The Foxes hero who led Albion’s line in an hour of need

STEVE CLARIDGE became a Leicester City hero long before briefly coming to Brighton’s rescue.

He scored the winner in a play-off final at Wembley to take the Foxes up to the Premier League at the expense of Crystal Palace, who’d discarded him at an early age.

Both sides had been relegated from the top flight the year before and Claridge’s right-foot strike past Nigel Martyn in the 120^th minute meant it was an immediate return for Martin O’Neill’s side.

“The high is not equal to anything,” Claridge told Leicestershire Live.

It came in 1996 and a year later he scored the only goal of the game (past Ben Roberts) in the 100^th minute of a replay against Middlesbrough to win Leicester the League Cup, leading to him being named FourFourTwo’s ‘Cult Hero of 1997’.

Claridge had only completed a £1.2m move from Birmingham City two months before that play-off and he labelled it the most important goal of his life coming after a worrying period in which he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to play again.

A mystery illness had ravaged his form and in only his fifth Leicester game he was taken off after 15 minutes. “Pins and needles from my knees down were so extreme, I could not even feel the ball,” he recalled.

It turned out a drug prescribed for a thyroid problem he’d had since the age of 12 was destroying his thyroid gland. “The main energy provider of my body was no longer functioning,” said Claridge.

However, once on the right medication, he made an almost unbelievable recovery, was restored to the side and helped to secure a play-off place.

After beating Stoke City in the semi-finals, they went a goal down to Palace in the final but pulled it back through a Garry Parker penalty before Claridge seized his chance in the dying moments of extra time.

*Wembley winners for Leicester: Garry Parker and Steve Claridge*

He collected a quick free kick from Parker and took aim, his shot from distance kissing the stanchion with goalkeeper Martyn motionless.

“The crowd is just really stunned in disbelief, I don’t know if that was because I’d hit it,” laughed Claridge. “It was so far out, and everybody was used to me scoring goals inside the six-yard box.”

He reflected: “To finish off after the lows I went through, the absolute lows where you’re thinking, ‘my career is over I can’t see a way out of this,’ to doing that and taking you to the ultimate high – winning that game of football. It’s unparalleled.”

Such experience was exactly what Championship strugglers Albion required when, on the back of three defeats, they faced the daunting prospect of promotion-seeking West Ham away on 13 November 2004.

Manager Mark McGhee, who’d previously signed Claridge when he was at Wolves and Millwall, was desperate to stem a tide which had seen eight goals conceded and no points on the board.

“He is one of the fittest players I’ve worked with and I had no doubt that after 18 months away from this level he would be able to perform,” said McGhee.

Claridge’s professional career looked to have run its course after he left Millwall in 2003 and became player-manager of Southern League side Weymouth.

But the disappointment of missing out on promotion had seen him and chairman Ian Ridley leave the club and Claridge, at the age of 38, was keen to give league football another go.

In what turned out to be a real backs-to-the-wall smash and grab raid, Albion earned the unlikeliest of 1-0 wins courtesy of a Guy Butters header from Richard Carpenter’s free kick.

Albion held firm despite a relentless wave of attacks by the home side and afterwards McGhee said: “We approached the game differently. Whereas before we thought we could win, today we did not, and played to make sure we didn’t get beaten.

“We kept the ball up front more which is important. Steve Claridge was key to that.”

Unfortunately, Brighton were not able to build on the win at the Boleyn Ground and there was only one more win (1-0 at home to Rotherham) during Claridge’s month with the club.

His fifth and final game for the Seagulls came away to his old club Millwall on 11 December 2004, when Albion lost 2-0.

In a programme feature about him that day, Claridge likened the circumstances of both clubs. “The club has no money and it is tough just to survive, but everyone is in it together,” he said. “At Millwall we had a great team spirit and togetherness, and that is very much the case here.”

McGhee’s tight budget prevented Claridge’s stay at Albion being extended and, after his deal was over, rather than it being one last hurrah, he went on to continue his league playing days at Brentford, Wycombe Wanderers, Gillingham, Bradford City and Walsall.

And, at the age of 40, and with him needing just one more game to fulfil the landmark of 1,000 professional games, his old club Bournemouth – where he’d started out as a professional in 1984 – gave him a match against Port Vale on 9 December 2006. No fairy tale, though, as they lost 4-0.

Born in Portsmouth on 10 April 1966, Claridge was brought up in Titchfield and began his football career at nearby Fareham Town in 1983. His initial foray into the pro game at Bournemouth only amounted to seven games before he moved to Weymouth for three years.

Crystal Palace offered him a route back to the full professional game in 1988 but he didn’t make their league side and after three months moved on to fourth tier Aldershot Town.

Two spells with Cambridge United followed between 1990 and 1994 for whom he scored 46 goals in 132 games. A falling out with manager John Beck saw him sold to Luton Town in 1992, but he was then bought back after Beck’s departure.

Birmingham City paid £350,000 to take Claridge to St Andrews and he became one of the club’s most prolific goalscorers, netting 35 in 88 games, and was top scorer with 25 goals when part of Barry Fry’s Blues side that won the Second Division title and the Auto Windscreens Shield (Football League Trophy) in the 1994-95 season.

After spending two years at Leicester, he went on a two-month loan to his hometown club, Portsmouth, but, in March 1998, McGhee signed him for the first time – and it didn’t go well.

The Scot, who had controversially left Leicester to take over at Wolves, took Claridge to Molineux for a £350,000 fee. But Wolves fans were not impressed, as Levelle revealed in this 2012 piece, and after just six games and no goals in the famous old gold shirt, he was sold to Portsmouth for £250,000 at the end of the season.

Even more galling for Wolves followers was that no sooner had Claridge made the switch to Portsmouth, he scored all three in a 3-1 win at Fratton Park!

David Miller in The Telegraph wrote: “The 34-year-old Steve Claridge, who had failed to score in five months when previously with Wolves, now gave sun-blessed Portsmouth a bank holiday funfair with a first- half hat-trick that was as easy as licking an ice-lolly.”

The goals and games came thick and fast for Claridge back on home turf – 34 in 104 – but his reign as player-manager at Fratton Park in 2000 was curtailed after just 25 games by the quirky chairman Milan Mandarić.

Remembering the player he’d seen only briefly a couple of years earlier, McGhee, by now in charge at Millwall, offered the striker a lifeline with the Lions, initially on loan and then as a permanent signing.

*Going through the pain barrier at Millwall*

Over two seasons in south east London, he became something of a fans’ favourite, scoring 26 in 85 matches, his efforts summed up by writer Mark Litchfield. “His style was unconventional, to say the least: shirt untucked, one sock down and no shin pads, any naïve defender probably thought they could eat him for breakfast. But hard work was a pre-requisite for Claridge – he wouldn’t give any opposition player a moment’s rest and would more often than not always get the better of them, too.”

Claridge had a less happy association with Millwall too when in July 2005 he was sacked after just 36 days as manager when the chairman who appointed him, Jeff Burnidge, was replaced by Theo Paphitis, who wanted Colin Lee instead.

Even after achieving the 1,000-game landmark courtesy of Bournemouth, Claridge couldn’t resist the lure of another game, turning out for Worthing, Harrow Borough, Weymouth and Gosport Borough.

He was one of a group of five that formed Salisbury FC at the end of 2014, and as team manager was involved in gaining two promotions in the Southern League before leaving in October 2022.

Although he had officially hung up his boots in 2012 after helping Gosport to promotion to the Southern League Premier Division, in 2017 he played in a friendly defeat to Portsmouth in July and then put himself on against Paulton Rovers in the league a few weeks later.

His final ever game as a player came in a 3-2 victory over Fareham Town, when he was a remarkable 51, but he had to go off in the 71st-minute after picking up an injury.

*Pundit Claridge contributed his thoughts on radio and TV*

Claridge also became a familiar face and voice working as a pundit for the BBC on TV at Football Focus and Final Score and on BBC Radio 5 Live. He also wrote scouting reports on promising players for The Guardian, numbering future Brighton signing Matt Sparrow among them.

“He is easy on the eye, links well with his forwards but also protects and helps his defenders by tackling from the wrong side and makes sure he tracks his runner whenever he threatens to get goal-side,” wrote Claridge of the then Scunthorpe United player in 2007.

Claridge later set up his own coaching scheme for youngsters in Salisbury and Warsash.

In 2023, he took over as manager of Gosport-based Wessex League Division One side Fleetlands FC for the 2023-24 season. In August 2024 they announced he was stepping down from the role “due to personal reasons”.
On its website, a statement added: “The club would like to place on record our huge thanks to Steve for taking up the role in our hour of need and taking us to a fantastic 5th place finish last season.”

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.

“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.

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 20^th 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 76^th 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 50^th 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 16^th 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 32^nd 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.

‘Outstanding pro’ Wes Fogden was Cherries pick after Albion

WES FOGDEN is still playing the game he loves despite injuries blighting much of a career that might never have got off the ground.

Being told he might not play again when undergoing an operation to remove a benign tumour on his spine as an 18-year-old at Brighton made him even more determined to enjoy every moment of being able to step out onto a football pitch.

Although he eventually broke through to Albion’s first team, it was at AFC Bournemouth that he got regular league football as the Cherries began their rise through the football pyramid.

Brighton-born Fogden has stayed in Dorset and now plays part-time for Poole Town while working as head of football for Branksome-based Elite Skills Arena, a business owned by former Bournemouth chairman Eddie Mitchell.

“Bearing in mind the amount of time injured, I’ve missed out on about five seasons of football,” Fogden told The News, Portsmouth’s Neil Allen in an interview published on 1 December 2022.

“I’ve had pretty much every injury going. Cruciate ligament damage to both knees, hamstrings, ankles, I’ve broken my nose four or five times, I fractured my cheekbone when going up for a header in the FA Youth Cup against Andy Carroll.

“There was even the time when the ball smacked me in the private regions, requiring an operation and putting me out for four or five weeks. A real variety of injuries.

“But I wouldn’t have it any other way. As long as I’m fit, I want to be playing every game, especially after what happened at Brighton.”

Fogden was never short of admirers for the way he bounced back from the devastating blow of being told he might never be able to play football again.

Tommy Elphick, who also went through Brighton’s youth ranks before moving to Bournemouth, said: “One thing with Wes is that you know he is going to dig in for you. He is a very good player; a footballer who can play at right-back, right wing or in central midfield.”

The player himself told the Albion matchday programme: “When I was told that I might not play again was the worst moment of my life but to come through it is a great achievement.”

After surgery to remove the tumour from his spine was thankfully successful, Fogden had to spend three months in a body cast before slowly recovering throughout the 2006-07 season.

He was grateful to the support of physio Malcolm Stuart, fitness coach Matt (‘Stretch’) Miller and physio Kim Eaton in aiding his return to fitness.

Albion sent him out on loan to Dorchester Town to gain experience but when Dean Wilkins’ squad was hit by ‘flu, the midfielder, who had previously been part of Wilkins’ successful Albion youth team, was recalled.

He made his first team debut at right-back in a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie against Swansea City when he was up against future Albion player Andrea Orlandi.

Fogden kept the shirt for the following Saturday’s league game at Oldham but was unfortunate to be sacrificed early in a reshuffle Wilkins was forced to make after wantaway Dean Hammond had got himself sent off early in the game. Nathan Elder went on as a substitute and scored a last-ditch equaliser for the Seagulls.

After that, Fogden’s involvement was a watching brief from the subs bench although he did get on in the 64^th minute of a game at Cheltenham, replacing Albion’s goalscorer Jake Robinson in a 2-1 defeat.

Fogden subsequently went back out on loan, this time to Bognor Regis Town, and when Micky Adams was brought back to the Albion over Wilkins’ head that summer, he preferred to select more experienced players.

Fogden returned to Dorchester on loan initially and made the move permanent in October 2008. “Dropping out of league football wasn’t a tough decision,” he told afcb.co.uk. “Dorchester Town offered me a good deal, they were the only professional club in the Conference South at the time and it was a good opportunity to play first team football week-in-week-out.”

A cost-cutting exercise early in 2009 saw Fogden let go and he joined Havant & Waterlooville, who were in the same division. He was voted the Supporters’ Player of the Season in 2009-10 and 2010-11.

Having contemplated a career outside of football, he enrolled to take a degree in sports coaching and PE at Chichester University but Bournemouth boss Lee Bradbury gave him a second chance to build a career in league football.

“It was a difficult decision to put my studies on hold when Bournemouth approached me,” he said. “I was a year and a half in and I wasn’t expecting that call.

“After speaking to my family and the university, I decided to give the professional game one last shot.”

With the three-year deal done, Fogden said: “I’m really pleased to get back here at this level.

“It is a big jump for me. I was only young when I made my few appearances for Brighton and the pace was a lot quicker so hopefully I can just adapt as soon as I can.”

Bradbury told BBC Radio Solent: “Wes is a young prospect, who has a good grounding from his time at Brighton. He can play on either wing and can also play up front or in behind the strikers.

“He’s well thought of in the non-league circuit, and I saw it as a good opportunity to get him down here and integrate him into our squad.”

After three substitute appearances, Fogden produced an eye-catching performance on his full debut in a 1-1 draw at Colchester United in October 2011, Bournemouth’s Daily Echo observing that he “showed some neat touches in a lively display” playing just behind the striker in an attacking midfield role.

“I thought Wes Fogden was probably the best player on the park for us,” said Bradbury. “He was different class. He had great energy levels and worked really hard. He set the standard for the rest of the team.

“He has played off the striker quite a lot. He can play on either wing or up front in a partnership.

“He has got a lot of uses. He showed on Tuesday night what great quality he has, what a great professional he is and the fitness he has as well.”

The following March, after Fogden struck a 20-yard winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Brentford, Bradbury was once again full of praise for his signing. “I’m delighted for him. It was a terrific strike,” he said. “His energy levels are fantastic and he works so hard for the team. He’s very durable and a pleasure to work with.”

Fogden was part of a group of players who shared a close bond through meeting up at the Cotea coffee shop in Westbourne. The group included Ryan Fraser, Marc Pugh, Benji Buchel and Shaun MacDonald.

MacDonald, who joined Cherries two months before Fogden, told the Glasgow Times: “Just before I left, we all started going to Cotea in Westbourne. The food was always perfect, the coffee really nice and the people who own it are lovely.”

Fogden remained part of the set-up during Paul Groves’ brief reign after taking over from Bradbury, and then the return from Burnley of Eddie Howe and Jason Tindall. “Eddie and Jason gave the whole club a lift, the fans, the staff and the players, and we went on a roll that didn’t stop,” said Fogden.

Howe’s appreciation of Fogden was demonstrated in an interview with the Daily Echo, when he said: “Wes is a hard worker and a real team player but has got ability as well. He is a very good footballer, he has quality on the ball and you can`t underestimate that.”

Describing him as a valued member of the squad, the manager added: “Wes has certainly got the fire inside him to want to improve and to keep his place and I have been very impressed with him.”

Having made 59 appearances for the Cherries, including 32 League One starts, Fogden didn’t make any appearances in the Championship during the first half of the 2013-14 season and moved on to Portsmouth in January 2014.

Ahead of the move, Howe told BBC Radio Solent: “He’s been a really good servant to the club in his time here, he’s been an outstanding professional and someone who we have really enjoyed working with.

“But it’s been difficult to give him, although he has been injured this season, as much game time as he wants.”

Looking back on it a couple of years later, Fogden said: “I still had 18 months on my contract but decided that moving to Pompey was right for me.

“It was sad to leave, but it was time for a new chapter in my career. After the injuries I had when I was young it made me realise that, ultimately, I just love playing; if you’re not in that starting eleven on a matchday it’s very difficult.”

Born in Brighton on 12 April 1988, Fogden started playing football from an early age. “I was four or five years old, playing with boys a couple of years above me in my older brother’s team, which was run by my dad,” he said. “I signed for Brighton at 11 years old and played right the way through my school years.”

That senior school was Patcham High and in 2001 Fogden was in a Sussex under-14s squad alongside the likes of Richard Martin, Joel Lynch, Tommy Elphick, Tommy Fraser, Scott Chamberlain and Joe Gatting who all went on to play for the Albion.

He was part of the hugely successful Albion youth team of 2006 who, against all the odds, beat the youth sides of Premier League clubs Chelsea and Blackburn Rovers in the FA Youth Cup before losing on penalties to Newcastle United (managed by Peter Beardsley) in the quarter finals.

It was only after he had signed on as a professional at 18 in 2006, that he found out about his spine tumour.

“Initially I was told I would never play football again,” he recalled. “A diagnosis like that definitely changes the way you think about things; you take each day as it comes and enjoy it for what it is.”

Fogden’s time at Portsmouth was disrupted by a serious knee injury and he was only able to make 29 appearances in 19 months at Fratton Park. He later suffered a similar injury while playing for Dorking Wanderers and, in a March 2022 interview with Surrey Live, said: “With both of my ACL injuries I gained a lot of experience in the exercises I’d need to do,” he said.

“With the first ACL I had, I had a great physio at Portsmouth, Sean Duggan, who gave me a step-by-step plan. It was an unbelievable plan and I’ve used a lot of that into what I’ve done this season.

“Every minute of every game is a bonus now. I’m one of those that likes to play every minute anyway because of the injuries I’ve had. You cherish the moments you are out there.”

Fogden’s last professional league action came at League Two Yeovil Town where he was the 12^th of 19 new signings made by Paul Sturrock ahead of the 2015-16 season.

He scored two goals in 17 appearances (plus one as sub) but was released in the summer of 2016 by Sturrock’s successor Darren Way.

He returned to Havant & Waterlooville in the Isthmian Premier League, helping them to promotion to the National League South and over four seasons made 154 appearances, scoring 23 goals.

For the 2020-21 season, Fogden switched to National League South outfit Dorking Wanderers, where he was once again dogged by injuries, including a nasty head injury that required hospital treatment.

He dropped back down to football’s sixth tier with Poole Town for the 2022-23 season because of the travel requirements playing and training for Dorking entailed.

There had been times when it clashed with his day job demands and taking on more at Elite Skills Arena had also influenced the decision. ESA owner Mitchell was chairman at Dorchester way back when the player went there on loan from Brighton.

“I’ve been working for Eddie Mitchell for a while now and have known him going back 15 years. He’s been really good to me,” he said.

As regards continuing to play, Fogden told The News: “All the time I can move about the pitch and be involved, playing as well as I can, then I’ll stay in the game. I’m still playing central midfield, right in the action, attacking and defending. I’m still going.

“When you’re a footballer, injuries are going to happen, the way I play is always twisting and turning, being involved, action packed. Freak injuries occur for me because of that – I can’t change my playing style.

“Considering I’m a bit shorter than a lot of players and at elbow height, it doesn’t help with my facial area. The same for dead legs, my thighs are knee-height compared to most players, it’s just one of those things.

“As I’ve got older, I’ve learnt to get away from some of the injuries which maybe I could have avoided previously. I’m still all-action, but sometimes it’s a case of pulling out of tackles I know I haven’t got any chance of winning.

“Are my injuries connected with the back? I don’t think anyone can really know, there might be a bit of a lack of mobility in that area, which could cause hamstring injuries and give less knee support, and perhaps a pelvic imbalance. I don’t know, I’m not really sure.

“It has been 16 years since that back operation and I’m still playing. Without football I wouldn’t be anywhere near the person I am. It’s strange thinking back to how it could have been, had it not been for a fantastic surgeon.”

‘Have boots, will travel’ striker Steve Claridge mixed it with Lions, Wolves, Foxes – and Seagulls

VETERAN striker Steve Claridge, who saw service with 22 professional and semi-professional clubs, helped Brighton to one of the most amazing smash-and-grab raid wins I’ve ever seen as an Albion fan.

The former Millwall forward answered a plea from his old Lions boss Mark McGhee in November 2004 which paid off big time when the Seagulls snatched a 1-0 win away to West Ham United.

It was the first of only five games Claridge played for second-tier Brighton after McGhee turned to a player who had delivered for him during his spell in charge of Millwall.

Albion went into the game at the Boleyn Ground on 13 November 2004 on the back of three defeats and McGhee was desperate to stem a tide which had seen eight goals conceded and no points on the board.

A trip to West Ham (who ended up being promoted via the play-offs that season) was a daunting prospect if the bad run was to be halted.

However, as McGhee pointed out: “We approached the game differently. Whereas before we thought we could win, today we did not, and played to make sure we didn’t get beaten.

“We kept the ball up front more which is important. Steve Claridge was key to that.

“He is one of the fittest players I’ve worked with and I had no doubt that after 18 months away from this level he would be able to perform.”

Centre back Guy Butters headed the only goal of the game on 68 minutes from Richard Carpenter’s pinpoint pass and the Seagulls held out for an unlikely three points. Hammers boss Alan Pardew had to admit: “Technically they were perfect and obviously came here to play deep and try and nick it on a set piece, which is what they did.”

Claridge’s professional career looked to have run its course after he left Millwall in 2003 and became player-manager of Southern League side Weymouth.

But the disappointment of missing out on promotion had seen him and chairman Ian Ridley leave the club and Claridge, at the age of 38, was keen to give league football another go.

McGhee knew the qualities Claridge could bring to his ailing side having been a popular figure as Millwall came close to promotion from the second tier.

The West Ham success didn’t spark a great revival in Albion’s fortunes, however, and there was only one more win (1-0 at home to Rotherham) during Claridge’s month with the club.

In one of those strange footballing quirks of fate, his fifth and final game for the Seagulls came away to Millwall (see Argus picture at top of article) on 11 December 2004, when Albion lost 2-0.

Claridge said all the right things in a programme feature about him that day, included likening the circumstances of both clubs. “The club has no money and it is tough just to survive, but everyone is in it together,” he said. “At Millwall we had a great team spirit and togetherness, and that is very much the case here.”

Unfortunately, it seemed money was the obstacle that precluded Claridge’s stay at Albion being extended and, after his deal was over, rather than it being one last hurrah, he went on to continue his league playing days at Brentford, Wycombe Wanderers, Gillingham, Bradford City and Walsall.

Then, at the age of 40, and with him needing just one more game to fulfil the landmark of 1,000 professional games, his old club Bournemouth gave him a match against Port Vale on 9 December 2006. No fairy tale, though, as they lost 4-0.

Born in Portsmouth on 10 April 1966, there aren’t many clubs in Hampshire and Dorset that Claridge has not had some kind of association with! Having been brought up in Titchfield, he started out with nearby Fareham Town in 1983. AFC Bournemouth took him on and gave him his debut in 1984 but he only played seven games before moving to Weymouth for three years.

Crystal Palace offered him a route back to the full professional game in 1988 but he didn’t make their league side, instead moving on to fourth tier Aldershot Town.

In two spells with Cambridge United, he scored 46 goals in 132 games. A falling out with manager John Beck saw him sold to Luton Town, and then bought back after Beck’s departure!

Nearly two years later, Birmingham City paid £350,000 to take Claridge to St Andrews and he became one of the club’s most prolific goalscorers, netting 35 in 88 games.

Such form eventually saw him switch to Leicester City and Claridge wrote himself into Foxes’ folklore, scoring winning goals in a play-off final to earn promotion to the elite level, and in the 1997 League Cup Final over Middlesbrough, the last time the competition staged a final replay. That, though, came after an ignominious beginning with Leicester.

McGhee’s successor as manager, Martin O’Neill, signed him for £1.2m in March 1996 and his early form was dreadful. Astonishingly, it seemed his poor start might well have been related to the wrong medication he had been taking for a heart defect for EIGHTEEN years, according to this official Leicester City website report.

In 1998, Leicester sent Claridge on loan to his hometown club, Portsmouth, but, in March 1998, McGhee, then boss at Wolves and seemingly at odds with more established strikers at the club, took Claridge to Molineux for a £350,000 fee. Only five months later he was sold to Portsmouth for £250,000.

Writer Dan Levelle said on an amusing Wolves’ fan website: “He was that amazing food blender you saw at your mate’s house, but you can’t get it to work at all for love nor money.”

Claridge’s time at Molineux was clearly not appreciated by the Molineux faithful, as Levelle revealed in this 2012 piece.

Even more galling for Wolves followers was that no sooner had Claridge made the switch to Portsmouth, he was scoring a hat-trick against them in a 3-1 win at Fratton Park!

The goals and games came thick and fast for Claridge back on home turf – 34 in 104 – but his reign as player-manager at Fratton Park in 2000 was curtailed after just 25 games.

He joined on a temporary basis to cover a period when current boss Neil Harris was banned following a sending off, but, after he hit the ground running, was then tied to a permanent deal, as this Millwall blog post described in 2016.

Writer Mark Litchfield summed him up brilliantly when he said: “His style was unconventional, to say the least: shirt untucked, one sock down and no shin pads, any naïve defender probably thought they could eat him for breakfast. But hard work was a pre-requisite for Claridge – he wouldn’t give any opposition player a moment’s rest and would more often than not always get the better of them, too.”

Few could doubt Claridge’s enthusiasm for the game, as he told the Bradford Telegraph & Argus during his time in Yorkshire.

Even after achieving the 1,000-game landmark courtesy of Bournemouth, Claridge couldn’t resist the lure of another game, turning out for Worthing, Harrow Borough, Weymouth, Gosport Borough and Salisbury.

Many younger readers will know Claridge as a pundit who worked extensively for the BBC on TV and radio and he now coaches youngsters in Salisbury and Warsash through his own scheme, the Steve Claridge Football Foundation.

Fluctuating fortunes for Guy Butters after beginning alongside Spurs stars

Spurs’ programme remembers the early years of his career.

A programme cover shows Butts in action for Pompey v Oxford.

GUY BUTTERS saw plenty of highs and lows in a 20-year playing career that started with great promise at Tottenham Hotspur and included six years at Brighton, where he still works.

Butts coaches for Albion in the Community, he’s scouted players, hosted hospitality lounges and still turns out to play in charity matches, not to mention sharing a constant flow of corny jokes with his 3,700+ followers on Twitter!

Promotion via the play-offs at Cardiff in 2004 and being chosen as player of the season would be up there in terms of highs with Brighton.

My personal favourite came on 13 November 2004, when Butters scored the only goal of the game as Albion committed daylight robbery in front of 29,514 packed into West Ham’s Boleyn Ground.

BZ GB Brighton were up against it going into the game and had taken veteran Steve Claridge on for a month to help them out of a striker crisis. Hammers threw everything at the Albion that afternoon but somehow the Seagulls kept the ball out and, on 68 minutes, Butts, up for a Richard Carpenter free kick, got his head on the end of it to send the ball into the back of the net in front of the Seagull faithful.

Even after versatile Adam Virgo and Hammers’ Haydn Mullins were sent off for a scrap on 74 minutes, and West Ham bought on substitute Bobby Zamora, the scoreline remained 1-0 to the Albion.

A couple of months later, it was obviously a special day for Butters when, on 8 January 2005, he was given the captain’s armband to lead the Albion in their third round FA Cup tie against Spurs at White Hart Lane.

A programme portrait and skipper for the day in the FA Cup at White Hart Lane.

The matchday programme recalled how Butters “was very much the discovery of the 1988-89 season when manager Terry Venables lifted the tough tackling former Spurs trainee from our reserves to the first team to play alongside Gary Mabbutt and Chris Fairclough in a back three.

“Guy was also in there alongside such names as Paul Gascoigne, Chris Hughton, Chris Waddle, Paul Walsh, Terry Fenwick, Paul Stewart, (former Brighton Cup Final hero) Gary Stevens and Paul Allen. And he kept his regular place the following season when Gary Lineker was added to the squad.”

Born on 30 October 1969 in Hillingdon, he made his debut shortly after his 19^th birthday in a League Cup game against Blackburn, and suffered the agony of scoring an own goal. But on his full league debut as a sub against Wimbledon on 12 November 1988, he made amends with a goal in the right end.

“We won that one 3-2 but it’s probably better remembered by Spurs fans as the game in which Gary Stevens was injured following a tackle by Vinnie Jones,” Butters told the Spurs programme.

“I’ve got great memories of my time at Tottenham but, looking back, I recall spending much of my time trying to avoid Gazza who was always up to something! But it was the players around me that I will never forget – I was in there with men who had appeared in World Cups, and that’s my abiding memory.”

The year after his Spurs debut, Butters also earned international honours. In June 1989, he was involved in three England under 21 tournament matches in Espoirs de Toulon matches.

He started in the 3-2 defeat to Bulgaria on 5 June, and was replaced by substitute Neil Ruddock. Two days later, he came on as a sub for Dean Yates in England’s 6-1 thrashing of Senegal in Sainte Mazime. Two days after that, he came on as a sub for Ruddock, as the under 21s drew 0-0 with the Republic of Ireland in Six-Fours-les-Plages.

Of that side, Carlton Palmer, David Batty and David Hirst went on to gain full England caps, but those three games were Butters’ only representative appearances.

After limited game time at Spurs in the 1989-90 season, Butters went out on loan to Fourth Division Southend United, scoring three times in 16 games.

Steve Sedgley, Fenwick and Gudni Bergsson were all ahead of him as potential partners for Mabbutt so, on 28 September 1990, he was transferred to Portsmouth for a fee of £375,000, having made a total of 35 league appearances for Tottenham.

At Pompey, he played at the back alongside Kit Symons and colleagues included Mark Chamberlain on the wing and Warren Aspinall up front, together with his ex-Spurs teammate Paul Walsh, now better known as a Sky Sports pundit.

But there were mixed fortunes for Butters at Pompey, which he spoke about in a November 2016 interview for the Portsmouth website. He was there six years and enjoyed some good times when Jim Smith was manager.

guy butters YouTube

He had a brief spell on loan with Oxford United in 1994 and he eventually realised his time at Fratton Park was up when a regime change saw the arrival of Terry Venables, who was the Spurs boss when he was sold to Portsmouth.

Tony Pulis signed him for Gillingham for £225,000 on 18 October 1996 and, in six years at Priestfield, one game in particular stands out for the unfortunate pivotal moment Butters played in it.

It was 30 May 1999, the Football League Second Division play-off final to determine the third and final team to gain promotion and Gillingham were up against Manchester City, remarkably, at that time, struggling to get out of the third tier of English football.

Goals from Carl Asaba and Bob Taylor on 81 and 87 minutes looked to have given Pulis’ side victory. But Kevin Horlock had pulled one back for Joe Royle’s City and, as normal time expired, former Albion loanee Paul Dickov equalised for City in the fifth minute of added on time to level the scores at 2-2.

With no further scoring in extra time, it went to penalties. City scored three of their first four; Gills had scored only one of their three. So, the pressure was on Butters, the fourth penalty taker, to bury it to keep the Gills in it.

When Butters stepped up and hit it low to ‘keeper Nicky Weaver’s left…. it was within the 20-year-old’s reach, and he pushed it away. Cue wild celebrations as City won the shoot-out 3-1.

“Missing that penalty was one of the worst moments of my life but you have to move on and I am not afraid to have another go,” Butters told interviewer Alex Crook in an article for the 2004 Division Two play-off final match programme. “At the time, I just wanted the ground to swallow me up but nobody blamed me because it was just one of those things.”

Consolation for Butters came the following year when Gillingham returned to Wembley and on that occasion won 3-2 in extra-time against Wigan Athletic. As with Pompey, Butters had six years in total with the Kent club and played 159 league games before being released in the summer of 2002.

The 2002-03 season was already under way by the time Butters joined Albion on a free transfer and, in the September, he was doing his own personal pre-season workout programme in a bid to get fit.

“When I first came here I had to do a lot of extra work with Dean White,” Butters told Brian Owen, of the Argus. “It was a case of trying to cram a lot of stuff into a little space of time. I wasn’t really getting too much time to recover after it.”

The managerial change from Martin Hinshelwood to Steve Coppell didn’t do Butters any favours either. Virgo and Butters were the centre back pairing for Coppell’s first match – a 4-2 home defeat to Bristol City – and both were then discarded into the wilderness. Virgo went on loan to Exeter and, after Coppell brought in Dean Blackwell to play alongside Danny Cullip, Butters was sent out on loan to Barnet.

But when injury meant Blackwell’s career was over, the door opened again for Butters and he seized the opportunity to such an extent that as Albion won promotion back to the second tier via the play-offs, he was voted player of the season.

GB potseas by Bennett Dean • 2004 Player of the Season pictured by Bennett Dean.

In fact, it was the arrival of Mark McGhee to succeed Coppell that was very much a turning point in Butters’ career because he had previously been considering hanging up his boots.

In Match of My Life (www.knowthescorebooks.com), he said: “Mark was a real breath of fresh air as manager. Straight away he helped me with a special diet and fitness programme aimed at improving my general match fitness, but, more importantly, helping me work towards prolonging my professional football career.

“He was the first manager to do that and under his guidance I began to thrive and really enjoy my football again.”

As the Argus previewed the 2004-05 season with a special publication, they declared: “Buoyed by a great run of form in last season’s run-in and looking in good shape in training, Butters is ready for another stab at the second tier of English football.”

And Butters said: “This year I did a bit in the summer when I was on holiday and the gaffer put us through our paces so I’m sure that when the season starts I’ll be pretty match fit.

“It’s a big step up but, if we can get a few results away from home, not too many of those big teams are going to fancy coming to Withdean.”

The Argus spots a lighter refreshing moment!
Butters and Cullip were opponents when the Seagulls won at Sheffield United, another moment captured by the Argus.

Three years later, at the age of 37, Butters was still with the Seagulls and looking forward to what would ultimately turn out to be his last in the stripes.

“I thoroughly enjoyed it last year,” Butters told Andy Naylor. “It is probably one of the most enjoyable seasons I’ve had.

“I missed out on pre-season last year through injury. The gaffer was amazed I played as many games as I did.

“I cannot see why, with a decent pre-season under my belt and, as long as I look after myself, that I cannot do the same again.

“I just want to go on playing as long as I can and along the way enhance my CV with coaching badges.”

Manager Dean Wilkins finally released Butters at the end of the 2007-08 season, during which he had been sent off for the first time in his career.

He’d played a total of 187 games for the Seagulls and carried on playing with Havant & Waterlooville briefly plus a seven-game spell on loan at Lewes before trying his hand at management with Winchester City and Eastleigh.

Guy + Nick

I got the chance to meet Guy when he kindly presented an award at an event I was involved in organising: what a great bloke!

Goals dried up at Brighton for Pompey favourite Alan Biley

1 150th goal v Leeds (1-1) ALAN BILEY was a fans favourite at all six English league clubs he played for but the prolific goalscoring that made his name at Cambridge United and Portsmouth wasn’t replicated at Everton or Brighton.

His spiky, long blond hair reflected his devotion to singer Rod Stewart and, on the pitch, the way he wore his football shirt outside his shorts, clutched the cuffs, and saluted a goal with a raised forefinger was a tribute to Scottish footballing legend Denis Law, another of his heroes, .

Biley was quite the hero at Portsmouth, with a goalscoring record of more than a goal every other game, having been signed by Bobby Campbell in 1982.

But when he fell out of favour with Campbell’s successor, Alan Ball, Brighton’s Chris Cattlin stepped in and paid £50,000 to take the striker along the coast in March 1985.

Within a month of the move, he was back at Fratton Park in Albion’s colours for an Easter Saturday south coast derby when honours were even in a 1-1 draw.

Biley had made his Seagulls debut as a substitute for Frank Worthington in a 0-0 draw away to Barnsley, then got his first start the following game (another goalless draw, at home to Oxford) and kept his place to the end of the season.

The first of four goals during that spell came in a 2-0 win at home to Oldham, and the goal he scored in a 1-1 home draw with Leeds on 20 April was his 150^th in league football (top picture). Although Albion finished with three wins, it wasn’t enough to reach the promotion places, and they finished sixth.

Biley made a great start to the 1985-86 campaign, scoring against First Division Nottingham Forest in a remarkable 5-1 pre-season friendly win, and then in the opening league fixture, a 2-2 home draw with Grimsby Town.

However, competition for places in Albion’s forward line had intensified. In addition to Terry Connor, £1m man Justin Fashanu arrived together with Dean Saunders, on a free transfer from Swansea, (Saunders went on to be named player of the season).

With the much-derided Mick Ferguson also managing a brief purple patch of scoring, it meant Biley struggled to hold down a regular spot, making 24 starts plus three appearances as a sub, and only managing to add three more goals to that season’s opener.

Cattlin’s dismissal as boss, to be replaced by the returning Alan Mullery, also spelled the end of Biley’s time at the club. He initially went back to Cambridge on loan, then tried his luck with New York Express in the States, had a spell in Greece before ending up in Ireland, playing for Waterford who were managed by his old Everton teammate, Andy King. He ended up back at Cambridge on a non-contract basis in November 1988 and made three more appearances for United before hanging up his boots.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Born in Leighton Buzzard on 26 February 1957, Biley was spotted by nearby Luton Town at the tender age of 10 and signed schoolboy forms aged 12. He was then offered an apprenticeship and professional forms as he worked his way through the different levels. But financial issues hit the club and when their chief scout left to link up with Cambridge, he recommended Biley to manager Ron Atkinson, and in 1975 he made the move to Fourth Division United.

Biley netted a total of 82 in 185 games as United rose from the Fourth Division to the Second between 1975 and 1979, when his eye for goal caught the attention of First Division Derby County, who paid £450,000 for his services.

Biley continued to find the net regularly in the top flight, scoring nine in 18 games for the Rams, but he couldn’t prevent them from being relegated. He stuck with them in the 1980-81 season and scored 10 playing in the second tier but was sidelined through injury for several months.

He recounted recently how he fell out with manager Colin Addison and there was talk of him being sold to West Brom, where his old boss Atkinson had moved, but instead, in July 1981, he became new Everton manager Howard Kendall’s first signing for a £300,000 fee. Everton fans who go back that far refer to the Magnificent Seven – because that’s how many players Kendall signed in a short space of time.

Biley EVE Biley was an instant hit, scoring on his Everton debut as Birmingham City were beaten 3-1. He scored again in his next game away to Leeds, but things quickly started to go wrong for him, as he explained in great detail to Everton fan website bluekipper.com.

“I was always appreciative of the Evertonians’ footballing knowledge and the support and gusto, particularly through the tough times,” said Biley. “They were very loyal through the tough times, and they are a different class.

“I would like to think they took to me but my only big regret was that I wasn’t there long enough to enjoy them.”

By October, Kendall had dropped his new signing and Biley was mystified.

“Years later, as I look back at it, I wasn’t Howard Kendall’s cup of tea. Whatever that was, I can’t put my finger on it because history tells you what I was and what I did and where I played, and he had a different opinion of that.

“I would have loved him to have had the faith in me he had in lots of other players.”

Eventually his lack of involvement in first team action saw him go out on loan to struggling Stoke City and in eight games he helped them to retain their status in the top division, but hopes of a permanent move fell through.

Instead he departed Goodison Park with just 18 appearances (plus three as sub) and three goals to his name and dropped down to the Third Division with Portsmouth.

The Pompey faithful had already had a taste of what they could expect when, at Christmas 1977, as a 20-year-old playing for Cambridge, Biley had scored twice for table-topping Cambridge at Fratton Park.

And, sure enough, when paired up front with Billy Rafferty, he became an instant hit and the duo scored 40 between them as Pompey won promotion. Biley’s performances earned him a place in the PFA select XI that included Gillingham’s Steve Bruce and Micky Adams, Portsmouth colleague Neil Webb and Kerry Dixon, then of Reading.

The following season saw Biley gain a new strike partner in the shape of Mark Hateley, who would go on to earn England international recognition. However, a series of 10 home defeats put paid to their promotion hopes and Campbell was sacked on the coach on the way back from the season’s penultimate game at Derby. In the final game of the season, with Alan Ball in temporary charge, Biley hit a hat-trick in a 5-0 demolition of Swansea.

Ball was installed as manager and Biley was very much a part of the side that began the 1984-85 season. He played in 22 games and came off the bench twice, scoring a total of 13 goals before Ball mysteriously sold him to Brighton in March.

Biley’s heart never left Fratton Park, though, and in 2015 he told Neil Allen, the author of a book Played Up Pompey: “Pompey was – and still is – my club.

“Pompey was a three-year box in time and if I could possibly open that box again and recover moments, a day even, then I would die happy. I fell in love with the club and it has never gone away.”

Biley has revelled in many opportunities to reminisce about his playing days, attending numerous reunions and enjoying all the memories.

In June 2017, he got together with other former players to talk about his goalscoring days at Cambridge and in October 2017, broadcaster and Albion fan Peter Brackley helped a number of former Pompey players, including Biley, recall a famous occasion when a fan ran on the pitch dressed as Santa Claus and, after the disruption, Biley scored two late goals to win a dramatic cup tie against Oxford.

But in all my research for this piece, I could find no loving references to his time with the Albion, although five years ago the excellent thegoldstonewrap.com brought together some footage of some of his best moments.

After his playing days were over, he moved back to his Bedfordshire roots and got involved in non-league football with various sides in and around the Home Counties, alongside running his own gym in Biggleswade.

Pictures from the Albion programme / Evening Argus and various online sources.

South Coast suited utility man Paul Wood at Brighton, Bournemouth and Pompey

paul wood (red)

THE quote at the top of an Albion matchday programme feature about Paul Wood sums up his Brighton career perfectly.

“I’ve played so many positions at the Albion. I’m not sure that I consider myself a centre-forward any more.

“Actually, playing on the right as I am now takes my career virtually full circle – I always used to be a winger before I joined Portsmouth.”

Manager Barry Lloyd bought Wood from Portsmouth for £40,000 in the summer of 1987 to play up front alongside Kevin Bremner, with Garry Nelson wide on the left.

Nelson, of course, thought otherwise – and 32 goals in a promotion season playing down the middle rather proved him right.

Thus Wood found himself deployed in that rather dubious-sounding role of ‘utility player’.

“A couple of goals would have done me great guns when I got a chance up front,” Wood admitted. “I don’t think I let anybody down when Nelson and Bremner were injured but I wasn’t putting them away.

“It didn’t really bother me too much. I was most happy just to be getting first team football, especially as I had spent the previous year at Portsmouth, while they got promoted to Division One, watching from the stands.”

A pelvis ligament problem had sidelined Wood at Fratton Park so the new lease of life as part of a promotion-winning squad was a welcome break.

After making his Albion debut in a 2-0 home win over Fulham on 29 August 1987, Wood admitted: “I found it very tiring after playing only one hour of reserve football in the last nine months. But I enjoyed the experience and I’m looking forward to creating and taking more chances.”

PW col Born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea in the north east on 1 November 1964, at one point it was thought Wood’s football career was over almost before it had begun.

As a talented schoolboy footballer, he was spotted playing for Middlesbrough Boys as the side won the English Schools’ Trophy. His school headteacher had connections at Elland Road so he went for a trial but only 15 minutes into the game broke a leg.

It seems he had broken a knuckle at the back of his knee and the Leeds physio, Bob English, took a look at the injury and said: “Sorry son, you’ve broken your leg, ripped all the ligaments, and I think you’re finished.”

Thankfully for the budding young footballer, the dire diagnosis was wrong, but it put him off trying to make it at Leeds and instead he got picked up by Portsmouth whose scout in the north had seen him playing for Guisborough under-16s.

It was a long way from home, but he appreciated the club’s more caring nature and when a homesick Wood mentioned how he was feeling, manager Frank Burrows took £30 from his own pocket to send the youngster home for a break.

Wood’s Pompey debut eventually came, ironically at Middlesbrough, after Bobby Campbell had taken over in the manager’s chair.

Originally, he had only travelled with the squad so that he could visit friends and relatives but a couple of players fell ill and Wood got his big chance.

“Before I knew it, I was in the team,” he said. “I think that’s the best game I’ve ever played, although it flew past so fast.”

Another favourite moment came when he scored two in a 4-0 win over Shrewsbury. England World Cup winner Alan Ball had succeeded Campbell as manager and said after the 21-year-old’s performance ‘a star is born’. Wood told portsmouth.co.uk: “That will stay with me for the rest of my life. For somebody who has achieved what he has in football and the respect he commands to come out and give me that compliment was a great feeling.

“It was a game where everything seemed to go right. I scored a couple and was in confident form.”

A run in the team followed for Wood, who made 25 league appearances as Pompey fell just short of promotion.

The following season, he only played seven games at the start of the season before sustaining the pelvic injury he put down to playing three times on plastic pitches in the space of three weeks.

paul wood portrait

By the time Wood had made his recovery, Pompey were playing in the top flight and he had fallen down the pecking order. The move to Brighton came about after Wood scored a hat-trick for Portsmouth’s reserves.

He told portsmouth.co.uk: “I was disappointed to go because I never really wanted to leave but I had a mortgage to pay and no bonuses on appearance money was forthcoming.”

Ironically it was the long-term injury problems to crowd favourite Steve Penney that presented Wood with a lot of his games at Brighton and when Penney got back into the side in 1989, Wood put in a transfer request because he felt he was doing well enough to merit a place.

Penney was to move on before Wood but eventually, after two and a half seasons with the Seagulls in which he played 88 games + 17 as sub, and scored just eight goals, he was sold.

That canny transfer market operator Lloyd had acquired the services of one-time England international wideman Mark Barham, who had been written off elsewhere because of injury issues, so he dispensed with Wood’s services by selling him to promotion-chasing Sheffield United.

On 5 May 1990, Wood was on the scoresheet as Dave Bassett’s United beat Leicester City 5-2 to earn promotion to the top division. Playing alongside him were future Blades manager Chris Wilder, former Albion assistant manager Bob Booker and Mark Morris, who went on to play for Bournemouth and Brighton.

In 1991, Wood played 21 games for Bournemouth on loan from United, before making the move permanent, and in three years with the Cherries he scored 18 times in 78 appearances.

Then, in a deal that saw the Cherries acquire out-of-favour Portsmouth striker Warren Aspinall (known to BBC Radio Sussex listeners as a matchday summariser) Wood returned to Fratton Park.

He said: “It was fantastic for me to get the opportunity to return to the club.”

Pompey used him as more of a utility player than ever before, Jim Smith playing him in midfield and his successor Terry Fenwick even trying him at wing-back. Sadly, though, he suffered a bad knee injury that curtailed his professional career, causing him to retire in 1996.

He managed to play 20 games and score 15 goals for a Hong Kong side, Happy Valley, in 1997-98 and back in the UK linked up with National League South side Havant & Waterlooville.

He spent five years there, retiring at the end of the 2002-03 season after playing 137 games and scoring 48 goals.

Wood now runs his own Bournemouth-based decorating business.

Terry Connor had an eye for goal for Leeds and Brighton

Connor action 1 TERRY CONNOR is a familiar face to today’s football fans as a loyal assistant manager to Mick McCarthy.

But Leeds United and Brighton fans of a certain vintage remember him as a pacy striker with an eye for goal.

His time with the Albion saw him at his most prolific with a record of almost a goal every three games (51 in 156 appearances) – form which earned him a solitary England under 21 cap as an over-age player.

Relegation-bound Brighton took the Leeds-born forward south in exchange for Andy Ritchie shortly after they had made it through to the semi-final of the 1983 FA Cup, but the new signing could take no part because he’d already played in the competition for Leeds.

If Brian Clough had allowed Peter Ward to have remained on loan to the Seagulls that spring, who knows whether Connor would have joined, but, when the former golden boy sought an extension of his loan from Nottingham Forest, which would have enabled him to continue to be part of the progress to Wembley, according to Ward in He Shot, He Scored, the eccentric Forest boss told him: ‘Son, I’ve never been to a Cup Final and neither will you’.

So the Connor-Ritchie swap went ahead and, with the rest of the team’s focus on the glory of the cup, the new arrival scored just the once in five appearances, plus two as sub, as the Seagulls forfeited the elite status they’d held for four seasons.

lpool goal Connor would have his moment of cup glory (celebration above) in the following season, though, as the TV watching nation saw him and Gerry Ryan score in a 2-0 win over Liverpool at the Goldstone; the second successive season Albion had dumped the mighty Reds out of the FA Cup.

*Connor was best man when teammate Hans Kraay got married. Frank Worthington (right) was there too.*

Born in Leeds on 9 November 1962, Connor went to Foxwood School on the Seacroft estate in Leeds. He burst onto the football scene at just 17, scoring the only goal of the game after going on as a sub for Paul Madeley to make his hometown club debut in November 1979 against West Brom.

“I got such an early break at Leeds because the club were rebuilding their side after those days when they were riding high,” Connor told Shoot! magazine. “Eddie Gray was still in the team when I came in. He was the model professional. It was terrific to have someone with his experience alongside you.”

Connor went on to make a total of 108 appearances for Leeds over four seasons, scoring 22 goals, before the by-then manager Gray did the swap deal with Ritchie.

In February 2016, voice-online.co.uk carried an interview in which Connor recalled racial abuse he received as a player.

“It was difficult for black players to thrive. I can remember going to many away games and there were bananas thrown on the pitch and `monkey’ chants from the stands,” he said.

“I remember receiving mail from Leeds fans telling me not to wear the white shirt, even though I was born and bred in Leeds. I had bullets sent to me and the police were called on a couple of occasions.”

Even so, the move to Brighton still came as a bit of a shock to him.

“‘I’d never imagined myself playing for anyone else but Leeds,” he told Shoot! at the time. “I was born and bred in the city. My parents and friends live there, and really Elland Road was a second home to me.”

Unfortunately for Connor, manager Jimmy Melia gave him the impression he was going to be forming a double spearhead with Michael Robinson. But after relegation, Robinson and several others from the halcyon days were sold, in Robinson’s case to Liverpool.

TC phoenix The man who bought him didn’t last long either; Melia making way for Chris Cattlin in the autumn of 1983. It didn’t stop Connor making his mark in the second tier and despite having several different striking partners of varying quality, his goalscoring record was good at a time when the side itself was struggling to return to the top with the Cup Final squad being dismantled and under investment in replacements.

In his first full season, he missed only two first team games all season and was top scorer with 17 goals as Albion finished ninth in the league. His main strike partner Alan Young scored 12.

Connor got only one fewer in the 1984-85 season when the side finished sixth; the veteran Frank Worthington chipping in with eight goals in his only season with the Seagulls.

In 1985-86 Connor had two different strike partners in Justin Fashanu and the misfiring Mick Ferguson but still managed another 16 goals, including four braces.

The disastrous relegation season of 1986-87 contained a personal high for Connor when, in November 1986, he was selected as an over-age player (at 24) for England under 21s and scored in a 1-1 draw with Yugoslavia.

He had formed a useful partnership with Dean Saunders but, as money issues loomed, Saunders was sold to Oxford and soon, after being voted player of the season, Connor also left as the Albion were relegated; Barry Lloyd being unable to halt the slide back to the third tier.

Reflecting on his time at Brighton in a matchday programme interview, Connor said: “I really enjoyed my football, playing on the south coast. We also loved the lifestyle and my eldest daughter was born there, I loved playing in the atmosphere created at the Goldstone. There was a bond with the players and their partners, with Jimmy Melia and Mike Bamber, and it was like one big happy family.”

As Lloyd was forced to sell players, Connor returned to the top flight via a £200,000 move along the coast to newly-promoted Portsmouth. A terrible run of injuries plagued his Pompey career meaning he only managed 58 appearances and scored 14 goals over the course of three seasons.

A £150,000 transfer fee saw him join then Third Division Swansea City for the 1990-91 season and although he managed 39 appearances, he scored only six times.

Next stop was Bristol City in September 1991 for £190,000 but he scored only once in 16 games for the Robins. By the summer of 1993 he dropped out of the league to play for Conference side Yeovil Town and when he retired from playing he became a coach at Swindon Town.

John Ward took Connor as a coach to three clubs he managed, Bristol Rovers and City and then Wolverhampton Wanderers, where, across the reigns of several managers, he remained for the next 13 years. He worked at youth, reserve and first team level before becoming McCarthy’s assistant in 2008. He briefly took the reigns himself after McCarthy was sacked in early 2012 but, unable to halt the team’s relegation from the Premiership, reverted to assistant under the newly-appointed Ståle Solbakken for just four games of the new season before leaving Molineux.

Within three months, he resumed his role as McCarthy’s assistant when the pair were appointed at Portman Road. When McCarthy took over as the Republic of Ireland boss in November 2018, Connor once again was his assistant and in 2020 the pair found themselves at the top Cypriot side APOEL. In early 2021, McCarthy and Connor were back in tandem at Championship side Cardiff City.