A GRADUATE of the famous Tyneside boys club that spawned the likes of Alan Shearer and Peter Beardsley escaped the clutches of Newcastle United to play for Brighton instead.
After progressing through the ranks at Wallsend Boys Club, Newcastle-born Kevin McGarrigle and two teammates – Ian Thompson and Nicky Henderson – were snapped up by Brighton’s scouting network in the north-east.
Thompson wasn’t taken on and, although Henderson was, he returned home to play for Gateshead in the GM Conference. But McGarrigle stayed on and won a place in Albion’s first team at the tender age of 17, doing enough to earn a three-year contract.
Against a backdrop of turmoil off the pitch, with the club run by a hated regime, McGarrigle played 34 games plus 11 as a substitute under three different managers, mostly as a centre back.
He made his debut in the final game of the 1993-94 season (replacing the injured Steve Foster) when Liam Brady was in charge and cemented a regular place in the starting line-up for the final third of the 1994-95 season.
McGarrigle was drafted in to play alongside Foster, with Paul McCarthy on the other side, as Brady sought to bring a run of three defeats to an end.
“Although it can look like five at the back at times, it does give the chance for the flank players (Peter) Smith and (Ian) Chapman to get much more forward,” the manager explained in his programme notes.
“It has suited Foster at the centre at the back organising McCarthy and McGarrigle in front of him. All in all I think it has worked very well and it is something that I am very pleased about because the players have managed to cope.”
McGarrigle played 16 games on the trot in which Albion posted six wins, seven draws and only three defeats to finish in mid table.
Brady also gave the young defender a special mention in his programme notes at the beginning of the 1995-96 season, pointing out: “I have been telling you that we have some very good talent among the younger element at the club.
“Kevin McGarrigle is doing very well. He has had to come into the middle of the park and do a job. He is there because of the injuries we have had, and he has done well.”
Although he played in the opening two games of the following season, his involvement in the side which was eventually relegated from the third tier under Jimmy Case was more often than not only from the bench.
One of those appearances, when he replaced an injured Smith in a midweek away game at Wycombe Wanderers (on 6 March), saw him score his one and only goal for the Seagulls to bring an eight-game winless run to an end.
Relegation-haunted Albion inflicted a fifth defeat in six games on Alan Smith’s Chairboys. Midfielder Jeff Minton put the Albion ahead on 55 minutes.
McGarrigle scored with what Claire Nash of the Bucks Free Press described as an “excellent” goal. “McGarrigle perfectly timed a run from midfield to meet a left-wing cross from Craig Maskell on 80 minutes,” she wrote.
Case’s preference had been to go with just two centre backs, initially with Foster alongside McCarthy, then, when age caught up with Foster, trying another former England international, Russell Osman, before introducing Ross Johnson alongside the young Irish defender.
Although McGarrigle was assistant Junior Seagull president in the 1996-97 season (Peter Smith was president), his playing time was even more reduced under Case’s successor, Steve Gritt, and he made only a handful of starts.
Gritt went for more experienced heads, like Mark Morris and Gary Hobson.
Nevertheless, the matchday programme showed he wasn’t forgotten, when, for the Wigan Athletic home game on 12 April 1997, it devoted a page photo feature of him in action.
But the following month he wasn’t given a new contract by Gritt, and he made his way back to the north-east. Initially he linked up with Spennymoor United. Before the year was out, though, he switched to Blyth Spartans and was soon involved in a much publicised and televised FA Cup first round match away to Blackpool.
The tie was a magnet for the media because it pitched the 1953 FA Cup winners against a non-league side renowned for past cup exploits and, on this occasion, Blyth’s player-manager was veteran goalkeeper John Burridge, for whom Blackpool was one of his early former clubs.
The occasion, which saw the Tangerines edge it 4-3, was described in detail in this Blyth Spirit blog, which bemoaned a foul on McGarrigle not given which led to a Blackpool goal.
The following season McGarrigle switched to Tow Law Town, turning out for them for three years before moving on again, to Crook Town. His last club was Albany Northern League side Chester-le-Street Town.
Born on 9 April 1977 to Carol, who worked at a local dairy, and Ken, a self-employed gardener, McGarrigle spent his first and middle school years at Wallsend’s Stephenson Memorial School and then moved on to Longbenton High School.
He confessed in a matchday programme article that he wasn’t particularly interested in football up to the age of 12. That all changed when his school pal, John McDonald, took him along to Wallsend Boys Club when he was 13.
The club manager, Kevin Bell, quickly recognised his talent and put him in the XI who competed in the National Association of Boys’ Clubs League on Tyneside.
Steve Bruce, later Toon manager, of course, was said to be McGarrigle’s idol and he too had gone through the Wallsend production line.
The programme reported that McGarrigle was invited for trials at several clubs: he went to Everton, Ipswich Town and Bradford City, while Blackpool, Wimbledon and Charlton Athletic all offered him a YTS place.
But Albion’s north-east scout Steve Burnip won the day and Ted Streeter who ran the youth team at the time persuaded him to sign for Brighton.
Ever-present Wilson in action against Millwall at The Den
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.
Wilson in an Albion line-up alongside Peter Ward
In parallel lines 