Tag: Dean Saunders

The goals that stood out for O’Reilly before a career in broadcasting

DEFENDER-turned-broadcaster Gary O’Reilly’s first ever league goal was scored for Brighton against Crystal Palace, a club he later scored for in a FA Cup final before rejoining the Seagulls.

That goal came in only his fourth Albion game, on 15 September 1984, after a £45,000 move from Spurs and was enough to ensure a 1-0 win in front of a 15,044 Goldstone Ground crowd against an Eagles side who had just installed Steve Coppell as manager.

Danny Wilson and Eric Young celebrate O’Reilly’s first Albion goal, against Crystal Palace

Although O’Reilly had collected a UEFA Cup-winners’ medal that May as a non-playing squad member of the Tottenham side that beat Anderlecht 4-3 on penalties (after the two-legged final ended 2-2), opportunities were few and far between at White Hart Lane.

He still had two years of his contract remaining, but O’Reilly requested a transfer and Chris Cattlin snapped him up. Cattlin later admitted: “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.”

In a 2001 interview with the Argus, O’Reilly said: “It was a gamble and I took a cut in pay. Spurs had an embarrassment of riches as far as talent was concerned. Spurs were only giving me about 15 games a season and at Brighton I played regularly in a strong side.

“Brighton included the likes of Chris Hutchings, Jimmy Case, Eric Young, Neil Smillie, Danny Wilson, Joe Corrigan, Steve Penney, Terry Connor, Steve Gatting and Frank Worthington and apologies to anyone I’ve forgotten.

“Jimmy had so much experience and Danny was such a driving force who led by example. Frank Worthington? I had this cliched image of him regarding his socialising but I had that vision shattered.

“He was 36 but was so professional, with a desire to win. He was open with his encouragement, free with his advice and a great rock ‘n’ roll fan! I used to make sure he gave me a lift home from training because we both liked loud rock music.”

If O’Reilly was confident the blend between old-stagers and talented youngsters would be enough to win promotion back to the elite, his hopes were shattered when Case was sold to Southampton in March 1985.

“We sold Jimmy Case in the March and I nearly took the door off the hinges in Cattlin’s office,” he recalled in a matchday programme article. “I asked him what the hell he was doing selling Jimmy! Were we serious about getting promoted? Were we serious about getting into the play-offs?

“Jimmy went to Southampton and they had success with him in their team in the First Division. It was no surprise. How many European Cup medals does Jimmy have that say ‘wiinner’? That’s what Jimmy brought to the team here and he was a massive loss when he went.”

Indeed, Albion ended up just a couple of points shy of the promotion places.

O’Reilly and Young (who also later played for Palace) became an almost permanent centre-back pairing in that 1984-85 season, although, in its fledgling stages, Cattlin admitted he played Graham Pearce in between them “to allow the central defensive pair to learn their trade and settle down into a partnership”.

O’Reilly recalled: “We had a good defence (which equalled the fewest-goals-conceded record of 34) and when we clicked up front we would win 4-0, 5-0. We played good football, through midfield, with pace, power and discipline. I learned so much. It was a brilliant time.”

The following season saw Albion finish in mid-table and Cattlin was relieved of his duties before the final game. There had been a consolation of sorts that they reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup when a Jimmy Case-led Southampton (with Peter Shilton in goal) saw off the Seagulls 2-0 in front of a bumper 25,069 crowd (most attendances that season struggled to reach 10,000).

Before that March match, O’Reilly thought he’d scored two more against Palace but his efforts in the New Year’s Day encounter at the Goldstone were ruled out. Nonetheless Dean Saunders and a Danny Wilson penalty secured a 2-0 win for the Seagulls.readcrystalpalace.com says that game is “mainly remembered by Palace fans for a scandalous dive by Terry Connor which earned Brighton a penalty”.

Nonetheless, maybe O’Reilly had caught Coppell’s eye because, in January 1987, Cattlin’s successor Alan Mullery said Palace were in for him and Albion needed the money – £40,000 – to pay the whole club’s wage bill for the next month.

Mullery had ridden on the crest of a wave during his previous five years with the club but on his return found it much-changed. Attendances at the Goldstone were often below 10,000 and, from the word go, Mullery had been instructed to offload high-earners to stem the outflow of cash.

“The playing squad was cut back to the minimum and I had no room to manoeuvre,” he wrote in his autobiography.

Although he’d played 92 games for the Seagulls, O’Reilly had missed several matches in the first half of the season with a troublesome hamstring strain and by Christmas the side were struggling near the bottom of the table.

He said: “Mullery, who was always very honest, said there was no pressure to leave but that if I didn’t go there wouldn’t be enough money to pay the wages.”

Within days of his move to Selhurst Park, O’Reilly was followed out of the exit by a shell-shocked Mullery, who said: “Of course the cuts had left the team struggling but I could have pulled things round if the board had trusted and believed in me. Instead, I’d been stitched up.”

For his part, O’Reilly said: “I went, not so the wages could be paid, but as a career move and it proved the right one.

“Palace got promotion (in 1989) and made it to the FA Cup final (1990) and I scored in the semis against Liverpool and the final against Manchester United.”

None of the much-hyped enmity between Brighton and Palace affected O’Reilly’s switch to Croydon. “I didn’t have any issues with anybody and neither did they with me,” he said in a matchday programme interview. “I didn’t feel any animosity. I was welcomed and we got on really well. The fans realised I didn’t go to Palace to hate, I went to Palace to win.

“I’d played against them a number of times and Steve (Coppell) wanted to develop the squad and make me part of it.”

O’Reilly told Spencer Vignes: “There were the beginnings of a seriously decent side there. Ian Wright and Mark Bright were just coming through, Andy Gray was already there and John Salako, Gareth Southgate in the youth team – a lot of good talent.”

And of Coppell, he said: “Steve had the hunger and drive that made you want to win. That attitude was reflected in the players he acquired.”

O’Reilly rises to head home for Palace against Manchester United in the FA Cup final

Scoring that goal against United in the 1990 FA Cup Final helped O’Reilly fulfil a childhood dream although ultimately there was the disappointment of United equalising (making it 3-3) through Mark Hughes in extra time and going on to win the replay.

“The FA Cup goal was a set play which was no surprise because we worked hard at set plays,” he recalled. 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 sub Ian Wright, only six weeks after breaking his leg, went on to score twice, in the 72nd minute and again at the start of extra-time before Hughes’ equaliser seven minutes from the end.

O’Reilly challenges Man United’s late-goal Wembley saviour Mark Hughes

O’Reilly played 79 times over three and a half seasons at Selhurst Park but the aforementioned Young and Andy Thorn were the regular centre-back pairing in 1990-91 when Palace finished third in the top division and also won the Full Members’ Cup. O’Reilly went out on loan to Birmingham City, although he only played once.

In the summer of 1991, aged 30, he returned to a Brighton side under Barry Lloyd who’d lost the second-tier play-off final to Notts County and once again had to sell players to balance the books. And in that Argus interview he recalled: “Again I took a pay cut, but I had no worries about coming back. I wasn’t concerned about any element of forgiveness although there were a few who would voice their opinion of my former club, which wasn’t very intelligent.”

He made 31 appearances in the 1991-92 season but played his last game on 29 February 1992 sustaining an injury to his right knee against Southend at the Goldstone which ended his career. Albion were subsequently relegated back to the third tier and after a series of unsuccessful knee operations, O’Reilly was forced to retire from the game in April 1993.

He didn’t let the grass grow under his feet, though. While he was still hopeful of regaining his fitness, he joined BBC Radio Sussex to do analysis on Albion games. It wasn’t his first experience at the mic either. When he was not playing at Palace, he sat alongside Jonathan Pearce and did summarising for Capital Radio.

“Doing this work has kept me involved with the game,” he said. “It is much better to concentrate when watching as a reporter. I find that when I just go along as a spectator my mind wanders and that really is frustrating. Broadcasting really must be the next best thing to playing.”

Born in Isleworth on 21 March 1961, O’Reilly grew up in Essex: his parents, Gerry and Mary, having moved to Harlow. His education began at Latton Green Primary School in Harlow and he moved on to Latton Bush Comprehensive, where he stayed on to take his A levels.

Throughout those schooldays he was a promising central defender and he started to make a name for himself with the Essex Boys team. As a schoolboy, he played for both England and the Republic of Ireland because his father was from Dublin and his mother English. He played for the England under-19 schoolboys’ side for two years.

Earlier in his teens, Arsenal wanted him on associate schoolboy forms, but it was Spurs who snapped him up at the age of 13 and during his last two years at school he played as an amateur at Tottenham. His youth team-mates at White Hart Lane included Kerry Dixon and Micky Hazard.

O’Reilly had the offer of a sports scholarship at Columbia University but he decided to sign for Spurs as a professional in the summer of 1979.

His debut aged 19 was on Boxing Day 1980 as a half-time substitute for Chris Hughton in a remarkable 4-4 draw with high-flying Southampton at White Hart Lane. Among a total of 45 first-team appearances in five seasons at Tottenham were games in the Charity Shield at Wembley in 1982 against Liverpool (Spurs lost 1-0) and a quarter-final victory in the UEFA Cup over German giants Bayern Munich.

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.

After hanging up his boots, O’Reilly scouted for Bruce Rioch when he was boss at Bolton Wanderers and spent nine years identifying talent for kit supplier Adidas.

Alongside that, he began a successful broadcasting career which saw him on screen for Meridian, Sky Sports, BBC, Premier League Productions, NBC, Fox Sports and ESPN.

His broadcasting work also extended to India, ART Prime in Dubai and Trans World International’s Premier League international feed.

After marrying in Arundel Cathedral, O’Reilly first lived in Crawley, from where he commuted to Croydon during the Palace years, and later moved to Hove. He subsequently moved to New York where, since 2017, he co-hosts a weekly podcast Playing With Science with Neil deGrasse Tyson for media company StarTalk, exploring fascinating topics linking sport and science.

Anyone unsure in which camp O’Reilly’s heart belongs, he answered diplomatically in a matchday programme interview: “Spurs. It’s always been them, ever since I was six. And I learned so much about the game just by being involved there, especially through (former Spurs captain) Steve Perryman.

“He was always such a believer in doing things the right way. He gave time to any young players. There was none of that “Do you know who I am son?’ None of it at all.”

The FA Youth Cup winner with a sweet left foot

PACY DARREN HUGHES made his Everton first team debut two days after Christmas 1983 while still a member of the club’s youth team.

That game at Molineux ended in a 3-0 defeat for the young defender against bottom-of-the-table Wolves who had Tony Towner on the wing and John Humphrey at right-back.

Exactly three years later, a picture of Hughes in full flight was on the front cover of Albion’s programme for their home festive fixture against Reading, the Scouser having signed for the second-tier Seagulls for £30,000.

The money to buy him came from the supporter-funded Lifeline scheme which also helped to buy goalkeeper John Keeley for £1,500 from non-league Chelmsford and striker Gary Rowell, from Middlesbrough.

Hughes had made only two more first team appearances for Everton before a free transfer move took him to second tier Shrewsbury Town, for whom he made 46 appearances.

It was while playing for the Shrews in a 1-0 win over Brighton that he had caught the eye of Alan Mullery, back in the Albion hotseat at the start of the 1986-87 season.

In his matchday programme notes, Mullery wrote: “Darren could become a really good player here. I was impressed with him when he played against us recently.

“He started at Everton and came through their youth scheme and had already played in their first team at 18. The grounding he received at Goodison should stand him in good stead.

“He has already shown he is the fastest player we have here, in training he even beat Dean Saunders in the sprints.”

Interviewed for the matchday programme, Hughes told interviewer Tony Norman: “I was quite happy at Shrewsbury. But when the manager told me Brighton were interested in signing me I thought it would be another step up the ladder. It’s a bigger club with better prospects and it’s a nice town as well.”

Hughes moved into digs in Hove run by Val and Dave Tillson where a few months later he was joined by Kevan Brown, another new signing, from Southampton.

Hughes meanwhile had made his Albion debut in a 3-0 defeat at home to Birmingham in the Full Members Cup on 1 October 1986 and his first league match came in a 1—0 home win over Stoke City three days later courtesy of a Danny Wilson penalty.

He scored his first goal for the Seagulls in a 2-2 Goldstone draw against Bradford City as Mullery continued to see points slip away. With financial issues continuing to cloud hoped-for progress, 1987 had barely begun before Mullery’s services were dispensed with.

Hughes played 16 games under his successor Barry Lloyd but those games yielded only two wins and the Albion finished the season rock bottom of the division, dropping the Albion back into the third tier for the first time in 10 years.

A rare happy moment during that spell was (pictured above) when Hughes slotted past George Wood in a 2-0 home win over Crystal Palace on Easter Monday although that game is remembered more for violent clashes between supporters outside the Goldstone Ground after fans left before the game had finished.

What turned out to be his 25th and final league appearance in a Seagulls shirt came in a 1-0 home defeat to Leeds when he was subbed off in favour of youngster David Gipp.

Going to ground in a pre-season friendly against Arsenal

Hughes did start at left-back in a pre-season friendly against Arsenal at the Goldstone in early August (when a Charlie Nicholas hat-trick helped the Gunners to a 7-2 win) but when league action began he was on the outside looking in.

He was in the front row of the official team photo line-up for the start of the 1987-88 season, but Lloyd was building a new side with several new signings, such as Keith Dublin and Alan Curbishley, and young Ian Chapman was also beginning to stake a claim.

Hughes earned mentions in dispatches for his performances in the reserves’ defeats to Portsmouth and Spurs but come September he switched to fellow Third Division side Port Vale, initially on loan before making the move permanent.

Perhaps it was inevitable that when the Seagulls travelled to Vale Park on 28 September, Hughes was on the scoresheet, netting a second goal for the home side in the 84th minute to complete a 2-0 win.

Born less than 10 miles from Goodison Park, in Prescot, on 6 October 1965, Hughes went to Grange Comprehensive School in Runcorn and earned football representative honours playing for Runcorn and Cheshire Boys. He joined Everton as an apprentice in July 1982.

Originally a midfield player, he switched to left-back in the two-legged 1983 FA Youth Cup semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday (when Mark Farrington scored four in Everton’s 7-0 second leg win).

In the final against Norwich City, two-goal Farrington missed a late penalty in the first leg in front of an extraordinary 15,540 crowd at Goodison Park. The tie was drawn 5-5 but the Canaries edged it 1-0 in a replay to win the trophy for the first time.

If that was so near and yet so far, youth team coach Graham Smith saw his young charges make up for it the following year. Hughes was on the scoresheet as Everton won the FA Youth Cup for the first time in 19 years.

This is how the Liverpool Echo reported it: “Everton’s brave youngsters survived a terrific onslaught to take home the Youth Cup when beating Stoke City Youth 2-0 and winning by a 4-2 aggregate.

“And the man to set them on their way was 18-year old full-back Darren Hughes, who set the game alight in the 62nd minute with a brilliant goal.

“The Everton left-back picked the ball up on the halfway line and surged into the Stoke half before sending a wicked, bending drive past keeper Dawson.”

Eleven days later, there were even more Goodison celebrations when the first team won that season’s FA Cup, beating Watford 2-0 at Wembley.

Not long into the following season, Hughes learnt the hard way not to take anything for granted, as the website efcstatto.com revealed.

Manager Howard Kendall saw Everton Reserves, 2-0 up at half-time, concede six second half goals and lose 6-2 to Sheffield Wednesday Reserves.

He didn’t like the attitude he saw in several players and promptly put five of them, including Hughes, on the transfer list.

“It was important that we showed the players concerned how serious we were in our assessment of the game,” said Kendall. “Attitude in young players is so important. These lads would not be here if we did not think they have skill or we thought they would not have a chance of becoming First Division players.

“At some time, however, they must come to learn that football is not always a comfortable lifestyle. There are times when the only course of action is to roll up your sleeves and battle for yourself, your teammates and your club.”

Even though they were put on the transfer list, he said that they still had a future at the club as long as they behaved accordingly.

“What it does mean is that we shall be watching them very carefully over the next few months to see whether they have the right attitude in them – because it is a must,” said Kendall.

Hughes did knuckle down and at the end of what has come to be regarded as perhaps Everton’s greatest-ever season – they won the league (13 points clear of runners up Liverpool) and the European Cup Winners’ Cup (beating Rapid Vienna 3-1) and were runners up to Manchester United in the FA Cup (0-1) – he played two more first team games.

They were the penultimate and last matches of the season but were ‘dead rubbers’ because Everton had already won the league title and Kendall could afford to shuffle his pack to keep players fresh for the prestigious cup games that were played within four days of each other.

Hughes was in the Everton side humbled 4-1 at Coventry City, for whom Micky Adams opened the scoring (Cyrille Regis (2) and Terry Gibson also scored; Paul Wilkinson replying for Everton).

Two days later, he was again on the losing side when only two (Neville Southall and Pat Van Den Hauwe) of the team that faced Man Utd in the FA Cup Final were selected and the visitors succumbed 2-0 to a Luton Town who had Steve Foster at the back.

With the experienced John Bailey and Belgian-born Welsh international Van Den Hauwe in front of Hughes in the Everton pecking order, Kendall gave the youngster a free transfer at the end of the season.

After he left Brighton, Hughes enjoyed some success at Vale, and according to onevalefan.co.uk formed one of the club’s best full-back partnerships together with right-back Simon Mills.

A highlight was being part of the side that earned promotion to the second tier in 1988-89, but his time with Vale was punctuated by two bad injuries – a hernia and a ruptured thigh muscle.

Vale released him in February 1994 but he initially took the club to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. He was subsequently given a six-week trial in August to prove his fitness and, upset with that treatment, he left the club in November 1994.

Between January and November 1995, he played 22 games for Third Division Northampton Town. He then moved to Exeter City, at the time managed by former goalkeeper Peter Fox, and made a total of 67 appearances before leaving the West Country club at the end of the 1996-97 season.

Hughes in an Exeter City line-up

He ended his career in non-league football with Morecambe and Newcastle Town. After his playing days were over, according to Where Are They Now? he set up a construction business.

The spectre of Trelford haunted them for ages at St James’

BRIGHTON travel to Newcastle in the fifth round of the FA Cup with the backdrop of having won there twice in the competition in the 1980s – not to mention a 1-0 win in the Premier League this season.

The 1-0 third round win at St. James’ Park in January 1983 set Albion en route to that season’s FA Cup final – but Toon supporters of that era blamed the game’s unusually-named referee, Trelford Mills, from Barnsley, for their exit.

Think I’m exaggerating? Newcastle fans’ website themag.co.uk had this to say ahead of another FA Cup game between the two sides in 2013: “It is doubtful that anything could match the anger and frustration that many of us felt nearly thirty years ago.

“Wednesday 12 January 1983 will always be synonymous with the name Trelford Mills, etched into the consciousness of an entire generation of Newcastle fans, convinced he cheated us out of the FA Cup. Well, a chance of the fourth round anyway!”

Neil Smillie, goalscorer Peter Ward, Steve Gatting, Chris Ramsey and Andy Ritchie celebrate after the 1983 win.

Mills disallowed two Newcastle ‘goals’ while Albion nicked it courtesy of a penalty area pounce by Peter Ward, back at the club on loan from Nottingham Forest, on 62 minutes. They did it without captain Steve Foster who was suspended (as, of course, he would be for the final too).

The game was a third round replay four days after the sides drew 1-1 at the Goldstone Ground when Andy Ritchie’s mis-hit shot in the 56th minute put Albion ahead and Terry McDermott (below right, with Tony Grealish) equalised on 77 minutes.

Even though the Magpies were in the old Division Two at the time, they had Kevin Keegan and Chris Waddle in their line-up, and they fully expected to win because Brighton hadn’t previously won away that season.

Albion, competing in the top division for the fourth season in a row, with joint caretaker managers Jimmy Melia and George Aitken in charge, had goalkeeper Graham Moseley to thank for some heroic stops to keep them in the first game.

The replay at St. James’s Park was in front of a typically noisy crowd of 32,687 and Newcastle did everything but score: they had shots cleared off the line and hit the woodwork and, when they thought they’d scored, Mr Mills disallowed them – twice!

In the meantime, Ward made the most of a counter attack to put the Seagulls ahead. It turned out to be the last goal he scored for the Albion, although he was in the side that pulled off a shock 2-1 win at Anfield to knock out Liverpool in the fifth round.

Enterprising reporter Tim Hodges searched out Mr Mills all those years later to hear his version of the events.

“I remember Brighton went one up, then Imre Varadi went through on goal, but quite clearly controlled the ball with his wrist,” said Mills.

“I think the Brighton keeper realised this, just as most of the players did, and let the ball go into the goal just to waste a bit of time. I just restarted with a free kick. I have spoken to Imre since. I think he accepts my version now.”

Mills continued: “Jeff Clarke managed to win a ball in the penalty area, but only because he had his arm around the defender’s neck. Keegan bundled the ball into the goal, but I had blown up a few seconds before it went in.

“Keegan did his Mick Channon cartwheel arm in front of the Gallowgate end, but I just jogged across to where I wanted the free kick taken from and indicated as to why I had disallowed the goal.”

Mills also recalled how he and his fellow officials needed a police escort away from the ground after the match. “When we sat in the dressing room after the match, I remember chatting to one of my linesmen, John Morley, when this police officer turns up,” he said. The copper said to him: “You’d better hang on here a while, Trelford. There are 2,000 Geordies outside and they all want your autograph!”

Three years later, the status of the teams had been reversed with Newcastle promoted back to the top division in 1984 and Albion back in the second tier, relegated the same year as the cup final appearance.

While Keegan had retired, Willie McFaul’s side had a young Paul Gascoigne in midfield and Peter Beardsley in the forward line. Clarke, who’d played four games on loan at Brighton two years earlier, was still in the centre of United’s defence and it was his foul on Terry Connor in the first minute of the game that saw Albion take a shock early lead.

Danny Wilson floated in a free kick from 30 yards out on the right which found centre back Eric Young on the far edge of the penalty box. He hooked the ball into the Newcastle net with only 50 seconds on the clock!

Albion, wearing their change strip of red, had to endure a relentless series of attacks (Toon had 23 corners to Albion’s one!) and Perry Digweed in Brighton’s goal put in a man of the match performance between the sticks, notable saves keeping out shots from John Bailey, Beardsley and Billy Whitehurst.

With five minutes left of the game, against the run of play, a quick throw-in by Graham Pearce found Dean Saunders and he rifled home an unstoppable shot past Martin Thomas for his 10th goal of the season.

Manager Chris Cattlin summed up afterwards: “It was really tough and we had a little luck on our side, but to go away to a club who have won the cup no fewer than six times and come away winners was quite an achievement.

“With the Geordie fervour up there the noise their supporters created was something special, but our efforts speak volumes for everyone connected with our club.”

There would be no fairytale ending that season, though, with Albion being dumped out of the cup 2-0 by Southampton in a quarter-final tie at the Goldstone Ground.

John Barnes and Steve Harper were on pundit duty for ESPN for the 2012 match

Younger fans will doubtless recall two more recent FA Cup meetings between Brighton and Newcastle, in consecutive seasons during Gus Poyet’s reign, at the Amex in 2012 and 2013.

The Championship Seagulls beat the Premier League Magpies on both occasions – 1-0 in the fourth round in 2012 and 2-0 in the third round the following year.

Getting to grips with Will Buckley

A Mike Williamson own goal was enough to give Albion the edge over Alan Pardew’s side in the first of those games; Will Buckley’s 76th minute shot deflecting off the defender and looping over Tim Krul for the only goal of the game. Leon Best, who would later have a torrid time at Brighton, missed two good chances for the visitors.

The 2013 fixture was a more convincing win for Brighton against a weakened Newcastle side who had Shola Ameobi sent off. Andrea Orlandi gave Albion the lead on the half-hour mark and substitute Will Hoskins added a second late on.

Andrea Orlandi hooks in Albion’s first goal
Praise for Liam Bridcutt

“This was an impressive victory for Brighton, a result that will add to the optimism that surrounds this upwardly mobile club and strengthen their resolve to host Newcastle in next season’s Premier League,” wrote Ben Smith, for BBC Sport. “The cool passing game of Liam Bridcutt at the heart of their midfield was tremendous.”

The reporter added: “Sharper to the ball, and swifter to make use of it, the Seagulls toyed with their more celebrated opponents for much of the opening 45 minutes, producing some stylish attacking moves while tackling, battling and dominating territory in their uncomplicated and effective way.”

Will Hoskins buries Albion’s second goal in 2013

Chances were few and far between for Greg Campbell

ONE OF West Ham’s less well-known ‘Boys of ‘86’ tried to boost his stuttering career on a month’s loan with the Seagulls.

Hammers fans still laud the achievements of John Lyall’s title-chasing side of the 1985-86 season because they finished third, the club’s highest-ever position in the top division.

The form of twin strikers Frank McAvennie (26 goals) and Tony Cottee (20) meant chances were few and far between for Greg Campbell, a youngster trying to get a break into the first team.

However, by virtue of one start and two substitute appearances early on in that famous season, Campbell can claim a place amongst the ‘Boys of 86’ whose achievements have since been captured in a book and in a video.

The group of ex-players, that included George Parris who later played for Brighton, regularly get back together for social occasions to raise funds for various charities.

It was in the season following West Ham’s close finish behind champions Liverpool and runners up Everton that Campbell sought to get some first team football at Brighton.

In his matchday programme notes, manager Barry Lloyd said: “He is a young player who has learned the game at West Ham and I believe he has something to offer as a conventional target man.”

Unfortunately for him he joined a club that was sliding inexorably towards relegation from the second tier, Lloyd having taken over as boss the previous month after the controversial sacking of Alan Mullery only six months into his return to the scene of past glories.

When Campbell joined, Lloyd had presided over five straight defeats in which 10 goals were conceded and Albion had dropped to second from bottom in the table.

The manager shook things up for the visit to West Brom on 28 February, dropping goalkeeper John Keeley, Darren Hughes and Terry Connor and putting Campbell, who had made his debut in the Reserves against Norwich, on the substitute’s bench (in the days of only one sub).

A dour 0-0 draw was ground out to earn a much-needed point but Campbell didn’t get on. He led the line for the reserves in a midweek 2-0 defeat at home to Fulham and had to wait until the following Saturday to make his first team debut.

Then, he was sent on as a substitute for Steve Penney in the home game against Derby County but to no avail as Albion succumbed to a 1-0 defeat. It was Dean Saunders’ last game for Brighton; shortly afterwards he was sold to Oxford United for just £60,000 (four years later, Liverpool bought him for nearly £3m).

Four days later, Campbell scored for the reserves in a 4-1 defeat at Swindon Town, but it still wasn’t enough to gain a starting spot. Away to Barnsley the following Saturday, once again Campbell found himself on the bench, the restored Connor and ex-Worthing striker Richard Tiltman preferred up top. Tiltman scored but once again Albion were on the losing side, going down 3-1.

When Ipswich Town visited the Goldstone on 21 March, only 8,393 turned up (700 down on the previous home game) and the increasingly frustrated faithful saw the Albion lose again, 2-1.

Campbell once more only got on as a substitute, replacing right-back Kevan Brown, and that was his last involvement in a Seagulls shirt.

Born in Portsmouth on 13 July 1965, Campbell had footballing footsteps to follow into: his dad Bobby Campbell (a great friend of Jimmy Melia’s) played for Liverpool and Portsmouth, coached Arsenal and QPR, and was manager of Fulham, Pompey and Chelsea.

Campbell and George Parris line up for West Ham’s youth team

After progressing through West Ham’s youth and apprentice ranks, the young Campbell was given his first team debut by Lyall, up front alongside Cottee and Bobby Barnes in a 3-1 home win over Coventry on 4 September 1984.

He made his second start just four days later, in a 2-0 home victory over Watford, but a broken jaw put paid to his involvement in that game.

The injury meant he had a long wait before he was next on first team duty, making a return as a substitute in a 1-0 home defeat to Luton Town on 24 August 1985.

He appeared from the bench again two days later in a 2-0 defeat at Manchester United before making his only start of the aforementioned 1985-86 campaign in a 1-1 draw at Southampton.

He started alongside McAvennie but was replaced by Cottee and that appearance at The Dell on 3 September 1985 was Campbell’s last in the Hammers first team.

After he was released by West Ham, he tried his luck in Holland, playing 15 games for Sparta Rotterdam in the 1987-88 season, during Hans van der Zee’s reign as manager.

On his return from Holland in November 1988, Campbell joined Plymouth Argyle where the former West Ham defender and Norwich City manager, Ken Brown (see picture below), was in charge.

As the excellent greensonscreen.co.uk website records, Campbell’s first match was against his dad’s Chelsea side in the Simod Cup at Stamford Bridge.

It wasn’t a happy return to English football, though, because Chelsea ran out 6-2 winners.

Nevertheless, he celebrated his Argyle league debut two weeks later with a goal in a 3-0 home win over Oldham Athletic.

Campbell spent 18 months with the Devon side and scored six times in 24 starts plus 15 games as a sub.

He moved on to Division Four Northampton Town, where former Cobblers stalwart Theo Foley had returned as manager.

Campbell (circled) lines up for Northampton Town

Campbell teamed up with former West Ham teammate Barnes, who went on to become a respected administrator for the PFA for more than 20 years.

Campbell scored seven goals in 47 appearances for the Cobblers before retiring from the game at the age of 27 in 1992.

Knee injury cut short Justin Fashanu’s career rescue mission

JUSTIN FASHANU, renowned for an iconic televised Goal of the Season for Norwich City against Liverpool in 1979, played 20 games for Brighton in the 1985-86 season.

Those bald facts tell only a fraction of the story of the short and complex life of a bustling centre forward who burst onto the football scene as a teenager, scoring 40 goals in 103 games for the Canaries.

Several books have been written about him, acres of newspaper column inches filled covering colourful tales of what happened to the first £1m black footballer, and there is no shortage of articles across the internet. There’s even been a theatre play about his life: Justin Fashanu in Extra Time.

Here I will focus mainly on the football, and, in particular, that time at Brighton, although some context is needed to explain how a player who only three years earlier had helped England win the UEFA Under 21 Championship ended up with the then second tier Seagulls.

Fashanu’s signing for Brighton in June 1985 seemed like a major coup for manager Chris Cattlin as the Seagulls sought to return to the elite level they’d been relegated from two years previously.

Why was he so convinced Fashanu would be a hit at Brighton? In an interview with Spencer Vignes for the matchday programme, he said: “We’d put a good side together with a tight defence, an exciting midfield and a forward line that included Dean Saunders and Terry Connor.

“I knew all about Justin and I went to see him play for Notts County against Manchester City and he was simply amazing. He battered the best defender in the league at that time – Mick McCarthy – and I mean he really battered him. I thought: ‘That’s our fella!’ With those three up front, we were going to have one hell of a chance of winning promotion.”

In his programme notes for the opening game of the season, Cattlin wrote: “With the right service I expect Justin to be the best centre-forward this club has had in a very long time.”

At the end of a season when Albion missed out on promotion by finishing sixth, Frank Worthington at 36 had demanded a signing-on fee to stay a second season with the Albion – money Cattlin said wasn’t available. There was no such demand from Fashanu, who at only 24 was trying to rebuild a career that had gone off the rails.

To make his own personal assessment of a player who had already attracted plenty of negative attention, Cattlin even had the player to stay at his house for four days before signing him.

Only the previous season, Fashanu’s aggression on the pitch for Notts County had put both Albion centre backs Eric Young and Jeff Clarke in hospital. He’d previously had an altercation with Albion’s former Canaries defender Andy Rollings while playing for Norwich at the Goldstone, resulting in Rollings’ dismissal for throwing a punch at the striker.

Nottingham Forest boss Brian Clough, who’d persuaded the board of the two-times European Cup winners to part with £1m to sign the 20-year-old from Norwich in 1981, had numerous clashes with the player when he was unable to replicate his previous goalscoring form (more of which later), and, after just 15 months, he cut the club’s losses and sold him to neighbours County for only £150,000.

More crucially, though, Fashanu had sustained an injury to his left knee on New Year’s Eve 1983 inflicted courtesy of the studs of Ipswich, and later Brighton, defender Russell Osman. The wound had become infected and the medics at the time were clearly concerned. It meant insurers inserted an exclusion clause into their cover. Any claim for subsequent injury would only be covered if he’d previously played 12 consecutive League games.

After his stay chez Cattlin, a fee of £115,000 was paid to Notts County, who’d just been relegated to the old Third Division, and the manager said: “Justin had a reputation of being a bit of a problem player with his other clubs but that is all in the past.

“In my dealings with him I’ve found him to be a smashing person and the sort of player our supporters will take to.”

He told the Evening Argus that Justin was “a dedicated player who has been asleep for a couple of years”, adding “I’m sure, with us, he will bring his talents to fruition”.

Meanwhile, Fashanu told The Times: “I only took this step after a good deal of thought and prayer. I am convinced Chris Cattlin can get the very best out of me.”

He got off to a great start when scoring twice as Albion thrashed Aldershot 5-0 in a pre-season friendly at the Recreation Ground on 29 July 1985.

Stiffer competition was promised in the shape of three Goldstone friendlies in a week against First Division sides Arsenal, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Arsenal won 2-1 on 2 August and Liverpool 4-1 on 5 August. Two days later, Fashanu netted one of Brighton’s successful spot kicks in a 5-4 penalty shoot-out against Oxford United at the Manor Ground which saw them win the Oxfordshire Benevolent Cup.

Fashanu (front row, third from left) all smiles after Albion won a trophy in Oxfordshire

The pre-season fixtures were rounded off on 9 August when second tier Albion walloped Forest 5-2, and the matchday programme captured the mood with some delight.

“The match was a real thriller for the fans, and no-one except perhaps for Brian Clough and his team, went home unhappy,” the programme crowed. “Justin Fashanu had an outstanding game against his former teammates.”

Fashanu was involved in setting up three of Albion’s goals and of the fifth the programme recorded: “The final goal came after just about the most powerful shot seen at the Goldstone for years. Fashanu connected from 15 yards out. Segers could only parry the ball, and (Gary) O’Reilly tapped it over the line.” Tellingly, Clough declined to be interviewed after the game.

Fashanu started in the no.9 shirt and was sent off in only his third game, a 2-1 home win over Bradford City. Cattlin was quick to leap to his defence, using his programme notes to tell supporters: “I understand that the referee sent him off for dissent after committing a cautionable offence. All Justin said was ‘Surely you’re not booking me for that ref’…and if that either brings the game into disrepute or deserves any punishment at all, surely there’s something wrong in the game.

“Justin has joined us this season and is a great professional. One hundred per cent effort is appreciated by the fans and our supporters know they are getting just that. There was nothing malicious in anything he did on Saturday.

“Justin is a ‘gentle giant’. He never swears and he tries all the time…that is just the sort of player we need in the game. I would like to go firmly on record as saying his sending off was a complete injustice.”

Disciplinary action took a little longer to come into effect back then and Fashanu didn’t have to serve his suspension until the sixth game of the season.

However, it turned out he would have missed the game anyway because he’d undergone surgery.

It emerged that during pre-season training, Fashanu had taken a whack on his knee and it was six weeks and several matches later before he underwent a procedure at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. Cattlin admitted: “Mr Fearn, the club surgeon, had to work on the bone.”

In hindsight, Cattlin’s programme notes about the injury could be viewed, at best, as insensitive. “I would like to explain the problem of Justin Fashanu,” he wrote. “He jarred his knee pre-season, there is apparently a floating body there somewhere….probably a piece of black pudding or something!”

Cattlin already had Gerry Ryan out long term injured and he also lost Fashanu’s strike partner Connor to injury in those opening weeks. That absence presented an opportunity for Mick Ferguson to stake a claim and he responded with three goals in three games – until he too got injured, as did Alan Biley. In the emergency, loanee Arsenal defender Martin Keown was put up front to play alongside Saunders.

Gerry Ryan, Chris Hutchings, Fashanu and Terry Connor were all out injured

In the programme for the 19 October home game against Charlton, Cattlin was pleased to report Fashanu had resumed training and was busy building up his thigh muscles after his period of inactivity.

He finally made his comeback in an away League Cup match at Liverpool and, as Albion were sent packing 4-0, Fashanu was booked after clashing with Craig Johnston.

However, at least he was back in the no.9 shirt and, after leading the line in a home 1-1 draw against his old club Norwich, he scored his first goal for the Seagulls the following week when Brighton lost 2-1 at Shrewsbury Town.

Defending Fashanu after yet another booking in a 2-1 defeat away to Sunderland, Cattlin said: “Justin is anything but a dirty player. He is certainly strong, but if he was dirty I can assure everyone he would not be wearing the blue shirt of Brighton. I can see all sorts of trouble in the game if referees cannot differentiate between dirty play and wholehearted endeavour.”

Later the same month, Fashanu scored his second and only other league goal for Brighton, at home to Hull City on 30 November, when the Albion won 3-1 (Danny Wilson and Connor also on the scoresheet).

That match came during an 11-game unbroken run at centre forward, including an influential display in a 2-1 Boxing Day win over Portsmouth (below) which gave Albion their first league victory at Fratton Park in 62 years.

Fashanu set up Saunders for Albion’s first and, 18 minutes from time, Fashanu’s close-range shot was parried by Alan Knight only to Connor, who buried the winner.

Although the shortage of goals was bad news for him personally, it was good news for Shoreham butcher Roy Parsons who promised the striker 2lb of steak for every goal he scored for the Albion!

After missing two matches at the start of February, Fashanu returned to the side for the memorable FA Cup fifth round tie against Peterborough on a snow-covered pitch at London Road. Substitute Steve Jacobs went on for him for the second half and scored Albion’s second equaliser to take the tie to a replay, Saunders having got Albion back in the game to cancel out the home side’s lead. But it proved to be Fashanu’s last game in an Albion shirt.

The striker had to undergo further surgery on his knee although, at the time, it wasn’t made to sound career-ending. The matchday programme for the game against his brother John’s Millwall side on 22 March 1986 said merely: “Our popular striker had a minor operation this week and we hope this will finally clear up his knee problem.”

Subsequent reports had it that Fashanu’s right knee had been nearly shattered and the prognosis from the medical people was that he would have to give up the game. The player got an insurance payout but he was reluctant to give up the game and spent money in the UK and America trying to get the knee fixed.

“I had been told by doctors and surgeons in England that I’d never walk again properly – let alone play,” Fashanu told the Los Angeles Times in July 1988. “They were proposing an operation to remove the lining from the inside of my knee.”

Fashanu was born in Hackney, London, on 19 February 1961, the son of a Nigerian barrister and a Guyanese nurse. The parents split up when Fashanu and brother John were five and four. Unable to support them, their mother, Pearl, sent them to a Barnardo’s children’s home.

The boys were eventually fostered and raised by Alf and Betty Jackson in the small rural Norfolk village of Shropham, near Attleborough.

Norwich City’s youth scout Ronnie Brooks identified 14-year-old Fashanu as a prospect while visiting Norfolk schools looking for talent. He was invited to train with the club during his holidays and then signed as an apprentice.

In a 2011 article, writer Juliet Jacques recounted: “Having persuaded Fashanu to play football rather than box (he was twice an ABA junior heavyweight finalist, aged 14 and 15), Brooks spent time with him in the gym at Norwich’s training ground at Trowse, wanting him to become less one-footed and learn how to strike the ball in the air.

“Endlessly, Brooks would throw a ball over Fashanu’s shoulder, demanding that he turn, volley it against the wall with one foot and then hit it back with the other.”

That practice would pay off big time, Jacques capturing in words the moment the 18-year-old Fashanu connected so sweetly from distance to draw Norwich level, 3-3, with Liverpool at Carrow Road on 9 February 1980, and, in the days of limited football coverage on TV, featured on BBC’s Match of the Day.

“With the impudence of youth, he flicked the ball up with his right foot, turned, and volleyed it into the tiny space between Ray Clemence’s head and the post. The strike was perfect – and so was the celebration. There was a split second while the crowd, and the commentator, processed its brilliance: as the fans roared, Fashanu stood alone, one finger raised to the skies as if to announce his genius,” she wrote.

“Norwich eventually lost 5-3, but the goal overshadowed the result: it made the perfect televisual image, coming as a generation of black footballers were breaking through at England’s top level, leaving Fashanu poised to become their leading light.”

One of his teammates back then, Greg Downs, recently told The Athletic: “We took the mickey out of Justin at the time because we maintained he miscontrolled it. We swore it bounced up and hit him on the ankle, which is why he then hit it.

“With all due respect to Justin, his greatest attribute wasn’t his feet. His strength was in the air. He was a magnificent header of the ball. I think that was why it surprised everybody.

“It was a magnificent strike. You couldn’t have hit a better shot. Ray Clemence had no chance. I don’t think any other keeper anywhere would have had any chance with it. Justin just caught it sweet.

“I got on great with Justin. I remember going to his 18th birthday in Attleborough with his family. He was a nice fella.

“He was so popular at Norwich. He was also probably the first local black footballer we had. He was famous, this lad from Norfolk, he had a personality, he was eloquent. I knew his parents and they raised him with very high morals, and he was a lovely lad.”

England under 21 cap

Two months after that Liverpool game, Fashanu scored England’s only goal in a 2-1 defeat to East Germany in a 1980 UEFA under 21 championship semi-final at Bramall Lane, playing alongside future full internationals Gary Bailey, Kenny Sansom, Bryan Robson, Russell Osman, Terry Butcher, Glenn Hoddle, Garry Birtles and Gordon Cowans.

In September the same year, he went on as a substitute for Paul Goddard as England beat Norway in a friendly at The Dell, Southampton. The following month he was a starter as England were thrashed 4-0 away to Romania in a 1982 UEFA under 21 championship preliminary match but on 18 November at Portman Road he was on the scoresheet as England swept aside Switzerland 5-0 in the same competition.

He featured as a sub in a 1-0 friendly win over the Republic of Ireland at Anfield in February 1981, then was on the scoresheet as England beat Hungary 2-1 in a friendly in Keszthely.

His seventh cap came as a starter in the 0-0 draw away to Norway in September and two months later he opened the scoring for England in another 1982 UEFA under 21 championship preliminary match when England beat Hungary 2-0.

The following March he started again as England won a quarter final away leg in Poland 2-1 and was in the semi-final second leg line-up that drew 1-1 with Scotland at Maine Road, Manchester.

In the first leg of the final of that competition, played at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, on 21 September,1982, Fashanu went on for David Hodgson and scored as England beat West Germany 3-1, although he didn’t feature in the second leg away when England lost 3-2 but ran out 5-4 aggregate winners.

At that time, Fashanu was on loan at Southampton having endured a nightmare time at the City Ground under Clough. The stories of what happened are legendary and varied. 

Unfortunately for Fashanu, he joined Forest as the European Cup-winning side was being broken up and there were rumours of disagreements between Clough and his sidekick Peter Taylor, who eventually quit the City Ground. Clough had some health issues at the time too.

Peter Ward, who had moved to Forest from Brighton for £500,000, sometimes played alongside Fashanu and witnessed first hand the difficulties the manager had with him. He described various incidents in some detail in Matthew Horner’s He Shot, He Scored biography.

“It must have been very hard for Fashanu; he had signed for a lot of money and he really struggled to score goals,” said Ward. “In a way, it was similar to my situation but he had the added complication of his social life and constant rumours about his sexuality.

“Cloughie found it difficult to live with Fashanu’s lifestyle and he later admitted he wished that he had treated him differently.”

Forest were £1m in debt; three directors quit because they didn’t like the terms of a guarantee for the bank overdraft, and the Nottingham public weren’t turning up in sufficient numbers to help the club break even.

“At the heart of it was Fashanu, who was effectively the physical embodiment of that £1m overdraft,” wrote Jonathan Wilson in his Brian Clough biography, Nobody Ever Says Thank You.

“Goal statistics often don’t tell the full story, but in this case his record of three league goals in 31 appearances did. He was offering little to the team and, had he not been signed, Forest’s bank balance would have been a comforting nil. By the end of his unhappy 15 months at the club his confidence was so shot he almost scored an own goal from the halfway line in a reserve team game.”

Clough blamed Fashanu’s arrival for the breakdown in his relationship with Taylor. According to Wilson: “Clough said: ‘He used to burst into tears if I said hello to him’ and ‘He had so many personal problems a platoon of agony aunts couldn’t have sorted him out.’

Wilson details incidents such as Fashanu insisting on using his own towels rather than ones provided by the club amongst a number of issues that irritated the manager.

Clough maintained that the player’s homosexuality didn’t bother him (although the manager’s use of the word ‘poof’ might suggest otherwise), instead he said: “It was just that his shiftiness, combined with an articulate image that impressed the impressionable, made it difficult for me to accept Fashanu as genuine and one of us.”

Accusations of ill discipline prompted Clough to ban the player from training. When he turned up anyway there was more trouble and the manager called in the police to remove him from the training ground.

Those circumstances led to Fashanu being loaned to Southampton where he scored three goals in nine games under Lawrie McMenemy, but they couldn’t afford to make it a permanent deal.

Eventually in December 1982, Forest cut their losses and Fashanu was transferred across the Trent to Notts County for £150,000, being signed by former Brighton winger Howard Wilkinson, who had taken over as manager at Meadow Lane that August.

At least Fashanu got his goal touch back, netting 20 in 64 matches, but they weren’t enough to prevent back-to-back relegations. It probably didn’t help his reputation that he was sent off in a derby game against Forest for retaliating to a Paul Hart tackle just 11 minutes into the second half.

After heading to America in his battle to overcome his knee problem, Fashanu failed to recapture the spark that had made him such a huge talent in his teens and early 20s.

The record books show he played for 22 clubs in seven different countries. A brief attempt to recover past glory under Lou Macari at West Ham is remembered by Dan Coker on West Ham Till I Die.

He was playing at Leyton Orient when he went public about his sexuality and he later scored 15 goals in 41 games for Torquay United. He also played in Scotland for Airdrieonians and Hearts (below).

What led to him taking his own life in a deserted lock-up garage in Shoreditch in May 1998 is well documented, such as in this footballpink.net piece written by Paul Breen.

Fashanu’s memory certainly lives on in many ways. In February 2020, a tribute to his outstanding goal against Liverpool was unveiled in the form of a 20-metre long banner produced by supporters groups Along Come Norwich and Barclay End Norwich, led by Proud Canaries: the first club-affiliated LGBT+ fan group in the country.

“Two years ago I drew a massive artwork for Norwich Pride of LGBT+ icons nominated by the community,” said banner designer David Shenton. “The most voted-for person was Justin: a man so treasured in this city, especially by the football club for his artistry as a player, and by the LGBT+ community for his courage in not hiding who he was.”

• Pictures from Albion’s matchday programmes, the Argus, and various online sources.

Why John Gregory was a hero and a Villain

ANY Brighton player who scores twice in a win over Crystal Palace is generally revered forever. The sheen John Gregory acquired for that feat was somewhat tarnished when he was manager of Aston Villa.

Gregory’s brace in a vital 3-0 win over Palace on Easter Saturday 1981 helped ensure the Seagulls survived in the top-flight (while the Eagles were already heading for relegation).

In 1998, though, he was caught up in a wrangle over Brighton’s efforts to secure a sizeable fee for their input to the early career of Gareth Barry, who’d joined Villa while still a teenage prodigy.

Albion’s chairman Dick Knight pursued the matter through the correct football channels and eventually secured a potential seven-figure sum of compensation for the St Leonards-born player, who spent six years in Brighton’s youth ranks but refused to sign a YTS deal after Villa’s approach.

The Football League appeals tribunal met in London and ruled the Premiership side should pay Brighton £150,000 immediately, rising to a maximum £1,025,000 if he made 60 first-team appearances and was capped by England. Brighton were also to receive 15 per cent of any sell-on fee.

“It was what I had hoped for, although I hadn’t necessarily expected the tribunal to deliver it,” Knight said in his autobiography, Mad Man – From the Gutter to the Stars. “Villa certainly hadn’t; Gregory was furious and stormed out of the building.”

Gregory mockingly asserted that Knight wouldn’t have recognised the player if he’d stood on Brighton beach wearing an Albion shirt, a football under his arm and a seagull on his head.

“For a former Albion player, Gregory surprisingly seemed to take it as a personal affront,” said Knight. “His position was patronising and the behaviour of Aston Villa scandalous.”

Although Villa paid the initial instalment, they didn’t lie down and go with the ruling and ultimately Knight ended up doing a deal with Villa chairman, ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis, for £850,000 that gave Brighton a huge cash injection in an hour of need.

Barry, of course, ended up having a stellar career, earning 53 England caps, making 653 Premier League appearances and captaining Villa during 11 years at the club.

Knight’s settlement with Ellis meant Brighton missed out on £1.8 million which they would have been entitled to when Barry was sold on to Manchester City in 2009.

But back to Gregory. He had a habit of returning to manage clubs he had previously played for. Villa was one (between February 1998 and January 2002). He also bossed QPR, who he played for after two years with the Albion, and Derby County, who he’d played for in the Third, Second and First Divisions.

His first foray into management had been at Portsmouth. He then worked as a coach under his former Villa teammate Brian Little at Leicester City (1991-1994) and Villa (1994-1996) before becoming a manager in his own right again during two years at Wycombe Wanderers.

The lure of Villa drew him back to take charge as manager at Villa Park in February 1998 when he was in charge of players such as Gareth Southgate, Paul Merson and David Ginola.

During his near four-year reign, Villa reached the 2000 FA Cup Final – they were beaten 2-0 by Chelsea – but won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in November 2001, beating Switzerland’s Basel 4-1.

Although his win percentage (43 per cent) was better at Villa than at any other club he managed, fan pressure had been building when league form slumped as the 2001-02 season went past the halfway mark and a ‘Gregory out’ banner was displayed in the crowd.

Gregory eventually bowed to the pressure and tendered his resignation, although chairman Ellis said: “John’s resignation is sad. It was most unexpected but has been amicable.”

He stepped out of the frying pan into the fire when he took charge of an ailing Derby County, who were bottom of the Premier League, and, after a winning start, he wasn’t able to keep them up.

County sacked him in March 2003 for alleged misconduct but in a protracted legal wrangle he eventually won £1m for unfair dismissal. However, the ongoing dispute meant he couldn’t take up another job and he spent much of the time as a TV pundit instead.

It was in September 2006 that he finally stepped back into a managerial role, taking over from Gary Waddock as QPR manager, and while he managed to save them from relegation from the Championship, ongoing poor form the following season led to him being sacked in October 2007.

It only emerged in 2013 that five years earlier Gregory had discovered he was suffering from prostate cancer. Nevertheless, he continued working, managing two clubs in Israel and one in Kazakhstan.

He had one other English managerial job, taking charge of Crawley Town in December 2013, although ill health brought his reign to an end after a year and former Albion striker Dean Saunders replaced him.

Two and a half years after leaving Crawley, Gregory emerged as head coach of Chennaiyin in the Indian Super League. With former Albion favourite Inigo Calderon part of his side, he led them in 2018 to a second league title win, and he was named the league’s coach of the year.

Born in Scunthorpe on 11 May 1954, Gregory was one of five sons and two daughters of a professional footballer also called John who had started his career at West Ham.

The Gregory family moved to Aldershot when young John was only two (his dad had been transferred to the Shots) but then moved to St Neots, near Huntingdon, when his father took up a job as a security guard after retiring from the game.

Young Gregory went to St Neots Junior School and his first football memories date from the age of nine, and he was selected as a striker for the Huntingdonshire County under 12 side.

He moved on to Longsands Comprehensive School and played at all age levels for Huntingdon before being selected for the Eastern Counties under 15 side in the English Schools Trophy.

Northampton Town signed him on apprentice terms at the age of 15 and he progressed to the first team having been converted to a defender and remained with the Cobblers for seven years.

It was in 1977 that Ron Saunders signed him for Villa for £65,000, which was considered quite a sum for a Fourth Division player.

Gregory famously played in every outfield position during his two years at Villa Park and he welcomed the move to newly promoted Albion because it finally gave him the chance to pin down a specific position.

Chris Cattlin had been right-back as Albion won promotion from the second tier for the first time in their history but he was coming to the end of his career and, in July 1979, the Albion paid what was at the time a record fee of £250,000 to sign Gregory to take over that position. Steve Foster joined at the same time, from Portsmouth.

“I wore every shirt at Villa,” Gregory told Shoot! magazine. “I never had an established position. I was always in the side, but there was a lot of switching around. When Alan Mullery came in for me, he made it clear he wanted me to play at right-back.”

The defender added: “I respect Alan Mullery as a manager and I like the way he thinks about the game.

“Brighton are a very attacking side. There’s nothing the boss loves more than skill. That comes first in his mind. He wants all ten outfield players to attack when they can. That attitude, more than anything else, played a big part in me coming here.”

Gregory started the first 12 games of the season but was then sidelined when he had to undergo an appendix operation.

He returned as first choice right-back in the second half of the season and had a good start to the 1980-81 campaign when he scored in the opening 2-0 home win over Wolves.

His second of the season came against his old club, a header from a pinpoint Gordon Smith cross giving Albion the lead at Villa Park against the run of play. But it was to be an unhappy return for Gregory because the home side fought back to win 4-1.

In November 1980, it looked like Gregory might leave the Goldstone in a proposed cash-plus-player swap for QPR’s Northern Ireland international David McCreery, but the player, settled with his family in Ovingdean, said he wanted to stay at the Goldstone.

“The offer Gregory received was fantastic, but he prefers to stay with us,” chairman Mike Bamber told the Evening Argus. “I regard this as a great compliment.”

The following month, he got the only goal of the game in a 1-0 Boxing Day win at Leicester but in March, with Albion desperate to collect points to avoid the drop, Mullery put Gregory into midfield. He responded with four goals in seven matches, netting in a 1-1 draw away to Man City, grabbing the aforementioned pair at Selhurst Park on Easter Saturday and the opener two days later when Leicester were beaten 2-1 at the Goldstone.

Little did he know it would be his last as a Brighton player because within weeks Mullery quit as manager and Bamber finally couldn’t resist QPR’s overtures.

“I know Alan Mullery turned down a bid but a couple of days after he resigned chairman Mike Bamber accepted QPR’s offer,” Gregory recalled in an interview with Match Weekly. “I hadn’t asked for a move so the news that I was to be allowed to go was quite a surprise.”

He added: “It was a wrench. I found it difficult to turn my back on the lads at Brighton.

“I enjoyed two years at the Goldstone Ground and made many friends, but the prospect of a new challenge at Rangers appealed to me.”

Gregory admitted he used to watch Spurs as a youngster and ironically his two favourite players were Venables and Mullery – and he ended up playing for them both.

Although he dropped down a division to play for QPR, he said: “Rangers are a First Division set up and I’m sure we’ll be back soon.”

Not only did he win promotion with Rangers in the 1983-84 season but, at the age of 29, he earned a call up to the England set-up under Bobby Robson.

He won six caps, the first three of which (right) came against Australia when they played three games (two draws and an England win) in a week in June 1983, in a side also featuring Russell Osman and Mark Barham.

Gregory retained his midfield place for the European Championship preliminary match in September when England lost 1-0 to Denmark at Wembley but he was switched to right-back for the 3-0 away win over Hungary the following month.  

His sixth and final cap came in the Home International Championship match in Wrexham in May 1984 when he was back in midfield as England succumbed to a 1-0 defeat to Wales, a game in which his QPR teammate Terry Fenwick went on as a substitute to earn the first of 20 caps for England.

Gregory continues to demonstrate his love for the game, and particularly Villa, via his Twitter account and earlier in the 2021-22 season, his 32,000 followers saw a heartfelt reaction to the sacking of Dean Smith.

“Dean Smith gave Aston Villa Football Club the kiss of life when the club was an embarrassment to Villa fans and he rekindled the love and passion and success on the field where so many others had failed hopelessly,” said Gregory.

• Pictures from the Albion matchday programme, Shoot! magazine and various online sources.

Isaac’s long, long wait for an Albion win

IT seems extraordinary to think Robert Isaac had to wait FOURTEEN MONTHS to experience a win as a Brighton player after joining the club from Chelsea.

The young defender who had realised every schoolboy’s dream by playing for the team he’d always supported left a disgruntled dressing room at Stamford Bridge only to join a side sliding inexorably toward the relegation trapdoor of what is now the Championship.

“I must admit it was a bit depressing at first because we just couldn’t do anything right,” Isaac told Dave Beckett in an Albion matchday programme article. “We just had no luck at all; if we had I think we might well have survived in Division Two.”

Isaac also appears to have gone out of the frying pan into the fire. Telling thegoldstonewrap.com how he’d left Chelsea because the management was losing support of the players and he wanted regular first team football, he added: “When I joined Brighton in February 1987 they were in freefall. The dressing room was even more at odds with the manager than at Chelsea.

“Barry Lloyd dropped Dean Saunders, our only hope of surviving the drop. I found Barry rather rude. He’d blank me in the corridor and make me train on my own.”

The young defender made his Seagulls debut on 21 February 1987 in a 2-1 defeat at home to Oldham Athletic and featured in four draws and five defeats by the season’s dismal end.

Back at what was for so long Albion’s normal level of third tier football, Lloyd’s side did begin to pick up points – but Isaac wasn’t involved because of a groin strain and a troublesome hernia injury that sidelined him for months.

“I had stomach trouble quite a lot but no-one could put their finger on the problem until I saw a specialist in Harley Street,” he explained.

“After the operation, I was out of action for the best part of six months and at times I didn’t think I would get back to full fitness. I had around 40 internal stitches and even when I began playing again they would stretch and pull and I felt sick after games.”

It wasn’t until March 1988, with Albion in sixth spot, that Lloyd shook things up, initially drafting Isaac in at right-back in place of Kevan Brown, and then selecting him to replace suspended captain – and Isaac’s former Chelsea teammate – Doug Rougvie at centre back alongside Steve Gatting.

Isaac also stepped in when Rougvie missed a couple of games with a ‘flu virus and, although a win in Seagulls’ colours continued to elude him in his first three games back in the side (a defeat and two draws), he kept the no.5 shirt ahead of the rugged Scot. That elusive win finally came in a 2-1 away win at Notts County on 4 April.

Five wins and a draw followed and the successful run-in saw promotion gained as divisional runners-up behind Sunderland. Isaac was one of three former Chelsea players in that back four, with Gary Chivers (who’d arrived from Watford) at right-back and Keith Dublin at left-back.

Dublin had played for England under 19s with Isaac three years earlier. They both played four games in Dave Sexton’s side at the Toulon Tournament in the south of France in 1985 (England beat Cameroon 1-0 and Mexico 2-0, lost 2-0 to the USSR and succumbed 3-1 to France in the final at the Stade Mayol in Toulon).

Sadly, the subsequent fortunes of the two players went in opposite directions: Dublin went on to become such a success with the Seagulls that he was the 1989-90 Player of the Year and was sold to Watford for £275,000; the injury-beset Isaac had to quit the game after only 33 matches in a Brighton shirt.

After Albion bounced back to the second tier, the defender played in the first 11 matches of the 1988-89 season – eight of which were defeats – but his appearance in a 1-0 defeat away to Leicester turned out to be his last as an Albion player.

“I got injured at Leicester,” he recalled. “I didn’t feel it until the next day and then it really hit me. My knee just blew up. Come Monday morning I couldn’t even walk.”

He required an operation to repair the patella tendon in his left knee and, as he sought to regain fitness, spent a fortnight at the National Rehabilitation Centre at Lilleshall.

Meanwhile, Lloyd signed experienced central defender Larry May (whose own playing career would be ended by injury later that season) and, subsequently, Nicky Bissett.

A programme item in the 1989-90 season reminded supporters that Isaac was still around, although he hadn’t played at all throughout 1989.

Looking ahead to 1990, Isaac said: “I just hope I have a better year. I’d like to think that I deserve it after all the frustrations of the last few years with two major operations.”

Sadly, it didn’t happen and in August 1990, he was forced to quit football. After retiring, he worked as a chauffeur for the Maktoums, the ruling family in Dubai, before running his own vehicle business.

Born in Hackney on 30 November 1965, Isaac was Chelsea through and through from an early age.

“We lived in Chelsea and my great grandfather went to the first ever match at Stamford Bridge,” he told thegoldstonewrap.com. “My family have been going to matches home and away since. I went to see Chelsea play Stoke in the (1972) League Cup Final aged six.”

Isaac went on to join the club as a junior, made his reserve team debut at the tender age of 15 and was named Chelsea’s young player of the year in 1984.

It was on 9 October 1984 that his promising career could have been snuffed out before it had even begun: it’s a horrifying tale, told the following day on the front page of The Sun, and covered in detail by that1980sportsblog.

Three knife-wielding Millwall thugs slashed his back from his shoulder to the base of his spine in a dark alley near the south London club’s notorious old stadium, The Den.

Isaac needed 55 stitches to repair the damage and only the thickness of a leather coat he was wearing prevented the wound being potentially life-threatening.

Remarkably, later the same season, in March, he had recovered well enough to make his Chelsea first team debut in a 3-1 win at Watford, although Eddie Niedzwiecki, a Chelsea coach who later worked with Mark Hughes for Wales and at several clubs, told Kelvin Barker’s Celery! Representing Chelsea in the 1980s: “He was a young, up-and-coming apprentice at the time and luckily he managed to pull through, although he never really recovered from it.”

In the 1985-86 season, Isaac played two league cup games for Chelsea and three times in the league. The following season saw him get a mini-run in the side, playing four consecutive league games in November, but his fifth match – a 4-0 home defeat by Wimbledon in which Rougvie was sent off in the first 10 minutes for headbutting John Fashanu – proved to be his last.

The website sporting-heroes.net said of him: “A steady, reliable centre-half and occasional full-back, Robert did little wrong during his time in the Chelsea first-team, but was unfortunate to play for the club at a time when Colin Pates, Joe McLaughlin and, a little later, Steve Wicks, were all demonstrating their considerable talents at the heart of the defence.”

Isaac asked for a transfer after a disagreement with manager John Hollins and his assistant Ernie Walley, and that led to his transfer to Brighton for a £50,000 fee.

Paynter left a blank canvas at Seagulls and Blades

A JOURNEYMAN striker who fired blanks for Brighton and Sheffield United only found very occasional purple patches of goalscoring in a 12-club, 17-year career.

Billy Paynter didn’t manage a single goal in 10 games on loan for Gus Poyet’s Seagulls and carried with him from parent club Leeds United the somewhat unkind epithet ‘Barn door Billy’ for his proverbial inability to hit one with a banjo.

A subsequent half-season loan spell at Sheffield United under Nigel Clough yielded a similar zero in the goals scored column.

A journey around the message boards on supporter websites uncovers some brutal and unflattering comments about Paynter’s contribution for their team and yet it was a career that yielded 131 goals in 529 games – one in four.

And it all began promisingly under the guidance of former Albion captain and manager, Brian Horton.

Born in the Norris Green area of Liverpool on 13 July 1984, Paynter joined Port Vale’s academy at the tender age of 10 and turned professional soon after his 16th birthday.

Horton gave Paynter his first team debut when he was only 16 years and 294 days old on 3 May 2001 as a 61st-minute substitute at home to Walsall.

It was 10 months before he made a start, although he got a few more sub appearances, and Vale supporters had to wait until the start of the 2002-03 season for his first goal, after he’d replaced injured crowd favourite Steve McPhee in a home game against Wrexham.

Eventually, Paynter got into his stride and his popularity with the fans saw him voted Player of the Year in 2004-05.

His 34 goals in 158 games for Vale caught the eye of another former Albion manager, Peter Taylor, at then-Championship side Hull City.

Signed initially on loan, a fee of £150,000 took him on a permanent two-and-a-half-year contract to the KC Stadium in January 2006.

The following month Paynter turned out as a right-sided midfield player for a Football League Under-21 team (selected and managed by Taylor) in a game against an Italian Serie B side at the KC Stadium.

Taylor also experimented with him in the same position for Hull but, having scored only three times in 23 matches, Paynter was on the move again after only eight months.

He switched to Southend United, also in the Championship, for £200,000 in August 2006 and somewhat ironically, his only goal for the Shrimpers was scored against Brighton in a 3-2 League Cup win at Roots Hall in September 2006.

A lack of goals and a hamstring injury meant his stay in Essex was cut short and for the second half of the 2006-07 season he went on loan to League One Bradford City, where he managed four goals in 15 matches, including one on his debut.

On August deadline day in 2007, Paynter’s next move saw Paul Sturrock sign him for Swindon Town. Within a month he had netted a hat-trick against Bournemouth and added two more in a 5-0 win over Gillingham the following month.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for him, though, and after a two-month goal drought which had seen him lose his place, he told BBC Radio Swindon: “You can try and do too much and get caught up with it, but if you relax and get on with your game, I think it will come naturally.”

Paired with Simon Cox initially, Paynter got amongst the goals in support of the main man. But he stepped up a gear after Cox was sold to West Brom in the summer of 2009. His new strike partner was a young Charlie Austin and the pair enjoyed a rich seam of goalscoring form in the 2009-10 season under former Albion captain Danny Wilson.

Paynter had a spell where he scored 15 goals in 17 games and ended the season with 29 goals in 52 matches, his best goals-to-games ratio in a season. Swindon’s captain that season was none other than Gordon Greer, who remains a close friend of Paynter.

Four of Paynter’s goals had been scored against Leeds and, in the summer of 2010, he moved to Elland Road on a Bosman free transfer, with Wilson admitting to BBC Radio Wiltshire: “Anybody who scores nearly 30 goals in a season will be wanted by bigger clubs than us.”

Leeds boss Simon Grayson said: “He has matured as a player over the last couple of years and he had a fantastic season last season. He works ever so hard, holds the ball up well and he has proved he knows where the back of the net is.

“When we knew he was available we were desperate to get him. We feel he will be a good acquisition for the club, and I am delighted to have got him.”

Unfortunately, his time at Leeds didn’t start well when he picked up a shin stress fracture in a pre-season match in Slovakia, leading to him missing the start of the season.

It wasn’t until the second week of October that he was able to make his Leeds debut and starts were rare as Luciano Becchio and Davide Somma were Grayson’s preferred selection up front. Paynter didn’t register his first goal for Leeds until the following March, in a 2-1 win at Preston. It was his only goal in 23 matches that season.

As the 2011-12 season got under way, Grayson had added Mikael Forssell to his striking options and the manager encouraged Paynter to talk to other clubs, with Sheffield United and Brighton discussed as possible destinations.

Paynter preferred to stay and try to stake a claim for a place but, having only played once as a sub in the opening game of the season, he decided to make a three-month loan switch to Brighton at the end of October 2011.

On 29th October 2011, he made his Brighton debut as a 67th-minute substitute for Matt Sparrow in a 0-0 draw away to Birmingham City.

The first of his six starts came on 1 November in a 0-1 defeat at Watford. He came off the bench a further three times and, without troubling the scorers, returned to Elland Road in January.

Back at Leeds he had to wait until April before he was selected by new manager Neil Warnock for a home game against Peterborough United. Paynter scored twice in a 4-1 win and, when replaced by substitute Becchio in the final minute, left the field to a standing ovation. But he picked up an Achilles injury in the following game away to Blackpool and was made available for transfer at the end of the season.

Paynter earned a place in a planetfootball.com poll listing 13 of Leeds’ “worst and weirdest signings under Ken Bates” although he was good-humoured enough to acknowledge it in a 2018 Under the Cosh podcast.

“I’ve always said there’s some players that will be remembered for being good, there’s some players that will be remembered for being sh*te,” he said. “No one remembers the OK players. Take the positives out of a bad situation, in that way I will be remembered!”

It was former Brighton striker Dean Saunders who was responsible for Paynter’s next move, picking him up on a free transfer for League One Doncaster Rovers on 13 August 2012.

While Saunders left the Keep Moat Stadium in January 2013 to join Wolves, Paynter played his part in Rovers winning promotion back to the Championship under Brian Flynn, top-scoring with 15 goals as Rovers returned to the second tier as champions.

An anonymous Donny fan recalled: “He had some good games for us and made the pass from the missed penalty at Brentford that enabled (James) Coppinger to score and win us promotion. He is best played in the box. He causes all sorts of problems. He is a tough guy and takes no prisoners. I liked him but I would say League One is his limit.”

A familiar face in the shape of Brian Horton arrived as assistant manager to new Donny manager Paul Dickov (Flynn had been promoted to director of football) in the summer of 2013.

It must have given Paynter some satisfaction on 27 August 2013 when he scored in a League Cup tie at home to Leeds, although the visitors ran out 3-1 winners. However, that was his only goal and, after managing only one start and 11 appearances off the bench, up to Christmas, he was sent on loan to League One Sheffield United for the second half of the 2013-14 season.

An exiled Blades fan living in Leeds, ‘Blader’ said: “I am uninspired and don’t see this is a great signing. I’ve seen him play many a time and never seen him perform notably and he is a laughing stock in Leeds for how badly he performed.”

A blunt Blade

He made his debut as a sub against Notts County on 11 January 2014 but spent much of the time on the sub’s bench as manager Nigel Clough preferred to play with ‘a false 9’. Paynter made just six starts and came off the bench seven times but no goals were forthcoming. United finished seventh, one place off the play-off places, seven points adrift of sixth-placed Peterborough United.

Paynter was only a spectator as United remarkably reached the semi-final of the FA Cup, losing 5-3 at Wembley to Hull City, Jamie Murphy, later to play for Brighton, among the Blades scorers. A young Harry Maguire at the back for the Blades was named the League One player of the year.

The last three seasons of his playing career saw Paynter drop into League Two and he joined Carlisle United on the same day as former Albion midfielder Gary Dicker.

However, the season wasn’t even a month old when Graham Kavanagh lost his job as manager. His successor Keith Curle steered them to a fifth from bottom finish.

Paynter’s involvement was limited to 12 starts plus eight appearances off the bench and he and Dicker clashed with Curle when they sought PFA guidance after they were fined for allegedly failing to attend training sessions.

In the close season, Paynter headed 90 miles east to Hartlepool United, who’d just avoided dropping out of the league after finishing four points above Cheltenham Town.

The goal touch returned as Paynter top scored with 15 goals in 35 appearances as Hartlepool finished in 16th place courtesy of a decent run of wins in the spring under new boss Craig Hignett.

The managerial door revolved once more at Victoria Park the following season but Hignett’s successor Dave Jones (the former Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday boss) couldn’t prevent Hartlepool from heading out of the league, controversially parting company with the club with two games to go following an on-screen rant by United’s best known fan, Jeff Stelling.

Club captain Paynter, who had openly questioned Jones’ tactics in the local press, joined forces with fitness coach Stuart Parnaby to assist caretaker Matthew Bates for the final two fixtures.

It was one of those footballing fates moments that they needed a miracle against Paynter’s old club Doncaster in the final match and it was given a big build-up in the Mirror.

“Although we lost at Cheltenham last weekend, the lads had a lot more fight in them. I can understand it when players lose confidence or belief, but you can’t drop out of the Football League after 100 years without a fight,” he said.

“It’s one of those strange coincidences that we need to beat my old club to stand a chance of survival. I really enjoyed my time at Doncaster, and I’ll never forget that day we were promoted to the Championship, but I hope the supporters understand my loyalty is with Hartlepool now.”

Hartlepool hitman

Although Hartlepool won 2-1, they had been relying on other results going their way and Newport’s 2-1 win over Notts County 2-1 meant they stayed up and the North East side lost their league status. Having contributed just four goals in 26 matches, Paynter left the club.

While he attempted a brief extension to his playing career, training at non-league AFC Fylde, Southport and Warrington Town, he retired from playing in November 2017 and turned to coaching. He joined Everton’s academy in February 2018 before returning to his first club, Port Vale as professional development phase lead coach in October 2020.

On rejoining, he said: “It’s a joy to be back where it all started. Coming through PVFC’s Centre of Excellence from the age of 10, I know what the DNA of Port Vale is and what sort of players we should be producing.”

Pictures from various online sources and the Albion matchday programme.

Andrew Crofts just couldn’t stay away from the Seagulls

ANDREW Crofts is one of that rare breed of player who had three separate spells at Brighton, although the latter time was only as player-coach with the under-23s.

The Welsh international midfielder returned to the Seagulls after only a month as player-coach at Yeovil Town when Liam Rosenior left the Albion to move to Derby County.

His signing as an over-age player as well as a coach was explained by technical director Dan Ashworth, who hailed the “innovative step” and told the club website: “The thinking behind the playing role is to have someone of his experience out there on the pitch alongside our younger players, and to impart that crucial knowledge he has gained from his time in the game.

“To have that experience out on the field, in the pressure situation of a game, will be of enormous benefit to our young players and have a positive impact on their collective and individual development.”

Crofts first joined the club in the summer of 2009 during Russell Slade’s managerial reign and, when Gus Poyet took over the managerial chair, he appointed Crofts as captain for his first game in charge.

The midfielder repaid the faith in that televised away game at St Mary’s on 15 November by scoring in Albion’s memorable 3-1 win. Crofts retained the armband through to the end of the season and his form had caught the attention of Championship side Norwich City.

Crofts made the switch to Carrow Road and played 44 games as Paul Lambert’s outfit won promotion to the Premier League in runners up spot.

In the top-flight, though, Crofts was no longer a mainstay of the midfield, starting just 15 matches in 2011-12, and coming off the bench on 10 occasions.

“Towards the end of the season I was in and out,” he told the Albion matchday programme in 2019. “Paul then went to Aston Villa and when the chance came up to return to the Albion I jumped at it.”

“It felt like coming home and I wanted to replicate what we had done with Norwich. It was a completely different club compared to the one I’d left, with the Amex Stadium and plans for the new training ground.”

Poyet wasted no time in seizing the chance to re-sign him, telling the club website: “When we knew about the possibility to bring him back we worked very hard to do that.

“I am delighted to have him back. He is going to be a very important player.

“He is coming back to a club that he knows and he was happy to come back – that shows his commitment,” said Poyet. “He leads by example and we want players like that on the pitch.”

Unfortunately, that season his playing time was limited by two long-term spells out injured, and the following season it got worse. After sustaining a serious cruciate knee ligament injury in January 2014, he was sidelined by an almost identical injury again in October 2014.

When the player suffered the first injury in an away game at Birmingham, Poyet’s successor, Oscar Garcia, said: “He will be a big loss and I feel sorry for Crofty. He has been excellent and has been a key player.”

Crofts battled over many months to regain fitness only to suffer a partial tear of his anterior cruciate ligament and a tear to the meniscus in a match against Watford in October 2014, putting paid to any involvement in the rest of the 2014-15 season.

Head coach Sami Hyypia told the club website: “We are all devastated for Crofty. He is an important member of our squad and worked incredibly hard to get back to full fitness after last season’s knee injury.

“Crofty is a very strong character and he will continue to receive the best possible care and treatment from our medical staff throughout his rehabilitation.”

Unfortunately for him, by the time he was fit again, another new manager was in place and Dale Stephens and Beram Kayal were firmly established as Chris Hughton’s preferred midfield pairing. So, in March 2016, Albion loaned him back to his first club, Gillingham, until the end of the season.

On leaving the Seagulls that summer, he moved to Charlton Athletic under his former Albion boss Slade, on a one-year contract, and made a total of 54 appearances for the Addicks.

Although born in Chatham, Kent, Crofts qualified to play for Wales because his grandfather hailed from the principality. He earned a total of 29 caps, spread over 13 seasons, initially under John Toshack, most coming under Gary Speed, before making his final appearance against Panama in November 2017, in Chris Coleman’s last game as Wales manager.

Crofts v Rooney in a Wales v England match
Welsh international

Crofts was on Chelsea’s books from the age of 10 to 15, going through the ranks with John Terry, with whom he shared digs. One of his coaches was ex-Albion and Chelsea defender Gary Chivers. After being released by Chelsea, he linked up with Gillingham as a trainee and worked his way through the youth and reserve sides, making a surprise first team debut against Watford in May 2001 when only 16.

It wasn’t until 2004 and 2005 that he became a first team regular. His first Gills goal was scored in the Championship clash at the Withdean Stadium on Boxing Day 2004 when the Seagulls won 2-1.

Crofts eventually took over the captaincy at Gillingham but, after the side were relegated to League One, manager Mark Stimson believed the role was too much of a burden on the player. After more than 200 appearances for the Gills, he was made available for transfer and, in 2008-09, went out on loan to Peterborough United and then Conference side Wrexham under former Albion striker Dean Saunders.

When he joined Albion on a free transfer in June 2009, boss Slade said: “He’s an international player so that’s not bad for a start. He’s got good pedigree and was an important player for a good Gillingham team at the time.

“He can sit in for you defensively or he can get forward. He has got a good work ethic and I’m pleased to get him.”

Towards the end of his league playing days, Crofts had spells at Scunthorpe United in 2017-18 then Newport County for the 2018-19 season, playing under his former Gillingham teammate Michael Flynn, who he played alongside at Priestfield between 2005 and 2007,

Flynn made his old pal captain and said: “He’s a gentleman and he’s somebody I trust a lot. So signing him was really a no-brainer.

“Andrew coming in is a massive signing for the club. He’s the ultimate professional and he’s in fantastic condition.”

Crofts himself said: “I played with Michael Flynn at Gillingham and he was a winner. I loved playing with him and I can’t wait to play for him now with him being my gaffer.”

Unfortunately, injury issues restricted Crofts to just 12 appearances for Newport and he was released at the end of the season.

On leaving County, Crofts moved to Yeovil Town as player-coach with manager Darren Sarll saying: “To bring a player of Andrew’s experience into the club at this time is a great coup.

“He still has a thirst and hunger for playing and winning promotions and it’s refreshing to be part of the very early stages of his coaching career.

“He’ll be a valuable asset to the squad both as a player and in terms of passing on his experience and knowledge to the younger members of the squad.”

But then the opening arose with the Albion and he didn’t hesitate to return. When Graham Potter left the Albion, Crofts temporarily took on the head coach position and was retained as a first team coach under Roberto De Zerbi and his successor, Fabian Hurzeler.

• In an interview with Andy Naylor of The Athletic in December 2020, Crofts talked at length about his career, his coaching ambitions and some of the big names he played alongside.

Horton’s place in the hearts of Brighton and Man City fans

IMG_5170ARGUABLY the finest captain in Brighton & Hove Albion’s history went on to have a far less successful spell as the club’s manager having also been a boss at the highest level, at Maine Road, Manchester.

The £30,000 signing of tenacious midfielder Brian Horton from Port Vale on the eve of transfer deadline day in March 1976 proved to be one of the most inspirational moments of Peter Taylor’s managerial tenure at the Albion and for such a fee was widely hailed as “an absolute steal”.

Even though Taylor didn’t hang around long enough to reap the benefit of the man he instantly installed as captain, his successor Alan Mullery certainly did.

In the early days after his appointment, there was some suggestion Mullery would be a player-manager but the former Spurs and England captain reassured a concerned Horton that wouldn’t be the case, admitting that he wouldn’t get in ahead of him anyway!

“Fortunately, that next year went really well. It was my best year without a doubt,” Horton told Evening Argus reporter Jamie Baker. “I’d never met Alan Mullery, and he’d probably never heard of me, so I was delighted and surprised when he made me his captain.”

It was the beginning of a strong bond between captain and manager and Horton added: “We had that relationship for all the five years I was with him.

“That first season was great. We went 20 odd games unbeaten and I was scoring left, right and centre, and I was very proud to be voted player of the year.

“Suddenly everything was coming right for me, although we were disappointed not to beat Mansfield for the championship because we felt we were far better than them.

“You’ve got to hand a lot of our success down to Alan Mullery. He was a terrific motivator of players. He was a bubbly character and it used to rub off on players.

“He was new to the game of management but he brought fresh ideas, and he’d been under some top managers as a player.

“The team spirit during those first three years was incredible. When you are winning games every week it makes a hell of a difference and we had that for three years. You just couldn’t describe how good the team spirit was.

“My treasured memory will always be of the day we beat Newcastle to clinch promotion to the First Division. It was even greater because I scored the first goal. It had always been my ambition to play in the First Division and now I had achieved it.”

In an inauspicious start, Horton found himself in the referee’s notebook as Albion were hammered 4-0 by Arsenal as the season opened at the Goldstone. After a narrower defeat away to Aston Villa, the next game was away to Man City – and Horton had the chance to earn the Seagulls their first top level point.

On 25 August 1979, Albion were trailing 3-2 when Horton had the chance to equalise from the penalty spot with only eight minutes of the game left. But the normally reliable spot-kick taker fluffed his lines, meaning Albion succumbed to their third defeat in a row.

While the superior opposition was clearly testing the Seagulls, it was testament to the resilient skipper that he was continuing to lead them having started out in the third tier and, on 20 December 1980, before a 1-0 home win over Aston Villa, he received a cut-glass decanter from chairman Mike Bamber to mark his 200th league appearance for the Seagulls.

As the 1980-81 season drew to a close, Albion were perilously close to the drop but four wins on the trot (3-0 at Palace, 2-1 at home to Leicester, 2-1 at Sunderland and 2-0 at home to Leeds) took them to safety. What Horton didn’t realise was the Leeds game would be his last for the Albion (as it also was for Mark Lawrenson, Peter O’Sullivan and John Gregory).

“I’d bought a house in Hove Park off Mike Bamber and I was sunbathing that summer when there was a knock at the door. It was Alan Mullery come to tell me he’d just resigned,” Horton told interviewer Phil Shaw in issue 26 of the superb retro football magazine, Back Pass.

Mullery told him how he’d quit over the proposed Lawrenson transfer, how O’Sullivan and Gregory were off as well, and that the club wanted to sell him too, for £100,000.

Although Mullery advised him to sit tight because he still had a year left on his contract, new boss Mike Bailey – with a swap deal involving Luton’s Republic of Ireland international, Tony Grealish, lined up – told him he’d have to fight for his place and would have the captaincy taken from him.

“I said I didn’t want to go, that I loved the club and the fans, that I’d bought a house, and, at 31 I thought I had two or three good years left.

“I spoke to Mike Bamber and he said: ‘I don’t want you to go but I have to back the manager’.” Horton felt he had no option but to make the move.

He chose the platform of the Argus to thank the supporters for the backing they’d always given him and said his one disappointment was that he didn’t get the chance to lead Albion at a Cup Final. “That I would have really loved.”

Looking ahead, he added: “The Luton move gives me a new challenge. You can get in a rut if you stay at one club too long. Six years at Port Vale and five and a half at the Albion is enough. It will probably put a little sparkle back into my game.”

And so, Horton went to Kenilworth Road and under David Pleat the Hatters won the 1981-82 Second Division championship by eight points clear of arch rivals Watford. Looking back in his interview with Back Pass, Horton reckoned two of his Luton teammates, David Moss and Ricky Hill, were up there alongside Lawrenson as the best players he’d played alongside.

An all-too-familiar tale of struggle in the top division saw Luton needing to win at Maine Road in the last game of the season to ensure their safety, and Raddy Antic scored a winner six minutes from time that preserved Town’s status and sent City down.

Television cameras memorably captured the sight of Pleat skipping across the turf at the end of the game and planting a kiss on Horton’s cheek.

After one more year at the top level, he began his managerial career as player-manager of Hull City in 1984, working for the mercurial Don Robinson, and steered them to promotion to the old Division Two at the end of his first season in charge. He is fondly remembered by Hull followers, as demonstrated in this fan blog.

When he parted company with the Tigers in April 1988, his old Brighton teammate Lawrenson, by then manager of Oxford United, invited him to become his assistant. United at the time were owned by Kevin Maxwell, son of the highly controversial Robert Maxwell.

When Dean Saunders, who Brighton had sold to Oxford for £70,000, was sold against Lawrenson’s wishes – astonishingly he went to Derby for £1million – Lawrenson quit. Horton took over as manager and stayed in charge for five years, during which time he recruited former Albion teammate Steve Foster to be his captain.

Horton’s managerial break into the big time came in August 1993 when Man City sacked Peter Reid as manager four games into the 1993-94 season. Horton didn’t need to think twice about taking up the role, even though City fans were asking ‘Brian who?’

In Neil McNab, Horton recruited to his backroom team a former playing colleague who’d been a City favourite. “I played with McNab at Brighton and knew his strengths and knew he was well liked here,” he told bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk.

Horton brought in Paul Walsh, Uwe Rossler and Peter Beagrie and City managed to stay up.

The new boss acquired the services of Nicky Summerbee (to follow in the footsteps of his famous father Mike) along with Garry Flitcroft and Steve Lomas and at one point City were as high as sixth in the table.

They eventually finished 17th but fans to this day still stop Horton (who lives in the area) and ask him about a terrific match which saw City beat Spurs 5-2.

It was Horton’s bad luck that when City legend Francis Lee took over the club from previous owner Peter Swales, he was always looking to install his own man in the hot seat, and Lee eventually got his way and replaced Horton with Lee’s old England teammate Alan Ball.

Ball took City down the following season while Horton embarked on a nomadic series of managerial appointments either on his own or in tandem with Phil Brown.

Initially he was boss of Huddersfield Town; then he was a popular appointment when he took over as Albion boss during their exile playing at Gillingham, but, because he wanted to live back in the north, he left in February 1999 to join another of his former clubs, Port Vale.

He led Vale for five years and pitched up next at the helm of Macclesfield Town, where, on 3 November 2004, he marked his 1,000th game as a manager. It was at Macclesfield where one of his players was the self-same Graham Potter whose stewardship of Swansea City came mightily close to upsetting City in the 2019 FA Cup quarter-finals.

A bad start to the 2006-07 season saw him relieved of his duties in September 2006 but, by the following May, he was back in the game as Brown’s no.2 at Hull City. In March 2010, he was briefly caretaker manager following Brown’s departure, until the Tigers appointed Iain Dowie.

Next stop saw him as no.2 to Brown at Preston North End; then a second brief spell as Macclesfield boss at the end of the 2011-12 season.

In June 2013, he was appointed assistant manager to Paul Dickov at Doncaster Rovers, a role he filled for two years before linking up with Brown once again during his tenure at Southend United. Horton was his ‘football co-ordinator’ but left the club in January 2018. He followed Brown to Swindon Town but, in May 2018, decided not to continue in his role as assistant manager.

Born in the Staffordshire coal-mining village of Hednesford on 4 February 1949, Horton went to its Blake Secondary Modern School. Spotted playing football for the Staffordshire Schools side and the Birmingham and District Schools team, the Wolves-supporting youngster was awarded a two-year apprenticeship at Walsall when he was 15.

But, at 17, his hopes of a professional career were dashed when he wasn’t taken on. He ended up finding work in the building trade while continuing his football with Hednesford Town in the West Midlands (Regional) League.

He played at that level for four seasons and it was there he acquired the moniker Nobby because he gained a reputation for World Cup winner Stiles-like aggression. It was a nickname that stuck.

At the time, he was playing up front and scoring a lot of goals so he caught the attention of a few league clubs, but only Gordon Lee at Port Vale made a move. Lee sealed the deal by buying the Town secretary a pint of shandy and promising to take Vale to play Hednesford in a friendly.

Vale had little money so the squad was made up of free transfer signings but Horton said it made them strong collectively with “a fantastic spirit” and it wasn’t long before he was made their captain.

Vale legend Roy Sproson took over from Lee as manager and in March 1976 the cash-strapped Potteries outfit were forced to sell their prize asset.

When Vale headed to Selhurst Park that month, Crystal Palace player-coach Terry Venables got a message to Horton before the game urging him to sit tight until the summer and they’d sign him then. But Albion stole a march on their rivals and Sproson told him: “I’m sorry but we’re selling you to Brighton for thirty grand. We need the money.”

Funnily enough, the previous summer Horton had a chance holiday encounter in Ibiza with Albion’s Peter O’Sullivan. He later told the Argus: “Sully asked me if I fancied a move. Little was I to know that I would be joining him soon after. There was a wealth of ability in the Albion side when I joined them and it was outrageous that we didn’t go up that year.

“I felt they had to go places and I wanted to be part of it. I’d never been in a promotion side but then to be made captain of it was really the icing on the cake.”

Albion’s gain was certainly a loss to two other clubs who’ve since encountered similar troubles in their past. Horton explained: “I knew clubs were interested although Roy Sproson said he wouldn’t let me go to another Third Division team. I think he released me to Brighton because at the time they looked certain for promotion.

“Also, it was the highest bid they’d had. Hereford and Plymouth had offered £25,000 and I would have been happy to have gone to either club.”

In November last year, Horton reflected on his long and varied career in an interview with The Cheshire Magazine.

Pictures mainly from my scrapbook, originally from the Argus, Shoot / Goal magazine, the matchday programme and various online sources.