Tag: Alan Biley

Hero and Villain Sammy Morgan got off Albion mark v Palace

FEARLESS NORTHERN Ireland international centre forward Sammy Morgan and his former Port Vale teammate Brian Horton were bought to win promotion for the Albion.

The gamble by manager Peter Taylor didn’t quite pay off and although midfield dynamo and captain Horton went on to fulfil that promise under Alan Mullery, Morgan’s part in the club’s future success was eclipsed by the emergence of Peter Ward.

Morgan, who was in the same Northern Irish primary school year as George Best, was the first to arrive, a £35,000 signing from Aston Villa in December 1975, replacing the out-of-favour Neil Martin alongside Fred Binney. He wasn’t able to find the net in his first seven matches but when he did it was memorable and went down in the annals of Albion history.

Morgan opens his Albion account in style against Crystal Palace

He scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace in front of a 33,000 Goldstone Ground crowd that took Albion into second place in the table, manager Taylor saying afterwards: “I am delighted for Morgan. It must have given him a great boost to get a couple of goals like this.”

That breakthrough looked like opening the floodgates for the aggressive, angular forward who went on to score in five consecutive home games in a month.

And when Horton arrived in March 1976, with Albion still in second place and only 11 games to go, promotion looked a strong possibility.

But an Easter hiccup, losing 3-1 to rivals Millwall, followed by three 1-1 draws to end the season, saw Albion drop to fourth, three points behind the south London club, who went up behind Hereford United and Cardiff City.

Short-sighted Morgan – he wore contact lenses to play – might not have seen it coming, but it was something of a watershed moment for him too.

The man who signed him decided to quit, saying: “I signed two players gambling on them to win us promotion. We didn’t get it, and the only consolation I have in leaving is I feel I have helped build a good team which is capable of going up next time.”

Before he managed to kick a ball in anger under new boss Mullery, Morgan suffered a fractured cheekbone in a collision with Paul Futcher in a pre-season friendly with Luton in August 1976. The injury sidelined him for months.

Morgan shares a training ground joke with Peter Ward

By the time he was fit to resume towards the end of November, young Ward and midfielder-turned-striker Ian Mellor had formed such an effective goalscoring partnership that Morgan could only look on from the substitute’s bench where he sat on no fewer than 29 occasions.

He got on in 18 matches but only scored once, in a 2-1 home win over Chesterfield. Of his two starts that season, one was a New Year’s Day game at Swindon in which Albion were trailing 4-0 when it got abandoned on 67 minutes because of a waterlogged pitch (and he was back to the bench for the rescheduled game at the end of the season).

Nonetheless, Taylor’s promotion premonition was duly achieved at the completion of Mullery’s first season, and Ward had scored a record-setting 36 goals.

Morgan wasn’t involved in Albion’s first two games of the new season – consecutive 0-0 draws against Third Division Cambridge United, in home and away legs of the League Cup – and, by the time of the replay, he had signed for the opponents, who were managed by Ron Atkinson.

So, in a strange quirk of fate, £15,000 signing Morgan’s first match for the Us saw him relishing a bruising encounter up against former teammate Andy Rollings, although Albion prevailed 3-1.

Morgan spoke about the encounter and his long career in the game in a fascinating 2015 televised interview for 100 Years of Coconuts, a Cambridge United fans website.

Morgan’s easing out at Brighton followed a similar pattern to his experience at Aston Villa who replaced him with 19-year-old Andy Gray, a £110,000 signing from Dundee United. Morgan only made three top flight performances for Villa after a pelvic injury had restricted his involvement in Villa’s second tier promotion in 1975 to just 12 games (although he did score four goals – three in the same match, a 6-0 win over Hull City early in the season). He was injured during a 1-1 draw at Fulham in November and subsequently lost his place in the team to Keith Leonard.

Villa scorer

Morgan had been 26 when Vic Crowe signed him from Port Vale as a replacement for the legendary Andy Lochhead. The fee was an initial £22,222 in August 1973 with the promise of further instalments of £10,000 for every 10 goals up to 20. Vale’s chairman panicked when the goals tally dried up with the total on nine but Morgan eventually came good and Villa ended up paying the extra.

He made his Villa debut on 8 September 1973 as a sub for Trevor Hockey on the hour in a 2-0 home win over Oxford United, the first of five sub appearances and 25 starts that season, when he scored nine goals.

Villa writer Eric Woodward said of him: “Sammy was never a purist but he was a brave, lively, enterprising sort who put fear into opposing defences.”

He carved his name into Villa legend during a fourth round FA Cup tie against Arsenal at Highbury in January 1974 when he was both hero and villain.

Morgan put the Second Division visitors ahead with a diving header in the 11th minute but in the second half was booked and sent off for challenges on goalkeeper Bob Wilson. After his dismissal, Arsenal equalised through Ray Kennedy.

Esteemed football writer Brian Glanville reckoned: “Morgan had scored Villa’s goal and had played with fiery initiative but, alas, he crossed the line dividing virility from violence.

“He should have taken heed earlier, when booked for fouling Wilson. But a few minutes later, going in unreasonably hard and fractionally late as Wilson dived, he knocked the goalkeeper out and off he went.”

An incensed Morgan saw it differently, though, telling Ian Willars of the Birmingham Post: “Neither my booking nor the sending-off were justified. I never touched Wilson the first time and the second time I was going for the ball, not the man. It was a 50-50.

“I actually connected with the ball not Wilson. I went over to check if he was hurt and, in my opinion, he was play-acting.”

Morgan had sweet revenge four days later. No automatic ban meant he was able to play and score in the replay at Villa Park which Villa won 2-0 in front of a bumper crowd of 47,821.

Randall Northam of the Birmingham Mail wrote: “Providing the sort of material from which story books are written, the Northern Ireland international Sammy Morgan, who was sent off on Saturday, scored in the 12th minute.

“He had scored in the opening game in the 11th minute and to increase the feeling of déjà vu it was another diving header.” Fellow striker Alun Evans scored Villa’s second.

Northam added: “It was never a great match but the crowd’s enthusiasm lifted it to a level which often made it exciting and they had their reward for ignoring the torrential rain in a driving Villa performance which outclassed their First Division opponents.”

For his part, an unrepentant Morgan said: “It was obvious that we had to put Wilson under pressure as anyone would have done in the circumstances. My goal could not have happened at a better time.”

How heartening to hear in that 100 Years of Coconuts interview that when Morgan was struck down with cancer 40 years later, one of several well-wishing calls he received came from Bob Wilson.

Best and Morgan (back row, left) in the same Belfast school photo

Born in East Belfast on 3 December 1946, Morgan went to the same Nettlefield Primary School as George Best and the first year at Grosvenor High. But Morgan left Belfast as an 11-year-old with his family, settling in Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth (his mother’s birthplace).

His Irish father, a professional musician, took over the running of the Suspension Bridge tavern in Yarmouth and Morgan’s footballing ability continued to develop under the watchful eye of his teacher, the Rev Arthur Bowles, and he went on to represent Gorleston and Norfolk Schools.

Morgan went to the same technical high school in Gorleston that also spawned his great friend Dave Stringer (a former Norwich player and manager), former Arsenal centre back Peter Simpson and ex-Wolves skipper Mike Bailey, who managed Brighton in the top flight in 1981 and 1982.

Morgan’s early hopes of a professional career were dented when he had an unsuccessful trial at Ipswich Town. Alf Ramsey was manager at the time and the future England World Cup winning boss considered him too small. He also had an unsuccessful trial with Arsenal.

Morgan continued to play as an amateur with Gorleston FC and although on leaving school he initially began working as an accountant he decided to study to become a maths and PE teacher at Nottingham University. It was Gorleston manager Roger Carter who recommended him to the then Port Vale manager Gordon Lee, who was a former Aston Villa colleague.

“I loved my time under Roger and my playing days under him were the most enjoyable years of my footballing career even though I went on to play at a higher level,” said Morgan.

He was the relatively late age of 23 when, in January 1970, he had a successful trial with Vale and signed amateur forms. But by July that year he was forced to make a decision between full-time professional football or teaching. He chose football and made a scoring Football League debut against Swansea in August 1970.

However, that summer he was spotted as a future talent by Brian Clough and Peter Taylor when he played against their Derby County side in a pre-season friendly. Clough inquired about taking him on loan but he cemented his place in the Vale side and it didn’t go any further.

nifootball.blogspot.com wrote of him: “The burly centre-forward, he weighed in at up to thirteen and a half stone during his career, proved highly effective in an unadventurous Vale side.”

His strength and aggression in Third Division football caught the attention of Northern Ireland boss Terry Neill and he scored on his debut for his country in a February 1972 1-1 draw with Spain, played at Hull because of the troubles in the province, when he teamed up with old school chum Best.

Morgan remembered turning up at the team hotel, the Grand in Scarborough, and encountering a press camera posse awaiting Best’s arrival – and he didn’t show! The mercurial talent did make it in time for the game though, when another debutant was Best’s 17-year-old Manchester United teammate Sammy McIlroy, who earned the first of 88 caps.

In the home international tournament that followed, Morgan was overlooked in favour of Derek Dougan and Albion’s Willie Irvine who, having helped Brighton win promotion from Division Three (and scored what was selected as Match of the Day’s third best goal of the season against Aston Villa) earned a recall three years after his previous appearance.

In October of 1972, though, Morgan was selected again and took his cap total to seven while at Vale Park, for many years a club record.

While at Brighton, he earned two caps during the 1976 home international tournament, starting in the 3-0 defeat to Scotland and going on as a sub in a 1-0 defeat to Wales.

He earned his 18th and final cap two years later during his time at Sparta Rotterdam in a 2-1 win over Denmark in Belfast. The legendary Danny Blanchflower was briefly the Irish manager and he selected Morgan up front alongside Gerry Armstrong but he reflected that he didn’t play well, was struggling with a hamstring injury at the time, and was deservedly subbed off on the hour mark.

Morgan’s knack for helping sides win promotion had worked at Cambridge too, where he partnered Alan Biley and Tom Finney (no, not that one!) in attack, but after Atkinson left to manage West Brom, he fell out with his successor, John Docherty, and in August 1978 made the switch to Rotterdam.

After one season there, he moved on to Groningen in the Eeste Divisie (level two) and although he helped them win the title, he suffered a knee injury and called time on his professional playing days.

He returned to Norfolk to teach maths and PE in Gorleston, at Cliff Park High School and then Lynn Grove High School, and carried on playing with his first club, Gorleston, where, in 1981, he was appointed manager.

As well as coaching Great Yarmouth schoolboys, he also got involved in coaching Norwich City’s schoolboys in 1990 and in January 1998 he left teaching to work full-time as the club’s youth development manager. As the holder of a UEFA Class A licence, he went on to become the club’s first football academy director, a position he held until May 2004.

In October that year, Morgan was unveiled as Ipswich Town’s education officer, a role that involved ensuring Town’s young players received tuition on more than just football as they went through the academy system. In 2009, he became academy manager and during his three years notable youngsters who made it as professionals included strikers Connor Wickham and Jordan Rhodes.

He admitted in an interview with independent fan website TWTD: “If I’ve contributed to anybody in particular it probably would be the big number nine [Wickham] and Jordan because I was a number nine, and I kick the ball through them – I play the game through the number nines.”

He went on: “I’m very proud to have played a part in the development of a lot of young players. I’m equally proud of those lads who haven’t quite got there in the professional ranks but have maybe gone on to university and have forged other careers and are still playing football at non-league level, still enjoying their football. That means a lot to me as well.”

Morgan continued: “I finished playing in 1980 and I’ve been in youth development since then. I did the Norfolk schools, Great Yarmouth schools, representative sides and the Bobby Robson Soccer Schools. That’s 32 years, I’ve given it a fair crack and I love my football as much now as I ever did.

“I’ve been privileged to work with young people, very privileged. It’s kept me young, kept my passion and kept my enthusiasm going. One thing you could never accuse me of is not having any enthusiasm or passion for the game, and that will remain.”

In 2014, Morgan was diagnosed with stomach cancer and underwent chemo to tackle it. Through that association, in September 2017 he gave his backing to Norfolk and Suffolk Youth Football League’s choice of the oesophago-gastric cancer department at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) as its charity of the year.

Even when he could have had his feet up, he was helping to coach youngsters at independent Langley School in Norwich.

Morgan was on good form in this interview for 100 Years of Coconuts TV

Knee injury cut short Justin Fashanu’s career rescue mission

JUSTIN FASHANU, renowned for an iconic televised Goal of the Season for Norwich City against Liverpool in 1979, played 20 games for Brighton in the 1985-86 season.

Those bald facts tell only a fraction of the story of the short and complex life of a bustling centre forward who burst onto the football scene as a teenager, scoring 40 goals in 103 games for the Canaries.

Several books have been written about him, acres of newspaper column inches filled covering colourful tales of what happened to the first £1m black footballer, and there is no shortage of articles across the internet. There’s even been a theatre play about his life: Justin Fashanu in Extra Time.

Here I will focus mainly on the football, and, in particular, that time at Brighton, although some context is needed to explain how a player who only three years earlier had helped England win the UEFA Under 21 Championship ended up with the then second tier Seagulls.

Fashanu’s signing for Brighton in June 1985 seemed like a major coup for manager Chris Cattlin as the Seagulls sought to return to the elite level they’d been relegated from two years previously.

Why was he so convinced Fashanu would be a hit at Brighton? In an interview with Spencer Vignes for the matchday programme, he said: “We’d put a good side together with a tight defence, an exciting midfield and a forward line that included Dean Saunders and Terry Connor.

“I knew all about Justin and I went to see him play for Notts County against Manchester City and he was simply amazing. He battered the best defender in the league at that time – Mick McCarthy – and I mean he really battered him. I thought: ‘That’s our fella!’ With those three up front, we were going to have one hell of a chance of winning promotion.”

In his programme notes for the opening game of the season, Cattlin wrote: “With the right service I expect Justin to be the best centre-forward this club has had in a very long time.”

At the end of a season when Albion missed out on promotion by finishing sixth, Frank Worthington at 36 had demanded a signing-on fee to stay a second season with the Albion – money Cattlin said wasn’t available. There was no such demand from Fashanu, who at only 24 was trying to rebuild a career that had gone off the rails.

To make his own personal assessment of a player who had already attracted plenty of negative attention, Cattlin even had the player to stay at his house for four days before signing him.

Only the previous season, Fashanu’s aggression on the pitch for Notts County had put both Albion centre backs Eric Young and Jeff Clarke in hospital. He’d previously had an altercation with Albion’s former Canaries defender Andy Rollings while playing for Norwich at the Goldstone, resulting in Rollings’ dismissal for throwing a punch at the striker.

Nottingham Forest boss Brian Clough, who’d persuaded the board of the two-times European Cup winners to part with £1m to sign the 20-year-old from Norwich in 1981, had numerous clashes with the player when he was unable to replicate his previous goalscoring form (more of which later), and, after just 15 months, he cut the club’s losses and sold him to neighbours County for only £150,000.

More crucially, though, Fashanu had sustained an injury to his left knee on New Year’s Eve 1983 inflicted courtesy of the studs of Ipswich, and later Brighton, defender Russell Osman. The wound had become infected and the medics at the time were clearly concerned. It meant insurers inserted an exclusion clause into their cover. Any claim for subsequent injury would only be covered if he’d previously played 12 consecutive League games.

After his stay chez Cattlin, a fee of £115,000 was paid to Notts County, who’d just been relegated to the old Third Division, and the manager said: “Justin had a reputation of being a bit of a problem player with his other clubs but that is all in the past.

“In my dealings with him I’ve found him to be a smashing person and the sort of player our supporters will take to.”

He told the Evening Argus that Justin was “a dedicated player who has been asleep for a couple of years”, adding “I’m sure, with us, he will bring his talents to fruition”.

Meanwhile, Fashanu told The Times: “I only took this step after a good deal of thought and prayer. I am convinced Chris Cattlin can get the very best out of me.”

He got off to a great start when scoring twice as Albion thrashed Aldershot 5-0 in a pre-season friendly at the Recreation Ground on 29 July 1985.

Stiffer competition was promised in the shape of three Goldstone friendlies in a week against First Division sides Arsenal, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Arsenal won 2-1 on 2 August and Liverpool 4-1 on 5 August. Two days later, Fashanu netted one of Brighton’s successful spot kicks in a 5-4 penalty shoot-out against Oxford United at the Manor Ground which saw them win the Oxfordshire Benevolent Cup.

Fashanu (front row, third from left) all smiles after Albion won a trophy in Oxfordshire

The pre-season fixtures were rounded off on 9 August when second tier Albion walloped Forest 5-2, and the matchday programme captured the mood with some delight.

“The match was a real thriller for the fans, and no-one except perhaps for Brian Clough and his team, went home unhappy,” the programme crowed. “Justin Fashanu had an outstanding game against his former teammates.”

Fashanu was involved in setting up three of Albion’s goals and of the fifth the programme recorded: “The final goal came after just about the most powerful shot seen at the Goldstone for years. Fashanu connected from 15 yards out. Segers could only parry the ball, and (Gary) O’Reilly tapped it over the line.” Tellingly, Clough declined to be interviewed after the game.

Fashanu started in the no.9 shirt and was sent off in only his third game, a 2-1 home win over Bradford City. Cattlin was quick to leap to his defence, using his programme notes to tell supporters: “I understand that the referee sent him off for dissent after committing a cautionable offence. All Justin said was ‘Surely you’re not booking me for that ref’…and if that either brings the game into disrepute or deserves any punishment at all, surely there’s something wrong in the game.

“Justin has joined us this season and is a great professional. One hundred per cent effort is appreciated by the fans and our supporters know they are getting just that. There was nothing malicious in anything he did on Saturday.

“Justin is a ‘gentle giant’. He never swears and he tries all the time…that is just the sort of player we need in the game. I would like to go firmly on record as saying his sending off was a complete injustice.”

Disciplinary action took a little longer to come into effect back then and Fashanu didn’t have to serve his suspension until the sixth game of the season.

However, it turned out he would have missed the game anyway because he’d undergone surgery.

It emerged that during pre-season training, Fashanu had taken a whack on his knee and it was six weeks and several matches later before he underwent a procedure at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. Cattlin admitted: “Mr Fearn, the club surgeon, had to work on the bone.”

In hindsight, Cattlin’s programme notes about the injury could be viewed, at best, as insensitive. “I would like to explain the problem of Justin Fashanu,” he wrote. “He jarred his knee pre-season, there is apparently a floating body there somewhere….probably a piece of black pudding or something!”

Cattlin already had Gerry Ryan out long term injured and he also lost Fashanu’s strike partner Connor to injury in those opening weeks. That absence presented an opportunity for Mick Ferguson to stake a claim and he responded with three goals in three games – until he too got injured, as did Alan Biley. In the emergency, loanee Arsenal defender Martin Keown was put up front to play alongside Saunders.

Gerry Ryan, Chris Hutchings, Fashanu and Terry Connor were all out injured

In the programme for the 19 October home game against Charlton, Cattlin was pleased to report Fashanu had resumed training and was busy building up his thigh muscles after his period of inactivity.

He finally made his comeback in an away League Cup match at Liverpool and, as Albion were sent packing 4-0, Fashanu was booked after clashing with Craig Johnston.

However, at least he was back in the no.9 shirt and, after leading the line in a home 1-1 draw against his old club Norwich, he scored his first goal for the Seagulls the following week when Brighton lost 2-1 at Shrewsbury Town.

Defending Fashanu after yet another booking in a 2-1 defeat away to Sunderland, Cattlin said: “Justin is anything but a dirty player. He is certainly strong, but if he was dirty I can assure everyone he would not be wearing the blue shirt of Brighton. I can see all sorts of trouble in the game if referees cannot differentiate between dirty play and wholehearted endeavour.”

Later the same month, Fashanu scored his second and only other league goal for Brighton, at home to Hull City on 30 November, when the Albion won 3-1 (Danny Wilson and Connor also on the scoresheet).

That match came during an 11-game unbroken run at centre forward, including an influential display in a 2-1 Boxing Day win over Portsmouth (below) which gave Albion their first league victory at Fratton Park in 62 years.

Fashanu set up Saunders for Albion’s first and, 18 minutes from time, Fashanu’s close-range shot was parried by Alan Knight only to Connor, who buried the winner.

Although the shortage of goals was bad news for him personally, it was good news for Shoreham butcher Roy Parsons who promised the striker 2lb of steak for every goal he scored for the Albion!

After missing two matches at the start of February, Fashanu returned to the side for the memorable FA Cup fifth round tie against Peterborough on a snow-covered pitch at London Road. Substitute Steve Jacobs went on for him for the second half and scored Albion’s second equaliser to take the tie to a replay, Saunders having got Albion back in the game to cancel out the home side’s lead. But it proved to be Fashanu’s last game in an Albion shirt.

The striker had to undergo further surgery on his knee although, at the time, it wasn’t made to sound career-ending. The matchday programme for the game against his brother John’s Millwall side on 22 March 1986 said merely: “Our popular striker had a minor operation this week and we hope this will finally clear up his knee problem.”

Subsequent reports had it that Fashanu’s right knee had been nearly shattered and the prognosis from the medical people was that he would have to give up the game. The player got an insurance payout but he was reluctant to give up the game and spent money in the UK and America trying to get the knee fixed.

“I had been told by doctors and surgeons in England that I’d never walk again properly – let alone play,” Fashanu told the Los Angeles Times in July 1988. “They were proposing an operation to remove the lining from the inside of my knee.”

Fashanu was born in Hackney, London, on 19 February 1961, the son of a Nigerian barrister and a Guyanese nurse. The parents split up when Fashanu and brother John were five and four. Unable to support them, their mother, Pearl, sent them to a Barnardo’s children’s home.

The boys were eventually fostered and raised by Alf and Betty Jackson in the small rural Norfolk village of Shropham, near Attleborough.

Norwich City’s youth scout Ronnie Brooks identified 14-year-old Fashanu as a prospect while visiting Norfolk schools looking for talent. He was invited to train with the club during his holidays and then signed as an apprentice.

In a 2011 article, writer Juliet Jacques recounted: “Having persuaded Fashanu to play football rather than box (he was twice an ABA junior heavyweight finalist, aged 14 and 15), Brooks spent time with him in the gym at Norwich’s training ground at Trowse, wanting him to become less one-footed and learn how to strike the ball in the air.

“Endlessly, Brooks would throw a ball over Fashanu’s shoulder, demanding that he turn, volley it against the wall with one foot and then hit it back with the other.”

That practice would pay off big time, Jacques capturing in words the moment the 18-year-old Fashanu connected so sweetly from distance to draw Norwich level, 3-3, with Liverpool at Carrow Road on 9 February 1980, and, in the days of limited football coverage on TV, featured on BBC’s Match of the Day.

“With the impudence of youth, he flicked the ball up with his right foot, turned, and volleyed it into the tiny space between Ray Clemence’s head and the post. The strike was perfect – and so was the celebration. There was a split second while the crowd, and the commentator, processed its brilliance: as the fans roared, Fashanu stood alone, one finger raised to the skies as if to announce his genius,” she wrote.

“Norwich eventually lost 5-3, but the goal overshadowed the result: it made the perfect televisual image, coming as a generation of black footballers were breaking through at England’s top level, leaving Fashanu poised to become their leading light.”

One of his teammates back then, Greg Downs, recently told The Athletic: “We took the mickey out of Justin at the time because we maintained he miscontrolled it. We swore it bounced up and hit him on the ankle, which is why he then hit it.

“With all due respect to Justin, his greatest attribute wasn’t his feet. His strength was in the air. He was a magnificent header of the ball. I think that was why it surprised everybody.

“It was a magnificent strike. You couldn’t have hit a better shot. Ray Clemence had no chance. I don’t think any other keeper anywhere would have had any chance with it. Justin just caught it sweet.

“I got on great with Justin. I remember going to his 18th birthday in Attleborough with his family. He was a nice fella.

“He was so popular at Norwich. He was also probably the first local black footballer we had. He was famous, this lad from Norfolk, he had a personality, he was eloquent. I knew his parents and they raised him with very high morals, and he was a lovely lad.”

England under 21 cap

Two months after that Liverpool game, Fashanu scored England’s only goal in a 2-1 defeat to East Germany in a 1980 UEFA under 21 championship semi-final at Bramall Lane, playing alongside future full internationals Gary Bailey, Kenny Sansom, Bryan Robson, Russell Osman, Terry Butcher, Glenn Hoddle, Garry Birtles and Gordon Cowans.

In September the same year, he went on as a substitute for Paul Goddard as England beat Norway in a friendly at The Dell, Southampton. The following month he was a starter as England were thrashed 4-0 away to Romania in a 1982 UEFA under 21 championship preliminary match but on 18 November at Portman Road he was on the scoresheet as England swept aside Switzerland 5-0 in the same competition.

He featured as a sub in a 1-0 friendly win over the Republic of Ireland at Anfield in February 1981, then was on the scoresheet as England beat Hungary 2-1 in a friendly in Keszthely.

His seventh cap came as a starter in the 0-0 draw away to Norway in September and two months later he opened the scoring for England in another 1982 UEFA under 21 championship preliminary match when England beat Hungary 2-0.

The following March he started again as England won a quarter final away leg in Poland 2-1 and was in the semi-final second leg line-up that drew 1-1 with Scotland at Maine Road, Manchester.

In the first leg of the final of that competition, played at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, on 21 September,1982, Fashanu went on for David Hodgson and scored as England beat West Germany 3-1, although he didn’t feature in the second leg away when England lost 3-2 but ran out 5-4 aggregate winners.

At that time, Fashanu was on loan at Southampton having endured a nightmare time at the City Ground under Clough. The stories of what happened are legendary and varied. 

Unfortunately for Fashanu, he joined Forest as the European Cup-winning side was being broken up and there were rumours of disagreements between Clough and his sidekick Peter Taylor, who eventually quit the City Ground. Clough had some health issues at the time too.

Peter Ward, who had moved to Forest from Brighton for £500,000, sometimes played alongside Fashanu and witnessed first hand the difficulties the manager had with him. He described various incidents in some detail in Matthew Horner’s He Shot, He Scored biography.

“It must have been very hard for Fashanu; he had signed for a lot of money and he really struggled to score goals,” said Ward. “In a way, it was similar to my situation but he had the added complication of his social life and constant rumours about his sexuality.

“Cloughie found it difficult to live with Fashanu’s lifestyle and he later admitted he wished that he had treated him differently.”

Forest were £1m in debt; three directors quit because they didn’t like the terms of a guarantee for the bank overdraft, and the Nottingham public weren’t turning up in sufficient numbers to help the club break even.

“At the heart of it was Fashanu, who was effectively the physical embodiment of that £1m overdraft,” wrote Jonathan Wilson in his Brian Clough biography, Nobody Ever Says Thank You.

“Goal statistics often don’t tell the full story, but in this case his record of three league goals in 31 appearances did. He was offering little to the team and, had he not been signed, Forest’s bank balance would have been a comforting nil. By the end of his unhappy 15 months at the club his confidence was so shot he almost scored an own goal from the halfway line in a reserve team game.”

Clough blamed Fashanu’s arrival for the breakdown in his relationship with Taylor. According to Wilson: “Clough said: ‘He used to burst into tears if I said hello to him’ and ‘He had so many personal problems a platoon of agony aunts couldn’t have sorted him out.’

Wilson details incidents such as Fashanu insisting on using his own towels rather than ones provided by the club amongst a number of issues that irritated the manager.

Clough maintained that the player’s homosexuality didn’t bother him (although the manager’s use of the word ‘poof’ might suggest otherwise), instead he said: “It was just that his shiftiness, combined with an articulate image that impressed the impressionable, made it difficult for me to accept Fashanu as genuine and one of us.”

Accusations of ill discipline prompted Clough to ban the player from training. When he turned up anyway there was more trouble and the manager called in the police to remove him from the training ground.

Those circumstances led to Fashanu being loaned to Southampton where he scored three goals in nine games under Lawrie McMenemy, but they couldn’t afford to make it a permanent deal.

Eventually in December 1982, Forest cut their losses and Fashanu was transferred across the Trent to Notts County for £150,000, being signed by former Brighton winger Howard Wilkinson, who had taken over as manager at Meadow Lane that August.

At least Fashanu got his goal touch back, netting 20 in 64 matches, but they weren’t enough to prevent back-to-back relegations. It probably didn’t help his reputation that he was sent off in a derby game against Forest for retaliating to a Paul Hart tackle just 11 minutes into the second half.

After heading to America in his battle to overcome his knee problem, Fashanu failed to recapture the spark that had made him such a huge talent in his teens and early 20s.

The record books show he played for 22 clubs in seven different countries. A brief attempt to recover past glory under Lou Macari at West Ham is remembered by Dan Coker on West Ham Till I Die.

He was playing at Leyton Orient when he went public about his sexuality and he later scored 15 goals in 41 games for Torquay United. He also played in Scotland for Airdrieonians and Hearts (below).

What led to him taking his own life in a deserted lock-up garage in Shoreditch in May 1998 is well documented, such as in this footballpink.net piece written by Paul Breen.

Fashanu’s memory certainly lives on in many ways. In February 2020, a tribute to his outstanding goal against Liverpool was unveiled in the form of a 20-metre long banner produced by supporters groups Along Come Norwich and Barclay End Norwich, led by Proud Canaries: the first club-affiliated LGBT+ fan group in the country.

“Two years ago I drew a massive artwork for Norwich Pride of LGBT+ icons nominated by the community,” said banner designer David Shenton. “The most voted-for person was Justin: a man so treasured in this city, especially by the football club for his artistry as a player, and by the LGBT+ community for his courage in not hiding who he was.”

• Pictures from Albion’s matchday programmes, the Argus, and various online sources.

The goalscoring legend who slipped through Brighton’s net

ONES that got away always make for fascinating stories and a striker who went on to become a goalscoring legend slipped through the net at both Brighton and Burnley.

Ian Muir is hailed an all-time hero by fans of Tranmere Rovers for whom he scored 180 goals in all competitions during what many regard as the best period in Rovers’ history. If it hadn’t been for injury, he could have played in the Premier League and Europe for Leeds United.

But he’s barely remembered for the struggles he had to get games at Brighton, let alone in a month with the Clarets.

Success could have eluded himf it hadn’t been for the time he spent at Brighton alongside the legendary Frank Worthington. He was considering a move to non-league Maidstone United, but, when Worthington quit Brighton in the summer of 1985 to take his first step into management on the Wirral, he made Muir his first signing.

“Ian Muir was a fantastic forward with great touch,” Worthington told Spencer Vignes in an Albion matchday programme interview. “He did things in training you just wouldn’t believe, yet he wasn’t even making the side at Brighton under Chris (Cattlin).”

Cattlin had taken the youngster on after he had been given a free transfer by Birmingham City where he’d made just one League Cup appearance in the 1983-84 season under Ron Saunders. But competition for forward places was intense with the likes of initially Alan Young and Terry Connor, then Worthington, Mick Ferguson and later Alan Biley.

Muir’s first involvement with the Albion first team was as a non-playing substitute for the home 3-0 win over Leeds on 24 March 1984. He made his debut the following Saturday at Fratton Park in place of the injured Young and was brought down in the penalty area only 20 minutes into the game to earn Brighton a spot kick, which Danny Wilson successfully buried to put the Seagulls ahead.

Muir in his Brighton days

Connor had a chance to put Albion further ahead and, as the matchday programme reported, “Muir sliced wide as Connor made the opening” before Pompey began a devastating fight back.

Albion had been hoping to complete a fourth win in a row for the first time in six years, but it wasn’t to be, and, into the bargain, Muir couldn’t cap his debut with a goal, instead firing wide when set up by winger Steve Penney.

Unfortunately, this was the game when former Spurs and Arsenal centre back Willie Young, on loan from Norwich City, was given the runaround by Pompey centre forward Mark Hateley, and, courtesy of a second half blitz, the home side ran out 5-1 winners.

Alan Young was restored to the no.9 shirt in the next match and scored twice as Albion beat Grimsby Town 2-0 at the Goldstone, but Muir was drafted in to take Connor’s place in the away game at Shrewsbury Town.

That match ended in a 2-1 defeat, but the News of the World angled its report on an unlucky afternoon for the young forward.

“It just wasn’t Ian Muir’s day,” wrote reporter Brian Russell. “The Brighton teenager (actually he was 20) playing only his second league game could so easily have taken the limelight from Shrewsbury two-goal hero, 17-year-old Gerry Nardiello.

“Young Muir headed the ball home in the eighth minute from Jimmy Case’s corner, but it was ruled out (for a foul by centre-half Eric Young).”

Alan Young produced a powerful header from a Muir cross that Steve Ogrizovic (later of Liverpool and Coventry City fame, of course) saved brilliantly.

Russell continued: “With Brighton battling to cancel out Nardiello’s 23rd-minute opportunist goal, striker Muir suffered. His delicate chip left the ‘keeper clutching thin air, but Shrewsbury skipper Ross McLaren headed out.

“Brighton levelled it with 15 minutes to go (through Eric Young). But, five minutes later, Nardiello pounced on Chick Bates’s chested pass to beat Joe Corrigan.”

Muir was on the scoresheet when Albion’s reserve side began the 1984-85 season with a 1-0 win over reserve team boss George Petchey’s old club, Millwall. It was a very experienced team featuring Corrigan in goal, full-backs Chris Ramsey and Graham Pearce – who had both played for the Seagulls in the FA Cup Final the year before – along with Steve Gatting and Neil Smillie. Giles Stille and Alan Young were also in the line-up.

Muir had to wait until 13 October for his next first team opportunity when he was a non-playing sub as Albion went down 2-1 at Oxford United. He then got on as a sub for Connor in a 0-0 home draw with Barnsley, but the game was so dire that Cattlin very publicly forfeited a week’s wages.

After three goalless games straddling October and November 1984, Cattlin paired Muir with Worthington away to Blackburn on 10 November but still the drought couldn’t be breached, and Albion went down 2-0. The next game, Cattlin tried Ferguson and Connor as his front pair – same outcome: a 1-0 defeat at Leeds.

Muir didn’t get another chance with the Albion but in the spring of 1985 was sent out on loan to Lou Macari’s Swindon Town, where he played in three matches (and his teammates included Ramsey, who’d been released by Cattlin, and Garry Nelson, who would later become a promotion winner with the Seagulls).   

Somewhat curiously, when commenting on Muir’s departure from the club that summer, Cattlin said in the matchday programme: “I am sure Ian will get goals at whatever level he plays.”

Sure enough, Prenton Park eventually became his spiritual home and, although Tranmere struggled to stay in the fourth tier initially, Muir’s goalscoring exploits were synonymous with four years in which Rovers were promoted twice and appeared at Wembley five times. Highlights saw Muir score in the FA’s centenary celebrations in 1988 and an acrobatic and precise volley in Tranmere’s Leyland DAF Trophy victory over Bristol Rovers in 1990.

Muir and strike partner Jim Steel

He particularly began to prosper after Worthington’s successor, Johnny King, brought in tall target man Jim Steel alongside him in 1987.

Steel, who later became a police officer on Merseyside, said King, a Bill Shankly devotee, would compare him and Muir to John Toshack and Kevin Keegan. “That’s the way football was at the time,” he told the Liverpool Echo. “You looked for a little mobile player to feed off a tall striker.

“Muiry was one of the best finishers in the game at the time. If I’m honest, the intelligence of the partnership was down to Muiry, who was very good at reacting to things off me,” he said.

“I wasn’t the most technically gifted of players compared to the likes of Johnny Morrissey and Jim Harvey. But things happened around me and Muiry was very good at picking up the crumbs.”

Muir was Tranmere’s leading scorer from 1986 to 1990 and, in the 1989-90 season, he scored 35 goals in 65 games.

Such is the esteem in which Muir is held in those parts that a mural depicting him and all-time-appearances record holder Ray Matthias adorns the side of a house close to Prenton Park. A lounge at the ground is also named after him.

Born in Coventry on 5 May 1963, Muir played for the City’s schools side and Bedworth Juniors and won four England Schoolboy caps (against Wales, Scotland and two v West Germany) featuring alongside the likes of Tommy Caton, Ian Dawes, Terry Gibson and Kevin Brock.

He joined QPR as an apprentice aged 17 in 1980 and was a Hoops player for four years in total during Terry Venables’ reign as manager. In October 1982, he went on a one-month loan to Burnley. The respected all-things-Burnley writer, Tony Scholes, takes up the story.

“When Burnley played on QPR’s plastic pitch at Loftus Road in 1982 we came home with more than we’d bargained for. Two Trevor Steven goals in front at half time, we’d suffered a 3-2 defeat in the end although we managed to acquire a striker.”

Scholes pointed out how Muir had progressed into the first team squad at Loftus Road, but after a goalscoring start had fallen out of favour.

“He made a dramatic start to his first team career, scoring twice on his debut in a 5-0 thrashing of Cambridge United in April 1981,” said Scholes. “He kept his place for the one remaining game of the 1980-81 season but by the time he arrived at Turf Moor, well over a year later, he was still looking for his third game.”

It eventually came with Burnley, when he went on as a substitute in a 2-1 defeat at Charlton, replacing skipper Martin Dobson. He then started and scored Burnley’s goal in a 3-1 defeat at Leeds.

“He impressed, but the home fans never saw him and. at the end of the month, he was dispatched back to West London, his Burnley career over,” said Scholes.

Ian Muir alongside Terry Fenwick when Terry Venables managed QPR

Unable to get back into Terry Venables’ side at Loftus Road, Muir joined Birmingham and subsequently Brighton.

Finally given a platform to shine, the striker scored the majority of his 180 Tranmere goals between 1985 and 1991 and spearheaded the side that vaulted two divisions in three seasons between 1988 and 1991, before eventually being edged out by the arrival of John Aldridge.

The Liverpool Echo remembered: “It was inevitable his subtle skills and clinical finishing would make him a target for a larger club. Muir knew of Leeds’s interest as Tranmere campaigned to secure a place in the Third Division playoffs in 1990-91.

Muir told the newspaper: “Howard Wilkinson was sending scouts to watch me and coming along himself. When I went along to the ticket office before games, the Leeds scout was sometimes at the kiosk and I’d chat to him. He told me what was happening.

“Mark Proctor, who joined us from Middlesbrough the following season and worked under Wilkinson, knew about the deal and told me.”

Muir was arguably in his prime at the age of 27, but he suffered what would be a fateful knee ligament injury in a game against Chester City on 23 March 1991.

When Tranmere visited Leeds in a League Cup tie early in the following season, Muir hobbled into Elland Road on crutches. Muir recalled: “Before the game Gordon Strachan asked our midfielder, Neil McNab, where I was. Neil pointed to me standing there on crutches.

“Then Strachan said: ‘Ian is the unluckiest man in the world because we were going to sign him’. Leeds went on to win the league that season and I could have been with them, playing at the highest level playing in Europe the following season.

“I was gutted. I was so close and the injury changed everything. But that’s football. You get your ups and downs.

“I could never complain about the fantastic career I had at Tranmere and I wouldn’t swap my memories of the years at Prenton Park for anything.”

He wasn’t granted a testimonial after a decade with Rovers, but in 2020 there were moves afoot amongst their supporters to help him publish his autobiography.

Adulation has not waned and a young writer who didn’t even get to see him play wrote warmly about the striker’s achievements in this tribute.

In 1995, Muir returned to Birmingham City for a £125,000 fee but he played only twice before he suffered a groin injury. In an effort to get fit, he spent a month on loan at Darlington, and scored a goal, but his league career was over.

He went to play in Hong Kong, scoring a hat-trick on his debut for Sing Tao, and later played for Happy Valley. In June 2011, he recalled in an interview with the Liverpool Post: “The warm climate was a big help. Then the medical people found the cause of the groin problem was my spine. The pelvis wasn’t lined up properly. It could get out of joint just by lying in bed.

“One of the lads on the medical side was able to click me back into place. I have to say I have not had many problems with it since.”

Muir returned to the UK, and his native West Midlands and joined Nuneaton Borough.

“We won the league by 20 points and got into the Conference,” Muir told the Post. “We were top of the league after three months of the following season then it all went pear-shaped.”

The newspaper reported that Muir stepped down a level to Stratford Town, where his football days finished.

He did some voluntary coaching in schools and took a job in a factory for a year, and subsequently joined a friend in a business fitting out pubs and shops.

• Pictures from various online sources.

Mis-firing Mick Ferguson couldn’t repeat goalscoring prowess for Everton or Brighton

MICK FERGUSON was a prolific goalscorer for Coventry City but the goals dried up in spells with Everton and Brighton & Hove Albion.

Ferguson’s arrival at the Goldstone in the early autumn of 1984 was certainly not amid a great fanfare. The Albion, under new chairman Bryan Bedson, were wrestling with debt and, to bring in some much-needed funds, sold striker Alan Young to Notts County for £50,000 and full-back Mark Jones to Birmingham for £30,000.

Needing a cut-price replacement for Young, and with Ferguson unwanted at Birmingham having been responsible for getting them relegated (see below), he came to the Goldstone as part of the deal that took Jones to St Andrews.

In modern-day football, loan players don’t generally play against their parent clubs but, amazingly, at the end of the previous season, Ferguson was allowed to play against Birmingham while on loan at his old club Coventry, and ended up scoring a goal that kept the Sky Blues in the top division but sent Birmingham down.

It was such an unusual saga that as recently as May 2017, the Guardian revisited the tale, catching up with Ferguson to explain the circumstances.

As the article explains, shortly before the player’s 30th birthday, manager Ron Saunders offloaded him to Brighton, where the manager was Ferguson’s former Coventry teammate, Chris Cattlin. Just to prolong Saunders’ agony, Ferguson made his Seagulls debut in a 2-0 home win… over Birmingham! This time he didn’t score. And, for Brighton, that state of affairs existed for several months.

I remember his second game quite vividly. It was a midweek league cup tie away to Fourth Division Aldershot and I went to the game with my pal Colin Snowball, who at that time was living in nearby Bagshot. There wasn’t anything subtle about Albion’s tactics that night. Goalkeeper Graham Moseley would kick the ball long for Ferguson to get on the end of it.

But, as the striker tried to lay it off, all he succeeded in doing was heading it into touch – repeatedly. The new signing did not impress! Despite their superior status in the league, Albion succumbed 3-0 in what was a pretty humiliating exit. Ferguson was remarkably selected for the following Saturday’s game, an away defeat to Oxford, after which he was omitted for four games. Cattlin gave him another chance with a four-game spell but still the dismal form continued and he didn’t get another look-in for four months.

Freelance journalist Spencer Vignes did a retrospective article about Ferguson for the Albion matchday programme and discovered the striker didn’t have a high opinion of his former playing colleague. “Several of the players just didn’t get along with him, and I was one of them,” he said. “His man-management skills  left a lot to be desired. As a manager you need to have the players on-side. Chris certainly didn’t have us on-side.”

Ferguson admitted to being frustrated by Cattlin chopping and changing the side and said there were times he turned out when only 80 per cent fit, which didn’t do justice to himself, the team or the supporters. “My ankles weren’t great and towards the end I did struggle with my back, but I felt when I was fit I could certainly do a good job.”

The striker felt with the ability in the squad at the time they should have achieved more but pointed the finger at Cattlin for it not happening. “Some people aren’t cut out for management and I don’t think Chris was. It doesn’t surprise me that he never worked as a manager again.”

The history books (many thanks to Tim Carder and Roger Harris) recall him as the goalscorer in a 1-1 draw away to Portsmouth on 6 April 1986 but, having been to that game too, I seem to recall it was a rather desperate claim for what looked more like an own goal by Noel Blake.

The start of the following season saw the arrival of former £1m striker Justin Fashanu from Notts County and Dean Saunders, a free transfer from Swansea City, so Ferguson’s prospects of a starting place looked bleak.

However, the 1985-86 season was not very old before Cattlin had a striker crisis on his hands. Gerry Ryan was out long-term with the horrific leg break from which he never recovered, Terry Connor and summer signing Fashanu were also sidelined with injury and a big man was needed to play alongside Alan Biley.

Cattlin had little choice but to bring back the previously mis-firing Ferguson, and to everyone’s surprise and delight his goal touch returned, albeit briefly.

“I was virtually forced into the team through injury,” Ferguson admitted in a matchday programme interview. “But, fortunately, things turned out quite well. It was nice to get a goal against Blackburn in my first match back. That seemed to pave the way.”

The programme article had tried to give some perspective to the dismal form when he had first arrived. It said: “Mick’s confidence was affected by his loss of form, but he never lost an inner belief that he would pull himself out of the bad patch. And what a difference the goals make. He has shown great character this season and did a marvellous job for the team while Justin Fashanu was out with injury.”

Ferguson himself said: “It took us quite a while to settle down. We were in a flat at first and I was having a lot of problems, one way and the other, so it wasn’t an easy time.”

Eventually Ferguson, his wife and two daughters settled into a house in Hove, and the striker admitted: “When you’re having a bad time there is a tendency to bring your problems home. It’s unfair on your family. I didn’t notice at the time, but, looking back, I think I probably was a little snappy with my wife and children.

“I think you can reach the stage where you really start to wonder, but I always knew I could score goals for Brighton. I’ve scored goals everywhere else I’ve played. It was just a question of time and waiting for the right break.”

Indeed, Ferguson scored in three successive matches in September 1985, prompting Cattlin to give him a special mention in his programme notes for the league cup game at home to Bradford City. “The form of Mick Ferguson is bound to improve even more with the confidence he is gaining through his three goals in three games,” wrote the manager. “His header against Wimbledon was a true indication of his ability; it was of the highest class.”

The renewed confidence saw him add another consecutive pair the following month – before on-loan Martin Keown took over the no.9 shirt and demonstrated he could score goals as well as defend!

Sadly, the revival in Ferguson’s fortunes were not to last. When Fashanu was fit again, Ferguson was dropped and only stepped in a couple more times. His goal in a 4-3 home win over Huddersfield on 16 November was the last he scored for the club.

Apart from a lone outing in January, in a 3-0 defeat at Sheffield United, Ferguson was on the outside looking in until, to everyone’s astonishment, after a five-week absence from first team action, he was selected by Cattlin to lead the line in a FA Cup Sixth Round tie against First Division Southampton on 8 March 1986.

Ferg action Shilts Bond CaseFerguson, sandwiched between Kevin Bond and Jimmy Case, is foiled by Southampton goalkeeper Peter Shilton in what turned out to be the striker’s final Brighton game.

A crowd of 25,069 packed into the Goldstone – when the average attendance at the time often dipped below 10,000 – but it ended in a disappointing 2-0 defeat and the manager admitted he had made a mistake with his selection. It turned out to be Ferguson’s last game for the club.

Just over three weeks later, he moved to fourth-tier Colchester United – whose manager Cyril Lea was promptly sacked!

United’s reserve team manager, Mike Walker (who would later manage Everton) took over the first team as caretaker and, as the team went on an unbeaten run of eight games, Ferguson scored seven times, the first of which came in a 4-0 win over Leyton Orient on 8 April.

The following season he played 19 games and scored four times before leaving on 7 November 1986 to join non-league Wealdstone.

It was quite a fall from the heady days of the early Seventies.

Born in Newcastle on 3 October 1954, Ferguson was picked up by Coventry City’s youth scheme in 1970 and, although he made his debut in 1975, shortly after the sale of Scotland international Colin Stein, it wasn’t until the start of the 1976-77 season that he became a Highfield Road regular.

In tandem with Ian Wallace (who was later a strike partner of Peter Ward’s at Nottingham Forest), he really started to attract attention, as the Coventry Telegraph recounted when describing him as a “truly great goalscorer”.

The article reckoned he was strongly tipped for international honours at one point but injury and loss of form affected him over the next two seasons. Forest, Villa and Ipswich were all supposedly keen to sign him, with Brian Clough agreeing a £500,000 deal, then pulling out.

However, in the summer of 1981, he finally left City having scored 57 goals in 141 games (plus eight sub appearances) all in the top flight when Everton paid £280,000 for him. Ferguson scored six times in his first eight games – but the goals dried up after that and he was gone within less than a year having made only made 10 appearances (plus two as a sub).

In 2007, David Prentice, in the Liverpool Echo, sought out Ferguson for an explanation of his less than happy time on Merseyside.

Manager Howard Kendall initially loaned him to Birmingham City, before making the deal permanent, but injury disrupted his chances at St Andrews, hence the loan move back to Coventry.

After retiring from playing in 1987, Ferguson stayed in the game working in community development roles for Sunderland – for 10 years, until he fell out with manager Peter Reid – Newcastle United and Leeds United, where he was head of Football in the Community.

Pictures from Albion matchday programes and, via YouTube, from Coventry City’s Sky Blues TV.

Desk job at Leeds in later life