Should Mike Bailey have had longer to realise his ambition?

FOR 40 YEARS, Mike Bailey was the manager who had led Brighton & Hove Albion to their highest-ever finish in football.

A promotion winner and League Cup-winning captain of Wolverhampton Wanderers, he took the Seagulls to even greater heights than his predecessor, Alan Mullery.

But the fickle nature of football following has remembered Bailey a lot less romantically than the former Spurs, Fulham and England midfielder.

The pragmatic way Brighton played under Bailey turned fans off in their thousands and, because gates dipped significantly, he paid the price.

Finishing 13^th in the top tier in 1982 playing a safety-first style of football counted for nothing, even though it represented a marked improvement on relegation near-misses in the previous two seasons under Mullery, delivering along the way away wins against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and then-high-flying Southampton as well as a first-ever victory over Arsenal.

Bailey’s achievement with the Albion was only overtaken in 2022 with a ninth place finish under Graham Potter; since surpassed again with a heady sixth and European qualification under Roberto De Zerbi.

Fascinatingly, though, Bailey had his eyes on Europe as far back as the autumn of 1981 and laid his cards on the table in a forthright article in Shoot! magazine.

“I am an ambitious man,” he said. “I am not content with ensuring that Brighton survive another season at this level. I want people to be surprised when we lose and to omit us from their predictions of which clubs will have a bad season.

“I am an enthusiast about this game. I loved playing, loved the atmosphere of a dressing room, the team spirit, the sense of achievement.

“As a manager I have come to realise there are so many other factors involved. Once they’re on that pitch the players are out of my reach; I am left to gain satisfaction from seeing the things we have worked on together during the week become a reality during a match.

“I like everything to be neat – passing, ball-control, appearance, style. Only when we have become consistent in these areas will Brighton lose, once and for all, the tag of the gutsy little Third Division outfit from the South Coast that did so well to reach the First Division.”

Clearly revelling in finding a manager happy to speak his mind, the magazine declared: “As a player with Charlton, Wolves and England, Bailey gave his all, never hid when things went wrong, accepted responsibility and somehow managed to squeeze that little bit extra from the players around him when his own game was out of tune.

“As a manager he is adopting the same principles of honesty, hard work and high standards of professionalism.

“So, when Bailey sets his jaw and says he wants people to expect Brighton to win trophies, he means that everyone connected with Albion must forget all about feeling delighted with simply being in the First Division.”

Warming to his theme, Bailey told Shoot!: “This club has come a long way in a short time. But now is the time to make another big step…or risk sliding backwards. Too many clubs have done just that – wasted time basking in recent achievements and crashed back to harsh reality.

“I do not intend for us to spend this season simply consolidating. That has been done in the last few seasons.”

*Mike Bailey had high hopes for the Albion*

If that sounds a bit like Roberto De Zerbi, unfortunately many long-time watchers of the Albion like me would more likely compare the style under Bailey to the pragmatism of the Chris Hughton era: almost a complete opposite to De Zerbi’s free-flowing attacking play.

It was ultimately his downfall because the court of public opinion – namely paying spectators who had rejoiced in a goals galore diet during Albion’s rise from Third to First under Mullery – found the new man’s approach too boring to watch and stopped filing through the turnstiles.

Back in 2013, the superb The Goldstone Wrap blog noted: “Only Liverpool attracted over 20,000 to the Goldstone before Christmas. The return fixture against the Reds in March 1982 was the high noon of Bailey’s spell as Brighton manager.

“A backs-to-the-wall display led to a famous 1-0 win at Anfield against the European Cup holders, with Andy Ritchie getting the decisive goal and Ian Rush’s goalbound shot getting stuck in the mud!”

At that stage, Albion were eighth but a fans forum at the Brighton Centre – and quite possibly a directive from the boardroom – seemed to get to him.

Supporters wanted the team to play a more open, attacking game. The result? Albion recorded ten defeats in the last 14 matches.

At odds with what he had heard, he very pointedly said in his programme notes: “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.”

Dropping down to finish 13^th of 22 clubs, Albion never regained a spot in the top half of the division and The Goldstone Wrap observed: “If Bailey had stuck to his guns, and not listened to the fans, would the club have enjoyed a UEFA Cup place at the end of 1981-82?”

Bailey certainly wasn’t afraid to share his opinions and, as well as in the Shoot! article, he often vented his feelings quite overtly in his matchday programme notes; hitting 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.

It certainly didn’t help that the mercurial Mark Lawrenson was sold at the start of his regime as well as former captain Brian Horton and right-back-cum-midfielder John Gregory, but Bailey addressed the doubters head on.

“I believe it was necessary because while I agree that a player of Lawrenson’s ability, for example, is an exceptional talent, it is not enough to have a handful of assets.

“We must have a strong First Division squad, one where very good players can come in when injuries deplete the side.

*Forthright views were a feature of Bailey’s programme notes*

“We brought in Tony Grealish from Luton, Don Shanks from QPR, Jimmy Case from Liverpool and Steve Gatting and Sammy Nelson from Arsenal. Now the squad is better balanced. It allows for a permutation of positions and gives adequate cover in most areas.”

One signing Bailey had tried to make that he had to wait a few months to make was one he would come to regret big time. Long-serving Peter O’Sullivan had left the club at the same time as Lawrenson, Horton and Gregory so there was a vacancy to fill on the left side of midfield.

Bailey had his eyes on Manchester United’s Mickey Thomas but the Welsh wideman joined Everton instead. When, after only three months, the player fell out with Goodison boss Howard Kendall, Bailey was finally able to land his man for £350,000 on a four-year contract.

Talented though Thomas undoubtedly was, what the manager didn’t bargain for was the player’s unhappy 20-year-old wife, Debbie.

She was unable to settle in Sussex – the word was that she gave it only five days, living in a property at Telscombe Cliffs – and went back to Colwyn Bay with their baby son.

Thomas meanwhile stayed at the Courtlands Hotel in Hove and the club bent over backwards to give him extra time off so he could travel to and from north Wales. But he began to return late or go missing from training.

After the third occasion he went missing, Bailey was incandescent with rage and declared: ”Thomas has s*** on us….the sooner the boy leaves, the better.”

At one point in March, it was hoped a swap deal could be worked out that would have brought England winger Peter Barnes to the Goldstone from Leeds, but they weren’t interested and so the saga dragged out to the end of the season.

After yet another absence and fine of a fortnight’s wages, Bailey once again went on the front foot and told Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe: “He came in and trained which allowed him to play for Wales.

“He is just using us, and yet I might have played him against Wolves (third to last game of the season). Thomas is his own worst enemy and I stand by what I’ve said before – the sooner he goes the better.”

Thomas was ‘shop windowed’ in the final two games and during the close season was sold to Stoke City for £200,000.

In his own assessment of his first season, Bailey 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.”

The biggest bugbear for the people running the club was that the average home gate for 1981-82 was 18,241, fully 6,500 fewer than had supported the side during their first season at the top level.

“The Goldstone regulars grew restless at a series of frustrating home draws, and finally turned on their own players,” wrote Vinicombe in his end of season summary for the Argus.

He also said: “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.”

If Bailey wasn’t exactly Mr Popular with the fans, at the beginning of the following season, off-field matters brought disruption to the playing side.

Steve Foster thought he deserved more money having been to the World Cup with England and he, Michael Robinson and Neil McNab 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.

Robinson went so far as to accuse the club of “settling for mediocrity” and couldn’t believe Bailey was working without a contract.

Bamber voiced his disgust at Robinson, claiming it was really all about money, and tried to sell him to Sunderland, with Stan Cummins coming in the opposite direction, but it fell through. Efforts were also made to send McNab out on loan which didn’t happen immediately although it did eventually.

All three were left out of the side temporarily although Albion managed to beat Arsenal and Sunderland at home without them. In what was an erratic start to the season, 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.

Other than 20,000 gates for a West Ham league game and a Spurs Milk Cup match, the crowd numbers had slumped to around 10,000. Former favourite Peter Ward was brought back to the club on loan from Nottingham Forest and scored the only goal of the game as Manchester United were beaten at the Goldstone.

But four straight defeats followed and led to the axe for Bailey, with Bamber declaring: “He’s a smashing bloke, I’m sorry to see him go, but it had to be done.”

Perhaps the writing was on the wall when, in his final programme contribution, he blamed the run of poor results simply on bad luck and admitted: “I feel we are somehow in a rut.”

It didn’t help the narrative of his reign that his successor, Jimmy Melia, surfed on a wave of euphoria when taking Albion to their one and only FA Cup Final – even though he also oversaw the side’s fall from the elite.

“It seems that my team has been relegated from the First Division while Melia’s team has reached the Cup Final,” an irked Bailey said in an interview he gave to the News of the World’s Reg Drury in the run-up to the final.

Hurt by some of the media coverage he’d seen since his departure, 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 (in December 1982), we were 18^th with more than a point a game. I’ve never known a team go down when fifth from bottom.”

Bailey later expanded on the circumstances, lifting the lid on his less than cordial relationship with Bamber, when speaking on a Wolves’ fans forum in 2010. “We had a good side at Brighton and did really well,” he said. “The difficulty I had was with the chairman. He was not satisfied with anything.

“I made Brighton a difficult team to beat. I knew the standard of the players we had and knew how to win matches. We used to work on clean sheets.

“With the previous manager, they hadn’t won away from home very often but we went to Anfield and won. But the chairman kept saying: ‘Why can’t we score a few more goals?’ He didn’t understand it.”

Foster, the player Bailey made Albion captain, was also critical of the ‘boring’ jibe and in Spencer Vignes’ A Few Good Men said: “We sacked Mike Bailey because we weren’t playing attractive football, allegedly. Things were changing. Brighton had never been so high.

“We were doing well, but we weren’t seen as a flamboyant side. I was never happy with the press because they were creating this boring talk. Some of the stuff they used to write really annoyed me.”

Striker Andy Ritchie was also supportive of the management. He told journalist Nick Szczepanik: “Mike got everyone playing together. Everybody liked Mike and John Collins, who was brilliant. When a group of players like the management, it takes you a long way. When you are having things explained to you and training is good and it’s a bit of fun, you get a lot more out of it.”

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.

During 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.

“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.”

In fact, Ramsey did give him one more chance to impress. 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.

“But it was too late to get in the 1966 World Cup side,” said Bailey. “Alf Ramsey had got his team in place.”

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 for a £40,000 fee.

Thus began an association which saw him play a total of 436 games for Wolves over 11 seasons.

In his first season, 1966-67, he captained the side to promotion from the second tier and he was also named as Midlands Footballer of the Year.

Wolves finished fourth in the top division in 1970-71 and European adventures followed, including winning the Texaco Cup of 1971 – the club’s first silverware in 11 years – and reaching the UEFA Cup final against Tottenham a year later, although injury meant Bailey was only involved from the 55th minute of the second leg and Spurs won 3-2 on aggregate.

Two years later, Bailey, by then 32, lifted the League Cup after Bill McGarry’s side beat Ron Saunders’ Manchester City 2-1 at Wembley with goals by Kenny Hibbitt and John Richards. It was Bailey’s pass to Alan Sunderland that began the winning move, Richards sweeping in Sunderland’s deflected cross.

*Bailey lifts the League Cup after Wolves beat Manchester City at Wembley*

This was a side with solid defenders like John McAlle, Frank Munro and Derek Parkin, combined with exciting players such as Irish maverick centre forward Derek Dougan and winger Dave Wagstaffe.

Richards had become Dougan’s regular partner up front after Peter Knowles quit football to turn to religion. Discussing Bailey with wolvesheroes.com, Richards said: “He really was a leader you responded to and wanted to play for. If you let your standards slip, he wasn’t slow to let you know. I have very fond memories of playing alongside him.”

In a lengthy tribute to Bailey in the Wolverhampton Express & Star to mark his 80^th birthday, journalist Paul Berry interviewed several of his former teammates.

“He gave me – just as he did with all the young players coming into the team – so much help and guidance in training and matches on and off the pitch,” said Richards.

“There were so many little tips and pieces of advice and I remember how he first taught me how to come off defenders. He would say ‘when I get the ball John, just push the defender away, come towards me, lay the ball off and then go again’.

“There was so much advice that he would give to us all, and it had a massive influence.”

Midfielder Hibbitt, another Wolves legend who made 544 appearances for the club, said: “He was the greatest captain I ever played with.”

Steve Daley added: “Mike is my idol, he was an absolute inspiration to me when I was playing.”

Winger Terry Wharton added: “He was a great player…a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character as well. On the pitch he was a great captain, a winner, he was tenacious and he was loud.

“He got people moving and he got people going and you just knew he was a captain. And then off the pitch? He could have been a vicar.”

When coach Sammy Chung stepped up to take over as manager, Bailey found himself on the outside looking in and chose to end his playing days in America, with the Minnesota Kicks, who were managed by the former Brighton boss Freddie Goodwin.

He returned to England and spent the 1978-79 season as player-manager of Fourth Division Hereford United and in March 1980 replaced Andy Nelson as boss at Charlton Athletic. He had just got the Addicks promoted from the Third Division when he replaced Mullery at Brighton.

In a curious symmetry, Bailey’s management career in England (courtesy of managerstats.co.uk) saw him manage 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, he briefly took charge of non-league Leatherhead and he later worked as reserve team coach at Portsmouth. Later still, he did some scouting work for Wolves (during the Dave Jones era) and he was inducted into the Wolves Hall of Fame in 2010.

In November 2020, Bailey’s family made public the news that he had been diagnosed with dementia hoping that it would help to highlight the ongoing issues around the number of ex-footballers suffering from it.

Perhaps the last words should go to Bailey himself, harking back to that 1981 article when his words were so prescient bearing in mind what would follow his time in charge.

“We don’t have a training ground. We train in a local park. The club have tried to remedy this and I’m sure they will. But such things hold you back in terms of generating the feeling of the big time,” he said.

“I must compliment the people who are responsible for getting the club where it is. They built a team, won promotion twice and the fans flocked in. Now is the time to concentrate on developing the Goldstone Ground. When we build our ground, we will have the supporters eager to fill it.”

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

John Ruggiero scored on his Brighton league debut

JOHN RUGGIERO was one of four signings Alan Mullery made for newly promoted Albion in the summer of 1977.

That one of the quartet was Mark Lawrenson from Preston North End for £115,000 rather eclipsed Ruggiero’s arrival from recently relegated Stoke City for £30,000.

Nonetheless, Ruggiero made an immediate impact, scoring on his league debut as a substitute for Peter O’Sullivan to earn the Seagulls a 1-1 draw at Southampton.

Ruggiero had begun the season in the starting line-up in Albion’s home and away goalless draws against Ron Atkinson’s Cambridge United in the League Cup before relinquishing a starting berth for the opening Division Two fixture at The Dell.

His 77^th minute equaliser, after Alan Ball had put the home side ahead just before half time, was added to a fortnight later and, for a brief moment, he was joint top scorer with Steve Piper – on two goals.

The pair were both on the scoresheet to help the Seagulls to a 2-1 win at Mansfield Town on 3 September; the home side’s first defeat at Field Mill in 38 matches.

Shoot! magazine previewed Ruggiero’s eager anticipation at returning to the Victoria Ground for a league game on 15 October but he was only a sub that day and, although he went on for fellow summer signing Eric Potts, Albion lost 1-0.

*A young Garth Crooks taking on Chris Cattlin* *the day Ruggiero returned to Stoke*

After only seven league and cup starts (and three appearances off the bench), Ruggiero then had to wait six months for another sub appearance.

He went on as a second half substitute for injured Paul Clark in a 1-0 win at Blackburn, combining with Potts who went on to score the only goal of a game described by Argus writer John Vinicombe as “the most exhilarating match I have seen for years”.

Ruggiero didn’t make another start until the very last game of the season; but what a match to play in. A crowd of 33,431 packed in to the Goldstone to see the Seagulls take on Blackpool, with another possible promotion finely poised.

Albion dutifully won the game 2-1 (sending Blackpool down) with goals from Brian Horton and Peter Ward but their hopes of going up were cruelly dashed when Southampton and Spurs, who each only needed a draw to go up, lo and behold ground out a 0-0 draw playing each other.

As the Argus reported: “When news came of the goalless draw at The Dell there were cries of ‘fix’ and Albion had to suffer the bitter disappointment of missing promotion by the difference of nine goals.”

Before his recall for that clash, Ruggiero had continued to find the back of the net for the reserves – indeed he was the side’s top scorer for two seasons.

The Albion matchday programme reported his scoring exploits in some detail. For instance, in a 4-1 win away to Portsmouth. “John Ruggiero was the star of our win at Fratton Park with two fine goals and might have scored a hat-trick,” it said.

And in a 5-2 Goldstone win over Charlton Athletic, Ruggiero opened the scoring with a header from a Gary Williams cross, Steve Gritt pulled one back for the Addicks and Ruggiero volleyed in a fourth goal from the edge of the box.

Ruggiero, who lived in Shoreham with his wife Mary, discovered competition for a first team spot intensified after his summer signing: Clark from Southend adding steel to the midfield and Fulham’s Teddy Maybank taking over from Ian Mellor as Ward’s striking partner. O’Sullivan, meanwhile, comfortably stepped up to the higher level and kept his place.

When Albion were on course for promotion to the elite the following season, Ruggiero’s first team involvement was almost non-existent (a non-playing sub on one occasion).

He was sent out on loan to Portsmouth, then in the old Division 3, where he was a teammate of Steve Foster. Ruggiero scored once in six appearances, netting in a home 2-2 draw with Cambridge United on 27 December 1977.

He was released before Albion took their place amongst the elite and moved on to Chester City, signed by player-manager Alan Oakes, the former Manchester City stalwart.

Ruggiero joined just as ex-Albion teammate Mellor was moving on from Sealand Road, but, in a Chester team photo (above right), Ruggiero is standing alongside Jim Walker, who’d played at the Albion under Peter Taylor, and in the front row is a young Ian Rush.

Ruggiero scored within three minutes of his first league game for Chester, setting them on their way to a 3-2 win over Chesterfield. But he only made 15 appearances for them before dropping into the non-league scene.

The legendary England World Cup winner Gordon Banks, formerly of Stoke, signed Ruggiero for Telford United in the 1979-80 season when he was briefly manager of the Alliance Premier League side.

Born in Blurton on 26 November 1954 to Italian parents, the young Ruggiero went to Bentilee Junior School then Willfield High School. His prowess on the football field saw him represent Stoke Boys and the county Staffordshire Boys side and he was one of 24 young players who had a trial at Middlesbrough for the England Schoolboys side but missed the final cut.

He had the chance to join Stoke City at 15 but stayed on at school and passed five O levels: English Language, English Literature, Technical Drawing, History and Art.

“I had a lot of interest from many clubs: Blackpool, Leicester City, Derby County, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Coventry City, West Brom and I even had a letter from Arsenal inviting me to go training with them,” Ruggiero told Nicholas Lloyd-Pugh for the svenskafans.com website in an April 2011 interview.

“I nearly signed for Coventry but the very last club to ask me was Stoke City and, once this happened, I knew where I would go. I joined as an apprentice when I was 16 in 1970.”

Ruggiero explained how he started in the A youth team, progressed to the reserve side and finally made his first team debut under Tony Waddington on 5 February 1977, in a home 2-0 defeat against league leaders Manchester City.

He had made his league debut the previous season during a short loan period with Workington Town, playing three games in Division Four, which gives him the relatively rare distinction of having played in all four divisions of English football.

Even as a reserve team regular at Stoke he got to play at big stadiums like Old Trafford, Anfield, Elland Road, Hillsborough and Goodison Park. “It was great for the young players but you always hoped to make the first team at some point,” he said.

“It was a real dream for me to have players like Gordon Banks, Geoff Hurst, Alan Hudson, Peter Shilton and many more being part of your life.

“Tony Waddington loved his team and he always went for experience, so the younger players found it really hard to make the first team. However, a few younger players did well such as Alan Dodd, Sean Haslegrave, Stewart Jump, Ian Moores and Garth Crooks.”

He continued: “Players like Terry Conroy and John Mahoney were really friendly and always had a word of advice for you. I really liked Alan Dodd; he was a much underrated player and would have played for England at a bigger club.”

Ruggiero also spoke warmly of Alan A’Court, Stoke’s first team coach who had played for Liverpool, who took him on a football holiday to Zambia in 1973 where he played for Ndola United. A’Court was Zambia’s national coach at the time.

Two years later, Ruggiero earned a ‘Player of the Tournament’ accolade while playing for Stoke in a youth tournament in Holland.

Waddington’s successor as manager, former player George Eastham, also played a part in Ruggiero’s development by arranging for him to play in South Africa for eight months in 1975 where he was a league and cup winner with Cape Town City.

“I knew that George liked me as a player so I felt that this could be good for me when he took over the team,” Ruggiero told Lloyd-Pugh. “He had already played me in a friendly match against Stockport which was a showcase for the return of George Best from America.

“Whilst Best, Hudson and Greenhoff were doing their party tricks, I was quietly having a good game and it was clear that I was ready for another chance.”

That came in a home game against Liverpool, Ruggiero playing in midfield. “The next 90 minutes was my best of all time,” he said. “We drew the game 0–0. I would like to think I was the man of the match and George spoke very highly of me to the press after the game. The Liverpool team included Kevin Keegan, Ray Kennedy, Ray Clemence and many other big names.”

Stoke had turned to youngsters like Ruggiero because big name players had been sold off to pay for a replacement Butler Street stand roof at the Victoria Ground.

And while the youngster kept his place after that impressive display v Liverpool, they only won one of their remaining nine games and were relegated. It was little consolation that he scored twice away to Coventry because they lost 5-2.

“After the Liverpool game I was on a high, I really thought I’d made the big time and would be a first team player at Stoke for years to come,” he said. “I played nearly all the games left that season and was pretty consistent in all of the games.

“I was just enjoying my time and never really thought about relegation.”

But the 1-0 last day defeat at Aston Villa would prove to be his last game for Stoke because Brighton, who had gained promotion from the third tier, were bolstering their squad to compete at the higher level.

Ruggiero signed for the Seagulls along with Lawrenson and Williams, who moved from Preston (swapping places with Graham Cross and Harry Wilson), and Sheffield Wednesday winger Potts.

While Lawrenson was on the path to greatness, and Williams established himself in Albion’s left-back spot, Potts found his involvement was mainly from the bench and Ruggiero’s early promise faded.

After his short football career was over, Ruggiero joined the police, serving in the Cheshire force, rising to the rank of detective sergeant and mainly working in the Crewe area.

When the Goldstone Wrap blog checked on him in 2014, they unearthed a Facebook message in which he said: “Loved my short time in Brighton. Would have liked to have played a few more games but still love the place and the team were buzzing at that time.”

And in 2020, a former police colleague, Steve Beddows, informed the Where Are They Now website that Ruggiero had retired and was continuing to live in the Stoke area.

“He remains a very fit man with a keen eye for precise action posed wildlife photography and undertakes huge amounts of charitable work,” said Beddows. “A great sense of humour but very dogged, smart and highly professional. He does masses for charity with Stoke City Old Boys Association still and had the nickname ‘Italian Stallion’ because of his good looks.

“I never heard a bad word about him from anyone and he can still run marathons and plays lots of golf.”

Career-ending leg break spawned physio role for George Dalton

A CAREER-ENDING leg break led one-time international hopeful George Dalton into a new career as a football physio.

Geordie-born Dalton was an emerging left-back at Newcastle United being watched as a possible candidate for a call-up to the England Under-23 side.

But he was never the same player after breaking a leg in a tackle with Leeds United’s Johnny Giles.

Then, only seven months after trying to resurrect his career with third tier Brighton, unlucky Dalton sustained a double fracture of the same leg in a freak collision and never played professionally again.

However, he turned his familiarity with the treatment table to good use and he later became Coventry City’s physio for the best part of 20 years.

Born in Dilston, Northumberland, on 4 September 1941, Dalton went through the junior ranks at Newcastle and turned professional at St James’s Park in 1958.

He made his Toon debut on 10 October 1960 in a 4-1 League Cup defeat away to Colchester United, and made his First Division debut the following February, ending up on the losing side in a 5-3 defeat away to Leicester City.

After Newcastle’s relegation to the old Division Two, Dalton made a lot more appearances (including being in the Toon side who thumped Brighton 5-0 at St James’ on 21 October 1961).

He was in and out of the side over the next two years but became a regular from March 1963 and, in January 1964, eagle-eyed Ken McKenzie, reporter for Newcastle’s The Journal, spotted England Under-23 selector Mr E.Smith in the stands at St James’s.

“This visit can only mean imminence of England Under-23s selection to meet Scotland at St James’s Park on Wednesday evening, February 5, and check up, particularly on George Dalton and Alan Suddick, of United,” he wrote. “On this basis, I feel that Mr Smith’s trip to Tyneside holds out very bright prospect of Forest Hall, Newcastle, product, Dalton, gaining his first representative honour on February 5.

“I know that Dalton has been recommended to the England selectors for some time by United directors and manager, and his consistency and clean, strong play has been commented on by influential observers at several away games.”

Unfortunately, the call-up didn’t happen, and revered reporter Ken Jones wrote in the Daily Mirror: “Despite local claims for left back George Dalton and inside forward idol Alan Suddick; neither has been chosen by the England team manager, and clearly they have no place in his ideas at present.”

Interestingly, the left-back berth went to Keith Newton, who later went with England to the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Mike Bailey and Graham Cross both played in the Under-23s’ 3-2 win over Scotland, while the reserves that day were Peter Grummitt, Alan Mullery and Martin Chivers.

Within a matter of weeks, Dalton’s football fortunes were turned upside down when, in his 40^th game of the season, on 30 March 1964, three days after Newcastle had surrendered an eight-game unbeaten run losing 1-0 at home to promotion-chasing Leeds on Good Friday, the full-back suffered a leg break that virtually finished his Newcastle career.

The Journal saw it thus: “This is the tale of a noble resistance by a Newcastle side who had Alan Suddick crippled in the 17th minute and lost George Dalton with a broken right leg (just above the ankle) with 14 minutes to go.”

mightyleeds.co.uk recorded it like this: “Newcastle finished with one man in hospital and another limping, but Leeds just about deserved to win their third hard match in four days. For once, however, there was no malice attached to the game and left-back Dalton confirmed he had broken his right tibia after himself kicking the sole of Giles’ boot.”

Dalton didn’t play his next Newcastle first team game for nearly two and a half years, and then it was just the one game. After that solitary appearance – his 94^th for Toon – on 27 August 1966, when they lost a Division One match 2-1 at home to Spurs, he was cast into the shadows and eventually given a free transfer in May 1967.

*Albion’s 1967-68 squad with Dalton circled in the back row*

Third Division Brighton gave the player the chance to salvage his career and he arrived on the south coast in June 1967 together with a young centre forward, Bob Fuller, who went on to score regularly for Albion’s reserves but subsequently moved to South Africa and in later life became a senior executive at mobile phone companies Orange and 3.

There were a couple of familiar faces amongst Dalton’s new teammates: Dave Turner, had been a fringe player at Newcastle before joining Brighton in December 1963, while forward Kit Napier had moved to the south coast the previous summer.

Stewart Ogden also joined straight from school in the north east in the summer of 1967 and the matchday programme declared: “Instead of Sussex by the Sea, Albion’s rousing signature tune, they may be playing The Blaydon Races this season, with so many Geordies on the staff.”

Dalton took over the no.3 shirt from Bobby Baxter, who had moved on to Torquay United, and went straight into Albion’s starting XI alongside new £25,000 record signing John Napier from Bolton Wanderers.

The matchday programme acknowledged Dalton’s past injury misfortune and said: “We all hope the change of club will see this fine defender recapturing his old form. He is married and recently moved into a pleasant club house at Portslade.”

Dalton made 28 appearances in the first half of that 1967-68 season under Archie Macaulay before tragically suffering a double fracture of his right leg in a 0-0 draw at home to Oxford United.

It was on 27 January 1968 that Dalton was involved in a heavy collision with United’s Graham Atkinson (big Ron’s brother) and Albion goalkeeper Brian Powney.

The cruel blow came almost four years after the injury he’d sustained at Newcastle and the Albion matchday programme commented how he had “completely shaken off the effects and was playing with great confidence” adding: “Albion’s popular left-back has played some fine games this season and his stylish work has been admired by supporters of other clubs, as well as the Albion fans.”

In its Albion Postbag column, a correspondent from Newhaven, calling himself ‘Veteran Player’, wrote: “George Dalton has had two unlucky accidents and we all hope he comes back fit and well and able to continue to delight us with his polished full-back play.

“Brighton have nearly always been lucky with their left-backs, and we have had a string of really fine players in that position. George Dalton can be included in that impressive list.”

Macaulay was optimistic the player would recover and in October 1968 the programme told supporters: “George is doing light training, jogging round the pitch, up the terracing also carrying out weight training exercises.”

In the meantime, Mike Everitt had been brought in to fill the gap and, by the time Macaulay was succeeded as manager by Freddie Goodwin, as 1968 drew to a close, Dalton still wasn’t in contention.

It looked even less likely he’d get back in when Goodwin signed his former Leeds teammate Willie Bell from Leicester City, but his next career step was closely linked to both of them.

In the summer of 1970, Dalton, who’d combined studying physiotherapy with coaching the Albion junior team in the latter part of his contract, joined Goodwin and Bell as part of the new management team at Birmingham City.

Albion took serious umbrage at the exodus and the matter ended up with City having to pay £4,500 compensation for Goodwin (who still had 18 months of his contract remaining) and a £5,000 fine for illegally approaching Bell.

Dalton’s situation was viewed differently because he’d technically been a player out of contract thus free to make a move.

When Goodwin left City in 1976 and returned to manage in America, Dalton moved on to Midlands neighbours Coventry City, taking over as physio from Norman Pilgrim, and he retained the position for two decades.

Several former players had nothing but good things to say about him when interviewed in Steve Phelps’ book 29 Minutes From Wembley. Striker Garry Thompson spoke highly of the care with which Dalton treated him when he suffered a broken leg that put him out of the game for 11 months.

“George Dalton, our physiotherapist, was magnificent with me,” he said. “He kept saying my leg was going to be like a twig and I’d have to rebuild the muscles and learn to walk again.

“My Mum and Dad thought it was career over, but, the way I think about it now, I was so lucky because there weren’t that many options for me and I had to play football.

“George’s own career was ended by injury. He was a very good footballer when he trained with us so, when I broke my leg, he really took care of me and was superb.

“I couldn’t thank him enough and all George had was the sponge and two machines in the treatment room, the electric currents and the ultrasound, that was it.

“He worked miracles down the years with players and, if it wasn’t for him, I would not have played until I was 37. I owe him a lot.”

Garry’s praise for Dalton was echoed by Paul Dyson, who spent prolonged periods in the treatment room with ankle and back injuries during his teenage years. “George was a real character. We all had a lot of time for him and he tended a lot of us through our respective injuries.

“He used to drive us to the hospital in his Morris 1100 and had a great left foot. He’d played left-back for Newcastle United before his own career was ended by injury. There were the two machines in his room and he used to have ice cubes on sticks in his freezer.”

*Dalton alongside boss John Sillett in the front row of this Coventry squad picture*

Scottish international winger Tommy Hutchison was another admirer. “He was a smashing lad, George, very old-school. He suffered no fools and could always tell if a player was injured or not.

“In our days broken legs did finish careers, along with knee ligament injuries, and George rehabilitated so many players at Coventry. There was no squad rotation as you wanted to stay in the team and play every week because if you didn’t someone else would step in to take your place and you wouldn’t be able to get back in.”

Midfielder Andy Blair added: “George was a great physiotherapist, a terrific calming influence and a great man to have around.”

Experienced full-back Mick Coop was another who appreciated the physio. “George really was a lovely man who worked injured players very hard in the gym to get them back on to the pitch,” he said. “He was very quiet but did his job well and garnered a lot of respect off the playing squad. I can’t speak highly enough of him.”

Dalton keeps in touch with many of his former colleagues through the Coventry City Former Players’ Association, which has reported how he returned to live in Newcastle in retirement.

* Pictures from matchday programmes and various online sources.

When football didn’t deliver the right break for Colin Dobson

THE architect of Brighton’s humiliating 8-2 home defeat to Bristol Rovers in 1973 was none other than a player who might have been wearing Albion’s stripes if injury hadn’t struck.

Goalscoring winger Colin Dobson turned goal provider the day Rovers were rampant at the Goldstone Ground. Twenty-one months earlier he’d left the same pitch on a stretcher, not certain that he’d ever be able to play again.

Dobson had joined Brighton on loan in January 1972, making his debut in a mid-season friendly against his parent club, Huddersfield Town, on 18 January.

Ironically, his first meaningful Albion action came against Rovers when he was a substitute in a 2-2 draw at Eastville on 22 January.

Dobson was also on the bench for the home 1-0 win over Swansea City the following Saturday. He was elevated to the starting line-up away to Wrexham on 5 February, when goals from Willie Irvine and Peter O’Sullivan sealed a vital 2-1 win.

It was during his full home debut against Walsall on 12 February that his short-lived Albion career came to a sudden halt. Albion lost 2-1 and Dobson suffered an ankle fracture.

It had been expected that Albion would sign him permanently, and he told the Evening Argus that he had been offered a good deal to do so, but the injury put paid to the transfer being completed.

With Pat Saward’s side heading towards promotion with Aston Villa, the Irish manager instead went back to Wolverhampton Wanderers to sign Bertie Lutton, who had been on loan earlier in the season.

Lutton duly played his part as the Seagulls acquired the necessary points to earn promotion, while Dobson nursed an injury which at the time threatened to end his playing days.

His six-year Huddersfield career at an end, in the summer of 1972 he accepted a role as player-coach at Bristol Rovers, working under his former Sheffield Wednesday teammate, Don Megson.

Dobson Rovers

Thus it was that he was part of a Rovers side who had gone 18 matches unbeaten when they showed up at the Goldstone on a cold winter’s day on the first day of December 1973 to tackle Brian Clough’s Albion in front of The Big Match television cameras.

The game was only five minutes old when Dobson played in Alan Warboys who beat Norman Gall before passing to his strike partner Bruce Bannister to open the scoring.

Seven minutes later, Dobson took Warboys’ pass and laid on a pinpoint centre for Gordon Fearnley to score with a header. The game was still six minutes short of half-time when another Dobson centre was met by Warboys to make the score 5-1 to the visitors.

John Vinicombe, Albion reporter for the Argus, declared in his summary: “To Colin Dobson, freed by Albion when a broken ankle looked like ending his career, the accolade for a thinking player.

“He masterminded the operation in unbelievably generous space. Bruce Bannister knifed through for the early, killing goals, and Alan Warboys, superbly balanced and fast on the slightly frozen pitch, looked the perfect striker, taking his four goals so cleanly.”

An incandescent Clough told the media: “I was ashamed for the town and the club that 11 players could play like that. I feel sick. We were pathetic. This side hasn’t got enough heart to fill a thimble.”

Rovers went on to win promotion to the second tier that season and Dobson eventually completed 63 league and cup games for them before retiring at the end of the 1975-76 season.

Born on 9 May 1940 in Eston, North Yorkshire, Dobson joined Sheffield Wednesday at 15, and made a name for himself with the Owls in the days when they played in the top tier of English football.

He earned a reputation as a goalscoring winger after making his debut in 1961 and scored 52 goals in 193 games over the next five years.

He was twice capped by England Under 23s: on 29 May 1963, he came on as a substitute for Alan Suddick as England beat Yugoslavia 4-2 in Belgrade. Alan Hinton scored a hat-trick for England and the other goal was a penalty by Graham Cross, then with Leicester but later a Brighton player. Future England World Cup winner George Cohen was the side’s right-back.

Four days later, with Ernie Hunt leading the line, Dobson started for England when they lost 1-0 to Romania in Bucharest.

In 1966, Dobson made the switch to second division Huddersfield for a £21,000 fee and he was Town’s top scorer in the 1967-68 season (with 14 goals) and 1968-69 (with 11).

Although full international honours eluded him, in the summer of 1968, he was selected for the Football Association Commonwealth tour of the USA, New Zealand, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

He was also part of the side Ian Greaves led to the 1969-70 Second Division title, but he only made a handful of top-flight appearances, and his last Huddersfield appearance was against Stoke City in an FA Cup fourth-round replay in January 1971.

Once his playing days were over, Dobson worked for a whole host of clubs in a coaching or scouting capacity, including Port Vale, Coventry City, Aston Villa, clubs in the Middle-East (Bahraini side West Riffa; Al Rayyan in Qatar; Kuwaiti side Al Arabi, and Oman’s Under-17s), Portugal’s Sporting Lisbon, Gillingham, Watford and Stoke, where he renewed his acquaintance with John Rudge, who he had known at Huddersfield and Bristol Rovers, who was director of football for the Potters.

It was during his time with Stoke that he discovered the future Manchester United and England goalkeeper Ben Foster, a chef playing part-time non-league football at the time.

Foster later told the Birmingham Mail: “There was a scout called Colin Dobson who worked for Stoke but was living in Warwick.

“One night he saw some floodlights, stopped off and had a watch of the game and I caught the eye. That was it. He made a note of it and came to watch me a few more times.

“I owe it all to him. Top man. Whether I’d still be working as a chef if he hadn’t spotted me, I don’t know.”

Dobson died in Middlesbrough aged 82 on 16 February 2023.

Pictures from my scrapbook. Originally sourced from the Evening Argus, Shoot! and Goal magazines.

Graham Winstanley: fledgling Magpie, Carlisle legend, able Albion deputy

GRAHAM Winstanley spent five years at Brighton but only made 70 appearances, plus one as a sub. Most of his time with the Seagulls was spent as a dependable reserve.

Manager Peter Taylor drafted in the central defender to replace Grimsby-bound Steve Govier in the autumn of 1974 and he kept the no.6 shirt for all but two games through to the end of the season.

Govier had only been signed from Norwich City in May that year (together with Andy Rollings and Ian Mellor) but, unlike his co-signings, who had long Albion careers, Govier lasted only 16 games.

Winstanley, a Carlisle United regular for several seasons, had been edged out of the first team picture at Brunton Park following their surprise rise to the top division.

He arrived at the Goldstone in October 1974, on loan initially, and was even made captain during that time. He signed permanently for £20,000 the following month, moved into a house in Shoreham with wife Joan, and stayed in the south for five years despite limited first-team opportunities.

Born in the small north-east village of Croxdale, three miles south of Durham, on 20 January 1948, Winstanley joined Newcastle United straight from Washington Grammar School and, after serving an apprenticeship, turned professional.

He made his first team debut on Christmas Eve 1966, in a 2-1 home defeat to Leeds United.

With the likes of Ollie Burton, John McNamee and Bobby Moncur ahead of him, Winstanley struggled to establish himself at St James’ Park, only featuring seven times for the first team, five times as a starter and twice as a substitute.

Newcastle sold him to Carlisle for £8,000 in 1969, and it was at Brunton Park where he carved out a reputation as a powerful centre back who could also play full back.

In June 1972, against the Italian giants Roma in the Olympic Stadium, he scored a goal for United seven minutes from time that sealed a famous 3-2 win in the Anglo-Italian Cup. Four-Four-Two magazine voted it 45th of 50 top Greatest European Moments!

It may seem implausible to today’s reader to believe that Carlisle could win promotion from the equivalent of the Championship and play a season in the Premier League but that’s exactly what the Cumbrians did in 1974. They finished in third place, in the days before play-offs, a point behind Luton Town and 16 points behind champions Middlesbrough.

Although Winstanley had been part of Alan Ashman’s promotion side, he was not a first choice in the top division, and, after 165 appearances for United, headed south to Brighton.

His influence initially alongside Rollings, and then Steve Piper, brought much needed stability to the defence but the side struggled for goals that season and eventually could only achieve 19^th place.

In January 2014, the excellent blog The Goldstone Wrap reflected on Winstanley’s influence at that time, and reproduced an Argus article angled on how the player – nicknamed Tot (he was the youngest of three brothers) – wore contact lenses while playing.

Having taken over the Albion team captaincy from Ernie Machin, Winstanley was appointed club captain in August 1975 but, with the arrival of the cultured former Millwall and West Ham defender, Dennis Burnett, was dislodged from a starting berth and only played three more times that season.

Even when Taylor’s successor, Alan Mullery, dispensed with Burnett’s services, the 1976-77 season saw Graham Cross partner Rollings, restricting Winstanley to just five appearances.

The following season Mark Lawrenson arrived, so it wasn’t as though the competition for a place was getting any easier! However, in that season, Rollings missed several matches through injury and Winstanley proved an able deputy on 19 occasions.

One of his stints in the side included the final seven matches when Albion came so close to earning promotion and Winstanley even got on the scoresheet in the 3-1 home win over Tottenham Hotspur on 15 April 1978.

“It was from a free-kick that got played out wide to the left and when the ball came over I just sneaked in at the back and hit it,” he recalled in an Albion programme feature of 14 March 2009. “It spent a long time coming to me in the air and an even longer time before it hit the back of the net.” It happened in front of a crowd of 32,647 packed into the Goldstone, and the game was interrupted by trouble-making Spurs supporters.

He kept the shirt for the opening two fixtures of the 1978-79 season but only played three more times in that promotion-winning campaign, the last of which came in a 1-1 draw away to Luton Town on 21 April, when neither Lawrenson nor Rollings were available.

When his contract was up in July 1979, he was granted a free transfer and he returned to Carlisle where he made a further 69 appearances. “I could have stayed but I didn’t really fancy it to be honest,” he told Spencer Vignes in a matchday programme article. “I knew I only had a certain amount of ability. I was never a First Division player. That’s why it was the best thing to do.”

During his time in Sussex, he coached Sunday team Boundstone Old Boys and, after his playing career came to an end, he was manager of non-league Penrith for a while. However, he subsequently had a variety of jobs outside the game, in and around Carlisle. He worked for a wholesale electrical company, as a milkman, selling insurance, as a partner in a building supplies company, as well as working for the Post Office and a local newspaper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ever-present Wilson in action against Millwall at The Den

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

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

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

*Young apprentice Wilson with experienced pros John Angus and Colin Waldron*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wilson in an Albion line-up alongside Peter Ward

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 100^th 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 WWFCLgeCup Mike 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 13^th place finish, a record which was only threatened in 2017-18 by Chris Hughton’s side, who eventually ended up 15^th.

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.

“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 18^th 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.

“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.”

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.

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?

M Bailey charlton During 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.

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.

“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.

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.

Imperious Mark Lawrenson starred at Brighton before hitting Liverpool heights

MARK LAWRENSON was without doubt in my mind the best player ever to play for Brighton and Hove Albion. Peter Ward was exceptional but Lawrenson did it for Brighton and went on to have a glittering career with Liverpool, the top club in the country at the time.

And, whatever your thoughts about his contribution as a pundit – and many are very disparaging – you can’t take away his longevity on our TV screens and across our media.

Although now slightly less prominent as a TV pundit, for a good many years, Lawrenson reprised his successful Liverpool central defensive partnership with Alan Hansen in the BBC Match of the Day studios.

But where did it all begin? Born on 2 June 1957 in Penwortham, Lancashire, Lawrenson joined nearby Preston at 17 in 1974, who at the time were managed by the legendary Bobby Charlton.

Lawrenson made his full debut for the Lilywhites the following year, two months before his 18^th birthday. However, it was Charlton’s fellow World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles, to whom Lawrenson was most grateful.

“I was a winger when I joined Preston, while he was coach, and he was the one who converted me to my present position – in the middle of the back four,” Lawrenson told Keir Radnedge in Football Weekly News.

“Nobby was very good with the youngsters. He was almost like a father-figure. He commanded respect not only because of what he’d achieved himself but because of the way he’d help iron out your faults.”

At the age of 19, and thinking he’d never be good enough to play for England, Lawrenson opted to play for the Republic of Ireland when player-manager Johnny Giles (perhaps not coincidentally, Nobby’s brother-in-law) found out that he qualified to play for them through his grandfather.

That debut for Ireland in April 1977, in a 0-0 draw with Poland, came at the end of a season in which he was voted Preston’s Player of the Year.

Within weeks, he joined the Albion for £112,000 (£100,000 + VAT @ 12 per cent) after Brighton manager Alan Mullery persuaded Albion to outbid Liverpool to get their man.

Shoot article

Mullery recalled in his 2006 autobiography how he had taken the board of directors to see Lawrenson perform superbly in an end-of-season game at Crystal Palace, where he marked their new star striker Mike Flanagan out of the game.

Lawrenson recollects how he was on an end-of-season ‘jolly’ in Spain with his Preston team-mates when Brighton chairman Mike Bamber and director Dudley Sizen turned up and ‘sold’ the club to him in a Benidorm beachside bar.

There was nearly a hitch in the deal when his medical showed high sugar levels in his blood – but it turned out he had been drinking blackcurrant-flavoured Guinness while on the Spanish holiday.

Mullery was building on the success of guiding the Seagulls to promotion from Division Three in his first season in charge, and the young defender replaced the experienced Graham Cross, who went to Preston in part-exchange.

Shortly after signing Lawrenson, Mullery told Shoot magazine: “I know a lot of people have not heard too much about him yet. But they will – believe me, they will. He is only 20, is big and strong and will make his mark in a big way.”

And, in his autobiography, Mullery said: “Any manager would love to have a player of Mark’s ability in their side. He had a calm, strong temperament, he never caused any problems and he always performed brilliantly on the field. His presence helped to lift the team to a whole new level of performance in the 1977-78 season.”

Lawrenson made his Brighton debut on the 20 August 1977 in a 1-1 draw against Southampton at The Dell and went on to make 40 league appearances by the end of his first season at the club.

The following season, when Albion went one better and earned promotion to the top division for the first time, Lawrenson was a stand-out performer. In his book, A Few Good Men, author Spencer Vignes said: “His timing in the tackle and ability to read the game belied his relative youth, but what really caught the eye was his skill on the ball, which, for a centre-back still earning his wages in English football’s second tier, was little short of remarkable.”

Skipper Brian Horton told Vignes: “The way he used to bring the ball out from the back had to be seen to be believed.”

In a special Argus supplement of April 1997, to mark Albion’s departure from the Goldstone, Lawrenson was interviewed by Mike Donovan, and told him: “The Goldstone was a great place to play and I was extremely happy there.

“It was an excellent team that played good football the way it should be played – by passing it around. Also, we had a great team spirit, mainly because a lot of the team were outsiders coming in and stuck together. We all played and socialised together.”

Unfortunately, Albion’s first season amongst the elite was only five games in when Lawrenson received a serious injury in a clash with Glenn Hoddle at White Hart Lane.

Badly torn ankle ligaments and a chipped bone was the diagnosis and it sidelined Lawrenson for 12 matches, although his absence created an opportunity for young Gary Stevens.

lawro yellow When Lawrenson was fit to return, Mullery sprung a surprise by utilising him in midfield, but it was an inspired decision and he stayed there for the rest of the season, helping Albion to finish a respectable 16^th of 22.

He went on to make 152 league appearances by the end of 1980-81.

It was his sale to Liverpool in the summer of 1981 that was part of the reason Mullery’s reign at the club came to an end. Mullery had negotiated with Ron Atkinson to sell him to Manchester United with two United players coming to Brighton as part of the deal.

But, behind his back, chairman Bamber had been talking to Liverpool and, in exchange for what was then a Liverpool club transfer record of £900,000, he was destined to be heading back to the North West with midfielder Jimmy Case coming South as part of the deal.

Interestingly, though, Lawrenson revealed in his autobiography how new manager Mike Bailey had actually made him Albion captain, but then asked him how he saw his future, which sowed a seed of doubt about the club’s intentions.

“I don’t know if there was a financial crisis and they were looking for a big transfer fee from my sale to sort themselves out, but the uncertainty did unsettle me,” he wrote. Lawrenson was sent off in an ill-tempered pre-season friendly (against FC Utrecht in the Dordrecht Tournament) and put it down to his personal frustration.

“On our return flight, there was a message that Terry Neill of Arsenal was waiting to meet the chairman at Gatwick,” Lawrenson recalled. “Somehow they missed each other and the next day there was talk of me going to Manchester United.

“But then Mike Bailey asked me if I would meet Liverpool, and I travelled to the Aerial Hotel at Heathrow to meet Bob Paisley, Peter Robinson and Liverpool chairman John Smith.

“Terry Neill was, at the time, waiting in the next hotel in case discussions broke down. He missed out because it only took me 15 minutes to agree to move to Liverpool.

“I travelled North and had a medical at 11.30 at night. I even took the registration forms to the League offices myself, because they are only a few doors away from my mother’s home at St Annes.”

Argus front page

Lawrenson went on to form a formidable central defensive partnership with Hansen after England centre back Phil Thompson suffered an injury, but, as he had showed at Brighton, he was versatile enough also to play at full back or in midfield.

Indeed, Lawrenson made his first start for Liverpool at left-back in a 1-0 league defeat to Wolves. In his first season, Liverpool won the League championship and the League Cup. They won it again in 1982 and retained both for another two seasons, becoming only the third club in history to win three titles in a row. They also added the club’s fourth European Cup in 1984.

Many believed Lawrenson and Hansen were the best central defensive partnership in English football by the time Liverpool clinched the League and FA Cup “double” in 1986.

But Lawrenson was being put under pressure by young centre back Gary Gillespie and an Achilles tendon injury in 1988 prematurely ended his career after 332 appearances and 18 goals, although he earned a fifth and final title medal when that season ended.

Lawrenson tried his hand at management at Oxford United in 1988 but, in almost a mirror image of the situation over his own transfer from Brighton, he resigned after their star striker Dean Saunders, the former Albion player, was sold by the board of directors without Lawrenson’s blessing.

Lawrenson later managed Peterborough United for 14 months between September 1989 and November 1990, but it was a largely unsuccessful tenure.

Apart from one brief foray back into football as a defensive coach at Newcastle during Kevin Keegan’s first reign in the North East, Lawrenson’s involvement since has been one step removed as a pundit and newspaper columnist.

At the 2018 World Cup, Lawrenson particularly hit the headlines when many observed his cantankerous and sarcastic observations were just too much.

Never shy of voicing his opinions, they once led to him losing what at the time was a trademark moustache!

He was so convinced that Bolton would be relegated that he said live on Football Focus that he would shave it off if they proved him wrong, which they did!

In 2003, my friend Andrew Setten somehow blagged tickets which gave us the opportunity to go into the exclusive Football Association area at the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Southampton at the Millennium Stadium and, all those years later, I finally got the chance to meet Lawro and to get his autograph.

• Pictures from Shoot magazine, cuttings from the Evening Argus and the matchday programme.

Dennis Burnett – England World Cup trio’s teammate – added finesse to Brighton’s defence

WITH all due respect to his predecessors in the number 6 shirt, Dennis Burnett was a classy addition to Brighton’s defence when he signed from Hull City in 1975.

At the end of his first season with Brighton, when they toyed with promotion from Division 3 but just missed out, Burnett was selected in the PFA Third Division Team of the Year, which said everything about his stature amongst his fellow professionals. Albion’s Peter O’Sullivan was also selected while the goalkeeper was Eric Steele, then with Peterborough, and Crystal Palace winger, and, future Brighton manager, Peter Taylor, was also in the XI.

Before 1975, Brighton fans had been used to seeing their centre halves hoof it, but Burnett play more in the style of another famous former West Ham number 6. OK, he might never have reached Bobby Moore’s level but he played alongside the great man for a while and came through the ranks at West Ham when they had a reputation for playing cultured football.

He started off in the West Ham youth team and was in the 1963 FA Youth Cup winning side alongside the likes of Harry Redknapp, Clive Charles, Bobby Howe and John Sissons.

Burnett made his first team debut for the Hammers as a 21-year-old in October 1965, along with Jimmy Bloomfield (the future Orient and Leicester manager), in a 3-0 defeat to Fulham at Craven Cottage. He made 24 league appearances in 1965-66, the most he managed in any one season for the Hammers.

In March 1966, he collected a League Cup runners-up medal playing right back in a side that lost 5-3 over two legs to West Brom. The team was captained by Bobby Moore, and included Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst, just four months before all three played in England’s one and only World Cup win.

Burnett went on to complete 66 league and cup appearances for West Ham.

Born in Southwark on 27 September 1944, perhaps it was no surprise his next stop was Millwall. West Ham sold him to The Lions in 1967 for £15,000, and the vast majority of his football career was spent at The Den, playing in the second tier.

Playing alongside Barry Kitchener at centre half and Harry Cripps at left back, he was part of a team that nearly made it to the First Division, particularly in 1971-72.

In a scene you would never get now in the mobile phone age, Millwall were leading Preston at home and the word went round The Den that rivals for promotion Birmingham were losing at Sheffield Wednesday. It looked like Millwall would be promoted to the elite for the first time in their history and the news spread to the players on the pitch.

Unfortunately, the rumour was completely wrong. Birmingham were leading, not losing. Club skipper Cripps had even gone round the Preston players telling them Millwall were going up but level-headed Burnett didn’t get carried away.

millwall-history.org records: On-the-field skipper Dennis Burnett was less convinced. “I wasn’t going to believe it until I knew for sure,” he said. “Those last few minutes were agonising. We played on in a dream. It was the longest 20 minutes ever for me.”

As the end of the game approached, the crowd jammed the touchline, waiting to cheer off the Millwall players. The pressure behind Millwall’s goal was so great that the woodwork began to buckle.
Centre-forward Barry Bridges (who would join Brighton five months later) ran back to appeal to the fans to be patient. When the referee blew for the last time – suspiciously early – half the 20,000 crowd stormed on to the pitch. Cripps was carried aloft and some of the other players lost their shirts.

Finally the correct score from Hillsborough was announced and the crowd fell silent and faded away.

The following season, Millwall struggled near the bottom of the table and manager Benny Fenton moved Burnett into midfield.

“As a sweeper I was a bit restricted,” he told Goal’s Ray Bradley, who described him as “one of the most accomplished and stylish players outside the First Division”.

“I had to stay back and wasn’t so involved,” said Burnett. “ Now I find I can express myself more and go up in support of the attack.”

Unlike his illustrious former Hammers teammates, full international recognition eluded him but in April 1973 Burnett was part of an English FA squad managed by Sir Alf Ramsey that thrashed Gibraltar 9-0 in a ‘friendly’. Frank Worthington (of Leicester at the time) scored a hat-trick.

Hankering for another shot at top division football, Burnett went on to the transfer list at The Den. He got his move, but only to a club in the same division.

After clocking up 257 appearances for Millwall, in 1974, Terry Neill paid £80,000 to take Burnett to Hull City, where a young Stuart Pearson, future West Ham, Man Utd and England international was making a name for himself.

However, when Neill left to become manager of Spurs, his replacement John Kaye brought in his own man while Burnett was out of the side suspended. After losing his place, Burnett had a brief loan spell back at Millwall.

During the summer of 1975, he played 21 games in the States with St Louis Stars (for whom former Chelsea and England goalkeeper Peter Bonetti was playing) before Brighton manager Peter Taylor secured his services for the Seagulls.

In an article in Shoot incorporating Goal, Burnett explained how, although he’d been sidelined for two months with an ankle ligament injury, he’d got back in the side only to be sent off in a game away to Bristol City.

“It was a most unjust decision. Even the opposition seemed flabbergasted,” he said. “Anyway, I never played for Hull again. The signing of Dave Roberts from Oxford United put paid to my chances of a first team recall, following my suspension.

“Eventually, manager John Kaye called me into his office and asked if I wanted a move. A price of £30,000 was put on my head, later reduced to £15,000. No one came for me so in April I went to the United States and played for St Louis Stars in Missouri, a North American Soccer League club.

“While there I received another contract from Hull City, which I refused to sign. I lodged an appeal against it to the Football League Management Committee. Surprisingly they upheld it, and, during July, I received a letter to say I’d been given a free transfer.

“I arrived back in England on August 24^th, made and received a number of ‘phone calls which resulted in my being offered a three-year contract by Brighton, plus excellent wages, which at the age of 31 was fantastic for me,

“Added to all this is the potential of Brighton in terms of location, players and attendances. It was a move not to be resisted.”

Burnett told the magazine he felt Brighton were much better prepared for promotion than Millwall had been. “Had we gone up, we would have needed a miracle to survive in the First,” he said. “At Brighton, we are winning matches without being fully stretched. The right blend is there and we can only get better.

“If I look after myself, I can get through another four or five seasons, by which time Brighton could be up amongst the big boys.”

Burnett was obviously a good judge because Brighton certainly got themselves up amongst the ‘big boys’ four years later – although by then he was no longer a part of it.

After a successful first season in which he developed a formidable central defensive partnership with Andy Rollings, and earned that placed in the PFA team of the year, perhaps there were signs that age was catching up with him.

In his end of season review in the Evening Argus, Albion reporter John Vinicombe observed: “Over the course of the season, the most improved player was Andy Rollings who profited by the experience of Dennis Burnett at his elbow.

“There were times when Burnett looked unflappable in the centre of the defence. As time wore on, and situations became more frenetic, that casual style, no doubt a legacy of his West Ham upbringing, now and again landed him in trouble.”

Maybe manager Taylor thought the same because one of the last things he did before quitting and rejoining Brian Clough was to sign veteran defender Graham Cross, which spelled trouble for Burnett.

Under new manager Alan Mullery, in the league at least, Cross was preferred alongside Rollings. Burnett deputised for Rollings when he was injured – for example, he played alongside Cross in the memorable 7-2 demolition of York City – and was given some games in midfield, but mainly in the League Cup he got the chance to shine.

He played in memorable games against First Division opponents Ipswich, West Brom and Derby, and was assured alongside Cross in the memorable narrow 2-1 defeat at the Baseball Ground in November 1976.

Vinicombe reported: “Cross and Burnett played coolly and neither looked out of place among the high-priced cream.”

He kept his place for a league game away to Port Vale five days later, but that 2-2 draw was his last in an Albion shirt.

In early February 1977, together with ex-Spur Phil Beal, he agreed a pay-off with the club and played non league with Ilford for the remainder of the season before returning to the States and another 19 games for St Louis Stars, where he was joined by former Albion teammate Fred Binney.

Mullery explained several years later in his autobiography that he had inherited a squad of 36 professionals and needed to prune the numbers. The older players were the obvious ones to go and, although Beal and Burnett went quietly, he had more truck dispensing with Joe Kinnear’s services – but that’s a story for another day.

On his return to these shores, Burnett headed for Ireland to play for Shamrock Rovers, at that time managed by the legendary Johnny Giles.

The defender subsequently played for three years in Norway, for SK Haugar, and popped up back in Sussex in 1994 as assistant manager of Sussex County League side Lancing, and played in a 2-1 defeat against Horsham YMCA in the FA Cup a month before his 50^th birthday!

According to Wikipedia, Burnett ran a painting and decorating business in Sussex after he left football and was working in the hospitality suites at Upton Park before West Ham moved to the Olympic Stadium.

Pictured above are a Newham Recorder shot of Burnett in West Ham colours; in action for Millwall (from Goal), and in Albion’s stripes (from Shoot!). Below, an archive shot of the St Louis Stars side of 1975 with Burnett in the back row wearing the 18 shirt and Peter Bonetti in the centre of the front row.

In parallel lines

Memories from 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Graham Cross