John ‘Stonewall’ Jackson a loyal George Petchey disciple

NOT TO BE confused with the founder and first manager of Brighton & Hove Albion, that man’s namesake, John Jackson, was a coach at the Goldstone in the ‘80s and the ‘90s.

Less well known was that he could have been in goal for Albion for the 1983 FA Cup Final. Rather like Steve Foster, back-up ‘keeper Perry Digweed was serving a suspension when the game against Manchester United came round.

Digweed had been sent off in a reserve match in early May 1983 and was banned for the final and the replay. So, if anything had happened to first choice Graham Moseley – and let’s face it, he had been known to have off-field mishaps at other times during his Albion career – the man between the sticks at Wembley could well have been Jackson.

Jackson had signed on emergency Combination forms in February 1983 and played for the Reserves in a 1-1 draw at home to Luton when Moseley and youth team ‘keeper Martin Hyde were both injured. He stayed on and helped coach the youth team alongside John Shepherd and with Moseley fully fit was not needed for first team duty (in those days, there were no substitute goalkeepers on the bench).

Jackson, who died aged 80 four days after Christmas 2022, had spent the earlier part of the 1982-83 season at Hereford United, who had just finished bottom of the Fourth Division. He had appeared in six matches at the end of a 19-year career. bullsnews.blogspot.com reveals that Jackson was the oldest league player to turn out for United. He was six days past his 40^th birthday when he played against Darlington on 11 September 1982.

It was all a far cry from the days when he was Crystal Palace’s first choice goalkeeper for eight seasons. He subsequently followed his former Palace coach George Petchey to Orient (where he played in the same side as Albion’s 1983 FA Cup Final captain Tony Grealish) and Millwall.

It seemed wherever Petchey went, Jackson was sure to go too. When Petchey was Chris Cattlin’s assistant manager at Brighton, he brought in Jackson to coach the Albion goalkeepers once a week. It was certainly a job close to home for Jackson, who lived in Hangleton with his wife and three daughters.

In an interview with Football Weekly News in 1979, Jackson said: “Petchey was coach at Palace, and manager of Orient, when I was with them, therefore I felt it was right to join the devil you know than the one you don’t know! I find George a straightforward and honest man to work with.”

When Petchey returned to the Albion in January 1994, as part of Liam Brady’s backroom team, it wasn’t long before Jackson was added to the staff to help his mentor develop young players.

And after Brady’s departure and Petchey’s elevation to become Jimmy Case’s assistant, Jackson took over running the youth team.

Jackson remained in post throughout the managerial upheavals of Case’s departure, the Steve Gritt reign, and the arrival of Brian Horton. But he left at the end of the 1997-98 season when Horton brought in Martin Hinshelwood as director of youth and former captain Dean Wilkins as youth team coach.

Born in Hammersmith on 5 September 1942, Jackson went to St Clement Danes School and spent time with Brentford as a junior. But it was Palace who swooped to sign him up, as Jackson explained in a 2019 cpfc.co.uk interview.

“Arthur Rowe spotted me playing for a London grammar school against an FA youth XI made up of players from other London teams and he got in touch with my teacher, and from that conversation I ended up having a couple of games with the Palace reserve side aged 18. Then, when I joined full-time, I eventually took the opportunity with both hands, literally!”

Jackson was often described as the best goalkeeper England never had. While he was unfortunate not to earn a full international cap, he played seven times for England Youth between February and May 1961, his teammates including the likes of Bert Murray, Ron Harris, Francis Lee and David Pleat.

He signed as a trainee at Palace in March 1962, and in the 1964-65 season initially shared the ‘keeper’s jersey with Welsh international Tony Millington (whose younger brother Grenville was briefly back-up ‘keeper to Brian Powney at Brighton).

Once Jackson established himself as first choice, he kept the shirt for the next eight seasons. At one stage, he played 222 consecutive games for Palace.

On the where-are-they-now.co.uk website, contributor Martin Wiseman said: “He was definitely one of the best goalkeepers I ever saw as Palace were pretty terrible most of the time and often he was the only thing that kept us in the game. When we played one of the bigger teams, the game was often just a succession of John Jackson saves. Brilliant player.”

Indeed, he was nicknamed ‘Stonewall’ Jackson (after the famous American Civil War Confederate general). Of his mentor Petchey, he said: “He used to work me hard but the harder you worked at your game the more you learned and the better you would become. He made me a more confident player.”

Unluckily for Jackson, it was an era when England were blessed with a string of fine goalkeepers. Apart from Gordon Banks, there was Gordon West (Blackpool and Everton), Jim Montgomery (Sunderland), Peter Bonetti (Chelsea) and, at under 23 level, Peter Grummitt was preferred.

The closest Jackson came to senior international recognition came on 17 March 1971 when he kept goal for a Football League XI that beat a Scottish League XI 1-0 at Hampden Park. Ralph Coates scored the only goal of the game and the English line up included World Cup winners Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst. Playing in defence alongside Moore were Paul Reaney (Leeds), Roy McFarland (Derby) and Derek Parkin (Wolves).

Jackson’s reign between the sticks for Palace came to an end when flamboyant Malcolm Allison took over as manager. Palace fans were not happy. In the book We All Follow The Palace edited by Tony Matthews (Eagle Eye 1993), Keith Brody wrote: “When Jacko left us, it marked the end of an era, culturally as well as football-wise.

“It is oddly fitting that he was swept away with the same disrespect that has come to symbolise the generation that replaced his ilk. Even though we have plenty to thank Big Mal for, his treatment of our hero means it should always be done through clenched teeth.

“It would have been offensive if a loyal, but crap, goalkeeper had been replaced by Paul Hammond and Tony Burns, but to do it to Jacko was unthinkable.

“Watching the ineffective Hammond for three long years after the joys of Jackson was almost unbearable. Every game was spent pondering on the value of what we’d given away.”

It was on 16 October 1973 that Jackson followed his former coach Petchey to Orient for £25,000 (Gerry Queen, Phil Hoadley, Bill Roffey and David Payne were other ex-Palace players who made that switch) and at Bloomfield Road he went on to attract a whole new band of admirers. Indeed, in Tony McDonald’s book Orient in the 70s, Jackson is described as “Orient’s greatest ever goalkeeper”.

Palace did give Jackson a testimonial match, however, and on 11 December 1973, a Selhurst Park crowd of 11,628 turned out for a match opponents Chelsea won 3-1.

Orient were a second tier side throughout Jackson’s time at the club, during which they had some unsuccessful tilts at promotion but enjoyed some exciting FA Cup runs, including making it to the semi-final in 1978 before losing 3-0 to Arsenal.

Their run to the semis included a memorable fifth round replay win over Chelsea, with Jackson pulling off a superb save to deny Clive Walker an equaliser as Orient clung on to a 2-1 lead courtesy of two Peter Kitchen goals.

Jackson had taken over from Ray Goddard as Orient’s no.1 and it must have been a very happy Christmas for him when promotion contenders Orient beat Palace 3-0 at home on Boxing Day 1973 in front of a bumper crowd of 20,611.

Come the end of the season, they missed out on promotion by a single point to Carlisle United after failing to beat Aston Villa (it was 1-1) in front of another huge crowd of 29,766, and the LWT cameras for The Big Match. Days earlier Villa had lost 2-0 at Carlisle for whom Graham ‘Tot’ Winstanley proved an able deputy for suspended captain Bill Green.

Another memorable game filmed for The Big Match saw Jackson concede three on 7 April 1979 when Albion were on their way to promotion from the Second Division. Orient took the lead at Brisbane Road but Brighton equalised thus: “Paul Clark cracked in a seemingly unstoppable shot, miraculously John Jackson parried the effort but only to Peter Sayer, and (pictured above) the little Welshman slammed the ball joyfully into the home goal,” the matchday programme recorded. The game eventually finished 3-3, Albion’s other goals coming from Martin Chivers (his only one for Brighton) and Clark.

Three years earlier, Orient were finalists in the rather curious Anglo-Scottish Cup tournament of that time: 16 English teams and eight Scottish sides played a mix of group stage games and two-legged knockout matches.

Orient topped their group above Norwich, Chelsea and Fulham; they beat Aberdeen 2-0 on aggregate in the quarter finals and Partick Thistle 4-2 in the semis. They eventually lost out 5-1 on aggregate to Nottingham Forest, but it was Brian Clough’s first piece of silverware as Forest manager, and he said in his biography: “Those who said it was a nothing trophy were absolutely crackers. We’d won something, and it made all the difference.”

In common with many other English players at the time, Jackson tried his luck in the United States and in 1977 played for St Louis Stars, returning in 1978 when they became Californian Surf. His head coach was John Sewell, who’d been a playing colleague at Crystal Palace and Orient. Ironically, his predecessor at St Louis was Bill Glazier, the former Coventry City ‘keeper, who’d also been his predecessor at Palace.

It was the arrival of former West Ham ‘keeper Mervyn Day at Brisbane Road that signalled the end of Jackson’s time in Leyton and, in August 1979, Petchey, who’d taken over from Gordon Jago as boss at Millwall, signed him for £7,500.

“I have been in the game too long to end it in the reserves and decided that if I was to finish playing, it would be in the first team,” Jackson told Football Weekly News.

The then Third Division Lions went on to win the league. Jackson played a total of 53 matches for them that season and he was chosen by his fellow professionals in the 1979-80 PFA team of the year. (Former Brighton winger Tony Towner played 50 games for Millwall that campaign and scored 13 goals)

After two years with Millwall, by a curious turn of events, Bobby Robson signed him for the previous season’s First Division runners up Ipswich Town as a back-up to Paul Cooper.

His one league appearance for Ipswich was in a top-of-the-table clash against Manchester United, with Ipswich needing to win to stay in with a chance of winning the League Championship. And they did, 2-1, with John Wark scoring both and John Gidman replying for United.

The game was played in front of a 25,763 crowd at Portman Road and Jackson was given a standing ovation at the end after he’d pulled off three important saves. Robson was quoted in the Guardian as saying: “We have paid him a year’s salary to make those saves, but it was worth it!”

However, while Ipswich finished the season five points ahead of United, they were once again runners up, finishing four points behind champions Liverpool.

Even a second placed finish was enough to convince the English FA to give Robson the job of replacing Ron Greenwood as England manager after the country’s unbeaten exit from the World Cup in Spain.

While Jackson might have thought his playing days were over, they weren’t quite. Frank Lord signed him for Fourth Division Hereford United. Lord wasn’t long in the job, though, and he was succeeded by the Bulls’ long-serving former ‘keeper Tommy Hughes, who had played on loan for Brighton in 1973.

Jackson’s move into goalkeeper coaching at Brighton under Cattlin was to prove a career-defining moment for another top goalkeeper of that era: former Manchester City custodian Joe Corrigan.

“I got talking to him and it inspired me to look into doing something similar,” Corrigan told the Manchester City matchday programme on 29 September 2018. “So, it was down to Brighton indirectly that I moved into the next phase of my career.”

Corrigan had been signed by Jimmy Melia and was coming to the end of his illustrious playing career. He fell out with Melia’s successor, Cattlin, and went on loan to Stoke City, but eventually was forced to quit after being injured in an Albion reserve match.

He went on to become goalkeeper coach at Liverpool for 10 years, and also worked at Stockport, West Brom and Hull.

Jackson took a variety of different jobs outside of football – fitting blinds, working for a golf magazine, selling golf equipment and as a courier for Lewes Council. During his second spell back at the Albion, amongst the youngsters he took through was goalkeeper Will Packham.

Jackson signed him on as a YTS trainee after he left Blatchington Mill School in Hove, and he spent nine years on the club’s books.

Teenage debutant ‘keeper Forster forever just a back-up

A GOALKEEPER who held a ‘youngest ever’ record for 58 years played second fiddle between the sticks for Charlton Athletic and Brighton.

Derek Forster had started out at Sunderland and was only FIFTEEN when he played in goal in front of a 45,000 Roker Park crowd in the opening game of the 1964-65 season.

The youngster let in three – but so did his opposite number, Gordon Banks, the England international who was in goal for opponents Leicester City.

“Derek’s a wonderful prospect. From what I could see, he didn’t make a single mistake,” said Banks after the game.

Forster had played in front of an even bigger crowd a few months’ earlier when 95,000 at Wembley saw him keep goal for England Schools against West Germany.

But those early tests of nerves were of little consequence because Forster’s career didn’t pan out quite as he might have wanted.

Sunderland’s first choice ‘keeper, Jim Montgomery, was one of the country’s top goalkeepers, best known for a match-winning double-save for the Wearsiders in the 1973 FA Cup Final at Wembley when second tier Sunderland beat high-flying Leeds United 1-0.

Montgomery remained largely injury-free – and made a record 627 appearances for Sunderland – meaning over the course of eight years the 5’9” Forster only got to play 30 league and cup games for the Mackems.

It was only after that amazing FA Cup win in 1973 that Forster finally left his home in the north-east and tried his luck in London. He joined third tier Charlton who were managed by Theo Foley, a former Eire international teammate of his old Sunderland playing colleague, Charlie Hurley.

Forster was soon in action for the Addicks, ironically playing against Brighton twice within 18 days at the Goldstone (they won 2-1 in the League Cup and in the League). Below left in a collision with Lammie Robertson.

But he was not able to dislodge the experienced John Dunn permanently from the no.1 spot and was limited to nine appearances. He moved during the close season to the Albion, where Brian Clough and Peter Taylor had dispensed with the services of long-serving Brian Powney as part of a 13-player clear-out.

Forster actually joined Albion on the very day that it was announced Taylor was staying at Brighton to take sole charge after his managerial mate Clough quit to join Leeds United.

At the Goldstone, though, Forster found the holder of the no.1 jersey, Peter Grummitt, was another in the same ilk as Montgomery. Grummitt, who’d been one of the pair’s first signings not long after they’d arrived at the Goldstone in the autumn of 1973, had played more than 350 games at the highest level for Nottingham Forest and won three caps for England’s under 23 side, where he vied for the goalkeeper position with Chelsea’s Peter Bonetti.

Arguably one of the best Albion goalkeepers ever, it was perhaps no surprise Grummitt’s form restricted Forster to only three appearances. Ironically, when Forster did get his first team break, he conceded six in his first match.

In spite of pre-season optimism from Taylor, Albion had only three wins on the board from their first 13 games, and when the side went to Fellows Park, Walsall, on 1 October, Forster was like a sitting duck as the Saddlers thumped Albion 6-0. Grummitt was back between the sticks for the following five matches.

No stranger to strong disciplinary measures when he deemed it right, in October Taylor made six first teamers who’d lost 3-2 at Grimsby the previous evening play for the reserves at home to Millwall the following day.

Forster was the last line of defence in that experienced line-up, and made some important stops on three occasions, but still conceded three. However, the involvement of the first team contingent saw Albion win 5-3: Ian Mellor scoring all five Brighton goals.

Three weeks later, after player-manager Bobby Charlton’s visiting Preston North End side won 4-0 at the Goldstone, Forster stepped in for Grummitt for the second time – and once again was on the losing side: 2-1 at Gillingham.

His one and only winning experience in an Albion shirt came the following week at Prenton Park when Albion beat Tranmere Rovers 2-1. In front of just 2,134 supporters, that win proved to be Forster’s third and last first team appearance.

Taylor obviously wasn’t wholly convinced by his back-up ‘keeper that autumn because he took a look in the reserves at triallist Jim Inger, from assistant manager Brian Daykin’s old club, Long Eaton.

Nevertheless, Forster remained the back-up ‘keeper, a role he continued throughout the 1975-76 season without being called on for the first team because Grummitt was ever-present. The disillusioned Forster departed, admitting he was “cheesed off at Brighton”.

In fact, he quit the professional game, returned to the north-east and played local league football while taking on a job at Washington Leisure Centre (run by Sunderland city council’s leisure department), where he worked for 30 years.

He was in the news in 2010 when it was revealed that three years earlier he had lost the sight in his left eye through cancer.

“It changes your whole life,” he told the Northern Echo. “You either jump off the bridge or you tell yourself to get on with it.

“It makes you realise that it doesn’t matter how hard you train, or how careful you are about what you eat, it’s someone else who’s calling the shots.”

Forster, who retired from the city council, added: “We presumed that we’d do all sorts when we retired and then I realised that I mightn’t even have got that far.

“Now we don’t presume anything. I’ve changed a lot; if that tumour had spread I was a goner. Now every day is a Sunday.” Forster fought on for a few more years before he died aged 75 on 2 May 2024.

Born in the Walker suburb of Newcastle on 19 February 1949, Forster went to Manor Park School in the east end of the city: actor Jimmy Nail and Sunderland and England footballer Dennis Tueart were other alumni.

As a promising centre forward, Forster had trials with the city’s under-11s. “One of the goalies didn’t turn up, so they asked me to play there,” Forster recalled.

“I’d honestly never kept goal in my life, not even in the back street, but I had a blinder. Caught every ball. After that, I never played anywhere else.”

The young Forster’s prowess earned him selection for the England Schools side on nine occasions, in a squad that included future stars Trevor Brooking, Colin Todd, Colin Suggett and Joe Royle.

Sixty years on, it seems extraordinary to discover crowds of 95,000 would fill Wembley to watch the cream of England’s schoolboys, but vintage black and white film footage available on YouTube confirms it.

The all-things-Sunderland website rokerreport.sbnation.comisa detailed source of how Forster made history, and it is certainly a rather curious tale.

Initially signed as an amateur by Sunderland, he was then taken on as an apprentice but for two weeks of the 1964-65 pre-season month he’d been on a family holiday in Blackpool.

He’d trained for just a week and had never seen his new teammates play competitively. Then regular goalkeeper Montgomery sustained a hairline fracture of his left arm in training.

The opening game of the season – Sunderland’s first game back in the top flight after winning promotion – was only a matter of days away and they were without a manager because Alan Brown had left in acrimonious circumstances to take charge of Sheffield Wednesday.

Brown was temporarily replaced by a ‘selection committee’ of club officials and team captain Charlie Hurley.

The assumption was that the 20-year-old reserve goalkeeper, Derek Kirby, would deputise for Montgomery but, instead, they turned to Forster, who’d had that experience of playing in front of a huge crowd at Wembley.

After being called into club secretary George Crow’s office on the Thursday morning to be told he’d be starting, he said: “This is the greatest moment of my life. I had no idea that I would get my chance so soon, even after Monty’s unfortunate injury.

“I only hope I will justify the confidence shown in me and don’t let anyone down.

“I expect I shall be a little bit nervous, but it will be wonderful – and inspiring – playing behind Charlie Hurley and company.”

Even though he let in three, not only did he have the praise of Banks ringing in his ears, but his captain Hurley said: “A great game. If he goes on like this, he’ll have an exceptional future.”

The following Monday’s Echo said the young ‘keeper had “the agility of a panther” and was “bursting at the seams with talent”.

While The Journal’s Alf Greenley reported: “The crowd were with him to a man, even, I suspect, the not inconsiderable contingent of Leicester followers who had made the trip and the reception accorded to him when he turned out was only exceeded by that at the end.

“It was a truly remarkable performance for one so young.

“He handled the ball in the swirling wind with the confidence of a veteran, positioned well and stood up to the onslaught of the Leicester forwards like one far in advance of his years.”

Forster was just 15 years and 185 days old on the day of the match and he remained the youngest-ever top-flight footballer until 18 September 2022 when Arsenal’s Ethan Nwaneri rewrote the record books coming off the bench in the 89th minute of the Gunners’ 3-0 win at Brentford yesterday. He was aged just 15 years and 181 days.

It remains to be seen what sort of future Nwaneri might have in the game. For Forster, although he played the next few games, Montgomery returned and the teenager was left to hold a watching brief although he was still young enough to play a key role in Sunderland’s successful youth team of the mid-1960s.

In 1965, Sunderland lost the two-legged FA Youth Cup semi-final 5-0 to Everton for whom two goals in the Goodison first leg 4-0 win were scored by Jimmy Husband, who’d been a schoolmate of Forster’s in Newcastle.

Sunderland lost the 1966 final 5-3 on aggregate to Arsenal (who included Pat Rice and Sammy Nelson), when Forster’s teammates included the future Cup Final side captain Bobby Kerr, Billy Hughes, Suggett and Todd, who went on to win the league with Derby County and play for England.

Forster was still the last line of defence when the Wearsiders (above) finally won the trophy in 1967, a 2-0 aggregate scoreline seeing off a Birmingham City side that had future England international Bob Latchford at centre forward.

Less than 48 hours after the game, Forster, Hughes and Suggett travelled to North America as part of a squad selected by manager Ian McColl to represent the club in the United Soccer Association, where they played seven matches under the guise of the Vancouver Royal Canadians.

Retrospectively, Forster regretted not moving on sooner from Sunderland. But he told the Northern Echo: “Sunderland were one of the top youth clubs and they were very good to me. I should have left much earlier, seen the signs, but in those days players were genuinely loyal.

“You didn’t just ask to leave as soon as you were dropped. I decided to stay. It was my mistake. Monty never got injured again for five years, though I tried hard to kick him in training. He was an exceptional goalkeeper.”

Forster likened his situation to Newcastle’s Shay Given and Steve Harper. “Both very good goalkeepers, but maybe one a bit better than the other.”

Peter Grummitt a contender for Brighton’s best ever no.1

grummitt portrait ONE OF the best goalkeepers I’ve ever seen play for Brighton and Hove Albion previously spent a decade with Nottingham Forest and was an England under 23 international.

Peter Grummitt was outstanding between the sticks and racked up an impressive career total of more than 650 league and cup appearances, virtually half of them in what is now the Premiership.

Born in Bourne (the Lincolnshire market town) on 19 August 1942, he was the last line of defence for Forest between 1960 and 1969, and credited Forest reserve team coach Joe Mallett, a former Southampton stalwart as a player, as the biggest influence on his career.

GrumForest But he also made 158 appearances for the Albion between 1974 and 1977. Signed on loan initially from Sheffield Wednesday in the wake of the famous 8-2 defeat to Bristol Rovers, he went on to be a key part of the side that was on the up in the mid ‘70s until injury cut short his career, albeit that he was in his mid 30s by then.

Grummitt headed south having been edged out as first choice at Wednesday, where he’d played 130 games after leaving the City Ground. He knew Brian Clough’s sidekick Peter Taylor well having played in the same Nottingham Taxis cricket team, and Taylor had called him to ask if he fancied the move.

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“The fact Brighton were in the Third Division didn’t bother me at all, ” he said. “I knew what sort of managers they both were and I knew straight away that I wanted to go. I met Clough at a motorway service station, we had a chat, and I signed there and then.”

His arrival at the Goldstone was Clough and Taylor’s direct response to that horrendous home defeat to Rovers in front of the TV cameras. Long-standing no.1 Brian Powney was axed and Grummitt was drafted in for the next game – but in his first match even he had to fish the ball out of his net four times as Tranmere ran out 4-1 winners.

As it turned out, Powney did reclaim the ‘keeper’s jersey when Grummitt was injured in a game against Shrewsbury in a challenge with Ricky Marlowe, who the following season became a teammate.

Looking back, though, the signing of a goalkeeper of Grummitt’s undoubted pedigree was very much the beginning of what was to become a memorable era in the club’s history.

Mrs Grummitt was pleased with the move too, as the matchday programme enlightened us. Jill said the couple had find a house in Saltdean with a sea view. “Both of us have always wanted to live by the sea,” she said.

Their mutual love of horses was also satisfied by Brighton’s closeness to Hickstead, where they were visitors to see shows. Additionally we learned: “Peter’s main interest outside football is golf. Apart from that he is really a home-bird. He’s a master at relaxing and can just switch off by settling fown for a night in front of the television.”

Handyman Grummitt had also concreted part of the garden at the house in Mannings Vale and built in stone fireplace in the lounge.

In the 1960s, he was a contemporary of Chelsea’s Peter Bonetti, and they vied for the number one spot for the England Under 23 team.

Grum Eng Grummitt made his debut in a 5-2 win over the Netherlands in Rotterdam on 29 November 1961 when his teammates included future England World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore and future Brighton manager Alan Mullery.

While Bonetti reclaimed the shirt for the next seven matches, Grummitt was back between the sticks two years later when on 13 November 1963 he played in England’s 1-1 draw against Wales at Ashton Gate, Bristol. Those other West Ham World Cup winners, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst, were in that under 23 line-up, together with Graham Cross, who would also later play for Brighton.

A fortnight later, Grummitt was again in goal when the national under 23s beat West Germany 4-1 at Anfield. But that was his last cap as Bonetti and Jim Montgomery (Sunderland) were selected ahead of him.

However, in 1971, Grummitt went on an end-of-season tour to Australia with an English FA squad that also included Barry Bridges (then of Millwall) and Dennis Mortimer (of Coventry at the time). The group played the Republic of Ireland in Dublin, drawing 1-1, before heading Down Under where they won all nine of the matches they played in various locations across a month.

Looking back through my scrapbooks, I found a feature from Shoot! magazine in which Grummitt and Bonetti, by then both 35, exchanged views and memories.

Grummitt revealed how he ended up being a ‘keeper. “My fate was decided at an early age because my brother was a budding inside forward and he used to stick me in goal so that he could practice his shooting on me,” he told the magazine.

In the same article, Grummitt said he hoped he would be able to carry on for another four or five years. Sadly that wasn’t to be. His last game was against the same opponents he’d made his Brighton debut against, Tranmere, and he suffered a knee injury which, together with an arthritic hip, prevented him regaining full fitness and forced him to retire in December 1977.

Grummitt explained in an interview with Spencer Vignes in a 2015-16 matchday programme how his right knee completely let him down. “I’d been going down on the hard ground on my knees for years and I think it got to the point where it just couldn’t take any more,” he said. An operation he underwent involved drilling and scraping the knee to try to make it grow again.

“It did grow eventually, but it was too late for me to stay on at the club,” he said. “If I’d had nine months to recover, then maybe I’d have been okay.” He subsequently had a knee replacement.

Grummitt added: “I’d have liked another two or three years at Brighton, what with us starting to go places, but it wasn’t to be.”

On 2 May 1978, a testimonial for him took place between Albion and an Alan Mullery All Stars XI in front of a crowd of 5,615. In the match programme notes, Mullery admitted when he took over as manager he thought Grummitt might be too old to continue in the first team, but he pointed out: “Until he got his injury, he was as good a goalkeeper as there was in the country at that time.”

Describing him as “a first class goalkeeper”, Mullery praised Grummitt’s character and loyalty. “With players of Peter’s quality they are never forgotten. He has had a tremendous time here at the Goldstone and I certaiinly don’t think anyone will forget him.”

Vignes discovered in his interview how Grummitt used the proceeds from the testimonial to buy a newsagent’s shop in Queens Road, Brighton, as well as briefly managing Lewes and working as a youth coach at Worthing. He also had brief spells playing part-time for Worthing and Dover Athletic but eventually returned to the East Midlands, settling in Newark.

One small claim to fame on my part – I once played in the same team as Grummitt at Withdean Stadium.

Former Argus sports reporter Jamie Baker put together a team of Sussex sports writers for a game and, as one who reported on local football at the time, I was invited to play.

Imagine my surprise as we were getting changed before the match to discover sitting alongside us in the dressing room was Peter Grummitt, who Jamie had drafted in as a “ringer” to try to ensure at least our last line of defence was sound!

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