Bees and Seagulls milestones on Michael Bennett’s wellbeing journey

IT ALMOST certainly wouldn’t have occurred to the loyal few Albion fans who followed the basement division Seagulls in exile in 1998-99 that one of the men in stripes would go on to make a difference to the lives of hundreds of footballers.

Brighton was the eighth and last league club Michael Bennett played for over the course of 12 years in which he discovered all the highs and lows that footballers can experience.

Since packing up playing, those personal insights helped him to begin a journey that led him to help huge numbers to cope with the game’s often-unseen stresses and strains.

Bennett became a psychotherapist, gained a degree and led the setting up of a counselling and mental health and wellbeing support network for the Professional Footballers’ Association, where he worked for 15 years, latterly as director of player wellbeing. In that role, he was frequently a media spokesman for the PFA.

Now running his own counselling business it’s all a far cry from the days when his league playing career ended filling a variety of positions in Brian Horton’s fourth-tier Brighton team, playing home games in exile at Gillingham. In one game, he was racially abused by a Swansea City fan who ran onto the pitch to confront him (more of which, later).

It was quite a fall from career highlights that saw him play for England at under-20 level alongside the likes of Matt Le Tissier, David Batty, Neil Ruddock and Tim Sherwood, make his debut at 17 in the top division for Charlton Athletic alongside John Humphrey, Colin Pates and Steve Gritt, and feature for Brentford (with Chris Hughton and Neil Smillie) when the Bees played second-tier football for the first time in 38 years.

While Addicks fans remember Bennett fondly, Bees supporters are a lot less generous and mainly recall a training ground incident in which the player broke a teammate’s jaw with a single punch.

The internet can be – and is – many things and unfortunately for people like Dr Bennett, such past incidents are still recorded for all to read about.

Thankfully, all the excellent work he has achieved in the health and wellbeing field is also documented and, in October 2021, Andy Naylor of The Athletic did an in-depth piece which examined his journey in detail.

“The story of his rise to prominence as a leader in his field is inspirational, a demonstration that with application, determination and drive you can build a career in the game that extends well beyond playing football,” wrote Naylor.

Bennett eschewed a coaching career (even though he passed his UEFA B licence) and at college, while studying Maths and English, was urged to take up counselling. As Naylor reported: “By 2004, Bennett had his degree in it and the following year he set up his own company, Unique Sports Counselling.”

Three years later, he joined the PFA as southern region education adviser aiming to get players to prepare for life after football. He also invited attendees to his workshops to speak to him privately about emotional issues – and he discovered there were plenty who took up the offer.

Eventually he persuaded then PFA chairman Gordon Taylor of the need for a designated wellbeing department dealing with the welfare of players.

In 2015, Sam Wallace of The Independent interviewed Bennett for an article about troubles ex-Arsenal and England full-back Kenny Sansom was facing. He discovered the year before the PFA had requests for support from 197 of its members.

“That is some caseload for Bennett, a man who talks in the careful, measured tones of someone used to dealing with problems that must seem intractable,” wrote Wallace. “Last year, the PFA established a 24-hour telephone helpline for members. Safe to say, it is not underused.”

The problem, Bennett told Wallace, is that the elite-level game prepares footballers physically but not emotionally. “What we realise is players often don’t get asked how they are. They get asked about football. When they get asked about their emotions, they tend to open up.”

After a 2017 presentation by Bennett to first and second-year scholars at Norwich City, Canaries’ assistant head of education and welfare Mike Macias told Press Association Sport: “When they see it and hear it coming from someone like Mickey, who has been there, done it and bought the T-shirt, they will think: ‘This impacts me and there is someone there to help me’.”

When Bennett left the PFA earlier in 2025, he said: “I am proud of the work we have done within the department which has grown into a vital and impactful part of the PFA’s mission, ensuring that wellbeing remains at the heart of everything we do.”

Among dozens of messages of thanks for his contribution left on his LinkedIn account was one from former Albion and West Ham midfielder George Parris, who wrote: “A great stint Dr Bennett, thanks for all your help, support and encouragement not just to myself, but loads of other people along the way during your time at the PFA.”

Born to Jamaican parents in Camberwell on 27 July 1969, Bennett was raised in a block of flats near Millwall’s old ground, The Den, and it was only when he was spotted by Charlton playing Sunday League football that thoughts of a professional career in the game arose.

He went straight into the Addicks academy at 16 and made his debut in Charlton’s first team a year later. In his interview for The Athletic, he said: “You move from a youth team changing room to a first-team changing room. People don’t talk about that transition but that, for me, was pressure. I’ve gone from having jokes and banter with the boys in the youth team to the first team.

“The pressure intensifies. You put it on yourself more than anything else, because you don’t want to let anyone down.”

He continued: “The first well-being issues came when I signed for Charlton. I went from parks football, having fun, to going into a pressurised environment where results are key and you know if you have one or two bad games there’s somebody behind you waiting to take your spot.

“So, the pressure for me was constant. I wasn’t able to deal with that, I didn’t know who to talk to about it. I’d already formed my personality going into the game. I’m a very talkative person and I like to talk about stuff. There wasn’t anyone to do that with.”

On top of the various issues he was facing as a young player, he then ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and crushed the cartilage in his knee against QPR in December 1988 which sidelined him for nine months. By his own admission, when he eventually returned to action he was not the same player, concerned over whether the injury would happen again.

On the fans forum Charlton Life: ‘Amos on the wing’ wrote: “One of the good guys Mickey Bennett. Good player, but was never quite the same player after his bad injury against OPR in 1988.”

Another poster, Leroy Ambrose, said: “One of my favourite players from the ‘Sellout’ era (ed: Charlton played ‘home’ games at Selhurst Park at the time). Good bloke – my mate was a mascot back when he was playing and he and his parents were thrilled at how nice he was, and how much time he took with them during the pre-match kickabout and after the game.”

And Ormiston_Addick added: “Started brilliantly for us, great pace and drive but never the same player after doing his knee. Great little period in 88-89 with our ‘Black Magic’ front line of Bennett – Leaburn – Williams – Mortimer.”

‘Home’ continued to be Selhurst Park between 1990 and 1992 after Bennett switched to then top division Wimbledon, who rented Palace’s stadium because their own Plough Lane wasn’t up to scratch for the top division. But Bennett was never a regular for the Dons and he and Detzi Kruszynski were used as makeweights in the transfer of Dean Holdsworth from Brentford to Wimbledon.

He joined just as Brentford began playing second tier football for the first time since 1954 but the elevation didn’t last long. They were relegated in bottom place come May 1993 although Bennett was a fixture in the side, playing a total of 43 league and cup matches plus six as a sub, and scoring four goals.

The Brentford fans forum bfctalk declared: “Despite losing Chris Hughton in December to a career ending injury, no real replacement was signed until March by which time the rot had well and truly set in. Mickey Bennett flattered to deceive and was a one game in four merchant, Detzi Kruszynski had an aversion to training and hard work.”

In another post, the forum said Bennett had “started out like a house on fire as a direct and goal hungry right winger and we thought we had discovered a new star, but he too flattered to deceive”.

It was what happened in November 1993 that many Bees fans of a certain vintage remember. Bennett had his contract terminated by manager David Webb after breaking transfer-listed teammate Joe Allon’s jaw in three places with one punch in a training ground incident.

But the PFA backed Bennett’s version of the incident and took Brentford to a Football League commission of appeal which decided the player should be reinstated. However, Bennett knew his position in the Griffin Park dressing room was untenable, and he was released by mutual consent.

The incident was back in the spotlight five years later when the media was pondering what fate awaited John Hartson for his infamous West Ham training ground kick in the head of teammate Eyal Berkovich.

Bennett, by then playing for Brighton, told a reporter: “Obviously you can’t do that sort of thing to a teammate and I would prefer to leave that memory where it belongs – in the past.”
He added: “You have to get on with life, and I have no complaints. What happened between me and Joe Allon was little more than handbags at six paces – that’s why the PFA got involved and stood my corner.”

Bennett also said: “What happened to me at Brentford was way back. Right now, I’ve got other things on my mind, like trying to score my first goal of the season for Brighton.”

However, when an enterprising journalist caught up with Allon, he said: “Mickey broke my jaw in three places with a single punch in an unprovoked attack. There had been no history of ill-feeling between us and something inside him must have snapped.

“He just flipped, I collected a punch on the chops and got carted off to hospital, where they operated on me and wired up my jaw. I was in hospital for about 10 days and out of football for three months.

“The funny thing is that Mickey was supposed to be a born-again Christian, and I couldn’t work out how such a religious bloke could just clock one of his teammates.”

For all Bennett’s desire to steer clear of headlines for the wrong reason, it was while playing for Brighton away at Swansea City on 5 February 1999 that he was in the spotlight again when he was racially abused by a home supporter who ran onto the pitch.

“I was shocked by it,” he told Naylor of The Athletic in 2021. “I knew it was bad because I couldn’t function in the game after that, my head had gone.

“The police came to me and asked what I wanted to do. For a split second I remember thinking, ‘I just want to get on the bus and go home’. The other side of me thought, ‘If I don’t do something, that person could do something to another player’.”

The case went to court and the 29-year-old assailant, who admitted racially abusing Bennett and invading the pitch, was sent to prison for a year and banned from watching in a football league ground for three years.

The player told The Argus: “All of a sudden, I turned around and saw this fan running towards me. He was coming closer and closer.

“I remember thinking to myself should I just take a punch or what do I do? Then a steward and one of their players jumped in front of him when he was about a foot away from me and hauled him off.

“For five minutes I was a bit shaky. He could have done anything to me.

“After that I just got on with the game and tried to cancel it out, but when the police came to me after the game to take a statement it brought it all back again.”

By the time of that match, Jeff Wood had succeeded Horton, the manager who’d taken on Bennett after he’d impressed enough on trial in pre-season games against Lewes and Crawley to be awarded a one-year contract.

The matchday programme introduced him as “a versatile right sided player who can operate at anywhere down the right side or in the centre of midfield”.

He started off in central midfield alongside Jeff Minton and later was used as a central defender. That autumn, he clocked up his 150th League appearance in a 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City, where he’d spent the opening three months of the 1996-97 season. Having left Brentford, he’d gone back to Charlton briefly before barely featuring in the 1995-96 season at Millwall. On leaving south Wales, he spent a year at non-league Cambridge City, and at Christmas 1997 returned to the league at Orient under Tommy Taylor.

Before facing the Os in a first round FA Cup tie in 1998, Bennett told The Argus: “I knew Tommy Taylor from my time at Charlton and I figured in one game away to Exeter, then four or five more as a sub before I was eased out.

“I’ve got another chance to face them now because I missed the league game away with a groin injury. It’s a nice tie, but I’ve got nothing to prove to Tommy or anyone else.” (Albion lost 4-2).

*Bennett in Albion’s change kit in the 1998-99 season*

Bennett found himself playing for a third Albion manager when Wood’s brief and unsuccessful reign at the Albion helm was brought to an end and, although he featured under Micky Adams, he was one of eight players released at the end of the season.

His league career at an end, he continued to play at non-league level for Canvey Island and in the 2003-04 season was part of a Canvey Island squad that also included former Brighton players Junior McDougald, Peter Smith, and the aforementioned Minton.

Meanwhile, he transitioned into a mental health and wellbeing counsellor, saying: “I identified the value of offering to the side of the game that rarely grabs the headlines but is just as affecting to the people it helps.”

On his LinkedIn profile, he points out: “Playing at all levels of the football league has provided me with an invaluable knowledge of the inner workings and operational structure of football in this country, experience that I have endeavoured to apply for the benefit of my fellow pros since my retirement.”

Jamie Moralee’s pitfalls a valuable lesson for future prosperity

IT WOULD BE an understatement to say striker Jamie Moralee had mixed fortunes during his time with Brighton.

A one-time £450,000 signing, the former Crystal Palace player joined the lowly Seagulls on a free transfer when they were playing home games in exile at Gillingham in 1998-99.

His lack of goals earned a certain amount of derision from the handful of Albion followers who supported the club in those dark days.

And on one infamous occasion, in March 1999, he managed to get himself sent off within a minute of going on as a late substitute, without touching the ball.

To make matters worse, the punch he threw didn’t even catch the opponent, John Eyre, who promptly added to Albion’s woes by completing his hat-trick in a 3-1 home win for Scunthorpe United.

The Argus put Moralee’s “moment of madness” down to frustration at so regularly being on the subs bench (16 times – and only sent on in eight of them).

“He did not actually connect, but the intent was obvious and the resulting red card inevitable,” the newspaper reported.

Signed at the start of the season on a month-to-month contract, Moralee had a run of 14 starts under Brian Horton but after scoring just the one goal (in a 3-1 defeat against Mansfield), he was dropped to the bench.

Just before Horton quit to move to Port Vale, he gave Moralee a contract until the end of the season and in January, after Jeff Wood briefly took charge, the player hoped his impact as a sub when laying on a winning goal for Paul Armstrong against Scarborough would help change supporters’ views of his contribution.

“It was nice to be a bit of a hero for a change,” he told The Argus. “I was a bit unlucky with a goal which was disallowed at Chester in the game before and I just want to get on with Brighton and do my best.

“I’ll take the credit because I’ve not had much this season. Hopefully the corner has turned for me.”

Moralee said he had been asked to play several different roles and reckoned much of the criticism aimed his way was unjustified.

“I feel I have done all right,” he maintained. “I don’t think the supporters really appreciate me and they let me know that when I came on, but I will just keep doing my job.

“The players give me all the support I need and I am confident enough to go out and do the business. I certainly won’t hide.”

Having missed several matches after the red mist descended at Scunthorpe, a third manager arrived in the shape of Micky Adams, and Moralee started the last seven matches of the season under the new boss, scoring once.

But it wasn’t enough to earn a new deal and Moralee was one of eight players released at the end of the season. Having played under three managers in one season for the Albion, there was swift change in the dugout at his next port of call too.

He began the next season up a division with Colchester United, whose manager Mick Wadsworth said: “I remember him as a very outstanding young player with Millwall. We watched him several times during last season.

“He is very sharp in and around the penalty box and his hold-up play is exceptional – a quality we were sadly lacking in the season just gone.

“Jamie was an outstanding prospect as a young player with Millwall and was sold on to Watford for £450,000 around five years ago before his career became blighted by injuries.

“Last season was his first full season for some time as he battled to shrug off a string of injuries and has probably used Brighton to get back to full fitness and match sharpness.”

The season was only three games old when Wadsworth resigned and was replaced by Steve Whitton who saw his United side beat Reading 3-2 in his first match (Warren Aspinall scored twice and Nicky Forster scored one for the visitors). Moralee, making his league debut for Colchester, was subbed off on 76 minutes.

After that, Colchester went on an 11-game winless run and other than a positive spell in January, had a forgettable season and finished third from bottom. Moralee made 21 starts plus eight as a sub.

Born in Wandsworth, London, on 2 December 1971, Moralee joined Palace as a YTS trainee, working his way through the levels alongside Gareth Southgate. He was a regular in the Palace reserves playing up front with Stan Collymore.

But after just two first team starts and four sub appearances under Steve Coppell, he was traded as a makeweight in exchange for Millwall’s Chris Armstrong.

When unveiled to Lions fans in a matchday programme article, Moralee boldly declared: “Having broken though into first team football with Palace last season and learned from strikers like Mark Bright and Garry Thompson, I feel I’m ready to come to a club like Millwall and score twenty goals a season.”

Of the player he swapped places with, he even went as far as to say: “Chris was quick and by all accounts did very well here in the opening games this season, but I’ll score more goals than him.”

Continuing in a similar vein, he added: “I’m most effective in the box, I like the ball into my feet and, at the risk of sounding over confident, if I get the chances I’ll score goals for you.”

True to his word, Moralee did get amongst the goals for Mick McCarthy’s side and 20 goals in 63 appearances (plus 13 as a sub) over two seasons earned him a £450,000 move to Watford.

*Moralee made a big money move from Millwall to Watford*

But the Glenn Roeder signing had a tough time with the Hornets, only seeing his fortunes change after Graham Taylor returned to the club as manager. He explained the circumstances in a full-page piece in the Wolves v Watford matchday programme of 30 March 1996.

“Glenn bought me to play up front with a big target man, which I was used to at Millwall. But the partners I had were all smaller than me and I was now the big target man, a role that did not suit me and one that I do not enjoy.

“I had always been used to scoring, something that wasn’t happening, and this resulted in a loss of confidence.

“The intentions were there, but I needed a big target man to feed me the ball. It just did not work out.”

When Taylor took over from Roeder, Moralee got back the starting place he’d lost and learned how to play as a lone striker. “It is a lot of work but I believe I have developed into a better all-round player,” he said. “It is nice to have a manager with a little faith in me.”

After Watford were relegated to Division Two, in the summer of 1996 he moved on a free transfer to Crewe Alexandra where he didn’t register any goals and made just 13 starts and six sub appearances.

He ended the 1997-98 season with Royal Antwerp in Belgium and spent pre-season with Fulham before Horton took him on at the Albion, initially on a monthly contract basis, at the start of the 1998-99 season.

After his season at Layer Road, he linked up with former Crystal Palace colleague Peter Nicholas at Welsh Premier League side Barry Town. He spent three seasons with Barry, winning the Welsh Premier-Welsh Cup double each season. He was also involved in three Champions League campaigns with the club and netted 59 goals in 96 appearances.

Financial problems at Barry led to Moralee moving on and he had spells with Forest Green Rovers, Newport County and Chelmsford City before ending his playing career in 2006.

After retiring from playing, Moralee set up his own football agency, New Era, in conjunction with former Albion teammate Peter Smith, with Rio Ferdinand as its highest profile client.

In an interview for a webinar, Moralee said the agency aims to teach up and coming talented footballers how to avoid the pitfalls that affected his own playing career.

Describing his own “very up and down career with a couple of highs and many, many lows”, he explained to The Player, The Coach, The Person webinar: “When I got a few quid, I was spending it on all the wrong things. Buying cars and watches and going out too much; drinking too much. I wasn’t investing it.”

Hard work, application and a ruthlessness to succeed in life are aspects he’s now passing on having realised they were attributes that would have made a difference to his own career as a player.

“I needed to stay in football in some capacity,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a coach or manager.I knew that young players, if they got to the edge of the pitfalls I fell down, I could help them.”

He is particularly pleased to have helped players who had rejection in their early days who went on to have successful careers, such as Welsh internationals Chris Gunter, Neil Taylor and Ashley Williams.

Moralee spoke openly about his 20-year friendship with Rio Ferdinand in a 2018 film for the ‘Best Man Project’ of The Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm): an initiative to celebrate the power of friendships which supports men in looking out for their mates.

*Opening up on the power of friendships in football*

Crunching tackler ‘Tank’ Clark: a legend at two seaside clubs

VIKING lookalike Paul Clark made a lasting impression on plenty of players with robust tackling which earned him ‘legend’ status among fans of Brighton and Southend United.

Described in one programme article as “the big bustling blond with the biting tackle”, Clark was given the nickname ‘Tank’ for his no-nonsense approach. A Southend fan lauded “his crunching tackles and never say die attitude”.

Clark himself reflected: “Wherever you go the supporters tend to like someone who is wholehearted and when it came to 50-50 challenges, or even sometimes 60-40, I didn’t shy away from too many, and the supporters just took to it.”

Giving further insight to his approach, he said: “You can go right up to the line – as long as you don’t step over it, then you’re OK.

“I used to pick up a booking during the first five or 10 minutes, then I knew I had to behave myself for the rest of the game. Despite the reputation I had, I was never sent off in over 500 games.”

*A trademark strike at home to West Ham*

Former teammate Mark Lawrenson said of him: “You would hate to have to play against him because quite often he would cut you in two. With him and ‘Nobby’ (Brian Horton) in the side, we definitely didn’t take any prisoners. One to rely on.”

A former England schoolboy international, it was said of the player in a matchday programme:

“Paul is the first to admit that skill is not his prime asset but there is no doubt as to the strength of his tackle. He is a real competitor and is also deceptively fast, being one of the best sprinters on the Goldstone staff.”

Born in south Benfleet, Essex, on 14 September 1958, Clark went to Wickford Junior School where he played for the school football team and the district primary schools’ side. When he moved on to Beauchamp Comprehensive, selection for his school team led to him playing for the Basildon Schools’ FA XI.

This in turn led to him being selected to play for England Schools at under 15 level, featuring against Scotland, Ireland, Wales, West Germany and France before going on a tour of Australia with the same age group. Contemporaries included future full time professionals Mark Higgins, Ray Deakin, Kevin Mabbutt and Kenny Sansom.

Clark left school at 16 before taking his O levels when Fourth Division Southend offered him an apprenticeship. He made his first team debut shortly before his 18^th birthday in a 2-1 win over Watford.

Two months later, he won the first of six England Youth caps. He made his debut in the November 1976 mini ‘World Cup’ tournament in Monaco against Spain and West Germany alongside future full England internationals Chris Woods, Ricky Hill and Sammy Lee.

The following March, he played in England’s UEFA Youth tournament preliminary match against Wales when they won 1-0 at The Hawthorns. Sansom was also in that side. And he featured in all three group matches at the tournament that May (England beat Belgium 1-0, drew 0-0 with Iceland and 1-1 with Greece). Teammates included Russell Osman and Vince Hilaire.

Clark was only a third of the way into his second season at Southend when Alan Mullery sought to beef up his newly-promoted Brighton side in the autumn of 1977, and, in a part exchange deal involving Gerry Fell moving to Roots Hall, Clark arrived at the Goldstone. He made his debut for the Seagulls in a goalless draw at White Hart Lane on 19 November 1977 in front of a crowd of 48,613. And he came close to crowning it with a goal but for an outstanding save by Spurs ‘keeper Barry Daines.

*In full flight, as captured by photographer George Erringshaw*

When Spurs visited the Goldstone later that season, Clark put in a man of the match performance and scored a memorable opener, following a solo run. A subsequent matchday programme article was suitably poetic about it.

“It showed all the qualities looked for in a player: determination, speed, skill and most of all the ability to finish….if any goal was singled out, Paul’s was certainly one to treasure.”

Albion went on to beat Spurs 3-1, although the game was remembered more because it was interrupted twice when the crowd spilled onto the pitch.

After only 12 minutes, referee Alan Turvey took the players off for 13 minutes while the pitch was cleared of Albion fans who’d sought safety on the pitch from fighting Spurs’ hooligan fans.

In the 74th minute, with Spurs 3-1 down and defender Don McAllister sent-off, their fans rushed the pitch to try to get the game abandoned. But police stopped the invasion getting out of hand and the game continued after another four-minute delay.

Clark’s goal on 16 minutes had been cancelled out six minutes later when Chris Jones seized on a bad goal kick by Eric Steele but defender Graham Winstanley made it 2-1 just before half-time.

Albion’s third goal was surrounded in controversy. Sub Eric Potts claimed the final touch but Spurs argued bitterly that Malcolm Poskett was offside.

Clark remembered the game vividly when interviewed many years later by Spencer Vignes for the matchday programme. The tenacious midfielder put in an early crunching tackle on Glenn Hoddle and after the game the watching ex-Spurs’ manager Bill Nicholson told him: “Well done. You won that game in the first five minutes when you nailed Hoddle.”

Said Clark: “I was 19 at the time so to get a pat on the back from him was much appreciated.”

It was one of three goals Clark scored in his 26 appearances that season (nine in 93 overall for Albion) but he wasn’t always guaranteed a starting berth and in five years at the club had a number of long spells stuck in the reserves.

Midfield enforcer or emergency defender were his primary roles but Clark was capable of unleashing unstoppable shots from distance and among those nine goals he scored were some memorable strikes.

For instance, as Albion closed in on promotion in the spring of 1979, at home to Charlton Athletic, Clark opened the scoring with a scorching 25-yard left foot volley in the 11th minute. Albion went on to win 2-0.

The following month, Clark demonstrated his versatility at St James’ Park on 3 May 1979 when Albion beat Newcastle 3-1 to win promotion to football’s elite level for the first time. Clark played in the back four alongside Andy Rollings because Mark Lawrenson was out injured with a broken arm.

*Celebrating promotion with Peter O’Sullivan and Malcolm Poskett*

“Not many people can say they played in a side that got Brighton up to the top flight,” said Clark. “It’s something I’m still immensely proud of.”

Once they were there, Clark missed the opening two matches (defeats at home to Arsenal and away to Aston Villa) and had an ignominious start to life at the higher level when he conceded a penalty within three minutes of going on as a sub for Rollings away to Manchester City on 25 August 1979.

Some observers thought Clark had played the ball rather than foul Ray Ranson but referee Pat Partridge thought otherwise and Michael Robinson stepped up to score his first goal for City from the resultant penalty. It put the home side 3-1 up: Teddy Maybank had equalised Paul Power’s opener but Mike Channon added a second before half-time.

Partridge subsequently evened up the penalty awards but Brian Horton blazed his spot kick wide of the post with Joe Corrigan not needing to make a save. Peter Ward did net a second for the Seagulls but they left Maine Road pointless.

Ahead of Albion’s fourth attempt to get league points on the board, Clark played his part in beating his future employer Cambridge United 2-0 in a second round League Cup match.

Three days later, he was on the scoresheet together with Ward and Horton as Albion celebrated their first win at the higher level, beating Bolton Wanderers 3-1 at the Goldstone.

It was Clark’s neat one-two with Ward that produced the opening goal and on 22 minutes, Maybank teed the ball up for Clark, who “belting in from the edge of the box, gave it everything and his shot kept low and sped very fast past (‘Jim’) McDonagh’s right hand,” said Evening Argus reporter John Vinicombe.

Gerry Ryan replaced Clark late in the game and after 12 starts, when he was subbed off three times, and four appearances off the bench, his season was over, and it wasn’t even Christmas.

A colour photo of a typical Clark tackle (on QPR’s Dave Clement) adorned the front cover of that season’s matchday programmes throughout but he didn’t start another game after a 4-0 League Cup defeat at Arsenal on 13 November.

He was sub for the following two games; the memorable 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest and a 1-1 draw at Middlesbrough, but Mullery had signed the experienced Peter Suddaby to play alongside Steve Foster, releasing Lawrenson to demonstrate his considerable repertoire of skills in midfield alongside skipper Horton and Peter O’Sullivan.

Young Giles Stille also began to press for a place and later in the season, Neil McNab was added to the midfield options, leaving Clark well down the pecking order in the reserves. Portsmouth wanted him but he rejected a move along the coast, although he had a brief loan spell at Reading, where he played a couple of games.

But Clark wasn’t finished yet in Albion’s colours and, remarkably, just over a year after his last first team appearance, with the Seagulls struggling in 20^th spot in the division, he made a comeback in a 1-0 home win over Aston Villa on 20 December 1980.

Albion had succumbed 4-3 to Everton at Goodison Park in the previous match and Mullery told the Argus: “We badly needed some steel in the side and I think Clark can do that sort of job.”

Under the headline ‘The forgotten man returns’ Argus reporter Vinicombe said Mullery hadn’t changed his opinion that Clark was not a First Division class player, but nevertheless reckoned: “Paul’s attitude is right and I know he’ll go out and do a good job for me.”

For his part, Vinicombe opined: “The strength of Clark’s game is a daunting physical presence. His tackling is second to none in the club and Mullery believes he will respond to the challenge.”

Clark kept the shirt for another nine matches (plus one as a sub), deputising for Horton towards the end of his run, but his last first team game was in a 3-1 defeat at Norwich at the end of February.

Clark remained on the books throughout Mike Bailey’s first season in charge (1981-82) but, with Jimmy Case, Tony Grealish and McNab ahead of him, didn’t make a first team appearance and left on a free transfer at the end of it.

He returned to Southend where he stayed for nine years and was player-manager on two occasions. Fans website shrimperzone.com moderator ‘Yorkshire Blue’ summed up his contribution to their cause thus: “In the top five all-time list for appearances, an inspiration in four promotions, one of the toughest tacklers of all-time and a man whose commitment for his home-town club could never be doubted.”

Clark was still only 27 when he had his first spell as manager, in caretaker charge after Dave Webb had quit following a bust-up with the club chairman, and he managed to steer United to promotion back to the third tier.

When Webb’s successor Dick Bate lasted only eight games of the new season, Clark was back at the helm, in turn becoming the youngest manager in the league.

His first hurdle ended in a League Cup giant killing over top flight Derby County (who included his old teammate John Gregory) when the Us had another former Albion teammate, Eric Steele, in goal.

A Roy McDonough penalty past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton at Roots Hall settled the two-legged tie (the second leg was goalless at the Baseball Ground) which the writer described as “arguably their biggest ever cup shock”.

In the league, player-manager Clark guided Southend to a safe 17th place but it went pear-shaped the following season. Clark only played 16 games, Southend were relegated, and Webb returning midway through the season as general manager.

Back-to-back promotions in 1989-90 and 1990-91 proved to be a more than satisfactory swansong to his Southend career, and in the first of those he found himself forming an effective defensive partnership with on-loan Guy Butters in the second half of the season.

In 1990-91, he missed only six games all season as the Shrimpers earned promotion to the second tier for the first time in their history, and he had a testimonial game against Arsenal.

But, after a total of 358 games for Southend, he left Roots Hall to join Gillingham on a free transfer.

Over three seasons, he played 90 league games, and was caretaker manager in 1992, before retiring at the end of the 1993-94 season. Gillingham’s top goalscorer with 18 that season was a young Nicky Forster and other Albion connections in that squad included Mike Trusson, Paul Watson, Neil Smillie, Andy Arnott and Richard Carpenter.

After Gillingham, Clark played non-league for Chelmsford City but left to become assistant manager to Tommy Taylor at Cambridge United. In 1996 he followed Taylor in a similar role to Leyton Orient.

Southend fans hadn’t heard the last of him, though – quite literally. He became a co-commentator on Southend games for BBC Radio Essex.

In the 2009-10 season, Clark was temporarily assistant manager to Joe Dunne at Colchester United.

Bank clerk Fell on his speedy feet at the Albion

NOT TOO many professional footballers start out as bank clerks, but Gerry Fell broke that mould when he signed for Brighton.

Six-foot winger Fell had worked at the Newark branch of NatWest for five years, combining bank clerk duties with playing semi-professional football for Lincolnshire-based Stamford in the United Counties League.

In the latter part of 1973, Stamford played Long Eaton United in a FA Trophy second round qualifying match and Long Eaton’s manager, Brian Daykin, having liked what he saw, signed Fell for the Derbyshire side the following summer.

Within weeks, Daykin left Long Eaton to become no.2 to Peter Taylor at the Albion – and one of his first moves was to persuade Taylor to sign Fell. Taylor watched the player a couple of times and endorsed his assistant’s opinion.

Fell was 23 when he packed up his NatWest job to move to Sussex and turn professional.

“I loved Brighton from the moment I arrived, absolutely loved it, especially considering where I came from,” he said. “It was a totally different ball game to Newark and I loved the idea of living by the sea. It was so cosmopolitan and a massive eye-opener for me.”

In a matchday programme article, Fell told Spencer Vignes: “I was always very fit and a good trainer, so I didn’t find the training difficult at all. But obviously the step up in terms of actually playing took a bit of getting used to.

“I thought it was great because, as you can imagine, it was a stars-in-my-eyes job for me. I got into the first team within three months of arriving, so it was fantastic. I’ve never regretted any of it.”

Pointing out that he wasn’t the only member of that squad who was late to the game and from non-league (Peter Ward and Brian Horton were too), he said: “You had a few of us who’d experienced the outside world and perhaps appreciated what it meant to be a professional footballer that little bit more because of it.”

Born in Newark on 1 March 1951, Fell’s first football memory was as the mascot for Newark Central, a local team that his grandfather ran. He was educated at Magnus Grammar School in Newark where he earned a reputation for athletic achievements, gaining honours in high jump and 800 metre running.

Fell certainly hit the ground running at the Albion as a pacy goalscoring winger, netting five goals in 20 appearances in the season he arrived plus eight in 28 the following season (1975-76).

His initial first team involvement was as a non-playing sub for a 2-0 home win over Southend United on 7 December 1974 (Tommy Mason and Jim Walker the scorers), but once he’d made his debut at the end of the following month in a 2-0 win over Colchester United, he kept the shirt previously worn by Ian Mellor through to the end of the season (bar one game when Mellor replaced him).

In 1975-76, when Taylor’s much-changed side only narrowly missed out on promotion, Fell twice hit braces in 6-0 wins at the Goldstone, the first pair against Chester in September (Fred Binney 2, Peter O’Sullivan and Mellor also scorers), the other when Colchester United were dispatched by the same scoreline in January 1976 (Binney another two, Andy Rollings and Mellor also scoring).

He revelled in switching from playing in front of 200-300 people to turning out at the Goldstone where crowds could often be more than 20,000 – even for Third Division games.

“To play in front of that amount of people on that ground, well, it was a dream come true,” Fell told Vignes. “The Goldstone was a bit of a fortress at that time and the players in the team were so confident.”

Apart from that first half-season, Fell generally competed with Brighton-born Tony Towner for the no.7 shirt and Taylor’s successor Alan Mullery went with Fell for the final run-in to promotion from the third tier in the spring of 1977. He started 11 games and scored the only goal of the game as top-of-the-table Albion secured a vital 1-0 win over Port Vale in their penultimate home game.

“It wasn’t easy being on the sidelines looking on, but Gerry was a breath of fresh air,” Towner said in a matchday programme interview. “He was the opposite of me; though still a winger, he had loads of pace, though not too much skill!

“He’d knock the ball ahead of him and run past the defender to get it. I’d try to trick my way past.”

Ironically, although Brighton secured promotion by beating Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 in the last home game, the man of the match was the visitors’ Eric Potts – and his next game at the Goldstone was in Albion’s colours… as a replacement for Fell and Towner!

Having liked what he saw in that exciting encounter under the lights in front of a bumper crowd of 30,756, Mullery promptly signed Potts for £14,000 in the close season.

The diminutive winger had previously played for Wednesday at the level of today’s equivalent of the Championship and he was installed in the no.7 shirt for the first 21 games of the season.

Fell played and scored in his first start of the season (a 2-0 home win over Hull City) in September and the following game, his last start in an Albion shirt, was in a 2-2 League Cup second round replay draw at Oldham Athletic.

But Fell wasn’t done with the Seagulls just yet. He proved to be a matchwinner after going on as a 57^th minute substitute for the injured Steve Piper in the last league game of September, a 3-2 night game win over Luton Town in front of a Goldstone crowd of 25,132.

The game was finely poised at 1-1 (Ward and Ron Futcher on target) when on 84 minutes Fell, unmarked at the far post, headed in a second Albion goal when Mellor flicked on a corner by Potts. Three minutes later, Fell was once again played in by Mellor and a turn-and-volley into the top corner from the edge of the box put Albion 3-1 up. There was still time for Jimmy Husband to pull one back for the Hatters, but Albion held on to take all the points.

Those goals didn’t earn him a starting place, though. On six further occasions Fell was sub (three playing, three not getting on) before Mullery traded him as a makeweight in the signing of 19-year-old powerhouse midfielder Paul Clark from Southend United.

In the three years between his first involvement with the first team as a non-playing sub at home to those future employers and his last, going on for Potts in a 1-0 defeat away to Notts County on 5 November 1977, only three other players were involved in both fixtures: Graham Winstanley, O’Sullivan and Mellor. Fell departed with the impressive record of 20 goals in 72 starts plus 19 sub appearances.

In his first season in Essex, he helped Dave Smith’s Shrimpers to promotion from Division Four when they were runners up behind Watford. Third-placed Swansea City and Brentford in fourth also went up.

The next season, while his old Albion teammates were celebrating promotion to the elite for the first time in the club’s history, Fell’s Southend finished mid-table in the third tier, although they did have the excitement of a memorable FA Cup third round encounter with mighty Liverpool: he was part of the Southend team that memorably held the European champions to a 0-0 draw in the FA Cup in January 1979 when 31,033 crowded into Roots Hall.

“It was snowy and frosty and we could’ve beaten them on the night,” United manager Smith later told the local Echo newspaper.

“Derrick (Parker) missed a sitter at the end but I remember turning to one of my coaches and saying I was glad he missed. They thought I was mad but it meant we got to go to Anfield and I’d never managed a team there before.”

How did Southend manage such a result against a full-strength Liverpool side captained by Emlyn Hughes with Ray Clemence in goal, Jimmy Case and Graeme Souness in midfield and Kenny Dalglish up front?

In the lead-up to the game, Smith said: “We couldn’t find anywhere to train so we went to the bottom of the pier. We ended up in a pub there drinking hot port and this was only a few days before the game. Maybe that’s the answer to playing so well.”

Liverpool made up for it in the replay a week later when they won 3-0 (goals from Case, Dalglish and Ray Kennedy) and Fell was subbed off on 75 minutes.

The last season of the decade would end in the disappointment of relegation, and Fell’s departure from the club, but they once again had excitement in a cup competition against higher level opposition, winning 2-1 away at Bolton Wanderers (and drawing 0-0 at home in the second leg) in the second round of the League Cup and then twice forcing draws against West Ham in the third round, before losing 5-1 in a second replay.

When it came to the FA Cup though, United were on the wrong end of a giant killing as Isthmian League Harlow Town beat them 1-0 in the second round.

Not long after joining Southend in 1977, Fell had helped them beat Torquay United 2-1 in the first round of the FA Cup and it was to Plainmoor that he headed in July 1980 on a free transfer.

That cup match was remembered in Torquay’s Into The Eighties pre-season magazine which said: “The pace and power of Gerry Fell left a painful memory with us when he helped Southend knock us out of the FA Cup here at Plainmoor three years ago. He had cost the Shrimpers £20,000 then but now he arrives on the south coast on a free transfer and has already impressed in pre-season training. Gerry certainly knows how to score.”

United supporter and programme statistician John Lovis added: “A complete forward who’s got the lot.”

Alongside big-name new arrival Bruce Rioch as a player-coach, Fell had a terrific first season scoring 17 league and cup goals, seven of them from the penalty spot.

Delighted manager Mike Green said in his matchday programme notes: “We certainly look forward to free kicks now because in Gerry Fell and Bruce Rioch we possess two of the hardest and most accurate dead ball kickers in the game.”

Although he was in the side as the 1981-82 season began under ex-Manchester United boss Frank O’Farrell’s third stint as Gulls manager, he lost his starting berth and later that season had a loan spell at York City, where a young John Byrne was finding his feet in a struggling side.

He briefly joined a mini-exodus of ex-Football League pros in Hong Kong at Happy Valley – future Brighton coach and manager Jeff Wood also played for them – but he returned to Brighton and played non-league football with Sussex County League Whitehawk, finishing the 1983-84 season as leading goalscorer with 35 goals, captaining them to the league championship and also representing the Sussex county side.

He finally hung up his boots in 1986 and was a partner for an independent financial adviser before setting up his own financial services company. He remained in Brighton until 2004 before heading back north and settling in Broom Hills, a Lincolnshire rural farming community to the north west of the city of Lincoln.

Fell died from cancer at the age of 74 in May 2025.

Mullery’s deputy Ken Craggs had a keen eye for football talent

ONCE A PROMISING Newcastle United youth team footballer, Ken Craggs didn’t make it as a player but went on to serve Albion as a ‘backroom boy’.

Indeed, he had three separate spells with the club, the first being the most prominent. Having joined the Albion in 1978, Craggs was at Alan Mullery’s side as assistant manager when Brighton first climbed to the top of English football.

He later worked as a scout for Jimmy Melia, who himself had been a scout for the Albion under Mullery.

And Brian Horton, the captain who led the Seagulls all the way from the Third Division to the First, appointed Craggs as a scout when he managed the Albion between 1998 and 1999.

Craggs had also worked for Horton when he was the manager at Manchester City, Huddersfield Town and Hull City.

Horton viewed Craggs as a mentor and kept in touch with him long after their footballing days were over.

When Craggs died aged 85 in July 2021, Horton told Brian Owen of The Argus: “Ken knew an awful lot of people in the game. We got on great. He was just fun to be around.”

Referring to how Mullery and Craggs worked together, he said: “Mullers was a hard task master, which I enjoyed. I like people who demand more. Ken was his back stop.

“He would be the buffer between manager and players. They would work in tandem and they were good for each other.”

It was chairman Mike Bamber’s instruction for Mullery to sack Craggs, Melia and coach George Aitken as a cost-cutting measure that prompted the ebullient ex-Spurs and Fulham captain to quit the club in 1981.

“He even wanted to get rid of the kit-man Glen Wilson, who had been at Brighton for years,” Mullery wrote in his autobiography. “The club meant the world to him. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d fired these people.”

Mullery swapped managerial chairs with Mike Bailey and moved to newly-promoted Charlton Athletic and Craggs went with him. When Mullery left the club after a year, his assistant took over the Second Division side.

Craggs was in the job for six months and the club history books record how he was the manager when the Addicks pulled off something of a coup in October 1982 by signing former European footballer of the year and Danish international Allan Simonsen from Barcelona for £324,000 after he had been forced out by the signing of Diego Maradona. It had been thought Simonsen would either go to Tottenham or Real Madrid but he revealed publicly that he wanted to play for a club at a less stressful level.

With only five wins in 16 league matches, Craggs’ last game in charge at The Valley saw Rotherham United wallop the home side 5-1 with ex-Brighton winger Tony Towner proving a handful on the right and scoring one of the goals and Ronnie Moore hitting a hat-trick.

Craggs was born on 10 April 1936 in Quarrington Hill, a small mining community in County Durham, close to Cassop Colliery, where his father worked and he expected to follow him.

But he was noticed playing for the local village school football team and he was selected to play inside forward for the Durham Schools representative side. That got him noticed by Newcastle United.

He joined them as an amateur and played in the club’s youth team, although it wasn’t uncommon for him to play two games in a day, turning out for United and then his local youth club side as well.

Young Craggs was invited to have a trial for the England Youth team and it was during one of these sessions that he was spotted by Fulham scout Bill Rochford.

At the tender age of 17, he seized the chance to leave home and head for the bright lights of London and a career as a professional at Fulham.

Craggs shared digs with Bobby Robson, another miner’s son from Durham who had joined Fulham.

“Ken never won a first team place, but he was a powerful centre-half for the reserves,” Mullery remembered.

Craggs spent seven years on the playing staff without breaking into the first team.

He dropped into non-league football, initially with King’s Lynn in the summer of 1960 and later played for Folkestone, Tunbridge Wells United, Dartford and Hounslow, where he was the player-coach.

He then returned to Fulham in September 1968 as a part-time youth team coach and scout under Robson. He found and developed the likes of Brian Greenaway, Les Strong, Tony Mahoney, Terry Bullivant and goalkeeper Perry Digweed, who later moved to Brighton for £150,000.

He eventually joined Fulham in a full-time coaching capacity and Robert Wilson, who went on to make 256 appearances for the Cottagers, recalled: “I joined Fulham as a 16-year-old in 1977, when Ken Craggs was in charge of the youth side and from there the likes of Tony Gale, Dean Coney, Paul Parker, Jeff Hopkins, Jim Stannard, Peter Scott, John Marshall and many others all progressed to the league team.”

Team line-ups of that time show Craggs pictured alongside Barry Lloyd and Teddy Maybank, who later followed Craggs to the Goldstone for a fee of £238,000.

Another striker who caught Craggs’ eye when he was a coach at Fulham was Malcolm Poskett. After Craggs moved to Brighton, the player’s goalscoring form at Hartlepool eventually led to a transfer to the Goldstone, the £60,000 fee representing a tidy profit for the struggling north east minnows.

*Clothes modelling with Gary Stevens and Mark Lawrenson*

Others who benefited from his acumen included Gary Stevens, who was released by the aforementioned Robson when he was manager at Ipswich Town, but picked up by Brighton.

Stevens said: “Ken played a huge part in many of our careers. He was the main reason I came to Brighton as a 16-year-old and I will always be grateful for his contribution.”

Giles Stille was a part-time player at Kingstonian when Craggs spotted him and after turning pro he made his top flight debut against Manchester City in December 1979 when going on as a sub for Horton in Albion’s 4-1 win. Unfortunately, his time at Brighton was beset by injuries and illness and he was forced to retire prematurely when only 26.

The Albion was quite a different club when Craggs returned for a third spell in 1998, not least because the side was playing home games in exile at Gillingham. His role was to help Horton and his no.2 Jeff Wood to look for bargain signings.

For instance, Craggs and Wood unearthed Gary Hart, who signed from Stansted for £1,000 and a set of playing kit and he went on to become something of a club legend.

“Ken and Jeff knew more players from down south than me ,” said Horton. “He would have definitely gone to watch him on Jeff’s recommendation.

“We put him into a reserve game at Worthing and he only needed one game for me and that was it, we were doing the deal.”

Hero and Villain Sammy Morgan got off Albion mark v Palace

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

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

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

*Morgan opens his Albion account in style against Crystal Palace*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Morgan shares a training ground joke with Peter Ward*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well-loved Grealish went down with the Albions and City

TENACIOUS Tony Grealish earned plenty of plaudits in a 20-year professional career spanning almost 600 matches and etched his name in the record books along the way.

Thought to be the only person to play in two different sports at Wembley Stadium, Grealish was also the first Brighton & Hove Albion player to captain his country.

One statistic less favourably remembered is that he was relegated from the top level of English football with three different clubs: Brighton, West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City.

The London-born Republic of Ireland international was first relegated in the same year that he led the Seagulls out at Wembley for the 1983 FA Cup Final.

He was also part of the Throstles squad who went down in last place in 1986. And it was two relegations in a row after switching to an ailing Sky Blues side that went on to relinquish their top flight status in 1987.

When Grealish signed for Brighton from Luton Town for £100,000 in July 1981, it was a time of significant change. After only just avoiding relegation the season before, manager Alan Mullery had quit over a disagreement with chairman Mike Bamber and four key players left the club: John Gregory, Mark Lawrenson, Peter O’Sullivan and captain Brian Horton.

Grealish had quite a tall order taking over in midfield from ex-skipper Horton, who replaced him at Kenilworth Road, but Gordon Smith, another Albion teammate who later played for City, said:

“He did it with style – he was excellent. He was a very hard working player, he could tackle, but he was also classy with it – he could always pick out a pass.”

Part of the deal that saw Liverpool acquire Lawrenson saw the experienced Jimmy Case move to Brighton and he also appreciated what Grealish brought to the side. “Tony was so, so reliable. Playing with him in midfield, you knew that if the going got tough, he would be shoulder to shoulder alongside you.

“He would go in where it hurt, a tough lad, but he was not just a worker, he could play a bit as well and his enthusiasm for the game rubbed off on everyone in that changing room.”

Grealish and Case together with Mullery signing Neil McNab proved to be quite a formidable midfield trio and together they helped Mike Bailey’s side to jostle for top half of the table positions during the 1981-82 season before falling away to finish in 13^th place – a record that remained in place until 2022!

Reaching the FA Cup final in 1983 under Jimmy Melia and George Aitken provided a personal highlight for Grealish when he captained the Seagulls in the absence of suspended regular skipper Steve Foster, memorably wearing the defender’s trademark white headband as a mini-protest at his exclusion.

Grealish’s departure to West Brom in March 1984 was part of the ongoing break-up of the former top level squad, Melia’s successor Chris Cattlin being tasked with trimming the wage bill to bring it into line with second tier football.

Three and a half years later, Grealish had just turned 30 when Jimmy Frizzell signed him for City in October 1986 for a modest £20,000 fee, re-uniting him with McNab.

It was only a short-term deal, though, and he continued to live in Sutton Coldfield, a commute of 90 miles each way! “We haven’t bought a place because I only signed until the end of the season,” he explained. “We’ll see what happens first.”

Frizzell had previously been assistant manager to Billy McNeill but took over the reins when the former Celtic captain, frustrated by City’s parlous financial circumstances, left for Aston Villa in September 1986.

City of the mid-1980s were a very different proposition to the modern day version: they were more than £4m in the red and struggling with crippling debt repayments after an ill-advised spending spree in the late 70s and early 80s.

“The first thing I was told when I joined and went to discuss money was that they were so skint they would sell their goalposts if they could,” a Grealish contemporary, centre-back Mick McCarthy, told Chris Bevan for BBC Sport in a 2013 article looking back at that period.

Frizzell felt the relatively youthful City needed some experienced old heads to steady the ship and Grealish joined from West Brom in the same week John Gidman joined on a free transfer from city rivals Manchester United. Both made their Maine Road debuts for bottom-of-the-league City against United in a 1-1 draw on 26 October 1986.

It was the 118th meeting between the two sides, but the first to be broadcast live on TV.

Injury-hit United took the lead through a Frank Stapleton header that crept past the diving Perry Suckling and inside the post, but McCarthy equalised with a header from a cross by McNab.

Under fire United boss Ron Atkinson only had one more game in charge of the Reds; after a 4-1 League Cup defeat by Southampton, he was sacked.

United’s plight was nothing compared to City, though. They didn’t win away throughout the whole season and, in spite of the additions of forwards Paul Stewart and Imre Varadi, scored a meagre 36 goals in 42 games.

Youngster Paul Moulden, having been a prolific goalscorer in City’s FA Youth Cup-winning side of 1986, briefly offered hope when scoring four goals in four games in November but then picked up an injury.

Frizzell blooded several other members of that youth side including Paul Lake, David White and Ian Brightwell but City were relegated. Grealish’s last game for them was in a 0-0 home draw against Newcastle in March, City’s first point in a month. They only won twice in the remaining 10 games and were relegated…along with McNeill’s Villa!

Grealish only made 15 appearances in that 1986-87 season and was an unused sub on two other occasions. He made 11 league starts, one in the FA Cup (a 1-0 defeat v Man U) and three in the Full Members Cup. He also played in City’s reserve side on 14 occasions (stats courtesy of the Gary James archive).

Born in Paddington, west London on 21 September 1956, Grealish played underage for St Agnes Gaelic football club in Cricklewood – alongside brother Brian – and represented London at various underage levels.

That special 1983 Wembley moment meant Grealish achieved the unusual claim to fame as reportedly the only person to play soccer and Gaelic football at the iconic stadium. He’d previously played there in the early ’70s for London’s Minors against New York in what at the time was an annual Whit weekend tournament.

“For a group of London lads, playing at Wembley Stadium was magnificent,” said Éamonn Whelan, a teammate of Grealish’s for St Agnes and London.

Ireland was certainly in his blood even if he wasn’t born there: his father, Packie, was from Athenry in Galway, and although his mother, Nora, was born in London, both her parents came from Limerick.

No surprise then, that Grealish represented Eire with some distinction, winning 45 caps between 1976 and 1985, and It was during Alan Kelly’s brief reign in charge, in 1980, that Grealish was first made Eire skipper – in a 2-0 win over Switzerland at Lansdowne Road, Dublin.

Brighton’s Lawrenson and Gerry Ryan were teammates that day, as was Chris Hughton.

One of the goalscorers that day, Don Givens, said of Grealish: “He gave so much effort that he wasn’t going to accept anything less from his teammates.

“Tony was a 100 per cent tough little midfield player, and a great character off the pitch.”

Former Ireland manager Eoin Hand chose Grealish as Eire captain for the 1984 European qualifying campaign, when Ireland ended in third place behind Spain and Holland.

In his book, First Hand My Life and Irish Football, Hand said Grealish was “more Irish than the Irish themselves”.

“With his dynamic, combative style in the midfield engine room, Tony, with his tousled hair and Viking beard, was the kind of guy you were happy to go into battle alongside,” he said.

*Grealish on the international stage with the Republic of Ireland*

“He was a natural leader, and although known for his ceaseless industry, he was no mere artisan. Grealish could play as well and conjure up the odd goal from deep positions.”

Previous manager Johnny Giles had given Grealish his Ireland debut at the age of 19, in a friendly against Norway at Dalymount Park, Dublin on 24 March 1976.

Grealish, unusually, started at full back as Ireland won 3-0 thanks to goals from Liam Brady, Jimmy Holmes and a penalty from Mickey Walsh.

“Tony was very good for me when we played together in midfield because he was a ball winning all action player, and we had a good understanding,” said Brady, who later became Brighton’s manager.

“Around the Ireland dressing room, he was very enthusiastic, determined and very motivating – he liked to motivate everyone around him,” he told the Irish World in 2013. “He’d be up for every match.”

Brady added: “We had a strong friendship, and I haven’t met anyone who played with him who wasn’t a friend of Tony Grealish’s.

“He was a super man, and a super bloke. He made the atmosphere better wherever he was.”

Grealish took his first steps to becoming a professional footballer aged 15 in 1972 when he joined Leyton Orient as an apprentice. Manager George Petchey took him on as a professional in 1974 and he was the club’s player of the year at the end of the 1975-76 season.

In 1977-78, Orient reached an FA Cup semi-final at Stamford Bridge, where they lost 3-0 to Arsenal, although the aforementioned Liam Brady mentioned: “He man-to-man marked me that day and put me out of the game. Luckily some of our other players performed despite the fact that I didn’t.”

One of the last of his 171 appearances for Orient was in the April 1979 3-3 draw with promotion-chasing Brighton in front of The Big Match cameras (John Jackson was in goal for the Os and Martin Chivers scored his only goal for Brighton).

Grealish transferred to David Pleat’s Luton Town in the summer of 1979 for a fee of £150,000, racking up 78 Division Two appearances over two seasons before joining Brighton.

In total, Grealish played 116 games plus five as a sub for Brighton, and his last game for the Seagulls ironically saw him score in a 1-1 home draw with Manchester City.

Having known what he could bring to a side, it was Giles, when manager of West Bromwich Albion, who took Grealish to the Hawthorns in March 1984 for £75,000.

*Reunited with Johnny Giles at West Brom*

In one and a half seasons with the Baggies, Grealish made 65 appearances before that move to City.

He spent a brief period with Salgueiros in Portugal before former Leeds hard man Norman Hunter signed him for Rotherham United in August 1987. He made 110 appearances over three seasons, going down with them in 1987-88 and helping them to bounce straight back by winning the Fourth Division title the next year under another former Albion midfield player, Billy McEwan.

His last league club was Walsall during Kenny Hibbitt’s managerial reign before he continued playing at various non-league clubs in the Midlands: Bromsgove Rovers, Moor Green, Halesowen Harriers, Sutton Coldfield and Evesham United.

He returned to Bromsgrove Rovers as player-manager before calling it a day, and then worked in the scrap metal business. He died of cancer aged 56 in April 2013.

An obituary in Albion’s matchday programme saw tributes paid by several former teammates. Gary Stevens, who memorably scored Albion’s equaliser in the 2-2 Cup Final draw against Man Utd, said: “Off the field, Tony was the life and soul of the party.

“When he was with us, he was always laughing, joking and just enjoying life. Yet on the pitch he always gave 100 per cent, was tenacious in the tackle and he had a tremendous will to win.”

Ex-skipper Foster added: “Tony was a lovely man off the pitch and a passionate footballer on it. He was a fantastic midfielder.”

Seething Knight dumped O’Callaghan for telling him how to run the Albion

CORK-BORN George O’Callaghan had something of a yo-yo footballing career after bursting onto the professional scene as a talented teenager.

Eyed by Arsenal and Spurs when he was in his formative years at Port Vale (then in the Championship), he turned to drink when ex-Albion captain and manager Brian Horton dropped him from the Vale first team.

Although the tall midfielder worked his way back into contention, he returned home to Ireland to rebuild his career before making several other attempts to succeed in the English game.

Over the course of five years, he was an influential cog in Cork’s League of Ireland side, the highlight coming with a championship win in 2005 when he scored eleven goals from midfield and was voted League Player of the Season.

He survived meningitis in 2006 just a handful of months before another Championship side, Ipswich Town, gave him another opportunity to make it in England but he struggled to hold down a place at Portman Road.

After only 13 appearances, the Tractor Boys were prepared to offload him to third tier Brighton. A deal was agreed in August 2007 but he made the move on loan rather than permanently because he still thought he could make it in Suffolk.

By then 28, the player brought experience and creativity to Dean Wilkins’ largely young side, slotting in effectively in the centre of Albion’s midfield alongside Dean Hammond, making 16 starts and one appearance off the bench.

But his Irish gift of the gab brought it all to a messy end. He publicly criticised chairman Dick Knight’s handling of contract negotiations in an explosive article in The Argus and didn’t play for the Seagulls again.

The Irishman told reporter Andy Naylor he thought the team was in danger of falling apart because chairman Knight had been too slow to sort out contracts and loans.

Knight countered: “We have given him the chance to shine and show his talents. It’s not George O’Callaghan’s business to tell the club what we should be doing.”

The midfielder spoke out after Albion capitulated 3-0 at Millwall on Boxing Day. He told Naylor: “There are a lot of lads who are very important to this team that don’t know if they are coming or going and I think it’s about time the club got a grip on it and sorted it out, because it has dragged on for too long and I feel it is starting to affect the players.

“I just don’t think it is right and it’s something the club needs to look at. It used to happen at Cork City when I was there and we lost a lot of good players. We lost Kevin Doyle and Shane Long for peanuts over contracts not being sorted out early and quickly.

“It makes you angry as a player. I can cope with it, because I am a lot older than the other lads, but the young lads are really upset and it’s not right.”

O’Callaghan’s version of events the club would have wanted to keep to themselves plainly differed from Knight’s while Wilkins was stuck in the middle.

“I know the manager tries his best behind the scenes,” said O’Callaghan. “He is fantastic. I think he works with a very small budget. It must be more frustrating for him, because he has built a team and it could easily fall apart now.

*No holding back where O’Callaghan was concerned*

“Things should have been sorted out a lot quicker. It has been a big thing in the squad in the last few weeks. I’ve mentioned it and the club need to sort it out now.”

The Irishman said he had encountered something similar at Ipswich the previous season, pointing out players just needed to know where they stood.

“I don’t want to stay and then see our best lads go, like Hammo,” he reasoned. “If we want to make that push for the play-offs and get back into the Championship it needs to be sorted.”

Knight was in no mood to take that sort of broadside from a loan player and told the reporter: “The team’s performance was absolutely woeful. I think certain players should be looking at themselves before trying to deflect criticism elsewhere. I thought it was a disgrace.

“George O’Callaghan is totally out of order. I would suggest he is trying to deflect attention away from his own performance, which was frankly poor, and he wasn’t the only one.

“Young players within the club are dealt with contract wise as and when the time is right.”

Knight maintained that he’d already agreed with Ipswich that both O’Callaghan and fellow Town loanee Matt Richards could extend their loans until the end of the season but neither player wanted to commit to it until they’d explored other options.

Unsurprisingly, O’Callaghan’s stay with the Seagulls came to an abrupt end and he returned to Portman Road.

Sidestepping the spat with Knight, O’Callaghan reckoned his return to Ipswich was his decision, telling The Argus: “I enjoyed playing regularly at Brighton but I spoke with the gaffer and decided it is right to try again at Ipswich and try to get first team action.

“They are a good bunch of lads at Brighton and I enjoyed playing with them so I hope things work out for them.”

When a month later there was no look-in happening with the Tractor Boys, he returned to Ireland once again to play for his old club, Cork City. It was part of a familiar pattern.

*Deadline day signings David Martot and George O’Callaghan*

O’Callaghan had joined the Albion on loan (the same day David Martot signed a similar arrangement from Le Havre) on August transfer deadline day having rejected a permanent move earlier that month (the clubs had agreed a £60,000 deal plus £15,000 based on appearances).

The player said at the time: “It would be a shame to leave Ipswich because the supporters have been brilliant to me, even though they never saw enough of me, and all the lads are fantastic, but I need to be playing regular football.”

Town manager Jim Magilton praised O’Callaghan’s ability and attitude and empathised with his frustration at not getting a run in the side. He said: “I don’t want to lose George but I wouldn’t stand in his way. He has been great since he has been here. He is very popular in the dressing room and he has done very well.

“But he is 28 years of age and needs to be playing games. I have been there, so totally understand how frustrating it can be. We will do anything we can to help him.

“I have absolutely no problems with George. He has been top class since he came here. His attitude is first-class in training and in games.”

O’Callaghan had impressed Knight in a reserves match when Ipswich beat the Seagulls’ second string.

When O’Callaghan finally agreed the temporary move, Albion also wanted his Town teammate Richards on loan, but he too prevaricated, only to change his mind the following month. It was the first of three loan spells with the Albion. Brighton also wanted a third Ipswich player, injury-prone Dean Bowditch, who had briefly been on loan the previous season, and he eventually returned for a month in 2008.

Born in Cork on 5 September 1979, O’Callaghan left Ireland as a teenager to pursue his football dream and in a March 2020 podcast with the Irish Examiner, he talked about his early days at Port Vale when he was regarded as one of the hottest properties in football.

“Arsenal came in for me when I was 18,” he said. “I was waiting outside the manager John Rudge’s office and Pat Rice, who was Arsene Wenge’s assistant at the time, came out and said: ‘George, we can’t get you this time, we’ll get you next time,’.”

When the youngster protested to Rudge, he was told Arsenal had only offered £1m for him and Vale wanted £2m. O’Callaghan continued to progress in Vale’s Championship team but when Rudge was replaced by Horton, he was demoted back to the youth team.

In another podcast, A Footballer’s Life, O’Callaghan admitted to Graham Cummins that he turned to drink as his promising career stalled. “You’re responsible for your own actions so it’s ultimately your own fault. But nobody looked out for me or had my back at the club. Nobody caught me and said, ‘George, what’s going on, you’re not yourself’.

“Those days, the clubs didn’t care, it was old school, you were put out to do the job and if you didn’t you were replaced.

“You never asked anyone for help in those days. I kind of went into meltdown. Everything unravelled, I didn’t know what I was doing.”

When he eventually got back in the first team picture, he said Arsenal’s north London rivals Spurs then showed an interest in him. “David Pleat tried to sign me for Tottenham. But Brian Horton said: ‘You’re doing really well,’ and offered me a two-year deal and doubled my money.”

He asked Rudge’s opinion about the situation and when told he should stay at Vale because he’d struggle to get games for Spurs, he stayed put. “I took his advice and signed the contract. Within about 14 months I was finished, sent home.

“It was a massive mistake, a big, big mistake. I was too comfortable in the situation I was in. I probably didn’t have the guts to go ahead with it. I loved playing for Port Vale but I should have pushed for Arsenal and Tottenham. And then you can always go out on loan if it doesn’t work out.”

One of O’Callaghan’s early matches for Albion was against his old club and unsurprisingly he was a natural interviewee before the game. “It is a very special club to me because I started off my career there when I was only 15,” he told The Argus.

The Irishman scored four goals in 22 league starts plus 12 sub appearances for Vale and felt he probably had a point to prove coming up against them (Albion won 1-0 with a goal from Alex Revell).

“I never showed Port Vale fans what I can do,” he said. “I took a few wrong roads when I was a kid and it has taken me a while to get back to where I am now.

“It will be nice to put on a good performance and show them what they have missed; the player I have turned into. I never fulfilled my potential there.

“I started off doing well there as a kid but I didn’t really have the right guidance and it all went pear-shaped. As soon as John Rudge left as manager and Brian Horton came in, my chances were limited. I think that is where it all went wrong.

“Obviously, I wasn’t his type of footballer. People said he was a good footballer, but he wanted physical lads.

“Maybe at the time I wasn’t physical enough and he didn’t fancy me. I don’t blame him in any way because at the end of the day it is all down to yourself and how you look after yourself.”

He added: “I had so many knocks there that it took the fire out of me. I had to go back to Cork to get that fire back into me and build my career again.

“It was a big learning curve in my life. I lost my career in English football for a while and had to battle hard to get back.”

The player’s topsy-turvy career continued back at Cork City before he had another go in England, spending eight months at Tranmere Rovers. Once again he returned to Ireland, this time to play for Dundalk, but the lure of the English game beckoned again.

O’Callaghan linked up with Yeovil Town in the summer of 2009 and played in three pre-season friendlies. In the opening months of the season, he made 15 appearances (including six from the bench) but found it difficult to break into the team past the partnership of Jean-Paul Kalala and Shaun MacDonald.

Next stop, in December that year, was Waterford but before long he was back at Cork City once again. Brentford took him on a two-week trial but nothing came of it and instead he went to then Conference side Cambridge United but didn’t feature.

The wandering Irishman at one point tied his luck with Brunei side Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota but he got into trouble for failing to bow to the Crown Prince.

His old Brighton and Ipswich teammate Nicky Forster took him on at Dover Athletic but he only played once for the Conference South team, and he announced his retirement on Christmas Eve 2012.

He briefly managed Sabah in the Malaysia Premier League in 2014 but he struggled to deal with El Hadji Diouf and was sacked in January 2015 when he started missing training sessions.

Four years after playing what he thought was his last game, he turned out for junior Cork club Rockmount.

After packing up playing, O’Callaghan became an agent and spent a year as a business development manager for William Hill. He was a general manager for gym chain Anytime Fitness for two years and later co-founded agency TEN Sports Management.

High-flying Canary Culverhouse flew with lowly Seagulls too

ONE-TIME Norwich City hero Ian Culverhouse flew high in the Premier League and Europe with the Canaries and ended his playing days at basement Brighton where he began a lengthy coaching and managing career.

It was only at the end of November 2024 that Culverhouse began a new managerial post, taking charge of sixth tier (National League South) side St Albans City.

A few weeks previously he had parted company from Boston United because they were struggling to come to terms with life in the tier above.

Culverhouse was brought to Brighton by Brian Horton in 1998, shortly after he’d been picked up by non-league Kingstonian having been given a free transfer earlier in the year by Swindon Town. He’d spent three and a half years at the County Ground, including being a key player in their Second Division Championship-winning squad of 1995-96, but left the Robins after falling-out with manager Steve McMahon.

He’d only played twice for Kingstonian before he joined Brighton, who were playing in exile at Gillingham at the time.

Signed on a monthly contract initially, his presence as a sweeper helped plug holes at the back and saw Torquay United, Scarborough and Swansea City all beaten. But after two months, Horton decided to dispense with a sweeper and play a flat back four, so Culverhouse was let go.

But when Albion promptly lost 3-1 to Mansfield Town without him, Horton had a change of heart. He re-signed Culverhouse before a week was up, gave him a contract until the end of the season and even made him captain (in the absence of injured Gary Hobson). Quite some turnaround.

“He was one of the best readers of the game the Albion have had,” reckoned wearebrighton.com. “Culverhouse would always be in the right place at the right time, on the scene to stop danger before anybody realised that there was danger coming.”

The musically-minded wags amongst the Albion die-hards also found the perfect terrace song for him – sung to the tune of Our House by Madness, ‘Culverhouse, in the middle of defence’ became a popular ditty.

He completed 38 appearances for the Seagulls that season and took his first steps towards a coaching and managing career under Horton’s successor, Jeff Wood, when he began coaching the reserve side. Wood said: “Ian has shown on the field that he is a player of immense ability. In his new coaching role, he will now have the opportunity to pass his knowledge on to the younger players at the club.”

A grateful Culverhouse added: “This is a good opportunity for me and I am looking forward to it.

“It’s the first chance I’ve had to coach and it’s something I wanted to do anyway when my career finished. It has just come at a nice time.”

Albion’s then chairman, Dick Knight, told the Argus: “Ian has impressed me greatly with not only his experience but his attitude.

“He has been a real leader in the dressing room as well as on the field and we are giving him a chance to bring that know-how to bear on the coaching side.”

Culverhouse was retained as reserve team coach after Micky Adams took over from Wood towards the end of the season, and the new boss told the Argus: “Ian reminds me a bit of myself. You have got to get on the ladder somewhere. He is enthusiastic, has had a good career and sets himself high standards.

“He has a lot to learn in terms of coaching, but I hope he will become fully qualified along with the rest of my staff.

“He will still be registered as a player as well in case we need him in emergencies, but I don’t envisage him playing too many games.”

In fact, there was just the one final first team appearance for him, when Adams tried to bring a halt to a six-game winless run at the start of 2000. But it didn’t go well and he was subbed off in a 2-0 defeat at Hull.

“It is fair to say we have possibly seen the last of Culvs in a first team shirt,” Adams admitted later. “He is still registered as a player, but his career is probably over. It was me that persuaded him to play at Hull. He wasn’t sure he would be up to it in terms of fitness.”

Born in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, on 22 September 1964, Culverhouse was in the England Youth squad for an international junior tournament in Norway in the summer of 1982, starting in a 4-1 defeat to the home nation and gaining a second cap as a sub in a 3-2 win over Poland.

In the same year, he began as an apprentice at Tottenham. He impressed in Spurs’ youth and reserve sides and spent three years at the Lane. “I was playing alongside players like Ricky Villa, Ossie Ardiles and Glenn Hoddle, which was tremendous experience,” he said.

He even collected a UEFA Cup winners’ medal in 1984 as an unused substitute in the first leg of Spurs’ win (on penalties) over Anderlecht; future Albion boss Chris Hughton was left-back and recent signing from Albion, Gary Stevens, was in midfield, and scored one of the decisive penalties.

But Culverhouse only made one full appearance for the first team, plus one as a substitute, and in October 1985 moved to Norwich under Ken Brown for a £50,000 fee. He was part of the Norfolk club’s Second Division title-winning side of 1985-86 in his first season and became an established defender, usually as a right-back but also as a sweeper.

He was part of the successful Canaries side that finished third in the inaugural Premier League season of 1992-93 after enjoying three top five finishes in the old First Division, reaching two FA Cup semi-finals (1989 and 1992) and playing in Europe (1993-94). He won the club’s player-of the-year award in 1990-91.

The excellent Norwich fans website Flown From The Nest blamed the Robert Chase regime for Culverhouse’s eventual departure from Carrow Road after nine years.

“From being an integral part of the City team that finished third in the Premiership and enjoyed UEFA Cup success, Ian Culverhouse found himself at the start of the 1994-95 season out of contract and out of favour with Robert Chase and manager John Deehan,” it said. “Similar problems had occurred the previous season with Dave Phillips.”

Together with the contract issues, Culverhouse went public to criticise Deehan’s decision to drop him, which ended any chance he had of regaining his place. Eventually, he was transferred to Swindon for the bargain sum of £150,000 in December 1994, the fee being fixed by a tribunal.

After he left Brighton in 2000, Culverhouse became youth coach at Barnet and two years later joined Leyton Orient in a similar role before being elevated to assistant manager. He left the Os in August 2005 – replaced by future Villa boss Dean Smith – but was then appointed coach at Wycombe Wanderers by former Swindon boss John Gorman.

When Paul Lambert succeeded Gorman, he and Culverhouse developed a strong bond. He followed Lambert to Colchester United to become assistant manager, then returned to Norwich in the same role, where he didn’t forget Wood’s role in setting him on the coaching ladder, being instrumental in the former Albion manager’s appointment as Norwich’s goalkeeping coach.

At the end of their first season, Lambert and Culverhouse steered Norwich to the League One title. The following season, they won promotion to the Premier League and finished 12th in their inaugural season back at the elite level. When Lambert quit Norwich to take charge at Aston Villa in July 2012, Culverhouse and fellow ‘lieutenant’ Gary Karsa followed him.

In June 2013, Lambert told the Birmingham Mail how much trust he placed in his right-hand man. “My assistant boss Ian Culverhouse has a real eye for a player,” he said. “If he reckons we should go for someone I will back his judgement 100 per cent.”

But in April 2014 Culverhouse and Karsa were suspended by the club after being accused of bullying and aggressiveness by players and other staff members, and they were sacked the following month.

Between January 2016 and February 2017, Culverhouse was assistant manager to veteran boss John Still at Dagenham & Redbridge. He left the Daggers to become manager of Southern League Premier Division side King’s Lynn Town. In May 2018, he moved on to Grantham Town but left after only five months and returned to King’s Lynn.

He led them to a second place finish in the Southern League, and. in the subsequent play-offs against Northern Premier League Warrington, saw the Linnets win 3-2 in extra time to earn a place in the National League (North) for 2019-20.

This was the Covid-affected season in which the fixtures weren’t completed. Lynn finished the games played two points behind York City with two games in hand. The National League board ultimately decided, using an “unweighted points per game” formula that Lynn would have won the title and they therefore gained promotion to the National League.

However, on 29 November 2021 he was sacked by Lynn on the back of a run of eight league defeats in a row which left the club second from bottom of the National League and struggling for survival.

Two months later, he was back in management at National League North Kettering Town, together with assistant Paul Bastock, although that tenure only lasted four months.

Next stop was Boston United in September of the same year, a club all too familiar to Bastock, who played 679 games for the Pilgrims (and broke Peter Shilton’s record in competitive club football when he made his 1,250^th appearance in the game in 2017).

The pair helped to preserve Boston’s league status in their first season and then guided them to promotion via the play-offs in May 2024. United’s struggle in higher company – only two wins in 16 matches – led to Culverhouse and Bastock leaving the Jakemans Community Stadium in October 2024.

Football’s Ansah to making the game look dramatic

FICTIONAL football gained an unlikely champion in Andy Ansah.

The journeyman striker eventually mixed it with the game’s elite players as he built a new career in the world of football make-believe for TV and film.

His own exploits on the field were in less esteemed company, including stints playing in the lower leagues for Brighton, Brentford and Southend United.

Not too many Brighton fans will remember him, though, because his 25 appearances in the blue and white stripes coincided with the two seasons when home matches were played 90 miles from home in Gillingham.

With crowd numbers low and finances tight as a consequence, Albion were in no position to splash the cash in the autumn of 1997; indeed John Humphrey, Craig Maskell, Paul McDonald, Denny Mundee and Ian Baird, five of the squad who had kept the Seagulls in the league by the skin of their teeth only six months earlier, were let go in an effort to trim the wage bill.

It was in that climate that Ansah, who had dropped out of league football at the time, was picked up by Steve Gritt.

It only transpired in an interview Ansah gave to the Express in December 2011 that he came clean to the Albion about a kidney condition (nephrotic syndrome) he had suffered from since teenage years but had kept hidden at previous clubs.

It could at times make his body swell so much he could hardly walk and he would need hospital treatment to bring it under control.

He told the newspaper he had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide the illness from managers, coaches and fellow players for fear that it would mean the end of his career. When he felt poorly, he would wear tracksuit bottoms on the training ground to hide the swelling, and then feign illness.

At Brighton, however, the condition did not stop him being involved, although the majority of his appearances were as a substitute.

Apart from a start in a 5-0 mauling at the hands of Walsall in the Auto Windscreens Shield on 6 January 1998, he had made three Third Division appearances going on as a sub and was unused on seven occasions before his fortunes changed.

Although he missed a decent chance after going on as a sub in a 2-0 defeat at Rochdale, he made amends when Gritt gave him his first League start away to Exeter City, curving the ball beyond Ashley Bayes from Stuart Storer’s flick-on.

Sadly, a rogue refereeing decision helped the home side to a 2-1 win, and, with Albion floundering in second-to-bottom spot in the division, Gritt was sacked the following day.

Ansah retained his place for new manager Brian Horton’s first match – and he was on the scoresheet again. This time, his goal and a brace from Kerry Mayo gave the Seagulls a 3-2 win over Chester – the side’s first taste of victory in 10 matches!

“The emergency partnership of Stuart Storer and Andy Ansah has provided fresh movement and impetus up front, while wingers John Westcott and Steve Barnes saw far more of the ball on Saturday than they have been accustomed to,” reported The Argus.

Albion finished the season 23^rd of 24 teams but thankfully 15 points ahead of Doncaster Rovers in last place.

Ansah scored again in the last ‘home’ game of the season – a 2-2 draw with Horton’s old side Hull City (who finished 22^nd) – but, like a lot of players, he was out of contract at the end of the season.

Horton wanted to bring in his own players but, as it turned out, Ansah was offered a new one-year deal, with The Argus saying “Horton hasn’t been able to find a better replacement at the right price, so Ansah has been given a second chance”.

The manager explained: “He did well, but I was bringing new faces in. I’ve had a good look around and Andy is as good as what we could get. He can score goals and he can play in different positions.”

*Ansah lines up for the Seagulls in exile*

For his part, Ansah told the newspaper:“Technically I was given a free, but I knew I would be speaking to the gaffer again before pre-season.

“There was still a chance that I was going to get a contract and I’m very pleased that I have. I think Brighton are going to do things this season.”

Although Albion avoided flirting with relegation for the first time in three seasons, their 17th finishing spot was hardly cause to put the flags out, and Ansah made only two starts. He went on as a sub on nine occasions and was an unused sub on nine others.

Horton left mid-season to return to the north, assistant Jeff Wood struggled in a brief spell as no.1, and Micky Adams only arrived to take charge towards the very end. Ansah was one of nine players out of contract and released at the end of the season (the others were Derek Allan, Michael Bennett, Tony Browne, Lee Doherty, Danny Mills, Darragh Ryan, Peter Smith, Storer, Terry Streeter and Paul Sturgess).

While the Albion prepared to return to Brighton to play at the Withdean athletics stadium, Ansah embarked on a career that attracted a hell of a lot more viewers than had seen him perform at the Priestfield Stadium.

Brentford fan Nick Bruzon has told Andy’s remarkable story on a few occasions and his ‘last word’ blog goes into plenty of detail about it.

In summary, though, after leaving Brighton, Ansah worked as an actor for six seasons on the Sky TV football soap Dream Team, appearing for fictional Harchester United.

He recruited two other former Albion players for Harchester: Peter Smith and Junior McDougald. As one of the older players, early on he was asked the best way to shoot certain scenes and within a year he was the producer.

His ability to choreograph football scenes then led him to Hollywood as a consultant on Goal!, a US film trilogy about a Mexican immigrant who gets to play in the English Premiership.

He even got to spend a day working with his all-time hero Pele in Brazil. “He was an unbelievable guy, a real gentleman,” Ansah told the Southend Echo in a 2008 interview with John Geoghegan.

“Because of my footballing background, I can talk to the players and the crew and translate between the two.

“It’s my job to make sure the footballers feel relaxed and do what they do normally in front of a camera.

“Film has always been a big love of mine, ever since school. And with football, to a degree, you are on stage entertaining. So, there are a lot of similarities between the two.”

He choreographed the whole of the Mike Bassett: England Manager film (starring Ricky Tomlinson) and worked on three series of Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.

As co-presenter of the Sky 1 programme, Ansah scouted the UK for talent, and took to Rooney 100 talented young footballers who he had to whittle down to win the Street Striker crown.

It was with encouragement from contacts in Hollywood that he put his work on a more commercial footing. He set up his own consultancy, Soccer on Screen, and among many football-based advertisements helped Guy Ritchie direct a Nike commercial for the 2010 World Cup. He has also advised EA Sports, makers of the Fifa video games.

Born in Lewisham, south east London, on 19 March 1969, Ansah was a promising winger during his school days and was playing at county level when he started to attract the attention of clubs.

Way before the days of organised academies, he was picked up by Charlton Athletic aged 11 and stayed with them until he was 16. When he turned 17, he signed as a professional at Crystal Palace.

Ansah told Bruzon: “Because I had been in the system from such a young age, I kind of got a bit complacent and a little bit fed up of football.

“When I left Palace, Steve Coppell said to me: ‘I’m not sure if you really want to play football so I’m going to release you.’

After a six-month break from the game, he joined non-league Dorking stayed out of the game for about six months and then joined Dorking, where Dave Goodwin, who had originally scouted him for Charlton, was working.

When he scored 14 goals in three months for Dorking, Brentford, Fulham and Reading all offered him a contract but he chose the Bees because assistant manager Phil Holder promised to pick him up and take him to play for the reserve team, which he was managing.

Ansah scored twice on his first start for Brentford in a 3-2 defeat at Bolton but only made eight appearances after falling out with manager Steve Perryman.

In a reserves match between Brentford and Southend, Ansah scored and caught the attention of Shrimpers boss David Webb, who eventually took him to Roots Hall.

Over the course of six years, he scored 38 goals in 180 appearances for Southend and, as well as Holder, reckoned Webb had been the biggest influence on his career.

“David gave me a licence to express myself,” Ansah told Bruzon. “He would say, ‘I don’t care what the outcome is, just go out there and express yourself.’ It really did work!”

Ansah was part of the United side that earned promotion to Division One (now the Championship) and was later named Southend’s 13th most popular player of all time.

“That in itself is a massive achievement,” he said. “It’s good to know that the fans enjoyed what I was doing when I was there. It’s always nice, to get that sort of feedback.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when Webb took charge at Brentford, Ansah ended up following him, albeit on loan, scoring just the once (ironically against Brighton in a 2-1 Bees win on 26 November 1994) in four games and again the following season, when he scored once in six appearances.

But Ansah told Bruzon that he didn’t do himself justice because he wasn’t properly fit at that time and, if he had taken medical advice, he probably should have retired because of a knee injury.

“I was fighting to get myself back fit again,” he said. “My first game back I got a cut on my head within 15 minutes and then got it stitched up. I got man of the match but never could regain full fitness. At that stage, the surgeon told me I’d never be fully fit again with my knee.”

He played a couple of games at each of Peterborough, Gillingham and Leyton Orient before dropping out of the league with Hayes, Bromley and Heybridge Swifts.

Ansah’s son Zac spent 10 years with Arsenal’s academy. He moved on to Charlton Athletic when they were in the Championship but didn’t break through and had loan spells with League Two sides Plymouth Argyle and Newport County (playing a total of 26 matches) before moving into non-league football.

In parallel lines

Memories from 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Brian Horton