I WAS SAD to learn of the recent death of George Ley, a classy left-back who brought higher level experience to newly-promoted Brighton in September 1972.
Ley, who died in a Tiverton, Devon, nursing home aged 80 on 22 April 2026, was a £28,000 signing from Portsmouth not long after Pat Saward had steered the club to promotion to the old Division Two.
It was a level Ley was more than comfortable with having been a regular for Pompey in that division for over five years. At the Albion, he linked up again with his old teammate Brian Bromley who he described as “one of my best mates”.
Interviewed several years later, Ley recalled: “He used to play just in front of me in midfield when I was at full back, that was one of the reasons why I left – to go and play with Brom again in that position.”
History has since shown that manager Pat Saward acted too hastily in breaking up the side that had won promotion from the Third Division four months earlier.
But Ley certainly added extra quality and he became a fixture on the left side of Albion’s defence throughout the remainder of Saward’s tenure, which sadly included relegation back to the third tier.
Fourteen months after signing, when Brian Clough and Peter Taylor took over the reins at Brighton, it was quite a different story for a player once voted the best-looking footballer in the country!
Ley was unceremoniously dumped after Albion had suffered three humiliating defeats in a row (4-0 v non-league Walton & Hersham in the FA Cup, 8-2 at home to Bristol Rovers and 4-1 at Tranmere Rovers) – and he never played for the club again.
Clough brought in Burnley youngster Harry Wilson and he immediately took over Ley’s left-back spot, a position he held for the next three years.
Ley moved on to Gillingham for a couple of seasons before heading to the States where he eventually spent the majority of the rest of his life.
Born Oliver Albert George Ley in Exminster, Devon, on 7 April 1946, he went to Dawlish Secondary school and fellow pupil David Hill remembered fondly: “The games master Peter Gale arranged a football tour to Southampton. There was a competition for keepy-uppies with a football, George had to be stopped as he was doing too many!”
Teenage Ley had a three-month trial at Arsenal but didn’t earn a contract, instead joining Athenian League side Hitchin Town. At 17, he moved back to Devon to sign for Exeter City and made his first team debut aged 19 as a left-winger on 11 September 1963 in a 1-0 home win over Carlisle United.
After a run of nine games up until the middle of October, he slipped out of contention and made just five more league appearances as the Grecians won promotion from the old Division 4 in fourth spot. Ley made 18 appearances at the higher level the following season, when City finished 17th.
The excellent Grecian Archive notes that Ley cemented his place in the team after manager Ellis Stuttard, a full-back himself during his playing days, switched Ley to the left-back spot from October 1965 onwards. It records that Swansea showed an interest in him in June 1966 and at the start of the 1966-67 he asked for a transfer.
However, he stayed at the club and made 33 starts in the 1966-67 campaign, before being transferred to Portsmouth in May 1967 for a fee of £8,000.
He reportedly received a £1,000 signing-on fee and his weekly wage went up from £20 to £30. He made his Pompey debut in the final match of the 1966-67 campaign at Huddersfield.
“This was a special talent swimming in a sea of mediocrity, a player who stood out a mile and was always destined to go on and sample greater things,” wrote columnist Vince Coulter in the south west Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Independent.
At Portsmouth, Ley made 204 appearances in five years and became something of a fans’ favourite. Readers of the Football League Review even voted him the best-looking player in the country – just ahead of George Best.
As an indication of his enduring popularity among the Pompey faithful, in March 2015 he was inducted into Portsmouth’s Hall of Fame.
In his first full season, 1967-68, Pompey were top of the league at Christmas and looked on course for promotion to Division 1. But they won just three of their final 13 games and fell away to fifth.
There was a highlight in the FA Cup, though, when in February 1968 Pompey beat top-flight Fulham 1-0 in a fourth-round replay. A crowd of 44,050 packed into Fratton Park to see the home side overcome a team that included the likes of Johnny Haynes and a young Allan Clarke.
Portsmouth’s goal was scored by Mike Trebilcock, who’d scored twice for Everton in the 1965 FA Cup Final.
Another titanic FA Cup fourth round encounter at Fratton Park came in 1971 when Double-chasing Arsenal were held 1-1, Trebilcock grabbing a last-gasp leveller.
In the replay at Highbury, with Pompey trailing 2-1, Ley unleashed a 30-yard shot which rocketed into the top corner to level it up. However, Arsenal won it 3-2, a Peter Storey penalty clinching it for the home side, who did indeed go on to win the Double.
There was an amusing anecdote from that match which saw tempers flare in a tense finish and the aforementioned Bromley get sent off. Apparently, with only two minutes of the game to go, Ley hit Gunners full back Pat Rice. Bromley tried to intervene to hold his pal back – and ended up getting the marching orders instead!
There must have been something about the competition that fired Ley up because in a stormy third round FA Cup tie between Brighton and Chelsea at the Goldstone Ground in January 1973, he was sent off in the 85th minute for bringing down Tommy Baldwin from behind and then getting involved in a punch-up with England international Peter Osgood.
There was no defence from manager Saward either, who said: “He will get no sympathy from me. Any of my players who kicks opponents will have to deal with me. The club will not condone it. I will not tolerate it. To do a thing like that is disgraceful.”
On leaving Brighton, Ley played 10 matches for Dallas Tornado in the North American Soccer League before joining Gillingham under Len Ashurst in August 1974.
He made his debut against Aldershot the following month and in two seasons with the club made 89 appearances.
According to contributor Richard Fallaize in a ‘Where are they now?’ article, Ley “got roasted by a very young Steve Coppell who was playing for Tranmere Rovers at Gillingham”.
After leaving Priestfield he returned to the States and Tornado where in five years he made 124 appearances, twice being named in the North American Soccer League’s All-Star team.
There’s a picture (below right) of him in action against the great Pele, who was playing for New York Cosmos, and he shared the experience in a letter to Exeter City-100 Club member John Brand.
“I played against Pele four times. In two of the games I had the job of marking hime in a man-to-man role. I saw a lot of his skills from a very close position and it was a great education.
“He was a complete player with great balance, wonderful touch, smooth movement and total awareness. He was always two or three moved ahead of the game. Pele looked at the game of football as an art.
“Pele did play a wall pass against my shins in one of the games. We looked at each other and share a smile. These games were a great experience for a boy from Exminster.”
Between 1979 and 1982, Ley played for indoor Soccer League side Wichita Wings, alongside former Pompey teammate Norman Piper, and he finished his career at Oklahoma City Slickers, where he was also assistant-coach.
When Ley’s Dallas Tornado and Wichita Wings teammate Jim Ryan was appointed manager of Luton Town in January 1990, Ley joined him as the Hatters’ youth team coach at Kenilworth Road.
A fellow coach was Luton stalwart John Moore, who’d briefly played on loan at Brighton alongside Ley in October/November 1972. Town had Kurt Nogan and Andy Petterson on their books at the time.
Ley also coached at League of Ireland side St Patrick’s Athletic but he returned to the States, settled in Austin, Texas, and coached teams at various levels: youth, amateur and professional such as Austin Sockadillos, River City Rangers and Crossfire Soccer Club.
He returned to Devon in 2018 and, sadly, in his final years suffered dementia. In January 2024, an Exmouth bus driver, Jon Davis, said: “George is a regular on our bus services.
“Unfortunately, I believe George has been suffering from some form of dementia in older years. He’s sometimes very confused but he’s a lovely fella and we all make sure he gets home safe and sound.”
Former clubs Exeter and Portsmouth paid tribute on news of his death and in an obituary in Backpass magazine, Ivan Ponting described Ley as “a pacy, stylish full-back” and Kirsty Fitzpatrick wrote: “I got to know George in his later years and he spoke with such enthusiasm and pride about his football career. He had some great stories.”
In parallel lines 