Tag: Eddie Spearritt

Sparks flew in Brighton v Chelsea FA Cup clashes

BRIGHTON v Chelsea in the FA Cup sparks memories for supporters of my generation stretching back several decades.

Many began as Albion followers the day the then First Division side from Stamford Bridge visited the Goldstone Ground in February 1967 when a dubious refereeing decision denied Third Division Brighton a shock win.

Others, me included, recall a fiery encounter in Hove six years later when Second Division strugglers Brighton were beaten 2-0 courtesy of two Peter Osgood goals in a game marred by violence on and off the pitch.

That third-round tie in January 1973 was dubbed “a day of shame” in the newspapers after two players were sent off, five were booked and crowd trouble erupted.

The chance for lower ranked teams to pitch their lesser talents against the big boys has always been at the heart of the FA Cup’s appeal.

That was certainly the case when Archie Macaulay’s mid-table Albion hosted Tommy Docherty’s top 10 Chelsea on 18 February 1967. To give it musical context, Georgy Girl by The Seekers had just taken over from The Monkees’ I’m A Believer at no.1 in the pop charts!

At a time when home crowds were normally 12,000 – 13,000, a sell-out gate of 35,000 packed into the Goldstone.

Cup fever had certainly captured the imagination of the Sussex public. In the previous round, 29,208 watched Albion beat Aldershot 3-1 in a third-round replay for the chance to take on the top division Pensioners (as Chelsea were called back then).

The two clubs hadn’t met in any other competition for 34 years – back in January 1933 Brighton beat the London side 2-1 in a third round FA Cup tie.

After such a long gap, maybe it was understandable that Albion’s young captain, Dave Turner, at 22, fell off the settee at home in excitement when he saw the cup draw made on the television.

Canny Brighton decided to sell tickets for the game at a reserve home fixture against Notts County, meaning a stunning 22,229 paid to watch the second string win 1-0 in order to secure their entry to the big game.

The matchday programme revealed how Docherty and several of his players had watched the Aldershot match to check out what would be in store for them.

Docherty meanwhile was very complimentary in his programme notes, declaring: “Chelsea know that we have a hard and difficult task today, and are not facing it in a complacent manner.”

He added: “We know that there is great potential for the Albion club. They have a First Division set-up at the Goldstone Ground, and First Division ideas, as well as a first-class pitch.

“The day cannot be very far away when they become one of our top clubs, and I am just one of many people in the game who will welcome their promotion to a higher class.”

However, the game was only five minutes old when Bobby Tambling gave Chelsea the lead. But before half-time, Chelsea’s John Boyle (who would several years later joined Albion on loan) was sent off for kicking Wally Gould. And just four minutes into the second half, Turner gave Albion parity.

Goalkeeper Tony Burns, who had top flight experience with Arsenal, made several decent saves in the game and, with the clock ticking down, a cracking strike by winger Brian Tawse in the closing minutes of the game looked to have won it for the Third Division side.

“I smashed a volley past Peter Bonetti from 20 yards out with the score at 1-1 and thought I’d got the winner,” Tawse told Brian Fowlie of the Sunday Post in 2015. “It was a goal that could have made my career – but the referee chalked it off.”

Unfortunately, the official had spotted an infringement by Kit Napier and the ‘goal’ was disallowed.

As Brighton would discover again only too painfully in the 1983 final, these winning chances rarely happen twice, and, sure enough, in the replay at Stamford Bridge Chelsea ran out 4-0 winners in front of a massive crowd of 54,852.

Chelsea went on to reach that season’s final at Wembley only to lose 2-1 to a Spurs side that had Joe Kinnear at right-back and Alan Mullery in midfield.

Hardman Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, their captain in 1967, was still leading the side by the time of the 13 January 1973 game and John Hollins and Tommy Baldwin also played in both. The dismissed Boyle was on the Chelsea bench in 1973. Only John Templeman (right) played in both games for Brighton.

The UK had just joined the European Economic Community (as it was then called) and You’re So Vain by Carly Simon was no.1 in the charts. Albion had moved up a division under Pat Saward having won promotion the previous May, but the side was struggling at the foot of the Second Division, unable to cope at the higher level.

Nevertheless, there were two players looking forward to the cup tie: Bert Murray and £28,000 signing Barry Bridges had both won silverware at Chelsea in the 1960s.

Barry Bridges slots home for Chelsea in a FA Cup tie v Peterborough and, pictured by the Daily Mirror’s Monte Fresco, ahead of the 1973 match against his old club.

“It’s a tremendous draw for the club and a dream draw for Bert Murray and myself who both started our careers at Chelsea,” Bridges told Goal magazine. “Personally, it will be nice to see most of the Chelsea lads again. I grew up with Peter Bonetti, Ron Harris and Ossie (Peter Osgood).”

Unfortunately the Albion game was one of several former Worthing schoolboy Bonetti missed through injury and illness in the 1972-73 season, John Phillips deputising in goal at the Goldstone.

How this young supporter recorded the team info in his scrapbook

Dave Sexton, a promotion winner with Brighton in 1958, saw his Chelsea side put the ball in Albion’s net within the first 10 seconds of the game but Bill Garner’s effort was ruled out for offside, to the bemusement of the football writers watching. As the game unfolded, not only did it end in defeat for the Albion but it attracted ugly headlines for all the wrong reasons as Harris and Brighton left back George Ley were sent off.

Ley was dismissed in the 85th minute for bringing down Baldwin from behind and then getting involved in a punch-up with England international Osgood, the scorer of Chelsea’s goals in the 17th and 60th minutes, who himself was booked for his part in the altercation.

Albion’s Eddie Spearritt had been the first to go in the book on 23 minutes (for a foul on Alan Hudson) and on 73 minutes was involved in the incident which led to Harris being sent off for the first time in his career.

Esteemed football writer Norman Giller recorded it like this: “Harris got involved in a tussle with Spearritt, and, as he pushed him, Spearritt went down holding his face as if he had been punched. The referee directed Ron to an early bath. All the bones he had kicked, and here was Harris being sent off for a playground push.”

1970 Cup winner Dave Webb went in the book for wiping out Spearritt, joining colleague Steve Kember who was cautioned for fouling Steve Piper. Albion’s Graham Howell also went into referee Peter Reeves’ notebook for taking down Baldwin.

The kicking and aggression on the pitch led to fighting on the terraces with 25 people arrested. And Leicester referee Reeves had to be given a police escort off the pitch.

Former Spurs captain-turned-journalist Danny Blanchflower, writing in the Sunday Express: declared: “This FA Cup third-round tie was as disgraceful as any match I’ve ever seen.”

In the opinion of Albion scribe John Vinicombe in the Evening Argus: “Football anarchy gripped the Goldstone during the last 20 minutes of Albion’s FA Cup tie with Chelsea.

“In the frenzy, players fought one another, hacked and kicked, and the violence tiggered an all-too-predictable chain reaction on the terraces where rival factions became one mass of writhing, mindless hooligans.”

Interestingly, Harris’ dismissal was subsequently overturned, Giller recording: “A Brighton-supporting vicar, with a pitchside view, wrote to the Football Association telling them what he had witnessed, and ‘Chopper’ was vindicated.”

Chelsea made it through to the quarter-finals of that season’s tournament before losing 2-1 to Arsenal in a replay. Arsenal lost in the semis to Sunderland, the Second Division side who stunned the football world at the time by beating Leeds United in the final.

Top Hatter Moore a temporary plug in Albion’s leaky defence

LUTON TOWN legend John Moore had a 32-year association with the Hatters as a player, coach and manager. He had a less remarkable one month’s loan in the stripes of Brighton.

As manager Pat Saward rather too rapidly dismantled Albion’s 1972 promotion-winning side, the experienced Moore was one of several old hands brought in to try to help Albion adapt to the old Second Division.

Saward was light on numbers in a defence which had conceded 23 goals in 12 games, and he had just parted company with former skipper John Napier, while injury-prone Ian Goodwin was in hospital having a knee cartilage operation. The side had only won once in the league in 12 starts.

But the arrival of Moore, together with Lewes-based Stan Brown from Fulham, gave the side an unexpected fillip and the Albion earned a surprise 2-0 victory away to Huddersfield Town (Eddie Spearritt and Barry Bridges the scorers) on 14 October 1972.

Saward was certainly impressed by the impact of his two new acquisitions. “The new men played a major part in our success,” he said. “It was quite remarkable really the way they slotted into the side as if they had been playing for Albion all season. John did exceptionally well in his role as sweeper.

“They are, of course, experienced professionals who have been around the game a long time. But even the best professionals sometimes take time to settle into new environments and this is why the performances of these two was so outstanding.”

Unfortunately, it was the only win of Moore’s brief stay. Albion drew the next three games and his final outing came in a 3-0 defeat at Millwall. That loss at The Den was the first of 12 consecutive league defeats.

Ironically, Albion only returned to winning ways when Moore was in opposition, lining up in the Luton side that lost 2-1 at the Goldstone on 10 February 1973. Ken Beamish scored both Albion goals, while future Albion signings Don Shanks and Barry Butlin were playing for the opponents that day.

Moore subsequently moved on to Northampton Town, where future Albion player John Gregory was beginning to make his way in the game, but the Scot ended his playing days after only 14 appearances.

Born on 21 December 1943 in the village of Harthill (halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh), Moore played initially for local side North Motherwell Athletic. In 1962, he joined Scottish League side Motherwell on a part-time basis, while also working in a factory.

He was a centre-forward when he initially went to Fir Park but in the only three games he played he started twice in midfield and once in defence. Given a free transfer in May 1965, a Luton scout in Scotland pointed him in the direction of then manager George Martin.

In a 2011 interview with Matthew Parsfield, for the Talk of the Town blog, he recalled: “George Martin flew up to Scotland to sign me. I remember sitting down with him in my living room with my family, and, it sounds far-fetched nowadays, but there were no contract negotiations and no haggling at all.

“He said ‘What do you want?’ He was actually talking about a signing-on fee, but I just said ‘I want an opportunity.’ He certainly gave me that.”

One particular long-standing fan, Mick Ogden, remembered Moore’s arrival with affection. Writing on the Hatters Heritage website, he recalled him turning up at a supporters’ club gathering in the company of manager Martin in May 1965.

“Despite the fact that he had travelled down from Glasgow that day, John spent the whole evening with us, firstly playing billiards against our members and then later we sat around listening to John talking about his life and obvious love of football,” wrote Mick.

“He told us he had signed from Motherwell and how he sat for many hours during the week talking football with his father, who was a Rangers fan. Apparently, these chats would often carry on until the early hours of the next day. John clearly had a great love and affection for his father.”

Another fan who remembered the player from his early Luton-watching days, ‘Mad Hatter’, said: “Moore wasn’t like other defenders; slender in physique compared to those he played alongside, he was more than a match for most of the opponents he came up against.

“Whilst on the books of the Hatters, Moore made 274 league appearances and more than played his part in helping Luton Town climb from Division 4 to Division 2.”

John Moore in action for Luton against West Ham’s Geoff Hurst

Indeed as well as under Martin, Moore also featured under Alan Brown, Alec Stock and Harry Haslam.

After his playing days were over, he spent time as manager of non-league Dunstable Town but when David Pleat took over as Luton manager, he took Moore back to the club as a coach.

After Pleat had moved on to take the hot seat at Spurs, Moore stepped up to become manager.

It was the 1986-87 season in the top-flight and Moore led the Hatters to a club-best seventh-place finish. But it appears he didn’t enjoy the limelight of such a position and he stepped down, handing over the reins to Ray Harford, assisted by Steve Foster. Luton went on to win the League Cup (then known as the Littlewoods Cup) beating Arsenal 3-2, with another ex-Albion skipper, Danny Wilson, one of the goalscorers.

When former player Jim Ryan took over as manager, Moore returned to the club as a coach for a third stint and stayed in that role under Pleat again, Terry Westley, Lennie Lawrence, Ricky Hill, Mick Harford, Joe Kinnear and Mike Newell until he reached the age of 60 in 2003 and chose to retire.

In the interview with Parsfield, he gave an insight into his approach. “When I became youth coach I always treated the boys like adults.

“I wasn’t interested in making them successful youth players, the only way to make a living is to become a first team player.

“I told them they had to work harder than the first team, because those older guys down the corridor aren’t going to just give you their first team place and their luxury lifestyle, you’ve got to work for it.”

He added: “Nobody’s career flows in a straight line, careers bob and weave, and players need the attitude of ‘When it gets hard, I don’t give in’. It’s when someone has the talent but not the attitude, that’s what frustrates you the most.”

On leaving Luton, Moore got involved in schools coaching in Bedford. But at Kenilworth Road, there is a permanent reminder of the player courtesy of The John Moore Lounge.

Goalscorer Ray Crawford took on Brighton backroom role

RAY CRAWFORD, one of the foremost goalscorers of the 1960s, came close to a swansong with the Albion and ended up coaching the club’s youngsters.

Crawford had been a key player in Alf Ramsey’s First Division title-winning Ipswich Town side having begun at hometown club Portsmouth and later netted 41 goals in 61 appearances for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

He joined Brighton in the autumn of 1971 after he had read they were struggling to score goals. Earlier the same year, he’d hit the headlines at the age of 35 when he scored twice for Fourth Division Colchester United as they sensationally beat Don Revie’s First Division Leeds United 3-2 in the FA Cup.

After a subsequent short stint playing in South Africa, homesickness brought him and his family back to the UK and the search began for a way to continue his celebrated career in the game.

He got in touch with his former Ipswich teammate, Eddie Spearritt, a key member of Albion’s squad, and the utility player persuaded manager Pat Saward to offer Crawford a trial.

“I did well enough in my trial week for Pat to ask me to stay for another month and to see how things went,” Crawford recalled in his eminently readable autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing, 2007).

Crawford found the net for the reserves, but a contractual issue with his last club, Durban City (who wanted a fee the Albion weren’t prepared to pay) prevented him joining as a player.

Meanwhile, the previous goalscoring slump that had first drawn him to the club was remedied by a decent run of goals from Peter O’Sullivan to supplement a revival in the form of strikers Kit Napier and Willie Irvine.

It meant Crawford, at 36, hung up his boots (although he still managed a cameo 15 minutes for the reserves in October 1973) to concentrate on coaching.

In the days before large teams of scouts and analysis tools, he would also run an eye over Albion’s future first team opponents to highlight their strengths and weaknesses.

“His dossiers on opposing styles and individual players have proved of great value in the team talks,” reported John Vinicombe in an Evening Argus supplement celebrating Albion’s promotion from the Third Division.

“When I returned to England after a spell with Durban City my only thoughts were of playing,” Crawford recalled. “Before I went to South Africa, I had a good season with Colchester United scoring 32 goals, and, of course, there were the two goals that I scored against the great Leeds United, knocking them out of the FA Cup, which still made me believe that my career was in playing.

Crawford scores v Leeds in the FA Cup

“But when my month’s loan from Durban City expired, and Pat Saward asked me if I would like to join the staff, I jumped at the chance.”

It didn’t stop Saward continuing to search for someone to supplement the strikeforce as the Albion went neck and neck with Aston Villa and Bournemouth for promotion.

Saward even brought in on trial another former England striker, the ex- Everton, Birmingham and Blackpool striker Fred Pickering from Blackburn Rovers. Like Crawford, he scored for the reserves but he wasn’t deemed fit enough for the first team.

Eventually, in March 1972, Saward found the missing piece of his jigsaw in Ken Beamish, a record transfer deadline day signing from Tranmere Rovers.

Beamish chipped in with some vital late goals to help Albion edge out the Cherries to secure Albion’s promotion as runners up to Villa.

The new man’s contribution earned Crawford’s approval in Brighton & Hove Albion Supporters’ Club’s official souvenir handbook, produced to celebrate the promotion.

Crawford as coach

He said: “I don’t like to single out players because football is a team game, but I must on this occasion. Ken Beamish added the final bite up front, and those vital goals that he scored helped us into Division II. What a player this boy is – he never gives up!”

It emerged in Crawford’s autobiography that he also had a friend in Albion chairman Mike Bamber, having got to know him when the Colchester team stayed at Bamber’s Ringmer hotel before a FA Cup tie.

Ever one for rubbing shoulders with stars, Bamber had subsequently invited Crawford back to Sussex to open a local fete in exchange for a weekend stay at the hotel with his family.

“Since that time, I had regarded Mike as a friend and a man I could trust,” said Crawford.

The former striker’s work with the club’s youngsters was evidently appreciated; for instance by Steve Barrett (below left) who said in 2011: “Ray was my coach when I was an apprentice and a young pro. Always had a great enthusiasm for the game and, even in training at the age of about 40, had a good touch and great eye for goal.

“Was great fun on our annual youth trips to tournaments to Holland or Germany. Was very modest in general but loved to remind everyone of his two goals for Colchester against the then mighty Leeds in the FA Cup. A really nice man.”

When Saward was sacked in the autumn of 1973, Crawford assisted caretaker manager Glen Wilson for the home fixture against Southport, which Albion won 4-0.

As for his relationship with Bamber, it counted for nothing as soon as the chairman astonished the football world by appointing Brian Clough and Peter Taylor to succeed Saward.

Crawford was angered by Clough’s “abrasive and stubborn” shenanigans, for instance being bought a pint in a Lewes hotel bar and then left waiting with Wilson as the former Derby duo disappeared for two hours.

“I wasn’t prepared to be treated like that and I soon found out that the way he spoke to people was as I’d expected,” Crawford recalled. “One day he left the players sitting in the dressing room for two hours before training. I don’t know why. It left a sort of threatening pressure on the players that I didn’t agree with.”

It probably didn’t help matters that Crawford’s outspoken wife Eileen also took issue with Clough when he tried to stop the players’ wives having a smoke while socialising before a match. “I don’t smoke, but if I did, it wouldn’t be anything to do with you!” she told him.

Crawford had heard that his first club, Portsmouth, were looking to revive a youth set-up that had been abandoned under a previous manager, so he applied to take on the role of setting it up and running it and headed back to Fratton Park in December 1973.

Born just a mile away from Portsmouth’s famous home ground, the eldest of four children, on 13 July 1936, Crawford initially looked unlikely to follow the sporting prowess of his dad, who had been a professional boxer, because of asthma.

Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for football was sparked by a display of skill from Pompey player Bert Barlow when he did a coaching session at his school, and he joined a local football club called Sultan Boys.

Then he was taken to see Portsmouth play at Fratton Park and he set his heart on stepping out onto that turf himself.

At 14 he started to fill out in height and weight. “I changed quickly from a skinny, shy, asthmatic youth into a strong, young athlete, representing Hilsea Modern School and Portsmouth Schools in cross country running and in the 440 yards,” he said.

He also excelled at cricket and was offered the chance to have a trial with Hampshire County Cricket Club. But his heart was set on football.

Eventually a break came courtesy of a friend who was already in Portsmouth’s youth team. Crawford was invited to twice-weekly training and, after impressing, was taken on as a junior.

In the meantime, he worked by day for the Portsmouth Trading Company making concrete and breeze blocks, which involved spending around eight hours every day lifting 500 heavy blocks onto pallets to dry. It certainly got him fit.

The football club eventually offered him a contract after two years of training with them, but then (as was the case with all young men at the time) he had to do two years’ National Service in the army.

That’s where the title of his book comes in because he was posted to Malaya where word of his footballing ability had already spread. He was invited to play for Selangor Rangers, the biggest club in Kuala Lumpur, and the army also gave him permission to play for the Malayan Federation on a tour of Cambodia and Vietnam.

“Whilst I took part in many more football matches in Malaya than military exercises, I did go out into the jungle on a few occasions with the battalion,” he recalled.

Back at Portsmouth in the autumn of 1956, Crawford resumed his football career, initially in Pompey’s reserve team. After scoring 33 goals in 39 reserve team games, he finally got a first team call-up, making his debut in a 0-0 draw against Burnley at Fratton Park on 24 August 1957.

In the following game, he scored two in two minutes as Spurs were beaten 5-1 at home, but the following month he suffered a broken ankle that sidelined him for two months.

The beginning of the end of his fledgling Pompey playing career came in December that year when he lost it with the club chairman, Jack Sparshatt, who puzzlingly decided to enter the dressing room at half-time during a game, voicing his disapproval at the performance. Crawford told him to f*** off!

Perhaps not surprisingly he was left out of the side for a month.

He did get selected again in the new year, playing up front with Irishman Derek Dougan, but, that summer, Eddie Lever, the manager who’d given him his debut, was sacked and it wasn’t long before his replacement, Freddie Cox, sold Crawford to Ipswich.

Although he hadn’t wanted to move, future England boss Ramsey was persuasive and Crawford admitted: “I had no idea at the time that this would eventually turn out as one of the best decisions I ever made in life.”

The Hampshire lad adapted well to Suffolk and by the end of his first season at Town had scored 25 goals in 30 league games. Not a bad return but even better was to come and with Crawford and strike partner Ted Phillips rattling in the goals, Ipswich won back-to-back titles, winning the second tier championship in 1960-61 and the elite title in 1961-62.

Crawford scored 40 and Phillips 30 as Ipswich won promotion in 1961 and, at the higher level the following season, Crawford bagged another 37 goals.

Such prolific scoring inevitably brought him to the attention of the international selectors and, at the age of 25, he won two England caps. The mystery was why he didn’t win more.

Crawford made his England debut in a Home International against Northern Ireland at Wembley on 22 November 1961. He was credited with setting up England’s goal, scored by Bobby Charlton in the 20th minute, and the game ended in a disappointing 1-1 draw.

The 30,000 crowd for the Wednesday afternoon match was a record low for Wembley at that time. The prolific Ipswich striker only won one more cap, and then only because of a fractured cheekbone injury to first choice Alan Peacock of Middlesbrough.

Nonetheless, Crawford seized his chance and got on the scoresheet after only seven minutes against Austria in a friendly at Wembley on 4 April 1962.

He turned and buried a shot to give England an early lead which Ron Flowers increased with a penalty before half-time. Roger Hunt scored a third for England in the second half. Hans Buzek pulled one back for the visitors in the 76th minute.

As well as Hunt, future World Cup winners Ray Wilson and Bobby Charlton were also in the England line-up, together with 1966 squad members Jimmy Armfield and John Connelly. The team was captained by Fulham’s Johnny Haynes. Jimmy Melia was part of the squad but didn’t play.

Jimmy Magill, who later joined Brighton from Arsenal, was in the Irish side whose equaliser was scored by Burnley’s Jimmy McIlroy. Spurs’ Danny Blanchflower won his 50th cap for his country that day.

Having scored 33 goals in the First Division, Crawford was gutted not to be selected in the England squad for the 1962 World Cup in Chile and future England boss Ramsey was mystified too. “I just don’t understand it and I will go as far as saying it is downright unfair,” he said.

Crawford reckoned it was because England coach Harold Shepherdson, who also held a similar role at Middlesbrough, always advanced the claims of Boro’s aforementioned Peacock, who was chosen ahead of him despite scoring fewer goals, and in the Second Division.

Although Crawford was selected three times for the Football League representative side, he didn’t win any more full international caps.

Probably more surprising was that his old club boss Ramsey, who had seen him at close quarters for Town, didn’t turn to him after he’d taken charge of England in October 1962. But Ramsey had an embarrassment of riches at his disposal, not least in the shape of Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Smith along with Liverpool’s Hunt and later Geoff Hurst.

Crawford’s first meeting with Jackie Milburn, who took over from Ramsey as Ipswich boss, simply involved the former Newcastle and England centre-forward saying: “Nice to meet you Ray, you won’t be here long.”

Sure enough, he wasn’t. Despite his past successes, Ipswich cashed in and sold him to Wolves for £55,000 in September 1963.

His debut was somewhat ignominious as Wolves succumbed 6-0 at Liverpool (their ‘keeper Malcolm Finlayson was forced off injured) but Crawford scored twice in his second game as Wanderers won 2-1 at Blackpool (for whom Alan Ball scored).

Crawford went on to finish that first season with 26 League goals to his name in 34 games and was named Player of the Year, although Wolves finished in a disappointing 16th place.

Crawford, who is remembered fondly on the website wolvesheroes.com, had been joined at Molineux by Liverpool’s Melia (“a fine passer of the ball”) but when Stan Cullis, the manager who signed them both, was sacked, neither of them saw eye to eye with his successor, Andy Beattie.

Melia was sold to Southampton and the rift with the new boss saw Crawford switch to Black Country rivals West Brom in February 1965 for a £35,000 fee. He later reflected it was a case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire because he didn’t enjoy a good relationship with Baggies boss Jimmy Hagan.

The striker played only 16 matches for Albion, scoring eight goals, before asking for a transfer in March 1966 and being granted his wish. “I did my best but never had a decent run of games in the first team,” he said. “It never quite worked out but I enjoyed most of my time there and the fans could not have been better.”

It was former club Ipswich, battling at the wrong end of the Second Division, who rescued him and, even though it meant dropping down a division, he was happy to return to Portman Road under Bill McGarry.

Crawford struck up a useful striking partnership with prolific American-born Gerry Baker. By the end of the season, he’d scored eight goals in 13 appearances and Town managed to avoid relegation.

He was part of the Ipswich side that won the Second Division championship the following season, netting 25 goals in 48 appearances, and by then was approaching his 32nd birthday.

The goals continued to flow with Ipswich back amongst the elite, Crawford scoring 21 in 42 games in the 1967-68 season. But more managerial upheaval was around the corner, when McGarry left to become manager of Wolves.

“When McGarry left for Wolves, I had lost my master and mentor, leaving a psychological gap for me that wasn’t going to be filled by anyone else however qualified or good they were as a manager,” said Crawford.

Even before Bobby Robson succeeded McGarry, Crawford started to weigh up his options and he decided he fancied a move to South Africa, where his old Ipswich teammate Roy Bailey had settled.

Although Town chairman John Cobbold initially agreed to give him a free transfer, the Board later changed their mind and decided they wanted some compensation for his services. Instead of going to South Africa, he ended up moving to Charlton Athletic for £12,000.

The move to The Valley turned sour after he refused to join a training camp organised by manager Eddie Firmani because his family were ill and he needed to be at home to look after them. He was sacked after playing just 22 games for the Valiants, during which time he scored seven goals.

Southern League Kettering provided a short-term means of getting back into playing but it was Fourth Division Colchester United who took him on and he repaid their faith by scoring 31 goals in 55 matches under Dick Graham, the most memorable being that pair against Leeds.

Crawford eventually got his move to South Africa in August 1971, joining Durban City, but his family couldn’t settle and they returned to the UK three months’ later.

During his time as youth coach at Portsmouth, he was responsible for signing Steve Foster and, in his autobiography, recalls how a tip-off from Harry Bourne, a local schoolteacher set him on the path of the future Albion and England centre-back.

Foster had been released by Southampton and Crawford went to the family home in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, to invite him to train with Pompey. Foster’s mother was at a works disco at Allders and Crawford went to find her there and had to shout above the sound of the music that Portsmouth were interested in signing her son.

The youngster, 18 at the time, got in touch the next day and, before long, was switched from a centre-forward to a centre-back, after Crawford’s former Ipswich teammate Reg Tyrrell told him: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward, but he’d be a good number 5.”

After he left Portsmouth in 1978, Crawford took over as manager at Hampshire league side Fareham Town and later managed Winchester City before finally retiring from the game in 1984 to become a merchandising rep.

Great start, but Fulham stalwart Stan Brown couldn’t help slide

A WIN ON his debut was as good as it got in Sussex-born tenacious midfielder Stan Brown’s two months as a Brighton player.

Brown, who spent 15 years with Fulham, was one of too many loan signings manager Pat Saward turned to as he dismantled his 1972 promotion-winning side and tried in vain to get Albion to adapt to the old Second Division.

Brown had six seasons as a Fulham regular in the old First Division, two in the Second and two in the Third before his two-month loan with the Albion.

He was following in the footsteps of two of his five brothers, Irvin and Alan, who had both played briefly for Brighton several years earlier.

Stan certainly couldn’t have wished for a better start, in a side with another loanee debutant, Luton’s John Moore (in as a replacement for sold ex-skipper John Napier), for an away match at Huddersfield Town on 14 October 1972.

With only one win (ironically against Fulham) in the opening 12 league games, there was cause for optimism that a corner had been turned when the Albion earned a surprise 2-0 victory in south Yorkshire (Eddie Spearritt and Barry Bridges the scorers).

A Goal magazine picture shows Brown in action for Fulham against Albion’s Eddie Spearritt in 1969-70

“It was as if I had been playing for Albion all my life,” Brown told the matchday programme. “You see, I live at Lewes, the training ground is only four miles from my house and I have known Bert Murray and Barry Bridges for a long time.

“As for the rest of the lads, I felt I knew them too from reading about them in the Evening Argus every night. So, when it actually came to turn out for Albion at Huddersfield I knew all the players by their first names.”

Manager Saward was certainly impressed by the impact of his two new acquisitions. “The new men played a major part in our success,” he said. “It was quite remarkable really the way they slotted into the side as if they had been playing for Albion all season.

“They are, of course, experienced professionals who have been around the game a long time. But even the best professionals sometimes take time to settle into new environments and this is why the performances of these two was so outstanding.”

Injuries to regular midfielders John Templeman and Brian Bromley had provided an opening for Brown and his subsequent involvement helped the side to three successive draws. But the wheels fell off big time in his last five games as Albion lost the lot without scoring a goal.

Brown returned briefly to Craven Cottage before moving on to Colchester United while Albion’s losing streak continued through to the following February!

Although fortunes eventually improved in the final third of the season, the damage had been done and Albion dropped straight back down to the old Third Division.

Born in Lewes on 15 September 1941, Brown played for East Sussex schoolboys and captained Sussex Schools. It was in that representative side that he was spotted by Fulham, who took him on as a 16-year-old apprentice in 1957.

Older brother Irvin, a centre-half, had joined Albion’s staff in 1951 but only played three games in the 1957-58 season before moving on to greater success with Bournemouth; signed by Don Welsh, the manager who’d taken him to Brighton.

The day after Irvin left the Albion in 1958, 6’4” brother Alan signed for the club as a centre-half but was converted into a centre-forward and scored twice in eight first team games before moving on to Exeter City; signed by former Brighton teammate Glen Wilson.

Stan was undoubtedly the most successful of the three although, when he made his Fulham first team debut on 21 January 1961, it was memorable for all the wrong reasons: he was in for the injured Johnny Haynes and Fulham lost 6-1 at home to Sheffield Wednesday.

Johnny Haynes & Stan Brown

Initially a centre-forward, at 5ft 7ins he was on the small side to lead the attack, so switched to midfield – his preferred position – but he also featured in the back four.

It was in the 1962-63 season that he earned a regular place in the side and was known as a “player’s player” for his selflessness and desire to put the team before his own ambitions. He enjoyed playing in midfield alongside Haynes and Alan Mullery but was prepared to slot in anywhere if necessary.

Fulham fan Pete Grinham summed him up as “a high octane team player of the highest calibre without the individual skills of his more illustrious teammates but with the heart of a lion”.

The supporter added: “He was a very effective, tenacious tackler, and his distribution was extremely good. He did the lion’s share of the hard graft allowing others to shine.

“This selfless work for the team was not always appreciated in some fan quarters but if you could ask any player who played with him, they would commend his importance to the team.”

His loyalty to Fulham was rewarded with a testimonial game in late 1970, Fulham losing 2-0 to Chelsea at Craven Cottage watched by a crowd of 11,024.

His total of 393 appearances for Fulham, plus five as a substitute, put him in the Cottagers’ top 20 appearances’ chart. It was only when Mullery returned to the Cottage from Spurs in the summer of 1972 that Brown lost his place.

Grinham was staggered to see Brown appear at the age of 59 in a testimonial for Simon Morgan, another Fulham stalwart, who won promotion with the Albion in 2002.

The game, on 2 August 2000, saw Brown play for a Fulham veterans side against Chelsea veterans, still displaying a remarkable level of fitness.

It was that fitness that had seen his post-Fulham career continue at Colchester for five months (he played 23 matches through to the end of the 1972-73 season), then Wimbledon (1973-74) and Margate.

He continued to play at Sussex County League level for a number of years, turning out for Haywards Heath, Ringmer, Southwick and Burgess Hill, and also playing for the county representative side.

When he died aged 76 on 16 March 2017, the Argus remembered how Brown helped to nurture young talent by coaching junior football teams Lewes Bridge View and Ringmer Rovers, as well as setting up and organising the Lewes Saturday Soccer School.

First signing Goodeve was bad day for Clough and Taylor

BRIAN CLOUGH and Peter Taylor were shrewd operators in the transfer market but their first signing for Brighton was a flop.

Possibly panicked into making changes to a side shipping goals at an alarming rate, their spending of £20,000 on Ken Goodeve was money wasted.

The former Manchester United youth captain managed only six appearances and left the club seven months later.

In the autumn of 1973, fresh with a transfer fund previous manager Pat Saward could only have dreamt of, the former Derby County managerial duo bought Goodeve from Luton Town, where he’d struggled for games after leaving Old Trafford.

Clough and Taylor had been less than impressed with the squad they’d inherited at the Goldstone Ground – particularly after witnessing successive capitulations to Bristol Rovers (8-2) and non-league Walton & Hersham (4-0).

As they sought to shape the side with their own players, the first arrival through the door was Goodeve, who would at least have found one familiar face in the dressing room. He and Peter O’Sullivan played in the same Manchester United youth and reserve sides (see programme line-ups below).

In April 1969, they had reached the FA Youth Cup semi-finals where West Brom beat them 5-3 on aggregate, winning 3-2 at home in the first leg and 2-1 at Old Trafford, when it was reported a crowd of 20,000 were watching.

Goodeve and O’Sullivan played in the same United reserve side as the likes of Jimmy Rimmer in goal, John Fitzpatrick, Nobby Stiles and Don Givens.

In April 1970, Goodeve was one of four fringe United players – Givens, Jimmy Ryan and Peter Woods were the others – who were sold to Luton for a combined total of £35,000.

In two seasons at Kenilworth Road, Goodeve captained the Town reserve side but managed only nine appearances, plus six as a sub for the first team.

He was still only 23 when he joined the Albion. He was handed the no.6 shirt alongside Norman Gall for the away game at Tranmere Rovers on 8 December, along with fellow debutant Peter Grummitt, initially on loan from Sheffield Wednesday, in goal.

But neither new boy could halt the slump, as Albion caved in to a 4-1 defeat. Left-back George Ley didn’t play another game for the club after that game at Prenton Park.

Young Steve Piper was drafted in to play alongside Gall in the following match – a 1-0 defeat at Watford – and Goodeve was handed Eddie Spearritt’s no.4 shirt instead.

He retained his place in the side for the Boxing Day clash with Aldershot (when Burnley youngsters Harry Wilson and Ronnie Welch made their debuts) but this time in place of Ronnie Howell in midfield. Again, Albion lost 1-0.

Clough and Taylor continued to chop and change and Goodeve was dropped to the bench for the next four matches, only getting a brief look-in on the action when going on for Welch in the 2-1 home win over Rochdale on 19 January.

John Vinicombe, Albion writer for the Evening Argus, was not impressed. “The chief disappointment so far has been the failure of Ken Goodeve to recapture his Luton form. Goodeve, who started in the back four with Albion at Tranmere, has subsequently appeared in midfield and so far not made his mark,” he wrote.

Goodeve found himself playing in the reserves with a growing band of former first-teamers and, it wasn’t until 25 March that he got another sniff of first team action.

That was when he stood in at right-back for Paul Fuschillo away to Wrexham (0-1) and five days later at York City (0-3). But that was it. After five starts and one appearance as a sub, he didn’t play for the Albion again.

In the close season, he was offloaded to Watford for half the amount Albion had forked out seven months earlier.

At last, at Vicarage Road, he got plenty of playing time under his former Luton teammate, Mike Keen, who had taken over as Hornets manager.

Indeed, in only the second month of the new season, Goodeve was back at the Goldstone in the Watford side beaten 2-0 courtesy of goals by Ricky Marlowe and Welch.

Goodeve in action for Watford against Albion’s Fred Binney

Born in Manchester on 3 September 1950, Goodeve joined United on schoolboy terms in October 1965 and was signed up as an apprentice the following year. In September 1967, he signed a professional contract at Old Trafford.

By the time he departed Old Trafford in April 1970, he’d not managed to make the step up to the United first team.

At Luton, his teammates included John Moore, who’d previously been on loan with Brighton, Barry Butlin, who played five games on loan at Brighton in 1975, and Don Shanks, who was a Mike Bailey signing in 1981.

After the sparse playing time with Brighton, Goodeve played 69 consecutive games for Watford between 1974 and 1976 but a groin strain ended his professional career.

He was able to pursue a non-league career at Bedford Town for five years and was in their 1980-81 side that won the Southern League Cup.

He subsequently played for a number of non-league outfits in the same region, as detailed in this Watford FC archive and ended up as player-manager of Bedfordshire side Wootton Blue Cross between 1993 and 1997.

According to the Hatters Heritage website, Goodeve continued to play football until he was 47 before becoming customer care manager for Galliard Homes in London, commuting from Wootton every day.

Even fearsome John McGrath couldn’t stop the rot

IN ALBION’S bleak midwinter of 1972-73, manager Pat Saward was desperate to try to reverse a worrying run of defeats.

The handful of additions he’d made to the squad promoted from the old Third Division in May 1972 had not made the sort of improvements in quality he had hoped for.

An injury to Norman Gall’s central defensive partner Ian Goodwin didn’t help matters and Saward chopped and changed the line-up from week to week to try to find the right formula.

Previously frozen out former captain John Napier was restored for a handful of games (before being sold to Bradford City for £10,000). The loan ranger’ (as Saward was dubbed for the number of temporary signings he brought in) then tried Luton Town’s John Moore in Goodwin’s absence.

Youngster Steve Piper was given his debut at home to high-flying Burnley, but Albion lost that 1-0. Then Saward tried left-back George Ley in the middle away to Preston, but that didn’t work either. North End ran out comfortable 4-0 winners with Albion’s rookie ‘keeper Alan Dovey between the sticks after regular no.1 Brian Powney went down with ‘flu.

As December loomed, and with Goodwin still a couple of weeks away from full fitness after a cartilage operation, Saward turned to John McGrath, a no-nonsense, rugged centre-half who had played close on 200 games for Southampton over five years.

“With his rolled-up sleeves, shorts hitched high to emphasise implausibly bulging thigh-muscles, an old-fashioned haircut and a body dripping with baby oil, ‘Big Jake’ cut an imposing figure,” to quote the immensely readable saintsplayers.co.uk.

In Ivan Ponting’s obituary in the Independent following McGrath’s death at 60 on Christmas Day 1998, he reckoned his “lurid public persona was something between Desperate Dan and Attila the Hun”.

Although McGrath had begun the 1972-73 season in the Saints side, the emerging Paul Bennett had taken his place, so a temporary switch to the Albion offered a return to first team football.

Albion had conceded eight goals in three straight defeats and hadn’t registered a goal of their own, so, even though the imposing centre-half was approaching the end of a playing career that had begun with Bury in 1955, it was hoped his know-how defending against some of the best strikers in the country might add steel in the heart of the defence, and stem the flow of goals.

In short, it didn’t work. McGrath played in three matches and all three ended in defeats, with another eight goals conceded.

In his first match (above left), Middlesbrough won 2-0 at the Goldstone. At least the deficit was slimmer in his second game: a 1-0 loss away to George Petchey’s Orient in which Lewes-born midfielder Stan Brown played the last of nine games on loan from Fulham.

McGrath’s third match saw Albion succumb to a thrashing at Carlisle United. By then, Brighton had lost five in a row and still hadn’t managed to score a single goal. Stalwart Norman Gall was dropped to substitute to allow the returning Goodwin to line up alongside McGrath, and Bert Murray led the side out resplendent in the second strip of red and black striped shirts and black shorts.

Carlisle hadn’t read the script, though, and promptly went 5-0 up. To compound Albion’s agony, with 20 minutes still to play, goalkeeper Powney was carried off concussed and with a broken nose.

In those days before substitute goalkeepers, Murray (who’d swapped to right-back that day with Graham Howell moving into his midfield berth) took over the gloves. Miraculously, Albion won a penalty and because usual spot kick taker Murray was between the sticks, utility man Eddie Spearritt took responsibility having relinquished the job after a crucial miss in a game in 1970.

Thankfully, he buried it, finally to make a much-awaited addition to that season’s ‘goals for’ column.

No more was seen of McGrath, however. Gall was restored to the no.5 shirt and was variously partnered by Goodwin, Piper and, towards the end of the season, Spearritt.

After another heavy defeat, 4-0 at Sunderland, which had seen another rare appearance by Dovey in goal, he was transfer-listed along with Gall and Bertie Lutton, as Saward pointed the finger. Lutton got a surprise move to West Ham but Gall stayed put and Dovey was released at the end of the season without playing another game.

The run of defeats eventually extended to a total of 13 and was only alleviated after a big shake-up for the home game versus Luton Town on 10 February.

Powney, who’d conceded five at Fulham in the previous game, was replaced by Aston Villa goalkeeper Tommy Hughes on loan; out went experienced striker Barry Bridges in favour of rookie Pat Hilton and exciting teenage winger Tony Towner made his debut. Albion won 2-0 with both goals from Ken Beamish, and the monkey was finally off their backs.

Although the following two games (away to Bristol City and Hull) were lost, results did pick up, but it was all too little too late and Albion exited the division only 12 months after their promotion.

Born in Manchester on 23 August 1938, McGrath sought unsuccessfully to get into the game as an amateur with Bolton Wanderers but at 17 he joined Bury who were in the old Division Two at the time.

Although they were subsequently relegated, McGrath was part of the 1961 side that went on to win the Third Division Championship. By the time they lifted the trophy, though, he had moved on to Newcastle United for a fee of £24,000, with Bob Stokoe (later renowned for steering Second Division Sunderland to a famous FA Cup win over Leeds United in 1973) a makeweight in the transfer.

It was a busy time for the young defender. On 15 March 1961, he made his one and only England Under-23 appearance against West Germany at White Hart Lane, Tottenham, playing alongside future World Cup winners George Cohen at right-back and the imperious Bobby Moore.

Also in the young England side for that 4-1 win was Terry Paine, who would later become a teammate at Southampton.

Newcastle had hoped the defender would prevent their relegation from the top flight, but it didn’t happen as they went down having conceded 109 goals; their worst ever goals against tally.

Joe Harvey eventually succeeded Charlie Mitten as manager as Newcastle adapted to life back in the Second Division, and McGrath (below left and, in team picture, back row, far left) played 16 matches in a side in which full-back George Dalton (below, back row, far right) had started to emerge.

Future Brighton captain Dave Turner was one of the successful FA Youth Cup-winning side Harvey inherited, but his first team outings were rare and he was sold to the Albion in December 1963.

Meanwhile, McGrath really established himself, featuring in 41 games in 1963-64 (Dalton played in 40) as Newcastle finished in a respectable eighth place.

The 1964-65 season saw McGrath ever-present as Toon were promoted back to the First Division, pipping Northampton Town to the Second Division championship title by one point. McGrath – “a monster of a centre-half, who was as tough as he was effective” was “the cornerstone” of the promotion side, according to newcastleunited-mad.co.uk.

McGrath retained his place in Toon’s first season back amongst the elite but the arrival of John McNamee and the emergence of Bobby Moncur started to restrict his involvement.

That pairing became Harvey’s first choice, and young Graham Winstanley was in reserve too, so, after playing only 11 games in the first half of the 1967-68 season, McGrath, by then 29, was sold to Southampton for £30,000. He’d played 181 games for United.

In Ted Bates’ Saints side, McGrath was a rock at the back alongside Jimmy Gabriel, although, as saintsplayers.co.uk records, he wasn’t too popular with opposing managers: Liverpool’s Bill Shankly accusing Southampton of playing “alehouse football”.

He went on to make 194 appearances (plus one as a sub) for Saints, before becoming youth coach at the club, part of the first team coaching staff when Southampton won the FA Cup in 1976, and then reserve team manager.

Not content with a backroom role, McGrath took the plunge into management and made his mark with two clubs in particular: managing Port Vale on 203 occasions and Preston North End in 205 matches.

According to Rob Fielding he became a cult hero at Vale Park with his unorthodox ways, once putting FIFTEEN players on the transfer list…which resulted in a six-match unbeaten run!

Winger Mark Chamberlain, who went on to play for Stoke and England, and later Brighton, was one of the young players McGrath introduced.

Long-serving Vale defender Phil Sproson, who was originally signed by former Albion midfielder Bobby Smith, rose to prominence under McGrath and said: “I’ll always be grateful because he taught me how to play centre-half.”

Fielding reckoned McGrath’s finest hour was steering Vale to promotion from the old Fourth Division in 1982-1983, even though by then he had sold Chamberlain to Stoke.

Against a backdrop of player unrest and what were perceived to be ill-judged moves in the transfer market, McGrath was sacked in December 1983 and replaced by his assistant, John Rudge.

He wasn’t out of work for long, though, and took the reins at basement side Chester City where he was in charge for just under a year. Most notably in that time, he gave future Arsenal and England defender Lee Dixon his first taste of regular football.

While success eluded him at Chester, his arrival at Preston in 1986 proved fruitful, North End striker Gary Brazil recalling: “It needed a catalyst and it needed a change and very fortunately for the club and for the players, John McGrath came walking through the door who was like a Tasmanian devil. He came in and the world changed really, really quickly for the better.”

McGrath led Preston to promotion from the bottom tier in 1987 with a squad built around Sam Allardyce and veteran Frank Worthington.

Manager McGrath and Frank Worthington celebrate promotion

“Frank Worthington was a delight to have around and set a real high standard for a lot of us in terms of how we train,” said Brazil. “He just stunned me how he was always first out training.”

The turnround McGrath oversaw, with Deepdale crowds rising from below 3,000 to more than 16,000, rejuvenated the club and the city.

Brazil reminisced: “It was the best year of my football life that year that we got promoted. It wasn’t just an experience playing but an experience of a group of players and how well they could bond and John was integral to that. He was a very, very clever man.”

Indeed McGrath was viewed as having saved North End from the ignominy of losing their league status, the club having had to apply for re-election the season before he arrived at Deepdale.

Edward Skingsley’s book, Back From The Brink, features a black and white photograph of McGrath on its cover and tells the story of North End’s transformation under his direction.

Describing his appointment as “a masterstroke” he reckoned the club owed him a massive debt for masterminding their resurgence and subsequent stability.

“Without him, it is debatable whether Preston North End would even exist today, never mind play in the latest fantastic incarnation of Deepdale,” said Skingsley. “Thank goodness he caught Preston North End before it died.”

McGrath left Preston in February 1990 and had one last stab at management, this time with Halifax Town. He succeeded Saints’ FA Cup winner Jim McCalliog and was in charge at The Shay for 14 months but left in December 1992. Five months later they lost their league status, finishing bottom of pile.

The silver-tongued McGrath was subsequently a popular choice on the after-dinner speaking circuit and a pundit on local radio in Lancashire but died suddenly on Christmas Day 1998.

Cobblers hero Mike Everitt started out with the Gunners

CONTACTS made as a youngster at Arsenal stood versatile Mike Everitt in good stead for the rest of his career.

He went on to play under his former Gunners teammate Dave Bowen at Northampton Town as part of one of football’s most remarkable stories and earned a place in the Cobblers’ ‘team of the century’.

Later, he joined a small enclave of former Arsenal players at Brighton. Everitt swapped Devon for Sussex in March 1968 when he moved from Plymouth Argyle for a £2,500 fee.

The man who signed him, Archie Macaulay, was a former Arsenal man himself who’d already brought three other ex-Gunners to Hove in goalkeeper Tony Burns, Irish international full-back Jimmy Magill and winger Brian Tawse.

Everitt started the new season as first choice left-back in Macaulay’s side and an uninterrupted 14-game run in the team as autumn turned to winter straddled Macaulay’s departure and the arrival of new boss Freddie Goodwin.

Everitt slotted home a penalty as Albion drew 1-1 away to Bristol Rovers on 18 January 1969 but the 3-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra the following Saturday was his last outing of the season.

Everitt, Howard Wilkinson and Dave Turner from this Albion line-up all went on to become coaches

He picked up an injury and, with Goodwin having signed his former Leeds teammate Barrie Wright from New York Generals, local lad John Templeman able to fill either full-back slot, not to mention the addition of Eddie Spearritt from Ipswich Town, Everitt couldn’t win back his place in the starting line-up.

Competition for a starting place only intensified in the summer of 1969 when Goodwin’s former Leeds teammate, Willie Bell, arrived from Leicester and was installed as the regular choice at left-back, while Stewart Henderson cemented the right-back slot to the extent he was named Player of the Season.

While Everitt deputised for Bell on a couple of occasions and filled Bobby Smith’s midfield spot for four matches, his only other involvement was as sub on a handful of occasions. He was a non-playing sub in the final game of the season (a 2-1 home defeat to Mansfield Town) and then left the club during the close season.

Born in Clacton on 16 January 1941, Everitt represented Essex Schoolboys and London Schoolboys before being taken on as an apprentice by Arsenal in 1956. He turned professional in February 1958 and, thanks to the excellent records of thearsenalhistory.com, we know that he first played in the first team in the Harry Bamford Memorial match at Eastville against a Bristol XI on 8 May 1959.

He then went on Arsenal’s end-of-season tour to Italy and Switzerland. He was an unused sub for friendlies against Juventus and Fiorentina but came on as a substitute in a 4-1 win over Lugano of Switzerland on 24 May 1959.

Everitt (circled back row) lines up for Arsenal – with (left to right trio in centre of front row), David Herd, Tommy Docherty and Jimmy Bloomfield

It wasn’t until Easter 1960 that he made his competitive first team breakthrough, but when he did it was a baptism of fire in George Swindin’s side.

He made his first team debut in front of 37,873 fans packed into Highbury on Good Friday (15 April 1960) as the Gunners beat a Johnny Haynes-led Fulham side 2-0.

Modern day players might not be able to comprehend it but Everitt also played the following day when Arsenal travelled to Birmingham City, and lost 3-0. Two days later, away to Fulham this time, Everitt was again in the starting line-up as Arsenal lost 3-0.

He kept his place for the following Saturday’s match – at home to Manchester United – and in front of 41,057 he was part of the side that beat United 5-2. Future Albion teammate Alex Dawson led the line for a United team that included Bobby Charlton and Johnny Giles.

That was the penultimate game of the season and Everitt retained his place for the final game, which ended in a 1-0 defeat to West Brom at The Hawthorns.

The 1960-61 season got off to a good start for him too as he played in the opening four matches and, into the bargain, scored Arsenal’s only goal as they beat Preston North End at home on 23 August. Unfortunately for him, a tigerish Scot called Tommy Docherty edged him out of the first team picture and in February 1961 he moved to Fourth Division Northampton Town (for a fee of £4,000) who were managed by the aforementioned Bowen.

His stay with the Cobblers spanned one of the most remarkable stories in football history as they were promoted season on season from the Fourth to the First….and then relegated all the way back down again (although Everitt had left for pastures new before they reached the basement again).

What he was part of, though, was achieving three promotions in five years. Glenn Billingham recalled that heady era in a 2017 article for thesefootballtimes.co.

In 1961-62, Everitt was a regular at wing-half and scored five goals in 41 appearances. He switched to left-back the following season and played 30 matches as Town went up as champions.

A season of consolidation in 1963-64 saw Town finish 11th in Division Two, when Everitt played 45 matches. He played in 43 games in the 1964-65 season which culminated in the historic promotion to the top-flight courtesy of finishing in runners up spot, a point behind champions Newcastle United.

Necessary investment in improving the squad was slow to materialise and Bowen initially had to rely on the same squad of players who’d got them up. Everitt was one of only five Town players who had previously played at that level.

A 5-2 defeat away to Everton in the opening fixture was perhaps a portent of what was to follow for the rest of the season. They didn’t record a win until their 14th game, at home to West Ham (when they won 2-1), but the underdogs performed heroics in their first two home matches. It must have been quite an occasion when in only the second game of the season Everitt lined up in the Northampton side to face Arsenal.

The game finished 1-1, although Everitt had to be replaced at half-time. However, he also played in the return fixture at Highbury which also finished in a 1-1 draw.

Town also drew 1-1 at home to Manchester United, stifling the attacking threat of Best, Law and Charlton, although United exacted revenge at Old Trafford where they dished out a 6-2 thrashing. Charlton got a hat-trick, Law scored a couple and John Connelly was also on the scoresheet.

Everitt made 34 appearances (plus one as sub) that season and scored two goals, one in a rare win, in the penultimate game, when the Cobblers beat Sunderland 2-1 (the Wearsiders scorer was Neil Martin, who later played for the Albion). Graham Carr (father of comedian Alan Carr) played 30 times for the Cobblers that season.

Back in the second tier, Everitt featured in 17 games but as Town plummeted straight through the division, he moved on to Plymouth Argyle in March 1967, where his former Arsenal teammate Jimmy Bloomfield had moved to from West Ham. Everitt was still only 26 when he made his debut in a 1-0 home defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers. After 31 games for Argyle, he made the move to Brighton.

Everitt had already gained his preliminary coaching badge when still a player and after leaving Brighton in 1970 he initially moved to Plymouth City as player-manager. Within months, he seized the opportunity to move up a level when he landed the player-manager role at then Southern League Wimbledon.

In a January 2010 interview in The Guardian, it was revealed the two candidates he beat to land the position were David Pleat, who went on to manage Luton, Leicester and Spurs, and his former Albion teammate Howard Wilkinson, who won the league title with Leeds United.

Pleat recalled: “The director, Stanley Reed, went for Mike and Howard ended up at Boston United while I was eventually appointed by Nuneaton Borough in the Southern League.”

A few eyebrows were raised in 1973 when Everitt was appointed manager of newly-relegated Brentford just seven days before the start of the 1973-74 season, taking over from Frank Blunstone, who’d left to become youth team manager at Manchester United.

Greville Waterman, on a Bees fan blog, said Everitt polarised opinion, declaring: “He was undoubtedly a cheap option and received little support from the directors (now where have we heard that before) and did his best with a wafer thin squad.”

A classic example saw defender Stewart Houston sold to Manchester United for a club record £55,000 in December 1973, but the money wasn’t immediately reinvested in the squad.

Nevertheless, Waterman pointed out: “His approach did not go down well with some of his players and he brought in a number of tough bruisers. Under his management, Brentford declined rapidly, fell to the bottom of the Football League and barely escaped the need to apply for re-election.”

Legendary Brentford defender Alan Nelmes was particularly disparaging about Everitt. “He didn’t have the technical expertise that Frank had and you felt as if the club wasn’t going anywhere with him. Frank was very advanced in his thinking, ahead of his time, really, and it was a step backwards to have Mike.”

Everitt finally got some backing from the boardroom on transfer deadline day. Experienced forward Dave Simmons was brought in from Cambridge United and former Everton and Southampton defender Jimmy Gabriel from Bournemouth and a 10-match unbeaten run from mid-February to early April did enough to assure the Bees avoided bottom spot even though their finishing position of 19th was their lowest position for nearly 50 years. Crowds were hovering around only 5,000 too.

It didn’t get much better the following season and in spite of getting a vote of confidence in November 1974 from new chairman Dan Tana, Everitt only lasted a few more weeks in the hotseat.

Ironically, after a poor start to the campaign, he’d begun to turn results round and lifted the side to a mid-table position on the back of four wins and a draw in a seven-game spell between late November to mid-January, but he was sacked on 16 January and replaced with John Docherty, who’d only packed up playing for the Bees the previous summer.

Everitt’s next role came as a coach (pictured above) under his old Arsenal pal Bloomfield at Leicester City, and former winger Len Glover came up with an amusing reminiscence on lcfc.com.

Glover recalled when he was 17 playing against Everitt for Charlton Athletic against Northampton.

“He had massive thighs, and had his sleeves rolled up. In the first five minutes he had kicked me when the ball was nowhere near, and now he was our coach!

“He was just the same when he was our coach. When he started, he gathered us round at the training ground. His opening gambit was, ‘You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but we will soon change that!’

“Then he noticed Frank Worthington who was not with the group but was with the apprentices who were crossing the ball for him to volley like they did every morning. He went, ‘Oi, get over here!’ Frank went, ‘Yeah, in a minute’. Instead of saying, ‘Over here, now!’ Everitt just went, ‘Well, hurry up then’.

“Before Everitt left we went to Leeds and we got stuffed 3-0. After the game Birch (Alan Birchenall) was doing his hair with his hair dryer. Win or lose he would always do his hair. Mike Everitt came in and said, ‘It’s a pity you’re not as good with the ball as you are with that hair dryer!’ Birch replied, ‘If I was as good with the ball as I am with the hair dryer, I wouldn’t be playing for Leicester!’”

After leaving Leicester, Everitt managed Kuwaiti side Al-Shabab when another former Arsenal teammate, George Armstrong, was manager of the Kuwaiti national side (Armstrong’s daughter, Jill, posted a picture of them in Kuwait on Twitter in 2019).

Jill Armstrong posted this picture on Twitter of her with dad George and Everitt in Kuwait

After Kuwait, Everitt managed Cairo-based Egyptian teams Al Mokawloon and Al Ahly, the club Percy Tau joined in the summer of 2021.

According to Wikipedia, Everitt had particular success at Al Mokawloon, winning the 1982-83 Egyptian Premier League title and two African Cup Winners Cups.

• Pictures from matchday programmes and online sources.

Burnley graduate Ronnie Welch briefly captained the Albion

welch and wilsonTHE FOOTBALLING fortunes of two graduates from Burnley’s famous talent academy of the 1970s took quite different paths after the legendary Brian Clough signed them for Brighton.

While left-back Harry Wilson stayed for four years and enjoyed promotion success under Alan Mullery, midfielder Ronnie Welch left the club less than a year after he’d joined, ‘used’ (together with fellow midfielder Billy McEwan) as a makeweight in the transfer of Ken Tiler to the Albion.

The early signs following Welch’s arrival on the south coast had been positive. Although he and Wilson’s debuts at home to Aldershot on Boxing Day 1973 ended in a 1-0 defeat, results gradually picked up and, at the tender age of 21, Welch even found himself captaining the Albion in the absence of skipper Norman Gall.

Clough had turned to them as he tried to sort out a side who’d experienced a series of heavy defeats (the now-infamous 8-2 home loss to Bristol Rovers; a 4-0 reverse v non-league Walton & Hersham in the FA Cup, and a 4-1 loss away to Tranmere Rovers).

The tale of how Clough turned up at Turf Moor to sign them one lunchtime, only to find the place deserted apart from groundsman Roy Oldfield, has been recounted in said groundsman’s memoirs.

A fee of £70,000 for virtually untried youngsters was quite a lot of money in those days.

Midfielder Welch took over the no.4 shirt previously worn by Eddie Spearritt, who’d started the season as the club captain, and Wilson replaced George Ley, a big-money signing from Portsmouth the season before.

wilson and R WelchWelch stood just 5’6½” tall and weighed 10st 7lb, but Evening Argus football writer John Vinicombe was suitably impressed. His match report of the 1-0 home defeat to Aldershot was unearthed by thegoldstonewrap.com, and we learned: “After a subdued first-half, Welch had a storming second half against the Shots, impressing with his energy.”

Vinicombe reckoned Welch wasn’t as extrovert as Wilson “but is no less involved in midfield and has a fine turn of speed. He made one mistake through trying to play the ball instead of hoofing it away, but this can only be described as a ‘good’ fault.”

For a while, the Albion midfield featured the two Ronnies — Welch and Ronnie Howell became Clough’s preferred pairing — although Spearritt replaced the former Swindon player for a short spell, and competition for those spots hotted up at the end of February with the arrival of fiery Scot McEwan from Blackpool.

In his 10th match in Albion’s colours, Welch scored his first goal as Brighton beat Blackburn Rovers 3-0 in front of a 12,102 Goldstone crowd on 23 February 1974 (Barry Bridges scored twice), and he was on the scoresheet again in the 3 April 1974 midweek evening home game v Cambridge United, as the visitors were dispatched 4-1 (Bridges, McEwan and Howell the other scorers).

Clough was happy to give Welch the responsibility of captaining the side in Gall’s absence, although thegoldstonewrap.com reported: “Unfortunately, the burden of being skipper at such a young age affected his form for the side.”

Nevertheless, after Clough quit the Albion in July 1974, leaving his old sidekick in sole charge, Welch was in the starting line-up for the new season.

Ronnie W 74 pre-seasonAlbion got off to a cracking start with a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, and Welch played in the opening eight matches. But results didn’t go Taylor’s way and he shook up the midfield by introducing the experienced Ernie Machin, the former Coventry City captain, and also brought in Coventry’s Wilf Smith on loan.

Welch filled in at right-back for three matches and his last involvement in an Albion shirt was as a non-playing substitute away to Gillingham on 26 October.

Ever one for wheeler-dealing, Taylor had his eye on right-back Tiler at Chesterfield, but he had to exchange Welch and McEwan to land his man.

Welch had been born in Chesterfield on 26 September 1952, so it no doubt suited him down to the ground to move back home.

RW ChesterfieldHe was at Chesterfield for three years during the managerial tenure of the former Sheffield United legend Joe Shaw, but only played 24 games.

Welch at BostonIn the 1978-79 season he popped up at non-league Boston United where he played 39 matches plus four as a sub and scored four times.

It must have all seemed a long way from the heady days when he graduated from apprentice through to the Burnley first team. He featured three times for the England Youth team in February and March 1969 and Burnley awarded him a professional contract in September that year.

At the time, Burnley had a reputation for bringing through a succession of talented young players.

RW BurnleyHis breakthrough came on 30 January 1971, in a home 1-1 draw against Newcastle United, but it was to be his only appearance in the first team. There were a number of established midfield players ahead of him: the likes of Doug Collins, Mick Docherty and Martin Dobson, and later Geoff Nulty and Billy Ingham

While Welch may have ‘disappeared’ in a footballing sense, when in June 2019 a picture of him was posted by someone on a Chesterfield FC history Facebook page – the excellent Sky is Blue – a flurry of followers came forward to identify him, including his daughter and sister! It was said he now lives in the New Whittington area of Chesterfield.

Boylers’ service appreciated both sides of the Atlantic

MIDFIELD enforcer John Boyle was born on Christmas Day 1946 and went on to play more than 250 games for Chelsea.

Towards the end of his career, he spent two months on loan at Brighton trying to bolster the Albion’s ailing midfield in the dying days of Pat Saward’s spell as manager.

Indeed, Boyle was in that unenviable position of being at the club when the manager who brought him in was turfed out, and the man who replaced him (in this case none other than Brian Clough) swiftly dispensed with his services and sent him back to Chelsea.

By then, Boyle’s time at Chelsea was at an end and, after his 10-game Goldstone spell was also over, he went the shorter distance across London to play for Orient, before ending his playing days in America with Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Born in Motherwell, Boyle went to the same Our Lady’s High Secondary school that spawned Celtic greats Billy McNeill and Bobby Murdoch and, just around the time he turned 15, his stepbrother, who lived in Battersea, organised through a contact they had with then boss Tommy Docherty for him to go down to London for a trial.

He did enough to impress and 10 days later Chelsea sent him a letter inviting him to join their youth team, together with the train ticket from Motherwell to London.

“When I got off the train, Tommy Doc was waiting for me to take me to my digs,” Boyle told chelseafc.com in a recent interview. “I stayed in the digs that Bobby Tambling and Barry Bridges had stayed in before.”

Boyle – known to all as ‘Boylers’ – made his debut in the 1965 League Cup semi-final against Aston Villa and, at 18, it couldn’t have been much more memorable.

“I played on Monday in a Scottish youth trial and Wednesday I was playing against Aston Villa in the semi-final of the League Cup,” Boyle recounted. “After 20 odd minutes, I tackled this guy and he got injured and carried off. The crowd then booed me, he limped back on and then the crowd booed me more!

“It went to 2-0, to 2-2 and then with about 10 minutes to go I got the ball 30 yards out, rolled it forward and went crack and it went into the top corner of the net. I remember Terry Venables ran up to me and said ‘John, I am so pleased for you,’ and that was my first game. To score the winning goal in your first game was Roy of the Rovers stuff.”

He went on to become Chelsea’s youngest ever cup finalist when he was in the team that won the trophy. In those days, it was played over two legs, and, after beating Leicester City 3-2 in the home game, they drew the away leg 0-0. His teammates in the second leg were Bert Murray and the aforementioned Bridges, who he would go on to play alongside at Brighton in 1973.

The Goldstone Ground was familiar territory to him. On 18 February 1967, he was famously sent off for the visitors in a FA Cup 4th round tie when Albion held their more illustrious opponents to a 1-1 draw in front of a packed house. Chelsea went on to win the replay 4-0 and that year went all the way to the final where Boyle was part of the side who lost 2-1 to Spurs. In another fiery FA Cup tie between Brighton and Chelsea, in January 1972, Boyle was Chelsea’s substitute as they won 2-0 in a game which ended 10 a side, George Ley and Ron Harris being sent off.

john boyle chels blueWhen Docherty moved on from Stamford Bridge, and Dave Sexton took over as manager, Boyle’s involvement in the side was more sporadic, as he told fan Ian Morris on his Rowdies blog.

“Dave appreciated my energy and willingness, but I don’t think he really fancied me as a player. Basically, I became an odd-job man, filling in here and there, and in football it doesn’t help to get that reputation,” he said.

Although he wasn’t in the squad that beat Leeds in the 1970 FA Cup Final, he was back in the side when Chelsea beat Real Madrid over two legs in May 1971 to win the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

After Brighton’s disastrous 1972-73 season in the second tier – the general consensus is that they’d not properly been prepared for promotion and didn’t invest sufficiently in the team to have a fighting chance of staying up – the side continued to be in the doldrums as they adjusted to life back in the old Third Division.

Manager Saward was struggling to come up with the right formula and, having transferred former captain Brian Bromley to Reading, sought to boost his midfield with the experienced Boyle, who was surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge.

With the paperwork signed on 20 September, Boyle was handed the no.8 shirt and made his debut alongside Ronnie Howell in a 0-0 draw away to Grimsby Town.

He made his home debut the following Saturday, but the Albion went down 1-0. Three days later, this time partnering Eddie Spearritt in the middle, Boyle helped Albion to a 1-0 win at Oldham Athletic.

After a 3-1 defeat away to Blackburn Rovers, at home to Halifax Town Boyle had a new midfield partner in John Templeman. But again they lost by a single goal.

With Howell back alongside him for the home game v Shrewsbury Town, Albion prevailed 2-0 in what turned out to be Saward’s last game in charge. Perhaps by way of another interesting historical note, Boyle was subbed off to be replaced by Dave Busby, who became the first black player to play for the Albion.

Caretaker boss Glen Wilson retained Boyle in midfield for the midweek 4-0 hammering of Southport and he was also in the line-up for Clough’s first game in charge, a 0-0 home draw against York City on 3 November. But the 2-2 draw away to Huddersfield Town on 10 November was his last game for the Albion.

As someone who’d gained something of a reputation as enjoying the social side of things at Chelsea, particularly with the likes of Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke and Alan Birchenall, it maybe doesn’t come as too big a surprise to learn that Clough advised him “always buy two halves instead of a pint, or people will think you’re a drinker”.

Boyle was still only 28 when he tried his hand in Florida in February 1975, being appointed Tampa Bay Rowdies captain, and leading them to victory in the Super Bowl against Portland Timbers in August that year.

His former Chelsea teammate Derek Smethurst scored 18 goals in that inaugural season, playing up front alongside ex-West Ham striker Clyde Best, while former Crystal Palace ‘keeper Paul Hammond was in goal.

A newspaper article about Boyle’s contribution resides on tampapix.com, a hugely entertaining site featuring loads of players of yesteryear who turned out for the Rowdies.

It somewhat flamboyantly says: “‘Captain Rowdie’ John Boyle was a barrel-chested midfielder with legs as white as snow and hair as thin as a wheat crop during a summer drought.  He became the role model for the club, as much because of his leadership as well as the fact that he knocked opponents ‘grass-over-tea kettle’ when they came his way.”

He retired from playing in November the same year but, two years later, he stepped in as Rowdies coach when Eddie Firmani quit. However, he had also gone into the pub business in the UK and ultimately the need to be behind the bar at Simon the Tanner in Bermondsey, with his wife Madeline, meant he had to turn his back on the sunshine state and return to London.

Unable to resist the lure of the States once more, Boyle played five matches for indoor league side Phoenix Inferno in the 1980-81 season.

In that wide-ranging interview Boyle gave to chelseafc.com earlier this year, he said: “I wouldn’t change a thing in my life, I am just grateful for what I have done. I have been blessed and one of the great things about it is 50 years later you can still talk about it! I was a lucky young man to have played when I did and meet the people I did.”

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 HW action v MillwallEver-present Wilson in action against Millwall at The Den

Suited for England!

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

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

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

Young apprentice Wilson with experienced pros John Angus and Colin Waldron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 HW colour laugh w WardWilson in an Albion line-up alongside Peter Ward

Wilson pictured in 2010