Tag: Dario Gradi

Wilf’s son Paul helped develop a string of top players

A HIGHLY RESPECTED coach who guided a succession of young hopefuls from Manchester United’s youth ranks through to their first team once aimed to re-ignite his playing career at Brighton.

Paul McGuinness, son of former United player and manager Wilf, was in charge of the United side (that included Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Michael Keane) who won the FA Youth Cup in 2011, and Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley also emerged under his guidance.

Wind the clock back to the autumn of 1990, though, and McGuinness, the 24-year-old captain of United’s reserve side in 1989-90, arrived on loan on the south coast.

Albion boss Barry Lloyd would go on to take Albion to Wembley for a play-off final against Neil Warnock’s Notts County the following May.

But in October and November Lloyd was still casting around to see who might supplement Albion’s efforts to get among the division’s pacesetters, and McGuinness had lost his starting berth in United’s Central League side.

McGuinness made his debut for the reserves in a 3-0 defeat away to Crystal Palace. He also played right-back in a 2-1 defeat against QPR Reserves at the Goldstone, in a side in which Soviet international Igor Gurinovich (playing up front with new arrival Bryan Wade) scored Albion’s goal.

In those days of two subs, McGuinness was selected on the bench for five first team games in succession. But he was never put on and, after a 2-1 defeat away to West Ham, he went back to United.

Born in Manchester on 2 March 1966, McGuinness aspired to follow in his dad’s footsteps, but he found him a hard taskmaster and an ultimate competitor, something he reckoned dated back to an upbringing by Sir Matt Busby’s right-hand man Jimmy Murphy.

“The standards were relentless,” McGuinness told manutd.com. “In a primary school match, I scored 10 goals and my main memory of the day is getting an absolute b******ing for leaving mud in the bath afterwards and not sticking to the right standards. To this day, I rinse the bath and shower down afterwards, every single time!

He continued: “I scored a hat-trick in a cup final and when I came off, he told me off for remonstrating with the referee during the game.”

McGuinness declared: “I didn’t want to be a manager because, over time, dad’s experiences really put me off it, but every school holidays I’d be with him at whatever club he was with at the time.

“At York, Hull and Bury, I’d go and join in with the apprentices while he worked. I’d be 12 playing with 16-year-olds, 14 playing with the reserves, 16 training with the first team.

“Just having him as my dad gave me a massive head start when it came to coaching. He’d take me to games and tell me to pick out the best players and explain why, and he’d always study what was happening in the game, and tell me what was going to happen next, and he was always right.

Wilf McGuinness and son Paul

“He’d tell me who was going to get booked, or if a team was over-committing and leaving themselves prone to conceding, and he was always right. That really helped me learn the game at a young age.”

Not to mention the unbelievable experience of getting to play alongside some of United’s biggest household names from their golden era.

“When I was a teenager, there used to be charity games with United, City, Piccadilly Radio and all sorts,” McGuinness recalled. “The ex-players were all in their 40s, and dad would tell me to come along and bring my boots.

“I’d almost always get some playing time, and I ended up playing with Bobby Charlton, George Best, Nobby Stiles, Paddy Crerand, David Sadler, Alex Stepney, but also the City legends too, like Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee, Franny Lee, Tony Book, Glyn Pardoe. It was just incredible.

“This was sometimes just on school fields or non-league grounds, and Bobby was just awesome in every single game. He scored three or four every time.”

Eventually the young McGuinness got the chance to fulfil his dream when he got taken on by United. He was a youth team player between 1982 and 1984 and then spent two years as a professional at Old Trafford, playing alongside Paul McGrath, Kevin Moran, Mark Hughes, Clayton Blackmore, Frank Stapleton and Alan Brazil.

On the teamsheet with some big names

He recounted the circumstances when paying tribute to Eric Harrison, the acclaimed founder of United’s ‘Class of ‘92’, who died in February 2019. “Eric was fundamental in my career as both a player and then for many years as a coach,” McGuinness told traininggroundguru. “I can still vividly remember the moment I convinced him I should get a first pro contract with Manchester United.

“We were playing 6 v 6 on a full-length pitch at The Cliff with no goalkeepers. You could only score if you were inside the six-yard box, which made it a real test of character.

“A player on the opposition team broke free from deep and I chased him all the way back and slide tackled him before he was about to shoot.

“Eric stopped the game. ‘Now that is what we want.’ That got me a two-year contract at the age of 17.”

Perhaps somewhat unusually at that time, McGuinness was also determined to get an education as well as pursue his professional football dream, and he took a degree in PE and Sports Science at Loughborough University.

Having studied under the tutelage of Mike ‘Doc’ Holliday, McGuinness showed his gratitude in subsequent years by taking United academy teams to play matches against the university’s football side.

When that first United contract came to an end in 1986, McGuinness tried his luck with Crewe Alexandra and he played in 13 matches for Dario Gradi’s side in the 1986-87 season.

His studies completed, McGuinness admitted his return to United happened almost by chance.

“This was the time of the ‘Fergie Fledglings’ and I popped into the training ground one day to say hello,” he told traininggroundguru. “ ‘You could have played for the reserves last night,’ Eric said, and I ended up playing the next few games for them. It went from there and Sir Alex Ferguson gave me another contract for a couple of years.”

It was during the second year of that deal that he joined the Albion on loan and the following year he switched to Bury, although he didn’t play any league games for them. Eventually he moved on to Chester City and played in seven matches for Harry McNally’s side.

“Eric got me back in at United after that, first as the club’s welfare officer and then as Centre of Excellence Director,” McGuiness recounted. “He was a constant mentor and you couldn’t help but learn from him.”

He also worked with Nobby Stiles and took over as head of the centre of excellence from the World Cup winner in 1994.

McGuinness has clearly spent a long time absorbing advice and in that manutd.com interview recounted another anecdote about his father.

“When I was a kid, dad would have me shoot from the halfway line, time after time. Eventually, in a university game, I scored from the kick-off with one of those shots and he was there. I was so made up with that.

“He was forever trying to get you to try something different and that stuck with me in my coaching. I had Ollie Norwood trying that from the kick-off, or I’d tell Fraizer Campbell or Marcus Rashford to dribble towards goal straight from the kick-off. Just try something different.

“For me, it was about the spirit of football, something which I talk about a lot to this day, and that’s something that my dad has always embodied.”

It was obviously quite an emotional moment when United finally parted company with McGuinness in February 2016. He told the Manchester Evening News: “It has been an honour and a privilege to follow in my father Wilf’s footsteps and to serve Manchester United in a variety of roles for a total of 28 years.

“To have seen 86 Academy players develop to make their debut for the first team and 23 to become full internationals has been thoroughly rewarding.

“I have especially enjoyed working behind the scenes with devoted colleagues, nurturing and coaching young players to reach their potential.

“I will be forever grateful to Sir Alex Ferguson for making my dreams come true and inviting me to represent Manchester United as a player and for the last 23 years as a proud member of staff.”

McGuinness has frequently shared his knowledge and coaching experience at seminars and online in interviews and podcasts. For example, he told fourfourtwo.com: “One of the first things we look at in young players is how they move with and without the ball.

“You can never be certain, but it gives us a good idea whether they will go on to become athletic. I have seen many talented youngsters who are technically very good but are finished by 12 or 13 because athletically they are not quite good enough.”

Not the case with Rashford, though. “Marcus was a great mover, he was very quick and had a great flow about him,” said the coach.

United built several cage pitches to recreate school playground learning, where older and younger players would compete in small spaces. “They would play 8v8 or 7v7 to increase their speed of thought and improve their skills,” said McGuinness. “At 12, Rashford was playing cage football with Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Ravel Morrison, who were 16.

“He learned from them, but he could also express himself more. With his own age group he might only play a single one one-two, but with Pogba, he could play two or three.”

Scott McTominay is among the current crop of United players to have acknowledged McGuinness’ influence on his career. “We were always brought up to have an elite mentality,” he told manutd.com. “That’s one of the most important things for Paul McGuinness and Warren Joyce – how strong you are in games when it might not be going so well. You have to keep all the right habits off the pitch as well, which I’ve completely bought into from Paul and Warren.

“That was probably one of the best things I’ve done: listening and learning from everything they’ve said and trying to put it into the first team.”

In October 2017, McGuinness was appointed national coach developer by the FA and in December 2021 he became head of academy player development at Leicester City.

He had overall responsibility for players from the under nines through to the under 18s, with a brief to ensure players were ready for the transition to the under 23s and the first-team squad. But in September 2022, it was reported he had stepped down from the role to help care for his father who, like several players of that generation, had dementia.

More than 19,000 followers on Twitter can see on McGuinness’ timeline an appreciation of the finer arts of football and memories of his dad Wilf’s playing and coaching career.

‘Sleekly skilful’ Dale Jasper remembered with a smile

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cup Final hero Dave Beasant was Brighton’s oldest player

Beasant BHA

THE FIRST goalkeeper to save a penalty in an FA Cup Final – and the first to captain his team in the historic end of season finale – played between the sticks for Brighton at the ripe old age of 44.

Admittedly Dave Beasant is better known for his years playing for Wimbledon, during which time he laid down those FA Cup milestones in the 1988 final against Liverpool.

Nicknamed Lurch after the butler in The Addams family, Beasant’s heroics to keep out John Aldridge’s spot kick and preserve the 1-0 lead given to the humble south west London club by Lawrie Sanchez, led to the giant goalkeeper lifting the cup.

It also turned out to be the last ever game he played for Wimbledon. A month after that Wembley triumph, Newcastle paid £750,000 for his services – a transfer fee record for a goalkeeper at that time.

Not a bad return on Wimbledon’s £1,000 investment ten years earlier after he had impressed Dario Gradi playing for Edgware Town against the Dons in a pre-season friendly.

Beasant made his league debut against Blackpool in January 1979, and, remarkably, between August 1981 and the end of that 1987-88 season, made 304 consecutive league appearances for the Dons as they rose through the leagues.

When Newcastle sold Paul Gascoigne to Spurs for £2.2 million, they decided to splash £750,000 of it on the big Wimbledon goalkeeper.

Sadly, it was not money well spent. Beasant’s spell on Tyneside lasted just five months and certainly didn’t match the fairytale ending at Wimbledon.

Newcastle struggled at the foot of the table in 1988-89, and were relegated, but before the trapdoor opened Beasant had already departed after just 20 appearances.

He moved back to London in January 1989 to join Chelsea, where he played 193 times, initially under Ian Porterfield, until falling out of favour in 1992.

It was towards the end of 1989 that Beasant won two England caps, playing against Italy and Yugoslavia, and an injury to David Seaman saw Beasant selected for Bobby Robson’s 1990 England World Cup squad, although he didn’t play.

When Glenn Hoddle took over at Stamford Bridge, Beasant was relegated to number three ‘keeper behind Dmitri Kharine and Kevin Hitchcock, so he went out on loan for brief spells at Grimsby Town (six games) and Wolves (four games) before securing a £300,000 move to Southampton in 1993 to succeed Tim Flowers as their no.1.

He played 105 times for Saints but several managerial changes saw his fortunes fluctuate and, in 1997, he once again found himself third choice – this time behind Maik Taylor and Paul Jones – and he was on the move again.

By this time he was 38, but retirement was still not on his agenda. After joining on loan initially, Beasant moved permanently to Nottingham Forest in November 1997 and played 139 games in four years.

It was back to the south coast again in 2001, when Portsmouth needed a goalie following the death in a road accident of their regular ‘keeper, Aaron Flahavan. Beasant played 27 times for Pompey.

Emergency loan spells then followed successively at Tottenham, Bradford City and Wigan Athletic, although he didn’t play any first team games for any of them.

It was from Wigan, just a few weeks before his 44th birthday in 2003, that he once again headed south, this time to join Brighton’s brave but ultimately unsuccessful attempt under Steve Coppell to stave off relegation from Division One.

With Michel Kuipers out of the side with a thigh injury and loan replacement, Ben Roberts, suffering from ‘flu, Beasant was drafted in.

In the Bradford City v Brighton programme in February 2003, Colin Benson wrote almost poetically about the legendary goalkeeper.

Beasant landsc“The unmistakeable figure of Dave Beasant stood tall under the Brighton crossbar at the Bescot Stadium a fortnight ago marking his debut for his 11th club at 43 years of age by brilliantly saving from Leitao’s shot on the rebound after beating out an effort from Corica,” he wrote. “Unfortunately he could not crown the day with a match winning clean sheet for Walsall pinched a 1-0 victory but it amply demonstrated that after 20 years between the posts he has lost none of his technique or resilience.”

In a 2018 interview with Spencer Vignes, Beasant said: “Stevie Coppell gave me a bell. I think you’d lost 12 straight games. I remember looking at the table thinking ‘They’re going down’. But there was also something about it that I quite liked. It was a challenge.”

Beasant said that morale was good despite the league position, and he added: “Wherever I go, I can add something on the field and off it. And that’s what happened. We clicked really well together.”

He played 16 games through to the end of the season and although ultimately the bid to stay up was not successful, no blame could be laid at Beasant’s door for lack of effort.

Never was it more evident than in the final game of the season away to Grimsby. With the score 2-2 and all hope virtually extinct, Beasant was still giving his all when other players’ heads had dropped.

I chatted briefly to Beasant at the club’s end of season dinner and remarked how I had been impressed by his never-say-die attitude right to the very end of that game, even though it was a lost cause.

Obviously the consummate professional, he said to me that however unlikely a win would be, you had to continue to play in the hope things might change round.

What a pro and exactly the sort of attitude that meant Beasant endeared himself to the Albion faithful. In a prophetic assessment after the Grimsby game, he told the Argus:

“You feel for those fans because they have been superb. They are gearing themselves for next season already and hopefully the players can set the same target as the fans and, obviously, that is to bounce straight back.”

Beasant cemented his place in the record books as Albion’s oldest-ever player while Albion, of course, went on and did just as he thought they might on that glorious day at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

Although Coppell offered Beasant the chance to stay on with the Seagulls, he didn’t want to drop down to the third tier and instead took up Chris Coleman’s offer to become a player-coach at Fulham. He was proud to say that on his 45th birthday he was on the bench when Fulham played Chelsea.

Beasant remained on the Fulham coaching staff after Coleman’s departure under his old Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez (he had already worked with Sanchez in his previous role as Northern Ireland manager). But when Sanchez was fired, Beasant went too.

He subsequently worked for his son, Sam, at Stevenage, and at the age of 55 was famously registered as part of the squad for the 2015 play-off final, even though he didn’t play.

Between 2015 and 2018, Beasant was goalkeeping coach at Reading.