Dean Saunders raised cash for Brighton and Liverpool

IT’S NOT often Brighton and Liverpool have had something in common but, when it came to striker Dean Saunders, they both sold him to raise money. And they weren’t alone.

In the Albion’s case, it happened in 1987 when manager Barry Lloyd was forced to cash in on the free transfer signing to raise £60,000 to go towards players’ wages.

For their part, five years later, Liverpool let the Welsh international depart Anfield for £2.3m because boss Graeme Souness wanted the money to buy a central defender.

When Saunders was remarkably transferred for £1m from the Maxwell-owned Oxford United to the Maxwell-owned Derby County, it prompted former Brighton and Liverpool defender Mark Lawrenson to quit as boss at the Manor Ground after he’d been promised there would be no transfers likely to weaken his squad.

Saunders’ long and much-travelled career began in Swansea, the place where he was born on 21 June 1964, the son of former Swansea and Liverpool wing-half Roy Saunders.

He attended GwrossydJunior School and was soon appearing in the school football team on Saturday mornings and playing minor football in the afternoons. He went on to Penlan Comprehensive in Swansea and his career began to blossom, playing in the school team at all levels under sports master Lee Jones, a former British gymanstics champion. Saunders played for the Swansea Schools representative sides at under 11, 13 and 15 levels.

“I can remember enjoying watching the Swansea players train when I was a lad,” he told Tony Norman in an Albion matchday programme article. “I was lucky because my dad was the assistant manager, so I could go to pre-season training and things like that.

“I used to kick a ball around on the sidelines and dream of playing for Swansea.” That dream turned to reality after he joined the Swans in 1980 as an apprentice (when John Toshack was the manager), turned professional in 1982, and made his debut in the 1983-84 season. He scored 12 times in 49 appearances but in his final year had a goalless four-game loan at Cardiff City.

Manager John Bond released him on a free transfer after a turbulent season in which the Swans only narrowly avoided relegation to the basement division and Chris Cattlin, who’d been impressed when he saw Saunders playing for Swansea Reserves at the Goldstone Ground, snapped him up for Brighton.

“I was amazed when the Welsh club let him go for financial reasons,” Cattlin wrote in his matchday programme notes for the opening game of the season. “He is young, quick and, if he works hard, he has a great chance.”

By the end of that season, Saunders had scored 19 goals in 48 league and cup games and was voted player of the season. His performances in the second tier for the Albion caught the eye of the Welsh national team manager, Mike England, and on 26 March 1986 Saunders made his full international debut for Wales as a substitute in a 1-0 win away to the Republic of Ireland. It was the first of 75 caps.

Saunders scored his first international goals when he netted twice in a 3-0 friendly win over Canada in Vancouver on 19 May 1986, after which England said: “He goes past defenders with his tremendous pace and his finishing against Canada was a revelation.

“The experience he gained at Brighton has done him the world of good. To finish top scorer in his first full season of Second Division football tells its own story.”

Saunders, who shared a house with Albion’s young Republic of Ireland international Kieran O’Regan, said being happy at home had helped him to settle down quickly.

“I liked Brighton from the day I arrived,” he said in a matchday programme article. “It reminds me of my home town of Swansea and I like living by the sea.”

A lover of all sports, Saunders revealed how he liked to play cricket in the summer, when he turned out for Haywards Heath, and he played snooker with O’Regan and Steve Penney.

That summer, Saunders told Shoot! magazine: “I had both cartilages out of my left knee at 18 and had both Swansea and Cardiff turn me down. I’ve had my share of the downs. From the moment I joined Brighton, my career has turned for the better.”

The young striker continued: “Swansea just gave me away – despite the fact that I was top scorer in a team coming apart. Cardiff City gave me a few games but always seemed to have reasons for not playing me consistently when I was on loan there.

“So, I had every incentive to make the break from Welsh football and I joined Brighton. Brighton can go places.

“I was disappointed that we didn’t make the First Division first time around. But all the lads are convinced that we will get there next season. I’ve been given a three-year contract so there are tremendous incentives to do better.”

It didn’t work out that way, though. After only a mid-table finish, Cattlin was sacked and there were rumblings of financial issues beginning to reverberate around the corridors of the Goldstone. Alan Mullery returned as manager but had limited funds to invest in the team, and, with echoes of the Pat Saward era back in the early ‘70s, the club turned to fans for financial help to bring in players.

After Mullery’s unseemly swift departure halfway through the season, former Worthing boss Lloyd took over and fans were completely mystified as to how he could leave out Saunders in favour of Richard Tiltman, who Lloyd had plucked from local football. Since then, it has been suggested his omission was more to do with money than football ability.

There was great consternation that Albion collected only £60,000 when Lloyd sold Saunders to Oxford in early March 1987, especially as the Seagulls were fast hurtling back to a level of football they’d manage to avoid for ten years.

That was no longer a concern for Saunders who recovered the goalscoring touch he’d shown during his first season at the Goldstone Ground, scoring 33 goals in 73 games for Oxford before being sold to Derby for £1m against Lawrenson’s wishes 19 months after arriving at the Manor Ground.

Meanwhile, the goals kept flowing for Saunders as he netted 57 in 131 games for Derby. The side finished fifth in the old First Division by the end of Saunders’ first season with the Rams, and he’d contributed 14 goals. The Derby Telegraph noted: “From the moment ‘Deano’ arrived, the players were inspired and the crowd enthused. The signing also suited the post-war tradition of 5ft 8in goalscoring heroes at the Baseball Ground – Raich Carter, Bill Curry, Kevin Hector and Bobby Davison.

“Derby fans were too wise to comment on height. What mattered was Saunders’ speed, eel-like turn and persistence. He scored six in his first five games, starting with two against Wimbledon when he captured supporters’ hearts with the immediacy of a Kevin Hector. A close-in header and long-range right-footer were beautiful appetisers.”

Despite Saunders scoring 24 goals for Derby in 1990-91, the side was relegated and Saunders and teammate Mark Wright were snapped up by Liverpool. Reds paid £2.9m to take Saunders to Anfield, boss Souness believing he’d be an ideal strike partner for their established Welsh international striker, Ian Rush.

Saunders made his Liverpool debut on 17 August 1991 in a 2-1 win over Oldham Athletic (Mark Walters and defender Wright also played their first league games for Liverpool); Ray Houghton and John Barnes scored Liverpool’s goals.

Saunders scored his first goal for the Reds 10 days’ later in a 1-0 win over QPR at Anfield but a Liverpool history website reckons he struggled to adapt to Liverpool’s passing game. “He was used to Derby’s counter-attacking style, scoring many of his goals by using his exceptional pace,” it said. “Saunders wasn’t very prolific in the league with about one goal every four games but flourished in the UEFA Cup with nine goals in five matches that included a quadruple against Kuusysi Lahti.”

Saunders scored twice in Liverpool’s successful FA Cup campaign, which culminated in them lifting the trophy at Wembley after beating Sunderland.

Although he scored twice in seven games at the start of his second season at Anfield, a cashflow issue meant Souness was forced to sell him to raise funds to dip into the transfer market.

Saunders explained: “Graeme called me in one day and told me he needed a centre-half [Torben Piechnik], and that he could raise the money by selling me to Aston Villa.

“I couldn’t believe he was prepared to let me go, but he said he didn’t think my partnership with Ian Rush had worked out, and Rushy wouldn’t be the one going anywhere. That was it.”

Saunders had scored 25 goals in 61 appearances for Liverpool, the last coming in a 2-1 home win over Chelsea (Jamie Redknapp scoring the other Liverpool goal) on 5 September 1992.

The Welshman had the last laugh, though, because only nine days after his departure from Liverpool he scored twice in Villa’s 4-2 victory over the Reds.

“Obviously I had a big incentive to do well today and I’m thrilled to have scored,” said Saunders. “Both my goals went through the goalkeeper’s legs.”

Signed by Ron Atkinson, Saunders spent three seasons at Villa, initially developing a formidable strike partnership with Dalian Atkinson, and then pairing up with Dwight Yorke. Saunders’ brace in the 1994 League Cup final helped beat Manchester United 3-1.

Villa history site lerwill-life.org.uk remembers him as “a spring-heeled attacker and very popular with the supporters” and adds: “Not big in size, he was very speedy and scored some spectacular goals including a 35-yard spectacular against Ipswich.”

His time at Villa Park came to an end when Brian Little took over as manager, and Saunders was reunited with his old Liverpool boss Souness in Turkey. A £2.35million fee took him to Galatasaray for the 1995-96 season and he netted 15 goals in 27 Turkish League matches.

Next stop for Saunders was back in the UK at Nottingham Forest, but the 1996-97 was an unhappy one as the manager who signed him, Frank Clark, was sacked in December after a bad run of defeats and Forest’s slide towards relegation continued under Stuart Pearce and Dave Bassett.

By the time Forest had bounced straight back up, Saunders had left the club, moving in December 1997 to second-tier Sheffield United for a year under Nigel Spackman and caretaker managers Russell Slade and Steve Thompson. United made the play-offs but lost out to Sunderland in the semi-finals. In December 1998, Saunders moved abroad again to link up with Souness a third time, at Benfica in Portugal.

The following summer, he returned to England and joined Bradford City, where his former Brighton teammate Chris Hutchings was assistant manager, then briefly manager. Saunders was a regular in his first season at Valley Parade, when the Bantams managed to narrowly avoid relegation from the Premier League, but he played only a handful of games in 2000-01, when they were relegated. Saunders retired as a player shortly before his 37th birthday and became a coach at Bradford before linking up with Souness again, this time as a coach.

He joined him at Blackburn Rovers and then Newcastle United, but when Newcastle sacked Souness early in 2006, Saunders lost his job as well.

In the following year he began taking the Certificate in Football Management course run by the University of Warwick; and this led to him being granted his UEFA Pro Licence coaching badge, a qualification that allowed him to be appointed as assistant to John Toshack with the Welsh national team.

In October 2008, Saunders replaced Brian Little as manager of Wrexham, newly relegated to the Conference. He eventually managed to steer the north Wales outfit into the play-offs in the 2010-11 season, but they were knocked out by Luton Town and, in September 2011, Saunders was appointed manager of then Championship club Doncaster Rovers.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t save Rovers from relegation and they went back down to League One with only 36 points from their 46 League fixtures.

Having guided Rovers to second place in League One, Saunders was appointed manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers in January 2013, but he couldn’t prevent them being relegated from the Championship and he was sacked three days after relegation was confirmed courtesy of a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Gus Poyet’s Albion.

Saunders told the media after the game: “We have to get some players in who think like I’m thinking, who want to win, fresh minds, no damage done to them, no confidence issues, no ‘been here too long’ issues, no ‘I don’t know if the manager likes me’ issues. Once I get my own team on the pitch, imagine what the supporters will be like.”

Saunders, with only five wins from his 20 games in charge, didn’t get that chance and rather ruefully said of his opponents that day: “A few years ago they were bankrupt and without a stadium, but they’ve shown what is possible and, with the momentum, they have could well get into the Premier League.”

Just after Christmas 2014, Saunders was named as the interim manager of Crawley Town after the previous incumbent John Gregory stood down for health reasons.

Saunders then became manager of League One side Chesterfield on 13 May 2015 but his stay there lasted only five months.

In June 2016, Saunders was part of the BBC pundit team for their coverage of the Welsh national team’s games at Euro 2016 and made the headlines during the tournament when it was revealed that he had incurred parking charges of over £1,000 from Birmingham Airport’s short stay car park as he wasn’t expecting Wales to progress as far as they did. The charge was eventually waived by the airport who asked him to make a donation to charity instead.

His subsequent involvement in football has been as a pundit on BT Sport’s Saturday afternoon Score programme as well as on the radio with talkSPORT. He hit the headlines in 2019 when he was jailed for failing to comply with a roadside breath test but the initial punishment was quashed and changed to a suspended sentence. Via the League Managers’ Association, Saunders issued a statement in which he said: “I made a terrible error of judgment for which I have been rightly punished, and I wholeheartedly regret that it happened.”

Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and various online sources.

Everton reject Mark Farrington earned rebuke at the Albion

BARRY LLOYD made a number of astute signings during some turbulent years in charge of the Seagulls; Mark Farrington wasn’t one of them!

Although Lloyd struck gold when he picked up Mike Small after seven years playing in Europe, his luck evaporated when he brought former Everton youth player Farrington back to the UK after a five-clubs-in-five-years spell in Holland, Belgium and Germany.

Lloyd agreed a £100,000 fee to sign him from respected Dutch outfit Feyenoord in 1991 – as a replacement for Small, who’d been sold to West Ham for £400,000. But in three years on the Albion’s books, Farrington mustered just four goals in 28 appearances. Subsequently, apart from a single league appearance for Hereford, he ended up at non-league Runcorn.

It’s no secret he’s gone down in Albion folklore as one of the club’s biggest flops, as evidenced by comments on the popular fans forum, North Stand Chat.

In 2004, in one of those discussions about all-time-worst player, ‘Metal Micky’ gave his vote to Farrington, adding: “The only one who came close to his utter shiteness was Ashley Neal.”

On another occasion, noting that Farrington managed to get on the scoresheet in a 3-1 win away to Burnley, ‘Pinkie Brown’ declared: “Mark Farrington scoring a goal rates alongside stepping in rocking horse crap, spotting Lord Lucan and going for a ride on Shergar. The last three are more realistic.”

On the same forum, ‘Withdean and I’ described him as: “The most expensive player ever to make so little impact at the Albion.”

It seems only right and fair, though, to try to balance the picture and I’m grateful to a November 2018 look-back article in the Sussex Express which recalled an occasion on 26 February 1994 when Farrington scored a goal in a 3-1 win at Huddersfield, and earned a plaudit from Lloyd’s replacement as manager, Liam Brady.

The newspaper reported: “For Farrington in particular, it had been a difficult season. He had made only sporadic appearances under Lloyd, but Brady was committed to give everyone a chance. ‘I brought Mark Farrington back into the side,’ said Brady. ‘As far as I am concerned, the slate is clean with everyone at the club and I am prepared to look at each and every player and Mark has done particularly well (in the reserves) and shown a good attitude’.”

It was good of Brady to give him the opportunity but at the start of the following season he brought in Junior McDougald to play alongside Kurt Nogan, and, in October 1994 Farrington left the club.

Born in the Allerton district of Liverpool on 15 June 1965, Farrington’s dad was a long distance lorry driver and his mum a shoe shop manageress. He attended Springwood Primary School and moved on to Hillfoot High School, where his footballing ability began to be recognised.

He also played for the local Allerton side and an Everton scout, Ray Marshall, spotted him. He was taken on as an associate schoolboy and then progressed to an apprenticeship. Unfortunately, his hopes of making it at Everton were dashed within weeks of him ending up on the losing side in the 1983 FA Youth Cup Final.

*Farrington scoring features on the front cover of the Everton programme*

Ironically, Farrington scored four times against Norwich City (see picture of one of them on front of programme) over two legs but City won a play-off and collected the trophy 6-5 on aggregate.

Everton decided not to offer Farrington a professional contract, but the opposition’s manager, Ken Brown, liked what he saw and took him on at Carrow Road.

A year later, he was blooded in an end-of-season top tier game away to Coventry City which the Canaries lost 2-1.

City history site Flown From The Nest notes he made a total of 18 appearances and scored twice before he was loaned to Cambridge United, where he scored once in 10 matches, and was then transferred to Cardiff City in July 1985.

City were newly relegated from the second tier. Farrington scored in the first game of the new season, a 4-1 win at Notts County, but Cardiff had a disastrous season and finished up relegated to the bottom tier. According to mauveandyellowarmy.net, Farrington scored only three more times in a total of 36 appearances for the Bluebirds before being sacked for a breach of club discipline by manager Alan Durban, who was sacked himself following relegation.

After an unsuccessful trial with Portsmouth, Farrington tried his luck on the continent.

At Dutch side Willem II Tillburg, he got into his goalscoring stride and bagged 26 in 61 appearances – by far his best scoring ratio for any club.

At RC Genk he scored five in 17 matches, and 10 in 30 games for Fortuna Sittard, including a hat-trick against PSV Eindhoven and four against Volendam. Next up on his European travels was Hertha Berlin for eight months, but he struggled to settle in Berlin and didn’t register a goal in nine games.

Dutch giants Feyenoord came to his rescue and, after he’d scored twice in a friendly, they bought out the rest of his Hertha Berlin contract. He scored once in five matches but when Gunther Bensson, the coach who’d bought him left, he failed to see eye to eye with his successor and began to seek a move. Lloyd took him on trial at Brighton and he scored in a reserves match against Ipswich.

“In May 1991 I had the chance to go to Spain to play for Seville but that fell flat and in August Barry called me again and I came to the Goldstone,” he told the matchday programme. “I had missed the pre-season training and all the other players had a head start and I suffered. I injured an ankle early on and one thing led to another. It soon became a nightmare, one injury followed another,” he said.

Farrington saw various specialists to try to get to the bottom of several niggles that were keeping him sidelined and months went by before he finally got the all-clear.

‘Sleekly skilful’ Dale Jasper remembered with a smile

FORMER teammates expressed fond memories and a sense of shock when Dale Jasper died in January 2020 aged only 56.

A product of Chelsea’s youth system in the 1980s, he made it through to the first team but moved to Brighton to get more playing time.

Although he succeeded – playing a total of 52 matches plus eight as a sub under Alan Mullery and Barry Lloyd between 1986 and 1988 – he had to move on again, this time to Crewe Alexandra, to establish a regular starting berth.

It was certainly no mean achievement, though, to have on his CV that he won promotion with all three clubs.

In Ivan Ponting’s obituary for Back Pass magazine, Jasper was described as “a sleekly skilful midfielder-cum-central defender”.

Born in Croydon on 14 January 1964, Jasper was an associate schoolboy with Chelsea from the tender age of 10.

He progressed to the youth ranks and turned professional at Stamford Bridge in January 1982. Manager John Neal gave him his first team break against Cardiff City in March 1984, and Chelsea fans remember him for his involvement in some eye-catching matches.

One involved a 4-4 League Cup quarter final against Sheffield Wednesday but in the semi-final v Sunderland he conceded two penalties.

Although part of the squad Neal steered to promotion from the second tier in 1983-84, the form of his friend Colin Pates, who later had two spells with Brighton himself, and Joe McLaughlin, meant first team chances were few and far between.

Nevertheless, former Chelsea star Pat Nevin remembered Jasper’s involvement in a warm tribute on chelseafc.com.

“Dale was about as much fun as you could find wrapped up in one person,” said Nevin. “He had a brilliant personality in the dressing room at Stamford Bridge and was always up for a surreal laugh with all of us, particularly when he was with his great friends Colin Pates and John Bumstead.”

When Neal’s replacement, John Hollins, failed to offer Jasper the first team game-time he craved, he took the chance to join Brighton in May 1986, and enthused about the move in an interview with Albion matchday programme contributor, Tony Norman.

“I signed on the Monday and three days later I flew out to Hong Kong with the team, so it wasn’t a bad week, was it? We played an exhibition match over there. I was a bit disappointed when a goal I scored was disallowed, but I was smiling by the end of the game, because we won 3-1.

“We were away for about a week and it was a very good way for me to meet the rest of the p!ayers and get to know them. It all seemed a bit unreal, because it had all come out of the blue, but it was very enjoyable.”

Unfortunately for him, the manager who signed him for Brighton – Mullery – was unable to recapture the midas touch he’d previously enjoyed at the club.

Jasper started the first 13 games of the 1986-87 season but only three wins were chalked up and Mullery was shown the exit door shortly into the new year.

Jasper played 16 games plus one as a sub under new boss Lloyd but, after the side were relegated back to the third tier, he found it difficult to cement a regular place in the starting line-up.

Apart from a 10-game stint of starts between November and January, he spent most of the 1987-88 season on the subs bench, with Alan Curbishley and Mike Trusson preferred and, for the promotion run-in, Lloyd turned to Adrian Owers. instead.

Although Jasper scored in successive matches in February (one after coming on as a sub in a 2-2 home draw with Chesterfield), his final appearance in an Albion shirt was in a 5-1 defeat at home to Notts County in a Sherpa Van Trophy regional semi-final on 9 March 1988.

Jasper’s well-known sense of humour was evident in his answers for a profile feature in the Albion matchday programme. Perhaps reflecting his lack of first team game time, he said his ambition was “to win the Sussex Senior Cup” and said his favourite actress was teammate Perry Digweed!

Interestingly, he listed (former Chelsea coach) Dario Gradi as one of the main influences on his career, and it was to Gradi’s Crewe side that he moved on leaving the Albion in July 1988.

At the Alex, he made more than 100 appearances in four years, including being involved in their 1989 promotion from the fourth tier. He later played non-league for Crawley Town and Kingstonian.

After his playing career came to an end, he worked in the building trade.

Shocked to learn of Jasper’s death on 30 January 2020, former Albion teammate John Keeley told the Argus: “Dale was really well liked by everyone. He had some real talent and was a top, top lad.”

Boss feistily defended crowd-heckled Bobby Smith

B Smith white action TOUGH-TACKLING midfielder Bobby Smith made more than 200 appearances for Manchester United’s reserve side.

He played alongside emerging talents such as George Best and Nobby Stiles but wasn’t able to follow them in making the step up to the first team.

Like many before and since, he had to look elsewhere to establish a career in the game, and 85 of his 307 senior career appearances came in the colours of Brighton & Hove Albion, the fourth of seven clubs he served as a player.

Smith stayed in the game as a manager and coach for 26 years after hanging up his boots, his most notable achievement coming in December 1979 as boss of Third Division Swindon Town when they overcame the mighty Arsenal in a thrilling League Cup quarter final.

Born in Prestbury, Cheshire, on 14 March 1944, Smith won six England Schoolboys (under 15s) caps, playing right-half with future World Cup winner Martin Peters playing on the left.

He went on to win two England Youth caps: on 9 March 1961, he was in an England side (which also included John Jackson in goal and future Luton and Spurs boss David Pleat) that lost 1-0 to the Netherlands in Utrecht and three days later was again on the losing side, this time 2-0, to West Germany in Flensburg, when teammates included John Milkins, Portsmouth’s ‘keeper for many years, and striker John O’Rourke, who played for various clubs. Smith turned professional with United the following month.

I’ve discovered an old programme (above) for a Man Utd reserve fixture against West Brom during that era. It shows Smith alongside Wilf Tranter (who also later played for Brighton, and was Smith’s assistant manager at Swindon), Nobby Stiles in midfield, and George Best on the left wing.

In 1964, when a first team call-up continued to elude Smith, he lowered his sights and went to play for a former United colleague at Scunthorpe United. That colleague was Freddie Goodwin who would later be his manager at Brighton as well.

At Scunthorpe, Smith finally saw league action and played 87 games in two seasons before being transferred for £8,000 to Grimsby Town. In two years with the Mariners, he played 56 games before joining the Albion in June 1968.

My distant memory of Smith was of a tough-tackling midfielder who was in the shadow of the likes of Nobby Lawton and Dave Turner when it came to his popularity with supporters. And manager Goodwin hit back strongly when a section of fans voiced their disapproval of the player.

Smith scored the only goal of the game after only 50 seconds away to Stockport County on 23 January 1970, but in the previous home game (a 2-1 win over Bradford City) there had been a few shouts from the terraces in Smith’s direction.

In his weekly article for the Brighton and Hove Herald, Goodwin said: “I was most disappointed to hear certain sections of the crowd getting at Bobby Smith.

“He has done nothing to warrant this behaviour. He is a 90-minute aggressive player and his value to the team lies in his ability to win the ball from the opposition.

“He is well aware of his limitations as a player, but there is no-one who can accuse him of ever giving less than 100 per cent.

“This sort of behaviour by a small minority of spectators does nothing to help the team or the individual players.

“Any player who takes the field as a representative of Brighton and Hove Albion does so because he has been selected for the team by me.

“It is my responsibility that a player represents the Albion. So, to barrack any player is most unfair to him.”

*Smith in action against the backdrop of the packed East Terrace at the Goldstone. Albion won 4-0*

His 85 games for the Albion came across three seasons: 33 in 1968-69 and 26 in each of the following two seasons. Goodwin’s successor, Pat Saward, released him at the end of the 1970-71 season, and, in June 1971, he went on a free transfer to Chester City.

After only four months in the North West, he switched to the North East, joining Hartlepool United, initially on loan. Over two years, in which Len Ashurst’s side only just avoided the old re-election places, Smith played in 76 matches before moving on to Bury in August 1973. He signed as a player-coach but didn’t feature in the league side, instead taking over as manager – aged only 29 – from Allan Brown in December 1973.

It was the start of a coaching and managerial career that would span more than a quarter of a century.

He took Bury to promotion from the fourth tier by the end of that 1973-74 season, and remained in charge for just under four years, He was at the helm for a total of 215 games; the record books showing he achieved a 41.9 per cent win rate.

A six-month stint followed at Port Vale, between November 1977 and May 1978, but, of his 33 games in charge, he only presided over six wins (there were 14 draws and 13 defeats).

Swindon paid £10,000 compensation to lure him to the County Ground, where, as mentioned, his assistant manager was the aforementioned Tranter.

The official Swindon website remembered: “Despite being a relatively young manager, he guided Swindon to a promotion challenge in his first season in charge – missing out by three points, after losing the last two games of the season.”

Part of the secret had been Smith’s signing of strikers Andy Rowland and Alan Mayes.

Swindon w BS WT Smith (far right) as manager of Swindon, with Tranter (far left), Chris Kamara (circled back row) and skipper Ray McHale (centre front row).

His major achievement came the following year, when Town beat Arsenal 4-3 in a replay to reach the League Cup semi-final.

When one considers the size of League Cup game crowds now, it seems extraordinary to discover around 7,000 Swindon fans (in a gate of 38,024) had made the trip to Highbury for the initial tie, which finished 1-1.

The Gunners had famously lost to lowly Swindon in the 1969 League Cup Final at Wembley, so the humble Wiltshire club smelled history repeating itself.

In the replay, with 21,795 packed into the County Ground, Steve Walford and John Hollins scored own goals and future Brighton manager Liam Brady scored twice for Arsenal. One of the key players for Swindon was future Sky Sports reporter Chris Kamara.

Striker Rowland, who scored an extra time winner, relived the momentous occasion in an interview with SwindonWebTV.

Unsurprisingly, the giant killing attracted plenty of media attention and Smith was interviewed live on Football Focus by presenter Bob Wilson.

Smith pointed out that his side had been well grounded and, after the initial draw against Arsenal, had thumped his old club Bury 8-0, equalling Swindon’s biggest winning margin in a league game. Amongst the scorers were Rowland and Billy Tucker – two of four ex-Bury players in Swindon’s starting line-up. Another was Brian Williams – Bury’s youngest ever player – and one of the other goalscorers, Ray McHale, (later to play for Brighton in the top division) went on to have a loan spell at Gigg Lane later in his career.

The Robins beat top-flight opponents Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 at home in the first leg of the semi-final but went down 3-1 at Molineux in controversial circumstances, Wolves scoring the decisive goal five minutes from the end.

“We were so unfortunate because Wolves should have been down to 10 men,” Kamara told the Swindon Advertiser. “Alan Mayes got hit by the goalkeeper (Paul Bradshaw). He came out of his goal, didn’t get anywhere near the ball and he clattered Alan and broke his two front teeth and his nose but didn’t get sent off.

“I know everyone looks at situations and says ‘You were unlucky’ but that was a turning point in the game, and we ended up losing.”

It later emerged that the tie could have had a dramatic impact on Kamara’s playing career. In a 2010 interview with FourFourTwo magazine, he explained how he was once on Manchester United’s radar during Ron Atkinson’s reign.

“I was at Swindon and my manager Bobby Smith said, ‘Big Ron’s coming to watch you.’ We were playing in the 1980 semi-final of the League Cup against Wolves, but I had the ’flu and didn’t play so well. I’m not saying that’s the reason he didn’t sign me, but Ron went back to his old club, West Brom, and signed Remi Moses instead.”

With the benefit of hindsight, the cup run took its toll on the Swindon side. Before the semi, they were just five points from a promotion place, with four games in hand. But only five of their last 18 games were won, and they lost nine away games on the trot, resulting in a disappointing 10th place finish.

Smith had spent large – by Swindon’s standards – including £250,000 on two players, David Peach and Glenn Cockerill, both of whom never fitted in at the club.

When Swindon lost their first five matches of the 1980-81 season, Smith was relieved of his duties.

He later took charge at Newport County and Swansea City, as well as coaching at the Swans, Blackpool, Cardiff City, and Sheffield Wednesday, together with a spell as assistant manager of Hereford United.

He was assistant manager to Frank Burrows at the Vetch Field but when the chairman at the time announced his intention to sell up, and no funds were being made available for new players, Burrows left of his own accord and Smith became caretaker manager.

Contributor Colin_swansea, on the fans website scfc2.co.uk, observed: “After Tosh left we had caretakers Doug Livermore for 30 days, Les Chappell for 23 days prior to Tosh returning, and after Tosh had left for a second time on the 5th March 1984 Les returned as caretaker until the end of the season.

“Our manager’s position was even more farcical after Frankie Burrows left with his assistant Bobby Smith taking over until a bust up during the Xmas period when Doug Sharp wouldn’t sanction the buying of rubber studded boots to combat the winter conditions.

*Smith interviewed after his Swindon side held Spurs to a 0-0 draw in the FA Cup*

“Smith left on 22 December 1995, Jimmy Rimmer was caretaker to 7 February 1996, Kevin Cullis became manager for a week, a two-game spell of two defeats, Rimmer returned for eight days as caretaker, before Jan Molby’s appointment on 22 February 1996. Molby’s replacement as manager on 9 October 1997 was Micky Adams who lasted 13 days and three league defeats with his assistant Alan Cork taking over until the end of the season.

“Cork didn’t fit the profile for the club’s new owners, Silver Shield, and he was offloaded at the end of the season. Ironically his successor, John Hollins, didn’t sign one player the following season when the club reached the play offs.

“Never a dull moment being manager of the Swans during the 80s and 90s!”

Halford’s timely role in helping Albion avoid the drop

TIME was of the essence when utility player Greg Halford agreed to make a temporary move to Brighton.

He penned a deal to join the Seagulls temporarily at Nottingham Forest’s training ground at 12.30pm and then got in his car to drive to Brighton for 6pm in time to be involved in the squad for that evening’s game at the Amex against Wigan Athletic.

It was 4 November 2014 and he was Sami Hyypia’s sixth loan signing – even though only five were eligible to play in any matchday squad (emergency loan goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi only played one game).

Regular centre backs Gordon Greer and Lewis Dunk were perilously close to suspension and deputy Aaron Hughes was sidelined with an ankle injury, so Hyypia moved to bring in an experienced back-up.

Albion hadn’t registered a win in the previous 11 league matches but the 29-year-old Halford proved to be a lucky charm as the side finally reacquainted themselves with the taste of victory. Fellow loanee Gary Gardner got the only goal of the game and Halford made an appearance off the bench towards the end of the game.

“I wasn’t really expecting to get any game time. I thought I’d just be in and around the lads, to get a feel for how everything works,” he told the club programme. “But I’m glad I got a few minutes at the end.”

Halford explained how he’d agreed to join the Seagulls because he’d been frozen out at Forest after Stuart Pearce took over as manager.

The player said he was familiar with the south coast having previously played for Portsmouth.

Asked what he could bring to the side, he added: “I can add a bit of height, I can score goals and obviously I can defend, which is my main attribute. I’m here to help the team and manager in any way I can.”

It wasn’t long before he was helping out a different manager as the side’s run of poor form brought a premature end to Hyypia’s brief time in charge.

Halford, though, hung around at the Amex, his loan extended by Hyypia’s successor, Chris Hughton, and he had made 14 starts and five substitute appearances by the season’s end, when the Seagulls narrowly escaped the drop back to the third tier.

Born on 8 December 1984 in Chelmsford, Essex, Halford began his professional career at nearby Colchester United. I well remember a Chelmsford-based work colleague telling me about this talented young footballer who’d been head and shoulders the best player in a local schoolboy football team his son had played for.

That player was Halford, who progressed from Colchester’s youth team and made his first team debut in April 2003. Loan spells at non-league Aylesbury Town and Braintree Town were part of his development, but he eventually made his mark at Colchester and was named in the PFA League One team of the year in 2005-06.

Played mainly at right-back, Halford’s speciality was his ability to deliver searching long throws which led to a good proportion of goals for Colchester.

After playing more than 150 games in five years for the Us, Halford wanted to prove himself at the highest level. He got a move to Premier League Reading in January 2007 but he couldn’t make the breakthrough there and ended up switching to Sunderland, signed by Roy Keane.

Just six months later, Sunderland made him available on loan and he joined Championship side Charlton until the end of the season. Then he spent the whole of the 2008-09 season on loan to Sheffield United, featuring in 49 of their 56 games that season.

His personal highlight was scoring the only goal of the game as United beat Preston to reach the 2008-09 play-off final.

Unfortunately, United lost the final 1-0 to Burnley, and that summer Halford was on the move again, this time to newly-promoted Wolverhampton Wanderers. Although he featured in 20 games, a regular starting berth eluded him and, in October 2010, he joined Championship side Portsmouth. Initially on loan, he eventually joined Pompey on a permanent basis but relegation to the third tier brought with it the need to trim budgets and in July 2012, they offloaded Halford to Nottingham Forest.

GH Forest Under Billy Davies, Halford was generally deployed as a striker but when Pearce took over at the City Ground, he didn’t get close to the first team. On his return from Brighton at the end of the 2014-15 season, he was released by Forest and joined Rotherham United on a free transfer.

Manager Steve Evans appointed him captain but, after a winless run of five games, he was deposed and only played one more game for the Millers before joining Birmingham City on loan.

GH Card That spell was also brief and although he returned to Rotherham and played 15 games for them in the 2016-17 season, he then joined Cardiff City and made 33 appearances in two seasons for Neil Warnock’s side.

Without a club for six months, in February 2019, he joined Scottish Premiership side Aberdeen as defensive cover but only made two appearances.

Brighton briefly on the trail of the ‘loansome’ Sam Vokes

‘LOANSOME’ Sam Vokes joined Brighton temporarily on the eve of transfer deadline day in January 2012.

He was 22 at the time and had already had five loan spells away from Molineux since joining Wolverhampton Wanderers in the summer of 2008. Vokes told BBC Sussex: “I need to settle down in my career and it’s a fantastic chance for me to come here and play some football.

“It’s a matter of playing games and, as a striker, scoring goals.”

Vokes had been troubled by injury and had found it difficult to establish himself in the Wolves side. The season before, he had been out on loan at Bristol City, Sheffield United and Norwich, and earlier in the 2011-12 season had scored two goals in nine appearances on loan at Burnley.

Eddie Howe, who’d managed Vokes during his first spell at Bournemouth, had taken him to Turf Moor to partner Jay Rodriguez. But when his deal with Burnley expired in mid-January, Albion boss Gus Poyet stepped in and persuaded him to join the Seagulls.

Vokes was invited to the Amex to watch the side’s FA Cup fourth round tie against Newcastle and, two days after the 1-0 win, put pen to the loan deal.

7188430 “I don’t want to sit around – I love playing,” said Vokes. “Brighton have a great way of playing football that is different to a lot of teams in the Championship.”

The young striker told the Albion matchday programme: “I’m a southern boy. I know the area well, and I know what football means to people down here.

“It’s been difficult for me to settle anywhere, moving from place to place on loan, but now I just want to play football. I love the game. I need to play, it’s all I want to do.

“I would like to stay and if all goes well we will see what happens in the summer, but my main aim at the moment is to start playing football again and scoring goals.”

Poyet told the media: “Sam was one of the players we’ve been following for a long time but it’s been difficult to get him.

“The idea was to bring someone who will give us that presence and strength in the air that we don’t have.

“We’ve got the time to explain how we play, and what he needs to do for us. The quicker he adapts, the easier for us. I’m delighted to have him and I hope it works for him.

“He’s been trying to find that place that he can stay for a few years.”

As it turned out, Vokes struggled to dislodge incumbent strikers Ashley Barnes and Craig Mackail-Smith, and he made just seven starts plus five substitute appearances.

SV- BHA stripes

Although he scored on his full home debut in a 2-2 draw v Millwall, he only got two more goals, a last-minute equaliser in another 2-2 draw, at home to Cardiff City, and Albion’s lone strike in a 1-1 draw away to Nottingham Forest.

In July 2012, it was reported Wolves were demanding £500,000 for the player’s signature on a permanent basis, and that Brighton and Burnley were both keen to sign him.

Vokes burnley

Howe had always been keen to get the player back to Burnley and, although officially undisclosed, it’s believed a £350,000 fee took him to Turf Moor where he finally settled down and, over the next seven years, scored 62 goals in 258 appearances.

Born in Southampton on 21 October 1989, Vokes was brought up in Lymington and was a Southampton fan at an early age. He even had a trial with them when he was just 10 but wasn’t taken on.

It was when he was playing football for local sides in the New Forest that he was spotted by Bournemouth and joined them in 2005. He was only 17 when he made his first team debut in December 2006 (in a 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest) and although he scored 12 goals in the 2007-08 season, the Cherries were relegated from League One.

Vokes Wolves Wolves stepped in to sign him that May and he came off the bench in the opening game of the following season to score an equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Plymouth Argyle. However, Chris Iwelumo and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake were the main men scoring goals as Wolves won the Championship that year, and Vokes’ involvement was mainly off the bench.

With his parent club in the Premier League, Vokes was loaned out to League One Leeds United on a three-month deal, although he only scored once in eight games. One of those matches was against the Albion at Withdean and Vokes recalled picking up his first footballing scar when an Adam El-Abd elbow caught him in the face.

Once Vokes finally settled down at Burnley after his various loan moves, it can’t have helped his cause when the man who signed him quit Turf Moor to return to Bournemouth.

Indeed, when Sean Dyche replaced Howe, his go-to centre forward at first was Charlie Austin, but when Austin was sold Vokes got more of a chance to show his worth alongside Danny Ings.

The partnership that began to evolve surprised Burnley fans who’d wondered whether Vokes was only ever destined to be a bit-part player.

“Everyone was concerned to be honest,” said Tony Scholes on uptheclarets.com. “We’d seen some potential in Ings but there wasn’t much confidence that Vokes could become a regular, goalscoring striker at Championship level.

Burnley Football Club_1st Team head Shots_30/7/15 He went on: “Our shortage of strikers was highlighted by the fact that he played the full 90 minutes in all of the first 26 league games that season, but he wasn’t just filling in. He was turning in some outstanding performances, linking up really well with Ings and both were scoring goals aplenty.”

Unfortunately, a cruciate knee injury sidelined him for a lengthy spell and Burnley bought Ashley Barnes from Brighton as they sought to bolster their forward options.

A fit Vokes eventually reclaimed his place and formed a useful partnership with big money signing Andre Gray when Barnes himself was also hit by a cruciate injury.

In the early part of last season, Vokes often found himself on the bench, with Barnes and Chris Wood starting ahead of him, and, in January, he decided to drop back down to the Championship, joining Nathan Jones’ new regime at Stoke City, with former England international Peter Crouch going in the opposite direction.

As is often the way these days, the fee was ‘undisclosed’ but was rumoured to be in the order of £7m, and Stoke offered Vokes a three-and-a-half-year contract.

His popularity at Burnley was reflected in a thoughtful parting message thanking the club and the Clarets fans, in which he said: “You made the club a ‘home’ for myself and all my family and for that I’m eternally grateful.”

He added: “It’s been an incredible journey that we’ve been on over the past seven years, with promotions, relegation, survival and even European football through the Europa League.

“There have been so many highlights and every step along the way has been a joy, but now I am looking forward to a new challenge.”

Dyche, meanwhile, told the Stoke Sentinel: “Sam has been an absolutely fantastic servant, not just as a player but as a person.

“There was a bit of frustration that he hasn’t played as much as he’d like and this presents a fresh challenge, so, with all that factored in, it became a win-win deal.

“We feel we’ve got a good deal financially for the business and Sam has got a fresh chance somewhere different.”

Since July 2021, Vokes has been leading the line for League One Wycombe Wanderers.

Vokes Wales

Vokes may have been born and brought up in England but, thanks to having a grandfather born in Colwyn Bay, he became eligible to play for Wales and has earned more than 60 caps since making his debut in 2008, including their most recent game against Belarus.

A stand-out moment for his adopted country came during the Euro 2016 tournament when he came on as a substitute and (pictured above) sealed Wales’ 3-1 win over Belgium with an 85^th-minute goal to reach the semi-finals.

Pictures from various online sources.

Sweet passer ‘Chippy’ became Brighton crowd favourite after Cardiff move

RICHARD Carpenter was a popular mainstay of Albion’s promotion-winnning side of the Noughties, scoring some notable goals along the way.

Billed as Brighton’s ‘star player’ in Port Vale’s 20 April 2002 programme for the last game of Albion’s promotion-winning season, Carpenter was described as “a highly effective midfielder, being strong in the tackle, a precise and sweet passer of the ball, while possessing a strong right-foot shot” – an excellent summary.

The goal he scored from a free kick against Spurs in the FA Cup at White Hart Lane on 8 January 2005 is right up there as one of my all-time Albion favourites.

Brighton, battling at the bottom of the Championship, hadn’t played Spurs since falling out of the top division in 1983 so it was a great chance for a giant-killing.

Albion ultimately succumbed 2-1, but not before Carpenter rifled home a free-kick past England ‘keeper Paul Robinson three minutes into the second half to level the score.

Carpenter told the Albion matchday programme in January 2018: “We were going to have a good time, win, lose or draw, but we also didn’t change the way we played – we made ourselves hard to beat, like we always did.

“Before my goal, I had already hit the crossbar with a half-volley from outside the box when Gary Hart teed me up. It went like slow motion and I thought it was going in.

“Obviously, I did score with a free-kick in the second half. I looked at the wall and my mind was made up to hit it. I knew it was going in by the flight of the ball and it was obviously a great feeling to score at White Hart Lane.”

Born in the village of Teynham, near Sittingbourne in Kent, on 30 September 1972, most of Carpenter’s career was centred on London and the south east, apart from one brief foray to south Wales, and Cardiff City.

Chippy began his professional career with Gillingham in May 1991 and he had clocked up 142 senior appearances for the Gills in five years before Gillingham old boy Micky Adams paid a £15,000 fee to take him to Craven Cottage, Fulham.

In two seasons at the Cottage he played a further 66 times, scoring nine goals along the way.

It was in July 1998 that he left the English capital to sample life in the Welsh capital. Cardiff paid £35,000 for his services and he helped them to promotion from the fourth tier in 1999.

Unfortunately, Carpenter’s time in Wales was also marred by a tackle he made in a Boxing Day game against Reading in 1999. His challenge on Chris Casper resulted in a double leg break for the defender which ultimately ended his career. Five years later, Casper was awarded undisclosed damages in an out-of-court settlement for past and future loss of earnings.

Nevertheless, when interviewed about his time in south Wales, Carpenter told Graham Otway, of the Daily Mail: “I had two and a half fantastic years at Cardiff. I helped them win promotion and I lived in a lovely part of the Forest of Dean, near Chepstow.

“I never wanted to leave the club but my girlfriend was expecting a baby and we wanted to move back home to Kent.”

So, after 89 league and cup appearances for the Bluebirds, he joined the Adams-managed Brighton on a free transfer in July 2000.

Away from football, it also presented him with the perfect opportunity to browse Brighton’s famous Laines searching out various antiques for his collection.

“I do like collecting nice pieces,” he told Otway. “I am mainly into collectables – watches, jewellery and old walking canes. But when it comes to furniture I am into modern stuff as well. I just have lots of interests outside of football.”

On the pitch, Carpenter was an Albion fixture under various managers and was part of promotion and relegation sides.

In the first leg of the play-off semi-finals in 2004, on a boiling hot day at the County Ground, Swindon, it was Carpenter’s deflected goal that gave Albion the advantage going into the second leg, which was played in exactly opposite conditions of torrential rain, as Albion edged it via a penalty shoot-out.

Carpenter said the 2004 play-off final at Cardiff was the pinnacle of his career, as Albion secured a 1-0 win over Bristol City to return to the second tier.

“I have played all my career in the Second and Third Divisions – apart from one in the First – and I haven’t had the opportunity to play in luxury stadiums in front of massive crowds,” he said. “The final is going to be something special for me to remember for the rest of my life.”

After Mark McGhee was replaced as manager by Dean Wilkins in September 2006, Carpenter’s Albion days were numbered.

In fact, he was red-carded in Wilkins’ first game in charge, away to Millwall, although the Seagulls won 1-0. Former Albion youth coach Wilkins was keen to introduce to the first team some of the younger players he’d helped to develop. So, at the age of 34, and after more than 278 appearances and 24 goals, Carpenter’s Seagulls playing career finally came to a close, in February 2007, when he left by mutual consent.

Albion chairman Dick Knight devoted space in the matchday programme to honour his achievements with the Seagulls.

“He has been a fantastic player and model professional for this football club ever since he arrived from Cardiff in 2000,” said Knight. “I remember Micky Adams telling fans that Richard would be a player that fans would enjoy, and he was right.”

As well as highlighting his key moments on the pitch, Knight added: “He has also been a real credit to his profession off the pitch, a tremendous role model for the youngsters coming through in terms of his dedication, honesty as a player and character.”

Manager Wilkins added: “He is the ultimate professional – on and off the pitch. His attitude and application from Monday through to Saturday was superb. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody with better work ethic, discipline and determination.”

For his part, Carpenter said: “I have got no hard feelings, although I’m disappointed with the way it’s ended this season. I haven’t played as many games as I would have liked, due to suspension and injury.

“It’s hard at my age not to be involved; this last year or so has been a struggle and it is time to move on.”

He joined non-league Welling United, where he was appointed captain and briefly caretaker manager. In 2011, he emerged from retirement for a short spell to play for Whitehawk.

After his playing days came to an end, Chippy spent four years coaching for the Albion In the Community programme. He then “worked on the railways” for five years and at the turn of 2018 said he was planning to indulge his passion for antiques.

In February 2018, prior to Albion’s FA Cup tie with Coventry, he appeared on the BBC Radio Sussex show, Albion Unlimited, and talked about how he missed the game, especially the close bond he enjoyed with teammates at all the clubs he played for.

Presenter Adrian Harms asked him about the characters he played with and he said: “We trained the way we played; we was all up for it. Individually we were strong; collectively we were even stronger.”

B Dean Chippy + Cullip

Pictures from various matchday programmes, by Bennett Dean, and the Argus.

Goal machine Frank Stapleton ended his playing days in a Brighton shirt

stapleton stretch

FRANK STAPLETON hit the heights as a goalscorer for Arsenal and Manchester United but his prize-winning playing days came to an end in a Brighton & Hove Albion shirt.

Stapleton was the scorer of the first top flight goal at the Goldstone Ground – unfortunately, it was the opener in Arsenal’s 4-0 win in 1979! He was also one of the Manchester United scorers in the 1983 FA Cup Final against Brighton, having moved to Old Trafford two years earlier (above, however, he just fails to connect for Arsenal against Brighton with Steve Foster and Gary Williams looking on).

His two appearances for Brighton came in 1995 when his old pal Liam Brady brought him in to try to improve the front line of an ailing side.

Born in Dublin on 10 July 1956, the promising young Stapleton was rejected by United as a teenager but the Gunners reaped the benefit of that decision by snapping him up at the tender age of 15 on chief scout Gordon Clark’s recommendation.

Arsenal’s confidence in the prospects for the promising young Irish duo were reflected in a Goal magazine article of 7 October 1972 in which boss Bertie Mee talked about them as future first team players. At the time, they were still part of the club’s junior ranks, aged just 15 and 16.

goal cutting

Mee said: “Brady is almost established as a regular in the reserve side. He needs building up but has the potential to become a first-team player. Stapleton has made quite an impact in his first season and, providing he maintains a steady improvement, he could also follow the path of Brady.”

It was only Brady’s second season and Clark, the Arsenal chief scout who unearthed him, said, at first, he thought he would be better suited to becoming a jockey because he was so small and frail!

He quickly changed his mind when he saw his ability with a football. “He was like a little midget but he had so much confidence. He’s really shot up now and although he’s still not very tall, he’s strong enough to hold his own,” said Clark.

Stapleton, at 15, joined Arsenal in the summer of 1972 and quickly developed a reputation as a goalscorer, netting 11 goals in seven games.

“Frank is tall and very good in the air,” said Clark. “He seems to get up and hang for the ball. He is also very good on the floor and reads the game intelligently for a youngster.”

As expected, Stapleton progressed to the first team and made his debut in 1975 against Stoke City. He initially formed an impressive partnership with England striker Malcolm Macdonald and in three successive seasons was Arsenal’s leading goalscorer.

Such prowess brought him to the attention of the Republic of Ireland international selectors and player-manager Johnny Giles gave him his full debut aged just 20 in 1976 against Turkey in Ankara.

It was the first of a total of 71 caps for his country, during which time he became their captain and scorer of 20 goals. He led Eire when they famously beat England 1-0 at the Euro 1988 finals in Germany. Although he was part of the 1990 World Cup squad – alongside former Albion boss, Chris Hughton – he was by then behind Niall Quinn, John Aldridge and Tony Cascarino in the pecking order.

Stapleton was part of Arsenal’s three successive FA Cup final teams (1978, 1979, 1980), scoring against United in Arsenal’s 3-2 win in 1979.

When the Gunners sold Brady to Juventus in 1980, Stapleton started to question the club’s ambition and, the following year, on expiry of his contract, decided he would move on himself.

He had scored 108 goals in 300 appearances for Arsenal – some strike rate! – and it wasn’t a popular move to join a major rival in the same division, but he wasn’t the first or last player to have done so.

In the Sixties, United had taken David Herd from the marble halls of Highbury to lead their line and, of course, in more recent times, United signed Alexis Sanchez.

stapleton utd

When Robin van Persie made the same transfer switch from Arsenal to Manchester United in 2012, the Daily Mail took Stapleton back 30 years to talk about the circumstances of his own move.

Stapleton was Ron Atkinson’s first major signing for United and in his first season was partnered up front with Garry Birtles. Stapleton was the leading scorer for United in that first season, with 13 goals in 41 league games.

Subsequently, his main strike partner was the Northern Ireland international, Norman Whiteside.

Stapleton scored United’s first goal, a 55th minute equaliser, in the 2-2 Cup Final draw against Brighton: one of 19 he notched during the 1982-83 season in which he played in 59 of United’s 60 games.

By the end of the following season, Stapleton’s regular strike partner was Mark Hughes and he scored in the 1985 FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool to set up yet another Wembley appearance, this time collecting his third winners’ medal when Whiteside’s winner beat Everton.

Despite a good start to the following season, with Stapleton once again amongst the goals, poor league form eventually cost Atkinson his job and his successor, Alex Ferguson, began rebuilding the side.

After six years at United, Stapleton, by then 30, was amongst those to be let go, and he was sold to Ajax of Amsterdam, lured by the fact they were managed by Johan Cruyff. But the move failed to live up to expectations, as detailed by the42.ie, and he ended up having a spell on loan at Anderlecht.

It was the first of a series of moves which didn’t really work out for him, although in the 1988-89 season he found himself playing in France alongside fellow Irish international – and future Brighton striker – John Byrne for Le Havre.

stapleton 4 derby

Derby County offered him a platform back in the UK game and he featured 10 times for them in 1987-88 and, after his stint in France came to an end, he spent two seasons with Blackburn Rovers.

He played once for lowly Aldershot and five times for Huddersfield Town before landing a player-manager’s post with Bradford City. In three years at Valley Parade, he made 68 appearances before the axe fell, and he answered Brady’s call for help at the Goldstone Ground.

The brilliant The Goldstone Wrap detailed his brief involvement in a March 2015 post, explaining how he featured as a substitute in a 0-0 draw at home to Bournemouth and started in a 3-0 defeat away to Cardiff City.

It was a final swansong for his playing career, as he looked to get back into coaching or management. He had two stints working under his former United teammate Ray Wilkins: at QPR and, in 2014, with the Jordan national side.

Stapleton spent eight months in 1996 as the first head coach of American Major Soccer League side New England Revolution, of Massachusetts.

His last appointment in the English game was briefly as a specialist striker coach at Bolton Wanderers, appointed during Sam Allardyce’s reign, in 2003-04.

Nowadays, Stapleton is more likely to be found talking about his illustrious career, his availability for bookings listed by football-speakers.com.

Teenage Teddy Maybank’s Chelsea promise dashed by injury at Brighton

TEDDY MAYBANK signed for the Seagulls for what at the time was a club record transfer in November 1977 and went on to score Brighton’s first ever top division goal.

But the new signing came in for some flak from the terraces and, over two years, never really delivered a significant return on the investment.

Maybank himself reckons the club forced him to play on with an injured knee when he shouldn’t have, which led to irreparable damage and ultimately a premature end to his career.

The former Chelsea centre-forward was signed to replace Ian Mellor, Peter Ward’s prolific strike partner in the 3^rd Division, after Brighton had won promotion to the second tier.

“We let Ian Mellor go because we felt that he had reached a certain age and had probably peaked,” Alan Mullery told Matthew Horner, in his Peter Ward biography, He Shot, He Scored. “When Teddy Maybank became available, we thought that he was probably a better option.”

Born in Lambeth on 11 October 1956, Maybank lived the first 15 years of his life in Brixton and went to Christchurch Primary School, close to his home, where one of his playground footballing mates was Ray Lewington — now loyal deputy to Roy Hodgson — who, together with Maybank, went on to play for Chelsea and Fulham.

At the age of 11, Maybank moved to Stockwell Manor Secondary School and played various age group levels for South London Boys. One of the representative matches he played in took place at the Goldstone Ground on 25 September 1971, against Brighton Boys.

The Maybank family moved to Mitcham, close to the Chelsea training ground, and, when Teddy was 15, he joined them straight from school.

Maybank and Lewington progressed through Chelsea’s youth ranks at a time when the club’s focus was on bringing through home-grown talent. “It was a good time at Chelsea,” he said. “We had such a good youth side and I loved playing under Ken Shellito.”

That team, which won the South-East Counties Championship four years in a row, included Ray and Graham Wilkins, Lewington and John Sparrow.

Maybank’s first-team debut came in a 2-0 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur in April 1975 aged just 18, and he scored in only his second game, a 1-1 home draw against Sheffield United, but Chelsea were relegated from the top division that year.

The following campaign saw Maybank, still a teenager, become a first-team regular under Eddie McCreadie, grabbing five goals in 26 appearances between August and February.

After falling out of favour, he went out on loan to Fulham just before Christmas 1976 and then signed permanently for a £65,000 fee later that season.

Back in the ‘70s, Chelsea were a long way from the force they are now and Maybank admitted: “I wouldn’t say I ever played that well at Chelsea. I didn’t find it easy to score goals there.”

It was a different story at Craven Cottage. After scoring more than a goal every other game – 17 times in 31 games – Maybank was sold to Brighton for £238,000, which gave Fulham a swift and substantial profit that they used to pay off money owed on their recently-built Eric Miller Stand (now, the Riverside Stand).

Blond locks flying, Maybank comes up against QPR’s Dave Clement in a 1978 pre-season friendly. (Above right) This overhead kick against Sunderland at The Goldstone scraped the bar … otherwise would have been a Goal of the Season candidate!

Maybank made a good enough start for the Seagulls, scoring after just six minutes on his debut in a 2-2 home draw with Blackburn Rovers, played on a bitterly cold day in front of a crowd of 26,467. Tony Towner scored the Albion’s other goal and another debutant in that game was tough-tackling midfield player, Paul Clark.

Maybank was on the scoresheet again in the very next game as Albion recorded their first ever win, 1-0, at Blackpool.

It was in a game against Orient a week before Christmas that Maybank got a kick on his knee from defender Dennis Rofe (who later played for Leicester and Southampton) which caused an injury which he maintains wasn’t properly managed by the club.

He told fulhamfc.com in 2013: “They kept giving me injections, taking all the fluid out every Sunday after the game.

“I was barely training. I could run in a straight line but any time I put weight on my leg I would fall over. I wouldn’t feel any pain because of the injections, but I just fell over.”

The Brighton fans thought they had bought Bambi and were soon on his back, leading to a “pretty terrible time” that Maybank never really recovered from.

“The club should never ever have allowed me to play in that situation,” he said. “A surgeon saw me outside of the club, opened me up and said: ‘if you ever play football again, you’ll be the luckiest bloke in the world’.

“Brighton had told me, basically, that I couldn’t do any more damage. They wouldn’t do it now, but because I was the highest transfer fee they ever paid, they didn’t really take my welfare into consideration at all. In the end, it ruined my career.”

Shoot! article and (above right) Maybank goes full length to head the second of his three goals against Cardiff on Boxing Day 1978.

In an article in Shoot! magazine at the time, Maybank talked about how he hadn’t had the best of starts with his new club. He said: “I wasn’t playing well. I knew that. My early form was a disappointment to the fans. They expected me to come in and start scoring regularly and doing incredible things.

“It’s always hard when you change clubs and you need a while to settle in. I have to adjust to my new team-mates but they’ve also had to change and adapt to playing with me.”

Mansfield were trounced 5-1 at the Goldstone on 21 January 1978 when Peter Ward shone with a hat-trick. Maybank also got one, but it was his last of the season. He made only six more appearances between January and the end of the season and new signing Malcolm Poskett seized his chance alongside Ward.

Albion narrowly missed out on promotion (by goal difference) and during the close season Maybank went under the knife for a cartilage operation.

Fit for the new season, Maybank was among the goals as Albion beat Millwall 4-1 at The Den on 2 September. He got a brace that day but in the same month was in trouble with the manager who’d had an anonymous tip-off that the star striker and Welsh international winger Peter Sayer had been seen in a nightclub on the eve of what turned out to be a 4-1 defeat by Leicester City.

Mullery made an example of the pair and they were both ‘persuaded’ to donate a fortnight’s wages to the local Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

On the pitch, the goals dried up for Maybank until Boxing Day when he netted a hat-trick in a 5-0 win over Cardiff City. In an Albion matchday programme in 2015-16, Maybank admitted to Spencer Vignes: “The crowd started getting on my back, and I got in a pretty dark place.

“When I got that hat-trick, I went from villain to hero and yet it had got so bad that the day before Alan Mullery picked the squad I’d told him I never wanted to play for the club again.

“From the changing room before a game, I used to hear the crowd boo my name when the team was read out over the tannoy.”

In total, Maybank scored 10 times as Albion won promotion, and he was leading the line in the famous promotion-clinching 3-1 win at Newcastle on 5 May 1979.

In that season’s Rediffusion Player of the Year competition, Maybank finished third behind winner Mark Lawrenson and runner-up Brian Horton.

In much the same way Pascal Gross was feted for scoring Brighton’s first-ever goal in the Premiership, so Maybank scored the Albion’s very first goal in the top division.

After being hammered 4-0 by Arsenal in the opening fixture at the Goldstone, the Seagulls were away to Aston Villa in the second game.

Arms aloft, Maybank celebrates Albion’s first ever top division goal with skipper Brian Horton and Peter O’Sullivan. (Above right) Maybank battles with Arsenal’s David O’Leary watched by John Hollins and O’Sullivan.

Latching on to a John Gregory through pass and, with the very last kick of the first half, Maybank buried a shot past ‘keeper Jimmy Rimmer.

Albion lost the game 2-1 but the national newspapers were full of praise for the newcomers to the division.

Frank Clough in The Sun wrote: “Teddy Maybank and Peter Ward tore great holes in Villa’s jittery defence and were only stopped by inadequate finishing and fine goalkeeping by Rimmer.”

It was the first of three Maybank goals at the top level, but, according to Ward, the striker had a big falling out with Mullery. The manager brought in Ray Clarke as his first choice centre-forward and, in December 1979, Maybank was sold back to Fulham for £150,000.

He had scored a total of 16 goals in 64 appearances for the Seagulls, less than half the ratio he’d been scoring when bought.

After just 19 games for Fulham, Maybank joined Dutch side PSV Eindhoven for £230,000 in August 1980 (Fulham making another tidy profit on the player).

His debut for the Dutch giants came in front of a packed house at the Nou Camp, where Barcelona were staging a four-team tournament with Vasco da Gama and River Plate.

However, only a few games later his knee flared up again.

“They opened me up and saw what a state my knee was in,” Maybank explained in that 2013 interview with fulhamfc.co.uk. “I was told in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t retire I would be playing with the youth team or reserves. I think they thought they’d been taken for a ride.”

Maybank was left with no choice. At the age of 24, he retired from the game.

Pictures from my scrapbook sourced from Shoot! magazine and the matchday programme.

Goalscorer Craig Maskell among Town’s top 100 crowd favourites

Screenshot

CRAIG MASKELL had a decent near 1 in 3 goalscoring record for Brighton & Hove Albion but he’s possibly best remembered for a shot that didn’t go in.

When Maskell’s curling effort in the relegation decider at Hereford United on 3 May 1997 struck the post rather than going in, fortunately Robbie Reinelt was on hand to slot home the rebound to earn Albion the draw that ensured they stayed in the league.

Born Craig Dell Maskell on 10 April 1968 in Aldershot, perhaps it was his destiny to play for Southampton! (for younger readers, The Dell used to be Southampton’s home ground).

Indeed, Maskell started his professional career at Southampton, signing pro forms just after his 18^th birthday. But he appeared in only six league games for the Saints before joining Huddersfield Town in May 1988 for a £20,000 fee.

His new teammates included former Seagulls Chris Hutchings and Kieran O’Regan and the goals really flowed for him in the 1988-89 season when he scored 28 times in 46 games.

Arguably his most memorable match came in the 1989-90 season when he scored four in a 5-1 win at Cardiff City, thus becoming only the third player in Huddersfield’s history to score four in an away match.

By the end of that season, he’d scored an impressive 43 goals in 87 games for Town and, at the time of Huddersfield’s centennial in 2006, Maskell’s prolific goalscoring for them led to his inclusion in The Fans’ Favourites, a book listing their top 100 Town players.

That prolific scoring record earned him a £250,000 move to Third Division Reading. He scored in a season-opening 3-1 win at Exeter City and had 10 goals by the season’s end as the Royals completed a mid-table finish under player-manager Mark McGhee, who later became Brighton boss.

With John Madejski settling in as the new owner, and McGhee finding his feet in the managerial chair, the 1991-92 season saw Reading finish 12^th. Maskell ended up top scorer with 16 goals in 35 appearances (plus five as sub), three of them coming in a 4-2 win away to Darlington.

In the summer of 1992, player-manager Glenn Hoddle paid £250,000 to take Maskell to second tier Swindon Town (where he had previously spent a month on loan in 1987).

It was to prove a memorable season for the Robins as they won promotion to the top tier for the first time in their history, via a 4-3 play-off victory over Leicester City. Maskell was leading scorer with 23 goals in a side captained by central defender Colin Calderwood, later Chris Hughton’s assistant manager at Brighton.

Maskell made his Robins debut on the opening day of the 1992-93 season, in a 1-0 win over Sunderland, and scored his first goal in a 2-2 draw at Wolves in late August. He went on to net eight times in the opening ten games of the season before suffering a mini goal drought between December and April.

Nevertheless, Maskell bagged two in a 6-4 win at Birmingham before scoring in both legs of the play-off semi-final against Tranmere Rovers. He then scored Town’s second at Wembley, thumping a left-footed drive off the post and into the net.

Although he started the first two matches amongst the elite, he then struggled to get game time in the Premier League, often warming the bench as Jan Age Fjortoft, Andy Mutch and Keith Scott started ahead of him.

He scored twice in a 3-3 draw at Sheffield Wednesday on 29 December 1993, but he left the club in February 1994, returning to former club Southampton for a £250,000 fee.

However, Saints already had a fair bit of striking talent in their ranks and once again he found his opportunities limited, this time by the likes of Matt Le Tissier, Neil Shipperley and Gordon Watson. As a result, he only managed 17 Premier League starts.

He had a five-game loan spell at Bristol City but then joined Brighton on 1 March 1996, making his debut the following day against Brentford. He didn’t have to wait long for his first Albion goal, scoring against Oxford United on 12 March and then hit two four days later at home to Hull City.

The off-field shenanigans at Brighton were a big distraction at the time but on the pitch Maskell managed to score a total of 20 goals in 69 games, crucially netting 14 of them in 37 games during that make-or-break 1996-97 season.

After 17 games the following season, he was one of five senior players whose contracts were terminated early, in December 1997, as the cash-strapped Seagulls in exile at Gillingham were forced to make drastic cuts to survive. Maskell had a brief spell playing for Happy Valley in Hong Kong before linking up with Leyton Orient for 18 months.

It is recorded in a number of places that Maskell decided to quit the professional game while walking off the turf at Wembley having played as a substitute in the Orient team beaten by Scunthorpe United in the Nationwide League third division play-off final.

“I turned to one of my team-mates and said: ‘That’s enough’,” Maskell said. “I’d spent too much time away from my family and too little time on the pitch at Orient.”

He had scored just twice in 23 games for the O’s, however, he continued playing at non-league level for several years, turning out for Hampton & Richmond Borough, Aylesbury United and Staines Town, as well as being coach and assistant manager to Steve Cordery.

In an article in The Times on 16 November 2000, just prior to a FA Cup first round tie between Hampton & Richmond Borough and Barnet, Maskell talked about what he had learned from the various managers he’d played under.

“I look to Glenn Hoddle for his ability to create flair in attack and Lawrie McMenemy because he was so good at man-management.

“Most of my ideas on defensive organisation I learnt from Dave Merrington, who was youth-team coach at Southampton. He was fantastic. You just have to look at the players he found for the club, not just myself but Matt Le Tissier, Alan Shearer, the Wallaces and another dozen or so less well-known players who had good careers.”

In parallel lines

Memories from more than 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Cardiff City