A GOALSCORING scourge of Newcastle United once pulled on the famous black and white stripes – and was booked in three of the five games he played for them!
Baird, who notoriously got himself sent off in the crucial last ever game Brighton played at the Goldstone Ground, led the line in an infamously fiery New Year’s Day derby between Newcastle and Sunderland when the Toon won 3-1 courtesy of a hat-trick by Peter Beardsley.
Jeff Clarke, who’d previously spent seven years at Sunderland and had five games on loan at Brighton at the start of that season, was at the back for Newcastle and future Albion veteran Clive Walker was in attack for the visitors.
A crowd of 36,529 watched the First Division fixture on 1 January 1985 when Sunderland were reduced to nine men through the sendings off of Howard Gayle and Gary Bennett. Baird was one of five bookings made by ref David Scott.
It was Baird’s fourth match for Newcastle after England World Cup winner Jack Charlton signed him on loan from Southampton. He made his debut three days before Christmas 1984 in a 4-0 defeat away to Aston Villa when his former England Schoolboys strike partner Paul Rideout scored a hat-trick. Baird’s only goal for United came in a Boxing Day 2-1 defeat at West Brom.
Three days later, as United lost 3-1 at home to Arsenal, Baird’s involvement was from the bench as a sub for David McCreery. His last game, on 12 January, was another tonking, 4-0 away to champions-in-waiting Everton.
Five years after his Toon cameo, Baird twice stymied Newcastle’s hopes of promotion from the second tier, scoring against them for Leeds in a 1-0 win in December 1989 (it turned out to be his last goal for them) and, after he’d fallen out with manager Howard Wilkinson and been transferred to Middlesbrough in January 1990, netted twice for Boro as they beat Newcastle 4-1 in the last game of the season.
Baird nets for Boro against the Toon
Leeds finished that campaign as second tier champions (Newcastle, who by then had Mark McGhee up front, were five points behind in third place) and Baird’s goals in Boro’s win put paid to the Magpies’ hopes of automatic promotion. To add salt to the wound, Newcastle lost to Sunderland in the semi-final of the play-offs.
Six years later Baird was Brighton’s captain in the penultimate must-win game of the season, when Doncaster Rovers were the visitors.
Albion needed all three points to give themselves a chance of avoiding relegation out of the league when they travelled to Hereford the following week for the final fixture of that tumultuous season.
What they really didn’t need was for the captain to get himself sent off after just 18 minutes of the match!
Talking to The Athletic about it in a 2022 interview, Baird recalled: “I was fired up for it. Darren (Moore) had come right through me, literally in the first minute. The referee didn’t give anything.
“Then he came through me again, and the referee gave a foul. The third time, I lost it. I just turned around and tried to wallop him. There was a big melee. Everyone knew what was at stake.”
Both players were dismissed (it was one of 11 sendings off in Baird’s career) and thankfully Stuart Storer’s memorably-scrambled goal in the 67th minute settled the game in Albion’s favour, although Baird admitted: “It was nerve-racking. I felt guilty that I’d let my team-mates down, let everybody down by getting sent off. It was a massive relief when we won.”
Thankfully, disciplinary rules were different back then (bans were only applied 14 days after the offence) and Baird was able to play his part in the match at Hereford when a 1-1 draw ensured Albion stayed up and The Bulls went down.
Baird’s exploits for the Albion highlighted in the matchday programme
Brighton were the tenth and last league club Baird had played for and he had only ended up with the Seagulls because of a pre-season falling out with Plymouth Argyle manager Neil Warnock.
Living near Southampton, only a 15-minute drive from Brighton manager Jimmy Case, a move east along the coast made good geographical sense, and a £35,000 fee took him to the Goldstone at the start of the 1996-97 season.
“Whenever I’d played against Brighton, I seemed to score,” Baird told The Athletic. “I loved the Goldstone Ground and there was the lure of playing for Jimmy.”
Although born in Rotherham on 1 April 1964, Baird had moved to Southampton with his family, via Glasgow, when he was a young lad, his father having sailed from the port when he worked on the Queen Mary.
After surviving meningitis as a six-year-old, Baird’s footballing ability saw him turn out for Bitterne Saints, St. Mary’s College, Southampton, Southampton and Hampshire Schools. He joined Southampton on schoolboy terms after he’d been spotted in the same boys’ team, Sarisbury Sparks, as Lawrie McMenemy’s son, Sean.
Baird won two England schoolboy caps: he was in England’s Victory Shield team that beat Wales 2-1 at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground on 27 April 1979, playing alongside Rideout and winger Mark Walters, who went on to star for Aston Villa, Rangers and Liverpool.
In the same competition, he also played at St James’ Park – two days after Brighton had won 3-1 on the same pitch to win promotion to the top division for the first time in the club’s history.
On 7 May 1979, young England drew 1-1 with Scotland and 14-year-old Rideout’s goal was enough to enable England to retain the Victory Shield. The following month, Baird was an unused sub when England drew 2-2 with West Germany at Wembley.
A Saint with hair!
Baird was offered pro terms by Swindon, but he chose instead to sign for his adopted home town club. However, with McMenemy preferring the more experienced Frank Worthington and Joe Jordan, Baird was restricted to 21 starts and three sub appearances for Saints, and, after that loan spell at Newcastle, he moved to Leeds.
His two spells at Leeds (sandwiched either side of an unhappy time at Portsmouth) produced 50 goals in more than 160 appearances and he was in the Leeds side alongside Mervyn Day and Micky Adams that lost the 1986-87 Division Two play-off final to a Charlton Athletic team that included his future Brighton boss Steve Gritt and teammate John Humphrey.
Baird scored 19 goals that season for Billy Bremner’s side, four of them in the FA Cup as United reached the semi-final where they were beaten 3-2 by eventual cup winners Coventry City.
He had taken Saints’ teammate Jordan’s advice to move to Leeds and his next move was to Scotland where Jordan was in charge of Hearts. He later played under the Scottish international striker at Bristol City too.
The Pilgrim who fell out with Neil Warnock
Baird scored six in 29 appearances for Plymouth before that move to Brighton. Discipline might have been a problem but Baird scored eight goals in 10 games from January 1997 as nine wins and a draw at the Goldstone went a huge way to enabling Albion to escape the drop.
As Albion began the 1997-98 season in exile at Gillingham, Baird began the campaign with a three-match ban for that red card against Doncaster — and it wasn’t long before he was seeing red again!
It came in the 13th game of the season and it was certainly unlucky for Baird, well, unlucky in that a linesman spotted his off-the-ball headbutt on a Chester defender. Gritt publicly condemned Baird’s “out of order” behaviour and stripped him of the captaincy.
The following month, with another knee operation required, a surgeon advised him to pack in the game and he left Brighton in December that year having scored 14 goals in 41 appearances in 16 months.
“At least we kept Brighton up,” he told The Athletic. “There were a multitude of problems, it was a weird period, but it was a big thing.”
Post-Brighton, Baird ended up coaching in Hong Kong and was put in charge of the national side for three Asian Cup qualifiers, playing in Jakarta in front of 75,000 people, and then in Cambodia in front of 1,200 people. “It was certainly an experience, that is for sure,” he said.
Baird eventually returned to Hampshire, developed business interests in the vehicle sales and leasing and sports gear industries, while keeping his football links going in non-league circles: at Eastleigh, Sutton United and Havant & Waterlooville.
BRIGHTON travel to Newcastle in the fifth round of the FA Cup with the backdrop of having won there twice in the competition in the 1980s – not to mention a 1-0 win in the Premier League this season.
The 1-0 third round win at St. James’ Park in January 1983 set Albion en route to that season’s FA Cup final – but Toon supporters of that era blamed the game’s unusually-named referee, Trelford Mills, from Barnsley, for their exit.
Think I’m exaggerating? Newcastle fans’ website themag.co.uk had this to say ahead of another FA Cup game between the two sides in 2013: “It is doubtful that anything could match the anger and frustration that many of us felt nearly thirty years ago.
“Wednesday 12 January 1983 will always be synonymous with the name Trelford Mills, etched into the consciousness of an entire generation of Newcastle fans, convinced he cheated us out of the FA Cup. Well, a chance of the fourth round anyway!”
Neil Smillie, goalscorer Peter Ward, Steve Gatting, Chris Ramsey and Andy Ritchie celebrate after the 1983 win.
Mills disallowed two Newcastle ‘goals’ while Albion nicked it courtesy of a penalty area pounce by Peter Ward, back at the club on loan from Nottingham Forest, on 62 minutes. They did it without captain Steve Foster who was suspended (as, of course, he would be for the final too).
The game was a third round replay four days after the sides drew 1-1 at the Goldstone Ground when Andy Ritchie’s mis-hit shot in the 56th minute put Albion ahead and Terry McDermott (below right, with Tony Grealish) equalised on 77 minutes.
Even though the Magpies were in the old Division Two at the time, they had Kevin Keegan and Chris Waddle in their line-up, and they fully expected to win because Brighton hadn’t previously won away that season.
Albion, competing in the top division for the fourth season in a row, with joint caretaker managers Jimmy Melia and George Aitken in charge, had goalkeeper Graham Moseley to thank for some heroic stops to keep them in the first game.
The replay at St. James’s Park was in front of a typically noisy crowd of 32,687 and Newcastle did everything but score: they had shots cleared off the line and hit the woodwork and, when they thought they’d scored, Mr Mills disallowed them – twice!
In the meantime, Ward made the most of a counter attack to put the Seagulls ahead. It turned out to be the last goal he scored for the Albion, although he was in the side that pulled off a shock 2-1 win at Anfield to knock out Liverpool in the fifth round.
“I remember Brighton went one up, then Imre Varadi went through on goal, but quite clearly controlled the ball with his wrist,” said Mills.
“I think the Brighton keeper realised this, just as most of the players did, and let the ball go into the goal just to waste a bit of time. I just restarted with a free kick. I have spoken to Imre since. I think he accepts my version now.”
Mills continued: “Jeff Clarke managed to win a ball in the penalty area, but only because he had his arm around the defender’s neck. Keegan bundled the ball into the goal, but I had blown up a few seconds before it went in.
“Keegan did his Mick Channon cartwheel arm in front of the Gallowgate end, but I just jogged across to where I wanted the free kick taken from and indicated as to why I had disallowed the goal.”
Mills also recalled how he and his fellow officials needed a police escort away from the ground after the match. “When we sat in the dressing room after the match, I remember chatting to one of my linesmen, John Morley, when this police officer turns up,” he said. The copper said to him: “You’d better hang on here a while, Trelford. There are 2,000 Geordies outside and they all want your autograph!”
Three years later, the status of the teams had been reversed with Newcastle promoted back to the top division in 1984 and Albion back in the second tier, relegated the same year as the cup final appearance.
While Keegan had retired, Willie McFaul’s side had a young Paul Gascoigne in midfield and Peter Beardsley in the forward line. Clarke, who’d played four games on loan at Brighton two years earlier, was still in the centre of United’s defence and it was his foul on Terry Connor in the first minute of the game that saw Albion take a shock early lead.
Danny Wilson floated in a free kick from 30 yards out on the right which found centre back Eric Young on the far edge of the penalty box. He hooked the ball into the Newcastle net with only 50 seconds on the clock!
Albion, wearing their change strip of red, had to endure a relentless series of attacks (Toon had 23 corners to Albion’s one!) and Perry Digweed in Brighton’s goal put in a man of the match performance between the sticks, notable saves keeping out shots from John Bailey, Beardsley and Billy Whitehurst.
With five minutes left of the game, against the run of play, a quick throw-in by Graham Pearce found Dean Saunders and he rifled home an unstoppable shot past Martin Thomas for his 10th goal of the season.
Manager Chris Cattlin summed up afterwards: “It was really tough and we had a little luck on our side, but to go away to a club who have won the cup no fewer than six times and come away winners was quite an achievement.
“With the Geordie fervour up there the noise their supporters created was something special, but our efforts speak volumes for everyone connected with our club.”
There would be no fairytale ending that season, though, with Albion being dumped out of the cup 2-0 by Southampton in a quarter-final tie at the Goldstone Ground.
John Barnes and Steve Harper were on pundit duty for ESPN for the 2012 match
Younger fans will doubtless recall two more recent FA Cup meetings between Brighton and Newcastle, in consecutive seasons during Gus Poyet’s reign, at the Amex in 2012 and 2013.
The Championship Seagulls beat the Premier League Magpies on both occasions – 1-0 in the fourth round in 2012 and 2-0 in the third round the following year.
Getting to grips with Will Buckley
A Mike Williamson own goal was enough to give Albion the edge over Alan Pardew’s side in the first of those games; Will Buckley’s 76th minute shot deflecting off the defender and looping over Tim Krul for the only goal of the game. Leon Best, who would later have a torrid time at Brighton, missed two good chances for the visitors.
The 2013 fixture was a more convincing win for Brighton against a weakened Newcastle side who had Shola Ameobi sent off. Andrea Orlandi gave Albion the lead on the half-hour mark and substitute Will Hoskins added a second late on.
Andrea Orlandi hooks in Albion’s first goal
Praise for Liam Bridcutt
“This was an impressive victory for Brighton, a result that will add to the optimism that surrounds this upwardly mobile club and strengthen their resolve to host Newcastle in next season’s Premier League,” wrote Ben Smith, for BBC Sport. “The cool passing game of Liam Bridcutt at the heart of their midfield was tremendous.”
The reporter added: “Sharper to the ball, and swifter to make use of it, the Seagulls toyed with their more celebrated opponents for much of the opening 45 minutes, producing some stylish attacking moves while tackling, battling and dominating territory in their uncomplicated and effective way.”
JUSTIN FASHANU, renowned for an iconic televised Goal of the Season for Norwich City against Liverpool in 1979, played 20 games for Brighton in the 1985-86 season.
Those bald facts tell only a fraction of the story of the short and complex life of a bustling centre forward who burst onto the football scene as a teenager, scoring 40 goals in 103 games for the Canaries.
Several books have been written about him, acres of newspaper column inches filled covering colourful tales of what happened to the first £1m black footballer, and there is no shortage of articles across the internet. There’s even been a theatre play about his life: Justin Fashanu in Extra Time.
Here I will focus mainly on the football, and, in particular, that time at Brighton, although some context is needed to explain how a player who only three years earlier had helped England win the UEFA Under 21 Championship ended up with the then second tier Seagulls.
Fashanu’s signing for Brighton in June 1985 seemed like a major coup for manager Chris Cattlin as the Seagulls sought to return to the elite level they’d been relegated from two years previously.
Why was he so convinced Fashanu would be a hit at Brighton? In an interview with Spencer Vignes for the matchday programme, he said: “We’d put a good side together with a tight defence, an exciting midfield and a forward line that included Dean Saunders and Terry Connor.
“I knew all about Justin and I went to see him play for Notts County against Manchester City and he was simply amazing. He battered the best defender in the league at that time – Mick McCarthy – and I mean he really battered him. I thought: ‘That’s our fella!’ With those three up front, we were going to have one hell of a chance of winning promotion.”
In his programme notes for the opening game of the season, Cattlin wrote: “With the right service I expect Justin to be the best centre-forward this club has had in a very long time.”
At the end of a season when Albion missed out on promotion by finishing sixth, Frank Worthington at 36 had demanded a signing-on fee to stay a second season with the Albion – money Cattlin said wasn’t available. There was no such demand from Fashanu, who at only 24 was trying to rebuild a career that had gone off the rails.
To make his own personal assessment of a player who had already attracted plenty of negative attention, Cattlin even had the player to stay at his house for four days before signing him.
Only the previous season, Fashanu’s aggression on the pitch for Notts County had put both Albion centre backs Eric Young and Jeff Clarke in hospital. He’d previously had an altercation with Albion’s former Canaries defender Andy Rollings while playing for Norwich at the Goldstone, resulting in Rollings’ dismissal for throwing a punch at the striker.
Nottingham Forest boss Brian Clough, who’d persuaded the board of the two-times European Cup winners to part with £1m to sign the 20-year-old from Norwich in 1981, had numerous clashes with the player when he was unable to replicate his previous goalscoring form (more of which later), and, after just 15 months, he cut the club’s losses and sold him to neighbours County for only £150,000.
More crucially, though, Fashanu had sustained an injury to his left knee on New Year’s Eve 1983 inflicted courtesy of the studs of Ipswich, and later Brighton, defender Russell Osman. The wound had become infected and the medics at the time were clearly concerned. It meant insurers inserted an exclusion clause into their cover. Any claim for subsequent injury would only be covered if he’d previously played 12 consecutive League games.
After his stay chez Cattlin, a fee of £115,000 was paid to Notts County, who’d just been relegated to the old Third Division, and the manager said: “Justin had a reputation of being a bit of a problem player with his other clubs but that is all in the past.
“In my dealings with him I’ve found him to be a smashing person and the sort of player our supporters will take to.”
He told the Evening Argus that Justin was “a dedicated player who has been asleep for a couple of years”, adding “I’m sure, with us, he will bring his talents to fruition”.
Meanwhile, Fashanu told The Times: “I only took this step after a good deal of thought and prayer. I am convinced Chris Cattlin can get the very best out of me.”
He got off to a great start when scoring twice as Albion thrashed Aldershot 5-0 in a pre-season friendly at the Recreation Ground on 29 July 1985.
Stiffer competition was promised in the shape of three Goldstone friendlies in a week against First Division sides Arsenal, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Arsenal won 2-1 on 2 August and Liverpool 4-1 on 5 August. Two days later, Fashanu netted one of Brighton’s successful spot kicks in a 5-4 penalty shoot-out against Oxford United at the Manor Ground which saw them win the Oxfordshire Benevolent Cup.
Fashanu (front row, third from left) all smiles after Albion won a trophy in Oxfordshire
The pre-season fixtures were rounded off on 9 August when second tier Albion walloped Forest 5-2, and the matchday programme captured the mood with some delight.
“The match was a real thriller for the fans, and no-one except perhaps for Brian Clough and his team, went home unhappy,” the programme crowed. “Justin Fashanu had an outstanding game against his former teammates.”
Fashanu was involved in setting up three of Albion’s goals and of the fifth the programme recorded: “The final goal came after just about the most powerful shot seen at the Goldstone for years. Fashanu connected from 15 yards out. Segers could only parry the ball, and (Gary) O’Reilly tapped it over the line.” Tellingly, Clough declined to be interviewed after the game.
Fashanu started in the no.9 shirt and was sent off in only his third game, a 2-1 home win over Bradford City. Cattlin was quick to leap to his defence, using his programme notes to tell supporters: “I understand that the referee sent him off for dissent after committing a cautionable offence. All Justin said was ‘Surely you’re not booking me for that ref’…and if that either brings the game into disrepute or deserves any punishment at all, surely there’s something wrong in the game.
“Justin has joined us this season and is a great professional. One hundred per cent effort is appreciated by the fans and our supporters know they are getting just that. There was nothing malicious in anything he did on Saturday.
“Justin is a ‘gentle giant’. He never swears and he tries all the time…that is just the sort of player we need in the game. I would like to go firmly on record as saying his sending off was a complete injustice.”
Disciplinary action took a little longer to come into effect back then and Fashanu didn’t have to serve his suspension until the sixth game of the season.
However, it turned out he would have missed the game anyway because he’d undergone surgery.
It emerged that during pre-season training, Fashanu had taken a whack on his knee and it was six weeks and several matches later before he underwent a procedure at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. Cattlin admitted: “Mr Fearn, the club surgeon, had to work on the bone.”
In hindsight, Cattlin’s programme notes about the injury could be viewed, at best, as insensitive. “I would like to explain the problem of Justin Fashanu,” he wrote. “He jarred his knee pre-season, there is apparently a floating body there somewhere….probably a piece of black pudding or something!”
Cattlin already had Gerry Ryan out long term injured and he also lost Fashanu’s strike partner Connor to injury in those opening weeks. That absence presented an opportunity for Mick Ferguson to stake a claim and he responded with three goals in three games – until he too got injured, as did Alan Biley. In the emergency, loanee Arsenal defender Martin Keown was put up front to play alongside Saunders.
Gerry Ryan, Chris Hutchings, Fashanu and Terry Connor were all out injured
In the programme for the 19 October home game against Charlton, Cattlin was pleased to report Fashanu had resumed training and was busy building up his thigh muscles after his period of inactivity.
He finally made his comeback in an away League Cup match at Liverpool and, as Albion were sent packing 4-0, Fashanu was booked after clashing with Craig Johnston.
However, at least he was back in the no.9 shirt and, after leading the line in a home 1-1 draw against his old club Norwich, he scored his first goal for the Seagulls the following week when Brighton lost 2-1 at Shrewsbury Town.
Defending Fashanu after yet another booking in a 2-1 defeat away to Sunderland, Cattlin said: “Justin is anything but a dirty player. He is certainly strong, but if he was dirty I can assure everyone he would not be wearing the blue shirt of Brighton. I can see all sorts of trouble in the game if referees cannot differentiate between dirty play and wholehearted endeavour.”
Later the same month, Fashanu scored his second and only other league goal for Brighton, at home to Hull City on 30 November, when the Albion won 3-1 (Danny Wilson and Connor also on the scoresheet).
That match came during an 11-game unbroken run at centre forward, including an influential display in a 2-1 Boxing Day win over Portsmouth (below) which gave Albion their first league victory at Fratton Park in 62 years.
Fashanu set up Saunders for Albion’s first and, 18 minutes from time, Fashanu’s close-range shot was parried by Alan Knight only to Connor, who buried the winner.
Although the shortage of goals was bad news for him personally, it was good news for Shoreham butcher Roy Parsons who promised the striker 2lb of steak for every goal he scored for the Albion!
After missing two matches at the start of February, Fashanu returned to the side for the memorable FA Cup fifth round tie against Peterborough on a snow-covered pitch at London Road. Substitute Steve Jacobs went on for him for the second half and scored Albion’s second equaliser to take the tie to a replay, Saunders having got Albion back in the game to cancel out the home side’s lead. But it proved to be Fashanu’s last game in an Albion shirt.
The striker had to undergo further surgery on his knee although, at the time, it wasn’t made to sound career-ending. The matchday programme for the game against his brother John’s Millwall side on 22 March 1986 said merely: “Our popular striker had a minor operation this week and we hope this will finally clear up his knee problem.”
Subsequent reports had it that Fashanu’s right knee had been nearly shattered and the prognosis from the medical people was that he would have to give up the game. The player got an insurance payout but he was reluctant to give up the game and spent money in the UK and America trying to get the knee fixed.
“I had been told by doctors and surgeons in England that I’d never walk again properly – let alone play,” Fashanu told the Los Angeles Times in July 1988. “They were proposing an operation to remove the lining from the inside of my knee.”
Fashanu was born in Hackney, London, on 19 February 1961, the son of a Nigerian barrister and a Guyanese nurse. The parents split up when Fashanu and brother John were five and four. Unable to support them, their mother, Pearl, sent them to a Barnardo’s children’s home.
The boys were eventually fostered and raised by Alf and Betty Jackson in the small rural Norfolk village of Shropham, near Attleborough.
Norwich City’s youth scout Ronnie Brooks identified 14-year-old Fashanu as a prospect while visiting Norfolk schools looking for talent. He was invited to train with the club during his holidays and then signed as an apprentice.
In a 2011 article, writer Juliet Jacques recounted: “Having persuaded Fashanu to play football rather than box (he was twice an ABA junior heavyweight finalist, aged 14 and 15), Brooks spent time with him in the gym at Norwich’s training ground at Trowse, wanting him to become less one-footed and learn how to strike the ball in the air.
“Endlessly, Brooks would throw a ball over Fashanu’s shoulder, demanding that he turn, volley it against the wall with one foot and then hit it back with the other.”
That practice would pay off big time, Jacques capturing in words the moment the 18-year-old Fashanu connected so sweetly from distance to draw Norwich level, 3-3, with Liverpool at Carrow Road on 9 February 1980, and, in the days of limited football coverage on TV, featured on BBC’s Match of the Day.
“With the impudence of youth, he flicked the ball up with his right foot, turned, and volleyed it into the tiny space between Ray Clemence’s head and the post. The strike was perfect – and so was the celebration. There was a split second while the crowd, and the commentator, processed its brilliance: as the fans roared, Fashanu stood alone, one finger raised to the skies as if to announce his genius,” she wrote.
“Norwich eventually lost 5-3, but the goal overshadowed the result: it made the perfect televisual image, coming as a generation of black footballers were breaking through at England’s top level, leaving Fashanu poised to become their leading light.”
One of his teammates back then, Greg Downs, recently told The Athletic: “We took the mickey out of Justin at the time because we maintained he miscontrolled it. We swore it bounced up and hit him on the ankle, which is why he then hit it.
“With all due respect to Justin, his greatest attribute wasn’t his feet. His strength was in the air. He was a magnificent header of the ball. I think that was why it surprised everybody.
“It was a magnificent strike. You couldn’t have hit a better shot. Ray Clemence had no chance. I don’t think any other keeper anywhere would have had any chance with it. Justin just caught it sweet.
“I got on great with Justin. I remember going to his 18th birthday in Attleborough with his family. He was a nice fella.
“He was so popular at Norwich. He was also probably the first local black footballer we had. He was famous, this lad from Norfolk, he had a personality, he was eloquent. I knew his parents and they raised him with very high morals, and he was a lovely lad.”
England under 21 cap
Two months after that Liverpool game, Fashanu scored England’s only goal in a 2-1 defeat to East Germany in a 1980 UEFA under 21 championship semi-final at Bramall Lane, playing alongside future full internationals Gary Bailey, Kenny Sansom, Bryan Robson, Russell Osman, Terry Butcher, Glenn Hoddle, Garry Birtles and Gordon Cowans.
In September the same year, he went on as a substitute for Paul Goddard as England beat Norway in a friendly at The Dell, Southampton. The following month he was a starter as England were thrashed 4-0 away to Romania in a 1982 UEFA under 21 championship preliminary match but on 18 November at Portman Road he was on the scoresheet as England swept aside Switzerland 5-0 in the same competition.
He featured as a sub in a 1-0 friendly win over the Republic of Ireland at Anfield in February 1981, then was on the scoresheet as England beat Hungary 2-1 in a friendly in Keszthely.
His seventh cap came as a starter in the 0-0 draw away to Norway in September and two months later he opened the scoring for England in another 1982 UEFA under 21 championship preliminary match when England beat Hungary 2-0.
The following March he started again as England won a quarter final away leg in Poland 2-1 and was in the semi-final second leg line-up that drew 1-1 with Scotland at Maine Road, Manchester.
In the first leg of the final of that competition, played at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, on 21 September,1982, Fashanu went on for David Hodgson and scored as England beat West Germany 3-1, although he didn’t feature in the second leg away when England lost 3-2 but ran out 5-4 aggregate winners.
At that time, Fashanu was on loan at Southampton having endured a nightmare time at the City Ground under Clough. The stories of what happened are legendary and varied.
Unfortunately for Fashanu, he joined Forest as the European Cup-winning side was being broken up and there were rumours of disagreements between Clough and his sidekick Peter Taylor, who eventually quit the City Ground. Clough had some health issues at the time too.
Peter Ward, who had moved to Forest from Brighton for £500,000, sometimes played alongside Fashanu and witnessed first hand the difficulties the manager had with him. He described various incidents in some detail in Matthew Horner’s He Shot, He Scored biography.
“It must have been very hard for Fashanu; he had signed for a lot of money and he really struggled to score goals,” said Ward. “In a way, it was similar to my situation but he had the added complication of his social life and constant rumours about his sexuality.
“Cloughie found it difficult to live with Fashanu’s lifestyle and he later admitted he wished that he had treated him differently.”
Forest were £1m in debt; three directors quit because they didn’t like the terms of a guarantee for the bank overdraft, and the Nottingham public weren’t turning up in sufficient numbers to help the club break even.
“At the heart of it was Fashanu, who was effectively the physical embodiment of that £1m overdraft,” wrote Jonathan Wilson in his Brian Clough biography, Nobody Ever Says Thank You.
“Goal statistics often don’t tell the full story, but in this case his record of three league goals in 31 appearances did. He was offering little to the team and, had he not been signed, Forest’s bank balance would have been a comforting nil. By the end of his unhappy 15 months at the club his confidence was so shot he almost scored an own goal from the halfway line in a reserve team game.”
Clough blamed Fashanu’s arrival for the breakdown in his relationship with Taylor. According to Wilson: “Clough said: ‘He used to burst into tears if I said hello to him’ and ‘He had so many personal problems a platoon of agony aunts couldn’t have sorted him out.’
Wilson details incidents such as Fashanu insisting on using his own towels rather than ones provided by the club amongst a number of issues that irritated the manager.
Clough maintained that the player’s homosexuality didn’t bother him (although the manager’s use of the word ‘poof’ might suggest otherwise), instead he said: “It was just that his shiftiness, combined with an articulate image that impressed the impressionable, made it difficult for me to accept Fashanu as genuine and one of us.”
Accusations of ill discipline prompted Clough to ban the player from training. When he turned up anyway there was more trouble and the manager called in the police to remove him from the training ground.
Those circumstances led to Fashanu being loaned to Southampton where he scored three goals in nine games under Lawrie McMenemy, but they couldn’t afford to make it a permanent deal.
Eventually in December 1982, Forest cut their losses and Fashanu was transferred across the Trent to Notts County for £150,000, being signed by former Brighton winger Howard Wilkinson, who had taken over as manager at Meadow Lane that August.
At least Fashanu got his goal touch back, netting 20 in 64 matches, but they weren’t enough to prevent back-to-back relegations. It probably didn’t help his reputation that he was sent off in a derby game against Forest for retaliating to a Paul Hart tackle just 11 minutes into the second half.
After heading to America in his battle to overcome his knee problem, Fashanu failed to recapture the spark that had made him such a huge talent in his teens and early 20s.
The record books show he played for 22 clubs in seven different countries. A brief attempt to recover past glory under Lou Macari at West Ham is remembered by Dan Coker on West Ham Till I Die.
He was playing at Leyton Orient when he went public about his sexuality and he later scored 15 goals in 41 games for Torquay United. He also played in Scotland for Airdrieonians and Hearts (below).
What led to him taking his own life in a deserted lock-up garage in Shoreditch in May 1998 is well documented, such as in this footballpink.net piece written by Paul Breen.
Fashanu’s memory certainly lives on in many ways. In February 2020, a tribute to his outstanding goal against Liverpool was unveiled in the form of a 20-metre long banner produced by supporters groups Along Come Norwich and Barclay End Norwich, led by Proud Canaries: the first club-affiliated LGBT+ fan group in the country.
“Two years ago I drew a massive artwork for Norwich Pride of LGBT+ icons nominated by the community,” said banner designer David Shenton. “The most voted-for person was Justin: a man so treasured in this city, especially by the football club for his artistry as a player, and by the LGBT+ community for his courage in not hiding who he was.”
• Pictures from Albion’s matchday programmes, the Argus, and various online sources.
HARD-UP Albion wanted to sign dominant centre-back Jeff Clarke in 1984 but, unable to meet Newcastle United’s modest asking price, they were forced to walk away from a deal.
Clarke, who began his career at Manchester City, had plenty of experience to bring to a young Brighton side having played more than 300 games for north-east giants Sunderland and the Magpies.
At the start of the 1984-85 season, Clarke found himself on the outside looking in at St James’ Park, following the arrival of the legendary Jack Charlton as manager.
Although Arthur Cox had led them to promotion to the old First Division, he quit during the close season because he didn’t feel the club’s owners were investing enough in the playing side (some things never change!).
Former England World Cup winner Charlton, whose uncle ‘Wor’ Jackie Milburn was a Newcastle legend, took the hot seat and his preferred centre back pairing at the start of the season was John Anderson and Glenn Roeder.
Down on the south coast, Brighton boss Chris Cattlin was keen to bring some experience to the spine of the team he was rebuilding, and he took Clarke on loan to play alongside the emerging Eric Young, as well as introducing his old Huddersfield teammate Frank Worthington up front.
Clarke and Worthington made their debuts in an opening day 3-0 win at Carlisle United on 25 August (Danny Wilson, Terry Connor and Steve Penney the goalscorers).
The on-loan defender couldn’t have had a more eventful home debut three days later, in an ill-tempered evening game at home to Larry Lloyd’s Notts County, who had Justin Fashanu playing up front.
A clash between Fashanu and Clarke saw the defender come off worse, a back injury forcing him to be substituted with only 36 minutes gone (replaced by sub Neil Smillie).
In a game which saw seven players booked, fellow central defender Young joined him in hospital having been concussed by a stray Fashanu elbow. In the days before multiple substitutes, the Seagulls were forced to play the second half with only ten men, but nevertheless ran out 2-1 winners. Steve Jacobs opened the scoring on 22 minutes, Fashanu equalised on 55 but Worthington marked his home debut with the winner in the 67th minute. (The following June, Fashanu joined the Albion for a fee of £115,000).
Clarke had sustained a fracture to a bone in his back but he was fit enought to return to the side on 22 September, in a 1-0 defeat away to Oldham Athletic, and was then on the winning side in the following two games: a 3-1 first leg Milk Cup win over Aldershot and a 2-0 home win over Fulham.
Unfortunately, that proved to be his last game for the Seagulls. Cattlin wanted to sign him permanently and Newcastle wanted just £6,500 for Clarke but the Albion board wouldn’t sanction the fee, as Cattlin explained at the Albion Roar live show in December 2018 (skip to 28 minutes in), which he believes signalled the beginning of the end of his time at the club.
In his matchday programme notes at the time, Cattlin said: “With the current cash crisis at the club, I could not finalise what I think is a very important deal in the long-term for this club. Clarke is a fine professional who, in many ways, reminds me of Peter Withe in his outstanding professionalism and leadership qualities.”
That sounds like he felt the captaincy of the side wasn’t in the right hands, and later in the same notes he explained how he had taken the job of skipper from Jimmy Case (“he needs to get his own game back to what we know he is capable of”) and given the role to Danny Wilson (“his leadership qualities on the park have become self evident”).
Born 18 January 1954 in the West Yorkshire mining town of Hemsworth, near Wakefield, Clarke was a Sheffield Wednesday fan as a boy and admired Owls central defender Vic Mobley.
However, it was on the other side of the Pennines that he made his breakthrough as a professional, with Manchester City.
Manager Tony Book handed Clarke his debut in a 4-0 home win over West Ham United on 17 August 1974 but he only played 15 games for the Maine Road outfit, his last game coming in a 2-1 home defeat to Carlisle United on 19 March 1975.
Clarke moved to Sunderland as a makeweight in the deal which saw the Sunderland and England international centre back Dave Watson move to City in the summer of 1975.
The move to Roker Park finally saw his career take off and in seven years he made 213 appearances for the Wearsiders, many as captain (as seen in team photo above), including helping them to promotion to the top flight in 1976.
The excellent MatchDayMemories.com unearthed a Shoot/Goal profile of Clarke which revealed he had earned schoolboy under 18 international honours, his favourite food was peanut butter sandwiches and Brian Kidd, then of Arsenal, had been his most difficult opponent.
In 1982, at the age of 28, he switched to north east rivals Newcastle United on a free transfer, and stayed with the Magpies for five years.
When his two-month loan on the south coast wasn’t made permanent, he had other loan spells in Turkey and at Darlington but then returned to Newcastle and was restored to the first team, and featured in a New Year’s Day win over Sunderland in which future Albion winger Clive Walker was an opponent.
When Charlton quit as boss on the eve of the 1985-86 season, it signalled better fortunes for Clarke and under Willie McFaul he became a regular alongside Roeder, racking up 45 appearances and chipping in with three goals. The following season he played only seven games and hung up his boots in 1987.
Clarke stayed at St James’ Park in a coaching capacity after his playing days were over but simultaneously he took a degree in physiotherapy at the University of Salford, graduating in 1996.
He later became physio at former club Sunderland before moving to Leeds United in 2001. Made redundant at Elland Road in 2003, he moved to Dundee United in November the same year and has been the first team physio ever since.
FRANK Worthington was one of football’s genuine entertainers and it was a privilege to witness his season at The Goldstone between 1984 and 1985.
An all-too-brief England career which saw him win eight caps in 1974 was a long way behind him by the time his former Huddersfield Town teammate Chris Cattlin secured his signature for Brighton, but what the legs could no longer do, the brain more than made up for.
He was on the scoresheet in only his second game, a bruising encounter when Notts County were beaten 2-1, even though Albion played the second half with only 10 men – centre backs Eric Young and Jeff Clarke having been hospitalised by clashes with Justin Fashanu.
Worthington went on to make 30 appearances (plus five as sub) scoring eight times in total. Two of the goals came in his penultimate match against Wolverhampton Wanderers, one being a penalty struck so hard that it broke the hand of their ‘keeper Tim Flowers.
In June 2013, in the Huddersfield Examiner, Cattlin told interviewer Doug Thomson: “He did a good job for me. Frank wasn’t only a great player, but a great bloke as well, a dedicated trainer and a great bloke to have around a club.”
Worthington reflected on his time at the club in a matchday programme interview with Spencer Vignes in 2003. “I’d known Chris since my early days at Huddersfield,” he said. “I’d liked him so when he asked whether or not I’d be prepared to come to Brighton, I didn’t really have to think too long about it. They were a good side that hadn’t long been out of the First Division, so it sounded attractive.”
He continued: “We had some good players and certainly had no problems finding the net. I felt as though I was playing OK and the fans seemed to like me. But Chris did have this thing where he would chop and change the team around quite a bit, even if we were winning. He never really seemed sure what his best side was, and I think our form began to suffer because of it.”
Worthington reckoned it led to disharmony in the dressing room, and, for his own part, while he was good friends with Jimmy Case and Hans Kraay, he couldn’t say the same for Chris Hutchings or Kieran O’Regan. Albion finished sixth in the table, three points off automatic promotion and, although he was offered a new one-year contract, he decided to move on to try his hand at management.
So Brighton was only a brief stop-off in a 20-year career which saw Worthington score 236 goals in 757 league games. Add in games he also played in the United States with Philadelphia Fury and Tampa Bay Rowdies, in South Africa, Sweden and in English non-league, and the games total amounts to an amazing 828.
Halifax-born Worthington’s father was a pre-war professional and his two brothers, David and Bob, were also professionals. Unlike his brothers, the hometown club dithered over signing Frank and Huddersfield jumped in and secured his signature.
After manager Ian Greaves selected him for the opening fixture of the 1969-70 season, he clocked up 100 consecutive appearances for the Terriers.
The flamboyant Worthington famously almost joined Liverpool in 1972 but the deal was called off when he failed a medical due to a reported high blood pressure reading.
Liverpool signed John Toshack instead while Worthington went to Leicester City for £85,000.
Having made nearly a quarter of a million pounds from the sale of David Nish to Derby County, Leicester boss Jimmy Bloomfield had a useful kitty which he splashed on Worthington, Dennis Rofe, Keith Weller, Jon Sammels and Alan Birchenall.
Worthington scored on his Leicester debut at Old Trafford and in an article with Goal magazine on 21 October 1972, he said: “It’s different playing for Leicester City compared with Huddersfield. At Huddersfield the emphasis was on hard running and effort – here it is on skill, and there is a hell of a lot of skill in this side.”
In the same publication two years later, he had finished the 1973-74 season with 25 goals to his name and he was full of compliments for Bloomfield.
“Basically I am a player who relies on skill and that fits perfectly into Jim’s plans,” he said. “I always think that teams reflect the style and outlook of their managers. That’s why Leicester’s philosophy is that there is no substitute for skill.”
His time at Leicester lasted five years and spanned more than 200 appearances before he switched to Bolton Wanderers – where one audacious goal he scored against Ipswich remains a YouTube favourite – and then Birmingham City, helping both sides to promotions.
In 1982 he played for Leeds, the following season Sunderland and the next, Southampton, before pitching up at The Goldstone.
Worthington’s first go at management, while continuing to play, came with two years at Tranmere – and his first signing was Albion’s Ian Muir. He told Vignes: “Ian Muir was a fantastic forward with great touch. He did things in training you just wouldn’t believe, yet he wasn’t even making the side at Brighton under Chris.”
Muir became a hero on Wirral, scoring 141 goals as Rovers won promotion twice and won the Associate Members Cup at Wembley in 1991. By then, Worthington was long gone, having moved on to Preston, then Stockport County, and, after a succession of brief stays with various non-league clubs, ended up with hometown club Halifax Town, where he was briefly joined by Case.
Albion’s shirt sponsor during his season with the club was Phoenix Brewery. Quite apt for a player who was famously quoted as saying: “I’ve squandered fortunes on booze, birds and gambling – it’s better than wasting it!”
Tellingly, his autobiography, published in 1995, entitled One Hump or Two, was a classic tell-all romp of a colourful career on and off the pitch.
Worthington died aged 72 on 22 March 2021 and, in a statement, his wife Carol said: “Frank brought joy to so many people throughout his career and in his private life. He will be greatly missed by everyone who loved him so much.”
The great man’s lifestyle spawned many eye-catching headlines over the years and there is no shortage of stories about him to be found on the internet.
Pictures from my scrapbook show Worthington in Goal magazine in Huddersfield and Leicester’s colours, in Albion’s Phoenix Brewery-sponsored shirt and a classic headline. Pictures also from the Albion matchday programme.
Clarke had sustained a fracture to a bone in his back but he was fit enought to return to the side on 22 September, in a 1-0 defeat away to Oldham Athletic, and was then on the winning side in the following two games: a 3-1 first leg Milk Cup win over Aldershot and a 2-0 home win over Fulham.
FRANK Worthington was one of football’s genuine entertainers and it was a privilege to witness his season at The Goldstone between 1984 and 1985.
In parallel lines 