Gary Williams knew where the goal was – even from left back

A CARTILAGE operation when he was just 17 changed Gary Williams’ career, but, after success at Brighton, it eventually brought his playing days to a premature end at Crystal Palace.

Originally a winger, the operation, when he was an emerging player at Preston North End, took the edge of his pace and led to him converting into an overlapping left back.

Thankfully, as Brighton fans would witness, his ability to score important goals never left him.

Born in Litherland, Liverpool, on 8 March 1954, Gary Peter Williams had unsuccesful trials with Liverpool and Coventry City before starting his career with non-league Marine. He caught the eye of a scout who’d gone to watch a different player and ended up signing for Preston in April 1972.

Williams made his Preston debut in the final game of the 1971-72 season as Preston drew 2-2 at home to Swindon.

He then played in the opening match of the following season, against Aston Villa, but had to wait until the end of March at Brighton for his next appearance.

After his cartilage op, and just when he thought he was set to be released aged 18, Preston’s reserve team left-back got injured, Williams filled in, did a good job, and it was the platform he needed to launch his career.

“Because I used to be a winger, I knew which way to shepherd them to make it difficult to cut inside,” he told the journalist and author Spencer Vignes in his 2005 book, A Few Good Men.

It was the legendary Bobby Charlton, briefly trying out management at North End, who gave Williams his big break into first team football, selecting him at left back for the final eight games of the 1974-75 season.

Young Gary Williams with former England World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles, at Preston, and scoring the winner at Sunderland.

Former Everton boss Harry Catterick took over from Charlton and made Williams the first choice left back in 1975-76. The following season his outstanding performances earned him the Player of the Season award and on 22 March 1977, he made his 100^th league appearance in a 1-0 defeat at Selhurst Park.

By then, Williams was catching the eye of clubs higher up the league and his final game for Preston was the season-ending fixture at Shrewsbury on 14 May, which North End won 2-1.

In July 1977, Preston accepted a £45,000 fee from Brighton to sign Williams shortly after his teammate Mark Lawrenson joined for £100,000. Albion’s Graham Cross and Harry Wilson moved in the opposite direction to fill the positions they’d vacated.

Williams told Vignes how he’d always enjoyed playing against Brighton because of the size of the crowds they got.

“To run out in Division 3 at the Goldstone in front of a full house was amazing. You knew you were in for a hard time but the atmosphere was just infectious,” he said.

Manager Alan Mullery had called him and asked him to get himself down to Brighton and the club booked a room in the Metropole Hotel, the sea view helping to make up his mind about the move.

“I wanted to better myself and get into the First Division but football is such an up and down game that it’s not too wise to look too far ahead,” Williams told Football Weekly News magazine in 1980.

The start to his Albion career was somewhat inauspicious. Although he came on as a substitute in the opening game, a league cup tie away to Cambridge United which finished 0-0, injury then prevented him making his league debut for two months.

It finally came in a 2-0 win away to Sunderland on 1 October 1977 and he then missed only one game through to the end of the season, appearing a total of 34 times as the Seagulls finished fourth, missing promotion on goal difference to Tottenham.

The following season saw Williams play every game, scoring twice, as Brighton were runners-up to Palace gaining promotion to Division One for the first time.

In Albion’s first season amongst the elite, Williams was again ever present – indeed, he remarkably played 146 consecutive games during his time at the club.

The Everton-supporting full-back got the chance to play against his boyhood side in December 1979 and three months later he scored the first of two cracking, memorable Brighton goals in the top division as the Seagulls finished in 16th position.

On 29 March 1980, at the Goldstone, he lashed a shot from 30 yards that flew past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton to earn Albion the double over European Cup holders Nottingham Forest.

Williams beats Nottingham Forest full back Viv Anderson at the Goldstone and, together with Gary Stevens, tries to thwart Liverpool’s Kenny Dalglish.

Williams admits he was about to pass it until skipper Brian Horton urged him to ‘hit the ****ing thing!’

“When you hit the ball that sweetly, you don’t even really feel a thing,” he recounted to Vignes, in that 2005 interview. “By the time I looked up, it was heading for the top corner.”

Although Forest boss Brian Clough declared it a fluke in a post-match interview, because the game took place in front of the TV cameras, it was selected as one of the goals of the season.

Thirteen months after that goal, Williams struck another beauty, this time to silence the Sunderland faithful at Roker Park.

It clinched Albion a 2-1 win and was part of a late flurry of good results which saw the Seagulls escape the clutches of relegation.

Describing it to Vignes, he said: “It was our last attack of the game. Gordon Smith knocks a good ball into the penalty area and I’ve just taken a gamble and gone up from the halfway line. I say so myself but it was a really good volley.

“It fell to me around 10 yards out and you hear the net ripple because the crowd went silent.”

While it contributed to Albion staying up, that summer saw the departure of Mullery, Lawrenson and Horton and the arrival of Mike Bailey into the manager’s chair. It was to signal the end of Williams’ Brighton career.

Bailey favoured a far more defensive approach to his predecessor and brought in the experienced Northern Ireland international Sammy Nelson, who had been displaced at Arsenal by the arrival of Kenny Sansom.

Williams only learned about the signing through The Argus and, when he confronted the manager about it, was told Nelson was only going to be a squad player.

“I’m thinking ‘bollocks’ but he didn’t play him straightaway,” Williams recounted. “He couldn’t drop me because I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Ironically, however, he lost his place after bombing forward and scoring in a 4-1 win over Manchester City. Astonishingly, Bailey was annoyed that he had been too adventurous!

With Nelson keen to carry on playing and earn a place in Northern Ireland’s 1982 World Cup squad, it meant Williams was left to languish in the reserves.

By the end of the season, though, Mullery, by now manager of Crystal Palace, came to Willams’ rescue and gave him a chance to resume first team football.

In a swap deal that saw winger Neil Smillie arrive at the Goldstone, Williams moved to Selhurst.

But after only 10 games he was forced to have an operation on his troublesome knee. Expert advice steered him towards a painful decision but he took it and retired from the game aged just 29.

Williams told the Argus: “The trouble with my knee is really wear and tear. I had a cartilage out at 17, and I was told after the operation last October a lot of harm might be caused if I went on playing.”

In A Few Good Men, Vignes gained a great insight into a northern lad who fell in love with the Albion and remains a fan to this day.

“I was very lucky in that I played right at the beginning of the era of overlapping full-backs,” Williams told him. “It was beginning to creep in when I first came onto the scene, and I had an advantage as I’d started my career as a left-winger. I knew all about coming forward.”

gwms quit cutting

Mike Bailey took the Seagulls to their highest-ever finish

ONE OF the all-time greats of Wolverhampton Wanderers led Brighton & Hove Albion to their highest-ever finish in football.

Midfield general Mike Bailey played for Wolves for 11 seasons between 1965 and 1976, leading the team to promotion from the Second Division in 1966-67, helping them to top-flight positions of fourth and fifth in 1971 and 1973, getting to the final of the UEFA Cup in 1972, and lifting the League Cup at Wembley in 1974.

MB WWFCLgeCup Mike Bailey holds aloft the League Cup after Wolves beat Manchester City 2-1 at Wembley.

It was perhaps a hard act to follow Alan Mullery as manager of Brighton, particularly as the former Spurs and Fulham captain had led the club from Third Division obscurity to the pinnacle of English football within three years.

But Bailey had just got Charlton Athletic promoted from the Third Division and in the 1981-82 season led Albion to a 13^th place finish, a record which was only threatened in 2017-18 by Chris Hughton’s side, who eventually ended up 15^th.

Unfortunately, although Bailey’s team was relatively successful, the style of play he adopted to achieve that position was a turn-off to the fans who deserted the Albion in their hundreds and thousands.

Eventually, chairman Mike Bamber felt he had to address the slump in support by sacking Bailey in December 1982. “He’s a smashing bloke, I’m sorry to see him go, but it had to be done,” said Bamber. There are plenty – in particular Bailey! – who feel he acted a little too hastily.

Bailey shared his feelings in an interview he gave to the News of the World’s Reg Drury in the run-up to the 1983 FA Cup Final.

Mike Bailey talks to the News of the World; his often frank programme notes; his assistant, John Collins, a former Luton Town player.

“It seems that my team has been relegated from the First Division while Jimmy Melia’s team has reached the Cup Final,” he began.

Wanting to put the record straight having been hurt by some of the media coverage he’d seen since his departure, he explained: “I found the previous manager Alan Mullery had left me with a good squad, but, naturally I built on it and imposed my own style of play.”

Bailey resented accusations that his style had been dull and boring football, pointing out: “Nobody said that midway through last season when we were sixth and there was talk of Europe.

“We were organised and disciplined and getting results. John Collins, a great coach, was on the same wavelength as me. We wanted to lay the foundations of lasting success, just like Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley did at Liverpool.

“The only problem was that winning 1-0 and 2-0 didn’t satisfy everybody. I tried to change things too soon – that was a mistake.

“When I left, we were 18^th with more than a point a game. I’ve never known a team go down when fifth from bottom.”

It was clear from the outset of Bailey’s reign that he didn’t suffer fools gladly and there were numerous clashes with players, notably Steve Foster, Michael Robinson and Neil McNab, the displaced Gordon Smith and Mickey Thomas, a Bailey signing who repeatedly went missing because his wife didn’t like it in the south.

Bailey would vent his feelings quite overtly in his matchday programme notes; he was not afraid to hit out at referees, the football authorities and the media, as well as trying to explain his decisions to supporters, urging them to get behind the team rather than criticise.

Happier times as Mike Bailey becomes Albion manager and signs Tony Grealish to replace outgoing stalwart midfielder and skipper, Brian Horton.

Attempting to shine a light on the comings and goings associated with his arrival, he explained: “The moves we have been making are designed to provide Brighton with a better football team and one that can consolidate its position in the First Division, rather than struggle, such as in the last two seasons.”

By Christmas, the team were comfortably in the top half of the table and in an interview with the Argus, Bailey said: “I must admit that as a player and captain of Wolves I was a bit of a bastard, slagging others off, and that sort of thing. But being a manager, one sees everything in a different light. I am still trying to learn as a manager, especially now that I am with a First Division club.”

Three months later, shortly after he had appeared at a fans forum at the Brighton Centre, he very pointedly said: “It is my job to select the team and to try to win matches.

“People are quite entitled to their opinion, but I am paid to get results for Brighton and that is my first priority.

“Building a successful team is a long-term business and I have recently spoken to many top people in the professional game who admire what we are doing here at Brighton and just how far we have come in a short space of time.

“We know we still have a long way to go, but we are all working towards a successful future.”

As he assessed his first season, he said: “Many good things have come out of our season. Our early results were encouraging and we quickly became an organised and efficient side. The lads got into their rhythm quickly and it was a nice ‘plus’ to get into a high league position so early on.”

He had special words of praise for Gary Stevens and said: “Although the youngest member of our first team squad, Gary is a perfect example to his fellow professionals. Whatever we ask of him he will always do his best, he is completely dedicated and sets a fine example to his fellow players.”

Meanwhile, in his own end of season summary, Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe maintained: “It is Bailey’s chief regret that he changed his playing policy in response to public, and possibly private, pressure with the result that Albion finished the latter part of the season in most disappointing fashion.

“Accusations that Albion were the principal bores of the First Division at home were heaped on Bailey’s head, and, while he is a man not given to altering his mind for no good reason, certain instructions were issued to placate the rising tide of criticisms.”

Vinicombe recorded that the average home gate for 1981-82 was 18,241, fully 6,500 fewer than had supported the side during their first season amongst the elite.

“The Goldstone regulars, who are not typical of First Division crowds (but neither is the ground) grew restless at a series of frustrating home draws, and finally turned on their own players,” he said.

At the beginning of the following season, off-field matters brought disruption to the playing side. Arsenal’s former FA Cup winner Charlie George had trained with the Seagulls during pre-season and senior players Foster, Robinson and McNab publicly voiced their disappointment that the money wasn’t found to bring such a player on board permanently.

McNab in particular accused the club of lacking ambition and efforts were made to send him out on loan. Similarly, Robinson was lined up for a swap deal with Sunderland’s Stan Cummins, but it fell through.

Meanwhile, Albion couldn’t buy a win away from home and suffered two 5-0 defeats (against Luton and West Brom) and a 4-0 spanking at Nottingham Forest – all in September. Then, four defeats on the spin in November, going into December, finally cost Bailey his job. Perhaps the writing was on the wall when, in his final programme contribution, he blamed the run of poor results on bad luck and admitted: “I feel we are somehow in a rut.”

It would be fair to say Bailey the player enjoyed more success than Bailey the manager. So, where did it all begin?

Born on 27 February 1942 in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, he went to the same school in Gorleston, Norfolk, as the former Arsenal centre back Peter Simpson. His career began with non-league Gorleston before Charlton Athletic snapped him up in 1958 and he spent eight years at The Valley.

M Bailey charlton During his time there, he was capped twice by England as manager Alf Ramsey explored options for his 1966 World Cup squad. Just a week after making his fifth appearance for England under 23s, Bailey, aged 22, was called up to make his full debut in a friendly against the USA on 27 May 1964.

He had broken into the under 23s only three months earlier, making his debut in a 3-2 win over Scotland at St James’ Park, Newcastle, on 5 February 1964.He retained his place against France, Hungary, Israel and Turkey, games in which his teammates included Graham Cross, Mullery and Martin Chivers.

England ran out 10-0 winners in New York with Roger Hunt scoring four, Fred Pickering three, Terry Paine two, and Bobby Charlton the other.

Eight of that England side made it to the 1966 World Cup squad two years later but a broken leg put paid to Bailey’s chances of joining them, even though he got one more chance to impress Ramsey.

Six months after the win in New York, he was in the England team who beat Wales 2-1 at Wembley in the Home Championship. Frank Wignall, who would later spend a season with Bailey at Wolves, scored both England’s goals. Many years later, Wignall was playing for Burton Albion when a certain Peter Ward began to shine!

In 1965, Bailey broke his leg in a FA Cup tie against Middlesbrough and that was at a time when such injuries could be career-threatening.

“I was worried that may have been it,” Bailey recalled in his autobiography, The Valley Wanderer: The Mike Bailey Story (published in November 2015). “In the end, I was out for six months. My leg got stronger and I never had problems with it again, so it was a blessing in disguise in that respect.

“Charlton had these (steep) terraces. I’d go up to them every day, I was getting fitter and fitter. But it was too late to get in the 1966 World Cup side – Alf Ramsey had got his team in place.”

Bailey missed out on the 1966 England World Cup squad but he won Football League representative honours and enjoyed success as captain of Wolves.

During his time with the England under 23s, Bailey had become friends with Wolves’ Ernie Hunt (the striker who later played for Coventry City) and Hunt persuaded him to move to the Black Country club.

Thus began an association which saw him play a total of 436 games for Wolves over 11 seasons, leading a side with solid defenders like John McAlle, Francis Munro and Derek Parkin, combined with exciting players like forwards Derek Dougan and John Richards, plus winger Dave Wagstaffe.

However, when coach Sammy Chung stepped up to take over as manager, he selected Kenny Hibbitt ahead of Bailey so the former skipper chose to end his playing days in America, with the Minnesota Kicks, who were managed by the former Brighton boss Freddie Goodwin.

Nevertheless, Bailey’s contribution to the team famous for their old gold kit saw him inducted into the Wolves Hall of Fame in 2010.

On his return to the UK, Bailey became manager of Hereford United, then he returned to The Valley as manager of Charlton and, immediately after getting them promoted to the third tier, took over at Brighton in the summer of 1981.

A somewhat extraordinary stat I discovered about Bailey’s management career in England through managerstats.co.uk was that he managed each of those three clubs for just 65 games. At Hereford, his record was W 32, D 11, L 22; at Charlton W 21, D 17, L 27; at Brighton, W 20 D 17, L 28.

In 1984, he moved to Greece to manage OFI Crete, and he later worked as reserve team coach at Portsmouth. Later still, he did some scouting work for Wolves.

Pictures from various sources: Goal and Shoot! magazines; the Evening Argus, the News of the World, and the Albion matchday programme.

The never forgotten miss by FA Cup Final scorer Gordon Smith

3 and smith must score “NEVER in my wildest dreams – or should that be nightmares? – did I think that, more than 20 years later, that miss in front of goal would still be getting replayed on television and mentioned in the media wherever I go.”

The words could only have been said by one man and they appear in the autobiography…And Smith Did Score (Black and White Publishing, 2005).

Gordon Smith’s football career included being a treble trophy winner with Glasgow giants Rangers, top scorer of the season for Manchester City, and becoming chief executive of the Scottish FA.

But it is what happened in the final seconds of extra time in the 1983 FA Cup Final that he is most remembered for.

Gordon Duffield Smith was born in Kilwinning (20 miles south of Glasgow) on 29 December 1954 and followed in his grandfather Mattha’s footsteps in becoming a pro footballer.

He was at Kilmarnock for five years, scoring 36 goals in 161 appearances, during which time he earned international honours with Scotland’s under-23 side, twice starting and three times going on as a substitute.

“It’s always a tremendous thrill to be selected in a squad for my country,” Smith said in a 1976 Shoot / Goal! magazine article. “It’s great to think Mr (Willie) Ormond considers me good enough for selection. I always do my very best for Scotland. I don’t need any further incentive other than pulling on that dark blue jersey.”

The item was highly complimentary of the player, saying: “The Kilmarnock dazzler is a player of poise and balance. He is one of the swiftest in Scotland and is certainly one of the most gifted. He has the talent to show the ball to the full-back then leave him helpless with astonishing acceleration.

“Smith can make and take goals. Some of his scores have been in the ‘unbelievable’ category. The flash down the wing, the cut-in, the race along the bye-line and then, with the ‘keeper expecting the cut-back, the explosive shot to finish the move in grandstand fashion – the ball zipping between the ‘keeper and the near post.”

In 1977, having joined Rangers for a fee of £65,000, he also collected an under-21 cap as an overage player, in a 1-0 defeat to Wales, but he was never selected for the full international side.

In his first season at Rangers, they won the domestic treble and he scored 27 goals from midfield. To cap it off he scored the winning goal in the 1978 Scottish League Cup Final against Celtic.

Alan Mullery paid £400,000 to take him to Brighton in 1980, and talked about the deal in his autobiography. “Sadly, Gordon Smith is remembered as the man who missed the last-minute chance to win the FA Cup in 1983,” said Mullers. “That’s a shame because he was one of the best players I ever worked with. He reminded me of Trevor Brooking. A midfield player with silky skills who could read the game perfectly.”

Smith played 38 games in his first season at Brighton and scored 10 goals. “I couldn’t ask for more than that,” said Mullery. But when Mullery quit the club in the summer of 1981, the rest of Smith’s time at the Goldstone could at best be described as turbulent.

He didn’t get on with Mullery’s replacement, Mike Bailey, or his assistant John Collins, mainly because of their more defensive style of play. In March 1982, the Argus reported Smith was pondering his future having been left out of the side, with Gerry Ryan and Giles Stille being selected ahead of him.

“I am just wondering what is happening now that I’m not even travelling with the team. I don’t know what my standing is at all,” he told reporter John Vinicombe.

Bailey accused some players of lacking commitment following a 4-1 reverse at Notts County, and Smith was dropped for the following game.

Smith voiced his displeasure at being made a scapegoat and told the Argus: “It seems that every time we lose, I get dropped. Then I read the manager’s remarks about lack of commitment. What other inference can I draw?

“He asked me to play defensively at Notts and I don’t think I let him or the team down. Throughout my career, I have never shown any lack of effort.”

In the 1981-82 season, Smith played 27 matches plus four as sub. He started 15 of the first 16 games of the 1982-83 season but, as Bailey and Collins tried to find the right formula, he lost his place to summer signing Neil Smillie and decided to take the opportunity to return to Rangers on loan.

He only played three matches, but one of them happened to be a League Cup Final defeat against Celtic at Hampden Park!

Almost as soon as Bailey and Collins had left, on Smith’s return to the south coast Jimmy Melia restored him to the first team, hence his subsequent involvement in the 1983 FA Cup Final.

“I had said I would never kick another ball for Brighton, but that was because I had been told there was no place for me as a regular first team player,” Smith said in the run-up to the big game.

“The change of manager altered that and obviously now I am looking forward to playing at Wembley within six months of taking part at Hampden Park. I just hope the result is different.”

Interestingly, the Express said: “The Wembley stage may just suit Smith’s style of game; he’s a studious player with a capacity to drift past people and quite capable of producing telling passes from the bye-line.”

It didn’t help Brighton’s striker options that Brian Clough had refused to allow Peter Ward’s loan from Nottingham Forest to continue until the end of the season, nor that Melia had organised a deal that saw striker Andy Ritchie swap places with Leeds United’s Terry Connor – who was already cup-tied, thus ineligible to play cup games for the Seagulls.

But, in an amazingly prescient pre-match comment, Melia said: “Gordon can be a matchwinner in his own right…he can play a very key part in this final.”

As the title of Smith’s autobiography reflects, the Scot silenced Manchester United followers the world over by opening the scoring for Brighton on that memorable May afternoon in 1983.

In only the 13^th minute of the game, young midfield player Gary Howlett found Smith with a delightful chipped diagonal pass over United centre back Kevin Moran and Smith arched a header past Gary Bailey to put the Seagulls in dreamland (below, Smith celebrates the goal with Michael Robinson).

After United had taken the lead, and Gary Stevens had equalised for Brighton, the game went into extra time and the stage was set for one of the most talked about moments in the club’s history.

Interestingly, United ‘keeper Bailey believes Smith has been given a raw deal over the years.

He told the Argus: “It was not the best save I ever made and not the greatest ever seen in English football, but it was a decent one because of my reaction after I’d blocked it.

“I managed to keep my eyes open to make sure I got to the loose ball before Gordon. Often in those 50-50 situations your eyes close and the forward just taps it in but I watched and reacted quickly that time. I want to take credit for it because it came at such a vital time.

“Gordon has taken a lot of stick for what happened, and it was a crucial moment in Brighton’s history, but he shouldn’t get the blame. It is not justified at all. He didn’t score, but he didn’t miss the target.”

On the 25^th anniversary of the 1983 final, Argus reporter Andy Naylor interviewed Smith at The Grand Hotel, Brighton, and asked if he ever got sick and tired of being asked about the incident.

“Not really. In life, you have to be able to get over things and deal with them,” Smith explained. “If you become famous for something you don’t do, a lot of people throw it in your face and take the mickey out of you, so you have to show a bit of character and I think I’ve done that.

“I am able to handle it and talk about it and I have no problem at all in taking full responsibility.

“I should have scored. I would love to have scored. I am sorry for the fans, my teammates, the management, everybody who suffered as a result. I suffered greatly too because I’m a perfectionist and I always wanted to be at my best. Everybody else’s disappointment can’t match my own.

“You just have to live with it. There are two choices, either hide away or come out and deal with it. I have put it into perspective. I swapped shirts with Alan Davies after the game. He got a winner’s medal and I didn’t. He’s dead now. He committed suicide. So winning didn’t change his life for the better.”

And, with the benefit of hindsight, would he have done anything differently? “I would have delayed my shot,” said Smith. “I thought Gary would come to me to shut me down. That is why I took a touch and hit it early, hard and low to his side, which meant he would never have got down to it. I scored a few goals in my time like that.

“For some strange reason, I don’t know why, Gary decided to dive. He dived the wrong way and it stuck in his legs. If I had delayed my shot for another split second, he was going down and I would have just chipped it over him.”

To personalise the situation just for a few short moments: Smith’s parents were travelling back to Sussex on the same coach as me that day, and I’ll never forget what happened. We had all gradually drifted back to our seats on the coach and there was understandably an excited hubbub of chatter mixed with the disappointment of seeing Brighton come so close and yet so far from winning the fabled trophy. As Gordon’s parents boarded the coach, an almighty silence descended. You could hear a pin drop. No-one quite knew what to say.

Of course, no-one would have known it at the time, but less than a year later, Smith was no longer with the club.

The new season back in the second tier of English football was barely a couple of months old before manager Melia was on his way, succeeded by Chris Cattlin, the former player who had been drafted in as coach by the chairman, Mike Bamber.

G Smith cover

Smith fell out with Cattlin and was ostracised for five months – ordered to train with the youth team and banned from anything to do with the first team and reserve team.

Looking back many years later, Smith told journalist Spencer Vignes: “He (Cattlin) told me one day that I wasn’t passionate about football and I just found that unacceptable…and I told him so.He just misread me totally.”

During that time, I can remember travelling by coach to Brighton’s FA Cup tie at Watford on 18 February 1984 and, as we were headed along the motorway, Smith was sitting in the front seat of a minibus of fans heading in the same direction.

Nine months earlier, he had scored – and missed – for the Seagulls at Wembley, and, here he was, reduced to a minibus passenger travelling to watch his pals because the club wouldn’t allow him to use any of their official transport.

His first team exile was suddenly lifted unexpectedly for just one more game, and he scored in a 3-0 away win at Derby County on 17 March 1984. But, within days, he was sold to then second-tier Manchester City for just £45,000.

A tad ironically for an ex-Rangers player, it was legendary Celtic captain Billy McNeill who took him to Maine Road. He made his debut in a home game against Cardiff City on 24 March 1984.

Thirty-eight of his 46 appearances for City came in the 1984-85 season, when he was top scorer with 14 goals.

Smith recalls the details of his spell at the club in the autobiography but, in short, he fell out with McNeill and made his last appearance for City on 4 November 1985, at home to Sunderland. He eventually moved to nearby Oldham Athletic, where he played nine games.

In 1987, he had the chance to play for Austrian side Admira Wacker, where he featured in 38 games, and the following season he switched to FC Basel in Switzerland, playing 25 games.

Eventually, in 1988, he returned to Scotland and finished his playing career at Stirling Albion.

Smith subsequently became an agent, representing the likes of Paul Lambert and Kenny Miller, but relinquished that work when he was appointed the chief executive of the Scottish FA, a job he held for three years. He was later director of football at Rangers during the 2011-12 season.

In June 2018, the Daily Record reported Smith’s daughter Libby had given birth to a baby boy and she’d taken on board her dad’s suggestion to call him Edson Thunder after the legendary Pele!!

Imperious Mark Lawrenson starred at Brighton before hitting Liverpool heights

MARK LAWRENSON was without doubt in my mind the best player ever to play for Brighton and Hove Albion. Peter Ward was exceptional but Lawrenson did it for Brighton and went on to have a glittering career with Liverpool, the top club in the country at the time.

And, whatever your thoughts about his contribution as a pundit – and many are very disparaging – you can’t take away his longevity on our TV screens and across our media.

Although now slightly less prominent as a TV pundit, for a good many years, Lawrenson reprised his successful Liverpool central defensive partnership with Alan Hansen in the BBC Match of the Day studios.

But where did it all begin? Born on 2 June 1957 in Penwortham, Lancashire, Lawrenson joined nearby Preston at 17 in 1974, who at the time were managed by the legendary Bobby Charlton.

Lawrenson made his full debut for the Lilywhites the following year, two months before his 18^th birthday. However, it was Charlton’s fellow World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles, to whom Lawrenson was most grateful.

“I was a winger when I joined Preston, while he was coach, and he was the one who converted me to my present position – in the middle of the back four,” Lawrenson told Keir Radnedge in Football Weekly News.

“Nobby was very good with the youngsters. He was almost like a father-figure. He commanded respect not only because of what he’d achieved himself but because of the way he’d help iron out your faults.”

At the age of 19, and thinking he’d never be good enough to play for England, Lawrenson opted to play for the Republic of Ireland when player-manager Johnny Giles (perhaps not coincidentally, Nobby’s brother-in-law) found out that he qualified to play for them through his grandfather.

That debut for Ireland in April 1977, in a 0-0 draw with Poland, came at the end of a season in which he was voted Preston’s Player of the Year.

Within weeks, he joined the Albion for £112,000 (£100,000 + VAT @ 12 per cent) after Brighton manager Alan Mullery persuaded Albion to outbid Liverpool to get their man.

Shoot article

Mullery recalled in his 2006 autobiography how he had taken the board of directors to see Lawrenson perform superbly in an end-of-season game at Crystal Palace, where he marked their new star striker Mike Flanagan out of the game.

Lawrenson recollects how he was on an end-of-season ‘jolly’ in Spain with his Preston team-mates when Brighton chairman Mike Bamber and director Dudley Sizen turned up and ‘sold’ the club to him in a Benidorm beachside bar.

There was nearly a hitch in the deal when his medical showed high sugar levels in his blood – but it turned out he had been drinking blackcurrant-flavoured Guinness while on the Spanish holiday.

Mullery was building on the success of guiding the Seagulls to promotion from Division Three in his first season in charge, and the young defender replaced the experienced Graham Cross, who went to Preston in part-exchange.

Shortly after signing Lawrenson, Mullery told Shoot magazine: “I know a lot of people have not heard too much about him yet. But they will – believe me, they will. He is only 20, is big and strong and will make his mark in a big way.”

And, in his autobiography, Mullery said: “Any manager would love to have a player of Mark’s ability in their side. He had a calm, strong temperament, he never caused any problems and he always performed brilliantly on the field. His presence helped to lift the team to a whole new level of performance in the 1977-78 season.”

Lawrenson made his Brighton debut on the 20 August 1977 in a 1-1 draw against Southampton at The Dell and went on to make 40 league appearances by the end of his first season at the club.

The following season, when Albion went one better and earned promotion to the top division for the first time, Lawrenson was a stand-out performer. In his book, A Few Good Men, author Spencer Vignes said: “His timing in the tackle and ability to read the game belied his relative youth, but what really caught the eye was his skill on the ball, which, for a centre-back still earning his wages in English football’s second tier, was little short of remarkable.”

Skipper Brian Horton told Vignes: “The way he used to bring the ball out from the back had to be seen to be believed.”

In a special Argus supplement of April 1997, to mark Albion’s departure from the Goldstone, Lawrenson was interviewed by Mike Donovan, and told him: “The Goldstone was a great place to play and I was extremely happy there.

“It was an excellent team that played good football the way it should be played – by passing it around. Also, we had a great team spirit, mainly because a lot of the team were outsiders coming in and stuck together. We all played and socialised together.”

Unfortunately, Albion’s first season amongst the elite was only five games in when Lawrenson received a serious injury in a clash with Glenn Hoddle at White Hart Lane.

Badly torn ankle ligaments and a chipped bone was the diagnosis and it sidelined Lawrenson for 12 matches, although his absence created an opportunity for young Gary Stevens.

lawro yellow When Lawrenson was fit to return, Mullery sprung a surprise by utilising him in midfield, but it was an inspired decision and he stayed there for the rest of the season, helping Albion to finish a respectable 16^th of 22.

He went on to make 152 league appearances by the end of 1980-81.

It was his sale to Liverpool in the summer of 1981 that was part of the reason Mullery’s reign at the club came to an end. Mullery had negotiated with Ron Atkinson to sell him to Manchester United with two United players coming to Brighton as part of the deal.

But, behind his back, chairman Bamber had been talking to Liverpool and, in exchange for what was then a Liverpool club transfer record of £900,000, he was destined to be heading back to the North West with midfielder Jimmy Case coming South as part of the deal.

Interestingly, though, Lawrenson revealed in his autobiography how new manager Mike Bailey had actually made him Albion captain, but then asked him how he saw his future, which sowed a seed of doubt about the club’s intentions.

“I don’t know if there was a financial crisis and they were looking for a big transfer fee from my sale to sort themselves out, but the uncertainty did unsettle me,” he wrote. Lawrenson was sent off in an ill-tempered pre-season friendly (against FC Utrecht in the Dordrecht Tournament) and put it down to his personal frustration.

“On our return flight, there was a message that Terry Neill of Arsenal was waiting to meet the chairman at Gatwick,” Lawrenson recalled. “Somehow they missed each other and the next day there was talk of me going to Manchester United.

“But then Mike Bailey asked me if I would meet Liverpool, and I travelled to the Aerial Hotel at Heathrow to meet Bob Paisley, Peter Robinson and Liverpool chairman John Smith.

“Terry Neill was, at the time, waiting in the next hotel in case discussions broke down. He missed out because it only took me 15 minutes to agree to move to Liverpool.

“I travelled North and had a medical at 11.30 at night. I even took the registration forms to the League offices myself, because they are only a few doors away from my mother’s home at St Annes.”

Argus front page

Lawrenson went on to form a formidable central defensive partnership with Hansen after England centre back Phil Thompson suffered an injury, but, as he had showed at Brighton, he was versatile enough also to play at full back or in midfield.

Indeed, Lawrenson made his first start for Liverpool at left-back in a 1-0 league defeat to Wolves. In his first season, Liverpool won the League championship and the League Cup. They won it again in 1982 and retained both for another two seasons, becoming only the third club in history to win three titles in a row. They also added the club’s fourth European Cup in 1984.

Many believed Lawrenson and Hansen were the best central defensive partnership in English football by the time Liverpool clinched the League and FA Cup “double” in 1986.

But Lawrenson was being put under pressure by young centre back Gary Gillespie and an Achilles tendon injury in 1988 prematurely ended his career after 332 appearances and 18 goals, although he earned a fifth and final title medal when that season ended.

Lawrenson tried his hand at management at Oxford United in 1988 but, in almost a mirror image of the situation over his own transfer from Brighton, he resigned after their star striker Dean Saunders, the former Albion player, was sold by the board of directors without Lawrenson’s blessing.

Lawrenson later managed Peterborough United for 14 months between September 1989 and November 1990, but it was a largely unsuccessful tenure.

Apart from one brief foray back into football as a defensive coach at Newcastle during Kevin Keegan’s first reign in the North East, Lawrenson’s involvement since has been one step removed as a pundit and newspaper columnist.

At the 2018 World Cup, Lawrenson particularly hit the headlines when many observed his cantankerous and sarcastic observations were just too much.

Never shy of voicing his opinions, they once led to him losing what at the time was a trademark moustache!

He was so convinced that Bolton would be relegated that he said live on Football Focus that he would shave it off if they proved him wrong, which they did!

In 2003, my friend Andrew Setten somehow blagged tickets which gave us the opportunity to go into the exclusive Football Association area at the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Southampton at the Millennium Stadium and, all those years later, I finally got the chance to meet Lawro and to get his autograph.

• Pictures from Shoot magazine, cuttings from the Evening Argus and the matchday programme.

Spanish TV star Michael Robinson followed in dad’s footsteps to play for Brighton

Robinson v WBA

WHEN Michael Robinson died of cancer aged 61 on 28 April 2020, warm tributes were paid in many quarters to the former Brighton, Liverpool and Republic of Ireland international who became a big TV celebrity in Spain.

“We have lost a very special guy, a lovely person and someone I’m proud to have known both on and off the pitch,” his former teammate Gordon Smith told Spencer Vignes. “He was one of the boys, one of the good guys.”

It seemed like half a world away since Robinson had charged towards Gary Bailey’s goal in the dying moments of the 1983 FA Cup Final only inexplicably to pass up the opportunity of scoring a Wembley winner to lay the ball off to Smith.

“With Michael bursting forward and having turned the United defence inside out, I was genuinely expecting him to shoot and had put myself in a position to pick up any possible rebound,” Smith recounted. “Instead he squared it to me and we all know what happened next.”

Robinson’s next two competitive matches also took place at Wembley:

He once again led the line for Brighton when the Seagulls were crushed 4-0 by Manchester United in the cup final replay on 26 May. It turned out to be his last game for the Albion.
Three months later he was in the Liverpool side who lost 2-0 to United in the FA Charity Shield season-opening fixture between league champions and FA Cup winners, following his £200,000 move from relegated Brighton.

It was hardly surprising Robinson didn’t hang around at the Goldstone: the Seagulls had given him a platform to resurrect a career that had stalled at Manchester City, but the striker had several disputes with the club and the newspapers were always full of stories linking him with moves to other clubs.

robbo liv Perhaps it was surprising, though, that champions Liverpool were the ones to snap him up, particularly as Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish were in tandem as first choice strikers.

But at the start of the 1983-84 season, Joe Fagan’s Liverpool had several trophies in their sights and Robinson scored 12 times in 42 appearances as the Merseyside club claimed a treble of the First Division title, the League Cup, and the European Cup.

It took him a while to settle at the Reds because by his own admission he was in awe of the players around him but advice from Fagan to play without the metal supports he’d worn in his boots for six years previously (to protect swollen arches) paid off.

“It made a hell of a difference,” he said. “I felt a lot sharper and so much lighter on my feet.” In the first game without them, Robinson scored twice in a European game at Anfield, then he got one in a Milk Cup tie versus Brentford and scored a hat-trick in a 3-0 league win at West Ham.

robbo semi hat Nevertheless, asked many years later to describe his proudest moment in football, he maintained: “Scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup semi-final that meant that a bunch of mates at Brighton were going to Wembley in 1983.”

One of two sons born to Leicester publican Arthur Robinson on 12 July 1958, Michael followed in his father’s footsteps in playing for Brighton. Arthur played for the club during the Second World War when in the army, and also played for Leyton Orient.

When he was four, Robinson moved to Blackpool where his parents took over the running of a hotel in the popular seaside resort. The young Robinson first played football on Blackpool beach with his brother.

After leaving Thames Primary School, it was at Palatine High School that he first got involved in organised football, and, before long, he caught the eye of the local selectors and represented Blackpool Schools at under 15 level, even though he was only 13.

Amongst his teammates at that level was George Berry, who ironically was Robinson’s opponent at centre half in his first Albion match, against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The young Robinson also played for Sunday side Waterloo Wanderers in Blackpool and when still only 13 he was invited for trials at Chelsea, by assistant manager Ron Suart, who had played for and managed Blackpool.

Although he was asked to sign schoolboy forms, Robinson’s dad thought it was too far from home. Coventry, Blackpool, Preston and Blackburn were also keen and the North West clubs had the edge because he wouldn’t have to leave home.

Eventually he chose Preston and on his 16^th birthday signed as an apprentice. At the time, Mark Lawrenson was also there, training with the youngsters, and Gary Williams was already on the books.

After two years as an apprentice, he signed professional and began to push for a first team place with the Lillywhites. With former World Cup winner Nobby Stiles in charge, in 1978-79, Robinson scored 13 goals in 36 matches, was chosen Preston fans’ Player of the Year and his form attracted several bigger clubs.

In a deal which shocked the football world at the time, the flamboyant Malcolm Allison paid an astonishing £756,000 to take him to Manchester City. It was a remarkable sum for a relatively unproven striker.

The move didn’t work out and after scoring only eight times in 30 appearances for City, Robinson later admitted: “I’d never kicked a ball in the First Division and the fee was terrifying. If I had cost around £200,000 – a price that at that time was realistic for me – I would have been hailed as a young striker with bags of promise.”

It was Brighton manager Alan Mullery, desperate to bolster his squad as Albion approached their second season amongst the elite, who capitalised on the situation.

“I received the go ahead to make some major signings in the summer of 1980,” Mullery said in his autobiography. Mullery, had the support of vice-chairman Harry Bloom – current chairman Tony Bloom’s grandfather – even though chairman Mike Bamber was keener to invest in the ground.

“I could see he’d lost confidence at City and I made a point of praising him every chance I got,” said Mullery. “I asked him to lead the line like an old-fashioned centre forward and he did the job very well.”

Robinson told the matchday programme: “When Brighton came in for me, I needed to think about the move…12 months earlier I had made the biggest decision of my life and I didn’t want to be wrong again.”

In Matthew Horner’s authorised biography of Peter Ward, He shot, he scored, Mullery told him: “When I signed Michael Robinson it was because I thought Ward was struggling in the First Division and that Robinson could help take the pressure off him. Robinson was big, strong, and powerful and he ended up scoring 22 goals for us in his first season.”

The first of those goals came in his fourth game, a 3-1 league cup win over Tranmere Rovers, and after that, as a permanent fixture in the no.9 shirt, the goals flowed.

With five goals already to his name, Robinson earned a call up to the Republic of Ireland squad. Although born in Leicester, his mother was third generation Irish and took out Irish citizenship so that her son could qualify for an Irish passport. It was also established that his grandparents hailed from Cork.

He made his international debut on 28 October 1980 against France. It was a 1982 World Cup qualifier and the Irish lost 2-0 in front of 44,800 in the famous Parc des Princes stadium.

Nevertheless, the following month he scored for his country in a 6-0 thrashing of Cyprus at Lansdowne Road, Dublin, when the other scorers were Gerry Daly (2), Albion teammate Tony Grealish, Frank Stapleton – and Chris Hughton!

In April 1982, Robinson, Grealish and Gerry Ryan were all involved in Eire’s 2-0 defeat to Algeria, played in front of 100,000 partisan fans, and for a few moments on the return flight weren’t sure they were going to make it home. The Air Algeria jet developed undercarriage problems and had to abort take-off. Robinson told the Argus: “I thought we were all going to end up as pieces of toast. But the pilot did his stuff and we later changed to another aircraft.”

Although not a prolific goalscorer for Ireland, he went on to collect 24 caps, mostly won when Eoin Hand was manager. He only appeared twice after Jack Charlton took charge.

But back to the closing months of the 1980-81 season…while only a late surge of decent results kept Albion in the division, Robinson’s eye for goal and his never-say-die, wholehearted approach earned him the Player of the Season award.

As goal no.20 went in to secure a 1-1 draw at home to Stoke City on 21 March, Sydney Spicer in the Sunday Express began his report: “Big Mike Robinson must be worth his weight in gold to Brighton.”

However, the close season brought the shock departure of Mullery after his falling out with the board over the sale of Mark Lawrenson and the arrival of the defensively-minded Mike Bailey.

Bailey had barely got his feet under the table before Robinson was submitting a written transfer request, only to withdraw it almost immediately.

He said he wanted a move because he was homesick, but after talks with chairman Bamber, he was offered an incredible 10-year contract to stay, and said the club had “fallen over themselves to help me”.

Bamber told the Argus: “I have had a very satisfactory talk with Robinson and now everybody’s contracts have been sorted out. It has not been easy to persuade him to stay.”

Even though Bailey led the Seagulls to their highest-ever finish of 13^th, it was at the expense of entertainment and perhaps it was no surprise that Robinson’s goal return for the season was just 11 from 39 games (plus one as sub).

The 1982-83 season had barely got underway when unrest in the club came to the surface. Steve Foster thought he deserved more money having been to the World Cup with England and Robinson questioned the club’s ambition after chairman Bamber refused to sanction the acquisition of Charlie George, the former Arsenal, Derby and Southampton maverick, who had been on trial pre-season.

Indeed, Robinson went so far as to accuse the club of “settling for mediocrity” and couldn’t believe manager Bailey was working without a contract. Bamber voiced his disgust at Robinson, claiming it was really all about money.

The club tried to do a deal whereby Robinson would be sold to Sunderland, with Stan Cummins coming in the opposite direction, but it fell through.

Foster and Robinson were temporarily left out of the side until they settled their differences, returning after a three-game exile. But within four months it was the manager who paid the price when he was replaced in December 1982 by Jimmy Melia and George Aitken.

Exactly how much influence the managerial pair had on the team is a matter of conjecture because it became a fairly open secret that the real power was being wielded by Foster and Robinson.

On the pitch, the return of the prodigal son in the shape of Peter Ward on loan from Nottingham Forest had boosted crowd morale but didn’t really make a difference to the inexorable slide towards the bottom of the league table.

Ward scored a famous winner as Manchester United were beaten 1-0 at the Goldstone a month before Bailey’s departure, but he only managed two more in a total of 20 games and Brian Clough wouldn’t let him stay on loan until the end of the season.

Albion variously tried Gerry Ryan, Andy Ritchie and, after his replacement from Leeds, Terry Connor, to partner Robinson in attack. But Connor was cup-tied and Ryan bedevilled by injuries, so invariably Smith was moved up from midfield.

Robinson would finish the season with just 10 goals to his name from 45 games (plus one as sub) – not a great ratio considering his past prowess.

The fearless striker also found himself lucky to be available for the famous FA Cup fifth round tie at Liverpool after an FA Commission found him guilty of headbutting Watford goalkeeper Steve Sherwood in a New Year’s Day game at the Goldstone.

The referee hadn’t seen it at the time but video evidence of the incident was used and the blazer brigade punished him with a one-match ban and a £250 fine. Robinson claimed it had been an accident…but it was one that left Sherwood needing five stitches. The ban only came into effect the day after the Liverpool tie, and he missed a home league game against Stoke City instead.

In the run-up to the FA Cup semi-final with Sheffield Wednesday, Robinson was reported to be suffering with a migraine although he told Brian Scovell it was more to do with tension, worrying about the possibility of losing the upcoming tie.

Nevertheless, he told the Daily Mail reporter: “When I was with Preston, I suffered a depressed fracture of the skull and have had headaches ever since. This week it’s been worse with the extra worry about the semi-final.”

Manager Melia, meanwhile was relieved to know Robinson would be OK and almost as a precursor to what happened told John Vinicombe of the Evening Argus: “Robbo is a very important member of our team and he’s the man who can win it for us.

“It is Robbo who helps finish off our style of attacking football and I know he’ll do the business for us on the day.”

Reports of the semi-final were splashed across all of the Sunday papers, but I’ll quote the Sunday Express. Under the headline MELIA’S MARVELS, reporter Alan Hoby described the key moment of the game.

“In a stunning 77^th minute breakaway, Case slipped a beauty forward to the long-striding Gordon Smith whose shot was blocked by Bob Bolder.

“Out flashed the ball to Smith again and this time the cultured Scot crossed for Mike Robinson to rap it in off a Wednesday defender.”

Other accounts noted that defender Mel Sterland had made a vain attempt to stop the ball with his hand, but the shot had too much power.

When mayhem exploded at the final whistle, a beaming Robinson appeared on the pitch wearing a crumpled brown hat thrown from the crowd to acknowledge the ecstatic Albion supporters.

In one of many previews of the Final, Robinson was interviewed by Shoot! magazine and sought to psyche out United by saying all the pressure was on them.

“That leaves us to stride out from that tunnel with a smile and a determination to make everyone proud of us,” he said.

“Nobody seems to give us a prayer. They all seem glad that ‘little’ Brighton has reached the Final, but only, I suspect, because they expect to see us taken apart by United.”

Everyone knows what happened next and quite why the normally-confident Robinson didn’t take on his golden opportunity to win the game for Brighton in extra time remains a mystery.

However, as mentioned earlier, within months ‘little’ Brighton was a former club and Robinson had taken to a much bigger stage. This is Anfield reflected on his short time at Anfield as “a golden opportunity for him” and recalls that it turned out to be “the best and most successful season of his career”.

RobFozBW He had yet more Wembley heartache during a two-year spell with Queen’s Park Rangers, being part of their losing line-up in the 3-0 league cup defeat to Oxford United in 1986.

The move which would lay the foundations for what has become a glorious career on TV arose in January 1987 when Robinson moved to Spain to play for Osasuna, scoring 12 times in 59 appearances before retiring through injury aged 31.

Robinson completely embraced the Spanish way of life, learned the language sufficiently to be an analyst for a Spanish TV station’s coverage of the 1990 World Cup, and took Spanish citizenship.

His on-screen work grew and the stardom Robinson achieved on Spanish TV attracted some of the heavyweight English newspapers to head out to Spain to find out how he had managed it.

For instance, Elizabeth Nash interviewed him for The Independent in 1997 and discovered how he had sold his house in Windsor and settled in Madrid.

Meanwhile, in a truly remarkable interview Spanish-based journalist Sid Lowe did with Robinson for The Guardian in 2004, we learned how that FA Cup semi-final goal was his proudest moment in football and that Steve Foster was his best friend in football.

In June 2017, his TV programme marked the 25^th anniversary of Barcelona’s first European Cup win at Wembley, with some very studious analysis. On Informe Robinson (‘Robinson Report), he said: “Wembley was a turning point in the history of football. Cruyff gave the ball back to football.”

Neil McNab: Brighton fans ‘worst crowd I’ve played for’

FIERY SCOT Neil McNab left Brighton for a sizeable loss on their initial outlay and went on to be voted Manchester City’s Player of the Year twice.

No stranger to brushes with the football authorities, McNab joined Brighton in the second half of their first-ever season in the top flight.

In his autobiography, manager Alan Mullery said: “Neil McNab was a Scottish whippet, a fierce competitor in midfield who never stopped running or competing.

“I bought him halfway through the season from Bolton Wanderers and he gave us the extra edge we needed.”

The player to give way at the time was Republic of Ireland international Gerry Ryan, and it would be fair to say the football writers were impressed by the tenacious Scot’s early impact.

After watching a 5-1 drubbing against Southampton from the subs bench, McNab made his debut at home to West Brom in a game that finished goalless. “McNab showed some touches of class in his home debut but scarcely as much as the home crowd expected from their £230,000 capture,” said Harold Palmer in the Sunday Express.

The News of the World’s Peter Jarman was slightly more effusive and described it as “impressive” and John Vinicombe in the Evening Argus said: “McNab, on his home debut, impressed with his industry and general involvement.”

Of his second game, a 1-1 draw away to Leeds, the Sunday People’s Keith Ray observed: “McNab looked light years from the off-key young man that Bolton sold. His prompting coupled nicely with Lawrenson’s hard work, and Ward had two chances to hit the target before he made the vital strike.”

A demonstration of his appetite came in the next game, another 1-1 draw, at home to Coventry, when he ran 25 yards to stop Peter O’Sullivan from taking a corner that he fancied for himself. He whipped the ball in and Ray Clarke thumped a header past Jim Blyth in the Coventry goal.

Gordon Smith, another Albion player who moved to Manchester City, remembered McNab’s quick wit in his autobiography, And Smith Did Score.

When it looked like Brighton were heading for relegation, Mullery, in fear of losing his job, famously threatened the players that he’d run them down in his car if that happened.

Smith recounted how the players were huddled round trying not to laugh at the astonishing outburst. “I almost fell off my chair when Neil leant over and whispered, ‘If he loses his job, he’ll no’ have a f****** car!’”

It was no laughing matter for player or club, though, when the tenacious McNab was suspended for four matches for pushing a referee. In the following season, he was up before the FA again after a skirmish with World Cup winner Alan Ball at the end of a 5-a-side tournament at the Brighton Centre.

Charged with bringing the game into disrepute, Ball was fined £100 but McNab was given a £250 fine and a two-game ban.

Manager Mike Bailey was clearly relieved and told the Daily Mail’s Brian Scovell: “Neil was expecting more but the last instance was entirely different. It was on the field of play when he touched the referee.

“We got a fair hearing. We’re not complaining. Both were guilty but the crimes were different as Neil’s part was unfortunately physical while Ball’s was verbal.”

McNab had the third highest number of appearances (44 plus two as sub) in the 1981-82 season, which saw Brighton’s highest ever finish of 13th, and all four of the goals he scored were from the penalty spot.

However, the safety-first style of play adopted by Bailey created a disconnect between players and fans. In the final home game of the season (a 1-0 defeat to Ipswich), McNab was substituted in the 62nd minute and the crowd booed him off.

The often-obtuse Vinicombe reported in the Argus: “When McNab was withdrawn, 30 minutes from time, his gestures to the crowd were capable of only one interpretation.” In the Daily Mail, McNab told Brian Scovell: “They are the worst crowd I’ve played for. When you do something good on the ball they don’t clap and if you make a mistake they give you stick.”

Worse was to follow after the row at the beginning of the 1982-83 season when Steve Foster and Michael Robinson slapped in transfer requests in protest at chairman Bamber refusing to sanction the acquisition of Charlie George, the former Arsenal, Derby and Southampton maverick, who had been on trial pre-season.

In what was supposed to have been a clear-the-air meeting, McNab let his feelings be known in no uncertain terms.

McNab still had five of six years left on his contract. They tried to offload him on loan to Newcastle, but the midfielder refused to budge. Instead, he made a bitter personal attack on the chairman, accusing him of picking the team, and slapped in his own transfer request.

McNab blasted: “The club is petty and small-minded, and players are treated disgracefully.” McNab made it clear he didn’t see his future at the club and after a few months eventually went to Leeds for a six-game spell and also to Portsmouth.

That came after Bailey had been sacked and his replacements, Jimmy Melia and George Aitken, gave the team a big shake-up, dropping McNab and adopting a more adventurous approach (which ultimately led to relegation).

Although completely out of the first team picture from early December 1982 onwards, McNab was to play one last game nearly five months later.

With Melia struggling to field a team because of injuries and suspensions, McNab got the nod for an away game at Notts County on 30 April 1983.

But he was unable to join in the FA Cup run to Wembley because he had been cup tied during his spell at Leeds. The 1-0 defeat to County was the Scot’s last ever Seagulls appearance.

Relegation led to the release of some of the high earners, and while Robinson and Gary Stevens were sold for sizeable fees, McNab was sold to Manchester City – who had been relegated with Albion – for just £35,000.

Born on 4 June 1957 in Greenock, McNab went to the town’s Highlanders Academy and he was in his primary school team at the age of eight. By the time he was 10, he was playing for the Greenock and District Under 12 representative side.

He moved on to Mount Secondary School, playing for the school team at all age groups, and at 14 was selected for the Scotland Schools side.

He played against England at Ibrox Park, against Ireland at Stranraer, and even travelled to Frankfurt to play against West Germany. All the attention alerted various scouts but he had already signed schoolboy forms for his local club, Greenock Morton.

He actually left school before he was 15 to join Morton as a professional and when he made his first team debut aged 15 in September 1972 he was the youngest outfield player ever to play in the Scottish League. McNab ended that season having played 11 matches and appeared a a sub on three occasions.

McNab Spurs He made 14 appearances for them before being snapped up for £40,000 by Tottenham Hotspur in 1974 and made his first team debut for Spurs while still only 16. A former teammate at that time, Andy Keeley said in a recent interview: “I’ll never forget how he played in a friendly match; first team v reserves. He controlled the game from start to finish. He was outstanding. He had a very good career but I never understood how he didn’t become a superstar.”

In four years at White Hart Lane, McNab played 72 matches and was selected by Scotland at under 15, under-18 and under-21 level, but never made it to the full Scotland team.

McNab - Bolton In November 1978, Bolton Wanderers paid £250,000 for him but after only 35 appearances for the Trotters, in February 1980, Mullery signed him for Brighton.

When the former Scotland and Celtic captain Billy McNeill captured McNab’s signature in the summer of 1983, he began what would be a long association with Manchester City and he turned out to be a bargain buy considering in 1986-87 and 1988-89 he was voted City’s Player of the Year.

“Combative and always willing to stick a boot in, McNab was a key figure in City’s drive to promotion on more than one occasion,” was how manchestercity-mad.co.uk described him, while mancity.com, looking back at past players of the year, said: “Like a fine wine, got better as time went on.”

McNab w Hartford Acknowledging his initial signing failed to excite the City faithful, it added: “McNab developed into a skilful, combative midfielder who became a huge crowd favourite. Not unlike Asa Hartford (pictured above with McNab), McNab was a schemer who could pick a pass and kept the team’s tempo ticking over.”

McNab scored 19 goals in 261 league and cup games (plus five as sub) for City but when Mel Machin’s successors at Maine Road (caretaker Tony Book and Howard Kendall) discarded him, he continued his playing career at Tranmere Rovers who paid £125,000 to take the 33-year-old to Prenton Park.

“The combative midfielder added nous, steel and no little skill to the Rovers midfield, ending his first season in Birkenhead with two appearances at Wembley including the Leyland Daf Cup victory over Bristol Rovers,” said the Liverpool Echo.

He played 105 games for Tranmere, scoring six goals, and was part of the squad that secured promotion to English’s football’s second tier. He also earned the dubious distinction of being the first and thus far only Tranmere player to be sent off in a European game – a 2-1 win over Cosenza in the Anglo-Italian Cup. McNab HS

Determined to carry on playing, McNab had an 11-game loan spell at Huddersfield Town, returned to his native Scotland to turn out for Ayr United, appeared briefly for Darlington, played 13 games in Northern Ireland for Derry City, went non-league with Witton Albion (12 games) before finally calling it a day with Long Island Rough Riders in the States.

In 1994, he returned to Maine Road as youth team coach, when his old Albion teammate, Brian Horton, was City manager, and kept the position even when the aforementioned Alan Ball replaced Horton. But eventually he lost his job during another managerial upheaval in 1997 and took up a similar position at Portsmouth, once again working with Ball.

In October 2002, he finally landed a managerial position when he took the helm of League Two Exeter City. The reign was shortlived, though, and with only six wins in 26 matches (eight draws, 12 defeats) he was relieved of his duties.

McNab’s twin sons, Neil junior and Joe, who were born in Brighton, followed in their dad’s footsteps and were part of the young age group sides at Man City and Portsmouth. But after struggling to make the breakthrough, they moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, and have played for various sides in America.

Neil senior followed them to the States and in 2008 became director of coaching at Chiefs Futbol Club in Atlanta, Georgia, with Neil junior the club’s executive director.

In August 2017, it was reported Neil senior had suffered a severe stroke which left him fighting for his life.

On 2 March 2018, a message was sent via freelance writer Spencer Vignes to say that McNab had finally managed to return home after five months in hospital and in rehabilitation. “He has made tremendous progress, but still has a long way to go,” his son said.

Irish international pals brought wing wonder Steve Penney to Brighton

BRIGHTON & Hove Albion can thank former Middlesbrough goalkeeper Jim Platt for landing one of the most exciting players ever to play for the Seagulls.

Platt was the Teesside club’s man between the sticks for 12 years. During his call-ups on international duty with Northern Ireland, he struck up a friendship with Arsenal defender Sammy Nelson, who joined Brighton towards the end of his career.

When Platt took over as manager of Ballymena United, he quickly recognised that a talented teenage winger at his disposal – Steve Penney – could make a career for himself in England.

Platt tipped the wink to his old pal Nelson, newly-appointed as Albon’s assistant manager to Chris Cattlin at the time, and the youngster was invited for a trial.

Penney was put up in a house near the Goldstone recently vacated by the sacked Jimmy Melia. His housemate was another young triallist: Ian Wright! Penney was taken on while Wright was released. Whatever happened to him?!

Penney’s Albion story is told in fine detail by journalist Spencer Vignes who devotes 12 pages of his excellent book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books) to a player who, for the record, played 148 games (plus 14 as sub) in eight years with Brighton.

Unfortunately, that rather low figure tells its own story, a succession of injuries robbing him of probably twice as many games as you might have expected him to have played over that length of time.

“He was, in short, a breath of fresh air, a flying winger whose close control and devastating pace left opponents and spectators alike lost for words,” said Vignes.

Among former teammates who voiced their appreciation of Penney, full back Graham Pearce told Vignes: “I always thought of Steve as a bright young winger, very naturally talented, who had all the attributes you need in that position, especially pace.”

Born in Ballymena on 6 January 1964, the son of a teacher and a nurse, although he played football at primary school, he went to what he described himself as “a fairly posh grammar school” where rugby was the preferred sport for boys, and he was a scrum half.

He got the chance to play football in the Boys Brigade, where Nigel Worthington, who later managed Northern Ireland, also played.

“I had to choose between rugby and football and when I decided to join Ballymena United, the school were so furious they suspended me,” he told interviewer Dave Beckett in a matchday programme feature.

“Playing for my home town was excellent, although I had the chance to join Linfield who were one of the best teams in the country.

“I guested for them in Holland a couple of times so I knew they were interested and that’s where I expect I’d have ended up if I hadn’t moved abroad.”

Instead, Platt alerted Nelson and, bearing in mind Albion’s high profile having only recently played against Manchester United in the Cup Final, Penney didn’t take much persuading.

Beckett recounted: “Penney, at 19 years old, made his debut in a 3-1 defeat by Barnsley but was soon a hot favourite on the terraces. Even in his opening match he set up the goal goal for Alan Young, and John Vinicombe wrote in the Evening Argus: ‘The eye for an opening that Penney unquestionably has will serve Albion well. The Goldstone are going to like him’.”

It wasn’t long before he was playing to a much bigger gallery when he was part of the Albion side who toppled Liverpool in the FA Cup (for the second season running), winning 2-0 in front of a live television audience.

Penney tormented the experienced Liverpool left-back Alan Kennedy and his perfectly-flighted pass over the top of the Liverpool defence played in Terry Connor to score the decisive second goal.

His first goal came in a 3-0 win at Derby County in March 1984 and such was his impact in that first season that he was voted runner-up to Jimmy Case as player of the season.

Away from football, Penney was a decent golfer, his regular companions on the golf course being Dean Saunders, Chris Hutchings, Steve Gatting and former Albion favourite Peter O’Sullivan.

During the winter, he loved nothing more than playing snooker at a club in Hove, especially taking on Saunders and competing for a trophy awarded each week to the winner.

So, life was sweet for the young Irishman and it got even better when his form with Brighton led to full international honours.

SP w Irish shirt

At the time of writing, he remains the highest-capped Albion player, all of his 17 caps for Northern Ireland being won while with the Seagulls.

After making his debut on 16 October 1984 in a 3-0 friendly win over Israel in Belfast, he was a regular for four years, playing his last game on 21 December 1988 in a 4-0 defeat to Spain in a World Cup qualifying match. He scored twice for his country, in a 1-1 draw with Israel on 18 February 1987 and in a 3-0 win over Malta on 21 May 1988.

The highlight of his international career was playing for Northern Ireland at the 1986 Mexico World Cup.

“The whole experience of going to the World Cup was something I’ll never forget,” he said three months later, in a matchday programme interview.

“Six weeks away from home is a long time, but the spirit in the squad was very good and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Steve had been in the side that qualified for that World Cup by drawing 0-0 against England at Wembley. “We only needed a draw to get to Mexico and we got it,” he said.

“(Manager) Billy Bingham had been a right winger and obviously appreciated what I could do, which was a source of great strength to me. He’d been part of the team that had played in the World Cup in Sweden in 1958, a lovely man who was very good at getting the best out of his players and encouraged me no end, something I’ll always be grateful to him for.”

Unfortunately, Steve’s World Cup came to a juddering halt after Spain’s hard man Emilio Butragueno went over the top in a tackle and did his ankle in only the second group game.

On his return to Brighton, Penney found himself sufficiently impressed by Cattlin’s successor, Alan Mullery, that he was persuaded to sign a new, three-year contract.

However, it wasn’t long afterwards that Penney started having problems with his left knee and, although he played through the pain barrier, in a game against Derby County in March 1987 a bad tackle damaged his ankle ligaments, sidelining him for the rest of the season.

Barry Lloyd had succeeded Mullery and Penney was in the team at the start of the next season but, after only two games, found himself back on the treatment table after a chip of bone was found floating in a knee.

That kept him out for an agonising seven months before he was able to return to the side in March 1988 to play a crucial part in the final 11 games, scoring three times as the Seagulls earned promotion in second place behind Sunderland.

Penney told Vignes: “At that time, playing for Barry was great. The two of us were getting on even though I always thought there was something not quite right between us. To be honest, he had to play me because I strengthened the team and made a difference.”

Halfway through the 1988-89 season, Crystal Palace tried to sign Penney but weren’t prepared to meet Albion’s £175,000 asking price. And then his left knee went again.

Vignes tells the whole gory story in detail, which I won’t repeat here, but, suffice to say, the wrong treatment by one doctor had to be put right by a Harley Street expert.

Penney row Manager Lloyd and Penney also fell out, principally over Penney putting country before club. “He’d play for them, then come back injured. That didn’t please me,” said Lloyd. “It was a crying shame. He just wanted to play but was so plagued with injuries it was beyond belief.”

The split came in 1991 when Lloyd clearly thought the player’s level of fitness didn’t merit a new contract. Interest was shown in him by Heart of Midlothian, managed by Joe Jordan, and Charlton Athletic, where the joint manager was his ex-Albion teammate Alan Curbishley.

Having played a couple of trial games for Hearts, he plumped for them but suffered a groin strain early on and only played 14 games all season.

A 15^th game would have triggered the award of another one-year deal – and it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t going to happen. Freed at the end of the season, he signed for Burnley, newly-promoted from the old Fourth Division, in August 1992. Continue reading “Irish international pals brought wing wonder Steve Penney to Brighton” →

World Cup legend Armstrong too often warmed Albion bench

IN THE SPACE of 10 weeks, Gerry Armstrong went from 71^st minute substitute for Northern Ireland against Brazil at the 1986 World Cup in front of 51,000 in the Estadio Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico, to centre forward for Brighton & Hove Albion in front of 13,723 at the Goldstone Ground in a season-opening 0-0 draw against Portsmouth.

That 3-0 defeat to the mighty Brazilians signalled the end of an international career in which Armstrong had written his name in Northern Irish football history at the 1982 World Cup in Spain four years earlier. He had scored 12 goals in 63 appearances for his country but none as important as the one which beat hosts Spain to send the Irish through to the quarter-finals, which I shall come on to.

Screenshot

Four years later, while away with Ireland in Mexico, former Spurs striker Armstrong took a call at the team’s hotel from someone else who had made his name with the North London club – Alan Mullery – who had recently been restored to the managerial chair at Brighton.

“Alan knew I was a free agent and I promised to talk things over with him when I got back from Mexico,” Armstrong said in a matchday programme article. “I was impressed by the manager’s ideas for the future and Brighton appealed to me because I have always liked the club,” he said.

“I always got the impression that there is a good, family atmosphere here and I liked that.

“In many ways, Brighton reminds me of Watford. I had three very happy years there and I’m looking forward to enjoying myself just as much here at Brighton.”

Born in Belfast on 23 May 1954, Armstrong grew up in the Falls Road area and initially played Gaelic football and could have made that his chosen sport. But while he was banned from playing, he took up soccer with junior Irish clubs St Paul’s Swifts and Cromac Albion before beginning a three-year spell playing semi-professionally with Bangor between 1972 and 1975.

Spurs manager Terry Neill had family in Bangor and Tottenham paid a £25,000 fee for Armstrong’s services in November 1975. He made his Spurs debut in a 3-1 defeat at Ipswich Town on 21 August 1976. The season ended in relegation for the North Londoners but the young Armstrong was trying to make his way. GA Spurs

He said: “I was basically big, strong and courageous but that wasn’t enough alone so Spurs made me skilful as well.

“I set myself the task of gradually playing more first team games each season and managed to achieve it.”

After scoring 16 goals in 98 league and cup games for Spurs, Armstrong was sold to Watford for £250,000 in November 1980.

When the Hornets made it to the top division for the first time in their history, Armstrong scored their first goal at that level, against Everton, and they finished the season as runners up.

“Graham Taylor influenced me more than anybody,” he said. “My time at Spurs was going stale because they were using me in all sorts of different positions but, at Vicarage Road, Graham taught me about forward play and then gave me the chance to repay him.”

Nevertheless, it was breaking through at Spurs that helped Armstrong onto the international stage. He made his debut for Northern Ireland playing up front with George Best in a 5-0 defeat to West Germany in Cologne in April 1977. And in November the same year he scored his first goals for his country, netting twice in a 3-0 win against Iceland in Belfast.

His stand-out moment in football which fans still talk about came when Northern Ireland were minnows at the 1982 World Cup in Spain. In front of a crowd of 49,562 – mostly Spanish – packed into Valencia’s Estadio Luis Casanova, on 25 June 1982, Ireland beat the hosts 1-0 and Armstrong fired home the only goal of the game in the 47^th minute.

“I cracked it in between a couple of defenders, but couldn’t really believe it because there was this deathly hush. Fifty-five thousand people (a bit of Irish overstatement) all there to see Spain, and we ruined the party!”

He added: “It was a very satisfying one to get for the team, because it was a great win for us. “The odds were against us because there was a huge crowd in the stadium and virtually all of them were backing Spain. Nobody really gave us a chance, but it was a great team performance.

Armstrong Spain

“All the players worked hard for each other and that game summed up the excellent team spirit I have enjoyed with the national side over the years.”

Armstrong also scored Ireland’s only goal in their 4-1 quarter-final defeat to France.

The Spanish climate obviously agreed with Armstrong because in the summer of 1983, having scored 12 goals in 76 league games for Watford, Real Mallorca signed him for £200,000. Although he got stick from certain sections of Spanish supporters who remembered the goal he scored against them, he spent two years with Real Mallorca scoring 13 times in 55 league games.

On his return to the UK in August 1985, he initially signed for West Brom on a free transfer but struggled with travelling to and from London to train and play, didn’t see eye to eye with manager Ron Saunders, and picked up some injuries. He spent the second half of the season at Chesterfield, where former Spurs teammate John Duncan was boss, so he could get some game time to put him in contention to be selected by Northern Ireland for the upcoming World Cup.

irish news gerry arm

A free agent on his return, he joined Mullery’s Brighton having heard good things about the former Spurs captain from his Irish international colleague Pat Jennings, who’d played in the same Tottenham team as Mullery. However, it was 17 games before Armstrong managed to get on the scoresheet – in a 3-1 defeat at Leeds – although he did score again in the very next game, as Shrewsbury were beaten 3-0 at the Goldstone.

When Mullery’s second spell as manager ended rather abruptly, in January 1987, Armstrong was loaned to Millwall. New manager Barry Lloyd did restore him to the Albion line-up for the final eight games of the season, but the side finished in bottom place.

Back in Division 3, Armstrong was transfer listed along with Steve Gatting and Chris Hutchings as Lloyd was forced to shuffle the pack. He stayed with the club, but only got one full game, in a league cup tie, all season: he came off the bench 11 times and was a non-playing sub on 14 other occasions.

He was suitably philosophical about his involvement from the bench, however, and said in another matchday programme interview: “Over the years I’ve gained a bit of a reputation for grabbing goals when it matters most, and I figure that if I only get on for the last 20 minutes then there’s even more reason to take the game by the throat and get stuck in.”

In the 1988-89 season, Armstrong managed four starts but was once more on the bench more often than not and eventually was appointed reserve team player-coach.

But his time with the club ended ignominiously. In a Sussex Senior Cup tie at Southwick in January 1989, following the first ever red card of his career, as he walked off, he took exception to a comment from a supporter, jumped into the crowd and headbutted the person concerned.

The incident is referred to amongst the annals of assaults by players on fans. Armstrong left the club a fortnight after the altercation but the matter ended up in court and the footballer received a conditional discharge.

His final games as a player were at Glenavon back in Ireland after he had spent some time as a player-coach at Crawley Town, who were in the Beazer Homes League at the time.

In November 1991, he became manager of Worthing and led them to a promotion before being appointed assistant manager of Northern Ireland by his former teammate Bryan Hamilton.

He continued to live in Hove, though, and worked as a cable advisor for Nynex Communications. He even carried on playing football for Sussex Sunday League side James Lytle.

Although he left the national assistant role in 1996, he reprised it under Lawrie Sanchez between 2004 and 2006. Then, in 2011, the Irish FA recruited him as an elite player mentor – in essence to try to persuade young Catholic Northern Irishmen considering playing for the Republic of Ireland (a choice made by Shane Duffy, for example) to stick with the country of their birth.

Throughout all of this time, Armstrong has also forged a successful media career and is probably best known for his work with Sky Sports coverage of La Liga.

In 2015, the Belfast Telegraph did an interview with Armstrong and his wife Debbie in which they spoke about running a restaurant in Majorca, and his involvement as part-owner of a football club in Portugal.

The player’s autobiography, Gerry Armstrong: My Story, My Journey, written in conjunction with Dave Bowler, was published in November 2021 by Curtis Sport. Armstrong autobiog

Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and in the international shirt from the Irish News.

Kieran O’Regan came close to dramatic FA Cup semi-final debut

OREGAN WHEN just 19, unbeknown to thousands of expectant Brighton fans, Kieran O’Regan was on the brink of making a sensational debut for the Seagulls in the FA Cup semi-final.

The versatile Irishman, who went on to play nearly 100 games for the Albion, and more than 200 for Huddersfield Town, was nearly drafted into Brighton’s back line for that momentous occasion against Sheffield Wednesday in front of a packed house at Highbury on 16 April 1983.

Only captain Steve Foster’s bravery and sterling work by the club’s medics prevented the youngster having to step in at the last minute.

The potential drama only came to light in the post-match analysis by Evening Argus reporter, John Vinicombe, who recounted: “On the morning of the tie, (Jimmy) Melia had problems that were wisely confined only to those with a need to know.

“A crisis arose when Steve Foster’s right elbow started to swell and hurt. A streptococcal infection was diagnosed, extremely painful, and dangerous.

“To not only get him fit to play, but counter the possibility of blood poisoning, he was pumped full of antibiotics, the elbow encased in plaster and, just before kick-off, a painkilling jab administered.

“Had it been a run-of-the-mill game, Foster would not have played, but to go into a semi-final without the lynchpin was unthinkable.

“If there had been no alternative, then Kieran O’Regan, who has yet to make his debut, would have been drafted in from the sub’s bench.”

As it was, O’Regan remained on the bench throughout the game; Michael Robinson’s winner in the 2-1 victory meaning manager Melia didn’t need to introduce the youngster on such a momentous occasion.

When he eventually made his first team debut a few weeks later, it was in a less pressurised situation, although only then with special dispensation from the Football League.

Melia was down to the bare bones because of injuries and suspensions so the youngster was needed, but he had not been signed as a pro before the deadline. The way the authorities saw it was, because Albion were already relegated and Norwich were safe, it was “a game of no consequence” and O’Regan got the green light to play.

cup cutting

Veteran football reporter Harry Harris interviewed the youngster and built a story (above) around the possibility that if he did well he might be in with a shout of a place in the Cup Final against Manchester United.

Ever the one for an eye to publicity, manager Melia kept those thoughts alive by saying: “Kieran is going to be a hell of a player. He only looks about 14 but he’s mature enough as a player to figure in my Wembley plans.”

KOR port In the event, forward Gerry Ryan got the nod for the one substitute’s place on the day, and rather ironically had to come on and play right-back in place of the crocked Chris Ramsey.

Melia was certainly a big fan of O’Regan. In the summer of 1982, as Albion’s chief scout, he had recommended the youngster to manager Mike Bailey after seeing him go on as a second half substitute for the Republic of Ireland youth team against Welsh Schools and score two goals.

Born in Cork on 9 November 1963, O’Regan attended a secondary school noted for its prowess at Gaelic football but he was determined to pursue a soccer career instead. He had been playing for Tramore Athletic in County Cork’s Munster League when he got his call-up to the national youth team.

Brighton invited him over to England for a trial. “I’d gone to Brighton on a one week trial; that became two, then I was asked to stay for three months. That came and went, and I never went back,” he said.

He had come close to packing it all in because he was homesick, but the presence of fellow Irishmen Gary Howlett and Ryan helped him adapt, and the silver-tongued Melia managed to talk him round.

“I didn’t feel as though I was playing very well,” he told the Mirror’s Harris. “I wasn’t fit or doing myself justice so I wanted to go home. Luckily enough, Jimmy talked me out of it.”

When Melia took over as caretaker manager, he swiftly dispensed with the services of Bailey’s pick at right-back, Don Shanks, promoted Ramsey to the first-team and then converted O’Regan from a midfield player to a right-back to become Ramsey’s understudy.

On the eve of that Norwich game, Melia told the Argus: “I must bring on the youngsters because they are the long-term future of the club.

“They are a smashing bunch of lads and I would like to play some more of them at Norwich. But with the Cup Final coming up, I can’t for obvious reasons.”

In fact, he picked young striker Chris Rodon on the bench and he got on in place of Gordon Smith, but it was the one and only time he saw first team action.

In respect of O’Regan, though, Melia stuck to his word, and the youngster filled the right-back berth from the off at the start of the new season back in the second tier, keeping his place even after his mentor’s sacking.

Melia’s successor, Chris Cattlin, also gave him some games in midfield, and, by the season’s end, he’d played 33 games plus once as sub. He also notched his first goal, in a 2-1 defeat away to Sheffield Wednesday.

However, his biggest disappointment that season was when he and Howlett were both dropped for the televised FA Cup game against Liverpool at the Goldstone. He told Spencer Vignes in an interview published in a matchday programme of February 2005: “We’d thrashed Oldham at home 4-0 and played Carlisle away on an icy pitch and won 2-1, and me and Gary had played in both.

“The Liverpool game was on a Sunday so we all came in for training on the Saturday to find out what the team was. And Gary and I weren’t in it. We’d been dropped.

“Instead we were off to Highbury that afternoon to play for the reserves. That’s still probably the low point of my career. I really wanted to play. Cattlin said he was going for experience, and you can’t really fault him because the lads went out and beat Liverpool 2-0. But I was still gutted.”

Making the grade with Brighton caught the eye of the Republic of Ireland selectors and O’Regan was called up to play for his country on four occasions.

He made his debut in November 1983 in an 8-0 thrashing of Malta in Dublin, when Mark Lawrenson and future Albion manager Liam Brady each scored twice.

Against Poland, the following May, also at Dalymount Park, Dublin, O’Regan featured in a 0-0 draw, and three months later, same venue, same scoreline, against Mexico. His fourth and final cap came as a sub against Spain, in May 1985, which also ended goalless.

Meanwhile, his Albion game time in the 1984-85 season was a lot more restricted and, apart from a mid-season 10-game spell in midfield, he was on the sidelines, especially when a promising young defender called Martin Keown arrived on loan from Arsenal.

Vignes observed in that 2005 interview: “His ability to play at either right-back or midfield meant that when the likes of Chris Hutchings, Danny Wilson or Jimmy Case were unavailable, Albion always had a reliable deputy to call on.”

There was yet more benchwarming to be endured during the 1985-86 season but on Alan Mullery’s return to the manager’s chair, he found himself back in the first team on a more regular basis.

Indeed, he played under five managers in five years with Brighton, and told Vignes that Mullery was the best to work with. “He was great with everyone, but especially the young lads.”

By contrast he didn’t get on with Barry Lloyd who kept O’Regan in the dark when interest was shown in him by Swindon Town, where his former rival for the right-back spot, Ramsey, was assistant manager to Lou Macari.

In the end, in 1987, he did make the move to the County Ground having made 80 starts for the Albion, plus 19 substitute appearances.

After just a year at Swindon, he was on his way again, this time to join Huddersfield Town where the manager was Eoin Hand, who had been the Ireland manager when he won his four international caps.

O’Regan spent six seasons with Town, playing over 200 games in midfield, and it was an association which would reap its benefits after his playing days were over.

He spent two seasons at West Brom under former Spurs boss Keith Burkinshaw (and latterly Alan Buckley) but returned to West Yorkshire in 1995 as captain of Halifax Town, going on to become joint manager with George Mulhall for 18 months and then taking on the role alone in August 1998.

His tenure lasted less than a season and when the axe fell in April 1999, he turned his back on football and became warehouse manager at Brighouse Textiles, run by Halifax’s former chairman, and subsequently became a carpet salesman at a shop in Huddersfield.

O'Regan mike However, in 2001, he was offered the chance to be the expert summariser on Huddersfield games for BBC Radio Leeds, and he lined up alongside commentator Paul Ogden for the next 15 years, before hanging up the microphone in May 2016.

Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and my scrapbook.

Goals dried up at Brighton for Pompey favourite Alan Biley

1 150th goal v Leeds (1-1) ALAN BILEY was a fans favourite at all six English league clubs he played for but the prolific goalscoring that made his name at Cambridge United and Portsmouth wasn’t replicated at Everton or Brighton.

His spiky, long blond hair reflected his devotion to singer Rod Stewart and, on the pitch, the way he wore his football shirt outside his shorts, clutched the cuffs, and saluted a goal with a raised forefinger was a tribute to Scottish footballing legend Denis Law, another of his heroes, .

Biley was quite the hero at Portsmouth, with a goalscoring record of more than a goal every other game, having been signed by Bobby Campbell in 1982.

But when he fell out of favour with Campbell’s successor, Alan Ball, Brighton’s Chris Cattlin stepped in and paid £50,000 to take the striker along the coast in March 1985.

Within a month of the move, he was back at Fratton Park in Albion’s colours for an Easter Saturday south coast derby when honours were even in a 1-1 draw.

Biley had made his Seagulls debut as a substitute for Frank Worthington in a 0-0 draw away to Barnsley, then got his first start the following game (another goalless draw, at home to Oxford) and kept his place to the end of the season.

The first of four goals during that spell came in a 2-0 win at home to Oldham, and the goal he scored in a 1-1 home draw with Leeds on 20 April was his 150^th in league football (top picture). Although Albion finished with three wins, it wasn’t enough to reach the promotion places, and they finished sixth.

Biley made a great start to the 1985-86 campaign, scoring against First Division Nottingham Forest in a remarkable 5-1 pre-season friendly win, and then in the opening league fixture, a 2-2 home draw with Grimsby Town.

However, competition for places in Albion’s forward line had intensified. In addition to Terry Connor, £1m man Justin Fashanu arrived together with Dean Saunders, on a free transfer from Swansea, (Saunders went on to be named player of the season).

With the much-derided Mick Ferguson also managing a brief purple patch of scoring, it meant Biley struggled to hold down a regular spot, making 24 starts plus three appearances as a sub, and only managing to add three more goals to that season’s opener.

Cattlin’s dismissal as boss, to be replaced by the returning Alan Mullery, also spelled the end of Biley’s time at the club. He initially went back to Cambridge on loan, then tried his luck with New York Express in the States, had a spell in Greece before ending up in Ireland, playing for Waterford who were managed by his old Everton teammate, Andy King. He ended up back at Cambridge on a non-contract basis in November 1988 and made three more appearances for United before hanging up his boots.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Born in Leighton Buzzard on 26 February 1957, Biley was spotted by nearby Luton Town at the tender age of 10 and signed schoolboy forms aged 12. He was then offered an apprenticeship and professional forms as he worked his way through the different levels. But financial issues hit the club and when their chief scout left to link up with Cambridge, he recommended Biley to manager Ron Atkinson, and in 1975 he made the move to Fourth Division United.

Biley netted a total of 82 in 185 games as United rose from the Fourth Division to the Second between 1975 and 1979, when his eye for goal caught the attention of First Division Derby County, who paid £450,000 for his services.

Biley continued to find the net regularly in the top flight, scoring nine in 18 games for the Rams, but he couldn’t prevent them from being relegated. He stuck with them in the 1980-81 season and scored 10 playing in the second tier but was sidelined through injury for several months.

He recounted recently how he fell out with manager Colin Addison and there was talk of him being sold to West Brom, where his old boss Atkinson had moved, but instead, in July 1981, he became new Everton manager Howard Kendall’s first signing for a £300,000 fee. Everton fans who go back that far refer to the Magnificent Seven – because that’s how many players Kendall signed in a short space of time.

Biley EVE Biley was an instant hit, scoring on his Everton debut as Birmingham City were beaten 3-1. He scored again in his next game away to Leeds, but things quickly started to go wrong for him, as he explained in great detail to Everton fan website bluekipper.com.

“I was always appreciative of the Evertonians’ footballing knowledge and the support and gusto, particularly through the tough times,” said Biley. “They were very loyal through the tough times, and they are a different class.

“I would like to think they took to me but my only big regret was that I wasn’t there long enough to enjoy them.”

By October, Kendall had dropped his new signing and Biley was mystified.

“Years later, as I look back at it, I wasn’t Howard Kendall’s cup of tea. Whatever that was, I can’t put my finger on it because history tells you what I was and what I did and where I played, and he had a different opinion of that.

“I would have loved him to have had the faith in me he had in lots of other players.”

Eventually his lack of involvement in first team action saw him go out on loan to struggling Stoke City and in eight games he helped them to retain their status in the top division, but hopes of a permanent move fell through.

Instead he departed Goodison Park with just 18 appearances (plus three as sub) and three goals to his name and dropped down to the Third Division with Portsmouth.

The Pompey faithful had already had a taste of what they could expect when, at Christmas 1977, as a 20-year-old playing for Cambridge, Biley had scored twice for table-topping Cambridge at Fratton Park.

And, sure enough, when paired up front with Billy Rafferty, he became an instant hit and the duo scored 40 between them as Pompey won promotion. Biley’s performances earned him a place in the PFA select XI that included Gillingham’s Steve Bruce and Micky Adams, Portsmouth colleague Neil Webb and Kerry Dixon, then of Reading.

The following season saw Biley gain a new strike partner in the shape of Mark Hateley, who would go on to earn England international recognition. However, a series of 10 home defeats put paid to their promotion hopes and Campbell was sacked on the coach on the way back from the season’s penultimate game at Derby. In the final game of the season, with Alan Ball in temporary charge, Biley hit a hat-trick in a 5-0 demolition of Swansea.

Ball was installed as manager and Biley was very much a part of the side that began the 1984-85 season. He played in 22 games and came off the bench twice, scoring a total of 13 goals before Ball mysteriously sold him to Brighton in March.

Biley’s heart never left Fratton Park, though, and in 2015 he told Neil Allen, the author of a book Played Up Pompey: “Pompey was – and still is – my club.

“Pompey was a three-year box in time and if I could possibly open that box again and recover moments, a day even, then I would die happy. I fell in love with the club and it has never gone away.”

Biley has revelled in many opportunities to reminisce about his playing days, attending numerous reunions and enjoying all the memories.

In June 2017, he got together with other former players to talk about his goalscoring days at Cambridge and in October 2017, broadcaster and Albion fan Peter Brackley helped a number of former Pompey players, including Biley, recall a famous occasion when a fan ran on the pitch dressed as Santa Claus and, after the disruption, Biley scored two late goals to win a dramatic cup tie against Oxford.

But in all my research for this piece, I could find no loving references to his time with the Albion, although five years ago the excellent thegoldstonewrap.com brought together some footage of some of his best moments.

After his playing days were over, he moved back to his Bedfordshire roots and got involved in non-league football with various sides in and around the Home Counties, alongside running his own gym in Biggleswade.