‘Genuine football man who turned people’s lives around’

*George Petchey twice stepped up from backroom man to Albion caretaker manager*

THE FORMER Orient and Millwall manager who introduced Laurie Cunningham to the football world was twice caretaker boss of Brighton ten years apart.

George Petchey, once a player then coach at Crystal Palace, was assistant manager to Chris Cattlin in the mid ‘80s and returned to Brighton in the ‘90s as youth development manager under Liam Brady, before becoming no.2 to Jimmy Case.

Working for the Albion was certainly geographically convenient for Petchey because, even when he played, coached or managed in London, he lived in Southwick.

Petchey first arrived at the Albion in 1983 to take charge of youth development and, as described by wearebrighton.com, was the man responsible for introducing Ian Wright on trial, having been impressed when the future Arsenal and England star had tried to begin his career at Millwall, where Petchey was manager between January 1978 and November 1980.

It’s now part of football folklore that Albion rejected Wright and Cattlin opted to take on another triallist, Steve Penney, instead. Meanwhile, in November 1984, Petchey was promoted to assist the relatively inexperienced Cattlin with the first team.

Although he was seen as a figure in the background, a profile article in the matchday programme gave a little insight into his approach.

“I can’t understand people who earn a living from football and still criticise the game,” he told interviewer Tony Norman. “I’ve been involved with it since the age of 14 and I wouldn’t change a thing.

“Molly (his wife) and I have met a lot of good people. We’ve loved the game and it has been good to us. No complaints.”

When Cattlin was sacked in April 1986, Petchey stepped up to manage the side for the final game of the season (a 2-0 defeat away to Hull City) before Alan Mullery returned as boss.

Petchey’s second stint at the Albion began in January 1994, shortly after Brady had been appointed as manager. With finances perilous during that time, bringing through youngsters was seen as an important route and Petchey was appointed to oversee that side of things.

In explaining the appointment, Brady wrote in his programme notes: “I don’t think there are many better in their field than George Petchey.

“He has had a lot of experience at management level and he has always been able to develop young players and this is something we are determined to do here.”

Brady had been to watch the youth team progress in the FA Youth Cup and he added: “There are several outstanding prospects in the side and I am sure George will guide them in the right direction.”

Within a couple of months, Brady had given a first team debut to one of them in Mark Fox.

The Argus later noted how Gareth Barry was among the young players who came through Albion’s centre of excellence under Petchey, Vic Bragg and Steve Avory.

*Petchey became no.2 to Jimmy Case, pictured with George Parris in an Albion line-up*

When Brady couldn’t stomach the shenanigans of the Bill Archer-David Bellotti regime any longer, Case took charge and promoted Petchey to be his deputy, but with the background interference affecting performances on the field, Case was relieved of his duties in early December 1996.

Petchey stepped forward once again to take temporary charge, although he made it clear he didn’t want the job on a permanent basis. Indeed, he recommended two of his former Orient players be considered for the post.

“I was asked for my suggestions and I recommended Dennis Rofe and Glenn Roeder,” said Petchey, who was 65 at the time. “Hopefully, it will be one of them.”

It was perhaps par for the course that the hierarchy decided to choose someone else, and, within a week, Steve Gritt was appointed.

When Petchey – the first English coach to complete his UEFA coaching qualifications – died aged 88 on 23 December 2019, the tributes paid to him reflected the impact this highly respected football man had on a good many people.

The football writer Neil Harman said: “We often overlook the genuine, honest people, who made football what it is, who went the extra mile, who turned people’s lives around. RIP the great Leyton Orient manager George Petchey who set Laurie Cunningham and many others on the road to stardom.”

David Gipp, a Brighton player in the late ‘80s, tweeted: “took me from London at 14; taught me so much” and John Sitton, who played under Petchey at Millwall, described him as “one of the best managers in the game”.

Born on 24 June 1931 in Whitechapel, London, Petchey’s early footballing experience was in Essex with the Romford and Hornchurch Schools teams. The excellent theyflysohigh.co.uk website details his career, revealing how, on leaving school he played for Upminster Minors and Juniors from 1945 to 1947 before joining West Ham United as an amateur in August 1947.

He signed professional on August 31, 1948, and two days later made his first appearance as a professional against Chelsea ‘A’ at Upton Park in the Eastern Counties League.

The website explains how National Service interrupted Petchey’s career, although he was still able to play fairly regularly for the Hammers’ ‘A’ team and Football Combination side. It wasn’t until 1 September 1952 that he made his senior debut at the age of 21, playing alongside Ernie Gregory, Malcolm Allison and Frank O’Farrell in a goalless Second Division draw with Hull City at the Boleyn Ground.

Wearing the no.10 shirt, Petchey kept his place for the next game, a 2-1 home defeat by Birmingham City, but he only made one other first-team appearance, on 13 November that year, starting alongside Allison, Noel Cantwell and debuting forward Tommy Dixon in a 3-2 Essex Professional Cup win at Colchester United.

A wing-half, he was described by whufc.com as “a tough-tackling, hard-working defensive midfielder who could also pass the ball with vision and accuracy”.

In July 1953, Petchey moved on to Queens Park Rangers, scoring on his league debut in a 2-1 win at Bristol City on 22 August. Even then, he was commuting to London from Portslade.

QPR supporter Steve Russell spoke fondly of Petchey in an article for indyrs.co.uk, remembering a “tough-tackling, fearless, dynamic” player who took no prisoners.

Petchey scored 24 goals in 278 league and cup appearances for QPR, in the days when they were a Third Division side.

He dropped down to the old Fourth Division to sign for Palace in June 1960 but helped them to promotion in his first season at Selhurst Park.

Petchey’s playing days at Palace came to an early conclusion due to a serious eye injury but the esteem in which he was held was reflected in the quality of players on show at his testimonial match at Selhurst Park on 15 November 1967.

Palace took on an international XI which featured West Ham’s World Cup winning trio of Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, together with the likes of Chelsea’s Peter Osgood and Manchester City’s Colin Bell in front of a crowd of 10,243.

Petchey turned to coaching at Palace, initially under Arthur Rowe and then Bert Head, under whom Palace won promotion to the old First Division in 1969. That side’s goalkeeper, John Jackson – who subsequently followed Petchey to Orient, Millwall, and the Albion as a coach – attributed his achievements to Petchey, telling cpfc.co.uk: “He used to work me hard but the harder you worked at your game the more you learned and the better you would become.

“He made me a more confident player which led to me being more vocal behind the back four, and I always remember Thursday being called shooting practice day so it would become a session where I would put in a massive shift!”

When Jimmy Bloomfield was lured from Brisbane Road to manage Leicester City in 1971, the Os turned to Petchey to continue to build the side the former Arsenal player had developed.

He did just that over six Second Division seasons between 1971 and 1977, Petchey recruiting a number of players who’d previously played under him at Palace; the likes of goalkeeper Jackson, John Sewell, David Payne, Bill Roffey, Alan Whittle and Gerry Queen.

They came agonisingly close to winning promotion to the elite, missing out by a single point in 1973-74, and they took some notable scalps as cup giant-killers.

It was during his reign at Brisbane Road that Petchey discovered Tony Grealish playing on Hackney Marshes and unearthed the raw talent of the mercurial Cunningham, who he would later reluctantly sell for big money to West Bromwich Albion.

Petchey and his assistant Peter Angell carefully nurtured the young Cunningham, hoping his obvious talent would outweigh some of the demons in his life.

“We had one or two problems with him in the early days,” admitted Petchey, as told here. “There was a time when Peter Angell and I wondered if we could win Laurie over. He had to struggle in life and was the sort of youngster who was used to living on his wits.

“He was suspicious of people outside his own circle. He took a long time to trust other people. He often turned up late for training, the eyes flashed when we fined him, but for all that I loved the spark that made him tick.”

Cunningham later admitted: “It was George Petchey and Peter Angell who showed me that the only person who could make my dreams come true was, in fact, myself.”

Petchey gave 18-year-old Cunningham his first-team debut in the short-lived Texaco Cup tournament against West Ham at Upton Park on 3 August 1974. Although Orient lost 1–0, Petchey said afterwards: “It took him a little time to get adjusted to the pace of the game but I was delighted with the way he played from then on. He has a natural talent. He has the speed and agility to take on men. He never gives up. There’s a big future ahead for him.”

Cunningham’s rise to playing for England and Real Madrid was told in the 2013 documentary film First Among Equals and Petchey was a prominent interviewee featured.

*Petchey talks about Laurie Cunningham for* First Among Equals

When eventually Orient couldn’t resist big money offers for him any longer, the winger went to West Brom for £110,000 plus two players (Joe Mayo and Allan Glover) on 6 March 1977.

“I did not want to sell him, but we were over our limit at the bank and West Brom were ready with a cheque,” said Petchey at the time. “Obviously I’m very disappointed at losing a player who I have seen progress from the age of 15 and I think he was as reluctant to leave as we were to see him go. But it was an offer of First Division football which he could not refuse.”

Petchey enjoyed less success at Millwall. Although he managed to stave off relegation after succeeding Gordon Jago in early 1978, the Lions were relegated from the second tier the following season.

It was during that term he bought Brighton winger Tony Towner for £65,000 after the Sussex lad had lost his place to new signing Gerry Ryan. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though because Millwall’s youngsters won the FA Youth Cup in 1979, beating Manchester City 2-0 (over two legs).

After he’d left the Albion for a second time, Petchey continued to work in football, appointed chief scout at Newcastle United by Sir Bobby Robson, and he later took on a coaching role.

Dean Saunders raised cash for Brighton and Liverpool

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and various online sources.

The Albion legend whose face didn’t fit at Aston Villa

*Steve Foster challenges Spurs’ Steve Archibald at White Hart Lane*

LEGEND is overused far too much in football circles but, in some circumstances, it is justified. That applies to Steve Foster.

He played 800 games in a 21-year career which included nine years with Brighton in two separate spells.

His performances in the top-flight for Brighton led him to play for England at the 1982 World Cup and he lifted the League Cup in 1988 as the captain of Luton Town.

He might have enjoyed a longer spell at Aston Villa if the European Cup-winning manager who signed him hadn’t been unceremoniously dumped by ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis.

Foster became – and, to older fans, still is – synonymous with Brighton & Hove Albion, and football followers the world over could readily identify the captain with the white headband.

In several interviews over the years, he has explained how the distinctive headpiece was actually a piece of padded white towel designed to protect a forehead split open in collisions with centre forwards Andy Gray and Justin Fashanu.

I wonder if physio Mike Yaxley’s wife Sharon, who made up the dressing before every game, realised at the time the key role she played in helping to make Foster one of the most identifiable characters in football.

Foster’s illustrious career is warmly documented in Spencer Vignes’ excellent 2007 book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books Publishing), featuring an interview with the player himself and those who played with him.

For example, Gerry Ryan told Vignes: “Fozzie was a huge player with a huge personality, a real leader and deceptively quick for a big man.

“When he played against the best, like Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish, he was the best. People talk about giving 100 per cent, but Fozzie gave 150 per cent in everything he did, and I mean off the field as well.”

Gordon Smith added: “He was a fantastic person, great fun and a terrific centre half.”

Vignes himself observed: “Steve’s willingness to put his neck on the line for the cause earned him hero status among the fans, together with the complete respect of the dressing room.”

Unsurprisingly, Foster pulls no punches in describing the various characters and events surrounding his colourful career, for instance describing Chris Cattlin as “definitely the wrong man. I told him the truth and what I thought of him.” And, of predecessor Jimmy Melia: “When Jimmy took over it was more like a circus than a football club.”

Foster said the two biggest influences on his career were Frank Burrows, the manager of his first club, Portsmouth, who taught him about balance as the key to strength on the pitch, and Brian Horton, the dynamic midfield driving force he succeeded as Albion captain.

“He shouted and screamed for 90 minutes to help us get results, and to keep everyone on their toes,” said Foster. “If he made a mistake, 10 other people would shout and scream at him, and he would take it. When I was captain at Brighton, and my other clubs, that’s how I tried to be.”

*Such a recognisable figure as Albion’s centre-half*

Fortunately, sufficient archive film footage remains for fans of different generations to see what a dominant force Foster was at the heart of Brighton’s defence, while I retain plenty of now-yellowing cuttings from the numerous columns of newsprint he filled during his pomp.

Born on 24 September 1957 in Portsmouth, Foster went to St Swithin’s Junior School before moving on to St John’s College. A centre-forward in the early days, he played for the Portsmouth Schools under-12s side but it was Southampton who took him on as an associate schoolboy.

He played in the same youth team as Steve Williams and Nick Holmes, who both went on to have long careers.

But Saints boss Lawrie McMenemy let Foster go at 16, urging him to go elsewhere and prove him wrong. After Foster won his first England cap, McMenemy sent him a congratulatory telegram. “That was class, nothing but class,” Foster told Vignes.

Southampton’s loss was Portsmouth’s gain, courtesy of a tip off from local schoolteacher Harry Bourne to Pompey youth team coach Ray Crawford (who’d previously held a similar role under Pat Saward at Brighton). Bourne ran the Portsmouth and Hampshire schools teams.

Crawford describes in his excellent autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing 2007) how he called at the family’s house in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, but Foster’s mother was at a works disco at the local Allders store. Wasting no time, he immediately went in pursuit and, against a backdrop of deafening music and flashing lights, shouted above the din that they were interested in signing her son.

Foster called the club the following day and he was invited to play in a youth team game for Portsmouth – against Southampton! “I scored twice because I was playing as a centre-forward then, and they ended up offering me an apprenticeship on £5 per week which was my entry into the professional game,” said Foster.

Reg Tyrell, a respected former chief scout from Crawford’s time at Ipswich, watched the young striker in a youth team training game and declared: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward but he’d make a good number 5.” A few weeks’ later, manager Ron Tindall’s successor, Ian St John (later Saint and Greavsie TV show partner of Jimmy Greaves), gave Foster his debut as a centre half!

Foster played more than 100 games during Pompey’s slide down through the divisions, and, at 21, had developed something of a fiery reputation. But Brighton boss Alan Mullery saw him as “big and brave, strong in the tackle and good in the air” providing “much-needed stability at the back” as the Seagulls began their first adventure into the top-flight of English football in 1979. He was signed for £150,000.

A couple of disciplinary issues in the early days of the new season looked like proving the doubters right to have warned Mullery off signing him, but an injury to first choice centre back Andy Rollings forced the manager to backtrack on a temporary ban he’d handed out. Foster made the most of his reprieve and never looked back.

By the end of a season in which the side grew collectively Foster was named Player of the Year and he earned international recognition, gaining an England under 21 cap as a substitute for Terry Butcher in a 1-0 defeat against East Germany in Jena on 23 April 1980 (Peter Ward was playing up front).

While the 1980-81 season saw Albion struggle and flirt with relegation, Foster’s tussles with some of the top strikers in the game saw his reputation grow, and he even chipped in with a vital goal in the final home game of the season against Leeds.

When Horton and Mullery departed at the end of that season, Foster took over the captaincy under new boss Mike Bailey, and, even though fans didn’t much like the way Bailey set up his side, Foster thrived with the emphasis on defence first.

England boss Ron Greenwood, who lived in Hove, was in the process of shaping his squad for the 1992 World Cup in Spain and, with injuries affecting some of the other centre backs in contention, Foster was given a chance to prove himself.

I can remember travelling to Wembley on 23 February 1982 to watch him make his debut against Northern Ireland, a game England won 4-0 courtesy of goals from Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan, Bryan Robson and Glenn Hoddle.

I had been to the stadium 10 years before to watch another Albion player – Willie Irvine – make his international comeback in a 1-0 win for the Irish, but it was something special – and rare – to see a Brighton player line up for England.

To break through to the senior team in a World Cup year was a notable achievement, although, by his own admission, he accepted his good fortune directly correlated to injuries ruling out other players.

Although the record books show Foster earned three caps, in fact he represented the country four times that year.

A month after his debut against Northern Ireland, on 23 March, Foster played for an England XI in Bilbao against Athletic Bilbao. The game finished 1-1 with Keegan scoring for England. It didn’t qualify for a cap because it was a testimonial match for retiring Bilbao player Txetxu Rojo, but Greenwood used the fixture to familiarise the players with what was the venue for England’s opening round matches at the World Cup.

Foster also featured in a 2-0 friendly win over the Netherlands (goals by Tony Woodcock and Graham Rix) on 25 May as Greenwood continued to assess his options.

*Foster (circled) in Ron Greenwood’s 1982 World Cup squad*

When it was clear neither Alvin Martin nor Dave Watson would be fit for the tournament in Spain, Foster was selected as back-up to first choice centre back pairing Terry Butcher and Phil Thompson. Ahead of the third group match, Greenwood didn’t want to risk a ban for the already-booked Butcher, so Foster played alongside Thompson and England won 1-0 against Kuwait; Trevor Francis getting the England goal.

When England didn’t progress past the second phase, Greenwood’s spell as boss came to an end and he was replaced by Bobby Robson who, for his first game in charge, partnered Russell Osman with Butcher – both having played under him at Ipswich Town.

Foster didn’t play for England again.

Much has been written already about the 1982-83 season and Albion’s path to the FA Cup Final. Foster demonstrated real heroism in the semi-final at Highbury, playing through the pain of a septic elbow, and, memorably, towards the end of the game, launched into an overhead kick to clear a goal-bound shot to safety (pictured above).

History records Foster being suspended for the Cup Final – a well-documented appeal to the High Court against a two-game ban for accumulated bookings couldn’t get the decision reversed – but, as is often the case in football, his misfortune presented a golden opportunity for stand-in Gary Stevens who capped a man-of-the-match performance with the equalising goal. What he did that day persuaded Spurs to sign him.

Foster, of course, eventually got his Wembley chance in the replay but with a rampant Manchester United running out easy 4-0 winners, their fans also rather cruelly derided the Albion skipper with the chant I can still hear ringing around Wembley that evening: “Stevie Foster, Stevie Foster, what a difference you have made!”

In truth the whole defence lacked balance in the replay because manager Melia had elected to fill the right-back berth vacated by injury to Chris Ramsey with the left-footed Steve Gatting. He figured Stevens couldn’t be moved from the centre where he had performed so well on the Saturday, but it was a mistake, especially as Stevens had often played right back previously.

The relegation that went in tandem with Albion’s Wembley loss sparked the beginning of a big clear-out of the best players. First to go was Stevens, closely followed by Michael Robinson.

It wasn’t until the following March that Foster followed them through the exit, although, according to Foster, he might have gone sooner – even though he didn’t want to leave; a point he made clear in an interview with Match Weekly shortly after he signed for Villa for £150,000.

“I never wanted to move,” he said. “I had nearly seven years of my contract to run at Brighton and would have quite happily played out my career there. It’s a great little club.

“But economies dictated otherwise and, although manager Chris Cattlin wanted to keep me, he was under pressure to sell me and help ease the club’s financial problems.

“It was a wrench to leave Brighton because the club has treated me tremendously well and I’ve had some great times there – not least the FA Cup run last season.”

Cattlin had a slightly different take about the transaction in his matchday programme notes. “I feel that Steve Foster has been a fine player during his four-and-a-half years at the Goldstone, but I felt that the time was right and the offer good enough to let him go,” he said.

“I hope the move will benefit both Steve and the club. I hope it rejuvenates his career because he has been unlucky with injuries this season. It gives me breathing space for Eric Young to develop and it will also allow me to strengthen other positions if necessary.”

In a rather oblique reference to the need to get rid of high-earning players, Cattlin added in another matchday programme article: “Certain players have left Brighton in moves which I feel are important for our future. Salaries and bonuses of individual players are confidential and obviously I cannot disclose details, but the moves I have made I am certain are right.”

He added: “I can’t explain all the matters that have been considered but I will once again emphasise that we are building for the future and every move I make in the transfer market is being made with this in mind.”

Foster revealed that Villa boss Tony Barton, a former coach at Foster’s first club, Portsmouth, had tried to sign him twice before, but the clubs hadn’t been able to agree on a fee. Eventually, the transfer saw defender Mark Jones (who’d made seven top-flight appearances for Villa that season) move in the opposite direction, in addition to a £150,000 fee.

Barton wanted Foster to tighten up a leaky defence, to fill the position previously occupied by former European Cup winning centre-half Ken McNaught, who had moved to West Brom.

The relatively inexperienced Brendan Ormsby had been playing alongside McNaught’s former partner, Allan Evans, and the signing of Foster put his nose well and truly out of joint. “It’s obvious that I’m just going to be used as cover for Steve Foster or Allan Evans now and so it’s probably in my best interests to try and find another club,” he told Match Weekly.

As it turned out, it was Barton who was ousted; Ormsby stayed, and new manager Graham Turner decreed it would be Foster who was the odd one out. But I jump ahead too soon.

*Foster’s arrival at Villa Park as featured on a matchday programme cover*

A picture of Foster being introduced to the Villa faithful appeared on the front cover of the programme for the 17 March home game against Nottingham Forest although he didn’t make his Villa debut until 14 April 1984, away to Leicester City, which ended in a 2-0 defeat.

Foster made seven appearances by the end of the season and he got on the scoresheet in only his third game, netting together with future Albion player Dennis Mortimer, in a 2-1 win over Watford on 21 April.

Villa finished the season in 10^th place but it wasn’t good enough for the erratic chairman Ellis. Suddenly Foster found the man who signed him had been sacked, and the side Barton had led to European Cup success was gradually dismantled.

To the astonishment of the Villa faithful, Barton was succeeded by former Shrewsbury Town boss Turner.

Foster played 10 games under the new boss, and scored twice, once in a 4-2 win over Chelsea on 15 September and then again the following Saturday in a 3-3 draw away to Watford.

He’d started the season alongside Evans but Turner then offered a way back to Ormsby. While Foster played a couple of games alongside Ormsby, Turner preferred Evans and Ormsby together, making the new man surplus to requirements.

His last game for Villa was away to Everton on 13 October and the following month he was sold to Luton for £70,000 – less than half the fee Villa had paid for him eight months earlier. Foster simply put it down to his face not fitting with the new man.

It was a completely different story with Luton boss David Pleat and Foster’s time at Kenilworth Road coincided with the club’s most successful period in their history, even though Pleat left to manage Spurs.

Alongside representing his country, Foster said the best moment of his career was captaining the Hatters as they won the League Cup (then sponsored by Littlewoods) at Wembley in 1988 with a 3-2 win over Arsenal, his former Brighton teammate Danny Wilson scoring one of their goals (Brian Stein got the other two).

They reached the final of the same competition the following year too, but on that occasion lost 3-1 to Nottingham Forest. By then Foster was assistant manager to Ray Harford, and it looked like he was on a path to become a boss in his own right.

But that summer, when his old Albion captain, Horton, who had taken over from Mark Lawrenson as the manager of Oxford United, asked him to join him as a player at the Manor Ground, he was unable to resist and a new chapter in his career began.

It meant a drop down a division but Foster accepted the challenge and went on to play more than 100 games for United, many being quite a struggle as the side fought for survival at the foot of the second tier.

In the autumn of 1991, injury sidelined Foster from the U’s team and he believed it could have been the end of his career.

However, when the following summer he was contemplating whether or not to retire, he gave Brighton boss Barry Lloyd a call and asked if he could keep his fitness going by joining in pre-season training with the Seagulls.

Lloyd could see that the former skipper was still able to perform and, although the club was in a downward spiral, Foster seized the opportunity to extend his career and help out his old side.

Another veteran of that side, Clive Walker, told Vignes for A Few Good Men: “Fozzie might not have been so mobile then but his positional sense was absolutely brilliant, as was his ability in the air.”

Foster said: “Funnily enough during that second period I played probably some of my best football. I had to because of the position the club was in. There was no money so you had to pull out all the stops.”

Foster continued to play after Lloyd had departed, and he vented his anger publicly about the off-field shenanigans new boss Liam Brady was having to operate under.

Foster eventually called it a day at the end of the 1995-96 season, saddened at the club’s plight. He was granted a testimonial match against Sheffield Wednesday, played as a pre-season friendly in July 1996. Throughout Foster’s career he had continued to live in Hove and he retains his affection for the Albion to this day.

During his second spell at the club, Foster was the PFA rep and he had to deal with the heartbreak of telling the parents of a young player (Billly Logan) that an ankle injury was going to end his career. The youngster got just £1,500 compensation.

As a result, after his own playing days were over, Foster set up an insurance business (Pro-Secure) which continues to this day, making sure players are properly covered and get suitably recompensed if things don’t turn out as they’d hoped.

Although Foster hasn’t always been popular with the Albion’s hierarchy (courtesy of suggested involvement in potential takeovers), his association with the club hasn’t dimmed and Seagulls fans of two generations took him to their hearts for his on-field performances and leadership spanning a total of 332 games.

• Pictures from my scrapbook, the Albion matchday programme over several seasons, and some online sources.

Seagulls gave Martin Keown first team football opportunity

MARTIN KEOWN, who was born in Oxford six days before England won the World Cup in 1966, made his breakthrough into what became an illustrious playing career with Brighton.

The TV pundit football fans see today was famously a stalwart defender for Arsenal, Everton and Aston Villa, not to mention England.

But as an emerging player yet to break through at the Gunners, he got the chance of first team football courtesy of Brighton boss Chris Cattlin, who negotiated with Arsenal boss Don Howe to secure his services on loan.

“He is a young player with plenty of potential,” Cattlin wrote in his Albion matchday programme notes. “He is still learning and will make the odd mistake, but these are all part of learning and I feel he will be a very good player in the very near future.”

MK BW He made his debut away to Manchester City in February 1985 and, in two spells, stayed a total of six months with the Seagulls, making 23 appearances. It wasn’t long before he earned the divisional young player of the month award and Cattlin said: “Martin has done very well and done himself great credit in coming into the heat and tension of a promotion battle and coping well.”

He made such a great impression, it wasn’t long before the Albion matchday programme went to town with a somewhat gushing feature about the young man.

“Fans and Albion players alike have been impressed by the character and maturity displayed by the 18-year-old English Youth International,” said Tony Norman. “No less a judge than former England manager Ron Greenwood was instrumental in Martin’s recent Robinson Young Player of the Month award.

Keown prog front “So, the young man from Oxford must have something special going for him. On the field he is a sharp, decisive player, but away from the game he is quietly spoken and unassuming.”

Some things obviously changed!

“His progress in football has not gone to his head and he is quick to thank the special people who have helped him find success,” Norman continued.

Keown told him: “Going back to the early days in Oxford, I think my parents were the greatest help of all. I played for several different teams, so there was never a particular coach who helped me. But my family were always there giving me their full encouragement and support.”

At Highbury, he credited the scout who took him to Arsenal, Terry Murphy, as his greatest help in his early years, helping him to settle into the professional game.

“He was very good to me,” said Keown. “I was only 15 when I joined Arsenal as an apprentice. I was in digs in North London and it was all quite a change from life in Oxford. It took a bit of getting used to.”

The former Chelsea midfield player John Hollins, who played for Arsenal between 1979 and 1983, was also an influence.

“He always had a word of encouragement for the youngsters,” said Keown. “He is the kind of man who can make a club happier just by being there. I liked and respected him a great deal. He was a model professional.”

During his time with Brighton, young Keown lived with physiotherapist Malcom Stuart and his family. “They have made me feel very much at home,” he said. “It has been a happy time for me.”

M Keown Arse Unfortunately for Brighton, Keown returned to Highbury and it wasn’t long before Howe, the former coach who’d become Arsenal manager, gave him his first team debut on 23 November 1985 in a 0-0 draw away to West Brom.

In much the same way he has become something of a Marmite pundit on the TV, Keown wasn’t every manager’s flavour. When George Graham was appointed Arsenal boss in 1986, Keown didn’t figure in his plans and he sold him to Aston Villa (see picture below) for £200,000.

M Keown villa Three years later, he became what Colin Harvey described as his best signing during his time as boss of Everton. A fee of £750,000 took him to Goodison.

In an interview with the Liverpool Echo back in 2013, Keown declared: “I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Everton. The only disappointment was that I couldn’t contribute to the club winning anything tangible in my four years there.

“I played under Colin Harvey and Howard Kendall and I was eternally grateful to them for the opportunity to play at a club like Everton.

“Looking back, in hindsight it was probably a bit much to ask a young lad, which I was then, to step into the boots of a club legend like Kevin Ratcliffe. But I always gave absolutely everything.”

Keown added: “The atmosphere was always superb at Goodison. Even though I played a lot of my career at Highbury, I loved Goodison.”

It was during his time at Everton that he won the first of his 43 England caps, getting the call-up from Graham Taylor to join the squad in 1992 to replace Mark Wright. When Terry Venables took over, he didn’t get a look-in.

But Glenn Hoddle restored him to the squad in 1997 and, although he was part of the 1998 World Cup squad, he didn’t get a game. He was a regular under Kevin Keegan and, in a game against Finland, had the honour of captaining the side. Age began to count against him by the time Sven-Goran Eriksson took charge of England and, although he was part of the 2002 World Cup squad, he wasn’t selected for any games.

His return to Arsenal in February 1993 meant he was the first player since the days of the Second World War to rejoin the Gunners, and it went on to become a 10-year spell in which he helped the club to win three Premier League titles and the FA Cup three times.

Arsenal paid a £2m fee to bring back their former apprentice and he and Andy Linighan were more than able deputies who kept established first choices Steve Bould and Tony Adams on their toes.

“Martin was deployed most frequently at centre-half where his formidable pace and thunderous tackling combined to thwart both target men and strikers running in behind,” declared an article on arsenal.com, lauding the merits of the ‘50 greatest Arsenal players’. “It meant, too, that he was vastly capable in an anchoring midfield role; something utilised by his manager.”

While not always a regular, Keown became an integral part of Arsene Wenger’s double-winning sides of 1998 and 2002 and remained a part of the set-up through to the winning of the FA Cup against Southampton in Cardiff in 2003.

The following season included the much-repeated TV moment when Keown mocked Ruud van Nistelrooy for missing a late penalty in a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford, an incident still being discussed only last summer.

Although Arsenal went on to win the title, Keown played only 10 league games and was given a free transfer at the end of the season.

He joined Leicester City, where he played 17 games but moved on to Reading six months later, ending his league career with five games at the Madejski.

Since calling time on his playing career, Keown has, of course, become known for his TV punditry with both the BBC and BT Sport, as well as being a newspaper columnist and contributor to many different media.

On Twitter, @martinkeown5 has 278,000 followers! He has also coached back at Arsenal and been a regular on the football speaker circuit.

Stop-gap big Willie given runaround in Brighton’s colours

W Young Joe Jordan A TOWERING Scottish defender who played in three consecutive FA Cup finals for Arsenal was a temporary centre-back stand-in for Brighton in 1984.

Willie Young had moved on from the marble halls of Highbury by the time Albion boss Chris Cattlin borrowed him to plug a gap.

Young was nearing the end of a 14-year career and had switched to Norwich City but was made available to help the Seagulls out of a hole.

Another former Gunner, Steve Gatting, was suspended for three matches in March 1984 and former club captain Steve Foster had just been sold to Aston Villa to raise some much-needed funds.

So Cattlin brought in flame-haired Scot Young to play alongside inexperienced namesake Eric Young. His first game, at home to Manchester City on 10 March, finished in a 1-1 draw.

A week later, Albion triumphed 3-0 away to Derby County and won by a similar margin at home to Leeds United on 24 March.

So far, so good, but in what turned out to be Young’s final game, the wheels came off big time and Albion succumbed 5-1 away to Portsmouth, despite taking the lead.

The line-up saw Eric Young unable to play through suspension and Willie partnered by the returning Gatting. They were no match for Pompey’s prolific centre forward Mark Hateley.

Young found himself in the book with 15 minutes of the first half still to play following a foul on Hateley. Evening Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe said: “Young was lucky not to be sent off when he bowled Hateley over from behind. Hateley was in a goalscoring position, and, at the time, Albion were still in front.”

The club’s official report added: “On 65 minutes, Hateley outpaced Young and moved smoothly in to net his 22^nd goal of the season for Portsmouth.”

Vinicombe gave a brutal assessment: “Out of the shambles may come some good. If Cattlin had been undecided about taking Willie Young on contract, this performance may well have made up his mind.

“Hitherto, Young had not let the side down in his previous three loan appearances, but Mark Hateley, ten years his junior, gave him a terrible runaround.”

So, an ignominious end to his short spell and he was subsequently sacked by Norwich for misconduct.

After a short spell with lowly Darlington, Young called time on his playing career later that year and ran a pub and restaurant, Bramcote Manor, in Nottingham, before it was demolished to be replaced by a religious meeting place.

He subsequently took over the running of the Belvoir kennels and cattery in Bottesford, Leicestershire, while also being a part-time pundit for Scottish television.

Born in the Midlothian village of Heriot on 25 November 1951, Young went to school at Ross High in Tranent and was more noted for rugby than football – he was a talented hooker who had a trial for the South of Scotland Schools’ team.

However, he was playing football for amateur side Sefton Athletic when Hearts offered him a trial – but as a Hibernian supporter he turned them down! Falkirk then gave him a trial but a change of management meant it wasn’t followed up and eventually Aberdeen stepped in to sign him in 1969.

After making 187 appearances for the Dons in five years, initially under Eddie Turnbull and then Jimmy Bonthrone, Tottenham Hotspur boss Terry Neill signed the defender after he’d impressed in a UEFA Cup tie between Aberdeen and Spurs. He played 64 times for the Lilywhites in two seasons.

Neill’s successor Keith Burkinshaw dispensed with his services and he joined Neill at Arsenal when the Northern Irishman switched to manage the side he used to play for. According to The Scotsman, Neill described Young as “a big awkward bastard who liked a drink”.

Before the move, he’d been sent off in a Spurs v Arsenal clash following what was described as a kung fu style kick on Frank Stapleton.

W Young Gerry Ryan Young (pictured above launching into a tackle on Albion’s Gerry Ryan) became something of a Gunners cult hero for making the controversial switch from the north London rivals and fans inevitably enjoyed the chant: “We’ve got the biggest Willie in the land.” In four years, he made a total of 236 appearances, chipping in with 19 goals as well.

His three FA Cup Final appearances came in 1978, 1979 and 1980, only collecting a winners’ medal in 1979 when the Gunners beat Manchester United 3-2.

The consensus view was that Young did well in that game, suppressing the threat of fellow Scot Joe Jordan, who led the line for United. In 1980, Young famously committed a professional foul on Paul Allen as he looked like he would score as the youngest player in a FA Cup Final.

Young said in that piece in The Scotsman: “I was the last man and only got booked. After that the rules were changed and the ‘professional foul’, as it started to be called, became a red card offence. Paul was going to score so I had to take him down. Afterwards he said: ‘Don’t worry, big man, I’d have done the same.’ But everyone else was appalled. He was only 17, the youngest to play in an FA Cup final, and I’d ruined the fairytale. Big, bad Willie had done it again.”

Hammers won the game 1-0 with a rare Trevor Brooking header.

W Young Forest After Young lost his first team place at Arsenal to Chris Whyte, he moved on to Nottingham Forest (pictured above), where he spent a couple of seasons, playing 59 games.

He then joined Norwich in 1983 but, dogged by injuries, he failed to command a regular place in their side.

Young won five Scotland under 23 caps but his involvement in some over-exuberant revelry in Copenhagen in 1975 brought about a life ban from the international set-up, which he spoke about in the 2015 interview with The Scotsman.

Post-playing, Youngr settled in the Nottingham area with his wife Lynda, and ran a pub for many years. His death at the age of 73 was announced on 31 October 2025.

Cattlin wasn’t backed to buy ex-City defender Jeff Clarke for £6,500

HARD-UP Albion wanted to sign dominant centre-back Jeff Clarke in 1984 but, unable to meet Newcastle United’s modest asking price, they were forced to walk away from a deal.

Clarke, who began his career at Manchester City, had plenty of experience to bring to a young Brighton side having played more than 300 games for north-east giants Sunderland and the Magpies.

At the start of the 1984-85 season, Clarke found himself on the outside looking in at St James’ Park, following the arrival of the legendary Jack Charlton as manager.

Although Arthur Cox had led them to promotion to the old First Division, he quit during the close season because he didn’t feel the club’s owners were investing enough in the playing side (some things never change!).

Former England World Cup winner Charlton, whose uncle ‘Wor’ Jackie Milburn was a Newcastle legend, took the hot seat and his preferred centre back pairing at the start of the season was John Anderson and Glenn Roeder.

Down on the south coast, Brighton boss Chris Cattlin was keen to bring some experience to the spine of the team he was rebuilding, and he took Clarke on loan to play alongside the emerging Eric Young, as well as introducing his old Huddersfield teammate Frank Worthington up front.

Clarke and Worthington made their debuts in an opening day 3-0 win at Carlisle United on 25 August (Danny Wilson, Terry Connor and Steve Penney the goalscorers).

The on-loan defender couldn’t have had a more eventful home debut three days later, in an ill-tempered evening game at home to Larry Lloyd’s Notts County, who had Justin Fashanu playing up front.

A clash between Fashanu and Clarke saw the defender come off worse, a back injury forcing him to be substituted with only 36 minutes gone (replaced by sub Neil Smillie).

In a game which saw seven players booked, fellow central defender Young joined him in hospital having been concussed by a stray Fashanu elbow. In the days before multiple substitutes, the Seagulls were forced to play the second half with only ten men, but nevertheless ran out 2-1 winners. Steve Jacobs opened the scoring on 22 minutes, Fashanu equalised on 55 but Worthington marked his home debut with the winner in the 67^th minute. (The following June, Fashanu joined the Albion for a fee of £115,000).

jeff clarke BW Clarke had sustained a fracture to a bone in his back but he was fit enought to return to the side on 22 September, in a 1-0 defeat away to Oldham Athletic, and was then on the winning side in the following two games: a 3-1 first leg Milk Cup win over Aldershot and a 2-0 home win over Fulham.

Unfortunately, that proved to be his last game for the Seagulls. Cattlin wanted to sign him permanently and Newcastle wanted just £6,500 for Clarke but the Albion board wouldn’t sanction the fee, as Cattlin explained at the Albion Roar live show in December 2018 (skip to 28 minutes in), which he believes signalled the beginning of the end of his time at the club.

In his matchday programme notes at the time, Cattlin said: “With the current cash crisis at the club, I could not finalise what I think is a very important deal in the long-term for this club. Clarke is a fine professional who, in many ways, reminds me of Peter Withe in his outstanding professionalism and leadership qualities.”

That sounds like he felt the captaincy of the side wasn’t in the right hands, and later in the same notes he explained how he had taken the job of skipper from Jimmy Case (“he needs to get his own game back to what we know he is capable of”) and given the role to Danny Wilson (“his leadership qualities on the park have become self evident”).

Born 18 January 1954 in the West Yorkshire mining town of Hemsworth, near Wakefield, Clarke was a Sheffield Wednesday fan as a boy and admired Owls central defender Vic Mobley.

However, it was on the other side of the Pennines that he made his breakthrough as a professional, with Manchester City.

Manager Tony Book handed Clarke his debut in a 4-0 home win over West Ham United on 17 August 1974 but he only played 15 games for the Maine Road outfit, his last game coming in a 2-1 home defeat to Carlisle United on 19 March 1975.

Clarke moved to Sunderland as a makeweight in the deal which saw the Sunderland and England international centre back Dave Watson move to City in the summer of 1975.

J Clarke Sund BW

The move to Roker Park finally saw his career take off and in seven years he made 213 appearances for the Wearsiders, many as captain (as seen in team photo above), including helping them to promotion to the top flight in 1976.

The excellent MatchDayMemories.com unearthed a Shoot/Goal profile of Clarke which revealed he had earned schoolboy under 18 international honours, his favourite food was peanut butter sandwiches and Brian Kidd, then of Arsenal, had been his most difficult opponent.

In 1982, at the age of 28, he switched to north east rivals Newcastle United on a free transfer, and stayed with the Magpies for five years.

When his two-month loan on the south coast wasn’t made permanent, he had other loan spells in Turkey and at Darlington but then returned to Newcastle and was restored to the first team, and featured in a New Year’s Day win over Sunderland in which future Albion winger Clive Walker was an opponent.

When Charlton quit as boss on the eve of the 1985-86 season, it signalled better fortunes for Clarke and under Willie McFaul he became a regular alongside Roeder, racking up 45 appearances and chipping in with three goals. The following season he played only seven games and hung up his boots in 1987.

Clarke stayed at St James’ Park in a coaching capacity after his playing days were over but simultaneously he took a degree in physiotherapy at the University of Salford, graduating in 1996.

He later became physio at former club Sunderland before moving to Leeds United in 2001. Made redundant at Elland Road in 2003, he moved to Dundee United in November the same year and has been the first team physio ever since.

Eagles’ Cup Final scorer Gary O’Reilly had two Seagulls spells

GARY O’REILLY was one of those rare players who had two different spells with Brighton – and played for rivals Crystal Palace in between.

Indeed, his career highlight came when he played – and scored – in the 1990 FA Cup Final for Crystal Palace against Manchester United.

It was from Phil Barber’s free-kick on the right that O’Reilly put Palace ahead after 18 minutes, his header looping over goalkeeper Jim Leighton.

United recovered to lead 2-1 before Ian Wright, only six weeks after breaking his leg, came on to score twice, in the 72nd minute and again at the start of extra-time. But Mark Hughes got an equaliser for United seven minutes from the end of extra-time, and, just as they had against Brighton in 1983, United went on to win the replay.

Born in Isleworth on 21 March 1961, O’Reilly started to make a name for himself with the Essex Boys team and, as a schoolboy, played for both England and the Republic of Ireland because his father was from Dublin and his mother English.

Arsenal wanted him on associate schoolboy forms, but it was Spurs who snapped him up at the age of 13. His youth team-mates at White Hart Lane included Kerry Dixon and Mick Hazard.

O’Reilly also had the offer of a sports scholarship at Columbia University before signing for Spurs as a professional. Among a total of 45 first-team appearances in five seasons at Tottenham were games in the Charity Shield at Wembley against Liverpool and a quarter-final victory in the UEFA Cup over German giants Bayern Munich.

Ironically it was the arrival of Gary Stevens from Albion shortly after the 1983 FA Cup Final that began to signal the end of his time at White Hart Lane, together with the emergence of Danny Thomas.

Screenshot

Even though he still had two years of his contract remaining, O’Reilly requested a transfer and, in August 1984, he became part of Chris Cattlin’s Albion squad after signing for a fee of £45,000.

Cattlin recalled: “I watched him eight times before signing him, and six times with Tottenham Reserves he had stinkers. But I thought then he had great potential.”

O’Reilly made his debut at right-back in a notorious home game against Notts County which saw centre-backs Jeff Clarke and Eric Young both hospitalised after clashes with County’s Justin Fashanu, meaning the new arrival hastily shifting into his more familiar position in the centre.

In what was an eventful first few weeks, he also joined that illustrious list of players to score a winning goal AGAINST Palace. That came on 15 September 1984 when 15,044 at the Goldstone Ground saw O’Reilly score the only goal of the game.

His centre-back partner that day – and for most of his time at the Goldstone – was Young, who also later joined the Eagles, having left Brighton for Wimbledon.

O’Reilly made 79 appearances in three seasons with Albion, scoring three goals, and was virtually an ever-present for the first two seasons.

GO'R by the pier Off the field, he became a popular figure with a social conscience, leading a campaign to help youngsters fight drug addiction and becoming president of the Junior Seagulls.

Unfortunately, injuries, including a worrying hamstring condition, restricted him to just eight games in the ill-fated 1986-87 season.

Then, on 3 January 1987, manager Alan Mullery reluctantly sold him to Palace for £40,000. Mullery later recounted: “I remember Gary O”Reilly coming in the day before we were going up to Grimsby. I asked him: ‘Do you want your wages next month?’ He thought it was some kind of quiz question, but I said ‘If you do, you are going to have to leave the club’. That’s how bad it was. We couldn’t afford the wages.” Albion won 2-1 at Grimsby but two days later, Mullery was gone himself – his second spell as manager ending in a sacking.

O’Reilly played 70 times in his first four seasons at Selhurst Park but he did not figure in Steve Coppell’s plans in the 1990-91 season and had just one game on loan with Birmingham City.

At the age of 30, the versatile defender returned to the Seagulls and was given a two-year contract by Barry Lloyd.

“There’s no substitute for first-team football,” he said. “There is nothing like playing regularly to give a player the right degree of confidence.”

Although he made 31 appearances in the 1991-92 season, he was unable to prevent Albion’s relegation back to the third tier and, after a series of unsuccessful knee operations, he was forced to retire from the game in April 1993.

After hanging up his boots, he embarked on a successful broadcasting career for Sky Sports, BBC, ART Prime in Dubai and Trans World International’s Premier League international feed.

On Twitter, with the handle @mythreeleftfeet, he describes himself as “global TV presenter, co commentator, ex professional football player all round sports broadcaster, writer, amateur photographer & someone you might just like…”

worldsoccertalk.com caught up with him in May 2017 to discuss a new venture in which O’Reilly is joint host (alongside stand-up comedian Chuck Nice) of a weekly podcast in America Playing With Science, which explores fascinating topics linking sport and science.

Phoenix O'R w Pompey's Biley

Pictures mainly from the matchday programme.

Above, defending against Portsmouth’s Alan Biley, who later played alongside him.

Shankly ‘disciple’ George Aitken coached Mariners and Seagulls

MEDIA-friendly Jimmy Melia stole all the limelight as Brighton stormed to the final of the 1983 FA Cup but a quiet, wavy-haired Scot alongside him played a big part in the achievement.

George Aitken was joint caretaker manager with Melia for three months after Mike Bailey’s dismissal in December 1982, and he’d previously been in the dugout alongside Alan Mullery and Ken Craggs during Albion’s rise through the divisions having originally been brought to the club by Peter Taylor.

.When he died aged 78 in August 2006, Jimmy Case told the Cumbrian Times & Star: “George was a great character, a great friend and coach right the way through my time at the club. “Jimmy Melia was in the front line with his white shoes but George was right there in terms of the workings of the club and picking the team. He was well respected for his knowledge of the game.”

Mark Lawrenson also paid tribute in an interview with Argus reporter Paul Holden, telling him: “George never got carried away. He had seen it all before. He was a very wily old fox. He was from the old school, a good, honest, true, loyal man.

“He knew his football, knew his players and liked a laugh. He had one of those infectious laughs.”

Micky Adams said: “He was a great football man, George. When I first joined Brighton as manager, he was one of my biggest allies. He always popped into the office to chew the cud and talk football. He loved Brighton and was a well-respected man who loved the game.”

Holden also reported that at Aitken’s testimonial dinner in 1988, former Albion secretary, Stephen Rooke, said: “He may never have reached the dizzy heights attained by many of his friends and acquaintances over the years but he represents a rare breed, in fact the very lifeblood of our national game.

Aitken tiler sully 78

Aitken puts Ken Tiler and Peter O’Sullivan through their paces in pre-season training in 1978

“Deep down George is a very private person but his reliability and honest, down-to-earth approach has, quite rightly, earned him enormous respect throughout the football world.”

Aitken had been a manager in his own right at Workington, and he and Melia had both been players under one of the game’s legends – Bill Shankly.

Shankly managed Workington between 6 January 1954 and 15 November 1955, when Aitken was a strong and commanding centre back for the Cumbrian side, and five of Melia’s 10 years playing for Liverpool were under Shankly’s managership.

Born in Dalkeith, Scotland, on 13 August 1928, Aitken was educated at Dalkeith High School and played football for Midlothian Schools.

His step up to senior football came at Edinburgh Thistle, which was essentially a feeder side for Hibernian.

David Jack, remembered as the first player ever to score at Wembley, had become manager of Middlesbrough in 1944, and took Aitken to Ayresome Park after the war.

“I was 20 at the time and it took me two seasons to reach the first team,” Aitken recalled in an Albion matchday programme article.

“Middlesbrough had a great team at the time and I played alongside the likes of (England internationals) Wilf Mannion and George Hardwick.”

Aitken made his debut against Fulham in 1951-52, but only made 18 top division appearances and, in July 1953, was sold to nearby Workington for £5,000.

It was the beginning of a long-standing relationship with a club who in those days played in the basement division of the Football League and is now in the Northern Premier League – the seventh tier of English football.

Aitken amassed 262 league appearances for Workington and, in the 1957-58 season, played against the famous Busby Babes at home in the 3^rd round of the FA Cup in front of a record 21,000 crowd – just a month before the Munich air crash. Dennis Viollet scored a hat-trick for United in a 3-1 win.

“The game was an experience that I’ll never forget,” said Aitken, who kept on the wall of his house a picture of him with United’s skipper that day, Roger Byrne, who not long after that match perished in the Munich air crash.

Aitken retired as a player in 1960 but he stayed on at Borough Park as a coach, initially under Joe Harvey, who later enjoyed success at Newcastle United, and then Ken Furphy, who went on to manage Watford, Blackburn and Sheffield United before moving to the USA and taking charge of four different clubs.

Aitken had a brief spell as Workington manager between March and June 1965 (stepping in after Keith Burkinshaw – later famously boss of Spurs – had left) but then followed Furphy to Watford in 1965 as his coach. During that time, Watford, then in Division Two, famously beat Shankly’s Liverpool 1-0 in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup before losing to eventual winners Chelsea in the semi-finals.

The lure of Workington was to draw him back to the north west, though. When the manager’s job became vacant in 1971, Aitken took over and stayed for three seasons, eventually leaving in October 1974.

grimsby 75

In the 1975-76 season, he was trainer-coach during Tommy Casey’s spell managing Grimsby Town (where, as in picture, one of the players was former Albion defender Steve Govier), but left the Lincolnshire outfit to join Peter Taylor’s coaching set-up at Brighton in 1976. The Scot ended up staying for 10 years.

Aitken and wife Celia had three children and I well remember one of them, Bruce, appearing for Worthing FC. Aitken 2

George was clearly football daft, and in a matchday programme feature of September 1985, Celia told Tony Norman: “Football has always been his hobby, as well as his way of earning a living. He really loves the game. It’s not unusual for us to be driving somewhere and to stop because George has seen a game going on in a park by the road. He can’t resist watching for a while.”

During Chris Cattlin’s reign as manager, Aitken was the reserve team manager and chief scout, and in the programme article he said: “I can look back on some very happy memories. I was assistant manager when we took the club to Wembley and that experience is something I’ll never forget. But that is all in the past and what really matters to me is the future for Brighton Football Club. So, I enjoy going out to look for youngsters who could do a good job for us in years to come.”

After being sacked by Brighton, Aitken did scouting work for Graham Taylor during his spells at Watford and Aston Villa and then had three years working for the FA during Taylor’s reign as England manager. His last football role was at Bolton Wanderers when Colin Todd was the manager.

end shot aitken armchair

Pictures from a variety of sources including the matchday programme, online sites and the Argus.

Liverpudlian Melia etched a never-to-be-forgotten place in Brighton’s history

IT WAS the stuff of dreams when Liverpool born and bred Jimmy Melia saw his underdog Seagulls side beat the mighty Merseyside giants en route to Brighton’s one and only FA Cup Final appearance.

In fact, it wasn’t the first time Melia had taken a side to Anfield to play in the competition. On 2 January 1971, as player-manager of lowly Aldershot, he returned to the ground where he’d been an inside forward under Bill Shankly and gave them a scare in the third round, the Fourth Division side only losing 1-0.

Even Liverpool’s wideman, Steve Heighway, admitted: “I suppose we were lucky to win. It was a frosty day and the ball was playing quite a few tricks. I don’t think we were in any danger of losing. But Aldershot were playing well that day. They could have sneaked a draw.”

How satisfying, then, to return in 1983 and pilot Albion’s unlikely 2-1 win, with a winning goal courtesy of that other former Anfield favourite, Jimmy Case.

In the run-up to the game, Melia, raised in Liverpool’s Scotland Road, told the Daily Mail: “I’ve got 11 brothers and sisters in the Liverpool area and they’ll all want to be there.”

He clearly didn’t fear the game, pointing out that Brighton had been the last team to win at Anfield, and telling the Argus: “It is a great tie for us. When I was manager at Aldershot we lost 1-0 to them and I think we will do better this time. Remember, the Cup is full of all sorts of upsets. It wouldn’t be the Cup otherwise.”

After the famous victory, Melia told Alex Montgomery of The Sun: “I’ve been involved in some great Liverpool victories but this is without doubt the greatest win.

“The great thing about it is that we didn’t just nick a win. We deserved what we got. A lot of people said that if we attacked them we would just set ourselves up for a hiding. That is not the way it worked out.”

It emerged after the game that John Manning, an old footballing friend of Melia’s, had been key to plotting the victory. Former Crewe, Bolton and Tranmere striker Manning, Albion’s scout in the north at the time, gave the players a pre-match rundown on what to expect.

“Best team talk we’ve ever had,” defender Gary Stevens told the Daily Mail. “Liverpool played exactly the way he said they would and he was even right about which side (Phil) Neal would send his penalty (which went wide of goalkeeper Perry Digweed’s post).”

Born in Liverpool on 1 November 1937, Melia attended the city’s St Anthony’s School and didn’t play his first organised football match until the age of 11. He quickly demonstrated a talent for the game and after shining for the school side was picked to play for Liverpool Boys.

At 14, he was selected for England Schoolboys but a broken collarbone meant he was unable to play. A year later, though, after captaining Liverpool Boys, he got another chance with the national schoolboy side, making his debut against Eire in a team that included Bobby Charlton and Wilf McGuinness.

Liverpool offered him a place on the groundstaff as soon as he left school and, at the age of 17, he was taken on as a professional by former Brighton manager Don Welsh, who took over as Liverpool boss in 1951. Ahead of a Brighton v Portsmouth game in 1983, Melia mentioned his closeness to their manager at the time, Bobby Campbell.

“We virtually grew up together in the same street in Liverpool and we both signed for Liverpool as youngsters on the same day,” he wrote in his matchday programme notes. “We literally have a lifelong friendship.”

Melia scored on his Liverpool debut against Nottingham Forest in a 5-2 win when the famous Billy Liddell scored a hat-trick, and he was making a name for himself at a national level too. Melia scored twice for the England Youth side as they romped home 9-2 winners over Denmark at Home Park, Plymouth, on 1 October 1955. The following month he was on target again as England beat the Netherlands 3-1 at Carrow Road, Norwich.

Between the 1955-56 and 1963-64 seasons, Melia played 287 games for Liverpool, scoring 78 goals. It might have been more but for the fact he had to do National Service although the consolation was that he got to play in the British Army side with the likes of Duncan Edwards, Bobby Charlton, Dave Mackay, Peter Swan, Cliff Jones and Alan Hodgkinson.

One of his Liverpool goals came in a home game against Brighton on 10 October 1959. Phil Taylor’s Liverpool were 2-1 down to the Albion that Saturday afternoon and, in the 85^th minute, Melia stepped up to take a penalty…and missed. Nevertheless, he atoned for the mistake by slotting home a last-gasp equaliser. A month later, Shankly took over as manager.

In a series of profiles of the leading Liverpool players of the era, journalist Ivan Ponting said: “Jimmy Melia was the principal midfield ideas man as Liverpool rose from the second tier in 1961-62 and he was capped twice in 1963 ahead of sparkling creatively in the opening half of the Reds’ first title campaign under Bill Shankly.”

In only the second game of Alf Ramsey’s reign as England manager, he selected Melia to play for the national side in a 2-1 defeat to Scotland at Wembley on 6 April 1963.

Then on 5 June 1963, in Basle, he was one of the goalscorers in the side that hammered Switzerland 8-1; Bobby Charlton scored a hat-trick but remarkably Jimmy Greaves didn’t get on the scoresheet.

Although he didn’t win another full cap, he was in a FA squad Ramsey took to Gibraltar in May 1965 when the Rock’s representative XI were soundly beaten 7-1 on 22 May and 6-0 the following day.

In the 1963-64 season, when Melia was sidelined by a minor ankle injury, Shankly reshuffled his line-up, moved centre-forward Ian St John into a more deep lying role and put Alf Arrowsmith up top. The change worked so well that Melia never did regain his regular place in the team.

“It was a stunning blow and a surprise to the balding Merseysider whose flair, industry and intelligence had been so productive, with his through-passing an exquisite speciality, even if some fans disliked what they saw as over-elaboration on the ball,” Ponting wrote for Back Pass magazine.

Melia was sold to Wolves for a then record fee of £48,000 in March 1964, but because he had played a certain number of games for Liverpool earlier in the season, was awarded a medal when the Reds were crowned champions.

It was the legendary Stan Cullis who had taken him to Molineux and, Melia told Charlie Bamforth for wolvesheroes.com, it was with the intention of him subsequently moving into a coaching role. But, when Cullis was sacked before the end of the year, his replacement, Andy Beattie, swiftly dispensed with Melia’s services, offloading him to Southampton in December 1964 for £30,000.

At The Dell, Melia (pictured below in Saints’ famous stripes) joined forces with the likes of Terry Paine and Martin Chivers and, in 1965, helped Ted Bates’ side to promotion to the top division.

Melia Saints

He was an ever present in the side during their first top division campaign, notable as a provider of crosses for Ron Davies and Chivers.

Eventually, the emerging Mike Channon took his place and, in 1968, after making 152 Saints appearances, on the strength of a recommendation from his old boss Cullis (by then manager of Birmingham), Aldershot paid £9,000 for him to become player-coach. The following April he became player-manager.

When he was sacked in January 1972, having made 134 league appearances for the Shots, he moved back to the north west as player-manager of lowly Crewe Alexandra but finally hung up his boots in May that year to concentrate on the manager’s job.

As a lowly league manager, Melia seldom came to the wider public’s attention, but when the opportunity arose, he was quick to seize it. Before another FA Cup third round match, this time against Huddersfield, he told Goal magazine any success he’d had as a manager could be put down to the influence of Shankly and his managers at Wolves and Southampton, Cullis and Bates.

“I was lucky,” said Jimmy. “You can’t help but learn from men such as these and I consider myself very fortunate to have served under them.”

In his first season as manager of Crewe Alexandra, his inexperienced team finished bottom and had to seek re-election to the league (in those days relegation was not automatic).

“I believe some of the youngsters we have here are destined for great futures. But perhaps you need a little more than just skill and enthusiasm to be successful,” he told Goal in July 1973.

Melia was clearly scarred by his treatment at Crewe. He told Ian Jarrett of The Sun: “We finished in the bottom four and were in danger of getting kicked out of the league so I spent days ringing around all my mates to get the votes to save us at the annual (league) meeting.

“I succeeded and went away feeling pretty happy until a phone call from the chairman warned me that I had only narrowly survived a vote of confidence.

“The following September I was made manager of the month but the club called an extraordinary meeting, got rid of the chairman, and soon after that I was out on my ear.

“The experience taught me a lesson.”

In 1975, Melia had three months as manager of Southport, before ending the same year coaching in the Middle East.

He then moved to the USA and linked up with a former Wolves teammate Laurie Calloway to become his assistant coach at NSL side Southern California Lazers. In 1979, Melia moved to Ohio to become coach of Cleveland Cobras.

A window back into the English game opened in April 1980 when Brighton boss Alan Mullery appointed him as the club’s chief scout.

Looking back now, it seems a tad ironic that Albion chairman Mike Bamber was all for sacking him and other members of Mullery’s backroom staff in the summer of 1981 to save money. Mullery refused – and subsequently left the club himself.

Melia retained his position under Mullery’s successor, Mike Bailey, who, despite taking the Albion to their highest ever finishing position (13^th) in 1982, failed to win over fans with a style of football that saw them stay away in their thousands.

A concerned Bamber finally brought down the curtain on the Bailey era in December 1982, handing the first team managerial reins on a caretaker basis jointly to Melia and loyal backroom ‘boy’ George Aitken (himself a former manager who, like Melia, had been a player under Shankly during his time at Workington).

From the outset, it was Melia who put himself forward to handle interviews with the press, TV and radio, and, as the club progressed in the FA Cup, so the spotlight began to shine brighter on the Liverpudlian, especially with that tie at Anfield.

Inevitably, the question kept arising as to whether Melia would land the manager’s job on a permanent basis and, in one of many interviews, he somewhat tellingly said: “I’d love the job and, if we stay up, that will improve my chances. But I’m not going to attempt to survive by playing boring, safety-first football.”

In a comment that was something of an oxymoron, Melia told Paul Weaver of the News of the World: “I don’t want to say anything against my predecessor, Mike Bailey, but I wouldn’t have paid money to watch Brighton in the first half of the season.”

mullers + meia

Perhaps not surprising, then, that in a veterans’ charity match played at Selhurst Park just before the semi-final, Bailey refused a request to be photographed with Melia, albeit he was happy to pose alongside Mullery.

By then, Melia had indeed finally been given the manager’s role on a permanent basis (once Norwich had been defeated in the quarter final). On 16 March 1983, Bamber took him out to lunch at a Hove hotel to break the news.

In a front-page splash on the Argus, Melia said: “This is the happiest day of my life. It is a dream to be manager of a First Division club with also the possibility of taking them to Wembley.

“I am just pleased the chairman has given me the opportunity, and I hope to stay at the club for the next 20 years.” It would, of course, turn out to be closer to 20 weeks!

As excitement built in the run-up to the Cup Final, Bamber told Argus reporter Phil Mills: “Jimmy knows the game from A to Z but what I particularly like is that he’s always bubbling. He’s lively and looks on the positive side of things – even when we lose.

“The Jimmy Melia story is a fairy tale – three months ago he was our chief scout. Now he’s leading the Albion to Wembley for the FA Cup Final.

“You couldn’t get a better fairy tale than that.”

There’s no doubting Melia milked the moment, but who could blame him?

He told Ian Jarrett in The Sun: “I must make this situation count because I might never be involved in anything like it again.

“I have felt like the President of the United States in the past couple of weeks. Everyone has wanted to shake my hand and cars have beeped me in the street. It’s heaven to be in this position and I think everyone in the club should make the most of it.”

The Daily Mail even went as far as describing the opposing managers for the 1983 final as “Liberace meets Max Wall”, rather playing on the fact United’s Ron Atkinson had a penchant for bling and the follicly-challenged Melia bore something of a resemblance to the comedian and actor renowned for a silly walk. John Roberts wrote: “Little Jim has given his usual 110 per cent in the discos, a chest-revealing Tom Jones shirt, black leather trousers, white dancing shoes and glamourous girlfriend offsetting a glistening dome that is just made for the Seagulls.”

The writer continued: “Brighton’s progress to Wembley for the first time in their history has made a relegation season tolerable and enabled the 46-year-old Melia to recapture a measure of the prestige he enjoyed as a player.

“As a nimble, intelligent inside forward he won Second and First Division championship medals with Liverpool and played for England. Some of his friends consider that he suffered to a degree for being a home-produced player rather than a fashionable big-money signing.”

Roberts even quoted comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, a boyhood friend of Melia’s, who said: “To use an old showbusiness saying, Jimmy’s been there and back.”

Who knows what might have happened had Albion actually won that Cup Final?

Melia will forever be associated with taking the club to what was then a globally-watched event and raising their profile to heights never previously achieved.

The cold, hard reality, though, was that Brighton’s brief stay among the elite of English football was over. Melia’s open, expansive style of play had been punished in the league, resulting in relegation and a loss of status that took 33 years to restore.

Melia had designs on boosting his coaching staff in the summer of 1983 with the introduction of the aforementioned Calloway, but Bamber had other ideas and, without consulting his manager, instead installed former Albion defender Chris Cattlin as first team coach.

From the outset, it was evident the two were not going to see eye to eye and it wasn’t long into the new season before it emerged publicly that Cattlin was actually picking the team.

Eventually Melia couldn’t continue with what was clearly an untenable position and resigned, but, in a rather tawdry denouement, appeared being carried shoulder-high on the north stand terrace at the next home game amid cries of ‘Bamber out, Melia in’.

At the time, there were rumblings of an Albion takeover from businessman Jeffrey Kruger and Bamber described Melia as “a disgrace” and claimed he had been operating as a mole for Kruger.

Nothing came of the takeover and the dust had not long settled on the end of Melia’s Albion association when he moved to Portugal and spent three years as boss of Belenenses, taking them to a top five finish.

Former Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe reflected on Melia’s career in a wistful piece for the newspaper in 2001, and recalled: “Back in England Jimmy had a brief spell in charge at Stockport, then it was time to move on to Kuwait and Dubai, San Francisco, San Jose and Dallas.”

He subsequently settled in Dallas and became technical director for Liverpool’s academy in Texas.

Pictures from various sources including the Argus, The Sun, The News of the World, Shoot! and Goal magazines and the matchday programme.

Left back Harry Wilson “something of a fire-eater”

BRIGHTON boss Brian Clough turned up at Burnley to capture the signings of two of their fringe first team players – and ended up having pie and chips with the groundsman!

When Clough arrived at Turf Moor, he found manager Jimmy Adamson, chairman Bob Lord and secretary Albert Maddox were nowhere in sight, it being lunchtime.

In their absence, as recounted to respected writer Dave Thomas, groundsman Roy Oldfield made the famous visitor a cup of tea, popped to a nearby chippy to get them both pie and chips and chatted all things football until the office re-opened after lunch.

Although Clough hadn’t got quite what he expected on arrival, his journey did bear fruit. In exchange for £70,000, he secured the services of left-back Harry Wilson, a 20-year-old who had made 12 appearances for the Clarets, and midfielder Ronnie Welch, 21, who had played one game.

At the time, Clough was desperately trying to bring in new recruits to a beleaguered Brighton side that he and sidekick Peter Taylor had taken on in October 1973, a period covered in detail in a recent book, Bloody Southerners, by author and journalist Spencer Vignes.

The man who only the season before had led unfashionable Derby County to the First Division Championship, couldn’t quite believe what he had inherited at Third Division Albion.

The players seemed bewildered by what the new celebrity boss expected of them.

Heavy defeats – 4-0 to non-league Walton and Hersham in the FA Cup; 8-2 at home to Bristol Rovers and 4-1 away to Tranmere Rovers in the league – reflected the disarray.

Clough and Taylor weren’t slow in pointing the finger. Their only solution was to find replacements – and quickly.

Former Manchester United reserve Ken Goodeve was first to arrive, from Luton Town, although he failed to impress and made only a handful of appearances before joining Watford at the end of the season.

Goalkeeper Brian Powney was axed in favour of former England under 23 international, Peter Grummitt, initially on loan from Sheffield Wednesday.

Experienced left-back George Ley never played for the Albion again after the defeat at Tranmere, while utility man and former captain, Eddie Spearritt, also lost his place (although he eventually forced his way back into the side briefly).

Lammie Robertson, who knew the pair from his early days at Burnley, was asked to introduce them to their new teammates in the dressing room before an away game at Watford (they’d not been signed in time to play).

Robertson told Spencer Vignes in a matchday programme interview how Wilson was sporting a rather loud checked suit at the time and, in his own inimitable style, Clough boomed out: “Flipping hell, I never want to see that suit again.”

Needless to say the players laughed out loud, only for Clough to say: “What the hell are you all laughing at? They’ll be in the team next week.” And sure enough, they were.

Wilson and Welch made their debuts against Aldershot in a home game on Boxing Day when a crowd of 14,769 saw Albion slump to their fifth successive defeat, although at least the deficit this time was only 1-0.

A win finally came in the next game, a 1-0 success at home to Plymouth Argyle – Ken Beamish scoring the solitary goal.

In a 2010 matchday programme article, Wilson said: “I really didn’t want to go to Brighton. No disrespect but I loved it up at Burnley.

“The people there had been so friendly and helpful when I arrived from the North East so it broke my heart to leave. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and met some fantastic people, so, looking back now, I’m glad that Jimmy Adamson let me go.”

In the Evening Argus, reporter John Vinicombe purred about the impact of the new recruits from Burnley, saying Wilson “is looking something of a fire-eater. He has a rare zest for the game and relishes the close, physical contact that is synonymous with his position.

“He knows how to destroy and create, and does both in a manner befitting a five-year background at the academy of fine footballing arts (editor’s note: at the time, Burnley had a reputation for producing highly-talented young players).

“His colleague from Turf Moor, Ronnie Welch, is not so completely extrovert, but is no less involved in midfield, and has a fine turn of speed. He made one mistake through trying to play the ball instead of hoofing it away, but this can only be described as a ‘good’ fault.”

Further signings followed and the ship was steadied. Wilson kept the no.3 shirt through to the end of the season. But Welch made only 36 appearances for Albion before Taylor, by then under his own steam, traded in him and fellow midfielder Billy McEwan as a makeweight in the transfer that brought full-back Ken Tiler to the Goldstone from Chesterfield.

Wilson, meanwhile, became a mainstay in Albion’s left-back spot for three years, including being ever-present in the 1975-76 season.

Ever-present Wilson in action against Millwall at The Den

Born in Hetton-le-Hole, near Durham, on 29 November 1953, Wilson played for Durham County Schools and made four appearances for England schoolboys (under 15s) in the 1968-69 season. He was taken on as an apprentice at Burnley before signing professional forms in December 1970.

In 1971, he earned an England Youth cap going on as a sub for Coventry’s Alan Dugdale in a 3-2 defeat against Spain in Pamplona. Don Shanks also played in that game.

He made his first-team debut at home to Chelsea on 26 April 1971 and the last of his 12 appearances for the Clarets was on 3 April 1972: away to Sunderland.

*Young apprentice Wilson with experienced pros John Angus and Colin Waldron*

He was part of Alan Mullery’s Third Division promotion-winning squad in 1976-77, although he was restricted to 22 appearances. The arrival of the experienced Chris Cattlin meant he was no longer first choice left-back, although in several games they both played – the versatile Cattlin being equally at home as right-back.

A bare-chested Wilson was pictured (above) in the Albion dressing room alongside Mullery enjoying the celebratory champagne after promotion was clinched courtesy of a 3-2 win over Sheffield Wednesday on 3 May 1977. But that game was his Goldstone swansong.

He’d made a total of 146 appearances for the Albion – as well as chipping in with four goals – but when Mullery signed Mark Lawrenson and Gary Williams from Preston that summer, Wilson went in the opposite direction along with Graham Cross.

Only six months after arriving at Preston, Wilson was badly injured in a road accident after his car skidded on black ice and collided with a transit van. He suffered a punctured lung and damage to his knees. Doctors told him he wouldn’t play again, but he proved them wrong and ended up spending three years at Preston, playing 42 games.

“I suppose I was lucky to be alive,” he said in an Albion matchday programme article. “I lost a couple of yards of pace, but then again I ws never exactly the quickest of players.”

With his best days behind him, he moved back to his native north-east in 1980 to play for Darlington, making 85 appearances in three years.

He stayed in the north east in 1983, switching to Hartlepool for a season, but only played 16 times for them before dropping out of the league to play for Crook Town.

According to The Football League Paper, Wilson stayed in the game as manager of Seaham Red Star and, in 1988-89, Whitby Town.

He then worked as a community officer for Sunderland before joining the coaching staff at Burnley in the 1990s.

When Chris Waddle took over as manager, Wilson was sacked but he took the club to an industrial tribunal, which found in his favour.

He later worked for his long-term friend, Stan Ternent, at Bury, and as a monitor for the Football League, a job that saw him checking that the right procedures were being followed by the youth development set-ups of clubs in the north-west.

Wilson was in the news in 2007 when Ternent appeared at Lancaster Crown Court accused of assaulting Wilson’s son, Greg, on the steps of Burnley Cricket Club (a venue familiar to visiting supporters as a popular watering hole before games at the neighbouring football ground).

Greg Wilson required hospital treatment for a deep cut above his left eyebrow and needed nine stitches in his forehead.

Ternent said he had accidentally clashed heads, denied causing actually bodily harm, and was cleared by a jury.

Wilson in an Albion line-up alongside Peter Ward

In parallel lines

Memories from 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Chris Cattlin