Tag: Gordon Smith

Well-loved Grealish went down with the Albions and City

TENACIOUS Tony Grealish earned plenty of plaudits in a 20-year professional career spanning almost 600 matches and etched his name in the record books along the way.

Thought to be the only person to play in two different sports at Wembley Stadium, Grealish was also the first Brighton & Hove Albion player to captain his country.

On the ball for Brighton

One statistic less favourably remembered is that he was relegated from the top level of English football with three different clubs: Brighton, West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City.

The London-born Republic of Ireland international was first relegated in the same year that he led the Seagulls out at Wembley for the 1983 FA Cup Final.

He was also part of the Throstles squad who went down in last place in 1986. And it was two relegations in a row after switching to an ailing Sky Blues side that went on to relinquish their top flight status in 1987.

When Grealish signed for Brighton from Luton Town for £100,000 in July 1981, it was a time of significant change. After only just avoiding relegation the season before, manager Alan Mullery had quit over a disagreement with chairman Mike Bamber and four key players left the club: John Gregory, Mark Lawrenson, Peter O’Sullivan and captain Brian Horton.

Grealish had quite a tall order taking over in midfield from ex-skipper Horton, who replaced him at Kenilworth Road, but Gordon Smith, another Albion teammate who later played for City, said:

“He did it with style – he was excellent. He was a very hard working player, he could tackle, but he was also classy with it – he could always pick out a pass.”

Part of the deal that saw Liverpool acquire Lawrenson saw the experienced Jimmy Case move to Brighton and he also appreciated what Grealish brought to the side. “Tony was so, so reliable. Playing with him in midfield, you knew that if the going got tough, he would be shoulder to shoulder alongside you.

“He would go in where it hurt, a tough lad, but he was not just a worker, he could play a bit as well and his enthusiasm for the game rubbed off on everyone in that changing room.”

Grealish and Case together with Mullery signing Neil McNab proved to be quite a formidable midfield trio and together they helped Mike Bailey’s side to jostle for top half of the table positions during the 1981-82 season before falling away to finish in 13th place – a record that remained in place until 2022!

Wembley gesture

Reaching the FA Cup final in 1983 under Jimmy Melia and George Aitken provided a personal highlight for Grealish when he captained the Seagulls in the absence of suspended regular skipper Steve Foster, memorably wearing the defender’s trademark white headband as a mini-protest at his exclusion.

Grealish’s departure to West Brom in March 1984 was part of the ongoing break-up of the former top level squad, Melia’s successor Chris Cattlin being tasked with trimming the wage bill to bring it into line with second tier football.

Three and a half years later, Grealish had just turned 30 when Jimmy Frizzell signed him for City in October 1986 for a modest £20,000 fee, re-uniting him with McNab.

It was only a short-term deal, though, and he continued to live in Sutton Coldfield, a commute of 90 miles each way! “We haven’t bought a place because I only signed until the end of the season,” he explained. “We’ll see what happens first.”

Frizzell had previously been assistant manager to Billy McNeill but took over the reins when the former Celtic captain, frustrated by City’s parlous financial circumstances, left for Aston Villa in September 1986.

City of the mid-1980s were a very different proposition to the modern day version: they were more than £4m in the red and struggling with crippling debt repayments after an ill-advised spending spree in the late 70s and early 80s.

“The first thing I was told when I joined and went to discuss money was that they were so skint they would sell their goalposts if they could,” a Grealish contemporary, centre-back Mick McCarthy, told Chris Bevan for BBC Sport in a 2013 article looking back at that period.

Frizzell felt the relatively youthful City needed some experienced old heads to steady the ship and Grealish joined from West Brom in the same week John Gidman joined on a free transfer from city rivals Manchester United. Both made their Maine Road debuts for bottom-of-the-league City against United in a 1-1 draw on 26 October 1986.

It was the 118th meeting between the two sides, but the first to be broadcast live on TV.

Injury-hit United took the lead through a Frank Stapleton header that crept past the diving Perry Suckling and inside the post, but McCarthy equalised with a header from a cross by McNab.

Under fire United boss Ron Atkinson only had one more game in charge of the Reds; after a 4-1 League Cup defeat by Southampton, he was sacked.

United’s plight was nothing compared to City, though. They didn’t win away throughout the whole season and, in spite of the additions of forwards Paul Stewart and Imre Varadi, scored a meagre 36 goals in 42 games.

Youngster Paul Moulden, having been a prolific goalscorer in City’s FA Youth Cup-winning side of 1986, briefly offered hope when scoring four goals in four games in November but then picked up an injury.

Frizzell blooded several other members of that youth side including Paul Lake, David White and Ian Brightwell but City were relegated. Grealish’s last game for them was in a 0-0 home draw against Newcastle in March, City’s first point in a month. They only won twice in the remaining 10 games and were relegated…along with McNeill’s Villa!

Grealish only made 15 appearances in that 1986-87 season and was an unused sub on two other occasions. He made 11 league starts, one in the FA Cup (a 1-0 defeat v Man U) and three in the Full Members Cup. He also played in City’s reserve side on 14 occasions (stats courtesy of the Gary James archive).

Born in Paddington, west London on 21 September 1956, Grealish played underage for St Agnes Gaelic football club in Cricklewood – alongside brother Brian – and represented London at various underage levels.

That special 1983 Wembley moment meant Grealish achieved the unusual claim to fame as reportedly the only person to play soccer and Gaelic football at the iconic stadium. He’d previously played there in the early ’70s for London’s Minors against New York in what at the time was an annual Whit weekend tournament.

“For a group of London lads, playing at Wembley Stadium was magnificent,” said Éamonn Whelan, a teammate of Grealish’s for St Agnes and London.

Ireland was certainly in his blood even if he wasn’t born there: his father, Packie, was from Athenry in Galway, and although his mother, Nora, was born in London, both her parents came from Limerick.

No surprise then, that Grealish represented Eire with some distinction, winning 45 caps between 1976 and 1985, and It was during Alan Kelly’s brief reign in charge, in 1980, that Grealish was first made Eire skipper – in a 2-0 win over Switzerland at Lansdowne Road, Dublin.

Brighton’s Lawrenson and Gerry Ryan were teammates that day, as was Chris Hughton.

One of the goalscorers that day, Don Givens, said of Grealish: “He gave so much effort that he wasn’t going to accept anything less from his teammates.

“Tony was a 100 per cent tough little midfield player, and a great character off the pitch.”

Former Ireland manager Eoin Hand chose Grealish as Eire captain for the 1984 European qualifying campaign, when Ireland ended in third place behind Spain and Holland.

In his book, First Hand My Life and Irish Football, Hand said Grealish was “more Irish than the Irish themselves”.

“With his dynamic, combative style in the midfield engine room, Tony, with his tousled hair and Viking beard, was the kind of guy you were happy to go into battle alongside,” he said.

Grealish on the international stage with the Republic of Ireland

“He was a natural leader, and although known for his ceaseless industry, he was no mere artisan. Grealish could play as well and conjure up the odd goal from deep positions.”

Previous manager Johnny Giles had given Grealish his Ireland debut at the age of 19, in a friendly against Norway at Dalymount Park, Dublin on 24 March 1976.

Grealish, unusually, started at full back as Ireland won 3-0 thanks to goals from Liam Brady, Jimmy Holmes and a penalty from Mickey Walsh.

“Tony was very good for me when we played together in midfield because he was a ball winning all action player, and we had a good understanding,” said Brady, who later became Brighton’s manager.

“Around the Ireland dressing room, he was very enthusiastic, determined and very motivating – he liked to motivate everyone around him,” he told the Irish World in 2013.  “He’d be up for every match.”

Brady added: “We had a strong friendship, and I haven’t met anyone who played with him who wasn’t a friend of Tony Grealish’s.

“He was a super man, and a super bloke. He made the atmosphere better wherever he was.”

Grealish took his first steps to becoming a professional footballer aged 15 in 1972 when he joined Leyton Orient as an apprentice. Manager George Petchey took him on as a professional in 1974 and he was the club’s player of the year at the end of the 1975-76 season.

In 1977-78, Orient reached an FA Cup semi-final at Stamford Bridge, where they lost 3-0 to  Arsenal, although the aforementioned Liam Brady mentioned: “He man-to-man marked me that day and put me out of the game. Luckily some of our other players performed despite the fact that I didn’t.”

One of the last of his 171 appearances for Orient was in the April 1979 3-3 draw with promotion-chasing Brighton in front of The Big Match cameras (John Jackson was in goal for the Os and Martin Chivers scored his only goal for Brighton).

Grealish transferred to David Pleat’s Luton Town in the summer of 1979 for a fee of £150,000, racking up 78 Division Two appearances over two seasons before joining Brighton.

In total, Grealish played 116 games plus five as a sub for Brighton, and his last game for the Seagulls ironically saw him score in a 1-1 home draw with Manchester City.

Having known what he could bring to a side, it was Giles, when manager of West Bromwich Albion, who took Grealish to the Hawthorns in March 1984 for £75,000.

Reunited with Johnny Giles at West Brom

In one and a half seasons with the Baggies, Grealish made 65 appearances before that move to City.

He spent a brief period with Salgueiros in Portugal before former Leeds hard man Norman Hunter signed him for Rotherham United in August 1987. He made 110 appearances over three seasons, going down with them in 1987-88 and helping them to bounce straight back by winning the Fourth Division title the next year under another former Albion midfield player, Billy McEwan.

His last league club was Walsall during Kenny Hibbitt’s managerial reign before he continued playing at various non-league clubs in the Midlands: Bromsgove Rovers, Moor Green, Halesowen Harriers, Sutton Coldfield and Evesham United.

He returned to Bromsgrove Rovers as player-manager before calling it a day, and then worked in the scrap metal business. He died of cancer aged 56 in April 2013.

An obituary in Albion’s matchday programme saw tributes paid by several former teammates. Gary Stevens, who memorably scored Albion’s equaliser in the 2-2 Cup Final draw against Man Utd, said: “Off the field, Tony was the life and soul of the party.

“When he was with us, he was always laughing, joking and just enjoying life. Yet on the pitch he always gave 100 per cent, was tenacious in the tackle and he had a tremendous will to win.”

Ex-skipper Foster added: “Tony was a lovely man off the pitch and a passionate footballer on it. He was a fantastic midfielder.”

Why John Gregory was a hero and a Villain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Albion legend whose face didn’t fit at Aston Villa

Steve Foster challenges Spurs’ Steve Archibald at White Hart Lane

LEGEND is overused far too much in football circles but, in some circumstances, it is justified. That applies to Steve Foster.

He played 800 games in a 21-year career which included nine years with Brighton in two separate spells.

His performances in the top-flight for Brighton led him to play for England at the 1982 World Cup and he lifted the League Cup in 1988 as the captain of Luton Town.

He might have enjoyed a longer spell at Aston Villa if the European Cup-winning manager who signed him hadn’t been unceremoniously dumped by ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis.

Foster became – and, to older fans, still is – synonymous with Brighton & Hove Albion, and football followers the world over could readily identify the captain with the white headband.

In several interviews over the years, he has explained how the distinctive headpiece was actually a piece of padded white towel designed to protect a forehead split open in collisions with centre forwards Andy Gray and Justin Fashanu.

I wonder if physio Mike Yaxley’s wife Sharon, who made up the dressing before every game, realised at the time the key role she played in helping to make Foster one of the most identifiable characters in football.

Foster’s illustrious career is warmly documented in Spencer Vignes’ excellent 2007 book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books Publishing), featuring an interview with the player himself and those who played with him.

For example, Gerry Ryan told Vignes: “Fozzie was a huge player with a huge personality, a real leader and deceptively quick for a big man.

“When he played against the best, like Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish, he was the best. People talk about giving 100 per cent, but Fozzie gave 150 per cent in everything he did, and I mean off the field as well.”

Gordon Smith added: “He was a fantastic person, great fun and a terrific centre half.”

Vignes himself observed: “Steve’s willingness to put his neck on the line for the cause earned him hero status among the fans, together with the complete respect of the dressing room.”

Unsurprisingly, Foster pulls no punches in describing the various characters and events surrounding his colourful career, for instance describing Chris Cattlin as “definitely the wrong man. I told him the truth and what I thought of him.” And, of predecessor Jimmy Melia: “When Jimmy took over it was more like a circus than a football club.”

Foster said the two biggest influences on his career were Frank Burrows, the manager of his first club, Portsmouth, who taught him about balance as the key to strength on the pitch, and Brian Horton, the dynamic midfield driving force he succeeded as Albion captain.

“He shouted and screamed for 90 minutes to help us get results, and to keep everyone on their toes,” said Foster. “If he made a mistake, 10 other people would shout and scream at him, and he would take it. When I was captain at Brighton, and my other clubs, that’s how I tried to be.”

Such a recognisable figure as Albion’s centre-half

Fortunately, sufficient archive film footage remains for fans of different generations to see what a dominant force Foster was at the heart of Brighton’s defence, while I retain plenty of now-yellowing cuttings from the numerous columns of newsprint he filled during his pomp.

Born on 24 September 1957 in Portsmouth, Foster went to St Swithin’s Junior School before moving on to St John’s College. A centre-forward in the early days, he played for the Portsmouth Schools under-12s side but it was Southampton who took him on as an associate schoolboy.

He played in the same youth team as Steve Williams and Nick Holmes, who both went on to have long careers.

But Saints boss Lawrie McMenemy let Foster go at 16, urging him to go elsewhere and prove him wrong. After Foster won his first England cap, McMenemy sent him a congratulatory telegram. “That was class, nothing but class,” Foster told Vignes.

Southampton’s loss was Portsmouth’s gain, courtesy of a tip off from local schoolteacher Harry Bourne to Pompey youth team coach Ray Crawford (who’d previously held a similar role under Pat Saward at Brighton). Bourne ran the Portsmouth and Hampshire schools teams.

Crawford describes in his excellent autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing 2007) how he called at the family’s house in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, but Foster’s mother was at a works disco at the local Allders store. Wasting no time, he immediately went in pursuit and, against a backdrop of deafening music and flashing lights, shouted above the din that they were interested in signing her son.

Foster called the club the following day and he was invited to play in a youth team game for Portsmouth – against Southampton! “I scored twice because I was playing as a centre-forward then, and they ended up offering me an apprenticeship on £5 per week which was my entry into the professional game,” said Foster.

Reg Tyrell, a respected former chief scout from Crawford’s time at Ipswich, watched the young striker in a youth team training game and declared: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward but he’d make a good number 5.” A few weeks’ later, manager Ron Tindall’s successor, Ian St John (later Saint and Greavsie TV show partner of Jimmy Greaves), gave Foster his debut as a centre half!

Foster played more than 100 games during Pompey’s slide down through the divisions, and, at 21, had developed something of a fiery reputation. But Brighton boss Alan Mullery saw him as “big and brave, strong in the tackle and good in the air” providing “much-needed stability at the back” as the Seagulls began their first adventure into the top-flight of English football in 1979. He was signed for £150,000.

A couple of disciplinary issues in the early days of the new season looked like proving the doubters right to have warned Mullery off signing him, but an injury to first choice centre back Andy Rollings forced the manager to backtrack on a temporary ban he’d handed out. Foster made the most of his reprieve and never looked back.

By the end of a season in which the side grew collectively Foster was named Player of the Year and he earned international recognition, gaining an England under 21 cap as a substitute for Terry Butcher in a 1-0 defeat against East Germany in Jena on 23 April 1980 (Peter Ward was playing up front).

While the 1980-81 season saw Albion struggle and flirt with relegation, Foster’s tussles with some of the top strikers in the game saw his reputation grow, and he even chipped in with a vital goal in the final home game of the season against Leeds.

When Horton and Mullery departed at the end of that season, Foster took over the captaincy under new boss Mike Bailey, and, even though fans didn’t much like the way Bailey set up his side, Foster thrived with the emphasis on defence first.

England boss Ron Greenwood, who lived in Hove, was in the process of shaping his squad for the 1992 World Cup in Spain and, with injuries affecting some of the other centre backs in contention, Foster was given a chance to prove himself.

I can remember travelling to Wembley on 23 February 1982 to watch him make his debut against Northern Ireland, a game England won 4-0 courtesy of goals from Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan, Bryan Robson and Glenn Hoddle.

I had been to the stadium 10 years before to watch another Albion player – Willie Irvine – make his international comeback in a 1-0 win for the Irish, but it was something special – and rare – to see a Brighton player line up for England.

To break through to the senior team in a World Cup year was a notable achievement, although, by his own admission, he accepted his good fortune directly correlated to injuries ruling out other players.

Although the record books show Foster earned three caps, in fact he represented the country four times that year.

A month after his debut against Northern Ireland, on 23 March, Foster played for an England XI in Bilbao against Athletic Bilbao. The game finished 1-1 with Keegan scoring for England. It didn’t qualify for a cap because it was a testimonial match for retiring Bilbao player Txetxu Rojo, but Greenwood used the fixture to familiarise the players with what was the venue for England’s opening round matches at the World Cup.

Foster also featured in a 2-0 friendly win over the Netherlands (goals by Tony Woodcock and Graham Rix) on 25 May as Greenwood continued to assess his options.

Foster (circled) in Ron Greenwood’s 1982 World Cup squad

When it was clear neither Alvin Martin nor Dave Watson would be fit for the tournament in Spain, Foster was selected as back-up to first choice centre back pairing Terry Butcher and Phil Thompson. Ahead of the third group match, Greenwood didn’t want to risk a ban for the already-booked Butcher, so Foster played alongside Thompson and England won 1-0 against Kuwait; Trevor Francis getting the England goal.

When England didn’t progress past the second phase, Greenwood’s spell as boss came to an end and he was replaced by Bobby Robson who, for his first game in charge, partnered Russell Osman with Butcher – both having played under him at Ipswich Town.

Foster didn’t play for England again.

Much has been written already about the 1982-83 season and Albion’s path to the FA Cup Final. Foster demonstrated real heroism in the semi-final at Highbury, playing through the pain of a septic elbow, and, memorably, towards the end of the game, launched into an overhead kick to clear a goal-bound shot to safety (pictured above).

History records Foster being suspended for the Cup Final – a well-documented appeal to the High Court against a two-game ban for accumulated bookings couldn’t get the decision reversed – but, as is often the case in football, his misfortune presented a golden opportunity for stand-in Gary Stevens who capped a man-of-the-match performance with the equalising goal. What he did that day persuaded Spurs to sign him.

Foster, of course, eventually got his Wembley chance in the replay but with a rampant Manchester United running out easy 4-0 winners, their fans also rather cruelly derided the Albion skipper with the chant I can still hear ringing around Wembley that evening: “Stevie Foster, Stevie Foster, what a difference you have made!”

In truth the whole defence lacked balance in the replay because manager Melia had elected to fill the right-back berth vacated by injury to Chris Ramsey with the left-footed Steve Gatting. He figured Stevens couldn’t be moved from the centre where he had performed so well on the Saturday, but it was a mistake, especially as Stevens had often played right back previously.

The relegation that went in tandem with Albion’s Wembley loss sparked the beginning of a big clear-out of the best players. First to go was Stevens, closely followed by Michael Robinson.

It wasn’t until the following March that Foster followed them through the exit, although, according to Foster, he might have gone sooner – even though he didn’t want to leave; a point he made clear in an interview with Match Weekly shortly after he signed for Villa for £150,000.

“I never wanted to move,” he said. “I had nearly seven years of my contract to run at Brighton and would have quite happily played out my career there. It’s a great little club.

“But economies dictated otherwise and, although manager Chris Cattlin wanted to keep me, he was under pressure to sell me and help ease the club’s financial problems.

“It was a wrench to leave Brighton because the club has treated me tremendously well and I’ve had some great times there – not least the FA Cup run last season.”

Cattlin had a slightly different take about the transaction in his matchday programme notes. “I feel that Steve Foster has been a fine player during his four-and-a-half years at the Goldstone, but I felt that the time was right and the offer good enough to let him go,” he said.

“I hope the move will benefit both Steve and the club. I hope it rejuvenates his career because he has been unlucky with injuries this season. It gives me breathing space for Eric Young to develop and it will also allow me to strengthen other positions if necessary.”

In a rather oblique reference to the need to get rid of high-earning players, Cattlin added in another matchday programme article: “Certain players have left Brighton in moves which I feel are important for our future. Salaries and bonuses of individual players are confidential and obviously I cannot disclose details, but the moves I have made I am certain are right.”

He added: “I can’t explain all the matters that have been considered but I will once again emphasise that we are building for the future and every move I make in the transfer market is being made with this in mind.”

Foster revealed that Villa boss Tony Barton, a former coach at Foster’s first club, Portsmouth, had tried to sign him twice before, but the clubs hadn’t been able to agree on a fee. Eventually, the transfer saw defender Mark Jones (who’d made seven top-flight appearances for Villa that season) move in the opposite direction, in addition to a £150,000 fee.

Barton wanted Foster to tighten up a leaky defence, to fill the position previously occupied by former European Cup winning centre-half Ken McNaught, who had moved to West Brom.

The relatively inexperienced Brendan Ormsby had been playing alongside McNaught’s former partner, Allan Evans, and the signing of Foster put his nose well and truly out of joint. “It’s obvious that I’m just going to be used as cover for Steve Foster or Allan Evans now and so it’s probably in my best interests to try and find another club,” he told Match Weekly.

As it turned out, it was Barton who was ousted; Ormsby stayed, and new manager Graham Turner decreed it would be Foster who was the odd one out. But I jump ahead too soon.

Foster’s arrival at Villa Park as featured on a matchday programme cover

A picture of Foster being introduced to the Villa faithful appeared on the front cover of the programme for the 17 March home game against Nottingham Forest although he didn’t make his Villa debut until 14 April 1984, away to Leicester City, which ended in a 2-0 defeat.

Foster made seven appearances by the end of the season and he got on the scoresheet in only his third game, netting together with future Albion player Dennis Mortimer, in a 2-1 win over Watford on 21 April.

Villa finished the season in 10th place but it wasn’t good enough for the erratic chairman Ellis. Suddenly Foster found the man who signed him had been sacked, and the side Barton had led to European Cup success was gradually dismantled.

To the astonishment of the Villa faithful, Barton was succeeded by former Shrewsbury Town boss Turner.

Foster played 10 games under the new boss, and scored twice, once in a 4-2 win over Chelsea on 15 September and then again the following Saturday in a 3-3 draw away to Watford.

He’d started the season alongside Evans but Turner then offered a way back to Ormsby. While Foster played a couple of games alongside Ormsby, Turner preferred Evans and Ormsby together, making the new man surplus to requirements.

His last game for Villa was away to Everton on 13 October and the following month he was sold to Luton for £70,000 – less than half the fee Villa had paid for him eight months earlier. Foster simply put it down to his face not fitting with the new man.

It was a completely different story with Luton boss David Pleat and Foster’s time at Kenilworth Road coincided with the club’s most successful period in their history, even though Pleat left to manage Spurs.

Alongside representing his country, Foster said the best moment of his career was captaining the Hatters as they won the League Cup (then sponsored by Littlewoods) at Wembley in 1988 with a 3-2 win over Arsenal, his former Brighton teammate Danny Wilson scoring one of their goals (Brian Stein got the other two).

They reached the final of the same competition the following year too, but on that occasion lost 3-1 to Nottingham Forest. By then Foster was assistant manager to Ray Harford, and it looked like he was on a path to become a boss in his own right.

But that summer, when his old Albion captain, Horton, who had taken over from Mark Lawrenson as the manager of Oxford United, asked him to join him as a player at the Manor Ground, he was unable to resist and a new chapter in his career began.

It meant a drop down a division but Foster accepted the challenge and went on to play more than 100 games for United, many being quite a struggle as the side fought for survival at the foot of the second tier.

In the autumn of 1991, injury sidelined Foster from the U’s team and he believed it could have been the end of his career.

However, when the following summer he was contemplating whether or not to retire, he gave Brighton boss Barry Lloyd a call and asked if he could keep his fitness going by joining in pre-season training with the Seagulls.

Lloyd could see that the former skipper was still able to perform and, although the club was in a downward spiral, Foster seized the opportunity to extend his career and help out his old side.

Another veteran of that side, Clive Walker, told Vignes for A Few Good Men: “Fozzie might not have been so mobile then but his positional sense was absolutely brilliant, as was his ability in the air.”

Foster said: “Funnily enough during that second period I played probably some of my best football. I had to because of the position the club was in. There was no money so you had to pull out all the stops.”

Foster continued to play after Lloyd had departed, and he vented his anger publicly about the off-field shenanigans new boss Liam Brady was having to operate under.

Foster eventually called it a day at the end of the 1995-96 season, saddened at the club’s plight. He was granted a testimonial match against Sheffield Wednesday, played as a pre-season friendly in July 1996. Throughout Foster’s career he had continued to live in Hove and he retains his affection for the Albion to this day.

During his second spell at the club, Foster was the PFA rep and he had to deal with the heartbreak of telling the parents of a young player (Billly Logan) that an ankle injury was going to end his career. The youngster got just £1,500 compensation.

As a result, after his own playing days were over, Foster set up an insurance business (Pro-Secure) which continues to this day, making sure players are properly covered and get suitably recompensed if things don’t turn out as they’d hoped.

Although Foster hasn’t always been popular with the Albion’s hierarchy (courtesy of suggested involvement in potential takeovers), his association with the club hasn’t dimmed and Seagulls fans of two generations took him to their hearts for his on-field performances and leadership spanning a total of 332 games.

• Pictures from my scrapbook, the Albion matchday programme over several seasons, and some online sources.

Gary Williams knew where the goal was – even from left back

A CARTILAGE operation when he was just 17 changed Gary Williams’ career, but, after success at Brighton, it eventually brought his playing days to a premature end at Crystal Palace.

Originally a winger, the operation, when he was an emerging player at Preston North End, took the edge of his pace and led to him converting into an overlapping left back.

Thankfully, as Brighton fans would witness, his ability to score important goals never left him.

Born in Litherland, Liverpool, on 8 March 1954, Gary Peter Williams had unsuccesful trials with Liverpool and Coventry City before starting his career with non-league Marine. He caught the eye of a scout who’d gone to watch a different player and ended up signing for Preston in April 1972.

Williams made his Preston debut in the final game of the 1971-72 season as Preston drew 2-2 at home to Swindon.

He then played in the opening match of the following season, against Aston Villa, but had to wait until the end of March at Brighton for his next appearance.

After his cartilage op, and just when he thought he was set to be released aged 18, Preston’s reserve team left-back got injured, Williams filled in, did a good job, and it was the platform he needed to launch his career.

“Because I used to be a winger, I knew which way to shepherd them to make it difficult to cut inside,” he told the journalist and author Spencer Vignes in his 2005 book, A Few Good Men.

It was the legendary Bobby Charlton, briefly trying out management at North End, who gave Williams his big break into first team football, selecting him at left back for the final eight games of the 1974-75 season.

Young Gary Williams with former England World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles, at Preston, and scoring the winner at Sunderland.

Former Everton boss Harry Catterick took over from Charlton and made Williams the first choice left back in 1975-76. The following season his outstanding performances earned him the Player of the Season award and on 22 March 1977, he made his 100th league appearance in a 1-0 defeat at Selhurst Park.

By then, Williams was catching the eye of clubs higher up the league and his final game for Preston was the season-ending fixture at Shrewsbury on 14 May, which North End won 2-1.

In July 1977, Preston accepted a £45,000 fee from Brighton to sign Williams shortly after his teammate Mark Lawrenson joined for £100,000. Albion’s Graham Cross and Harry Wilson moved in the opposite direction to fill the positions they’d vacated.

Williams told Vignes how he’d always enjoyed playing against Brighton because of the size of the crowds they got.

“To run out in Division 3 at the Goldstone in front of a full house was amazing. You knew you were in for a hard time but the atmosphere was just infectious,” he said.

Manager Alan Mullery had called him and asked him to get himself down to Brighton and the club booked a room in the Metropole Hotel, the sea view helping to make up his mind about the move.

“I wanted to better myself and get into the First Division but football is such an up and down game that it’s not too wise to look too far ahead,” Williams told Football Weekly News magazine in 1980.

The start to his Albion career was somewhat inauspicious. Although he came on as a substitute in the opening game, a league cup tie away to Cambridge United which finished 0-0, injury then prevented him making his league debut for two months.

It finally came in a 2-0 win away to Sunderland on 1 October 1977 and he then missed only one game through to the end of the season, appearing a total of 34 times as the Seagulls finished fourth, missing promotion on goal difference to Tottenham.

The following season saw Williams play every game, scoring twice, as Brighton were runners-up to Palace gaining promotion to Division One for the first time.

In Albion’s first season amongst the elite, Williams was again ever present – indeed, he remarkably played 146 consecutive games during his time at the club.

The Everton-supporting full-back got the chance to play against his boyhood side in December 1979 and three months later he scored the first of two cracking, memorable Brighton goals in the top division as the Seagulls finished in 16th position.

On 29 March 1980, at the Goldstone, he lashed a shot from 30 yards that flew past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton to earn Albion the double over European Cup holders Nottingham Forest.

Williams beats Nottingham Forest full back Viv Anderson at the Goldstone and, together with Gary Stevens, tries to thwart Liverpool’s Kenny Dalglish.

Williams admits he was about to pass it until skipper Brian Horton urged him to ‘hit the ****ing thing!’

“When you hit the ball that sweetly, you don’t even really feel a thing,” he recounted to Vignes, in that 2005 interview. “By the time I looked up, it was heading for the top corner.”

Although Forest boss Brian Clough declared it a fluke in a post-match interview, because the game took place in front of the TV cameras, it was selected as one of the goals of the season.

Thirteen months after that goal, Williams struck another beauty, this time to silence the Sunderland faithful at Roker Park.

It clinched Albion a 2-1 win and was part of a late flurry of good results which saw the Seagulls escape the clutches of relegation.

Describing it to Vignes, he said: “It was our last attack of the game. Gordon Smith knocks a good ball into the penalty area and I’ve just taken a gamble and gone up from the halfway line. I say so myself but it was a really good volley.

“It fell to me around 10 yards out and you hear the net ripple because the crowd went silent.”

While it contributed to Albion staying up, that summer saw the departure of Mullery, Lawrenson and Horton and the arrival of Mike Bailey into the manager’s chair. It was to signal the end of Williams’ Brighton career.

Bailey favoured a far more defensive approach to his predecessor and brought in the experienced Northern Ireland international Sammy Nelson, who had been displaced at Arsenal by the arrival of Kenny Sansom.

Williams only learned about the signing through The Argus and, when he confronted the manager about it, was told Nelson was only going to be a squad player.

“I’m thinking ‘bollocks’ but he didn’t play him straightaway,” Williams recounted. “He couldn’t drop me because I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Ironically, however, he lost his place after bombing forward and scoring in a 4-1 win over Manchester City. Astonishingly, Bailey was annoyed that he had been too adventurous!

With Nelson keen to carry on playing and earn a place in Northern Ireland’s 1982 World Cup squad, it meant Williams was left to languish in the reserves.

By the end of the season, though, Mullery, by now manager of Crystal Palace, came to Willams’ rescue and gave him a chance to resume first team football.

In a swap deal that saw winger Neil Smillie arrive at the Goldstone, Williams moved to Selhurst.

But after only 10 games he was forced to have an operation on his troublesome knee. Expert advice steered him towards a painful decision but he took it and retired from the game aged just 29.

Williams told the Argus: “The trouble with my knee is really wear and tear. I had a cartilage out at 17, and I was told after the operation last October a lot of harm might be caused if I went on playing.”

In A Few Good Men, Vignes gained a great insight into a northern lad who fell in love with the Albion and remains a fan to this day.

“I was very lucky in that I played right at the beginning of the era of overlapping full-backs,” Williams told him. “It was beginning to creep in when I first came onto the scene, and I had an advantage as I’d started my career as a left-winger. I knew all about coming forward.”

gwms quit cutting

Mike Bailey took the Seagulls to their highest-ever finish

ONE OF the all-time greats of Wolverhampton Wanderers led Brighton & Hove Albion to their highest-ever finish in football.

Midfield general Mike Bailey played for Wolves for 11 seasons between 1965 and 1976, leading the team to promotion from the Second Division in 1966-67, helping them to top-flight positions of fourth and fifth in 1971 and 1973, getting to the final of the UEFA Cup in 1972, and lifting the League Cup at Wembley in 1974.

MB WWFCLgeCupMike Bailey holds aloft the League Cup after Wolves beat Manchester City 2-1 at Wembley.

It was perhaps a hard act to follow Alan Mullery as manager of Brighton, particularly as the former Spurs and Fulham captain had led the club from Third Division obscurity to the pinnacle of English football within three years.

But Bailey had just got Charlton Athletic promoted from the Third Division and in the 1981-82 season led Albion to a 13th place finish, a record which was only threatened in 2017-18 by Chris Hughton’s side, who eventually ended up 15th.

Unfortunately, although Bailey’s team was relatively successful, the style of play he adopted to achieve that position was a turn-off to the fans who deserted the Albion in their hundreds and thousands.

Eventually, chairman Mike Bamber felt he had to address the slump in support by sacking Bailey in December 1982. “He’s a smashing bloke, I’m sorry to see him go, but it had to be done,” said Bamber. There are plenty – in particular Bailey! – who feel he acted a little too hastily.

Bailey shared his feelings in an interview he gave to the News of the World’s Reg Drury in the run-up to the 1983 FA Cup Final.

Mike Bailey talks to the News of the World; his often frank programme notes; his assistant, John Collins, a former Luton Town player.

“It seems that my team has been relegated from the First Division while Jimmy Melia’s team has reached the Cup Final,” he began.

Wanting to put the record straight having been hurt by some of the media coverage he’d seen since his departure, he explained: “I found the previous manager Alan Mullery had left me with a good squad, but, naturally I built on it and imposed my own style of play.”

Bailey resented accusations that his style had been dull and boring football, pointing out: “Nobody said that midway through last season when we were sixth and there was talk of Europe.

“We were organised and disciplined and getting results. John Collins, a great coach, was on the same wavelength as me. We wanted to lay the foundations of lasting success, just like Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley did at Liverpool.

“The only problem was that winning 1-0 and 2-0 didn’t satisfy everybody. I tried to change things too soon – that was a mistake.

“When I left, we were 18th with more than a point a game. I’ve never known a team go down when fifth from bottom.”

It was clear from the outset of Bailey’s reign that he didn’t suffer fools gladly and there were numerous clashes with players, notably Steve Foster, Michael Robinson and Neil McNab, the displaced Gordon Smith and Mickey Thomas, a Bailey signing who repeatedly went missing because his wife didn’t like it in the south.

Bailey would vent his feelings quite overtly in his matchday programme notes; he was not afraid to hit out at referees, the football authorities and the media, as well as trying to explain his decisions to supporters, urging them to get behind the team rather than criticise.

Happier times as Mike Bailey becomes Albion manager and signs Tony Grealish to replace outgoing stalwart midfielder and skipper, Brian Horton.

Attempting to shine a light on the comings and goings associated with his arrival, he explained: “The moves we have been making are designed to provide Brighton with a better football team and one that can consolidate its position in the First Division, rather than struggle, such as in the last two seasons.”

By Christmas, the team were comfortably in the top half of the table and in an interview with the Argus, Bailey said: “I must admit that as a player and captain of Wolves I was a bit of a bastard, slagging others off, and that sort of thing. But being a manager, one sees everything in a different light. I am still trying to learn as a manager, especially now that I am with a First Division club.”

Three months later, shortly after he had appeared at a fans forum at the Brighton Centre, he very pointedly said: “It is my job to select the team and to try to win matches.

“People are quite entitled to their opinion, but I am paid to get results for Brighton and that is my first priority.

“Building a successful team is a long-term business and I have recently spoken to many top people in the professional game who admire what we are doing here at Brighton and just how far we have come in a short space of time.

“We know we still have a long way to go, but we are all working towards a successful future.”

As he assessed his first season, he said: “Many good things have come out of our season. Our early results were encouraging and we quickly became an organised and efficient side. The lads got into their rhythm quickly and it was a nice ‘plus’ to get into a high league position so early on.”

He had special words of praise for Gary Stevens and said: “Although the youngest member of our first team squad, Gary is a perfect example to his fellow professionals. Whatever we ask of him he will always do his best, he is completely dedicated and sets a fine example to his fellow players.”

Meanwhile, in his own end of season summary, Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe maintained: “It is Bailey’s chief regret that he changed his playing policy in response to public, and possibly private, pressure with the result that Albion finished the latter part of the season in most disappointing fashion.

“Accusations that Albion were the principal bores of the First Division at home were heaped on Bailey’s head, and, while he is a man not given to altering his mind for no good reason, certain instructions were issued to placate the rising tide of criticisms.”

Vinicombe recorded that the average home gate for 1981-82 was 18,241, fully 6,500 fewer than had supported the side during their first season amongst the elite.

“The Goldstone regulars, who are not typical of First Division crowds (but neither is the ground) grew restless at a series of frustrating home draws, and finally turned on their own players,” he said.

At the beginning of the following season, off-field matters brought disruption to the playing side. Arsenal’s former FA Cup winner Charlie George had trained with the Seagulls during pre-season and senior players Foster, Robinson and McNab publicly voiced their disappointment that the money wasn’t found to bring such a player on board permanently.

McNab in particular accused the club of lacking ambition and efforts were made to send him out on loan. Similarly, Robinson was lined up for a swap deal with Sunderland’s Stan Cummins, but it fell through.

Meanwhile, Albion couldn’t buy a win away from home and suffered two 5-0 defeats (against Luton and West Brom) and a 4-0 spanking at Nottingham Forest – all in September. Then, four defeats on the spin in November, going into December, finally cost Bailey his job. Perhaps the writing was on the wall when, in his final programme contribution, he blamed the run of poor results on bad luck and admitted: “I feel we are somehow in a rut.”

It would be fair to say Bailey the player enjoyed more success than Bailey the manager. So, where did it all begin?

Born on 27 February 1942 in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, he went to the same school in Gorleston, Norfolk, as the former Arsenal centre back Peter Simpson. His career began with non-league Gorleston before Charlton Athletic snapped him up in 1958 and he spent eight years at The Valley.

M Bailey charltonDuring his time there, he was capped twice by England as manager Alf Ramsey explored options for his 1966 World Cup squad. Just a week after making his fifth appearance for England under 23s, Bailey, aged 22, was called up to make his full debut in a friendly against the USA on 27 May 1964.

He had broken into the under 23s only three months earlier, making his debut in a 3-2 win over Scotland at St James’ Park, Newcastle, on 5 February 1964.He retained his place against France, Hungary, Israel and Turkey, games in which his teammates included Graham Cross, Mullery and Martin Chivers.

England ran out 10-0 winners in New York with Roger Hunt scoring four, Fred Pickering three, Terry Paine two, and Bobby Charlton the other.

Eight of that England side made it to the 1966 World Cup squad two years later but a broken leg put paid to Bailey’s chances of joining them, even though he got one more chance to impress Ramsey.

Six months after the win in New York, he was in the England team who beat Wales 2-1 at Wembley in the Home Championship. Frank Wignall, who would later spend a season with Bailey at Wolves, scored both England’s goals. Many years later, Wignall was playing for Burton Albion when a certain Peter Ward began to shine!

In 1965, Bailey broke his leg in a FA Cup tie against Middlesbrough and that was at a time when such injuries could be career-threatening.

“I was worried that may have been it,” Bailey recalled in his autobiography, The Valley Wanderer: The Mike Bailey Story (published in November 2015). “In the end, I was out for six months. My leg got stronger and I never had problems with it again, so it was a blessing in disguise in that respect.

“Charlton had these (steep) terraces. I’d go up to them every day, I was getting fitter and fitter. But it was too late to get in the 1966 World Cup side – Alf Ramsey had got his team in place.”

 Bailey missed out on the 1966 England World Cup squad but he won Football League representative honours and enjoyed success as captain of Wolves.

During his time with the England under 23s, Bailey had become friends with Wolves’ Ernie Hunt (the striker who later played for Coventry City) and Hunt persuaded him to move to the Black Country club.

Thus began an association which saw him play a total of 436 games for Wolves over 11 seasons, leading a side with solid defenders like John McAlle, Francis Munro and Derek Parkin, combined with exciting players like forwards Derek Dougan and John Richards, plus winger Dave Wagstaffe.

However, when coach Sammy Chung stepped up to take over as manager, he selected Kenny Hibbitt ahead of Bailey so the former skipper chose to end his playing days in America, with the Minnesota Kicks, who were managed by the former Brighton boss Freddie Goodwin.

Nevertheless, Bailey’s contribution to the team famous for their old gold kit saw him inducted into the Wolves Hall of Fame in 2010.

On his return to the UK, Bailey became manager of Hereford United, then he returned to The Valley as manager of Charlton and, immediately after getting them promoted to the third tier, took over at Brighton in the summer of 1981.

A somewhat extraordinary stat I discovered about Bailey’s management career in England through managerstats.co.uk was that he managed each of those three clubs for just 65 games. At Hereford, his record was W 32, D 11, L 22; at Charlton W 21, D 17, L 27; at Brighton, W 20 D 17, L 28.

In 1984, he moved to Greece to manage OFI Crete, and he later worked as reserve team coach at Portsmouth. Later still, he did some scouting work for Wolves.

Pictures from various sources: Goal and Shoot! magazines; the Evening Argus, the News of the World, and the Albion matchday programme.

The never forgotten miss by FA Cup Final scorer Gordon Smith

3 and smith must score“NEVER in my wildest dreams – or should that be nightmares? – did I think that, more than 20 years later, that miss in front of goal would still be getting replayed on television and mentioned in the media wherever I go.”

The words could only have been said by one man and they appear in the autobiography…And Smith Did Score (Black and White Publishing, 2005).

Gordon Smith’s football career included being a treble trophy winner with Glasgow giants Rangers, top scorer of the season for Manchester City, and becoming chief executive of the Scottish FA.

But it is what happened in the final seconds of extra time in the 1983 FA Cup Final that he is most remembered for.

Gordon Duffield Smith was born in Kilwinning (20 miles south of Glasgow) on 29 December 1954 and followed in his grandfather Mattha’s footsteps in becoming a pro footballer.

He was at Kilmarnock for five years, scoring 36 goals in 161 appearances, during which time he earned international honours with Scotland’s under-23 side, twice starting and three times going on as a substitute.

“It’s always a tremendous thrill to be selected in a squad for my country,” Smith said in a 1976  Shoot / Goal! magazine article. “It’s great to think Mr (Willie) Ormond considers me good enough for selection. I always do my very best for Scotland. I don’t need any further incentive other than pulling on that dark blue jersey.”

The item was highly complimentary of the player, saying: “The Kilmarnock dazzler is a player of poise and balance. He is one of the swiftest in Scotland and is certainly one of the most gifted. He has the talent to show the ball to the full-back then leave him helpless with astonishing acceleration.

“Smith can make and take goals. Some of his scores have been in the ‘unbelievable’ category. The flash down the wing, the cut-in, the race along the bye-line and then, with the ‘keeper expecting the cut-back, the explosive shot to finish the move in grandstand fashion – the ball zipping between the ‘keeper and the near post.”

In 1977, having joined Rangers for a fee of £65,000, he also collected an under-21 cap as an overage player, in a 1-0 defeat to Wales, but he was never selected for the full international side.

In his first season at Rangers, they won the domestic treble and he scored 27 goals from midfield. To cap it off he scored the winning goal in the 1978 Scottish League Cup Final against Celtic.

Alan Mullery paid £400,000 to take him to Brighton in 1980, and talked about the deal in his autobiography. “Sadly, Gordon Smith is remembered as the man who missed the last-minute chance to win the FA Cup in 1983,” said Mullers. “That’s a shame because he was one of the best players I ever worked with. He reminded me of Trevor Brooking. A midfield player with silky skills who could read the game perfectly.”

Smith played 38 games in his first season at Brighton and scored 10 goals. “I couldn’t ask for more than that,” said Mullery. But when Mullery quit the club in the summer of 1981, the rest of Smith’s time at the Goldstone could at best be described as turbulent.

He didn’t get on with Mullery’s replacement, Mike Bailey, or his assistant John Collins, mainly because of their more defensive style of play. In March 1982, the Argus reported Smith was pondering his future having been left out of the side, with Gerry Ryan and Giles Stille being selected ahead of him.

“I am just wondering what is happening now that I’m not even travelling with the team. I don’t know what my standing is at all,” he told reporter John Vinicombe.

Bailey accused some players of lacking commitment following a 4-1 reverse at Notts County, and Smith was dropped for the following game.

Smith voiced his displeasure at being made a scapegoat and told the Argus: “It seems that every time we lose, I get dropped. Then I read the manager’s remarks about lack of commitment. What other inference can I draw?

“He asked me to play defensively at Notts and I don’t think I let him or the team down. Throughout my career, I have never shown any lack of effort.”

In the 1981-82 season, Smith played 27 matches plus four as sub. He started 15 of the first 16 games of the 1982-83 season but, as Bailey and Collins tried to find the right formula, he lost his place to summer signing Neil Smillie and decided to take the opportunity to return to Rangers on loan.

He only played three matches, but one of them happened to be a League Cup Final defeat against Celtic at Hampden Park!

Almost as soon as Bailey and Collins had left, on Smith’s return to the south coast Jimmy Melia restored him to the first team, hence his subsequent involvement in the 1983 FA Cup Final.

“I had said I would never kick another ball for Brighton, but that was because I had been told there was no place for me as a regular first team player,” Smith said in the run-up to the big game.

“The change of manager altered that and obviously now I am looking forward to playing at Wembley within six months of taking part at Hampden Park. I just hope the result is different.”

Interestingly, the Express said: “The Wembley stage may just suit Smith’s style of game; he’s a studious player with a capacity to drift past people and quite capable of producing telling passes from the bye-line.”

It didn’t help Brighton’s striker options that Brian Clough had refused to allow Peter Ward’s loan from Nottingham Forest to continue until the end of the season, nor that Melia had organised a deal that saw striker Andy Ritchie swap places with Leeds United’s Terry Connor – who was already cup-tied, thus ineligible to play cup games for the Seagulls.

But, in an amazingly prescient pre-match comment, Melia said: “Gordon can be a matchwinner in his own right…he can play a very key part in this final.”

As the title of Smith’s autobiography reflects, the Scot silenced Manchester United followers the world over by opening the scoring for Brighton on that memorable May afternoon in 1983.

In only the 13th minute of the game, young midfield player Gary Howlett found Smith with a delightful chipped diagonal pass over United centre back Kevin Moran and Smith arched a header past Gary Bailey to put the Seagulls in dreamland (below, Smith celebrates the goal with Michael Robinson).

After United had taken the lead, and Gary Stevens had equalised for Brighton, the game went into extra time and the stage was set for one of the most talked about moments in the club’s history.

Interestingly, United ‘keeper Bailey believes Smith has been given a raw deal over the years.

He told the Argus: “It was not the best save I ever made and not the greatest ever seen in English football, but it was a decent one because of my reaction after I’d blocked it.

“I managed to keep my eyes open to make sure I got to the loose ball before Gordon. Often in those 50-50 situations your eyes close and the forward just taps it in but I watched and reacted quickly that time. I want to take credit for it because it came at such a vital time.

“Gordon has taken a lot of stick for what happened, and it was a crucial moment in Brighton’s history, but he shouldn’t get the blame. It is not justified at all. He didn’t score, but he didn’t miss the target.”

On the 25th anniversary of the 1983 final, Argus reporter Andy Naylor interviewed Smith at The Grand Hotel, Brighton, and asked if he ever got sick and tired of being asked about the incident.

“Not really. In life, you have to be able to get over things and deal with them,” Smith explained. “If you become famous for something you don’t do, a lot of people throw it in your face and take the mickey out of you, so you have to show a bit of character and I think I’ve done that.

“I am able to handle it and talk about it and I have no problem at all in taking full responsibility.

“I should have scored. I would love to have scored. I am sorry for the fans, my teammates, the management, everybody who suffered as a result. I suffered greatly too because I’m a perfectionist and I always wanted to be at my best. Everybody else’s disappointment can’t match my own.

“You just have to live with it. There are two choices, either hide away or come out and deal with it. I have put it into perspective. I swapped shirts with Alan Davies after the game. He got a winner’s medal and I didn’t. He’s dead now. He committed suicide. So winning didn’t change his life for the better.”

And, with the benefit of hindsight, would he have done anything differently? “I would have delayed my shot,” said Smith. “I thought Gary would come to me to shut me down. That is why I took a touch and hit it early, hard and low to his side, which meant he would never have got down to it. I scored a few goals in my time like that.

“For some strange reason, I don’t know why, Gary decided to dive. He dived the wrong way and it stuck in his legs. If I had delayed my shot for another split second, he was going down and I would have just chipped it over him.”

To personalise the situation just for a few short moments: Smith’s parents were travelling back to Sussex on the same coach as me that day, and I’ll never forget what happened. We had all gradually drifted back to our seats on the coach and there was understandably an excited hubbub of chatter mixed with the disappointment of seeing Brighton come so close and yet so far from winning the fabled trophy. As Gordon’s parents boarded the coach, an almighty silence descended. You could hear a pin drop. No-one quite knew what to say.

Of course, no-one would have known it at the time, but less than a year later, Smith was no longer with the club.

The new season back in the second tier of English football was barely a couple of months old before manager Melia was on his way, succeeded by Chris Cattlin, the former player who had been drafted in as coach by the chairman, Mike Bamber.

G Smith cover

Smith fell out with Cattlin and was ostracised for five months – ordered to train with the youth team and banned from anything to do with the first team and reserve team.

Looking back many years later, Smith told journalist Spencer Vignes: “He (Cattlin) told me one day that I wasn’t passionate about football and I just found that unacceptable…and I told him so.He just misread me totally.”

During that time, I can remember travelling by coach to Brighton’s FA Cup tie at Watford on 18 February 1984 and, as we were headed along the motorway, Smith was sitting in the front seat of a minibus of fans heading in the same direction.

Nine months earlier, he had scored – and missed – for the Seagulls at Wembley, and, here he was, reduced to a minibus passenger travelling to watch his pals because the club wouldn’t allow him to use any of their official transport.

His first team exile was suddenly lifted unexpectedly for just one more game, and he scored in a 3-0 away win at Derby County on 17 March 1984. But, within days, he was sold to then second-tier Manchester City for just £45,000.

A tad ironically for an ex-Rangers player, it was legendary Celtic captain Billy McNeill who took him to Maine Road. He made his debut in a home game against Cardiff City on 24 March 1984.

Thirty-eight of his 46 appearances for City came in the 1984-85 season, when he was top scorer with 14 goals.

Smith recalls the details of his spell at the club in the autobiography but, in short, he fell out with McNeill and made his last appearance for City on 4 November 1985, at home to Sunderland. He eventually moved to nearby Oldham Athletic, where he played nine games.

In 1987, he had the chance to play for Austrian side Admira Wacker, where he featured in 38 games, and the following season he switched to FC Basel in Switzerland, playing 25 games.

Eventually, in 1988, he returned to Scotland and finished his playing career at Stirling Albion.

Smith subsequently became an agent, representing the likes of Paul Lambert and Kenny Miller, but relinquished that work when he was appointed the chief executive of the Scottish FA, a job he held for three years. He was later director of football at Rangers during the 2011-12 season.

In June 2018, the Daily Record reported Smith’s daughter Libby had given birth to a baby boy and she’d taken on board her dad’s suggestion to call him Edson Thunder after the legendary Pele!!

Spanish TV star Michael Robinson followed in dad’s footsteps to play for Brighton

Robinson v WBA

WHEN Michael Robinson died of cancer aged 61 on 28 April 2020, warm tributes were paid in many quarters to the former Brighton, Liverpool and Republic of Ireland international who became a big TV celebrity in Spain.

“We have lost a very special guy, a lovely person and someone I’m proud to have known both on and off the pitch,” his former teammate Gordon Smith told Spencer Vignes. “He was one of the boys, one of the good guys.”

It seemed like half a world away since Robinson had charged towards Gary Bailey’s goal in the dying moments of the 1983 FA Cup Final only inexplicably to pass up the opportunity of scoring a Wembley winner to lay the ball off to Smith.

“With Michael bursting forward and having turned the United defence inside out, I was genuinely expecting him to shoot and had put myself in a position to pick up any possible rebound,” Smith recounted. “Instead he squared it to me and we all know what happened next.”

Robinson’s next two competitive matches also took place at Wembley:

  • He once again led the line for Brighton when the Seagulls were crushed 4-0 by Manchester United in the cup final replay on 26 May. It turned out to be his last game for the Albion.
  • Three months later he was in the Liverpool side who lost 2-0 to United in the FA Charity Shield season-opening fixture between league champions and FA Cup winners, following his £200,000 move from relegated Brighton.

It was hardly surprising Robinson didn’t hang around at the Goldstone: the Seagulls had given him a platform to resurrect a career that had stalled at Manchester City, but the striker had several disputes with the club and the newspapers were always full of stories linking him with moves to other clubs.

robbo livPerhaps it was surprising, though, that champions Liverpool were the ones to snap him up, particularly as Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish were in tandem as first choice strikers.

But at the start of the 1983-84 season, Joe Fagan’s Liverpool had several trophies in their sights and Robinson scored 12 times in 42 appearances as the Merseyside club claimed a treble of the First Division title, the League Cup, and the European Cup.

It took him a while to settle at the Reds because by his own admission he was in awe of the players around him but advice from Fagan to play without the metal supports he’d worn in his boots for six years previously (to protect swollen arches) paid off.

“It made a hell of a difference,” he said. “I felt a lot sharper and so much lighter on my feet.” In the first game without them, Robinson scored twice in a European game at Anfield, then he got one in a Milk Cup tie versus Brentford and scored a hat-trick in a 3-0 league win at West Ham.

robbo semi hatNevertheless, asked many years later to describe his proudest moment in football, he maintained: “Scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup semi-final that meant that a bunch of mates at Brighton were going to Wembley in 1983.”

One of two sons born to Leicester publican Arthur Robinson on 12 July 1958, Michael followed in his father’s footsteps in playing for Brighton. Arthur played for the club during the Second World War when in the army, and also played for Leyton Orient.

When he was four, Robinson moved to Blackpool where his parents took over the running of a hotel in the popular seaside resort. The young Robinson first played football on Blackpool beach with his brother.

After leaving Thames Primary School, it was at Palatine High School that he first got involved in organised football, and, before long, he caught the eye of the local selectors and represented Blackpool Schools at under 15 level, even though he was only 13.

Amongst his teammates at that level was George Berry, who ironically was Robinson’s opponent at centre half in his first Albion match, against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The young Robinson also played for Sunday side Waterloo Wanderers in Blackpool and when still only 13 he was invited for trials at Chelsea, by assistant manager Ron Suart, who had played for and managed Blackpool.

Although he was asked to sign schoolboy forms, Robinson’s dad thought it was too far from home. Coventry, Blackpool, Preston and Blackburn were also keen and the North West clubs had the edge because he wouldn’t have to leave home.

Eventually he chose Preston and on his 16th birthday signed as an apprentice. At the time, Mark Lawrenson was also there, training with the youngsters, and Gary Williams was already on the books.

After two years as an apprentice, he signed professional and began to push for a first team place with the Lillywhites. With former World Cup winner Nobby Stiles in charge, in 1978-79, Robinson scored 13 goals in 36 matches, was chosen Preston fans’ Player of the Year and his form attracted several bigger clubs.

In a deal which shocked the football world at the time, the flamboyant Malcolm Allison paid an astonishing £756,000 to take him to Manchester City. It was a remarkable sum for a relatively unproven striker.

The move didn’t work out and after scoring only eight times in 30 appearances for City, Robinson later admitted: “I’d never kicked a ball in the First Division and the fee was terrifying. If I had cost around £200,000 – a price that at that time was realistic for me – I would have been hailed as a young striker with bags of promise.”

It was Brighton manager Alan Mullery, desperate to bolster his squad as Albion approached their second season amongst the elite, who capitalised on the situation.

“I received the go ahead to make some major signings in the summer of 1980,” Mullery said in his autobiography. Mullery, had the support of vice-chairman Harry Bloom – current chairman Tony Bloom’s grandfather – even though chairman Mike Bamber was keener to invest in the ground.

“I could see he’d lost confidence at City and I made a point of praising him every chance I got,” said Mullery. “I asked him to lead the line like an old-fashioned centre forward and he did the job very well.”

Robinson told the matchday programme: “When Brighton came in for me, I needed to think about the move…12 months earlier I had made the biggest decision of my life and I didn’t want to be wrong again.”

In Matthew Horner’s authorised biography of Peter Ward, He shot, he scored, Mullery told him: “When I signed Michael Robinson it was because I thought Ward was struggling in the First Division and that Robinson could help take the pressure off him. Robinson was big, strong, and powerful and he ended up scoring 22 goals for us in his first season.”

The first of those goals came in his fourth game, a 3-1 league cup win over Tranmere Rovers, and after that, as a permanent fixture in the no.9 shirt, the goals flowed.

With five goals already to his name, Robinson earned a call up to the Republic of Ireland squad. Although born in Leicester, his mother was third generation Irish and took out Irish citizenship so that her son could qualify for an Irish passport. It was also established that his grandparents hailed from Cork.

He made his international debut on 28 October 1980 against France. It was a 1982 World Cup qualifier and the Irish lost 2-0 in front of 44,800 in the famous Parc des Princes stadium.

Nevertheless, the following month he scored for his country in a 6-0 thrashing of Cyprus at Lansdowne Road, Dublin, when the other scorers were Gerry Daly (2), Albion teammate Tony Grealish, Frank Stapleton – and Chris Hughton!

In April 1982, Robinson, Grealish and Gerry Ryan were all involved in Eire’s 2-0 defeat to Algeria, played in front of 100,000 partisan fans, and for a few moments on the return flight weren’t sure they were going to make it home. The Air Algeria jet developed undercarriage problems and had to abort take-off. Robinson told the Argus: “I thought we were all going to end up as pieces of toast. But the pilot did his stuff and we later changed to another aircraft.”

Although not a prolific goalscorer for Ireland, he went on to collect 24 caps, mostly won when Eoin Hand was manager. He only appeared twice after Jack Charlton took charge.

But back to the closing months of the 1980-81 season…while only a late surge of decent results kept Albion in the division, Robinson’s eye for goal and his never-say-die, wholehearted approach earned him the Player of the Season award.

As goal no.20 went in to secure a 1-1 draw at home to Stoke City on 21 March, Sydney Spicer in the Sunday Express began his report: “Big Mike Robinson must be worth his weight in gold to Brighton.”

However, the close season brought the shock departure of Mullery after his falling out with the board over the sale of Mark Lawrenson and the arrival of the defensively-minded Mike Bailey.

Bailey had barely got his feet under the table before Robinson was submitting a written transfer request, only to withdraw it almost immediately.

He said he wanted a move because he was homesick, but after talks with chairman Bamber, he was offered an incredible 10-year contract to stay, and said the club had “fallen over themselves to help me”.

Bamber told the Argus: “I have had a very satisfactory talk with Robinson and now everybody’s contracts have been sorted out. It has not been easy to persuade him to stay.”

Even though Bailey led the Seagulls to their highest-ever finish of 13th, it was at the expense of entertainment and perhaps it was no surprise that Robinson’s goal return for the season was just 11 from 39 games (plus one as sub).

The 1982-83 season had barely got underway when unrest in the club came to the surface. Steve Foster thought he deserved more money having been to the World Cup with England and Robinson questioned the club’s ambition after chairman Bamber refused to sanction the acquisition of Charlie George, the former Arsenal, Derby and Southampton maverick, who had been on trial pre-season.

Indeed, Robinson went so far as to accuse the club of “settling for mediocrity” and couldn’t believe manager Bailey was working without a contract. Bamber voiced his disgust at Robinson, claiming it was really all about money.

The club tried to do a deal whereby Robinson would be sold to Sunderland, with Stan Cummins coming in the opposite direction, but it fell through.

Foster and Robinson were temporarily left out of the side until they settled their differences, returning after a three-game exile. But within four months it was the manager who paid the price when he was replaced in December 1982 by Jimmy Melia and George Aitken.

Exactly how much influence the managerial pair had on the team is a matter of conjecture because it became a fairly open secret that the real power was being wielded by Foster and Robinson.

On the pitch, the return of the prodigal son in the shape of Peter Ward on loan from Nottingham Forest had boosted crowd morale but didn’t really make a difference to the inexorable slide towards the bottom of the league table.

Ward scored a famous winner as Manchester United were beaten 1-0 at the Goldstone a month before Bailey’s departure, but he only managed two more in a total of 20 games and Brian Clough wouldn’t let him stay on loan until the end of the season.

Albion variously tried Gerry Ryan, Andy Ritchie and, after his replacement from Leeds, Terry Connor, to partner Robinson in attack. But Connor was cup-tied and Ryan bedevilled by injuries, so invariably Smith was moved up from midfield.

Robinson would finish the season with just 10 goals to his name from 45 games (plus one as sub) – not a great ratio considering his past prowess.

The fearless striker also found himself lucky to be available for the famous FA Cup fifth round tie at Liverpool after an FA Commission found him guilty of headbutting Watford goalkeeper Steve Sherwood in a New Year’s Day game at the Goldstone.

The referee hadn’t seen it at the time but video evidence of the incident was used and the blazer brigade punished him with a one-match ban and a £250 fine. Robinson claimed it had been an accident…but it was one that left Sherwood needing five stitches. The ban only came into effect the day after the Liverpool tie, and he missed a home league game against Stoke City instead.

In the run-up to the FA Cup semi-final with Sheffield Wednesday, Robinson was reported to be suffering with a migraine although he told Brian Scovell it was more to do with tension, worrying about the possibility of losing the upcoming tie.

Nevertheless, he told the Daily Mail reporter: “When I was with Preston, I suffered a depressed fracture of the skull and have had headaches ever since. This week it’s been worse with the extra worry about the semi-final.”

Manager Melia, meanwhile was relieved to know Robinson would be OK and almost as a precursor to what happened told John Vinicombe of the Evening Argus: “Robbo is a very important member of our team and he’s the man who can win it for us.

“It is Robbo who helps finish off our style of attacking football and I know he’ll do the business for us on the day.”

Reports of the semi-final were splashed across all of the Sunday papers, but I’ll quote the Sunday Express. Under the headline MELIA’S MARVELS, reporter Alan Hoby described the key moment of the game.

“In a stunning 77th minute breakaway, Case slipped a beauty forward to the long-striding Gordon Smith whose shot was blocked by Bob Bolder.

“Out flashed the ball to Smith again and this time the cultured Scot crossed for Mike Robinson to rap it in off a Wednesday defender.”

Other accounts noted that defender Mel Sterland had made a vain attempt to stop the ball with his hand, but the shot had too much power.

When mayhem exploded at the final whistle, a beaming Robinson appeared on the pitch wearing a crumpled brown hat thrown from the crowd to acknowledge the ecstatic Albion supporters.

In one of many previews of the Final, Robinson was interviewed by Shoot! magazine and sought to psyche out United by saying all the pressure was on them.

“That leaves us to stride out from that tunnel with a smile and a determination to make everyone proud of us,” he said.

“Nobody seems to give us a prayer. They all seem glad that ‘little’ Brighton has reached the Final, but only, I suspect, because they expect to see us taken apart by United.”

Everyone knows what happened next and quite why the normally-confident Robinson didn’t take on his golden opportunity to win the game for Brighton in extra time remains a mystery.

However, as mentioned earlier, within months ‘little’ Brighton was a former club and Robinson had taken to a much bigger stage. This is Anfield reflected on his short time at Anfield as “a golden opportunity for him” and recalls that it turned out to be “the best and most successful season of his career”.

RobFozBWHe had yet more Wembley heartache during a two-year spell with Queen’s Park Rangers, being part of their losing line-up in the 3-0 league cup defeat to Oxford United in 1986.

The move which would lay the foundations for what has become a glorious career on TV arose in January 1987 when Robinson moved to Spain to play for Osasuna, scoring 12 times in 59 appearances before retiring through injury aged 31.

Robinson completely embraced the Spanish way of life, learned the language sufficiently to be an analyst for a Spanish TV station’s coverage of the 1990 World Cup, and took Spanish citizenship.

His on-screen work grew and the stardom Robinson achieved on Spanish TV attracted some of the heavyweight English newspapers to head out to Spain to find out how he had managed it.

For instance, Elizabeth Nash interviewed him for The Independent in 1997 and discovered how he had sold his house in Windsor and settled in Madrid.

Meanwhile, in a truly remarkable interview Spanish-based journalist Sid Lowe did with Robinson for The Guardian in 2004, we learned how that FA Cup semi-final goal was his proudest moment in football and that Steve Foster was his best friend in football.

In June 2017, his TV programme marked the 25th anniversary of Barcelona’s first European Cup win at Wembley, with some very studious analysis. On Informe Robinson (‘Robinson Report), he said: “Wembley was a turning point in the history of football. Cruyff gave the ball back to football.”

Neil McNab: Brighton fans ‘worst crowd I’ve played for’

FIERY SCOT Neil McNab left Brighton for a sizeable loss on their initial outlay and went on to be voted Manchester City’s Player of the Year twice.

No stranger to brushes with the football authorities, McNab joined Brighton in the second half of their first-ever season in the top flight.

In his autobiography, manager Alan Mullery said: “Neil McNab was a Scottish whippet, a fierce competitor in midfield who never stopped running or competing.

“I bought him halfway through the season from Bolton Wanderers and he gave us the extra edge we needed.”

The player to give way at the time was Republic of Ireland international Gerry Ryan, and it would be fair to say the football writers were impressed by the tenacious Scot’s early impact.

After watching a 5-1 drubbing against Southampton from the subs bench, McNab made his debut at home to West Brom in a game that finished goalless. “McNab showed some touches of class in his home debut but scarcely as much as the home crowd expected from their £230,000 capture,” said Harold Palmer in the Sunday Express.

The News of the World’s Peter Jarman was slightly more effusive and described it as “impressive” and John Vinicombe in the Evening Argus said: “McNab, on his home debut, impressed with his industry and general involvement.”

Of his second game, a 1-1 draw away to Leeds, the Sunday People’s Keith Ray observed: “McNab looked light years from the off-key young man that Bolton sold. His prompting coupled nicely with Lawrenson’s hard work, and Ward had two chances to hit the target before he made the vital strike.”

A demonstration of his appetite came in the next game, another 1-1 draw, at home to Coventry, when he ran 25 yards to stop Peter O’Sullivan from taking a corner that he fancied for himself. He whipped the ball in and Ray Clarke thumped a header past Jim Blyth in the Coventry goal.

Gordon Smith, another Albion player who moved to Manchester City, remembered McNab’s quick wit in his autobiography, And Smith Did Score.

When it looked like Brighton were heading for relegation, Mullery, in fear of losing his job, famously threatened the players that he’d run them down in his car if that happened.

Smith recounted how the players were huddled round trying not to laugh at the astonishing outburst. “I almost fell off my chair when Neil leant over and whispered, ‘If he loses his job, he’ll no’ have a f****** car!’”

It was no laughing matter for player or club, though, when the tenacious McNab was suspended for four matches for pushing a referee. In the following season, he was up before the FA again after a skirmish with World Cup winner Alan Ball at the end of a 5-a-side tournament at the Brighton Centre.

Charged with bringing the game into disrepute, Ball was fined £100 but McNab was given a £250 fine and a two-game ban.

Manager Mike Bailey was clearly relieved and told the Daily Mail’s Brian Scovell: “Neil was expecting more but the last instance was entirely different. It was on the field of play when he touched the referee.

“We got a fair hearing. We’re not complaining. Both were guilty but the crimes were different as Neil’s part was unfortunately physical while Ball’s was verbal.”

McNab had the third highest number of appearances (44 plus two as sub) in the 1981-82 season, which saw Brighton’s highest ever finish of 13th, and all four of the goals he scored were from the penalty spot.

However, the safety-first style of play adopted by Bailey created a disconnect between players and fans. In the final home game of the season (a 1-0 defeat to Ipswich), McNab was substituted in the 62nd minute and the crowd booed him off.

The often-obtuse Vinicombe reported in the Argus: “When McNab was withdrawn, 30 minutes from time, his gestures to the crowd were capable of only one interpretation.” In the Daily Mail, McNab told Brian Scovell: “They are the worst crowd I’ve played for. When you do something good on the ball they don’t clap and if you make a mistake they give you stick.”

Worse was to follow after the row at the beginning of the 1982-83 season when Steve Foster and Michael Robinson slapped in transfer requests in protest at chairman Bamber refusing to sanction the acquisition of Charlie George, the former Arsenal, Derby and Southampton maverick, who had been on trial pre-season.

In what was supposed to have been a clear-the-air meeting, McNab let his feelings be known in no uncertain terms.

McNab still had five of six years left on his contract. They tried to offload him on loan to Newcastle, but the midfielder refused to budge. Instead, he made a bitter personal attack on the chairman, accusing him of picking the team, and slapped in his own transfer request.

McNab blasted: “The club is petty and small-minded, and players are treated disgracefully.” McNab made it clear he didn’t see his future at the club and after a few months eventually went to Leeds for a six-game spell and also to Portsmouth.

That came after Bailey had been sacked and his replacements, Jimmy Melia and George Aitken, gave the team a big shake-up, dropping McNab and adopting a more adventurous approach (which ultimately led to relegation).

Although completely out of the first team picture from early December 1982 onwards, McNab was to play one last game nearly five months later.

With Melia struggling to field a team because of injuries and suspensions, McNab got the nod for an away game at Notts County on 30 April 1983.

But he was unable to join in the FA Cup run to Wembley because he had been cup tied during his spell at Leeds. The 1-0 defeat to County was the Scot’s last ever Seagulls appearance.

Relegation led to the release of some of the high earners, and while Robinson and Gary Stevens were sold for sizeable fees, McNab was sold to Manchester City – who had been relegated with Albion – for just £35,000.

Born on 4 June 1957 in Greenock, McNab went to the town’s Highlanders Academy and he was in his primary school team at the age of eight. By the time he was 10, he was playing for the Greenock and District Under 12 representative side.

He moved on to Mount Secondary School, playing for the school team at all age groups, and at 14 was selected for the Scotland Schools side.

He played against England at Ibrox Park, against Ireland at Stranraer, and even travelled to Frankfurt to play against West Germany. All the attention alerted various scouts but he had already signed schoolboy forms for his local club, Greenock Morton.

He actually left school before he was 15 to join Morton as a professional and when he made his first team debut aged 15 in September 1972 he was the youngest outfield player ever to play in the Scottish League. McNab ended that season having played 11 matches and appeared a a sub on three occasions.

McNab SpursHe made 14 appearances for them before being snapped up for £40,000 by Tottenham Hotspur in 1974 and made his first team debut for Spurs while still only 16. A former teammate at that time, Andy Keeley said in a recent interview: “I’ll never forget how he played in a friendly match; first team v reserves. He controlled the game from start to finish. He was outstanding. He had a very good career but I never understood how he didn’t become a superstar.”

In four years at White Hart Lane, McNab played 72 matches and was selected by Scotland at under 15, under-18 and under-21 level, but never made it to the full Scotland team.

McNab - BoltonIn November 1978, Bolton Wanderers paid £250,000 for him but after only 35 appearances for the Trotters, in February 1980, Mullery signed him for Brighton.

When the former Scotland and Celtic captain Billy McNeill captured McNab’s signature in the summer of 1983, he began what would be a long association with Manchester City and he turned out to be a bargain buy considering in 1986-87 and 1988-89 he was voted City’s Player of the Year.

“Combative and always willing to stick a boot in, McNab was a key figure in City’s drive to promotion on more than one occasion,” was how manchestercity-mad.co.uk described him, while mancity.com, looking back at past players of the year, said: “Like a fine wine, got better as time went on.”

McNab w HartfordAcknowledging his initial signing failed to excite the City faithful, it added: “McNab developed into a skilful, combative midfielder who became a huge crowd favourite. Not unlike Asa Hartford (pictured above with McNab), McNab was a schemer who could pick a pass and kept the team’s tempo ticking over.”

McNab scored 19 goals in 261 league and cup games (plus five as sub) for City  but when Mel Machin’s successors at Maine Road (caretaker Tony Book and Howard Kendall) discarded him, he continued his playing career at Tranmere Rovers who paid £125,000 to take the 33-year-old to Prenton Park.

“The combative midfielder added nous, steel and no little skill to the Rovers midfield, ending his first season in Birkenhead with two appearances at Wembley including the Leyland Daf Cup victory over Bristol Rovers,” said the Liverpool Echo.

He played 105 games for Tranmere, scoring six goals, and was part of the squad that secured promotion to English’s football’s second tier. He also earned the dubious distinction of being the first and thus far only Tranmere player to be sent off in a European game – a 2-1 win over Cosenza in the Anglo-Italian Cup.McNab HS

Determined to carry on playing, McNab had an 11-game loan spell at Huddersfield Town, returned to his native Scotland to turn out for Ayr United, appeared briefly for Darlington, played 13 games in Northern Ireland for Derry City, went non-league with Witton Albion (12 games) before finally calling it a day with Long Island Rough Riders in the States.

In 1994, he returned to Maine Road as youth team coach, when his old Albion teammate, Brian Horton, was City manager, and kept the position even when the aforementioned Alan Ball replaced Horton. But eventually he lost his job during another managerial upheaval in 1997 and took up a similar position at Portsmouth, once again working with Ball.

In October 2002, he finally landed a managerial position when he took the helm of League Two Exeter City. The reign was shortlived, though, and with only six wins in 26 matches (eight draws, 12 defeats) he was relieved of his duties.

McNab’s twin sons, Neil junior and Joe, who were born in Brighton, followed in their dad’s footsteps and were part of the young age group sides at Man City and Portsmouth. But after struggling to make the breakthrough, they moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, and have played for various sides in America.

Neil senior followed them to the States and in 2008 became director of coaching at Chiefs Futbol Club in Atlanta, Georgia, with Neil junior the club’s executive director.

In August 2017, it was reported Neil senior had suffered a severe stroke which left him fighting for his life.

On 2 March 2018, a message was sent via freelance writer Spencer Vignes to say that McNab had finally managed to return home after five months in hospital and in rehabilitation. “He has made tremendous progress, but still has a long way to go,” his son said.

Kieran O’Regan came close to dramatic FA Cup semi-final debut

OREGANWHEN just 19, unbeknown to thousands of expectant Brighton fans, Kieran O’Regan was on the brink of making a sensational debut for the Seagulls in the FA Cup semi-final.

The versatile Irishman, who went on to play nearly 100 games for the Albion, and more than 200 for Huddersfield Town, was nearly drafted into Brighton’s back line for that momentous occasion against Sheffield Wednesday in front of a packed house at Highbury on 16 April 1983.

Only captain Steve Foster’s bravery and sterling work by the club’s medics prevented the youngster having to step in at the last minute.

The potential drama only came to light in the post-match analysis by Evening Argus reporter, John Vinicombe, who recounted: “On the morning of the tie, (Jimmy) Melia had problems that were wisely confined only to those with a need to know.

“A crisis arose when Steve Foster’s right elbow started to swell and hurt. A streptococcal infection was diagnosed, extremely painful, and dangerous.

“To not only get him fit to play, but counter the possibility of blood poisoning, he was pumped full of antibiotics, the elbow encased in plaster and, just before kick-off, a painkilling jab administered.

“Had it been a run-of-the-mill game, Foster would not have played, but to go into a semi-final without the lynchpin was unthinkable.

“If there had been no alternative, then Kieran O’Regan, who has yet to make his debut, would have been drafted in from the sub’s bench.”

As it was, O’Regan remained on the bench throughout the game; Michael Robinson’s winner in the 2-1 victory meaning manager Melia didn’t need to introduce the youngster on such a momentous occasion.

When he eventually made his first team debut a few weeks later, it was in a less pressurised situation, although only then with special dispensation from the Football League.

Melia was down to the bare bones because of injuries and suspensions so the youngster was needed, but he had not been signed as a pro before the deadline. The way the authorities saw it was, because Albion were already relegated and Norwich were safe, it was “a game of no consequence” and O’Regan got the green light to play.

cup cutting

Veteran football reporter Harry Harris interviewed the youngster and built a story (above) around the possibility that if he did well he might be in with a shout of a place in the Cup Final against Manchester United.

Ever the one for an eye to publicity, manager Melia kept those thoughts alive by saying: “Kieran is going to be a hell of a player. He only looks about 14 but he’s mature enough as a player to figure in my Wembley plans.”

KOR portIn the event, forward Gerry Ryan got the nod for the one substitute’s place on the day, and rather ironically had to come on and play right-back in place of the crocked Chris Ramsey.

Melia was certainly a big fan of O’Regan. In the summer of 1982, as Albion’s chief scout, he had recommended the youngster to manager Mike Bailey after seeing him go on as a second half substitute for the Republic of Ireland youth team against Welsh Schools and score two goals.

Born in Cork on 9 November 1963, O’Regan attended a secondary school noted for its prowess at Gaelic football but he was determined to pursue a soccer career instead. He had been playing for Tramore Athletic in County Cork’s Munster League when he got his call-up to the national youth team.

Brighton invited him over to England for a trial. “I’d gone to Brighton on a one week trial; that became two, then I was asked to stay for three months. That came and went, and I never went back,” he said.

He had come close to packing it all in because he was homesick, but the presence of fellow Irishmen Gary Howlett and Ryan helped him adapt, and the silver-tongued Melia managed to talk him round.

“I didn’t feel as though I was playing very well,” he told the Mirror’s Harris. “I wasn’t fit or doing myself justice so I wanted to go home. Luckily enough, Jimmy talked me out of it.”

When Melia took over as caretaker manager, he swiftly dispensed with the services of Bailey’s pick at right-back, Don Shanks, promoted Ramsey to the first-team and then converted O’Regan from a midfield player to a right-back to become Ramsey’s understudy.

On the eve of that Norwich game, Melia told the Argus: “I must bring on the youngsters because they are the long-term future of the club.

“They are a smashing bunch of lads and I would like to play some more of them at Norwich. But with the Cup Final coming up, I can’t for obvious reasons.”

In fact, he picked young striker Chris Rodon on the bench and he got on in place of Gordon Smith, but it was the one and only time he saw first team action.

In respect of O’Regan, though, Melia stuck to his word, and the youngster filled the right-back berth from the off at the start of the new season back in the second tier, keeping his place even after his mentor’s sacking.

Melia’s successor, Chris Cattlin, also gave him some games in midfield, and, by the season’s end, he’d played 33 games plus once as sub. He also notched his first goal, in a 2-1 defeat away to Sheffield Wednesday.

However, his biggest disappointment that season was when he and Howlett were both dropped for the televised FA Cup game against Liverpool at the Goldstone. He told Spencer Vignes in an interview published in a matchday programme of February 2005: “We’d thrashed Oldham at home 4-0 and played Carlisle away on an icy pitch and won 2-1, and me and Gary had played in both.

“The Liverpool game was on a Sunday so we all came in for training on the Saturday to find out what the team was. And Gary and I weren’t in it. We’d been dropped.

“Instead we were off to Highbury that afternoon to play for the reserves. That’s still probably the low point of my career. I really wanted to play. Cattlin said he was going for experience, and you can’t really fault him because the lads went out and beat Liverpool 2-0. But I was still gutted.”

Making the grade with Brighton caught the eye of the Republic of Ireland selectors and O’Regan was called up to play for his country on four occasions.

He made his debut in November 1983 in an 8-0 thrashing of Malta in Dublin, when Mark Lawrenson and future Albion manager Liam Brady each scored twice.

Against Poland, the following May, also at Dalymount Park, Dublin, O’Regan featured in a 0-0 draw, and three months later, same venue, same scoreline, against Mexico. His fourth and final cap came as a sub against Spain, in May 1985, which also ended goalless.

Meanwhile, his Albion game time in the 1984-85 season was a lot more restricted and, apart from a mid-season 10-game spell in midfield, he was on the sidelines, especially when a promising young defender called Martin Keown arrived on loan from Arsenal.

Vignes observed in that 2005 interview: “His ability to play at either right-back or midfield meant that when the likes of Chris Hutchings, Danny Wilson or Jimmy Case were unavailable, Albion always had a reliable deputy to call on.”

There was yet more benchwarming to be endured during the 1985-86 season but on Alan Mullery’s return to the manager’s chair, he found himself back in the first team on a more regular basis.

Indeed, he played under five managers in five years with Brighton, and told Vignes that Mullery was the best to work with. “He was great with everyone, but especially the young lads.”

By contrast he didn’t get on with Barry Lloyd who kept O’Regan in the dark when interest was shown in him by Swindon Town, where his former rival for the right-back spot, Ramsey, was assistant manager to Lou Macari.

In the end, in 1987, he did make the move to the County Ground having made 80 starts for the Albion, plus 19 substitute appearances.

After just a year at Swindon, he was on his way again, this time to join Huddersfield Town where the manager was Eoin Hand, who had been the Ireland manager when he won his four international caps.

O’Regan spent six seasons with Town, playing over 200 games in midfield, and it was an association which would reap its benefits after his playing days were over.

He spent two seasons at West Brom under former Spurs boss Keith Burkinshaw (and latterly Alan Buckley) but returned to West Yorkshire in 1995 as captain of Halifax Town, going on to become joint manager with George Mulhall for 18 months and then taking on the role alone in August 1998.

His tenure lasted less than a season and when the axe fell in April 1999, he turned his back on football and became warehouse manager at Brighouse Textiles, run by Halifax’s former chairman, and subsequently became a carpet salesman at a shop in Huddersfield.

O'Regan mikeHowever, in 2001, he was offered the chance to be the expert summariser on Huddersfield games for BBC Radio Leeds, and he lined up alongside commentator Paul Ogden for the next 15 years, before hanging up the microphone in May 2016.

Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and my scrapbook.

Cup Final was highlight for Irish rookie Gary Howlett

HowlettGARY HOWLETT is probably the least well remembered player of Brighton’s 1983 FA Cup Final side.

There were plenty of other characters, goalscorers and headline makers to detract from the contribution of a quiet lad from Dublin who almost sneaked into the side under the radar.

That Wembley appearance was only his 11th senior appearance in the Albion first team. Can you imagine?

And as the history books now tell us, he actually only made 26 more appearances for the Seagulls before being transferred to Bournemouth.

Born in Dublin on 2 April 1963, Howlett’s football career began at the famous Dublin-based Home Farm club, which produced dozens of footballers who went on to make names for themselves in England and Ireland; players like Paddy Mulligan, Mick Martin and Ronnie Whelan.

Howlett followed suit and had Manchester United and Coventry City keen to sign him. He chose Coventry because manager Gordon Milne made him feel more welcome. Unfortunately, just when he thought he had the chance of a first team breakthrough, Milne was sacked and his replacement Dave Sexton let him go as part of a cost-cutting measure that saw a dozen players leave the club.

In May 1982, he was back home in Dublin watching the FA Cup Final between Spurs and QPR on TV. Not in his wildest dreams did he imagine just a year later he would be playing in what was then a showpiece occasion watched by a worldwide audience.

Coventry’s youth team manager, John Sillett, had tipped off Mike Bailey about Howlett’s availability and the Albion took him on. Howlett was soon involved in first team training and believed he was on the verge of making the team away at Coventry, of all places, in early December 1982. But Bailey was sacked and it wasn’t until the beginning of March that Howlett finally made the step up.

He was a non-playing substitute for successive away games against Swansea City and West Ham and then, on 22 March 1983, newly-appointed manager Jimmy Melia gave him his first start, at home to Liverpool. And what a debut! The youngster scored as the Seagulls held the league leaders to a 2-2 draw.

With fellow Irishman Gerry Ryan sidelined by injury, Howlett kept his place in the team for a couple more games, sat out two, and then returned to the starting line-up.

Because Ryan was not 100 per cent fit, it was Howlett who got the nod for the FA Cup semi final match against Sheffield Wednesday. He then retained his place for the remaining six league games before being picked for the Cup Final itself.

That momentous match on 23 May 1983 was only 13 minutes old when the young Dubliner made a telling contribution to the game.

It was his chipped diagonal pass over Manchester United centre back Kevin Moran that found Gordon Smith, who arched a header past Gary Bailey to put the Seagulls in dreamland.

Howlett told the press after the match: “I saw Gordon at the back of the goal and just dipped it over Moran.

“I was dying to do something good out there and when the goal came I couldn’t believe it.”

Howlett told the Argus he wasn’t overawed by the occasion but had felt nervous when the national anthem was played.

“Until then all the lads were laughing and joking. It was a great atmosphere beforehand – very relaxed,” he said.

With Albion snatching a replay, Howlett, aged just 20, got to play on the hallowed turf a second time five days later, thus getting the sort of opportunity that eludes the vast majority of players throughout their entire careers.

He was subbed off on 74 minutes (Ryan replacing him) but the game was dead and buried by then anyway.

For Gary Stevens, that Cup Final was the stepping stone to a glittering career. Unfortunately for Howlett, it was the pinnacle and his career never subsequently reached such heights.

Interestingly, in a matchday programme interview with Spencer Vignes in 2004, Howlett reflected that he should have worked harder to ensure he built on that early success.

“Gary Stevens was only a year older than me. After the cup final, he knuckled down and said ‘I want more of this’. I just thought it was going to happen naturally. I didn’t realise I was going to have to work at it.

“That’s the difference between the likes of me and the real pros, people like Roy Keane. Nothing will get in their way.”

Only five years after those two appearances at Wembley, Howlett was turning out in front of 2,500 crowds at York City’s Bootham Crescent.

There had been one brief bright spot, though, and that came when he represented his country.

On 3 June 1984, he earned a full international cap as a 55th minute substitute in a 1-0 win against China.

That Republic of Ireland team also included Brighton teammates Tony Grealish and Ryan. Mick McCarthy was in central defence and the side was captained by Frank Stapleton.

In the season leading up to that, Howlett managed just 17 appearances, plus two as sub, and in the first part of the 1984-85 season he appeared just six times.

In December 1984, Melia’s replacement, Chris Cattlin, sold Howlett for £15,000 to the then Division 3 Bournemouth, where Harry Redknapp was the manager.

Among his teammates at Dean Court were future multi-club manager Tony Pulis and the much-travelled striker Steve Claridge.

Howlett spent four years with the Cherries, making 60 appearances, although he said he was never the same player after damaging his knee ligaments. In his final year, he was sent out on loan to Aldershot and Chester City. At Aldershot, former Seagull Michael Ring was among his temporary teammates.

Howlett at Aldershot

In January 1988, he made a permanent move to York City, and in three years playing in Division Four with the Minstermen, Howlett played a total of 119 games and contributed 13 goals.

He left them in 1991 and went back to Ireland to play for Shelbourne. He also played for Crusaders and was on the coaching staff of Bohemian FC.

Howlett spent nine seasons as manager of Drumcondra in the Leinster Senior League, before switching to their rivals Killester United in 2016.

1 howlett2 howlett prog cover3 Howlett cooks by Tony Norman4 howlett now

  • Pictures show Gary Howlett’s entry in the Cup Final programme, on a matchday programme cover, Tony Norman’s shot of him cooking at home and a screen grab of him following a recent managerial appointment. Also, a montage of other headlines and action pictures.