A PLAYER seen by only a few hundred loyal Albion supporters played under Brian Horton for Manchester City and Brighton.
Scott Thomas was spotted by City as an 11-year-old, joined them straight from school and was on the club’s staff for six years.
But he only ever featured for the first team on two occasions, in successive matches during Horton’s Maine Road reign.
Thomas in City’s sky blue
A serious injury while playing on loan in America dealt a devastating blow to his hopes of a top flight career, and when City overlooked Thomas during the club’s slide towards the third tier, Horton threw him a brief lifeline.
Albion’s former captain, back at the club as manager when they played home games in exile at Gillingham, inherited a side in turmoil when he took over from Steve Gritt in February 1998.
Albion were second from bottom of the basement division and had endured a 12-game winless home run under Gritt. A Valentine’s Day nightmare 0-0 draw at home to bottom club Doncaster Rovers followed by successive away defeats against Rochdale and Exeter saw chairman Dick Knight wield the axe on a man who had delivered the miracle escape from relegation less than a year earlier.
Horton wheeled and dealed as best he could with limited resources and, after one of many loanees, Steve Barnes, returned to parent club Birmingham City, he remembered the youngster who he’d given a couple of outings to at the end of the 1994-95 season.
Paul Dickov and Scott Thomas
It seems extraordinary to say it now, but Manchester City were in a pretty desperate plight themselves between 1996 and 1998. Five different managers took charge over the course of the 1996-97 season. Alan Ball was in charge at the beginning, he was followed by Asa Hartford. Then Steve Coppell took the reins, before deciding after six matches that it wasn’t for him. Former Liverpool full-back Phil Neal succeeded his former England teammate. Eventually, former Nottingham Forest player and boss Frank Clark took over.
Clark was still in charge at the start of the following season, but a run of poor results saw him off, replaced by former Everton and City centre-forward Joe Royle. He couldn’t stop the rot and City were relegated to the third tier for the first time in their history.
Although a total of 38 players saw action in that desperate but ultimately fruitless attempt to avoid relegation, Thomas wasn’t one of them.
There had been a succession of players not wanted at other clubs who pulled on Albion’s stripes that season and Horton turned to blond-haired winger Thomas on the eve of the March transfer deadline day as he shuffled his pack trying to steer the side away from the bottom of the fourth tier.
“He can play on either wing or down the middle,” said Horton, by way of introduction in his Albion matchday programme notes.
Scott Thomas (front row, second from right) in a pre-match Albion line-up
After making his debut in a 0-0 draw at Cardiff City on 28 March 1998, skipper Gary Hobson declared: “Scott Thomas did well on the right of midfield.” And Horton said: “I was pleased with the first game for Scott Thomas, he looked lively and he came off with a bit of cramp late on.”
It was the first of seven games Thomas played for the Seagulls as the season drew to a close, and in his second game Albion earned their first win in six matches, beating Scunthorpe United 2-1 in front of a Priestfield crowd of 2,141.
Thomas took over the no.9 shirt v Scunthorpe
He switched wings and played on the left in that match and Horton made a point of mentioning in his programme notes how the youngster had been unlucky to have been denied by a fantastic save by Iron ‘keeper Tim Clarke.
Unfortunately, that was the only game in which he was on the winning side: Albion drew three and lost two in the remaining matches. And Thomas was sent back to City at the season’s end.
It has since emerged that a serious injury the winger sustained two years earlier ultimately put paid to him continuing to play professionally.
He had been sent on loan to the United States to play for Richmond Kickers in Virginia. He told the Bolton News: “It was a brilliant opportunity being in the States but I shattered my left leg in four places and had to come back. I was gutted.”
As part of his recovery, he was sent to his local gym, Phoenix Health and Fitness in Bolton, and, four years after the injury forced him to retire, he bought it.
Gym owner
“Football will always be my main love,” he told the newspaper. “Keeping fit has played such a big part of my life — I’ve done various marathons and two Ironman triathlons too — so owning a gym was a natural choice.”
Born in Fairfield, Bury, on 30 October 1974, Thomas told the newspaper his father reckoned he started kicking a football against a wall or fence as soon as he could walk.
He was playing for Radcliffe Juniors when he was seven and, at 11, was scouted by City while he was playing in the Bury League.
“I thought it was brilliant at the time – it was a really big deal,” he said. “I did trials in the school holidays and then trained after school, so I’d get a bus from Bolton, through Bury and into Manchester to meet my dad before going to the grounds.”
Thomas’ son, Luca, has followed in his father’s footsteps. He worked his way through City’s academy sides but when he turned 16 switched to Leeds United’s scholarship scheme.
In the 2021-22 season, he scored 15 goals in 17 matches in the Under-18s Premier League North, and in August 2022 signed a two-year professional contract with Leeds.
“It has changed from when I was younger,” Thomas Snr told the Bolton News. “They have to grow up a lot quicker these days. It’s such a cut-throat industry: you can be flavour of the month one minute, winning Young Player of the Year like me, then out with an injury the next.”
Both of Scott’s City first team appearances were as a substitute. The first was on 6 May 1995 when he went on for Maurizio Gaudino on the hour mark at the City Ground, Nottingham. Forest won by a single goal, scored by Stan Collymore in the first half.
Matchday programme
Eight days later, Thomas only got on in the 83rd minute when he replaced Paul Walsh as City went down 3-2 at Maine Road to QPR, for whom Les Ferdinand scored twice.
The winger also played in America for Richmond Kickers founder Bobby Lennon’s other club, Palm Beach Pumas, and he is quoted on the US Soccer Academy website as saying: “The level of football was excellent. Even though my career was cut short due to an injury, I will always have great soccer memories of my time in Florida.”
INJURIES beset Derek Allan’s promising career but he played 100 games at the heart of Brighton’s defence during turbulent times and remembers warmly “a wonderful club”.
In an exclusive interview with In Parallel Lines, Allan reveals the niggles that affected him and recalls the people who helped to shape his playing career.
The Scot remains involved in the game as an academy coach at Greenock Morton and his only lament is that the sports nutrition and science today’s footballers are able to call on to prevent and cure injury wasn’t available when he was playing.
Born in Irvine, on the West Coast of Scotland, on Christmas Eve 1974, Allan’s first steps towards a professional career came with selection for Scottish schools’ representative sides, being picked at all levels from 12 through to 16.
Ayr United, the club based a 20-minute drive from his home town, took him on as a YTS trainee and he moved quickly through the ranks before signing as a professional at the age of 17.
George Burley, the former Ipswich and Scotland international full-back, was beginning his managerial career with The Honest Men at that time but it was his assistant, Dale Roberts, who’d also played for The Tractor Boys, who helped Allan the most.
“Dale was a huge figure in my early days: a fantastic guy,” said Allan. “He had me out every day striking footballs; he was an incredible guy.” Roberts sadly died from cancer aged 46 in 2003.
After only five appearances for United in the 1992-93 season, Allan was sold to Southampton for £75,000. He explained how the move came about. “I was spotted playing for Ayr at Hamilton Accies on a cold Tuesday night in 1993. Ian Branfoot (Southampton manager at the time) came to watch someone else and took me instead.”
It must have been quite an upheaval to leave home and family to start a career on the south coast, but Allan said it was the making of him.
“It was a huge learning curve for me and I wasn’t really prepared to leave family and friends at that time.
“But that few months after leaving set me up for life. It made me the person I am today.”
Scottish under-18 and under-21 honours were added to his schoolboy recognition but his progress during three years at Southampton was hampered by injury.
“It was the story of my career, really,” he said. “Looking back, I lost 18 months of a three-year contract to injury and it was a crucial time in my development.
“In hindsight, I could have done more myself to look after myself better, although there were no sports scientists back then to help with nutrition, recovery etc.”
That backdrop of injury meant he was restricted to just one first team appearance for the Saints, when he was a late substitute for Matthew Bound in a 1-0 defeat at Manchester City on 1 May 1993.
Ken Monkou was at the heart of the Saints defence at the time and a certain Micky Adams was left-back with Jason Dodd also prominent.
It was in March 1996 when former Saint Jimmy Case, by now rather reluctantly in the hotseat at the Albion, went back to his old club to take the young centre-back on loan in the same week that future captain Gary Hobson was signed permanently from Hull City, and forward Zeke Rowe from Chelsea.
Seagulls’ ex-Saints quartet: Maskell, McDonald, Allan and Case
“I felt at that time Jimmy, with his connection to Saints, and his understanding of the game would be ideal for me,” Allan recalled. “Unfortunately, we all know what happened.”
Nevertheless, he was certainly among familiar faces because Case had not long previously persuaded his old club to part with Paul McDonald and Craig Maskell.
Allan took over the no.5 shirt from Ross Johnson for his debut but was on the losing side as Albion went down 3-2 at Swindon Town.
After an initial eight games, Allan’s move became permanent and he often appeared alongside Hobson in the heart of the defence, although, with a combination of poor results, injuries and frequent managerial changes, he wasn’t always an automatic starter.
The likes of Johnson, the experienced Mark Morris and, for a while, young Kevin McGarrigle provided competition as Albion bumped around the basement.
However, in his first full season with the Seagulls, 1996-97, Allan played 32 matches as the club scrabbled to avoid dropping out of the league, surviving only courtesy of the last-game 1-1 draw at Hereford. By then, of course, Steve Gritt had taken over from Case and Allan rated him highest of the different bosses he played under.
“Steve Gritt was definitely the best for me personally, it’s just a shame the injuries I got stopped me from showing what I could do consistently,” he said.
The off-the-field shenanigans, with rogue directors trying to sell the ground for redevelopment without having a new ground to move to, must also have been a difficult backdrop for any of the side at that time.
Allan said: “It’s easy to see the problems they had at that time and it’s a very different club now. The fans were unbelievable back then and they supported us every week even though we played under some huge pressure.
“I didn’t do myself justice really, playing with injuries and stuff like that, but it’s a wonderful club and fanbase. The fans never really got to see the best of me, which was a shame.”
Towards the end of his time with the Seagulls, he went on the transfer list and didn’t see eye to eye with Brian Horton, who’d returned to the club as manager. Allan declared it was “just the usual disagreements that happen between player and manager” which is now all water under the bridge.
“I actually saw Brian years later and we had a laugh about it,” he said. “He was an angry man, the same as me!”
At the end of his Albion stint, Allan stepped into the Conference with Kingstonian — a “great club with a great manager in Geoff Chapple” — and he made 75 appearances in two years.
Allan was on the bench when Kingstonian beat Kettering Town 3-2 to win the FA Trophy in front of 20,034 fans at Wembley in May 2000. Geoff Pitcher, who later played briefly for the Seagulls in the 2001-02 season, was in Kingstonian’s midfield that day.
“I finished my last season there as Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year,” said Allan. “I think that was the beginning of my thoughts of shifting to getting a new career long term. It was the best decision I ever made.”
Problems off the field meant in 2001 he moved back to Scotland, where he joined Queen of the South on a semi-professional basis for three years. During his time there, they won the Bell’s Cup and the Scottish Football League Division 2 Championship.
After 60 appearances for The Doonhamers, Allan’s last port of call as a semi-pro player was at Scottish Division Two Dumbarton for the 2004-05 season, making five appearances plus one as a sub.
Asked to sum up his career, he issues an upbeat thought, saying: “Great promise, bad luck, brilliant life memories and no regrets. Not many people can say they played for these wonderful clubs. I have memories that will last a lifetime.”
Before those playing days had ended, in 2002, Allan began a new career as a technical recruitment consultant, spending 11 years with NES Global Talent. Since 2013, he has been head of recruitment and talent acquisition for engineering services provider Booth Welsh, part of the global Clough Group.
He obtained the UEFA Advanced Youth A coaching licence in 2014 and is currently the under-18 academy coach at Greenock Morton.
“We have brought through some great young guys who have careers in the game,” he said. “I still love the competitive side and it’s great still to be involved.”
Today, Allan occasionally exchanges messages with former Albion teammates Hobson and Kerry Mayo but he is in more regular contact with McDonald, who only stood down in July 2021 after 18 years as an academy coach at Kilmarnock.
• Pictures from Albion matchday programmes and various online sources.
A CAREER highlight saw Welshman Mark Walton keep goal for Norwich City in a FA Cup semi-final in front of 40,000 at Hillsborough but his time with the Seagulls was marred by Brighton’s boo boys.
Walton’s first action in an Albion shirt was in front of only a few Albion followers because Brian Horton signed him in the summer of 1998 when the side was playing in exile at Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium.
Walton, who’d been part of Micky Adams’ fourth tier Fulham promotion side in 1996-97, found himself out of favour at Craven Cottage once Kevin Keegan had been installed as manager following the club’s takeover by Mohamed Al-Fayed.
Not wishing to play second fiddle to Northern Ireland international Maik Taylor, Walton moved for £20,000 to Brighton, who were a ‘keeper light after Nicky Rust’s departure to Barnet. Walton was Horton’s first choice between the sticks in the opening 16 games of the season.
“When Maik arrived, it was a matter of when I went rather than anything else,” he told fulhamfocus.com. “I was at a stage in my career that I just wanted to play, so moving was a necessity. In retrospect, I probably should have thought harder about my decision to join Brighton.”
After he’d shipped six goals in two successive 3-1 defeats in October, young Mark Ormerod took over and kept the ‘keeper’s jersey until Horton quit to take over at Port Vale shortly into the new year.
Caretaker boss, Jeff Wood, who’d been a goalkeeper himself, reinstated Walton to the starting line-up for five matches, but he damaged a hamstring in a 3-0 defeat at Southend on 20 February and didn’t play again that season.
Walton must have been encouraged when his old boss Adams took over from Wood, and he shed a stone and a half during the summer to get back into shape. Although Ormerod started the first five games of the new season back in Brighton, Walton was then reinstated as first choice ‘keeper.
But a gaffe — wearebrighton.com recounted how Walton’s attempted clearance from a back pass cannoned into the back of Paul Watson and into the net for an own goal — as Albion succumbed 3-2 to previously winless Chester City on 18 September (despite a goalscoring debut for Danny Cullip) saw feelings running high.
Adams had the players in for an extra training session the following day and Walton was dropped for the next match. Before the month was over, he submitted a transfer request citing the stick he was receiving as his reason for wanting to go.
“It’s one of those things you cannot really do too much about,” he told The Argus. “I am not the first and I won’t be the last. Everybody hears it. It’s just general abuse from boo boys and it’s the same home and away.
“It is obviously not the best feeling in the world, but you are paid to do a job and you go out and give your best.”
The manager was clearly upset that Walton felt he had to leave because of criticism from supporters.
“I’m immensely disappointed that a boy has come in to see me and wants to leave the club because he feels he is not being given a fair crack of the whip by the fans,” Adams told The Argus. “I am disappointed it has come to this and that he feels he has got to bow to fan pressure.
“Mark is a great lad. Whichever eleven lads I put out on the pitch in the blue and white stripes, they are representing Albion and the fans have got to get behind them. They are going out to give their best for the supporters and the club.”
Support came too from part-time goalkeeping coach John Keeley, who said: “Mark looks ever so fit now and the way he has trained and looked after himself in the summer shows he wants to prove to people he is a good goalie.
“As a goalkeeper you want the crowd on your side because it gives you a certain amount of confidence, especially when you are playing at home.”
Adams showed his faith in Walton by restoring him to the starting line-up and he was rewarded for his loyalty by two shut-outs on the road as Albion drew 0-0 at Peterborough and beat Carlisle United 1-0.
The matchday programme noted of the big ‘keeper’s performance at London Road: “Walton didn’t put a foot, or should that be hand, wrong during the 90 minutes, prompting praise from supporters, who chanted his name at the final whistle.”
Adams added: “Mark was terrific. I cannot speak highly enough of him. He is a good, honest pro and he answered his critics.”
Walton collected a player of the month award for conceding only one goal in five matches during October. He kept the shirt for the rest of the season, only missing two games towards the end, and playing a total of 45 games.
But the last-day 1-0 home win over Carlisle United turned out to be his last for the Seagulls. It was reported he’d verbally agreed a new contract but just before the start of the new season he chose to move on to Cardiff, along the road from where he was born in Merthyr Tydfil on 1 June 1969.
As it turned out, the move worked out well all round because Walton helped the Bluebirds win promotion from Division Three as runners up behind the Seagulls in top spot, Adams having unearthed a more than capable replacement in Michel Kuipers.
In an interview with Dan Smith in 2018 for fulhamfocus.com, Walton explained how his footballing life began at South Wales valleys village side Georgetown Boys Club and, because he suffered from severe asthma when he was 12, he decided it would be better to play in goal than in an outfield position. He was inspired by Phil Parkes of West Ham, Jimmy Rimmer of Aston Villa and Everton’s Neville Southall.
Walton played youth team football for Swansea City but his first senior professional club was Luton Town, where he spent six months. With the experienced Les Sealey and Andy Dibble ahead of him, he wasn’t able to break through to the first team. He moved initially on loan to Colchester United, managed by Mike Walker, who’d previously kept goal for the Us after a distinguished career at Watford.
Walker gave him his debut at Layer Road as an 18-year-old in August 1987 and he went on to make a total of 56 appearances for United, having moved permanently for £17,500 in December 1987, by which time Roger Brown was in charge.
Walker, meanwhile, had moved on to take charge of Norwich’s reserve side and, on his recommendation, City signed the Welsh goalkeeper for £75,000 in 1989.
“I owe Mike Walker a debt of gratitude to this day, as he basically taught me from scratch and helped develop me into a solid keeper with a sound technique,” Walton told Ed Couzens-Lake in a 2013 article for myfootballwriter.com.
Walton spent most of his three years at Carrow Road as understudy to first choice Bryan Gunn. It was because of a serious back injury to Gunn that Walton found himself facing Sunderland in the 1992 FA Cup semi-final, when a single goal from John Byrne settled the tie.
Looking back on his time with the Canaries, Walton told Couzens-Lake: “I loved my football and I loved Norwich, and, for me, it is still ‘my club’. The camaraderie of the dressing room was fantastic – indeed, whilst I don’t miss playing one bit, I do miss the changing room banter, all the characters, bad and good, and those shared triumphs, disasters and the shared sense of humour.”
The admirable Flown From The Nest website notes Walton made 28 appearances for the first team and 114 for their reserves. He had loan spells with Wrexham and Dundee United, trials with St Johnstone and West Ham, but it was Bolton Wanderers during Bruce Rioch’s reign that he next saw first team action, playing three games for the Trotters.
After his release from Norwich, a bizarre series of circumstances which he explained to fulhamfocus.com saw him spend two years out of the game before a Fulham fan, who was a member of the Norfolk cricket club he’d been playing for, wrote to Adams and suggested he give Walton another crack at league football.
“Micky telephoned and invited me for a trial. After three weeks, I was offered a year’s contract,” he said.
When ousted by the upheaval at the Cottage, Walton went on loan to Gillingham in March 1998 but couldn’t agree terms for a permanent move and on transfer deadline day ended up back at Norwich on loan as cover for Andy Marshall.
After his stint with the Albion and initial success at Cardiff, Walton slipped down the pecking order and briefly tried his luck with a semi-professional side in Melbourne, Australia.
He returned to South Wales after retiring from playing and went on to gain a first-class sports psychology degree at Cardiff Metropolitan University, a Masters degreeand a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) which led him to become a teacher for 10 years.
“Cricket has always been a passion of mine,” he told his new employers’ website. “I’ve always played but that became more sporadic when I focused on football, but I always tried to sneak in the odd game here and there which was often in midweek.
“I played some league cricket in Norfolk, Essex and Wales and was able to represent Wales Minor Counties. Then about 20 years ago I fell into coaching and it’s prospered from there and I’ve coached every age group within Cricket Wales.”
• Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and online sources.
MALCOLM POSKETT’s goals helped Brighton to win promotion from the second tier after he’d made a terrific start to his Albion career.
Only two days after putting pen to paper in Hove, Poskett netted the equaliser in a 1-1 draw away to Hull City on 4 February 1978 and a week later he marked his home debut with a goal in Albion’s 2-1 win over Burnley.
The game at Boothferry Park was only six minutes old when the home side went ahead but Poskett levelled it up just before half-time after a Tony Towner corner was headed goalwards by Andy Rollings and the new arrival diverted it into the net.
A £60,000 signing from fourth tier Hartlepool United, Poskett had taken over the no.9 shirt from Ian Mellor, who had only been in the side for one game in the injury absence of Teddy Maybank.
Maybank’s big money signing from Fulham four months earlier had broken up the highly successful Mellor-Peter Ward partnership that earned Albion promotion from the old Third Division, and Poskett’s arrival only served to illuminate the Goldstone exit door even brighter for Mellor, who swiftly departed for Chester.
A crowd of 22,694 saw the new man’s Division Two debut on an icy Goldstone Ground pitch. Poskett once again profited from a Towner pass to score. Skipper Brian Horton scored Albion’s other goal.
It all must have felt very showbiz to the lad from Teesside, used to playing in front of 5,000 crowds in the Fourth Division, especially when prior to kick off against the Clarets, Slade, a famous chart-topping pop group of the time, recorded a single on the pitch in front of the North Stand.
While Maybank reclaimed his starting berth from Poskett for six matches, he was troubled by a knee injury and Poskett got the nod for the remaining seven games of the season as Albion chased automatic promotion, which at that time was earned by the top three sides in the division. There were no play-offs.
Poskett repaid Mullery’s faith in him with a hat-trick in a 4-0 win away to Bristol Rovers and by netting the only goal of the game in the penultimate fixture at home to Charlton Athletic in front of 31,203 fans.
What happened next has been well documented: Albion missed out on promotion when Southampton (in second) and Spurs (third) conveniently drew 0-0 in the final match of the season; Spurs edging out the Seagulls on goal difference.
Maybank had a successful cartilage operation during the summer break and was initially the preferred partner for Ward as the new season got under way.
Poskett banged in a transfer request as a mark of his frustration but, after Mullery persuaded him to withdraw it, he got his chance back in the side and made the most of opportunities that came his way.
Mullery admitted in Matthew Horner’s biography of Ward (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media) that he wasn’t always fair on Poskett when reverting to the Ward-Maybank partnership.
He pointed out: “Malcolm Poskett did a terrific job when we signed him. He was one of the most under-rated goalscorers – absolutely brilliant.
“He was really similar to Wardy, very sharp and very quick but a bit taller and a bit stronger.”
By the end of the season that ended in promotion to the top tier of English football for the first time, Poskett had contributed 10 goals in 24 games (plus eight sub appearances). He was the substitute in the famous 3-1 win back in his native north-east when Newcastle were beaten by the Seagulls on 5 May 1979.
Brighton struggled to find their feet in more exalted company and Poskett barely got a look-in, coming on as a sub twice and only starting three matches, the last of which was in the resounding 4-0 defeat to Arsenal in the League Cup on 13 November 1979.
He scored twice, though: netting the only goal in an away League Cup win over Northampton Town, and four days later scoring along with Peter O’Sullivan as Albion pulled back a 2-0 deficit to draw 2-2 at West Brom.
Poskett wheels away to celebrate his only top flight goal, away to West Brom
However, with the arrival of Ray Clarke from Ajax, it was clear Poskett’s chances at the Albion were going to remain limited, so he dropped back down a level to join promotion-seeking Watford under Graham Taylor. Albion goalkeeper Eric Steele had already made a similar switch in the autumn of that season shortly after a famous spat with Gary Williams at Old Trafford. Mullery also secured a £120,000 fee for Poskett, so Albion did very nicely out of the deal.
“I would have loved to stay at Brighton for the rest of my career, but it wasn’t to be,” Poskett told Spencer Vignes in a retrospective matchday programme article. “One week I was partnering Peter Ward, the next it would be Teddy with Peter. I never got a run in the team, even though I scored a couple of goals when I did play.
“At least with Watford I got the chance to start games. People called us kick and run, a long ball side, but we had a lot of talented players like Ross Jenkins, John Barnes and Nigel Callaghan.”
Poskett struck up a friendship with fellow new boy Martin Patching and both were on the scoresheet (Poskett scored twice) in a memorable 7-1 League Cup thrashing of Southampton on 2 September 1980.
Although being Watford’s top scorer with 21 goals in the 1980-81season, when the Hornets finished ninth, the following season he found himself in the reserves after a three-game barren spell.
In a Watford matchday programme article, he mused: “It’s a strange profession – one minute you’re up and the next down.
“I played in the first three league games of the season without scoring and was dropped. But I’m scoring fairly regularly in the reserve side and my chance will come if I keep on hitting the net. I’m a battler and not the type of player to give less than 100 per cent, no matter what grade of football I’m playing in.”
Watford won promotion as runners up behind close rivals Luton Town but Poskett couldn’t shift Luther Blissett or Jenkins, who were the preferred strike pairing, and Gerry Armstrong, later to join Brighton, was invariably the back-up option.
Born in Middlesbrough on 19 July 1953, Poskett went to Beechwood Junior School and then on to Brackenhoe Secondary Technical. His footballing ability in school sides eventually led to him being selected for North Riding Schools.
He was a decent all-round sportsman – a useful cricketer who played for Middlesbrough Schools, he also featured in local leagues at table tennis, and enjoyed tennis and badminton too.
But at 16 the budding sportsman started out as an apprenticeship plater at Cargofleet Steelworks, only playing football for the local Beechwood Youth Club and then South Bank in the Northern League.
His performances for South Bank caught the eye of Middlesbrough and he was taken on as a professional. But after 18 months in their reserves, manager Jack Charlton gave him a free transfer and he opted to become a plater on North Sea oil rigs to earn a wage.
He didn’t turn his back on football altogether, turning out part-time for Whitby Town in the Northern League. Scoring an incredible 98 goals over two seasons was bound to attract attention.
George Aitken, later a Watford coach and then a coach under Mullery at Brighton, was Workington manager at the time and tried to sign Poskett, but, disillusioned by his Boro experience he chose to stick with Whitby until Hartlepool manager Billy Horner convinced him he could still make it in the professional game.
For a £25 transfer fee, Horner took him on and devoted hours of extra time working on the youngster’s skills and sharpness. It paid off.
“My work rate was non-existent, but Billy Horner really worked on me and got me going,” Poskett told Shoot! magazine. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I would have got anywhere – I’d still be in non-League soccer. It was so hard at first, I felt like packing it in, but he kept me at it and I’m very grateful now.”
His goalscoring at Hartlepool caught the eye of Ken Craggs when he was a coach at Fulham and when Craggs switched to become Mullery’s no.2 at the Goldstone, Poskett followed soon after, the £60,000 fee representing a tidy profit for the struggling North East minnows.
“I came in during the season when we just missed out on promotion and the lads were fantastic. It was a fabulous place to live as well.
“I had to come from one end of the country to the other but, once I got there, there were lads from up north, the Midlands, so it was a good mixed bunch and I felt right at home.”
After helping Watford to promotion in 1982, Poskett headed back north and played for Carlisle United for three seasons, thriving under the managership of Bob Stokoe, who’d led Sunderland to FA Cup glory in 1973.
In the penultimate game of the 1983-84 season, Poskett scored his 100th career goal – and his 101st – as Carlisle drew 2-2 at home to Crystal Palace in front of a paltry crowd at Brunton Park of just 3,038.
Poskett subsequently had six months at Darlington, before switching to Stockport County in January 1986.
Appearances were few and far between and he went on loan to his old club Hartlepool in March the same year before moving back to Carlisle in August 1986. He finally hung up his boots at the end of the 1987-88 season.
He remained in the town and in 2017 was working as an examiner at Pirelli, the tyre manufacturer.
Pictures from Albion matchday programmes and online sources.
A JOURNEYMAN striker who fired blanks for Brighton and Sheffield United only found very occasional purple patches of goalscoring in a 12-club, 17-year career.
Billy Paynter didn’t manage a single goal in 10 games on loan for Gus Poyet’s Seagulls and carried with him from parent club Leeds United the somewhat unkind epithet ‘Barn door Billy’ for his proverbial inability to hit one with a banjo.
A subsequent half-season loan spell at Sheffield United under Nigel Clough yielded a similar zero in the goals scored column.
A journey around the message boards on supporter websites uncovers some brutal and unflattering comments about Paynter’s contribution for their team and yet it was a career that yielded 131 goals in 529 games – one in four.
And it all began promisingly under the guidance of former Albion captain and manager, Brian Horton.
Born in the Norris Green area of Liverpool on 13 July 1984, Paynter joined Port Vale’s academy at the tender age of 10 and turned professional soon after his 16th birthday.
Horton gave Paynter his first team debut when he was only 16 years and 294 days old on 3 May 2001 as a 61st-minute substitute at home to Walsall.
It was 10 months before he made a start, although he got a few more sub appearances, and Vale supporters had to wait until the start of the 2002-03 season for his first goal, after he’d replaced injured crowd favourite Steve McPhee in a home game against Wrexham.
Eventually, Paynter got into his stride and his popularity with the fans saw him voted Player of the Year in 2004-05.
His 34 goals in 158 games for Vale caught the eye of another former Albion manager, Peter Taylor, at then-Championship side Hull City.
Signed initially on loan, a fee of £150,000 took him on a permanent two-and-a-half-year contract to the KC Stadium in January 2006.
The following month Paynter turned out as a right-sided midfield player for a Football League Under-21 team (selected and managed by Taylor) in a game against an Italian Serie B side at the KC Stadium.
Taylor also experimented with him in the same position for Hull but, having scored only three times in 23 matches, Paynter was on the move again after only eight months.
He switched to Southend United, also in the Championship, for £200,000 in August 2006 and somewhat ironically, his only goal for the Shrimpers was scored against Brighton in a 3-2 League Cup win at Roots Hall in September 2006.
A lack of goals and a hamstring injury meant his stay in Essex was cut short and for the second half of the 2006-07 season he went on loan to League One Bradford City, where he managed four goals in 15 matches, including one on his debut.
On August deadline day in 2007, Paynter’s next move saw Paul Sturrock sign him for Swindon Town. Within a month he had netted a hat-trick against Bournemouth and added two more in a 5-0 win over Gillingham the following month.
It wasn’t all plain sailing for him, though, and after a two-month goal drought which had seen him lose his place, he told BBC Radio Swindon: “You can try and do too much and get caught up with it, but if you relax and get on with your game, I think it will come naturally.”
Paired with Simon Cox initially, Paynter got amongst the goals in support of the main man. But he stepped up a gear after Cox was sold to West Brom in the summer of 2009. His new strike partner was a young Charlie Austin and the pair enjoyed a rich seam of goalscoring form in the 2009-10 season under former Albion captain Danny Wilson.
Paynter had a spell where he scored 15 goals in 17 games and ended the season with 29 goals in 52 matches, his best goals-to-games ratio in a season. Swindon’s captain that season was none other than Gordon Greer, who remains a close friend of Paynter.
Four of Paynter’s goals had been scored against Leeds and, in the summer of 2010, he moved to Elland Road on a Bosman free transfer, with Wilson admitting to BBC Radio Wiltshire: “Anybody who scores nearly 30 goals in a season will be wanted by bigger clubs than us.”
Leeds boss Simon Grayson said: “He has matured as a player over the last couple of years and he had a fantastic season last season. He works ever so hard, holds the ball up well and he has proved he knows where the back of the net is.
“When we knew he was available we were desperate to get him. We feel he will be a good acquisition for the club, and I am delighted to have got him.”
Unfortunately, his time at Leeds didn’t start well when he picked up a shin stress fracture in a pre-season match in Slovakia, leading to him missing the start of the season.
It wasn’t until the second week of October that he was able to make his Leeds debut and starts were rare as Luciano Becchio and Davide Somma were Grayson’s preferred selection up front. Paynter didn’t register his first goal for Leeds until the following March, in a 2-1 win at Preston. It was his only goal in 23 matches that season.
As the 2011-12 season got under way, Grayson had added Mikael Forssell to his striking options and the manager encouraged Paynter to talk to other clubs, with Sheffield United and Brighton discussed as possible destinations.
Paynter preferred to stay and try to stake a claim for a place but, having only played once as a sub in the opening game of the season, he decided to make a three-month loan switch to Brighton at the end of October 2011.
On 29th October 2011, he made his Brighton debut as a 67th-minute substitute for Matt Sparrow in a 0-0 draw away to Birmingham City.
The first of his six starts came on 1 November in a 0-1 defeat at Watford. He came off the bench a further three times and, without troubling the scorers, returned to Elland Road in January.
Back at Leeds he had to wait until April before he was selected by new manager Neil Warnock for a home game against Peterborough United. Paynter scored twice in a 4-1 win and, when replaced by substitute Becchio in the final minute, left the field to a standing ovation. But he picked up an Achilles injury in the following game away to Blackpool and was made available for transfer at the end of the season.
Paynter earned a place in a planetfootball.com poll listing 13 of Leeds’ “worst and weirdest signings under Ken Bates” although he was good-humoured enough to acknowledge it in a 2018 Under the Cosh podcast.
“I’ve always said there’s some players that will be remembered for being good, there’s some players that will be remembered for being sh*te,” he said. “No one remembers the OK players. Take the positives out of a bad situation, in that way I will be remembered!”
It was former Brighton striker Dean Saunders who was responsible for Paynter’s next move, picking him up on a free transfer for League One Doncaster Rovers on 13 August 2012.
While Saunders left the Keep Moat Stadium in January 2013 to join Wolves, Paynter played his part in Rovers winning promotion back to the Championship under Brian Flynn, top-scoring with 15 goals as Rovers returned to the second tier as champions.
An anonymous Donny fan recalled: “He had some good games for us and made the pass from the missed penalty at Brentford that enabled (James) Coppinger to score and win us promotion. He is best played in the box. He causes all sorts of problems. He is a tough guy and takes no prisoners. I liked him but I would say League One is his limit.”
A familiar face in the shape of Brian Horton arrived as assistant manager to new Donny manager Paul Dickov (Flynn had been promoted to director of football) in the summer of 2013.
It must have given Paynter some satisfaction on 27 August 2013 when he scored in a League Cup tie at home to Leeds, although the visitors ran out 3-1 winners. However, that was his only goal and, after managing only one start and 11 appearances off the bench, up to Christmas, he was sent on loan to League One Sheffield United for the second half of the 2013-14 season.
An exiled Blades fan living in Leeds, ‘Blader’ said: “I am uninspired and don’t see this is a great signing. I’ve seen him play many a time and never seen him perform notably and he is a laughing stock in Leeds for how badly he performed.”
A blunt Blade
He made his debut as a sub against Notts County on 11 January 2014 but spent much of the time on the sub’s bench as manager Nigel Clough preferred to play with ‘a false 9’. Paynter made just six starts and came off the bench seven times but no goals were forthcoming. United finished seventh, one place off the play-off places, seven points adrift of sixth-placed Peterborough United.
Paynter was only a spectator as United remarkably reached the semi-final of the FA Cup, losing 5-3 at Wembley to Hull City, Jamie Murphy, later to play for Brighton, among the Blades scorers. A young Harry Maguire at the back for the Blades was named the League One player of the year.
The last three seasons of his playing career saw Paynter drop into League Two and he joined Carlisle United on the same day as former Albion midfielder Gary Dicker.
However, the season wasn’t even a month old when Graham Kavanagh lost his job as manager. His successor Keith Curle steered them to a fifth from bottom finish.
Paynter’s involvement was limited to 12 starts plus eight appearances off the bench and he and Dicker clashed with Curle when they sought PFA guidance after they were fined for allegedly failing to attend training sessions.
In the close season, Paynter headed 90 miles east to Hartlepool United, who’d just avoided dropping out of the league after finishing four points above Cheltenham Town.
The goal touch returned as Paynter top scored with 15 goals in 35 appearances as Hartlepool finished in 16th place courtesy of a decent run of wins in the spring under new boss Craig Hignett.
The managerial door revolved once more at Victoria Park the following season but Hignett’s successor Dave Jones (the former Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday boss) couldn’t prevent Hartlepool from heading out of the league, controversially parting company with the club with two games to go following an on-screen rant by United’s best known fan, Jeff Stelling.
Club captain Paynter, who had openly questioned Jones’ tactics in the local press, joined forces with fitness coach Stuart Parnaby to assist caretaker Matthew Bates for the final two fixtures.
It was one of those footballing fates moments that they needed a miracle against Paynter’s old club Doncaster in the final match and it was given a big build-up in the Mirror.
“Although we lost at Cheltenham last weekend, the lads had a lot more fight in them. I can understand it when players lose confidence or belief, but you can’t drop out of the Football League after 100 years without a fight,” he said.
“It’s one of those strange coincidences that we need to beat my old club to stand a chance of survival. I really enjoyed my time at Doncaster, and I’ll never forget that day we were promoted to the Championship, but I hope the supporters understand my loyalty is with Hartlepool now.”
Hartlepool hitman
Although Hartlepool won 2-1, they had been relying on other results going their way and Newport’s 2-1 win over Notts County 2-1 meant they stayed up and the North East side lost their league status. Having contributed just four goals in 26 matches, Paynter left the club.
While he attempted a brief extension to his playing career, training at non-league AFC Fylde, Southport and Warrington Town, he retired from playing in November 2017 and turned to coaching. He joined Everton’s academy in February 2018 before returning to his first club, Port Vale as professional development phase lead coach in October 2020.
On rejoining, he said: “It’s a joy to be back where it all started. Coming through PVFC’s Centre of Excellence from the age of 10, I know what the DNA of Port Vale is and what sort of players we should be producing.”
Pictures from various online sources and the Albion matchday programme.
Steve Foster challenges Spurs’ Steve Archibald at White Hart Lane
LEGEND is overused far too much in football circles but, in some circumstances, it is justified. That applies to Steve Foster.
He played 800 games in a 21-year career which included nine years with Brighton in two separate spells.
His performances in the top-flight for Brighton led him to play for England at the 1982 World Cup and he lifted the League Cup in 1988 as the captain of Luton Town.
He might have enjoyed a longer spell at Aston Villa if the European Cup-winning manager who signed him hadn’t been unceremoniously dumped by ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis.
Foster became – and, to older fans, still is – synonymous with Brighton & Hove Albion, and football followers the world over could readily identify the captain with the white headband.
In several interviews over the years, he has explained how the distinctive headpiece was actually a piece of padded white towel designed to protect a forehead split open in collisions with centre forwards Andy Gray and Justin Fashanu.
I wonder if physio Mike Yaxley’s wife Sharon, who made up the dressing before every game, realised at the time the key role she played in helping to make Foster one of the most identifiable characters in football.
Foster’s illustrious career is warmly documented in Spencer Vignes’ excellent 2007 book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books Publishing), featuring an interview with the player himself and those who played with him.
For example, Gerry Ryan told Vignes: “Fozzie was a huge player with a huge personality, a real leader and deceptively quick for a big man.
“When he played against the best, like Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish, he was the best. People talk about giving 100 per cent, but Fozzie gave 150 per cent in everything he did, and I mean off the field as well.”
Gordon Smith added: “He was a fantastic person, great fun and a terrific centre half.”
Vignes himself observed: “Steve’s willingness to put his neck on the line for the cause earned him hero status among the fans, together with the complete respect of the dressing room.”
Unsurprisingly, Foster pulls no punches in describing the various characters and events surrounding his colourful career, for instance describing Chris Cattlin as “definitely the wrong man. I told him the truth and what I thought of him.” And, of predecessor Jimmy Melia: “When Jimmy took over it was more like a circus than a football club.”
Foster said the two biggest influences on his career were Frank Burrows, the manager of his first club, Portsmouth, who taught him about balance as the key to strength on the pitch, and Brian Horton, the dynamic midfield driving force he succeeded as Albion captain.
“He shouted and screamed for 90 minutes to help us get results, and to keep everyone on their toes,” said Foster. “If he made a mistake, 10 other people would shout and scream at him, and he would take it. When I was captain at Brighton, and my other clubs, that’s how I tried to be.”
Such a recognisable figure as Albion’s centre-half
Fortunately, sufficient archive film footage remains for fans of different generations to see what a dominant force Foster was at the heart of Brighton’s defence, while I retain plenty of now-yellowing cuttings from the numerous columns of newsprint he filled during his pomp.
Born on 24 September 1957 in Portsmouth, Foster went to St Swithin’s Junior School before moving on to St John’s College. A centre-forward in the early days, he played for the Portsmouth Schools under-12s side but it was Southampton who took him on as an associate schoolboy.
He played in the same youth team as Steve Williams and Nick Holmes, who both went on to have long careers.
But Saints boss Lawrie McMenemy let Foster go at 16, urging him to go elsewhere and prove him wrong. After Foster won his first England cap, McMenemy sent him a congratulatory telegram. “That was class, nothing but class,” Foster told Vignes.
Southampton’s loss was Portsmouth’s gain, courtesy of a tip off from local schoolteacher Harry Bourne to Pompey youth team coach Ray Crawford (who’d previously held a similar role under Pat Saward at Brighton). Bourne ran the Portsmouth and Hampshire schools teams.
Crawford describes in his excellent autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing 2007) how he called at the family’s house in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, but Foster’s mother was at a works disco at the local Allders store. Wasting no time, he immediately went in pursuit and, against a backdrop of deafening music and flashing lights, shouted above the din that they were interested in signing her son.
Foster called the club the following day and he was invited to play in a youth team game for Portsmouth – against Southampton! “I scored twice because I was playing as a centre-forward then, and they ended up offering me an apprenticeship on £5 per week which was my entry into the professional game,” said Foster.
Reg Tyrell, a respected former chief scout from Crawford’s time at Ipswich, watched the young striker in a youth team training game and declared: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward but he’d make a good number 5.” A few weeks’ later, manager Ron Tindall’s successor, Ian St John (later Saint and Greavsie TV show partner of Jimmy Greaves), gave Foster his debut as a centre half!
Foster played more than 100 games during Pompey’s slide down through the divisions, and, at 21, had developed something of a fiery reputation. But Brighton boss Alan Mullery saw him as “big and brave, strong in the tackle and good in the air” providing “much-needed stability at the back” as the Seagulls began their first adventure into the top-flight of English football in 1979. He was signed for £150,000.
A couple of disciplinary issues in the early days of the new season looked like proving the doubters right to have warned Mullery off signing him, but an injury to first choice centre back Andy Rollings forced the manager to backtrack on a temporary ban he’d handed out. Foster made the most of his reprieve and never looked back.
By the end of a season in which the side grew collectively Foster was named Player of the Year and he earned international recognition, gaining an England under 21 cap as a substitute for Terry Butcher in a 1-0 defeat against East Germany in Jena on 23 April 1980 (Peter Ward was playing up front).
While the 1980-81 season saw Albion struggle and flirt with relegation, Foster’s tussles with some of the top strikers in the game saw his reputation grow, and he even chipped in with a vital goal in the final home game of the season against Leeds.
When Horton and Mullery departed at the end of that season, Foster took over the captaincy under new boss Mike Bailey, and, even though fans didn’t much like the way Bailey set up his side, Foster thrived with the emphasis on defence first.
England boss Ron Greenwood, who lived in Hove, was in the process of shaping his squad for the 1992 World Cup in Spain and, with injuries affecting some of the other centre backs in contention, Foster was given a chance to prove himself.
I can remember travelling to Wembley on 23 February 1982 to watch him make his debut against Northern Ireland, a game England won 4-0 courtesy of goals from Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan, Bryan Robson and Glenn Hoddle.
I had been to the stadium 10 years before to watch another Albion player – Willie Irvine – make his international comeback in a 1-0 win for the Irish, but it was something special – and rare – to see a Brighton player line up for England.
To break through to the senior team in a World Cup year was a notable achievement, although, by his own admission, he accepted his good fortune directly correlated to injuries ruling out other players.
Although the record books show Foster earned three caps, in fact he represented the country four times that year.
A month after his debut against Northern Ireland, on 23 March, Foster played for an England XI in Bilbao against Athletic Bilbao. The game finished 1-1 with Keegan scoring for England. It didn’t qualify for a cap because it was a testimonial match for retiring Bilbao player Txetxu Rojo, but Greenwood used the fixture to familiarise the players with what was the venue for England’s opening round matches at the World Cup.
Foster also featured in a 2-0 friendly win over the Netherlands (goals by Tony Woodcock and Graham Rix) on 25 May as Greenwood continued to assess his options.
Foster (circled) in Ron Greenwood’s 1982 World Cup squad
When it was clear neither Alvin Martin nor Dave Watson would be fit for the tournament in Spain, Foster was selected as back-up to first choice centre back pairing Terry Butcher and Phil Thompson. Ahead of the third group match, Greenwood didn’t want to risk a ban for the already-booked Butcher, so Foster played alongside Thompson and England won 1-0 against Kuwait; Trevor Francis getting the England goal.
When England didn’t progress past the second phase, Greenwood’s spell as boss came to an end and he was replaced by Bobby Robson who, for his first game in charge, partnered Russell Osman with Butcher – both having played under him at Ipswich Town.
Foster didn’t play for England again.
Much has been written already about the 1982-83 season and Albion’s path to the FA Cup Final. Foster demonstrated real heroism in the semi-final at Highbury, playing through the pain of a septic elbow, and, memorably, towards the end of the game, launched into an overhead kick to clear a goal-bound shot to safety (pictured above).
History records Foster being suspended for the Cup Final – a well-documented appeal to the High Court against a two-game ban for accumulated bookings couldn’t get the decision reversed – but, as is often the case in football, his misfortune presented a golden opportunity for stand-in Gary Stevens who capped a man-of-the-match performance with the equalising goal. What he did that day persuaded Spurs to sign him.
Foster, of course, eventually got his Wembley chance in the replay but with a rampant Manchester United running out easy 4-0 winners, their fans also rather cruelly derided the Albion skipper with the chant I can still hear ringing around Wembley that evening: “Stevie Foster, Stevie Foster, what a difference you have made!”
In truth the whole defence lacked balance in the replay because manager Melia had elected to fill the right-back berth vacated by injury to Chris Ramsey with the left-footed Steve Gatting. He figured Stevens couldn’t be moved from the centre where he had performed so well on the Saturday, but it was a mistake, especially as Stevens had often played right back previously.
The relegation that went in tandem with Albion’s Wembley loss sparked the beginning of a big clear-out of the best players. First to go was Stevens, closely followed by Michael Robinson.
It wasn’t until the following March that Foster followed them through the exit, although, according to Foster, he might have gone sooner – even though he didn’t want to leave; a point he made clear in an interview with Match Weekly shortly after he signed for Villa for £150,000.
“I never wanted to move,” he said. “I had nearly seven years of my contract to run at Brighton and would have quite happily played out my career there. It’s a great little club.
“But economies dictated otherwise and, although manager Chris Cattlin wanted to keep me, he was under pressure to sell me and help ease the club’s financial problems.
“It was a wrench to leave Brighton because the club has treated me tremendously well and I’ve had some great times there – not least the FA Cup run last season.”
Cattlin had a slightly different take about the transaction in his matchday programme notes. “I feel that Steve Foster has been a fine player during his four-and-a-half years at the Goldstone, but I felt that the time was right and the offer good enough to let him go,” he said.
“I hope the move will benefit both Steve and the club. I hope it rejuvenates his career because he has been unlucky with injuries this season. It gives me breathing space for Eric Young to develop and it will also allow me to strengthen other positions if necessary.”
In a rather oblique reference to the need to get rid of high-earning players, Cattlin added in another matchday programme article: “Certain players have left Brighton in moves which I feel are important for our future. Salaries and bonuses of individual players are confidential and obviously I cannot disclose details, but the moves I have made I am certain are right.”
He added: “I can’t explain all the matters that have been considered but I will once again emphasise that we are building for the future and every move I make in the transfer market is being made with this in mind.”
Foster revealed that Villa boss Tony Barton, a former coach at Foster’s first club, Portsmouth, had tried to sign him twice before, but the clubs hadn’t been able to agree on a fee. Eventually, the transfer saw defender Mark Jones (who’d made seven top-flight appearances for Villa that season) move in the opposite direction, in addition to a £150,000 fee.
Barton wanted Foster to tighten up a leaky defence, to fill the position previously occupied by former European Cup winning centre-half Ken McNaught, who had moved to West Brom.
The relatively inexperienced Brendan Ormsby had been playing alongside McNaught’s former partner, Allan Evans, and the signing of Foster put his nose well and truly out of joint. “It’s obvious that I’m just going to be used as cover for Steve Foster or Allan Evans now and so it’s probably in my best interests to try and find another club,” he told Match Weekly.
As it turned out, it was Barton who was ousted; Ormsby stayed, and new manager Graham Turner decreed it would be Foster who was the odd one out. But I jump ahead too soon.
Foster’s arrival at Villa Park as featured on a matchday programme cover
A picture of Foster being introduced to the Villa faithful appeared on the front cover of the programme for the 17 March home game against Nottingham Forest although he didn’t make his Villa debut until 14 April 1984, away to Leicester City, which ended in a 2-0 defeat.
Foster made seven appearances by the end of the season and he got on the scoresheet in only his third game, netting together with future Albion player Dennis Mortimer, in a 2-1 win over Watford on 21 April.
Villa finished the season in 10th place but it wasn’t good enough for the erratic chairman Ellis. Suddenly Foster found the man who signed him had been sacked, and the side Barton had led to European Cup success was gradually dismantled.
To the astonishment of the Villa faithful, Barton was succeeded by former Shrewsbury Town boss Turner.
Foster played 10 games under the new boss, and scored twice, once in a 4-2 win over Chelsea on 15 September and then again the following Saturday in a 3-3 draw away to Watford.
He’d started the season alongside Evans but Turner then offered a way back to Ormsby. While Foster played a couple of games alongside Ormsby, Turner preferred Evans and Ormsby together, making the new man surplus to requirements.
His last game for Villa was away to Everton on 13 October and the following month he was sold to Luton for £70,000 – less than half the fee Villa had paid for him eight months earlier. Foster simply put it down to his face not fitting with the new man.
It was a completely different story with Luton boss David Pleat and Foster’s time at Kenilworth Road coincided with the club’s most successful period in their history, even though Pleat left to manage Spurs.
Alongside representing his country, Foster said the best moment of his career was captaining the Hatters as they won the League Cup (then sponsored by Littlewoods) at Wembley in 1988 with a 3-2 win over Arsenal, his former Brighton teammate Danny Wilson scoring one of their goals (Brian Stein got the other two).
They reached the final of the same competition the following year too, but on that occasion lost 3-1 to Nottingham Forest. By then Foster was assistant manager to Ray Harford, and it looked like he was on a path to become a boss in his own right.
But that summer, when his old Albion captain, Horton, who had taken over from Mark Lawrenson as the manager of Oxford United, asked him to join him as a player at the Manor Ground, he was unable to resist and a new chapter in his career began.
It meant a drop down a division but Foster accepted the challenge and went on to play more than 100 games for United, many being quite a struggle as the side fought for survival at the foot of the second tier.
In the autumn of 1991, injury sidelined Foster from the U’s team and he believed it could have been the end of his career.
However, when the following summer he was contemplating whether or not to retire, he gave Brighton boss Barry Lloyd a call and asked if he could keep his fitness going by joining in pre-season training with the Seagulls.
Lloyd could see that the former skipper was still able to perform and, although the club was in a downward spiral, Foster seized the opportunity to extend his career and help out his old side.
Another veteran of that side, Clive Walker, told Vignes for A Few Good Men: “Fozzie might not have been so mobile then but his positional sense was absolutely brilliant, as was his ability in the air.”
Foster said: “Funnily enough during that second period I played probably some of my best football. I had to because of the position the club was in. There was no money so you had to pull out all the stops.”
Foster continued to play after Lloyd had departed, and he vented his anger publicly about the off-field shenanigans new boss Liam Brady was having to operate under.
Foster eventually called it a day at the end of the 1995-96 season, saddened at the club’s plight. He was granted a testimonial match against Sheffield Wednesday, played as a pre-season friendly in July 1996. Throughout Foster’s career he had continued to live in Hove and he retains his affection for the Albion to this day.
During his second spell at the club, Foster was the PFA rep and he had to deal with the heartbreak of telling the parents of a young player (Billly Logan) that an ankle injury was going to end his career. The youngster got just £1,500 compensation.
As a result, after his own playing days were over, Foster set up an insurance business (Pro-Secure) which continues to this day, making sure players are properly covered and get suitably recompensed if things don’t turn out as they’d hoped.
Although Foster hasn’t always been popular with the Albion’s hierarchy (courtesy of suggested involvement in potential takeovers), his association with the club hasn’t dimmed and Seagulls fans of two generations took him to their hearts for his on-field performances and leadership spanning a total of 332 games.
• Pictures from my scrapbook, the Albion matchday programme over several seasons, and some online sources.
A FORMER midfield partner of Steven Gerrard scored a memorable winner for the Seagulls at Elland Road, but it was a rare highlight in a promising career dogged by injuries.
Alan Navarro trained alongside Gerrard and played with him for Liverpool Reserves. While one went on to become a Liverpool legend and captain his country, the other had to forge a career mainly in the lower leagues.
Navarro talked to the Liverpool Echo about his former illustrious teammate when he prepared to return to Anfield with Brighton a decade after leaving the Merseyside giants.
“I came through as a full-back but then they decided to try me in midfield and I played with Steven a few times,” said Navarro. “It was a good thing but also a bad thing because you knew that you were going to be competing for a place with Steven.
“I trained with him every day for a few seasons….he was always head and shoulders above everyone else. His football, his brain, his pace, his strength, the way he tackles, everything about him was brilliant. He was the player you wanted to be.”
Navarro was talking in a preview to the FA Cup 5th round tie which saw Liverpool steamroller the Seagulls 6-1, courtesy of three own goals (two for Liam Bridcutt, one for Lewis Dunk).
Apart from the disastrous result, Navarro also picked up a booking on his return to Anfield. It was the second time the Liverpudlian had played against the side who nurtured him: he was also in the Albion side who lost 2-1 to the Reds in a League Cup game at the Amex in September 2011.
The Scouser joined the Seagulls on a free transfer from MK Dons in the summer of 2009, and manager Russell Slade told the Argus: “Alan likes to get on the ball. He is the passer, the one that links you up and tries to make you play. He’s impressed us.”
After picking up an injury early on, he found it difficult to get back in the side until Gus Poyet arrived, and, with his ability to pick a pass for teammates to benefit from, slotted in well.
A cruciate ligament injury in his right knee, suffered in a League Cup game against Northampton Town at the beginning of the 2010-11 season, ruled him out for the season.
Having previously suffered a similar injury in his other knee eight years earlier, he knew what to expect, which he described to Andy Naylor in the Argus.
He later recalled how he feared it might have been the end of his career, but, after proving his fitness to Poyet, he went on to play 39 games for the Albion in the 2011-12 season – finally getting the chance to perform at a level he always felt he was capable of.
Navarro had previously had to contend with life in the bottom two tiers, but he enjoyed a new lease of life playing in the Championship, as he talked about in the Argus.
He played a total of 85 games for the Albion between 2009 and 2012 and only ever scored one goal. But what a memorable one!
It came in the 90th minute of a Championship game at Elland Road on 11 February 2012, when his final touch after good work from Liam Bridcutt proved to be the winner as the Seagulls prevailed 2-1.
Craig Mackail-Smith (pictured above celebrating with Navarro and Craig Noone) had opened the scoring for the Seagulls but Luciano Becchio equalised and, just as it appeared the game would finish in a draw, up popped unlikely scorer Navarro.
Born in Liverpool on 31 May 1981, Navarro’s home was in Venmore Street, close to Anfield. “Funnily enough I was a Blue when I was younger,” he told the Albion matchday programme. “My family were Evertonians and a couple of cousins really drilled the club into me from an early age. But when I was 10 or 11, we moved to a house right next to Anfield and I fell in love with Liverpool.
“I loved watching John Barnes, Ronnie Whelan and then Robbie Fowler, even though he was not that much older than me. My mum still lives there, six doors away from The Kop.”
He joined the Reds in 1996, signed professional in 2000, and was a regular in the Reserves. He also had occasional travels with the first team, for example to Russia, Porto and Rome, as well as Chelsea, Newcastle and Sunderland for league games.
“It was strange going from fan to playing for the club, but an unbelievable experience,” he said. “From growing up on the club’s doorstep, I was in the youth team, then playing for the reserves and travelling with the first team to some big games.”
In the 1999-2000 season, Liverpool Reserves won the Premier Reserve League title with Navarro and Layton Maxwell pulling the strings in midfield.
Navarro only made it onto the first team substitutes’ bench twice but got his first taste of competitive action on loan at League One Crewe Alexandra.
He also went on loan to nearby Tranmere Rovers, whose manager, Dave Watson, told the Liverpool Echo: “Alan is a good quality player who has been in Liverpool’s reserves for a while now.
“I have seen him play several times and so have my assistant, Ray Mathias, and our chief scout, Dave Philpotts. (Anfield coach) Sammy Lee speaks very highly of the lad’s work at Liverpool and he’s certainly worth a look.”
After impressing on loan, Navarro made a permanent switch to Rovers in January 2002, signing a three-and-a-half-year contract. “It was difficult to leave because I love the club and a big part of my heart will always be there, but I needed to get my career up and running. I cherish my time there; I was taught the game by the best.”
Things didn’t go according to plan at Tranmere where he suffered a cruciate knee ligament injury and he went out on loan to Chester City and Macclesfield Town.
Navarro moved on from Tranmere in the summer of 2005, initially linking up with Conference National side Accrington Stanley for a month before Macclesfield boss Brian Horton secured his services on a permanent basis. Horton told the club website: “I’m delighted Alan has joined the team. I think he’s going to fit in extremely well.
“We had him here last season and couldn’t quite come to an agreement with Tranmere to sign him, so he went back there and we missed him badly.
“It was no coincidence that his departure came at the time when our form dipped so we’ve been keeping an eye on him for a long time and we’re delighted to have him.”
After his experience at Tranmere made him contemplate quitting the game altogether, it was Horton’s successor at Macclesfield, former Liverpool midfielder Paul Ince, who helped to reignite his passion for football.
“When he came to Macclesfield, he got me wanting to play football again,” he told the matchday programme. “He gave me the spark that helped me fall back in love with the game, and he took me from Macclesfield to MK Dons, where we had a lot of success.
“He remembered me from Liverpool, while his assistant Ray Mathias had me at Tranmere and knew me really well. It just clicked. I knew what Paul wanted from me and vice-versa.”
In August 2007, Navarro followed Ince to MK Dons, where he made 89 appearances over two seasons.
After his three years with the Seagulls, and following a season in which he played 33 matches, it was a little surprising that he was released in the summer of 2012, although supporter Alan Wares told thewashbag.com: “He will be remembered as a player who never gave less than 100 per cent every time he pulled on the shirt.
“It’s a shame to see such a quality player leave, but it shows how far Brighton have come as a club that Gus Poyet feels he can afford to release him.”
How ironic that his debut for new club Swindon should come in the League Cup against Brighton in August 2012 – Navarro scored twice and made the other in a 3-0 win!
However, that was pretty much as good as it got in his spell with the Robins. His Town career comprised only 15 starts plus five as a substitute, and a subsequent knee injury brought his career to an end.
A DEFENDER who enjoyed Norwich City’s European journey in the early 90s ended his playing days as captain of the Seagulls before embarking on a coaching career running the reserves.
Ian Culverhouse was part of some of the Canaries’ best years flying high in the football pyramid – later being named by fans as their best ever right-back.
In February 1999, 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.”
Manager Jeff Wood added: “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.”
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.”
It was former boss Brian Horton who first brought Culverhouse to the Albion, from non-league Kingstonian, signing him on a month-to-month contract in August 1998.
In October, it looked like he was being released, but when captain and sweeper Gary Hobson picked up an injury, Horton reinstated Culverhouse on a contract to the end of the season, and appointed him captain.
Culverhouse, by then 34, could look back on the experience of 369 games for Norwich, and 115 for Swindon Town. He said: “The future of Brighton is looking very exciting and it’s great to be considered a part of the plans.”
When Wood was sacked with six games of the season still to be played, Culverhouse told the Argus: “I am shocked and absolutely gutted for the bloke.
“It’s down to the players he puts out there. We have let him down.”
Culverhouse survived the managerial upheaval and when new manager Micky Adams took charge, he 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 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 Glenn Hoddle’s former no.2, 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.
When Lambert upped sticks from Norwich to join Aston Villa, Culverhouse went with him, and, in June 2013, the Birmingham Mail carried a lengthy article talking about the trust Lambert placed in his right-hand man, and how much he rated his judgement.
But in April 2014 Culverhouse was suspended by the club and, following an internal investigation into “off the field matters”, was dismissed.
Between January 2016 and February 2017, Culverhouse was assistant manager to veteran boss John Still at Dagenham & Redbridge. He left Dagenham 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 where he recently signed a new two-and-a-half-year contract.
Born on 22 September 1964 in Bishop’s Stortford, Culverhouse spent his early football career at Tottenham Hotspur and was capped at England Youth level. 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 City under Ken Brown for a £50,000 fee.
He was part of the Norfolk club’s old Second Division title-winning side of 1985-86 and became an established defender, usually as a right-back but also as a sweeper, as the Canaries flew high in the Premier League, finishing third in 1992-93 after enjoying three top five finishes in the old First Division.
After nine years as a player at Carrow Road, he was somewhat controversially sold for £150,000 to Swindon where he was a key part of their League One Championship winning squad in 1995-96 but left in May 1998 after falling out with boss Steve McMahon.
He began the 1998-99 season with Kingstonian before Horton revived his league career with the Seagulls.
HAVING A cheekbone broken in four places during a pre-season friendly summed up the bad luck of never-say-die Northern Irish international striker Sammy Morgan.
His cause wasn’t helped when the manager who signed him six months earlier quit. And, to top it off, while he was recovering from that horrific injury, an Albion footballing legend in the shape of Peter Ward burst onto the scene.
When a £30,000 fee brought him to Brighton from Aston Villa just before Christmas 1975, it looked like the side had found the perfect strike partner for Fred Binney as they pushed for promotion from the third tier.
Unfortunately, the man with the swashbuckling, fearless approach went eight games without registering a goal. However, in his ninth game he made amends in memorable fashion.
Morgan scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace in front of an all-ticket Goldstone Ground crowd of 33,300 – with another 4,000 locked out.
It was 24 February 1976 and the Daily Mail’s Brian Scovell reported the goals thus: “In the 12th minute, Ernie Machin struck an early ball into the middle from the right and Ian Mellor headed on intelligently behind the defence for Morgan to steer the ball into the corner of the net.
“The second goal, in the 55th minute, came when Tony Towner took the ball off Jeffries and set off on a 40-yard run which ended with his shot rebounding off goalkeeper Paul Hammond. Morgan tapped in the rebound.”
Gritty, angular and awkward, Morgan scored five more before the end of the season, including another brace at home to Swindon.
However, Albion narrowly missed out on promotion and Peter Taylor, the manager who bought Morgan, quit the club in the close season. The new season under Alan Mullery hadn’t even begun when, in a pre-season friendly against Luton Town, Morgan fractured his cheekbone in four places.
“I know I’m probably more prone to injuries than other players because of my style of play, but there’s no way I can change it, even if I wanted to,” Morgan told Shoot! magazine. “I made up my mind as soon as I got back in the team that I’d have a real go and that’s what I’ve done. People say I’m a brave player but I don’t really know if that’s true. I just like to give 100 per cent and that way no-one can ever come back at you.”
In the season before he joined Brighton, a groin injury had restricted him to just three top-flight appearances for Villa and, when he was fit to return, Villa had signed Andy Gray, whose form kept him out of the side.
Initially reluctant to move on, he admitted in that Shoot! interview: “I was sad at the time because I had a lot of happy times at Villa but now I think they may have done me a favour. Brighton are a very good ambitious club and I’ve just bought a house in Peacehaven. Really, I couldn’t be happier.”
Born in Belfast on 3 December 1946, Morgan’s family moved to England to settle in Great Yarmouth and, with an eye to a teaching career, he combined studies with playing part-time football for non-league Gorleston Town.
“Deep down I knew I could make the grade, but the opportunity just wasn’t there,” he told Goal magazine in a 1974 interview. “The local league club was Norwich City and in those days they didn’t seem that keen on local talent.”
Morgan enrolled at teacher training college in Nottingham and just when he thought a professional football career might elude him, Port Vale made an approach.
“I jumped at the chance,” he said. “They let me stay at Nottingham to complete my studies and I would travel up to train and play with them. Deep down I thought that the Third Division was as high as I could get, unless, of course, Vale were promoted.”
In his three years with Vale, where his teammates included Albion legend Brian Horton, he scored 24 goals in 113 appearances, and he caught the eye of the Northern Ireland international selectors. He scored on his debut in a European Championship qualifier with Spain on 16 February 1972 when he took over at centre-forward from the legendary Derek Dougan.
Amongst his illustrious teammates that day were Pat Jennings in goal and the mercurial George Best. Future Brighton left-back, Sammy Nelson (then with Arsenal) was also in the side. The game was played at Boothferry Park, Hull, because of the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland at that time and it finished 1-1.
Morgan won 18 caps in total over the next six years, scoring twice more, in 3-0 home wins over Cyprus on 8 May 1973 and Norway on 29 October 1975.
The Goal article noted Morgan “earned a reputation of being a hard, no-nonsense striker who could unsettle defences and goalkeepers with his aggression”.
Aston Villa boss Vic Crowe liked what he saw and reckoned he’d be an ideal replacement for that tough Scottish centre-forward Andy Lochhead, who was coming to the end of his career.
Morgan was by now 27 but, in the summer of 1973, Villa paid a £20,000 fee for his services.
“The offer came right out of the blue and I had no second thoughts about the move at all,” he said. “Being part of such a famous club naturally brings pressures, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There was a famous incident in a televised game between Arsenal and Aston Villa when the normally calm, cool and collected Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson went ballistic because of the way Morgan tried to stop him clearing his lines.
“The bigger the atmosphere, the more I like it. For instance, my best two games this season were against Arsenal, and in the replay there was a crowd of 47,000.”
At Brighton, new manager Mullery quickly decided he preferred Ward to Binney and, with Morgan sidelined by that pre-season injury, opted to put former midfielder Ian Mellor up front to partner him.
Between them, they literally couldn’t stop scoring goals, and the success of their striking partnership restricted Morgan to only two starts in 1976-77. He was on the sub’s bench throughout that first promotion season under Alan Mullery, and he scored just once in 16 appearances as the no.12.
He subsequently moved on to Cambridge United before a spell in Holland, where he played for Sparta Rotterdam and FC Groningen.
When his playing days were over, he became a teacher back in Gorleston. He also became involved in the Norwich youth team in 1990, signing full time as the youth development officer in 1998 and becoming the club’s first football academy director (he holds a UEFA Class A coaching licence). He resigned in 2004 and moved to Ipswich as education officer.
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.
Pictures from various sources: Goal, Shoot! and the Evening Argus.
AFTER 10 years at Tottenham Hotspur, Jeff Minton spent five years with Brighton & Hove Albion making just one short of 200 appearances and scoring 32 goals.
He was arguably the stand-out player in an otherwise gloom-laden period for the club when off-field issues overshadowed the playing side.
Minton’s spell in Seagulls’ colours remarkably straddled the reigns of five managers and he eventually left the south to rejoin one of them, Brian Horton, at Port Vale.
It was Liam Brady who brought him to the Albion on a free transfer and it is good to read how he viewed the genial Irishman as “like a father figure to me” and “somebody who had great confidence in my ability during his spell as manager”.
He made his Brighton debut away to Swansea in August 1994 and remained a mainstay of the midfield until the summer of 1999.
It doesn’t say a huge amount about the rest of the Albion side in the 1997-98 season that Minton was the top scorer with seven goals.
It’s to his credit though that, the following season, despite Albion finishing a lowly 17th in the fourth tier, Minton was chosen by his fellow professionals in the division in the PFA team of the year.
In the October 2017 issue (no.9) of The Albion Mag (below), Tom Stewart featured Minton as one of his cult heroes of yesteryear.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement – “a vaguely skillful midfielder in an era featuring some of the poorest Albion players of all time” – Stewart nonetheless reckoned for the five seasons he was at the club he was “probably our most talented player”.
He went on to say: “Minton stood out from the crowd purely because he had a bit of nous and finesse surrounded by fairly untalented ‘grafters’ and was the only real shining light of that era.”
Stewart posed the conundrum: “Perhaps Minton is a tale of a player with unfulfilled potential, or perhaps he is a player who was decent at Divison Three level but struggled to make an impact at a higher level, or perhaps he was just an alright player in an awful team. Or is he a combination of the three?”
In April 2017, Brighton & Hove Independent gathered together player and fan memories of Albion’s iconic former home, the Goldstone Ground, and Minton was among the contributors.
“I loved the Goldstone, it was a great stadium and it’s a shame it got sold off,” he said. “The fans were all brilliant. I’m not too sure if they took to me in the first couple of years I was there, but the last two or three seasons I got on really well with them. “They were always fantastic and got right behind their side at the Goldstone. You don’t see that at a lot of teams.”
Born on 28 December 1973 in Hackney, Minton initially started training with Arsenal but, as a Spurs fan, he jumped at the chance to join Tottenham as a schoolboy.
“I joined the club as a 10-year-old after the scout Dick Moss watched me playing a district game for Hackney against Enfield in which I scored a hat-trick,” Minton recounted in a January 2018 interview with superhotspur.com (pictured below).
“Joining as a 10-year-old and leaving as a 20-year-old gave me 10 very valuable learning years at a club I supported, and also one of the country’s top clubs which is steeped in so much tradition and history. Those treasured memories will forever live with me.”
Like fellow Spurs schoolboy Junior McDougald, at 14 Minton was invited to become a member of the FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall.
Having successfully worked his way through the ranks, Minton was given his first team debut by boss Peter Shreeves on 25 April 1992 in a game that turned out to be Gary Lineker’s last home match for Spurs.
If reaching that promised land wasn’t good enough, the dream debut was complete when he scored in a 3-3 draw against Everton, with Paul Stewart and Paul Allen also on the scoresheet.
However, Minton only played two more games for the Spurs first team: one in the league seven days later in a 3-1 defeat away to Manchester United, the other in the league cup, going on as a substitute for Darren Anderton in a 3-1 win over Brentford.
Managerial upheaval probably didn’t help his cause: Terry Venables had been in charge when he joined, after Shreeves’ spell in charge, Doug Livermore and Ray Clemence took over, and it was Ossie Ardiles who ended up releasing him on a free transfer in July 1994.
It’s interesting to read that Minton’s former youth team manager, Keith Waldon, was disappointed that Minton didn’t make more of a name for himself. Waldon told superhotspur.com: “One of those who disappointed me with how far he went in the game was Jeffrey Minton.
“Jeffrey had phenomenal ability with his feet, was quick off the mark and had wonderful skill. But he didn’t go as far as I hoped he would, and I think that he’d tell you that he wasn’t the most disciplined person, but he was a wonderful player.”
While welcoming the chance to play first division football for Port Vale after his Brighton career came to a close, he struggled to settle in the Potteries and in his second year there moved on loan to second division Rotherham United, who he helped to promotion.
He then returned to London for the 2001-02 season and played 39 league and cup games for Third Division Leyton Orient.
Although offered a contract extension by the O’s, Minton says excessive demands from his agent scuppered a deal and he ended up playing non-league football with Canvey Island for three seasons.
He moved on to Chelmsford City in August 2006 where he played for a further three years, had a brief spell at Welling United and ended his playing days with Isthmian League Ware.
The Scouser joined the Seagulls on a free transfer from MK Dons in the summer of 2009, and manager Russell Slade told the Argus: “Alan likes to get on the ball. He is the passer, the one that links you up and tries to make you play. He’s impressed us.”
In the 1999-2000 season, Liverpool Reserves won the Premier Reserve League title with Navarro and Layton Maxwell pulling the strings in midfield.
“The bigger the atmosphere, the more I like it. For instance, my best two games this season were against Arsenal, and in the replay there was a crowd of 47,000.”
Between them, they literally couldn’t stop scoring goals, and the success of their striking partnership restricted Morgan to only two starts in 1976-77. He was on the sub’s bench throughout that first promotion season under Alan Mullery, and he scored just once in 16 appearances as the no.12.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement – “a vaguely skillful midfielder in an era featuring some of the poorest Albion players of all time” – Stewart nonetheless reckoned for the five seasons he was at the club he was “probably our most talented player”.
Having successfully worked his way through the ranks, Minton was given his first team debut by boss Peter Shreeves on 25 April 1992 in a game that turned out to be Gary Lineker’s last home match for Spurs.
In parallel lines 