearance (on 24 September 1994, a 2-0 home win over Cambridge United).
In the matchday programme of 17 December, Brady confirmed that Pates and fellow defender Nicky Bissett, (who’d twice broken a leg and then sustained a knee injury) would be ruled out for the rest of the season. Neither played another game for the Seagulls.
It brought to an end Pates’ second spell with the Seagulls, having originally spent a most productive three months on loan in 1991 helping to propel the club to a Wembley play-off final. If Albion had beaten Notts County that May, Pates may well have made a permanent move to the south coast. As it was, he said: “Unfortunately, the club couldn’t meet Arsenal’s asking price for me that summer so I returned to Highbury.
“But when my contract expired in 1993, there was only one club I wanted to be at… Brighton.”
Pates had plenty of competition for the centre back berth at Arsenal
As if Tony Adams, Andy Linighan, David O’Leary and Steve Bould weren’t enough centre back competition at Arsenal, manager George Graham had also taken Martin Keown back to the club from Everton for £2m – six and a half years after selling him to Aston Villa for a tenth of that amount.
So, it was no surprise that Pates found himself surplus to requirements at Highbury and given a free transfer. Graham’s old Chelsea teammate, Barry Lloyd, eagerly snapped up the defender for a second time, this time on a permanent basis.
Goalkeeper Nicky Rust, still a month short of his 19th birthday, who’d also been given a free transfer by Arsenal, made his Albion league debut in the season-opener at Bradford City behind the returning Pates, who had just celebrated his 32nd birthday four days before the game.
After starting the first 10 matches alongside the aforementioned Bissett, Pates suffered an abductor muscle injury early on in a 5-0 drubbing away to Middlesbrough in the League Cup which necessitated a spell on the sidelines. He missed nine matches – only one of which was won.
These were the dying days of the seven-year Lloyd era and, even with Pates back in the side, one win, two draws and four defeats brought the sack for the manager.
Any doubts new manager Brady had about Steve Foster and Pates were swiftly dispelled, as he wrote about in his autobiography (Liam Brady: Born To Be A Footballer).
“Fossie was 36. I feared he might be going through the motions at this stage in his career and it would have been hard to blame him,” said Brady. “Colin Pates was a few years younger, but he’d been at Chelsea and Arsenal and could have been winding down.
“I appealed to them to give me a dig out, to lead this rescue mission. And they responded just as I hoped.”
Together with the even older Jimmy Case, who was brought back to the club from non-league Sittingbourne, they “brought on” the younger players in the new man’s first few weeks and months.
Under Brady, young Irish centre-back Paul McCarthy played alongside Foster in the middle, with Pates at left-back. And Pates saw the arrival of some familiar faces in the shape of young Arsenal loanees, first Mark Flatts and then Paul Dickov, whose successful spells helped Brady to steer the Seagulls to safety by the end of the season.
“I really enjoyed it, playing mainly at left-back,” said Pates. “It was a great family club and I made a lot of friends there along the way.”
At the time Pates had to call it a day, Albion were a third-tier side but the bulk of his career had been played at the top of the English game for two of its leading lights in Chelsea and Arsenal, and briefly Charlton Athletic.
Albion’s ex-Arsenal trio Liam Brady, Raphael Meade and Colin Pates
The player’s move to Arsenal from Charlton for £500,000 in January 1990 raised more than a few eyebrows because he was 28 at the time and none of Arsenal’s back four – Lee Dixon, Bould, Adams and Nigel Winterburn – looked like giving way.
“People asked me why I went there,” said Pates. “But when a club is paying that money and that club is Arsenal who wouldn’t go and take the chance?
“I knew this was going to be the last opportunity to have a move like this in my career and although I knew I was only being signed as cover, I couldn’t turn it down.”
He continued: “I’d joined a team that had just won the league, that would do so again in 1990-91 and they had the fabled back four – the best defensive unit in world football at the time.”
The website upthearsenal.com acknowledged: “Pates had built a solid reputation at Chelsea as a dependable defender who was strong in the air and no slouch on the deck.”
Pates added: “When I first met George (Graham) in his office at Highbury, he was honest and straight talking. He told me I’d have to work hard to get into the side.”
However, within a month he made his Gunners debut at left back in place of the injured Nigel Winterburn in a 1-0 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday. It turned out to be his only first team appearance that season.
Although he found it difficult to motivate himself for reserve team football, he pointed out: “I still enjoyed the training sessions with the first team and I did learn a lot about defending from George, even at that late stage in my career.”
However, after his return from the loan spell at Brighton, he saw action as a sub in three pre-season friendlies ahead of the 1991-92 season and that autumn had his best run of games in the first team.
He featured in eight games on the trot between October and November 1991 and memorably scored his one and only goal for Arsenal in a European Cup match at Highbury against a Benfica side managed by Sven-Göran Eriksson. He also played in the February 1992 1-1 North London derby against Spurs and made two appearances off the bench that season.
It was a similar story in the 1992-93 campaign when he went off the bench on five occasions although he had two starts: in a 2-0 win at Anfield (Anders Limpar and Ian Wright the scorers) and a 3-2 defeat away to Wimbledon.
“I was a bit-part player but it was a good time to be at the club with the cup finals and being part of the squads,” said Pates.
On his release from Brighton, Pates had a spell as player-manager of Crawley, played a handful of games for non-league Romford, and coached youngsters in various places including Mumbai in India and the Arsenal School of Excellence.
Pates told The Guardian in a 2002 interview how a sense of history and continuity was the first thing he had noticed when he signed for Arsenal.
Brady, Paul Davis, Bould and other former Arsenal players were all invited to the Arsenal academy, and Pates told the newspaper. “Young players need people like Stevie Bould to tell them how proud they should be to pull the shirt on and to show them what’s expected of them. “When I joined Arsenal, everyone was kind and considerate. You were left in no doubt about how you were supposed to conduct yourself. For the way it’s run, it’s the best club in the country.”
By then though, Pates had begun a new career as a coach getting football off the ground at the independent Whitgift School in Croydon. He was to stay 24 years at the school having been invited to introduce football by its headmaster, Dr Christopher Barnett.
The story has been told in depth in several places, notably in London blog greatwen.com by Peter Watts, among others. Watts wrote: “A posh school in the suburbs is not where you’d expect to find a hard-bitten former pro, and Pates admits: ‘Whitgift is quite alien to some of us, because we had state school educations. It was intimidating, and not just for the boys.’ But he jumped at the opportunity.
At first, he took a sixth-form team on Wednesday afternoons, but there were no goalposts, pitches, teams or even footballs! “We didn’t have anything. So, we had to start from scratch, pretty much teach them the rules,” he said.
“They were rugby boys playing football, so these were quite aggressive games. But after three years we introduced fixtures and we’ve never looked back,” said Pates.
In an interview with the Argus in October 2001, Pates added: “We went over the local common for our first training session with some under-18s after finding a ball that looked like the dog had chewed it up.
“I had to go right back to basics. All they had known was rugby, so it was a case of going through the rules of football to start with, like the ball we use is round!
“I was told that in 300 years football had never been considered. But a lot of the boys and their parents expressed an interest.
“It might be an independent school but you can forget the black and white filmed images of public school kids. Most are from working class backgrounds and they love their football.
“It grew a lot quicker than the head thought and he told me I should take over as master in charge of football.”
As the sport grew, he recruited his former Charlton teammate (and ex-Brighton, Wolves and Palace full-back) John Humphrey and Steve Kember, the former Chelsea and Palace midfielder to help with the coaching.
Asked about it on the chelseafancast.com podcast Pates delighted in recounting how from time to time he would show Humphrey a video clip of a rare goal he scored for Chelsea against Wolves when he flicked the ball over Humphrey’s head in the build-up to it – however Chelsea lost that 1983 match 2-1!
More seriously, Pates spoke at length to Watts about the benefits of a good education in case things didn’t pan out.
“You have to be an exceptional footballer to make it these days. So, we want to give them the best opportunity to be a footballer, but also give them a magnificent education so if they don’t sign scholarship forms they have something to fall back on. It works for us, it works for the academies and it works for the families.”
In parallel lines 