THE architect of Brighton’s humiliating 8-2 home defeat to Bristol Rovers in 1973 was none other than a player who might have been wearing Albion’s stripes if injury hadn’t struck.
Goalscoring winger Colin Dobson turned goal provider the day Rovers were rampant at the Goldstone Ground. Twenty-one months earlier he’d left the same pitch on a stretcher, not certain that he’d ever be able to play again.
Dobson had joined Brighton on loan in January 1972, making his debut in a mid-season friendly against his parent club, Huddersfield Town, on 18 January.
Ironically, his first meaningful Albion action came against Rovers when he was a substitute in a 2-2 draw at Eastville on 22 January.
Dobson was also on the bench for the home 1-0 win over Swansea City the following Saturday. He was elevated to the starting line-up away to Wrexham on 5 February, when goals from Willie Irvine and Peter O’Sullivan sealed a vital 2-1 win.
It was during his full home debut against Walsall on 12 February that his short-lived Albion career came to a sudden halt. Albion lost 2-1 and Dobson suffered an ankle fracture.
It had been expected that Albion would sign him permanently, and he told the Evening Argus that he had been offered a good deal to do so, but the injury put paid to the transfer being completed.
With Pat Saward’s side heading towards promotion with Aston Villa, the Irish manager instead went back to Wolverhampton Wanderers to sign Bertie Lutton, who had been on loan earlier in the season.
Lutton duly played his part as the Seagulls acquired the necessary points to earn promotion, while Dobson nursed an injury which at the time threatened to end his playing days.
His six-year Huddersfield career at an end, in the summer of 1972 he accepted a role as player-coach at Bristol Rovers, working under his former Sheffield Wednesday teammate, Don Megson.
Thus it was that he was part of a Rovers side who had gone 18 matches unbeaten when they showed up at the Goldstone on a cold winter’s day on the first day of December 1973 to tackle Brian Clough’s Albion in front of The Big Match television cameras.
The game was only five minutes old when Dobson played in Alan Warboys who beat Norman Gall before passing to his strike partner Bruce Bannister to open the scoring.
Seven minutes later, Dobson took Warboys’ pass and laid on a pinpoint centre for Gordon Fearnley to score with a header. The game was still six minutes short of half-time when another Dobson centre was met by Warboys to make the score 5-1 to the visitors.
John Vinicombe, Albion reporter for the Argus, declared in his summary: “To Colin Dobson, freed by Albion when a broken ankle looked like ending his career, the accolade for a thinking player.
“He masterminded the operation in unbelievably generous space. Bruce Bannister knifed through for the early, killing goals, and Alan Warboys, superbly balanced and fast on the slightly frozen pitch, looked the perfect striker, taking his four goals so cleanly.”
An incandescent Clough told the media: “I was ashamed for the town and the club that 11 players could play like that. I feel sick. We were pathetic. This side hasn’t got enough heart to fill a thimble.”
Rovers went on to win promotion to the second tier that season and Dobson eventually completed 63 league and cup games for them before retiring at the end of the 1975-76 season.
Born on 9 May 1940 in Eston, North Yorkshire, Dobson joined Sheffield Wednesday at 15, and made a name for himself with the Owls in the days when they played in the top tier of English football.
He earned a reputation as a goalscoring winger after making his debut in 1961 and scored 52 goals in 193 games over the next five years.
He was twice capped by England Under 23s: on 29 May 1963, he came on as a substitute for Alan Suddick as England beat Yugoslavia 4-2 in Belgrade. Alan Hinton scored a hat-trick for England and the other goal was a penalty by Graham Cross, then with Leicester but later a Brighton player. Future England World Cup winner George Cohen was the side’s right-back.
Four days later, with Ernie Hunt leading the line, Dobson started for England when they lost 1-0 to Romania in Bucharest.
In 1966, Dobson made the switch to second division Huddersfield for a £21,000 fee and he was Town’s top scorer in the 1967-68 season (with 14 goals) and 1968-69 (with 11).
Although full international honours eluded him, in the summer of 1968, he was selected for the Football Association Commonwealth tour of the USA, New Zealand, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
He was also part of the side Ian Greaves led to the 1969-70 Second Division title, but he only made a handful of top-flight appearances, and his last Huddersfield appearance was against Stoke City in an FA Cup fourth-round replay in January 1971.
Once his playing days were over, Dobson worked for a whole host of clubs in a coaching or scouting capacity, including Port Vale, Coventry City, Aston Villa, clubs in the Middle-East (Bahraini side West Riffa; Al Rayyan in Qatar; Kuwaiti side Al Arabi, and Oman’s Under-17s), Portugal’s Sporting Lisbon, Gillingham, Watford and Stoke, where he renewed his acquaintance with John Rudge, who he had known at Huddersfield and Bristol Rovers, who was director of football for the Potters.
It was during his time with Stoke that he discovered the future Manchester United and England goalkeeper Ben Foster, a chef playing part-time non-league football at the time.
Foster later told the Birmingham Mail: “There was a scout called Colin Dobson who worked for Stoke but was living in Warwick.
“One night he saw some floodlights, stopped off and had a watch of the game and I caught the eye. That was it. He made a note of it and came to watch me a few more times.
“I owe it all to him. Top man. Whether I’d still be working as a chef if he hadn’t spotted me, I don’t know.”
Dobson died in Middlesbrough aged 82 on 16 February 2023.
- Pictures from my scrapbook. Originally sourced from the Evening Argus, Shoot! and Goal magazines.
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