Bees and Seagulls milestones on Michael Bennett’s wellbeing journey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Managerial turnover played havoc with goalscorer Bent’s career

FORMER England striker Darren Bent, who now shares his opinion of the game with listeners to talkSPORT, was still only 30 when he pulled on the stripes of Brighton, one of nine clubs he represented in the Premier League and Championship.

He couldn’t have got off to a better start when he scored on his debut at the Amex, netting against one of his former clubs, Fulham. Unfortunately, the visitors turned the game on its head and won 2-1.

Timing is everything in football and perhaps if Bent had joined the Albion in happier circumstances, there may have been a better story to tell. The Seagulls were about the ditch the manager who brought him to the club – an all-too-familiar scenario Bent encountered on many occasions throughout an 18-year playing career.

At Spurs he played under three different managers – he later described it as “the worst two years of my career” – and his temporary move from Aston Villa to Brighton came about because he’d been frozen out by Paul Lambert even though Gerard Houllier had smashed Villa’s transfer fee record to sign Bent from Sunderland for £18m in January 2011.

Bent arrived at the Amex in November 2014 with 184 goals in 464 career appearances behind him, and only three years earlier had won the last of 13 caps for England, for whom he scored four goals.

“His record speaks for itself,” said Albion boss Sami Hyypia. “He is a top-class striker with more than 100 Premier League goals with Charlton, Spurs, Sunderland and Aston Villa. I hope he will score plenty of goals for us during his time with us.

“There is no doubting his ability to score goals. He also wants to play regular games and that is evident in his willingness to step down from the Premier League to the Championship.”

The player himself told the matchday programme: “Anyone who knows me knows that all I care about is football.

“It has never been about money or anything like that. It has always been about playing football. I’m always at my happiest when I’m playing.”

Bent added: “Brighton felt like the perfect place to come and play football, especially for someone like Sami Hyypia, who I’ve played against many times over the years.

“As a manager, I think he is the right man. He is the kind of guy I want to play for.”

It was a generous assessment in the circumstances because Brighton had managed only two wins in 16 matches before Bent’s arrival.

The experienced striker’s second goal for the Albion looked like it might have earned the beleaguered coach a reprieve from the inevitable. He scored in the 10^th minute away at Wolves, stooping to head Inigo Calderon’s first-time cross past goalkeeper Carl Ikeme. It was a lead that lasted until the 88th-minute but was cancelled out by a Danny Batth equaliser after Albion had played 30 second half minutes with 10 men following a red card shown to Bruno. Brighton parted company with the big Finn shortly afterwards.

Bent played one more game, under caretaker Nathan Jones, when Albion fought back from 2-0 down (both scored by on-loan Glenn Murray against his old club) to earn a home draw against Reading, but he was forced off injured after less than half an hour and the knock kept him out of the next game at Fulham, when Brighton won 2-0.

Hyypia’s replacement, Chris Hughton, spoke at his first press conference of trying to keep the player, but Bent had the chance to join a side at the opposite end of the Championship and he moved to promotion-seeking Derby County instead, scoring 12 times in 13 starts as the Rams missed out on a play-off spot by one point.

Released by Villa at the end of the season, he subsequently joined the Rams on a permanent basis in the summer of 2015. He saw even more managerial churn at Pride Park – Paul Clement and Darren Wassall in 2015-16 and three – Nigel Pearson, Steve McLaren and Gary Rowett – in 2016-17. Across the two seasons in the Championship, Bent scored 14 in 67 matches, but a hamstring injury sidelined him for the start of the 2017-18 season.

In January 2018 he went on loan to Championship strugglers Burton Albion under Nigel Clough where he scored twice in 14 appearances (nine starts + five off the bench) including netting the equaliser against his old club Sunderland when Burton’s 2-1 win relegated the Black Cats to the third tier of English football for only the second time in the club’s history. Burton also went down.

Released by Derby in the summer of 2018, he announced his retirement at 35 in July 2019.

Funny that he should end his career at Derby County because it was against them that he scored his first competitive goal for Tottenham in a 4–0 home victory in August 2007.

Bent had previously scored 37 goals in 79 matches over two seasons at Premier League Charlton Athletic before making what at the time was a record £16.5m move to White Hart Lane, where Dutch boss Martin Jol greeted him enthusiastically.

Although he already had Robbie Keane, Dimitar Berbatov, Jermain Defoe and Mido as forward options, Jol said of the new signing: “Darren’s strength is his stamina. Normally players will make runs three or four times in 45 minutes, he will do it all the time and if you manage to play balls behind the defence, he will be there.

“He has pace, he links play well and can see a pass – he can exploit the space and play as well.”

What happened subsequently is covered superbly in a 2019 article by Jack Beresford on Planet Football, but, to fast forward a little, Jol was shown the White Hart Lane exit and his replacement, Spaniard Juande Ramos (assisted by Gus Poyet) was a lot less enamoured by the big money signing.

Indeed, Beresford writes: “Bent later recalled how Tottenham became ‘a horrible place to be’ under Ramos, who regularly lambasted players over a lack of professionalism in regards to training and nutrition, demoting several senior figures to the reserves.”

Although Bent struggled to cement a regular starting spot in his first season at White Hart Lane, he was Spurs’ top scorer at the end of the 2008-09 campaign with 17 goals.

While things initially looked good under Bent’s third Spurs boss, Harry Redknapp, the manager’s decision to publicly humiliate the striker eventually brought an unhappy spell to an end.

Bent missed a golden chance to score in a match against Portsmouth and Redknapp told reporters after the game: “You will never get a better chance to win a match than that. My missus could have scored that one.

“Bent did not only have part of the goal to aim for, but he had the entire net – and he put it wide. Unbelievable. I was just so frustrated.”

Bent put in a transfer request and said: “No one goes out to deliberately miss. When you miss a chance and your manager comes out and supports you rather than criticises you, it’s a big help.”

Ironically, circumstances meant Bent went on to make 12 more appearances for Tottenham, scoring five times and his 12 league goals made him the club’s top scorer.

Although Redknapp said Bent had a future at the club, he signed Peter Crouch and Beresford reported Bent later said: “I didn’t feel Redknapp wanted me there. It’s massive to have the support of your manager and that’s not been the case for the last two years.

“My career stood still at Tottenham. There’s a lot of politics going on there. I scored a lot of goals, but it was the hardest two years of my life.”

In those two years, he scored 25 goals in 79 games for Tottenham, but 36 of those appearances had been as a substitute.

Born in Tooting, south London, on 6 February 1984, Bent seemed always destined to be a footballer because his dad Mervyn had been on the books of Wimbledon and Brentford as a youngster.

The family moved to Cambridgeshire when the young Bent was only 10 and his early football career was nurtured at Godmanchester Rovers.

Ipswich Town picked him up as a 14-year-old and nurtured him through their youth ranks until he signed his first professional deal on 2 July 2001. George Burley gave him his debut five months later as a sub in a 3-1 UEFA Cup win away to Helsingborgs IF.

He scored twice in seven league and cup appearances that first season but the Tractor Boys were relegated from the top flight. Burley was soon replaced, temporarily by Tony Mowbray, then Joe Royle, under whom he cemented a regular starting berth in the second tier over the next three seasons.

By the time he left Ipswich in 2005, he’d scored 56 goals in 141 appearances. Former Brighton midfielder Alan Curbishley was at the helm of the Addicks when they paid a fee of £2.5m to take him to The Valley.

He scored five goals in Charlton’s first four league games (including two in the opening day 3-1 win over future employer Sunderland), finished his first season with 22 league and cup goals and was named Charlton’s Player of the Year.

Bent top scored again the following season, with 15, but under three different managers – Iain Dowie, Les Reed and Alan Pardew – they were relegated to the Championship along with Watford and Sheffield United.

As described earlier, Spurs presented the opportunity for him to continue playing in the Premier League, and he continued playing at that level when Sunderland bought him for £16.5million in the summer of 2009. Demonstrating the knack he had at several clubs, he scored on his debut, giving the Black Cats a 1-0 win at Bolton.

Bent went on to score 24 league goals for the Black Cats in his debut season at the club – and you can only imagine how delighted he was (pictured below) to net two in a 3-1 win over Spurs at the Stadium of Light!

The first came after just 34 seconds of the game on 3 April 2010, and a 29^th-minute penalty gave him his 23rd goal of the season, although incredibly Bent also saw two other penalties saved by Spurs ‘keeper Heurelho Gomes. He had also missed a penalty in the reverse fixture at White Hart Lane the previous November, when Spurs won 2-0.

He obviously wasn’t the most reliable from 12 yards: I witnessed a Bent penalty miss myself back in 2003 when he’d gone on as a sub for Ipswich against Brighton at Portman Road. With the score at 1-1, Richard Carpenter’s foul on Chris Makin gave Bent the chance to restore the home side’s advantage from the spot. But he blasted the ball over without goalkeeper Dave Beasant needing to make a save. Tony Rougier then put Albion ahead but a Martin Reuser thunderbolt evened it up.

Bent’s 18-month stay with Steve Bruce’s Sunderland proved to be his most prolific goalscoring spell in football, netting 38 goals in just 52 appearances.

In the first half of the 2010-11 season, his partner up front was young Manchester United loanee Danny Welbeck, but in the January 2011 transfer window Bent was on the move again, this time to Villa.

Once again, he got off to a great start for a new club, marking his debut with the only goal of the game in a win over Manchester City. It was the first of nine goals in 16 league appearances which put him joint top scorer with Ashley Young, even though he’d only arrived at the club in January.

After health issues forced Houllier to step down as Villa boss, Alex McLeish took over for what was a tumultuous and under-performing season when relegation was only avoided by two points, although Bent was top scorer with 10.

McLeish’s successor Lambert not only took the captaincy off Bent, he also froze him out, only selecting him for 13 Premier League appearances. If he thought it was difficult enough to have three different managers in three seasons at Villa, when he spent the whole of the 2013-14 season on loan to Fulham, they had three different managers in one season!

Bent’s old Spurs boss Jol was in charge as the campaign got under way but, with only two wins in 14, he was replaced by former Man Utd no.2 René Meulensteen in December before Felix Magath took over in February. All the upheaval saw Fulham relegated with a team that included David Stockdale, Steve Sidwell, Aaron Hughes and Dan Burn. Bent scored six in 14 starts + 15 sub appearances.

If Bent was used to managerial change at club level, it wasn’t much better with the England national team: he played under three different managers in five years!

He had previously earned selection for his country at under 15, 16, 19 and 21 levels – he scored nine in 14 matches for the under-21s – and he was first called up to the full squad by Sven-Goran Eriksson shortly after he’d made the move from Ipswich to Charlton, although he didn’t play in a 4-1 defeat to Denmark.

“Making my Premiership debut for a new club, scoring my first brace in the Premiership and then to get the England call-up on the back of that was just a dream come true,” he told the FA website.

It was another six months before he made his full England debut, in a 2-1 win over Uruguay but he didn’t do enough to stake a claim for a place in the World Cup squad.

His next cap came as an 80^th minute substitute for Joe Cole in the 3-2 defeat to Croatia in November 2007 that cost Steve McLaren his job when England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 tournament.

By the time he made his second start for England, on 14 November 2009, Fabio Capello was in charge. England lost 1-0 in a friendly to Brazil in Qatar when Bent’s teammates included Matthew Upson, Wayne Bridge and James Milner.

“Bent was struggling to make an impact as he attempted to convince Capello of his worth, not helped by a lack of service that rendered his task almost impossible,” reported the BBC’s Phil McNulty. “He had one opportunity, but could not direct a header on target from Milner’s cross.”

He didn’t make the cut for the 2010 World Cup squad but in September was back in the fold and scored his first England goal after going on as a 70^th minute sub for Jermain Defoe as England beat Switzerland 3-1 in Basle.

By now at Villa, it was the first of three goals in three games (he also netted against Denmark and Wales) after which he told the Birmingham Mail: “I’d love to be No 9 for as long as possible, there are a lot of top strikers about but Fabio keeps picking me and hopefully I can keep producing the goods.

“Even when the goals weren’t going in, I always believed I was good enough to score at this level and hopefully it’s showing now. I’m finally getting my chance and getting a good run in the side. I’m delighted with it.

“It has been years since my first chance and it’s certainly been a long, long wait but it’s finally come.”

He started the 2-2 Euro 2012 qualifier with Montenegro in October 2011 and the following month was in the side that beat World Cup holders Spain 1-0 at Wembley; it was his header from Milner’s cross that rebounded off a post for Frank Lampard to nod in.

Three days later, he played what turned out to be his – and Capello’s – last game for England as a 70^th minute sub for Bobby Zamora when England beat Sweden 1-0 at Wembley.

Yet another man was at the helm when it came to selection for the Euro 2012 tournament and Roy Hodgson didn’t reckon Bent had recovered sufficiently from an injury to merit inclusion.

For all the highs and lows of a lengthy playing career, nothing came close to what he suffered in front of a nation of TV quiz viewers: he scored only three points over two rounds of Celebrity Mastermind and admitted to talkSPORT listeners: “Honestly? It was probably the worst experience of my life!”

He explained: “As a footballer you get nervous before games, when you take a penalty in front of thousands of people, when you join a new club, but when you’re sitting in that chair opposite John Humphrys, it’s pitch black in there and all you can see is him, his eyes looking at you and he’s asking you questions and you just go blank.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Clothes modelling with Gary Stevens and Mark Lawrenson*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coppell’s Palace signing Humphrey knew all about ups and downs

FULL-BACK John Humphrey signed for Crystal Palace in lieu of rent his previous club, newly-relegated Charlton Athletic, owed for playing home matches at Selhurst Park!

Humphrey was 29 and with more than 350 senior appearances behind him when Steve Coppell added him to an experienced defence to play alongside Eric Young and Andy Thorn in the old First Division.

It was a level Humphrey was well used to having started out there with Wolves (where he played in the same side as Tony Towner) and at Charlton in a defence that included Colin Pates.

All that came before Humphrey came to Albion’s rescue in the dark days of the 1996-97 season, as I recounted in my 2020 blog post about him.

This time I’m highlighting his time at Selhurst Park, which he spoke about at length in a January 2023 interview with cpfc.co.uk.

“I saw myself as one of the senior players,” Humphrey remembered. “We had the likes of Richard Shaw coming through and Gareth [Southgate] coming through and we signed people like Chris Coleman and Chris Armstrong. Alongside that we had some experience with Eric Young and [Andy] Thorny, so I hoped I fitted in to part of the jigsaw.

“[The challenge] for me was getting used to the style of play, because at that time I know Stevie was not so much direct but he wanted to get the ball forward as early as possible because of the threat of [Ian] Wright and [Mark] Bright. So, it took me a while to get used to that.

“I do remember after a few games Stevie dropped me for a game to say: ‘This is what I want you to do.’ Then he put me back in… I was part of his restructuring and in that first year it worked out very well.”

So much so that at the end of his first year at the club Palace reached third – their highest league finish in history – and won the Zenith Data Systems trophy (otherwise known as the Full Members’ Cup) at Wembley, beating Everton 4-1.

Humphrey was still playing in the Premier League at the age of 34 and clocked up 203 appearances for the Eagles before briefly returning to Charlton for the 1995-96 season, moving on to Gillingham and then helping out his old Charlton teammate Steve Gritt in Brighton’s hour of need.

Revered at Charlton, chicagoaddick.com wrote of him: “In the five seasons he patrolled our right side of defence he missed only one league game and faced the best wingers and strikers playing in the country at that time: Barnes, Waddle, Le Tissier, Lineker, Rush, Aldridge, Beardsley, Fashanu.

“Maybe it was because we stood in the decrepit Arthur Wait Stand but Humphrey was fantastic to watch up close. Graceful, but strong in the tackle. He was a quick-thinker and a quick mover. He would glide down the right wing and put in some peaches of a cross.”

Humphrey won three consecutive player of the year awards (1988, 1989, 1990) – an honour no other Charlton player has received.

*Humphrey in action for the Albion at Gillingham*

By the time he arrived at Brighton, he was 36 and had played close on 650 professional matches.

“Steve wanted me because I was experienced, could get the players organised and was able to talk them through matches,” Humphrey told the Argus in a January 2002 interview. “He knew I was steady, reliable and dependable, that nine games out of ten I’d play pretty well and that I would give 100 per cent.

“It was a lot of pressure but I’d been through a few promotions (three) and relegations (six) with Wolves, Charlton and Crystal Palace.” He continued: “The stressful situations I had gone through with those other clubs had given me experience of how to try and keep a season alive.

“I could do a job for Brighton and I felt I did that and the team turned out to be good enough to hang on. It was one of the biggest achievements of my career.”

He added: “It might have been going out of the frying pan of Gillingham into the fire at Albion but I’m glad I made the jump.”

Humphrey looked back fondly on those difficult times and told the newspaper: “They have great fans and the Goldstone was always packed for the home games.

“You couldn’t help but be lifted by the crowd. The team couldn’t win away, but managed to win at home. So, one win every two games was decent and led to that eventful day at Hereford.”

When he left the Albion as part of a cost-saving measure the following season, he turned semi-pro and played initially for Chesham in the Ryman League premier division, then Carshalton, Dulwich Hamlet and Walton and Hersham.

“Having come from the professional ranks to semi-pro it was difficult to adjust to the different standards like some of the attitudes of players to training for instance,” Humphrey said. “Also, I found the training itself wasn’t that enjoyable.

“I remember at Walton and Hersham turning up for a session, but we weren’t allowed on the pitch and had to do a road run. That was frustrating and I begun to think that maybe there were other things in life than just playing football.”

Former teammate Pates was his conduit to a new career as a teacher at Whitgift School in Croydon, where ex-Palace and Chelsea midfielder Steve Kember also joined them.

“I knew Colin from Charlton when we roomed together,” he explained. “I was aware he was at the school and he said he needed help for after-school sessions and asked me to come along.

“So I did and the football took off at the school and I got involved in other sports like rugby and basketball and got a full-time job there.”

He also retained his links with Charlton, coaching their under-15 team, and told the Argus in that 2002 piece: “I deal with privileged kids at Whitgift who may go on to be doctors, lawyers or solicitors while at Charlton the kids usually aren’t so privileged.

“To a lot of them, football is a way of making something of themselves. It gives me a great buzz when one of the Charlton youngsters makes positive progress.”

Humphrey later moved on to become head of football at Highgate School in north London.

‘One of the world’s best’ coached Albion’s goalkeepers

‘I’VE STARTED so I’ll Finnish’ could have summed up Antti Niemi’s season coaching Brighton’s goalkeepers.

Even though the fellow countryman who appointed the former Southampton and Fulham ‘keeper left in ignominy less than halfway through the 2014-15 season, Niemi stuck it out to the end before returning to his native Finland.

Niemi joined Albion in the summer of 2014 as part of the new backroom team put together by former Liverpool and Finland international Sami Hyypia.

“This wasn’t planned and, when Sami called me, I was working in Finland for a few years with two different clubs on a part-time basis,” he told the matchday programme. “It was a surprise.”

Seeing it as a “great opportunity” he added: “I thought about it for a couple of days, but it was not a difficult decision to make in the end. I’m obviously already familiar with the south coast.

*Niemi enjoyed Albion coaching environment*

“If you look at the surroundings at the training ground and the stadium, it’s a fantastic place to work each day. I seriously love the job.”

At Brighton, Niemi was responsible for the form of newly-arrived David Stockdale, emerging youngster Christian Walton and back-up ‘keeper Casper Ankergren.

Stockdale admitted it was the presence of Niemi — a former team-mate at Craven Cottage — as goalkeeping coach that was a big reason in his making the move to Sussex (as well as a chat with Bobby Zamora).

“Antti looked after me at Fulham when I first went in as a young keeper,” he said. “I know what he is about, what his training is like and what kind of person he is.”

Niemi was also the reason fellow countryman and Finland international Niki Mäenpää joined the Seagulls, although their paths ultimately didn’t cross on the training ground in Sussex because Niemi decided to return home for family reasons.

Mäenpää had been coached by Niemi back in Finland and he was first linked with the Albion when Hyypia was appointed. Although a move from Dutch second division club VVV-Venlo didn’t go through then, it eventually happened in the summer of 2015.

“Seeing as his contract is ending, he is looking forward to a new adventure and Antti has explained to him about Brighton and everything,” the player’s agent, Richinel Bryson, told The Argus.

Born on 31 May 1972 in Oulu, the northern Finnish city where there is no darkness during summer nights, Niemi remembered going to school when the temperature was –42°C one winter.

He completed compulsory military service in his homeland, explaining in a 2003 interview with The Guardian that he found life tough for much of his 11 months at a sports military school.

“I didn’t realise this at the time but, if I wasn’t in football, I would probably be in the army,” he told reporter Joe Brodkin. “I’m very patriotic. It was fun and it’s something I would have considered, although I’m too old now.

“In some ways it’s similar to what we have in the dressing room: being together and having fun, giving stick and taking stick. In the army it was a similar situation. We had something like 20 footballers in there and it was fun. Not at the time but looking back.”

Niemi began his football journey with local side Oulun Luistinseura before moving on to Rauman Pallo and then to the country’s biggest club, HJK Helsinki, where he eventually became first choice ‘keeper and made 101 appearances over four years.

He then swapped from Finland’s capital to Denmark’s fortuitously because the Finland FA president at the time had played in Denmark as a goalkeeper and FC Copenhagen asked him for a name.

“He mentioned me and everything happened in two days,” Niemi recalled in an interview with fulhamfc.com. “I was inconsistent in my first six months in Denmark but did well in my first full season.

“I learned that Rangers had sent a scout to watch someone on the pitch when we played in a league cup semi-final; it was one of those games where I just saved everything and we won. That 90 minutes made them choose to sign me, so it was all about luck really.”

That was luck he would come to rue, subsequently, though, because he had actually agreed to sign for Gordon Strachan at then Premier League Coventry City. Rangers stepped in at the last minute to clinch his signature in 1997 but it was a period of his career that would prove to be frustrating.

Andy Goram was first choice ‘keeper and Theo Snelders was also ahead of him.

He did win the Scottish League Cup (beating St Johnstone 2-1 in 1998) but he only played in one Old Firm game and that ended in a 5-1 defeat, so he didn’t have happy memories of his time at Ibrox where Walter Smith’s successor, Dick Advocaat, was unconvinced of the Finn’s ability under pressure and suggested he needed to move on to prove himself.

*Highly regarded at Heart of Midlothian*

He switched from Glasgow to Edinburgh to join Hearts for £350,000 in December 1999, manager Jim Jefferies telling The Herald: “Niemi is a fine keeper and is very highly regarded by everyone.”

Niemi reflected: “They were the third best team in the country behind Celtic and Rangers, but I said to myself that sometimes you have to take a step backwards to go forward.

“That was maybe the best decision that I ever made; it felt a bit of a downgrade at the time, but I wasn’t playing and I knew it would be good for me in the long run.”

In two-and-a-half years at Hearts, he became first choice and made a name for himself as a penalty stopper.

The keeper said of himself in a 2021 interview with the Edinburgh Evening News: “The biggest strength I had in my game was quick hands and quick reactions.”

Looking back on his 106 appearances for the Jam Tarts, he revealed: “Hearts have always been THE club for me.”

In an interview with CoffeeFriend.co.uk, he said: “Don’t get me wrong. I was very lucky to play in the English Premier League with Southampton and Fulham but there was something romantic about the place.

“I went there from Rangers where I was second or third keeper and suddenly got the chance to be No.1 and be a big part of the team.

“We finished third, had some European football, memorable derbies. I hope it doesn’t sound cocky but I really can’t remember too many games I let the team down.

“I loved my time there and it’s definitely one of those places I miss now and then.”

It was Strachan who persuaded Niemi, by then 30, to try his luck in the Premier League at Southampton.

“My decision to move was purely on a football basis,” he said. “I hardly get any more money than I did in Scotland. I was there for five years and for two and half years I was playing regularly. Sometimes I felt I was playing against the same teams and the same players the whole time.”

Saints paid a fee of £2m to secure his services and he made his debut against Charlton Athletic, where he had spent a month on loan before his move to Hearts.

Strachan quickly installed Niemi as his preferred ‘keeper over Paul Jones and at the end of his first season with the Saints he appeared in the FA Cup final against Arsenal at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff – a game which I watched with my friend Andrew Setten, sitting in front of Geoff Hurst in the best seats in the house!

*Arsenal’s Thierry Henry points things out to Niemi*

With Arsenal retaining a 1-0 first half lead, Niemi unfortunately tore a calf muscle midway through the second half and, when replaced by Jones, became the first goalkeeper to be substituted in a FA Cup final.

In spite of losing to that solitary goal, Niemi didn’t want to miss the lap of appreciation and took a ride on a team-mate’s shoulders as they trooped around the stadium.

A series of injuries and a couple of operations limited him to 28 Premier League games in each of the next two seasons but in the opinion of goalkeeping coach David Coles (who once played on loan for Brighton), he was among the world’s top five ’keepers and he was the Saints player of the year in 2003-04.

“The Premiership has been every bit as good as I expected and even more,” Niemi said in that Guardian interview. “Everywhere you go it’s a full stadium and the pitches are perfect. It’s a fantastic league.

“I was making some good saves in Scottish football but the spotlight in the Premiership is so much bigger. There are so many cameras and every single game and situation is highlighted, so it’s easier to shine.”

Niemi’s reputation was certainly enhanced after he kept 17 clean sheets in his first two top flight seasons under Strachan at St Mary’s.

But he was also part of the Southampton side that was relegated in 2005, bringing to an end 27 years in English football’s top tier.

“The longer the season went on, the worse the results got and the more it started to affect the dressing room,” he told hampshirelive. “But overall, I can only look into the mirror and blame myself.

“My first two seasons at Saints were great, but during the third one, I just couldn’t get up to that standard any more. It was average at best.”

Niemi saw influential team-mates leave without being properly replaced and he said: “I remember looking around myself at the beginning of the campaign and thinking ‘things here aren’t as well as they should be’. The team had weakened and the contrast was huge.”

After the relegation, Niemi said: “I felt ashamed, simple as. It just felt embarrassing as hell.”

He stayed half a season after Saints playing in the Championship but returned to the Premier League in January 2006 when he moved to Fulham under Chris Coleman.

“Living in London was a big attraction.,” he told fulhamfc.com. “My wife was delighted to get a chance to move to West London and, as I’d played against them many times, I knew that it was a nice club too.”

*Niemi switched to Craven Cottage in January 2006*

A hamstring injury limited him to nine appearances in those first few months at Craven Cottage but he established himself as first choice the following season and went on to make 63 appearances before a wrist injury led to him calling it a day at the start of the 2008-09 season.

However, at the age of 37, he was persuaded to come out of retirement and followed his former Saints coach Coles to south coast rivals Portsmouth as back-up to first choice David James.

He left Pompey in March 2010 having earned around £450,000 over the course of eight months without having made an appearance, the Daily Mirror reported.

The newspaper said the Finn earned £14,000 a week during his time at Fratton Park and played just twice for the reserves and spent one Premier League match on the subs’ bench.

Having won 67 caps playing in goal for Finland, Niemi became his country’s goalkeeping coach from 2010 as well as working with the Finnish FA in developing the quality of goalkeeper coaching in the country. Alongside those responsibilities, he slotted in club goalkeeper coaching in various locations – including back at his old club HJK Helsinki, at another Finnish side, FC Honka, and the season at Brighton.

Joaquin Gómez, a coach he first met during that season with the Albion, subsequently called on his services at Finnish side HIFK in 2021.

Gómez, originally an academy coach with the Seagulls, stayed on as part of the first team management set-up having worked under Hyypia’s successor, Oscar Garcia., but then left to become head of tactical analysis at Derby County before teaming up with Nathan Jones at Luton Town, and then Stoke City.

In May 2019, on Niemi’s recommendation, he also started coaching Finland’s under 21 team. After leaving Stoke, he was assistant manager at Spanish Second Division side FC Cartagena, assistant coach at Finland’s SJK Seinäjoki and spent a season at Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia.

On persuading Niemi to join him at HIFK, Gómez said: “He’s an outstanding goalkeeping coach and will now also assist me in other areas.

“Antti is the best Finnish goalkeeper of all time, and he has done great work in coaching after his retirement from playing. At HIFK he’ll have a more versatile role than previously, as he’ll be working more with outfield players as well.”

In the summer of 2024, Gómez persuaded Niemi to join him at Greek Super League club Volos and the Finn spoke to Tribalfootball.com about those days spent in Lancing.

“I have seen a lot of passionate people in my lifetime in football but this guy is something else; he has dedicated his life to football.

“He moved from Spain (to England) without knowing any English, he just wanted to work in English football. He was working as a waiter, he was cleaning the toilets at Brighton, he was coaching kids and eventually somebody saw that this guy is really passionate and he can coach so he got in the first team.”

Niemi continued: “He called me in the summer, he said I had a few days to decide. He is very temperamental; he is very passionate and I am the boring, steady guy who always tells him to calm down! You need that sort of personality; you don’t need a similar sort of personality as you need to balance each other out

“He offered me the job to be the assistant manager which is different as I have always been a goalkeeping coach and I still am with the Finnish national team but I took it as a challenge, as an adventure. It is going to be a learning curve for me and I am really enjoying it so far.”

Unfortunately, Gómez was sacked after only five league matches and his next appointment, in January 2025, was as the new coach of Indonesian Liga 1 club Borneo Samarinda.

Football’s Ansah to making the game look dramatic

FICTIONAL football gained an unlikely champion in Andy Ansah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Ansah lines up for the Seagulls in exile*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Steve Gritt took on the ‘worst job in football’

BOURNEMOUTH-BORN Steve Gritt is synonymous with Brighton & Hove Albion’s darkest hour because he was in the almost scalding managerial hotseat at the time the club nearly went out of the league.

The mastermind behind Albion’s ‘Great Escape’ in 1997 grew up in the Dorset coastal resort and began his footballing career with his local club in the 1970s. He later worked as the Cherries chief scout, although, apart from etching his part in Brighton’s footballing folklore, most of his more memorable days in the game came at Charlton Athletic.

Somehow, against all the odds, he managed to keep the Seagulls up when most doomsters could only see the club losing its status – and possibly going out of business as a result.

Gritt, who had been out of work for 18 months having been cast adrift by a new chairman at Charlton, took over from the beleaguered Jimmy Case in December 1996 with Albion 12 points adrift at the bottom of the fourth tier.

“I was delighted when Brighton offered me the chance to return,” he wrote in his matchday programme notes. “I know a lot of people were calling it the ‘worst job in football’ but when you love football as I do then you don’t always see things that way.”

Gritt was certainly an old hand when it came to football’s vicissitudes: rejected by AFC Bournemouth as a teenager, he went on to enjoy the elation of promotion as well as enduring the despair of relegation during his time with the Addicks.

Quite what would have become of Albion if they’d lost their place in the league is now only speculation – thankfully it wasn’t a bridge Gritt had to cross.

“I’d spent 18 years at Charlton as player and joint-manager, with just six months away from it, at Walsall. Then a new chairman, Richard Murray, came in and he didn’t like the joint-manager situation, so he put Alan Curbishley in sole charge, and I left,” Gritt explained.

Without a full-time job in the game, he stayed in touch by doing some scouting work for Tony Pulis at Gillingham, Brian Flynn at Wrexham and a couple of stints for West Brom. He even pulled his boots back on to play for Welling and Tooting & Mitcham.

Eager not to continue to have to queue at the benefit office for dole money, he applied for the vacant Albion manager’s job and got it after an interview in Crewe with the despised chairman Bill Archer and his ‘henchman’ chief executive David Bellotti.

“I knew very little about what was going on at the club,” Gritt told Roy Chuter in a retrospective programme piece. “I’d read bits in the papers, but my only interest was in the football. I wasn’t going to get involved.

“The place was very low. Some of the senior players filled me in on what was happening. In my first few days, there was graffiti on the walls saying I was a stooge, a whistle protest, a fan chained himself to the goal at half-time at my first match – that bothered me as we were winning at the time and went on to beat Hull 3-0.

“Then the next week I had to go onto the pitch with a megaphone at Leyton Orient to get the supporters to leave after the match – and they already hated me! I thought ‘What is going on?’ but my job was to get some sunshine back into the fans’ Saturday afternoons.”

After familiarising himself with the issues at a fans’ forum – “It helped me understand that the fans had to do what they had to do” – he devoted himself to improving the football and although the budget was tight, brought in the experienced defender John Humphrey and Robbie Reinelt, who would go on to score one of the most crucial goals in Albion’s history.

Puzzled by the plight of a side that contained good players in the likes of Craig Maskell, Ian Baird and Paul McDonald, Gritt maintained: “I never thought we’d go down.”

He recalled: “There was such a lot of experience. If I could organise them, we’d have a chance.”

Ultimately, the club’s fate was decided in the final two games of the season – at home to Doncaster Rovers and away to Hereford United.

“We knew we could beat Doncaster,” he said. “There was a big crowd and a tremendous atmosphere – very tense. Maybe that got to the players – we didn’t play as well as we had done, but once we were 1-0 up, we weren’t going to get beat. We had a great defence.”

Gritt recalled: “I was beginning to think that there wasn’t going to be any goals in the game as there hadn’t been too many chances during the game that I can remember.

“Suddenly we had a corner from which Mark Morris eventually hit the bar, confirming my thoughts. But suddenly the ball fell to Stuart (Storer) who struck it into the net to spark off unbelievable celebrations on the pitch, off the pitch and in the dugout.

“Could we now keep our composure and see the game out to a memorable 1 nil win? We did! What a day and what a memory.”

And so to Hereford, who needed to win to avoid dropping out of the league. Albion only needed a draw to stay up. Everyone knows the story. A goal down at half-time when Kerry Mayo put through his own net, Gritt reminded the players at half-time that their jobs were on the line.

He sent on Reinelt as a sub and in the 62^nd minute he slotted a second half equaliser to send the Albion faithful into ecstasy and condemn the Bulls to their fate.

“I think if it had been Brighton, we could have faded into obscurity,” he said. “Most of the players would have left, and I don’t think we could have coped.”

As things subsequently transpired, it was Gritt who would soon be on his way.

It’s perhaps a bit of a cliché to say there is no sentiment in football but when Gritt’s side had managed only four league wins up to February in the 1997-98 season, and were second bottom of the table, chairman Dick Knight wielded the axe.

“No one who cares about the Albion will forget Steve’s tremendous contribution to our survival last season,” said Knight. “This season, given our difficult circumstances, feasibly we were only seeking to preserve our league status by a safe margin, but to date that comfort zone has eluded us.”

Thankfully you can’t keep a good man down for long, though, and within two weeks of getting the Brighton bullet, Gritt was back in the saddle as assistant manager to Billy Bonds at Millwall.

Although Bonds was sacked by the Lions only six weeks after Gritt’s arrival, successors Keith Stevens and Alan McLeary kept him on, working with the reserve team. Then Mark McGhee took charge and got Gritt back involved with the first team to take on organisational work such as set plays.

After McGhee took charge at Brighton, Gritt switched across south London back to Charlton, where he ran their academy for the next six years.

He returned to his hometown club in 2011 to become chief scout, initially under Lee Bradbury and then his successor, Paul Groves.

But he was disappointed to be let go in September 2012, telling theEcho: “They have changed the way they are doing their recruitment so there wasn’t really any need for me to be there.”

Bournemouth chairman Eddie Mitchell explained: “We have got analysts on board now and all games are available on DVD. We are trying to build a database from these clips.

“We felt it was impractical to send somebody all over the country to watch games every day when we can get DVDs of games and players.

“It was a role which diminished for us. Whether it is the right way to go remains to be seen but we have got to look at effectiveness and costs.”

Gritt said: “It was a big thing last year for me to come back to the club where I grew up. I am disappointed it has come to an end like this, but life goes on.

“I have lost jobs in the past and, hopefully, I will bounce back. I am looking forward to the next chapter in my career and will just have to wait and see what comes up.”

Born in Bournemouth on 31 October 1957, Gritt’s early footballing ability was first seen in the Kings Park First School football team of 1969, as the Echo discovered when readers were asked to send in their old sports photos.

Gritt, a forward, was taken on as an apprentice by the Cherries and played a handful of games for the first team under John Benson before being released at the age of 18.

Colin Masters remembered on the Where Are They Now? website (in an October 2020 post) how Gritt linked up with non-league Dorchester who paired him up front with Ron Davies, the former Welsh international centre-forward who’d played for Southampton, Man Utd and Portsmouth.

“They were an exciting pair to watch at that level,” said Masters. “After three matches I was so impressed with Steve that I went and found the Dorchester club secretary and asked if he had signed Steve Gritt on a contract.

“The reply was ‘No’. Within two weeks, Charlton Athletic came in and took him (presumably for nothing) and he went on to have a very successful career for many years. Dorchester’s loss was Charlton’s gain!”

Between 1977 and 1993, Gritt played a total of 435 matches for the Addicks, including a relegation to the old Third Division in 1980 and two promotions – to the Second Division in 1981 under Mike Bailey and the First Division under Lennie Lawrence in 1986. He had a six-month spell with Walsall in 1989 before returning and experiencing another relegation in 1990.

Gritt became joint player-manager with Curbishley in 1991 and, under their stewardship for the next four years, the likes of Lee Bowyer, John Robinson, Richard Rufus and Shaun Newton established themselves as mainstays of the side.

When Charlton decided in 2021 to re-name their East Stand in Curbishley’s honour, a generous Gritt told londonnewsonline.co.uk it was a fitting tribute to his former colleague.

“We had our trials and tribulations but I’ve always judged that we did what was required to keep the club going. We had to steady the ship.

*Joint Charlton manager with Alan Curbishley*

“We would have loved to have kept Rob Lee, for example, but we had to do things for the well-being of the club so we could keep it going and give the fans something to shout about.

“It was a great time when we got back to The Valley (they’d spent several years sharing Selhurst Park with Crystal Palace).

“Then the club made a decision which I was never going to agree with. But when I look back to see what Alan did – he went on to do a significant job – I cannot complain. Ultimately what he achieved he thoroughly deserved.”

Gritt said: “When I was there we had to make sure we weren’t seen to be having disagreements although I cannot recall us having too many anyway.

“When we were on the training ground, we each knew what the other one would be doing during the sessions. We both had jobs to do on the day.

“I was more of a player than he was at that time – so the management side was more in his hands. It was fairly straightforward, until the club decided that they wanted one man in charge. That was obviously disappointing for me at the time but I have thoroughly enjoyed my career.

“Alan gave the club a massive block to build on – but no one could have envisaged how the club went after he left. It was a massive disappointment.”

After he left Bournemouth in 2012, Gritt dropped out of league football and spent five years as assistant manager at Ebbsfleet United, working with his former Charlton teammate (and ex-Albion youth team manager) Steve Brown and then Daryl McMahon, who he subsequently followed to League Two Macclesfield Town, Conference side Dagenham & Redbridge and Isthmian League Hornchurch.

Ball-playing defender Colin Pates a captain at just 22

ENGLAND World Cup winning hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst gave Colin Pates his Chelsea debut as an 18-year-old – and what an extraordinary footballing baptism it was.

Replacing the injured Micky Droy for a visit across London in a second tier match against Orient, young Pates was involved in a madcap 10-goal match that saw Chelsea win 7-3.

“It was an amazing feeling to go out there but it was chaos, “ he told chelseafancast.com in a 2021 podcast.

And in another interview, he recalled: “It certainly wasn’t a good advertisement for defenders but as long as you come away with the win the fans are happy. It’s one of those days where you’re so fired up it just goes so quickly.

“You come off the pitch at the end and have no recollection of what happened really. I was up against some good, experienced pros and it was quite daunting, but I really enjoyed it.”

That game at Brisbane Road marked the start of a Chelsea first team career that spanned 346 matches, 137 of them as captain, in a turbulent period for the club.

Pates’ future Brighton teammates Gary Chivers and Clive Walker were also in that side at Orient and Walker scored two of Chelsea’s hatful (Lee Frost (3), Micky Fillery and Ian Britton the others).

*Pates and Robert Codner celebrate reaching the Wembley final*

Fast forward 12 years and Pates was reunited with Chivers and Walker when he joined Brighton on loan from Arsenal in February 1991 to help out after young Irish centre-back Paul McCarthy was sidelined by injury.

Manager Barry Lloyd pulled off something of a coup to persuade his old Chelsea teammate, George Graham, then manager of Arsenal, to loan Pates to the Seagulls for three months.

The Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe described it as a “masterstroke” and doubted that Albion would have made it to the divisional play-off final at Wembley without him.

*Match magazine pic of Pates at Wembley*

Lloyd’s faithful no. 2, Martin Hinshelwood, said Pates got better and better over the three months, pointing out: “He has steadied us a little bit. He talks to players, he is a great trainer and he has brought a lot to our back four.”

The player himself told Luke Nicoli of the Albion website in a 2021 interview: “Although I was dropping down a division, it didn’t matter to me – I was just happy to be playing football.

“I immediately struck up a partnership at the back with Gary, and it was like the good old days at Chelsea again.

“I spent three months at the club and I loved every minute; I loved the area, the Goldstone, the club, the fans and, of course, we went all the way to Wembley that season in the play-offs – where the turnout from our fans in the final was incredible.

“We lost (3-1) to Notts County, which was one of those games where it just wasn’t meant to be.”

It has since emerged that Lloyd’s insistence on changing a successful formula by playing Romanian international Stefan Iovan as a sweeper in that match upset the players.

But Pates said: “I know we changed formation that day, and maybe that contributed to our defeat, but I didn’t look at it like that – it was just one of those games where it wasn’t meant to be.”

“We came with a fantastic late run in the league, but it proved to be a game too far for us,” he recalled in a matchday programme article. “We made a slow start to the game and that defeat still hurts, knowing what it meant to everyone connected with the club.”

In another interview, Pates said: “The result in the play-off final didn’t go our way but it was a fantastic experience for the team to play at Wembley, the side was so close to the Premiership, or First Division as it was called then.

“I’d been lucky to have played there before but to others it was the pinnacle of their careers.”

Indeed, the last time Pates had played there was five years previously when he made history by becoming the first-ever Chelsea player to lift a trophy – the Full Members Cup – at the iconic stadium (when Ron Harris lifted the FA Cup in 1970 it was at Old Trafford, where the replay had taken place after a 2-2 draw at Wembley). That was arguably the pinnacle of his career.

The Full Members Cup was a short-lived competition between North and South clubs from the top two divisions of the league, with the regional winners meeting in a national final. It was introduced after English clubs were banned from competing in Europe following the Heysel disaster. In truth, it struggled to be taken seriously and it was a surprise it lasted as long as seven seasons.

The most remarkable element of Chelsea’s win was that the game took place the day after they’d played a league game at Southampton – when Pates scored the only goal of the game with a deflected free kick past Peter Shilton in Southampton’s goal.

Chelsea beat Manchester City 5-4 but extraordinarily were cruising at 5-1 before City scored three in the last six minutes (one an 89^th minute own goal by Doug Rougvie!).

“When the referee blew his whistle, was I relieved!” said Pates. “It’s great to play at Wembley with thousands of fans screaming their heads off, and once you’re on the pitch you don’t care what cup it is, you just want to win it.”

Born on 10 August 1961 in Wimbledon, Pates went to school only five miles from Stamford Bridge and was a Chelsea fan as a boy. He signed for the club aged 10, starting training with them in 1971, the year they won the European Cup Winners’ Cup having won the FA Cup the previous year. Pates worked his way through the different age levels and as an apprentice cleaned the boots of hardman defender Ron Harris.

He made that first team debut on 10 November 1979, by which time he had already played five times for England Youth that autumn. A further six appearances followed in 1980, alongside the likes of Micky Adams, Gary Mabbutt, Paul Walsh and Terry Gibson. Mark Barham, Steve Mackenzie and Terry Connor featured in the early 1980 games.

*Pates in action for Chelsea against Albion’s Terry Connor, a former England Youth teammate*

Simultaneously, Droy’s lack of fitness meant young Pates got an extended run in the side. However, because he was comfortable on the ball and could play in a number of positions, manager Hurst often used him as something of a utility player.

For example, in 1980-81, his 15 appearances were spread across all back four positions. But when John Neal took over for the 1981-82 season, Pates was ever present in the centre alongside Droy.

While the side’s league fortunes didn’t improve under the new man (they finished 12^th), they had the consolation of reaching the quarter finals of the FA Cup after beating reigning European champions Liverpool 2-0 in the fifth round (Pates had the job of man-marking Graeme Souness).

Remarkably, Chelsea only narrowly avoided relegation to the old Third Division in 1983, and, as a result, manager Neal had a clear-out of the ‘old guard’ and Pates’ performances and attitude earned him the captain’s armband just before his 22^nd birthday.

“I think he wanted someone who had come through the ranks and knew the club,” Pates said. “I was fortunate enough to be one of the few players – along with the likes of John Bumstead – who he kept on from before.”

Pates has nothing but praise for Neal and his assistant Ian McNeill (who played more than 100 games for Brighton between 1959 and 1962) and their eye for good players, like Pat Nevin, Joe McLaughlin, Nigel Spackman, David Speedie and Kerry Dixon, who were brought in to rebuild the club.

“I loved John Neal, he was a man of few words but when he said something you listened because it was going to be something poignant or important,” said Pates. “He was a good man-manager and would always take care of you if you had problems and be there for a chat. You wanted to play for him.”

Combined with the new arrivals, Pates and his pal Bumstead were part of a core of local lads Neal relied on (it included Dale Jasper, Chivers and Fillery): they all came from the same estate in Mitcham.

In his first season wearing the armband, “Pates stepped into the role with ease and led the team to the Second Division title” wrote Kelvin Barker.

“Colin’s classy displays in the top division catapulted him into the limelight, his impressive captaincy of a club on the up particularly catching the eye.

“A string of niggly injuries after Christmas led to him missing a handful of matches and his importance to the defence was highlighted when, in his absence, Chelsea slipped to consecutive defeats at Coventry and Ipswich.

“Pates made a total of 48 appearances during the 1984-85 campaign and scored once, the goal coming in a stunning 4-3 win at Goodison Park against the season’s champions, Everton.”

It had been a proud moment when Pates led Chelsea out at Highbury for the 1984-85 season-opener against Arsenal. The game finished 1-1, Paul Mariner opening the scoring for the Gunners on 35 minutes, Dixon equalising for the visitors four minutes later.

Chelsea made a decent fist of their return to the big time, finishing sixth. They also reached the semi-finals of the League Cup only to be knocked out over two legs by a Clive Walker-inspired Sunderland.

Chelsea did make it to Wembley the following year but it would be fair to say winning

that Full Members Cup final ultimately damaged their progress in the league. Chelsea were riding high in the top flight at the time and being spoken of as title contenders but immediately after that trophy win they were beaten 4-0 at home by West Ham on Easter Saturday and 6-0 by QPR at Loftus Road on Easter Monday.

Pates’ future Brighton teammate John Byrne scored twice for the Rs playing alongside Michael Robinson and Gary Bannister, who got a hat-trick. Substitute Leroy Rosenior (father of Liam) scored the other.

Byrne later remembered: “There were some big name players in the Chelsea line-up, including centre-back Doug Rougvie who seemed like he wanted to kill somebody when the score was 5-0! He was certainly looking for blood!

“We had the Milk Cup Final coming up and I remember saying to Banna with about 15 minutes to go ‘I ain’t going anywhere near Rougvie’. And Gary replied: ‘Neither am I!’ So we both ended up playing on the wings with no one in the middle!”

*Pates and Doug Rougvie both played for Chelsea and Brighton*

There was talk that Pates might force his way into the England squad for the Mexico World Cup that summer but Terry Butcher, Alvin Martin and Terry Fenwick were ahead of him.

Competition at club level emerged at the start of the following season when centre-half Steve Wicks was recruited and Pates was moved to left-back. However, injuries to Wicks meant Pates was soon back in the middle.

In his sporting-heroes.net piece, Barker continued: “As Chelsea’s farcical season went from bad to worse, he found himself being played in midfield again. With the Blues looking down the barrel of a drop into Division Two, Colin was returned to the centre of defence and relegation was averted.”

An injury-disrupted 1987-88 season also saw Pates have the captaincy taken off him and given to fellow defender Joe McLaughlin. Pates actually missed the start of the season having had a cartilage operation and when he returned in October the team were on something of a downward spiral. Injured again at the end of March, by the time he was fit to return, Chelsea were heading close to the relegation trapdoor.

At the time, as part of a restructuring plan to reduce the top division’s number of teams from 22 to 20, the team finishing fourth bottom of Division One had to play-off against the third, fourth and fifth-placed teams in Division Two. The top two in Division Two were promoted automatically and the bottom three in Division One went down.

Chelsea ended up fourth from bottom and had to play Middlesbrough (who’d finished third in Division Two) over two legs.

Boro won the first leg at Ayresome Park 2-0 but Chelsea only won their home leg 1-0, so they were relegated. However, history has since remembered the match more for the riotous behaviour of Chelsea supporters.

gazettelive.co.uk recalled: “There was trouble before, during and after the high-stakes game. Chelsea fans invaded the pitch on the whistle and stormed the away end sparking hand to hand fighting with barely a steward in sight.

“And it was only the intervention of mounted police that eventually cleared the pitch. The trouble didn’t stop there with more attacks outside the ground as Boro fans returned to their cars, coaches and the tube.”

Boro striker Bernie Slaven remembered: “We were locked in the dressing room celebrating promotion for maybe an hour while the police dealt with the trouble and cleared the pitch then we went out and celebrated again with the Boro fans who had been kept back in the stadium.

“The trouble and the ugly atmosphere was a real shame because it took all the headlines away from what we had achieved.”

John Hollins resigned as manager and was replaced by Bobby Campbell. One of his first moves was to sign the powerful central defender Graham Roberts who he made captain.

Pates was given a testimonial as part of the pre-season friendly fixtures (a 0-0 draw with Spurs) but the season was only three months old when he suddenly found himself unwanted at the Bridge.

As Pates returned to the dressing room at the end of a 2-2 Littlewoods Cup home draw with Scunthorpe United, Campbell informed him Charlton Athletic manager Lennie Lawrence was upstairs waiting to sign him, the club having already agreed terms over the transfer (a £400,000 fee).

“It came right out of the blue,” said Pates. “At first, I was taken aback. I have been at Stamford Bridge since I was a schoolkid. Chelsea has become a way of life.”

When the Albion visited Chelsea for a Division 2 league game on 29 October 1988, the matchday programme carried an article headlined ‘Colin’s farewell’, detailing the circumstances.

“The transfer of Colin Pates to Charlton Athletic not only surprised many Blues fans but Colin himself,” it began.

And reflecting on what happened many years later, Pates told Luke Nicoli: “I was allowed to leave and did so with a heavy heart as I wanted to stay.”

Nevertheless, the move at least presented the defender with the chance to return to playing in the top division, and he admitted: “After 11 years at Stamford Bridge, this is a new lease of life for me.”

Charlton, who had to play home matches at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park at the time, finished 14th by the end of that 1988-89 season, but Pates had left for Arsenal by the time the Addicks were relegated in 19^th place at the end of the following season.

Despite those moves across London, and to the south coast, Chelsea hadn’t seen the last of Pates, though. He subsequently became head of football at the independent Whitgift School in South Croydon, where he coached most sports and was the first football coach in what had previously been a rugby-dominated school and pupils Victor Moses and Callum Hudson-Odoi both went on to play for the Blues.

Pates was also seen back at the Bridge on matchdays working in the hospitality lounges.

Button rarely pressed into action with the Albion

JOURNEYMAN goalkeeper David Button has travelled the length and breadth of the country in pursuit of playing time, his three years at Brentford being a rare settled spell in which he played 141 games.

Normally only a loanee or a back-up ‘keeper at a multitude of clubs, he had a season and a half as Fulham’s first choice but at Brighton between 2018 and 2020 he only made 10 first team starts.

Button was 29 when he signed for the Albion and he stepped into the boots vacated by Tim Krul, the previous back-up ‘keeper, who had moved on to Norwich City. With both upcoming goalkeepers Christian Walton and Robert Sanchez out on loan, boss Chris Hughton wanted a third senior ‘keeper.

“He has a wealth of experience, having made over 300 appearances during his career so far, and I’m sure he will work well with Maty Ryan and Jason Steele,” said Hughton.

Button made his debut in a pre-season 2-1 friendly defeat against AFC Wimbledon, and realised from the outset that Ryan was going to be ahead of him.

“I’m not coming in blind to the situation, but I want to impress and be ready for the chance in the side – there has to be healthy competition wherever you are as a player and hopefully I can provide that for him,” he said.

“There could be a chance for me and Jason in January if Maty goes away to the Asia Cup with Australia, so we’ll both be working hard to ensure we’re ready for that if the opportunity arises.

“I know he’s very well thought of but at the same time you have to back yourself and work hard every day and do as well as you can.”

Indicating what might be expected of him, he said: “I’m confident with the ball at my feet – it’s a slightly different style to Fulham and we are allowed to go a bit more direct here and it’s something I feel I’m good at.

“I think it’s a bit less risky – we play when we can and keep it when we can – the risk factor involved in playing it out of defence is less for me here though.”

Button certainly found a familiar face at training: goalkeeper coach Ben Roberts had previously worked with him at Charlton Athletic, and he said of him: “He has got a great reputation within the game and everyone he’s worked with speaks highly of him. I genuinely believe he’s one of the best at what he does.”

Button’s first competitive action for the Seagulls came in the fourth game of the season, a 1-0 home League Cup defeat to Southampton. He had to wait until December, when Ryan was away playing for Australia, to play in the Premier League.

He kept a clean sheet in the first of them, a 1-0 home win over Everton, when he made a handful of saves, including turning a Richarlison effort onto a post.

“Although he’s a very experienced goalkeeper, it’s never easy when you’re coming in at this stage of the season and following Maty Ryan, who’s done so well for us,” Hughton said. “It wasn’t an easy decision because I’ve got two goalkeepers who are really pushing. But probably his experience managed to get him the nod (over Steele).

“It’s great for him to come into this first game and, not only be on a winning team, but also a clean sheet and that will do him the world of good.”

But that was as good as it got; Albion drew 2-2 at West Ham on New Year’s Day and lost to Liverpool (1-0) at the Amex and Man Utd (2-1) at Old Trafford. A 3-1 third round FA Cup win at Bournemouth saw then no.3 Jason Steele given a chance between the sticks.

On Ryan’s return, Button was back to the bench although he kept goal twice in Albion’s run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup: Button in the fourth round win over West Brom and in the fifth round win over Derby County. Hughton went with Ryan for the quarter final at Millwall and the semi v Man City.

When Graham Potter succeeded Hughton, Button spoke about the changes the goalkeepers then had to embrace. “We are now doing more work with our feet,” he told the matchday programme. “There is more onus on us to be better with the ball and to be comfortable with it.”

The opportunity to put it into practice was even less than previously for Button, though: he played just two League Cup matches in 2019-20 (Bristol Rovers and Aston Villa and one FA Cup tie (v Sheffield Wednesday).

At the start of the 2020-21 season, the ‘keeper swapped one Albion for another and signed for newly-promoted West Brom.

“I have ambitions of playing and helping the team as much as possible but I obviously understand that Sam (Johnstone) has got them promoted last season so he will start the season,” said Button.

“It’s up to me to push him and show the manager what I can do and take my chances when I get them. Hopefully there’ll be things I can bring to the squad certainly. I’m quite calm and comfortable with my feet too and commanding in my box so I’d say they’re my main strengths.”

However, Button played just one Premier League game in that first season plus three cup matches.

There was slightly more involvement in 2021-22 when the experienced stopper made 11 appearances in all competitions, including playing the final five Championship games and keeping consecutive clean sheets in the last three matches, against Coventry City, Reading and Barnsley.

When Button swapped West Brom for League One Reading in August 2023, one Baggies supporter wasn’t sorry to see the back of him. “’It is definitely the right move to offload David Button, he has been the worst goalkeeper I have ever seen at Albion,” said fan Matt Smith on footballleagueworld.co.uk.

“We’ve had some pretty decent goalies since I’ve been going, however Button was absolutely atrocious over a significant period of time too. How on earth did we spend £1m on him?

“How Steve Bruce gave him a two-year contract at the end of the 2021-22 season is beyond me. He’s so bad honestly. He can’t catch a bloody cold. He’s awful.”

Born in Stevenage on 27 February 1989, Button was with local club Stevenage Borough in their centre of excellence and acknowledged the input of the Coaching FX goalkeeping school in his early development.

“Keith Fenwick was my first coach: his first-class and very enjoyable sessions definitely helped to develop my love of being a keeper,” he said.

*Button moved from youth academy to professional at Spurs*

An England schoolboy and youth international, Button moved on to Tottenham’s youth academy in 2003, signed a scholarship deal two years later and then earned a four-year professional contract in December 2007. However, he only had eight minutes of first team action for Spurs – as a substitute for Carlo Cudicini in a League Cup match – and was loaned out 13 times.

Over his four years as a Spurs pro, he had two spells each at Crewe Alexandra and non-League Grays Athletic, plus stints at Rochdale, Bournemouth, Luton, Dagenham & Redbridge, Shrewsbury Town, Plymouth Argyle, Leyton Orient, Doncaster and Barnsley.

In the 2009-10 season, he notched up a total of 36 League Two appearances (10 for Crewe and 26 for Shrewsbury) and 30 in League One the following season, when with Peter Reid’s Plymouth, where he kept Romain Larrieu out of the team for much of the campaign.

When he eventually left Spurs permanently, he didn’t travel too far, joining Chris Powell’s Charlton in the Championship for £500,000. Powell preferred Ben Hamer in goal, though, and Button was restricted to a handful of appearances before moving on to Brentford.

In an interview with getwestlondon, Button said: “It was a little bit of a frustrating time for me at Charlton. I would like to think I would have been given a chance a bit sooner there. It was a difficult year but it helped build my character.”

When Brentford sold Simon Moore to Cardiff, manager Uwe Rösler took Button to Griffin Park declaring: “We decided David was the perfect choice for us. He is at the right age and he is very hungry to make the number one spot his own.

“As soon as Simon left, David was our first choice. David will face strong competition for the goalkeeper spot from Jack Bonham and Richard Lee, when Richard is fit again.

“We have been strong there (in the goalkeeping positions) over the past two seasons and are even stronger this year.

“Goalkeeper is a crucial position and David is a very good player.”

For once, fortune fell favourably for Button and he ended up first choice as the Bees won promotion from League One at the end of his first season and reached the play-off semi-finals at the end of his second season.

The Brentford fans website bcfctalk was full of praise for the stopper, saying: “He was very much our first point of attack as well as our last line of defence and his quick and accurate distribution played a massive part on our overall style of play and freedom of expression.”

The website added: “He sometimes failed to deal effectively with crosses and he could also use his physique better as he is an enormous man, but he was utterly reliable and often quite brilliant and he won us numerous points with some incredible saves.”

Ahead of the 2015-16 season, at a pre-season training camp in Portugal, Button spoke about all of the club’s ‘keepers being put through their paces by goalkeeping coach Simon Royce, a one-time Albion loanee ‘keeper, and how he wanted to maintain his run of form.

“I need to find that level of consistency now for me,” he said. “I feel like I had quite a few good games last season but there were a few where I wanted to do better. I am aiming to keep my standards high in every minute of every game this season.”

He remained first choice in 2015-16, making 47 appearances, but talks on a new contract broke down. He came in for a bit of a backlash on social media when he decided to move on to west London rivals Fulham instead but he told getwestlondon: “It’s football. Probably in their eyes it’d have been nicer for me to move on to a different club. It is what it is.

“Hopefully they remember the good times and what I did for the club. I’ve got a great respect for the fans and for the way they treated me while I was there.

“I had a great three years at Brentford but felt it was time for a change and the opportunity to come here arose and it was something that interested me.”

Button had the support of manager Slavisa Jokanovic at Fulham but gradually lost the backing of the supporters to the extent he was jeered at Craven Cottage.

Supporter Dan Smith did a detailed analysis of where he thought things went wrong on fulhamfocus.com. “Having narrowly missed out on promotion in the playoffs, Button signed off his Brentford career as a good keeper at this level and someone highly regarded by the Bees faithful,” wrote Smith. “His shot stopping one of the best in the league with a very strong ‘long’ kick.”

Button kept a clean sheet on the opening day of the 2016-17 season and Smith said: “He looked decisive, confident and capable. But something happened gradually as the season developed.”

He maintained the ‘keeper’s form slowly deteriorated and blamed the way he was being managed rather than the player himself. “He looks very uncomfortable with the ball at his feet and isn’t helped by the lack of movement from the deeper players making it very difficult for him to pick someone out,” wrote Smith. “Mistake after mistake giving the ball away clearly damaged his confidence because mistakes in possession led to poor keeping errors, letting in shots he should be saving and would have saved at Brentford.”

Interestingly, with echoes of what Roberto De Zerbi has said of Steele and Bart Verbruggen, Jokanovic did blame himself rather than Button, saying he trusted the ‘keeper and had full confidence in him.

“It’s my responsibility sometimes. I put my keepers in some sort of trouble. We play a bit different and I want to start playing from the keeper.

“It’s more simple to kick the ball to the strikers as it’d give him more opportunity to be comfortable in the goal.

“He has all my confidence. Sometimes, when he makes a mistake it’s partly my responsibility as well.”

Nevertheless, eventually Button lost his starting spot to Marcus Bettinelli.

Should Mike Bailey have had longer to realise his ambition?

FOR 40 YEARS, Mike Bailey was the manager who had led Brighton & Hove Albion to their highest-ever finish in football.

A promotion winner and League Cup-winning captain of Wolverhampton Wanderers, he took the Seagulls to even greater heights than his predecessor, Alan Mullery.

But the fickle nature of football following has remembered Bailey a lot less romantically than the former Spurs, Fulham and England midfielder.

The pragmatic way Brighton played under Bailey turned fans off in their thousands and, because gates dipped significantly, he paid the price.

Finishing 13^th in the top tier in 1982 playing a safety-first style of football counted for nothing, even though it represented a marked improvement on relegation near-misses in the previous two seasons under Mullery, delivering along the way away wins against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and then-high-flying Southampton as well as a first-ever victory over Arsenal.

Bailey’s achievement with the Albion was only overtaken in 2022 with a ninth place finish under Graham Potter; since surpassed again with a heady sixth and European qualification under Roberto De Zerbi.

Fascinatingly, though, Bailey had his eyes on Europe as far back as the autumn of 1981 and laid his cards on the table in a forthright article in Shoot! magazine.

“I am an ambitious man,” he said. “I am not content with ensuring that Brighton survive another season at this level. I want people to be surprised when we lose and to omit us from their predictions of which clubs will have a bad season.

“I am an enthusiast about this game. I loved playing, loved the atmosphere of a dressing room, the team spirit, the sense of achievement.

“As a manager I have come to realise there are so many other factors involved. Once they’re on that pitch the players are out of my reach; I am left to gain satisfaction from seeing the things we have worked on together during the week become a reality during a match.

“I like everything to be neat – passing, ball-control, appearance, style. Only when we have become consistent in these areas will Brighton lose, once and for all, the tag of the gutsy little Third Division outfit from the South Coast that did so well to reach the First Division.”

Clearly revelling in finding a manager happy to speak his mind, the magazine declared: “As a player with Charlton, Wolves and England, Bailey gave his all, never hid when things went wrong, accepted responsibility and somehow managed to squeeze that little bit extra from the players around him when his own game was out of tune.

“As a manager he is adopting the same principles of honesty, hard work and high standards of professionalism.

“So, when Bailey sets his jaw and says he wants people to expect Brighton to win trophies, he means that everyone connected with Albion must forget all about feeling delighted with simply being in the First Division.”

Warming to his theme, Bailey told Shoot!: “This club has come a long way in a short time. But now is the time to make another big step…or risk sliding backwards. Too many clubs have done just that – wasted time basking in recent achievements and crashed back to harsh reality.

“I do not intend for us to spend this season simply consolidating. That has been done in the last few seasons.”

*Mike Bailey had high hopes for the Albion*

If that sounds a bit like Roberto De Zerbi, unfortunately many long-time watchers of the Albion like me would more likely compare the style under Bailey to the pragmatism of the Chris Hughton era: almost a complete opposite to De Zerbi’s free-flowing attacking play.

It was ultimately his downfall because the court of public opinion – namely paying spectators who had rejoiced in a goals galore diet during Albion’s rise from Third to First under Mullery – found the new man’s approach too boring to watch and stopped filing through the turnstiles.

Back in 2013, the superb The Goldstone Wrap blog noted: “Only Liverpool attracted over 20,000 to the Goldstone before Christmas. The return fixture against the Reds in March 1982 was the high noon of Bailey’s spell as Brighton manager.

“A backs-to-the-wall display led to a famous 1-0 win at Anfield against the European Cup holders, with Andy Ritchie getting the decisive goal and Ian Rush’s goalbound shot getting stuck in the mud!”

At that stage, Albion were eighth but a fans forum at the Brighton Centre – and quite possibly a directive from the boardroom – seemed to get to him.

Supporters wanted the team to play a more open, attacking game. The result? Albion recorded ten defeats in the last 14 matches.

At odds with what he had heard, he very pointedly said in his programme notes: “It is my job to select the team and to try to win matches.

“People are quite entitled to their opinion, but I am paid to get results for Brighton and that is my first priority.

“Building a successful team is a long-term business and I have recently spoken to many top people in the professional game who admire what we are doing here at Brighton and just how far we have come in a short space of time.

“We know we still have a long way to go, but we are all working towards a successful future.”

Dropping down to finish 13^th of 22 clubs, Albion never regained a spot in the top half of the division and The Goldstone Wrap observed: “If Bailey had stuck to his guns, and not listened to the fans, would the club have enjoyed a UEFA Cup place at the end of 1981-82?”

Bailey certainly wasn’t afraid to share his opinions and, as well as in the Shoot! article, he often vented his feelings quite overtly in his matchday programme notes; hitting out at referees, the football authorities and the media, as well as trying to explain his decisions to supporters, urging them to get behind the team rather than criticise.

It certainly didn’t help that the mercurial Mark Lawrenson was sold at the start of his regime as well as former captain Brian Horton and right-back-cum-midfielder John Gregory, but Bailey addressed the doubters head on.

“I believe it was necessary because while I agree that a player of Lawrenson’s ability, for example, is an exceptional talent, it is not enough to have a handful of assets.

“We must have a strong First Division squad, one where very good players can come in when injuries deplete the side.

*Forthright views were a feature of Bailey’s programme notes*

“We brought in Tony Grealish from Luton, Don Shanks from QPR, Jimmy Case from Liverpool and Steve Gatting and Sammy Nelson from Arsenal. Now the squad is better balanced. It allows for a permutation of positions and gives adequate cover in most areas.”

One signing Bailey had tried to make that he had to wait a few months to make was one he would come to regret big time. Long-serving Peter O’Sullivan had left the club at the same time as Lawrenson, Horton and Gregory so there was a vacancy to fill on the left side of midfield.

Bailey had his eyes on Manchester United’s Mickey Thomas but the Welsh wideman joined Everton instead. When, after only three months, the player fell out with Goodison boss Howard Kendall, Bailey was finally able to land his man for £350,000 on a four-year contract.

Talented though Thomas undoubtedly was, what the manager didn’t bargain for was the player’s unhappy 20-year-old wife, Debbie.

She was unable to settle in Sussex – the word was that she gave it only five days, living in a property at Telscombe Cliffs – and went back to Colwyn Bay with their baby son.

Thomas meanwhile stayed at the Courtlands Hotel in Hove and the club bent over backwards to give him extra time off so he could travel to and from north Wales. But he began to return late or go missing from training.

After the third occasion he went missing, Bailey was incandescent with rage and declared: ”Thomas has s*** on us….the sooner the boy leaves, the better.”

At one point in March, it was hoped a swap deal could be worked out that would have brought England winger Peter Barnes to the Goldstone from Leeds, but they weren’t interested and so the saga dragged out to the end of the season.

After yet another absence and fine of a fortnight’s wages, Bailey once again went on the front foot and told Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe: “He came in and trained which allowed him to play for Wales.

“He is just using us, and yet I might have played him against Wolves (third to last game of the season). Thomas is his own worst enemy and I stand by what I’ve said before – the sooner he goes the better.”

Thomas was ‘shop windowed’ in the final two games and during the close season was sold to Stoke City for £200,000.

In his own assessment of his first season, Bailey said: “Many good things have come out of our season. Our early results were encouraging and we quickly became an organised and efficient side. The lads got into their rhythm quickly and it was a nice ‘plus’ to get into a high league position so early on.”

He had special words of praise for Gary Stevens and said: “Although the youngest member of our first team squad, Gary is a perfect example to his fellow professionals. Whatever we ask of him he will always do his best, he is completely dedicated and sets a fine example to his fellow players.”

The biggest bugbear for the people running the club was that the average home gate for 1981-82 was 18,241, fully 6,500 fewer than had supported the side during their first season at the top level.

“The Goldstone regulars grew restless at a series of frustrating home draws, and finally turned on their own players,” wrote Vinicombe in his end of season summary for the Argus.

He also said: “It is Bailey’s chief regret that he changed his playing policy in response to public, and possibly private, pressure with the result that Albion finished the latter part of the season in most disappointing fashion.

“Accusations that Albion were the principal bores of the First Division at home were heaped on Bailey’s head, and, while he is a man not given to altering his mind for no good reason, certain instructions were issued to placate the rising tide of criticisms.”

If Bailey wasn’t exactly Mr Popular with the fans, at the beginning of the following season, off-field matters brought disruption to the playing side.

Steve Foster thought he deserved more money having been to the World Cup with England and he, Michael Robinson and Neil McNab questioned the club’s ambition after chairman Bamber refused to sanction the acquisition of Charlie George, the former Arsenal, Derby and Southampton maverick, who had been on trial pre-season.

Robinson went so far as to accuse the club of “settling for mediocrity” and couldn’t believe Bailey was working without a contract.

Bamber voiced his disgust at Robinson, claiming it was really all about money, and tried to sell him to Sunderland, with Stan Cummins coming in the opposite direction, but it fell through. Efforts were also made to send McNab out on loan which didn’t happen immediately although it did eventually.

All three were left out of the side temporarily although Albion managed to beat Arsenal and Sunderland at home without them. In what was an erratic start to the season, Albion couldn’t buy a win away from home and suffered two 5-0 defeats (against Luton and West Brom) and a 4-0 spanking at Nottingham Forest – all in September.

Other than 20,000 gates for a West Ham league game and a Spurs Milk Cup match, the crowd numbers had slumped to around 10,000. Former favourite Peter Ward was brought back to the club on loan from Nottingham Forest and scored the only goal of the game as Manchester United were beaten at the Goldstone.

But four straight defeats followed and led to the axe for Bailey, with Bamber declaring: “He’s a smashing bloke, I’m sorry to see him go, but it had to be done.”

Perhaps the writing was on the wall when, in his final programme contribution, he blamed the run of poor results simply on bad luck and admitted: “I feel we are somehow in a rut.”

It didn’t help the narrative of his reign that his successor, Jimmy Melia, surfed on a wave of euphoria when taking Albion to their one and only FA Cup Final – even though he also oversaw the side’s fall from the elite.

“It seems that my team has been relegated from the First Division while Melia’s team has reached the Cup Final,” an irked Bailey said in an interview he gave to the News of the World’s Reg Drury in the run-up to the final.

Hurt by some of the media coverage he’d seen since his departure, Bailey resented accusations that his style had been dull and boring football, pointing out: “Nobody said that midway through last season when we were sixth and there was talk of Europe.

“We were organised and disciplined and getting results. John Collins, a great coach, was on the same wavelength as me. We wanted to lay the foundations of lasting success, just like Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley did at Liverpool.

“The only problem was that winning 1-0 and 2-0 didn’t satisfy everybody. I tried to change things too soon – that was a mistake.

“When I left (in December 1982), we were 18^th with more than a point a game. I’ve never known a team go down when fifth from bottom.”

Bailey later expanded on the circumstances, lifting the lid on his less than cordial relationship with Bamber, when speaking on a Wolves’ fans forum in 2010. “We had a good side at Brighton and did really well,” he said. “The difficulty I had was with the chairman. He was not satisfied with anything.

“I made Brighton a difficult team to beat. I knew the standard of the players we had and knew how to win matches. We used to work on clean sheets.

“With the previous manager, they hadn’t won away from home very often but we went to Anfield and won. But the chairman kept saying: ‘Why can’t we score a few more goals?’ He didn’t understand it.”

Foster, the player Bailey made Albion captain, was also critical of the ‘boring’ jibe and in Spencer Vignes’ A Few Good Men said: “We sacked Mike Bailey because we weren’t playing attractive football, allegedly. Things were changing. Brighton had never been so high.

“We were doing well, but we weren’t seen as a flamboyant side. I was never happy with the press because they were creating this boring talk. Some of the stuff they used to write really annoyed me.”

Striker Andy Ritchie was also supportive of the management. He told journalist Nick Szczepanik: “Mike got everyone playing together. Everybody liked Mike and John Collins, who was brilliant. When a group of players like the management, it takes you a long way. When you are having things explained to you and training is good and it’s a bit of fun, you get a lot more out of it.”

Born on 27 February 1942 in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, he went to the same school in Gorleston, Norfolk, as the former Arsenal centre back Peter Simpson. His career began with non-league Gorleston before Charlton Athletic snapped him up in 1958 and he spent eight years at The Valley.

During his time there, he was capped twice by England as manager Alf Ramsey explored options for his 1966 World Cup squad. Just a week after making his fifth appearance for England under 23s, Bailey, aged 22, was called up to make his full debut in a friendly against the USA on 27 May 1964.

He had broken into the under 23s only three months earlier, making his debut in a 3-2 win over Scotland at St James’ Park, Newcastle, on 5 February 1964.He retained his place against France, Hungary, Israel and Turkey, games in which his teammates included Graham Cross, Mullery and Martin Chivers.

England ran out 10-0 winners in New York with Roger Hunt scoring four, Fred Pickering three, Terry Paine two, and Bobby Charlton the other.

Eight of that England side made it to the 1966 World Cup squad two years later but a broken leg put paid to Bailey’s chances of joining them.

“I was worried that may have been it,” Bailey recalled in his autobiography, The Valley Wanderer: The Mike Bailey Story (published in November 2015). “In the end, I was out for six months. My leg got stronger and I never had problems with it again, so it was a blessing in disguise in that respect.

“Charlton had these (steep) terraces. I’d go up to them every day, I was getting fitter and fitter.”

In fact, Ramsey did give him one more chance to impress. Six months after the win in New York, he was in the England team who beat Wales 2-1 at Wembley in the Home Championship. Frank Wignall, who would later spend a season with Bailey at Wolves, scored both England’s goals.

“But it was too late to get in the 1966 World Cup side,” said Bailey. “Alf Ramsey had got his team in place.”

During his time with the England under 23s, Bailey had become friends with Wolves’ Ernie Hunt (the striker who later played for Coventry City) and Hunt persuaded him to move to the Black Country club for a £40,000 fee.

Thus began an association which saw him play a total of 436 games for Wolves over 11 seasons.

In his first season, 1966-67, he captained the side to promotion from the second tier and he was also named as Midlands Footballer of the Year.

Wolves finished fourth in the top division in 1970-71 and European adventures followed, including winning the Texaco Cup of 1971 – the club’s first silverware in 11 years – and reaching the UEFA Cup final against Tottenham a year later, although injury meant Bailey was only involved from the 55th minute of the second leg and Spurs won 3-2 on aggregate.

Two years later, Bailey, by then 32, lifted the League Cup after Bill McGarry’s side beat Ron Saunders’ Manchester City 2-1 at Wembley with goals by Kenny Hibbitt and John Richards. It was Bailey’s pass to Alan Sunderland that began the winning move, Richards sweeping in Sunderland’s deflected cross.

*Bailey lifts the League Cup after Wolves beat Manchester City at Wembley*

This was a side with solid defenders like John McAlle, Frank Munro and Derek Parkin, combined with exciting players such as Irish maverick centre forward Derek Dougan and winger Dave Wagstaffe.

Richards had become Dougan’s regular partner up front after Peter Knowles quit football to turn to religion. Discussing Bailey with wolvesheroes.com, Richards said: “He really was a leader you responded to and wanted to play for. If you let your standards slip, he wasn’t slow to let you know. I have very fond memories of playing alongside him.”

In a lengthy tribute to Bailey in the Wolverhampton Express & Star to mark his 80^th birthday, journalist Paul Berry interviewed several of his former teammates.

“He gave me – just as he did with all the young players coming into the team – so much help and guidance in training and matches on and off the pitch,” said Richards.

“There were so many little tips and pieces of advice and I remember how he first taught me how to come off defenders. He would say ‘when I get the ball John, just push the defender away, come towards me, lay the ball off and then go again’.

“There was so much advice that he would give to us all, and it had a massive influence.”

Midfielder Hibbitt, another Wolves legend who made 544 appearances for the club, said: “He was the greatest captain I ever played with.”

Steve Daley added: “Mike is my idol, he was an absolute inspiration to me when I was playing.”

Winger Terry Wharton added: “He was a great player…a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character as well. On the pitch he was a great captain, a winner, he was tenacious and he was loud.

“He got people moving and he got people going and you just knew he was a captain. And then off the pitch? He could have been a vicar.”

When coach Sammy Chung stepped up to take over as manager, Bailey found himself on the outside looking in and chose to end his playing days in America, with the Minnesota Kicks, who were managed by the former Brighton boss Freddie Goodwin.

He returned to England and spent the 1978-79 season as player-manager of Fourth Division Hereford United and in March 1980 replaced Andy Nelson as boss at Charlton Athletic. He had just got the Addicks promoted from the Third Division when he replaced Mullery at Brighton.

In a curious symmetry, Bailey’s management career in England (courtesy of managerstats.co.uk) saw him manage each of those three clubs for just 65 games. At Hereford, his record was W 32, D 11, L 22; at Charlton W 21, D 17, L 27; at Brighton, W 20 D 17, L 28.

In 1984, he moved to Greece to manage OFI Crete, he briefly took charge of non-league Leatherhead and he later worked as reserve team coach at Portsmouth. Later still, he did some scouting work for Wolves (during the Dave Jones era) and he was inducted into the Wolves Hall of Fame in 2010.

In November 2020, Bailey’s family made public the news that he had been diagnosed with dementia hoping that it would help to highlight the ongoing issues around the number of ex-footballers suffering from it.

Perhaps the last words should go to Bailey himself, harking back to that 1981 article when his words were so prescient bearing in mind what would follow his time in charge.

“We don’t have a training ground. We train in a local park. The club have tried to remedy this and I’m sure they will. But such things hold you back in terms of generating the feeling of the big time,” he said.

“I must compliment the people who are responsible for getting the club where it is. They built a team, won promotion twice and the fans flocked in. Now is the time to concentrate on developing the Goldstone Ground. When we build our ground, we will have the supporters eager to fill it.”

Pictures from various sources: Goal and Shoot! magazines; the Evening Argus, the News of the World, and the Albion matchday programme.

In parallel lines

Memories from 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Charlton Athletic