Tag: Bishop Auckland

Duffy had Burleigh pal for company on his Albion arrival

HISTORY has seen a whole string of goalkeepers play for both Newcastle United and Brighton. Dutchman Tim Krul was the most recent and others stretching back over the years – Eric Steele, Dave Beasant, and Steve Harper – have featured in this blog at various times.

My post this time, though, centres on Martin Burleigh, for many years an understudy to Northern Irish international Iam McFaul.

When stocky striker Alan Duffy travelled 350 miles from home to join Brighton in early 1970, it was with some relief that he found the familiar face of Burleigh amongst his new teammates.

How Albion’s matchday programme reported Duffy’s delight in meeting up with a familiar face

The goalkeeper, who was only 18, was on loan at the Albion at the time. The previous year he and Duffy had been in the same Newcastle United youth team.

Not only did that side do the Northern Intermediate League and cup double, 10 days before the first team won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the youth team brought even more silverware to Tyneside – winning a prestigious international youth tournament at Feyenoord’s ground in Rotterdam.

Toon’s trophy-winning youth team of 1969

Unlike Albion’s new £10,000 permanent signing, though, Burleigh was to have only a short-lived stay in Sussex. Manager Freddie Goodwin had brought in the Toon no.3 ‘keeper (Iam McFaul was first choice and John Hope his deputy) as cover while Albion were reduced to only one fit goalkeeper (Brian Powney) following a serious head injury to Geoff Sidebottom in the first match of a marathon second round FA Cup tie against Walsall (it took four games to decide it; those were the days before penalty shoot-outs).

Thankfully Powney avoided injury so young Burleigh was not called into match action, and he returned to the north east still waiting to make his league debut. Indeed, he had to wait until Boxing Day 1970 for that chance. Although Toon went down 3-0 at Leeds United, opposition manager Don Revie praised the youngster, saying: “I thought he had a fine game. He had no chance with the goals. Some of the saves he made showed he has a fine future ahead of him.”

It would seem Toon boss Joe Harvey wasn’t so sure and it was more than a year before Burleigh got his next chance to shine, making his home debut in a 4-2 win over Coventry City on 8 January 1972.

Once again it was to be his only first team appearance of the season, but in the 1972-73 season he finally got a run of games when McFaul was injured. He played in 11 matches but then had the misfortune to fracture a finger in a collision with Mick Channon during a 1-1 draw at Southampton, and McFaul returned.

The Toon 1892.com website recalls Burleigh then having a struggle with weight issues and he had a public dispute with manager Harvey which saw him walk out of the club saying he was going to join the RAF. But Newcastle retained his registration and when the dust settled on the dispute he was sent on loan to Darlington before making the move permanent in October 1974 for a fee of £8,000.

He was only at Darlington for a season before switching across country to Carlisle United, where he spent two seasons.

When Burleigh died at the age of 70 on 27 September 2021, Carlisle chairman Andrew Jenkins said: “Martin was a big character who was a pleasure to have around. He was tall and strong in stature and very stylish in the way he kept goal.

“We used to talk about how he very much had the manner of how the goalkeepers in Europe used to do things, with flair and a bit of theatre.

“I remember that Alan Ashman was really keen to get him signed and over here to join us. When he was speaking to the board about him, he said that the fans would be queuing along Warwick Road to watch him – he felt he was that good.”

His death was mourned by former Newcastle teammates too and several ‘Toon Legends’ remembered him at a gathering at the Tyneside Irish Centre.

Tribute on Twitter following Burleigh’s death

“Martin was a great friend and a lot of players who played alongside him at Newcastle from junior to first team level want to pay their respects to a real character,” Toon Legends official Chris Emmerson told Chronicle Live.

After his spell at Carlisle, where he also had to bide his time behind first choice Allan Ross, Burleigh returned to Fourth Division Darlington for two more seasons, during which time (in October 1978) he kept goal when the north east minnows only narrowly lost (1-0) to First Division Everton in a third round League Cup tie.

Burleigh went on to spend three seasons in goal for Hartlepool, ending his league career with a total of 222 appearances.

He then became a painter and decorator but continued playing for non-league sides in the area, appearing for Bishop Auckland, Spennymoor and Langley Park until packing up playing in 1984.

Born in Willington, County Durham, on 2 February 1951, Burleigh was playing for his hometown team at 17 when Newcastle signed him in 1968, initially as an amateur.

Kenneth Scott, in The Toon1892 Chronicles, wrote: “He displayed within the junior and reserve teams that he was more than capable between the posts and it was not long before he turned professional.”

That happened in December 1968 and before the end of the season he was in goal for the Newcastle youth team under coach Keith Burkinshaw (who later managed Spurs) when they won the international tournament in Holland, beating an Arsenal side containing the likes of Ray Kennedy, Sammy Nelson, Charlie George, Eddie Kelly, and Pat Rice.

The achievement was somewhat overshadowed by the first team’s triumph in the old Inter-Cities Fairs Cup when Toon beat Hungarian side Ujpest in the two-legged final, skipper Bobby Moncur lifting the trophy in Budapest.

Although Burleigh managed to edge out McFaul’s deputy Hope to become the no.2 at St James’s Park (Hope joined Sheffield United along with David Ford in exchange for John Tudor in 1971), the form and fitness of the Northern Irish international (who later spent three years as manager of Newcastle) always kept him on the sidelines.

• Incidentally, in line with the tradition of Albion ‘sharing’ goalkeepers over several decades, when McFaul was in the manager’s chair in January 1988 he took Albion’s long-serving Perry Digweed on a month’s loan with the Magpies. He played in their reserves but didn’t appear in the first team. The following month he went on loan to relegation-threatened Chelsea where he featured in three matches: a 3-3 draw away to Coventry City, a 0-0 home draw v Everton and a 4-4 draw at Oxford United.

Injury-plagued ‘keeper Ben Roberts part of ‘Boro Cup folklore before Brighton promotion

2 pen shoot-outBEN ROBERTS might only have played a handful of games for Middlesbrough in seven years on their books but one of them will never be forgotten.

He was between the sticks for ‘Boro when Chelsea’s Roberto di Matteo scored one of the quickest ever FA Cup Final goals.

Thankfully, Brighton fans prefer to remember him as the ‘keeper who helped the Seagulls to promotion from the third tier via the play-offs in 2004.

“That season at Brighton remains one of my best experiences in football,” Roberts told beatsandrhymesfc.com’s Christian Brookes, in a 2011 interview.

“Apart from enjoying living in the city, I remained relatively injury-free and played the most games of my career. So for a full season’s work to come down to one day in the Millennium Stadium with a full house in attendance was a very special memory.”

No-one knew at the time, of course, but it was also Roberts’ last game in goal for the Albion because a back injury forced him to retire from the game prematurely in 2005, aged just 29.

In an extended interview with Dominic Shaw for gazettelive.co.uk in December 2017, Roberts looked back on his time at ‘Boro and a playing career that was beset with injury.

Born in Bishop Auckland on 22 June 1975, the young Roberts was spotted playing for South Durham Boys by Dennis Cooper, father of ‘Boro legend Colin Cooper, and the club took up his recommendation. Roberts would set off by bus from his home in Crook at 6am each day to get to training on time in Middlesbrough, nearly 30 miles away.

At one point, it looked like he wouldn’t get the chance to continue his career because he was deemed too short, but he fed his face throughout the summer, shot up the required inches, and was rewarded with a two-year scholarship.

In fact, he was still a YTS scholar when he got his first involvement with the first team, being named on the bench for two of Boro’s first three games in the inaugural season of the Premier League (1992-93).

However, it was another two seasons before he actually got into first-team action, making his debut in an Anglo-Italian Cup game against Ancona, with Bryan Robson by then in the managerial hotseat.

In the 1994-95 season, Roberts got league experience under his belt during loan spells with Hartlepool and Wycombe Wanderers and the following season he went on loan to Bradford City before returning to Middlesbrough to help out a goalkeeping crisis.

Injury to Gary Walsh presented Roberts with his chance, and, aged 21, he made his ‘Boro league debut on 18 January 1997 in a 4-2 win at home to Sheffield Wednesday.

Although Mark Schwarzer arrived at the club, he was also hit by injury – and was cup-tied in the FA Cup – leaving Roberts, 21 at the time, as the stand-in No.1.

On 1 April that year, he also earned his one and only international cap, coming on as a sub for Chris Day as England under 21s drew 0-0 with Switzerland at Swindon’s County Ground. Also in the team for that friendly were Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher, Darren Huckerby and Lee Bowyer.

Two of Roberts’ 17 appearances for ‘Boro that season were in cup finals: in the replay of the League Cup Final against Leicester City, and then the FA Cup Final against Chelsea at Wembley.

Roberts started the following season as first choice because Schwarzer was still out injured, but his final appearance of the season – at home to Birmingham in the September – was his final appearance for the club.

Several treatments for a back injury were unsuccessful and at one stage, still only 24, he feared he’d be forced to retire, until he underwent surgery in London. As well as operating on problematic discs, the surgeon found a blood clot in his back.

In between back operations, Roberts went out on loan again and in 1999 played 14 games for Division Two side Millwall, including another Wembley appearance, this time against Wigan in the Auto Windscreens Shields Trophy. The Latics won 1-0 with the winning goal scored by future Albion captain, Paul Rogers.

The following season, Roberts had another loan spell, this time at Lennie Lawrence’s Luton Town and in the summer of 2000 he finally left ‘Boro and joined Charlton Athletic. However, he played only once for the Addicks, coming on as a sub in the final game of the 2002-03 season after regular no.1 Dean Kiely had been sent off.

Roberts greenPrior to that, Roberts had been out on loan again, initially at Reading and then returning to Luton. His first association with Brighton also came in that season, as Steve Coppell’s Seagulls were battling hard to avoid relegation from the second tier.

He played three times and I remember one of those games was one I went to away at Bradford City (a 1-0 win) on 15 February 2003, when he pulled off some terrific stops on a rock-hard pitch. The most memorable came early in the game and Roberts rated it as his best as a Brighton player.

“It was only after five minutes and Ashley Ward had a clear header inside the six yard box, but I got to it. I shouldn’t have, but I did,” he recalled in a matchday programme interview. “It (the game) shouldn’t have been played because the goalmouth was like a skating rink and that kind of set the tone.”

Unluckily for Roberts, he then picked up a dose of ‘flu and veteran Dave Beasant took over and kept the shirt until the end of the season.

However, Coppell saw enough to persuade him to sign Roberts permanently and, as referred to earlier, the 2003-04 season was to be the one time when he finally made his mark, culminating in the 1-0 win over Bristol City at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

When his back injury problems returned and ruled him out of the whole of the 2004-05 season, he quit the game and went travelling to South America, Asia and India before returning to the UK and going to Roehampton University to take a sports science and coaching degree.

Not only did he achieve first class honours, his dissertation on biomechanics (which applies the laws of mechanics and physics to human performance) earned him a ‘Pursuit of Excellence’ award from Adidas.

Although he intended to stay in the world of academia, his old Brighton teammate, Nathan Jones, persuaded him to join the coaching staff at Yeovil Town.

“I was at a stage where I missed the banter, the day-to-day interaction and being outside,” he said. “I went down and loved it and that turned into my career. ”

While at Yeovil, he worked with Alex McCarthy, who later played for Southampton in the Premier League, and the much-travelled Stephen Henderson, who has played for Charlton, Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace.

Roberts himself had the briefest of returns to league action when in October 2010 he appeared as a substitute in a 3-3 draw against Swindon, replacing the injured Henderson at half-time and conceding two late goals.

At the end of that year, he followed Jones to Charlton Athletic and in four and a half years at The Valley worked with Rob Elliot (later with Newcastle), Ben Hamer (Leicester), David Button (who became Mat Ryan’s deputy at Brighton) and Nick Pope (Burnley).

When, in the summer of 2015, the goalkeeping coach role at Brighton was vacated by Antti Niemi, who returned to Finland for family reasons, Roberts jumped at the chance to link up once more with coach Jones, then part of Chris Hughton’s management team.

Skysports.com quoted Roberts at the time, saying: “I’m ecstatic to be back at Brighton. I’ve made no secret that my happiest years as a professional footballer were spent down here, as I had a special affinity with the fans at Withdean.”

While that role continues it would be remiss not to mention THAT ‘Boro v Brighton Championship clash at the Riverside in May 2016. He told gazettelive.co.uk: “Obviously you want to win and it was so, so tight. My best mate and best man, Adam Reed, is a physio at ‘Boro and seeing him in the tunnel afterwards so happy with his kids, that levelled out the disappointment a little bit for me.

“It was still so hard to take, though. Adam said he felt a bit awkward as well and didn’t want to celebrate too much, but we were on holiday together a couple of weeks later and I was philosophical about it.”

Roberts continued as Albion’s senior goalkeeping coach after Hughton was succeeded by Graham Potter and, somewhat controversially, followed Potter to Chelsea when the manager took almost all of his backroom team to Stamford Bridge in September 2022. He retained the goalkeeper coach role at Chelsea after Potter was sacked.

Brighton pictures from Bennett Dean / Pitch Publishing’s We Are Brighton / Play Off Special;  from online, celebrating ‘Boro promotion with Bryan Robson and Nigel Pearson; flying the flag for Reading, and the Albion matchday programme.