THE LIFE of a back-up ‘keeper can be pretty soul destroying, with first team opportunities often few and far between.
Such was the lot of former Chelsea youngster Alan Dovey, who was deputy to longstanding no.1 Brian Powney at the start of the 1970s, and only played eight first team matches for Brighton in two years.
Dovey initially joined on loan in March 1971. Powney’s rival for the no.1 shirt at the start of the season had been the experienced Geoff Sidebottom but he had been forced to retire because of a head injury.
Saward subsequently brought in Ian Seymour from Fulham on a temporary basis when Powney was out for three games, but Chelsea boss Dave Sexton, who’d previously played for the Albion, did his old side a favour by lending them youth team goalie Dovey until the end of the season.
He had to wait until the last two games before getting his chance to shine, making his debut in a 3-1 win away to Bristol Rovers and then appearing in the season’s finale at Wrexham, which ended in a 1-1 draw.
The loan became a permanent transfer that summer, Albion securing the young ‘keeper’s services for £1,000.
He played three times in Albion’s 1971-72 promotion season, and manager Pat Saward appeared content with the youngster, telling Goal magazine “It’s hard having to leave him out again, but what can you do. Chelsea manager Dave Sexton did us a great favour when he let Alan go for £1,000.”
His first game of the season was at Carrow Road, Norwich, when Albion were knocked out in the second round of the League Cup 2-0.
However, under the headline ‘Dovey’s daring display’ the matchday programme declared: “Despite the 2-0 defeat, the former Chelsea goalkeeper had a fine game and thrilled spectators with some daring saves. He had been nursing an injury and this was an in-at-the-deep-end experience but he came through it with great credit.”
It was more than three months before he got his next first team outing, but he once again earned rave notices for his performance in a 2-1 win away to York City, earning Albion’s Man of the Match accolade from Evening Argus reporter John Vinicombe.
The following matchday programme reported: “It was ‘all go’ for Alan. He had to race out of his goal in one York raid and was booked for an infringement, and also had numerous adventures in keeping out shots, centres and breaking up penalty box scrambles.”
Saward didn’t next call on Dovey until 15 March, a 1-0 home defeat to Oldham Athletic which temporarily put the brakes on Albion’s bid for automatic promotion. Remarkably, that game against Oldham (which also saw a debut as substitute from new signing Ken Beamish) was the first time Dovey had played in front of the Goldstone faithful.
When Albion entertained Exeter City in the first round of the League Cup on 16 August 1972, the crowd may have been 6,500 down on the attendance for the season opener against Bristol City four days earlier but the game presented Dovey with another chance to show what he could do. (The game also saw the return of former captain John Napier to the centre of defence, although he was most likely being ‘shop windowed’ with a view to a transfer).
It is interesting to read an Exeter-angled summary of the game, which declared: “There was no denying that the first half belonged to City, and they deservedly led after 22 minutes with Fred Binney’s goal. There were a few moments early on when the back four and reserve goalkeeper Alan Dovey were little more than strangers in the night.
“Eventually the pattern knitted together and Dovey gained confidence to make two fine saves in the last 20 minutes from Binney (who two years later joined the Albion in exchange for John Templeman and Lammie Robertson) and Dick Plumb – shots that could so easily have caused a shock defeat.”
Albion eventually prevailed thanks to goals from Willie Irvine and Beamish.
The two league matches Dovey featured in that season were not games he’d look back on fondly. Away to Preston North End on 25 November, Albion’s rookie ‘keeper conceded four when he deputised for ‘flu-hit Powney.
It was the same scoreline at Sunderland, who hadn’t won in 11 games, but who went on to reach that season’s FA Cup Final in which they famously beat Leeds United 1-0.
The Wearsiders hadn’t won at home since September but Brighton went to Roker Park having lost their previous nine matches and, according to the Sunderland Echo, “The winning margin could well have been doubled…. they applied themselves to the task of mastering Brighton’s strong-arm tactics and taking them apart.”
Sunderland took the lead in the ninth minute. Joe Bolton’s hammered left-foot shot struck Dovey in the face, knocking him over, and Billy Hughes pounced on the rebound to drive home a low shot.
Dennis Tueart added a second in the 45th minute and Brighton found the going tougher still in the second half.
After surviving a goalmouth scramble, Sunderland got their third goal in the 58th minute. A free-kick against George Ley for pushing Tueart was taken by Bobby Kerr, whose well-placed drive to the near post was brilliantly headed into goal by Hughes.
Hughes twice came close to completing a hat-trick but it was Bolton who hit what the Echo described as the goal of the game: “a right-foot drive, of such power that Dovey had no chance”.
Struggling to come up with a solution to the disastrous run, Saward went public and started to point the finger at players who he reckoned weren’t cutting it.
Dovey was transfer-listed along with veteran defender Norman Gall and Bertie Lutton. Lutton got a surprise move to West Ham but Gall stayed put and Dovey was released at the end of the season without playing another game.
Born in Stepney on 18 July 1952, Dovey grew up in Chadwell St Mary in Essex and played for Thurrock Boys before joining Chelsea straight from school in 1968 after writing to them to ask for a trial.
He became a youth team regular as well as playing a handful of games for the reserves. On 18 January 1969, he was in goal for a Chelsea side (which also included future first teamer and England international Alan Hudson) when they beat Brighton 5-2 in a South East Counties League youth team fixture.
It was always going to be difficult for Dovey to progress at Stamford Bridge because Worthing-born Peter Bonetti was an almost permanent fixture in Chelsea’s first team and he was understudied initially by Scotland under-23 international Tommy Hughes (who later played three games for the Albion on loan from Aston Villa in 1973) and then future Welsh international John Phillips, who was briefly Graham Moseley’s back-up during Albion’s second season (1980-81) in the First Division.
However, Dovey made national newspaper headlines when he came close to making a first team appearance on 10 January 1970.
Both Bonetti and Hughes went down with ‘flu ahead of a key match between third-placed Chelsea and Leeds United, who were in second place. Chelsea tried to get the game postponed but the Football League wouldn’t hear of it.
The Daily Mirror reported: “Chelsea failed to convince the Football League last night that it would be unfair to put 17-year-old Alan Dovey in goal against Leeds today.
“Dovey, untried beyond an occasional game in the reserves, stands by to face the League Champions.”
Veteran football reporter Ken Jones wrote: “Bonetti has no chance of playing. Unless Hughes has improved by this morning, Dovey will be drafted into the team.”
Chelsea boss Sexton told Jones: “We are hoping Hughes will recover. But if he doesn’t, we shall just have to put Alan in.
“It’s not the sort of thing we like doing with a youngster, but he won’t let us down if he has to play.”
Jones noted that although Dovey had only been a professional for six months, he didn’t display any nerves when interviewed.
“The things that happen in League football happen in youth football,” Dovey told him, “so it will only be the pace and the skill which will be different.
“When Dave Sexton told me I might have to play, that itself was a great thrill. It will be an even greater thrill if I do play against such a great side as Leeds.”
As it turned out, Hughes was adjudged fit after all, although he might have regretted it. In what was only his fifth senior game in five years at the club, he shipped five goals as United won 5-2 in front of a Stamford Bridge crowd of 57,221.
In August that year, Dovey was once again on standby to step up to the first team squad when Hughes suffered a broken leg. But Sexton went into the transfer market instead and bought Phillips from Aston Villa.
The Goldstone Wrap in 2014 noted Dovey stepped away from full-time football after the Albion let him go to pursue a career in insurance. Nevertheless, he played part-time for various Sussex clubs.
Notably he was at Southwick, along with former Albion teammate Paul Flood, at the same time as Ralf Rangnick, later to take temporary charge of Manchester United, was on their books.
Dovey also played for Worthing for three seasons, in their double promotion-winning squad of the early ‘80s, until, in April 1984, manager Barry Lloyd publicly criticised him, telling the Argus: “Alan has done exceptionally well for us over the past three years, but he’s not really aggressive enough in this premier division.”
In parallel lines 