ONCE A PROMISING Newcastle United youth team footballer, Ken Craggs didn’t make it as a player but went on to serve Albion as a ‘backroom boy’.
Indeed, he had three separate spells with the club, the first being the most prominent. Having joined the Albion in 1978, Craggs was at Alan Mullery’s side as assistant manager when Brighton first climbed to the top of English football.
In partnership with Alan Mullery
He later worked as a scout for Jimmy Melia, who himself had been a scout for the Albion under Mullery.
And Brian Horton, the captain who led the Seagulls all the way from the Third Division to the First, appointed Craggs as a scout when he managed the Albion between 1998 and 1999.
Craggs had also worked for Horton when he was the manager at Manchester City, Huddersfield Town and Hull City.
Horton viewed Craggs as a mentor and kept in touch with him long after their footballing days were over.
When Craggs died aged 85 in July 2021, Horton told Brian Owen of The Argus: “Ken knew an awful lot of people in the game. We got on great. He was just fun to be around.”
In a team line-up
Referring to how Mullery and Craggs worked together, he said: “Mullers was a hard task master, which I enjoyed. I like people who demand more. Ken was his back stop.
“He would be the buffer between manager and players. They would work in tandem and they were good for each other.”
It was chairman Mike Bamber’s instruction for Mullery to sack Craggs, Melia and coach George Aitken as a cost-cutting measure that prompted the ebullient ex-Spurs and Fulham captain to quit the club in 1981.
“He even wanted to get rid of the kit-man Glen Wilson, who had been at Brighton for years,” Mullery wrote in his autobiography. “The club meant the world to him. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d fired these people.”
Mullery swapped managerial chairs with Mike Bailey and moved to newly-promoted Charlton Athletic and Craggs went with him. When Mullery left the club after a year, his assistant took over the Second Division side.
Craggs was in the job for six months and the club history books record how he was the manager when the Addicks pulled off something of a coup in October 1982 by signing former European footballer of the year and Danish international Allan Simonsen from Barcelona for £324,000 after he had been forced out by the signing of Diego Maradona. It had been thought Simonsen would either go to Tottenham or Real Madrid but he revealed publicly that he wanted to play for a club at a less stressful level.
With only five wins in 16 league matches, Craggs’ last game in charge at The Valley saw Rotherham United wallop the home side 5-1 with ex-Brighton winger Tony Towner proving a handful on the right and scoring one of the goals and Ronnie Moore hitting a hat-trick.
Craggs was born on 10 April 1936 in Quarrington Hill, a small mining community in County Durham, close to Cassop Colliery, where his father worked and he expected to follow him.
But he was noticed playing for the local village school football team and he was selected to play inside forward for the Durham Schools representative side. That got him noticed by Newcastle United.
He joined them as an amateur and played in the club’s youth team, although it wasn’t uncommon for him to play two games in a day, turning out for United and then his local youth club side as well.
Young Craggs was invited to have a trial for the England Youth team and it was during one of these sessions that he was spotted by Fulham scout Bill Rochford.
At the tender age of 17, he seized the chance to leave home and head for the bright lights of London and a career as a professional at Fulham.
Craggs shared digs with Bobby Robson, another miner’s son from Durham who had joined Fulham.
“Ken never won a first team place, but he was a powerful centre-half for the reserves,” Mullery remembered.
Craggs spent seven years on the playing staff without breaking into the first team.
He dropped into non-league football, initially with King’s Lynn in the summer of 1960 and later played for Folkestone, Tunbridge Wells United, Dartford and Hounslow, where he was the player-coach.
He then returned to Fulham in September 1968 as a part-time youth team coach and scout under Robson. He found and developed the likes of Brian Greenaway, Les Strong, Tony Mahoney, Terry Bullivant and goalkeeper Perry Digweed, who later moved to Brighton for £150,000.
He eventually joined Fulham in a full-time coaching capacity and Robert Wilson, who went on to make 256 appearances for the Cottagers, recalled: “I joined Fulham as a 16-year-old in 1977, when Ken Craggs was in charge of the youth side and from there the likes of Tony Gale, Dean Coney, Paul Parker, Jeff Hopkins, Jim Stannard, Peter Scott, John Marshall and many others all progressed to the league team.”
Team line-ups of that time show Craggs pictured alongside Barry Lloyd and Teddy Maybank, who later followed Craggs to the Goldstone for a fee of £238,000.
Another striker who caught Craggs’ eye when he was a coach at Fulham was Malcolm Poskett. After Craggs moved to Brighton, the player’s goalscoring form at Hartlepool eventually led to a transfer to the Goldstone, the £60,000 fee representing a tidy profit for the struggling north east minnows.
Clothes modelling with Gary Stevens and Mark Lawrenson
Others who benefited from his acumen included Gary Stevens, who was released by the aforementioned Robson when he was manager at Ipswich Town, but picked up by Brighton.
Stevens said: “Ken played a huge part in many of our careers. He was the main reason I came to Brighton as a 16-year-old and I will always be grateful for his contribution.”
Giles Stille was a part-time player at Kingstonian when Craggs spotted him and after turning pro he made his top flight debut against Manchester City in December 1979 when going on as a sub for Horton in Albion’s 4-1 win. Unfortunately, his time at Brighton was beset by injuries and illness and he was forced to retire prematurely when only 26.
The Albion was quite a different club when Craggs returned for a third spell in 1998, not least because the side was playing home games in exile at Gillingham. His role was to help Horton and his no.2 Jeff Wood to look for bargain signings.
For instance, Craggs and Wood unearthed Gary Hart, who signed from Stansted for £1,000 and a set of playing kit and he went on to become something of a club legend.
“Ken and Jeff knew more players from down south than me ,” said Horton. “He would have definitely gone to watch him on Jeff’s recommendation.
“We put him into a reserve game at Worthing and he only needed one game for me and that was it, we were doing the deal.”
REACHING the FA Cup quarter-finals for the fourth time in seven years is music to the ears of Brighton fans of a certain vintage.
Time was when an exit far earlier in the competition was the more likely expectation and falling victim to non-league giant killers (remember Walton & Hersham, Leatherhead, Kingstonian, Canvey Island, Sudbury Town) was nothing short of humiliating.
But as each season in the exalted company of the Premier League has gone by, the last eight stage of the FA Cup has been well within reach.
As one who goes back a good many years, it was a delightful surprise to reach the quarters twice in the mid-1980s (going all the way to the final in 1983, of course, if you hadn’t heard!).
Gary Stevens tackles Mark Barham
It still pains me to say that I was one of the many locked out of the 28,800 Goldstone Crowd on 12 March 1983 when Albion played in their first ever FA Cup quarter-final.
Norwich City, under former West Ham FA Cup winner Ken Brown, were the opposition with future England goalkeeper Chris Woods in goal and Mark Barham, who joined Albion towards the end of his career, on the wing.
Jimmy Melia’s Seagulls had already beaten the Canaries 3-0 a few months earlier but the cup match proved a much tighter affair described as “bruising” by several football reporters who noted the physios were called on seven times to treat injuries – Albion’s Norwich-born Mike Yaxley twice attending to Steve Foster.
Andy Ritchie in what turned out to be his last home game for the Albion
Nonetheless, it was “marvellous entertainment for all its imperfections” reckoned the Sunday Telegraph’s Lionel Masters, who said: “Brighton full-back Chris Ramsey did more than most to inject a steely resolve. He conducted a feud with (Dave) Bennett, whom he flattened more times than a target a fairground rifle range.”
Alan Hoby of the Sunday Express wrote: “It was a tough, turbulent, physical affair with an orgy of high balls,” while the only goal of the game, from Albion’s Jimmy Case was “one of the few moments of quality in a frantic game,” according to Brian Scovell of the Daily Mail.
The less well-known quarter-final appearance of that decade came on 8 March 1986 when a Goldstone Ground crowd of 25,069 (at a time when the average often dipped below 10,000) saw Chris Cattlin’s Second Division Albion entertain First Division south coast rivals Southampton.
Albion were pleased finally to have got a home game in the competition having had to overcome away ties at Newcastle, Hull and Peterborough (who were eventually beaten 1-0 in a home replay five days before the Saints match).
Saints were managed by Chris Nicholl, Cattlin’s fellow former Burnley youth team colleague, and in the opposition line-up was Case, the talisman of Albion’s run to the final three years previously when he rifled in the winner at Anfield in the fifth round, scored that only goal v Norwich and buried a long-range rocket in the semi against Sheffield Wednesday at Highbury.
England’s Peter Shilton was in goal for Southampton and, most curiously, after a five-week absence from first team action, misfiring Mick Ferguson was selected by Cattlin to lead Albion’s attack. Not one of the 1983 Albion side started for the Seagulls.
Sadly, Brighton, in the upper reaches of the second tier at the time, didn’t do themselves justice. Saints won it 2-0 with first half goals from Steve Moran and Glenn Cockerill – and it turned out to be Ferguson’s last game for the Seagulls. Three weeks later he moved to Colchester United.
Fast forward to 2018 and another strange striker selection by a Brighton manager – this time Chris Hughton leaving top scorer Glenn Murray on the subs bench – proved costly in a quarter-final against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
New £14m signing Jurgen Locadia missed four good chances among 12 second-half Brighton efforts on goal to United’s one and Pascal Gross went close on three occasions. But BBC Sport’s Mike Whalley suggested: “He (Hughton) might have been left wondering if resting Murray caused Brighton to miss their chance of a first FA Cup semi-final since 1983.”
United topped and tailed the tie with Romelu Lukaku opening the scoring early on and Nemanja Matic sealing victory late on when he nodded in Ashley Young’s free-kick.
A year later, it looked like Albion wouldn’t be going beyond the last eight once again when Championship side Millwall led the Seagulls 2-0 at The New Den with only two minutes to go. Cue Locadia, on as a sub, to make amends for the previous season’s misses by making space for himself in the box and firing home an unstoppable shot to pull a goal back for the visitors.
Then, with 95 minutes on the clock, Solly March from way outside the box floated in a free-kick that Lions’ ‘keeper David Martin inexplicably let slip through his grasp to bring the Albion level.
Goalkeeper Mat Ryan a penalty shoot-out hero at Millwallin 2019
The momentum was in Brighton’s favour in extra time but it took a penalty shoot-out to decide the tie and when Murray missed Millwall might have thought it had turned back their way. But after three successes each, Mat Ryan kept out Mahlon Romeo’s effort, and Lions centre back Jake Cooper needed to bury his spot kick to keep the tie alive for the home side. He blazed his shot over the bar and Albion were through.
There was to be no such drama in 2023 when 18-year-old Evan Ferguson did a whole lot better than his 1986 namesake and stole the headlines by scoring twice against League Two Grimsby, who were playing in their first FA Cup quarter-final for 84 years.
The Mariners had knocked out five teams from divisions above them to reach that stage but they were well and truly put to the sword by Roberto De Zerbi’s impressive Seagulls who ran out 5-0 winners at the Amex.
As well as Ferguson’s brace, Deniz Undav, March and Karou Mitoma were also on the scoresheet and it could have been more; Mitoma missing a sitter and Adam Webster’s effort hitting the bar.
Perhaps by way of highlighting how quickly fortunes can change for young players, it’s interesting to recall that of Ferguson BBC pundit Danny Murphy said at the time: “This kid is a superstar. Honestly.
“He’s got great feet, technical ability. He’s calm, powerful and plays the role really well. You don’t see him out wide, he stays central and is always a target.
“I can’t see a weakness in his game at the moment. For 18 years old, the maturity he shows in his game is phenomenal.”
Murray, having moved into the punditry game himself by then, added: “It was the manner in which he scored those goals, he was so composed. As a young lad just coming into the first team, you can snatch at those chances but he just relaxes in that moment – and that is something that you can’t teach.
“He’s got a good stature and I think there’s big things in the future for him.”
TENACIOUS Tony Grealish earned plenty of plaudits in a 20-year professional career spanning almost 600 matches and etched his name in the record books along the way.
Thought to be the only person to play in two different sports at Wembley Stadium, Grealish was also the first Brighton & Hove Albion player to captain his country.
On the ball for Brighton
One statistic less favourably remembered is that he was relegated from the top level of English football with three different clubs: Brighton, West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City.
The London-born Republic of Ireland international was first relegated in the same year that he led the Seagulls out at Wembley for the 1983 FA Cup Final.
He was also part of the Throstles squad who went down in last place in 1986. And it was two relegations in a row after switching to an ailing Sky Blues side that went on to relinquish their top flight status in 1987.
When Grealish signed for Brighton from Luton Town for £100,000 in July 1981, it was a time of significant change. After only just avoiding relegation the season before, manager Alan Mullery had quit over a disagreement with chairman Mike Bamber and four key players left the club: John Gregory, Mark Lawrenson, Peter O’Sullivan and captain Brian Horton.
Grealish had quite a tall order taking over in midfield from ex-skipper Horton, who replaced him at Kenilworth Road, but Gordon Smith, another Albion teammate who later played for City, said:
“He did it with style – he was excellent. He was a very hard working player, he could tackle, but he was also classy with it – he could always pick out a pass.”
Part of the deal that saw Liverpool acquire Lawrenson saw the experienced Jimmy Case move to Brighton and he also appreciated what Grealish brought to the side. “Tony was so, so reliable. Playing with him in midfield, you knew that if the going got tough, he would be shoulder to shoulder alongside you.
“He would go in where it hurt, a tough lad, but he was not just a worker, he could play a bit as well and his enthusiasm for the game rubbed off on everyone in that changing room.”
Grealish and Case together with Mullery signing Neil McNab proved to be quite a formidable midfield trio and together they helped Mike Bailey’s side to jostle for top half of the table positions during the 1981-82 season before falling away to finish in 13th place – a record that remained in place until 2022!
Wembley gesture
Reaching the FA Cup final in 1983 under Jimmy Melia and George Aitken provided a personal highlight for Grealish when he captained the Seagulls in the absence of suspended regular skipper Steve Foster, memorably wearing the defender’s trademark white headband as a mini-protest at his exclusion.
Grealish’s departure to West Brom in March 1984 was part of the ongoing break-up of the former top level squad, Melia’s successor Chris Cattlin being tasked with trimming the wage bill to bring it into line with second tier football.
Three and a half years later, Grealish had just turned 30 when Jimmy Frizzell signed him for City in October 1986 for a modest £20,000 fee, re-uniting him with McNab.
It was only a short-term deal, though, and he continued to live in Sutton Coldfield, a commute of 90 miles each way! “We haven’t bought a place because I only signed until the end of the season,” he explained. “We’ll see what happens first.”
Frizzell had previously been assistant manager to Billy McNeill but took over the reins when the former Celtic captain, frustrated by City’s parlous financial circumstances, left for Aston Villa in September 1986.
City of the mid-1980s were a very different proposition to the modern day version: they were more than £4m in the red and struggling with crippling debt repayments after an ill-advised spending spree in the late 70s and early 80s.
“The first thing I was told when I joined and went to discuss money was that they were so skint they would sell their goalposts if they could,” a Grealish contemporary, centre-back Mick McCarthy, told Chris Bevan for BBC Sport in a 2013 article looking back at that period.
Frizzell felt the relatively youthful City needed some experienced old heads to steady the ship and Grealish joined from West Brom in the same week John Gidman joined on a free transfer from city rivals Manchester United. Both made their Maine Road debuts for bottom-of-the-league City against United in a 1-1 draw on 26 October 1986.
It was the 118th meeting between the two sides, but the first to be broadcast live on TV.
Injury-hit United took the lead through a Frank Stapleton header that crept past the diving Perry Suckling and inside the post, but McCarthy equalised with a header from a cross by McNab.
Under fire United boss Ron Atkinson only had one more game in charge of the Reds; after a 4-1 League Cup defeat by Southampton, he was sacked.
United’s plight was nothing compared to City, though. They didn’t win away throughout the whole season and, in spite of the additions of forwards Paul Stewart and Imre Varadi, scored a meagre 36 goals in 42 games.
Youngster Paul Moulden, having been a prolific goalscorer in City’s FA Youth Cup-winning side of 1986, briefly offered hope when scoring four goals in four games in November but then picked up an injury.
Frizzell blooded several other members of that youth side including Paul Lake, David White and Ian Brightwell but City were relegated. Grealish’s last game for them was in a 0-0 home draw against Newcastle in March, City’s first point in a month. They only won twice in the remaining 10 games and were relegated…along with McNeill’s Villa!
Grealish only made 15 appearances in that 1986-87 season and was an unused sub on two other occasions. He made 11 league starts, one in the FA Cup (a 1-0 defeat v Man U) and three in the Full Members Cup. He also played in City’s reserve side on 14 occasions (stats courtesy of the Gary James archive).
Born in Paddington, west London on 21 September 1956, Grealish played underage for St Agnes Gaelic football club in Cricklewood – alongside brother Brian – and represented London at various underage levels.
That special 1983 Wembley moment meant Grealish achieved the unusual claim to fame as reportedly the only person to play soccer and Gaelic football at the iconic stadium. He’d previously played there in the early ’70s for London’s Minors against New York in what at the time was an annual Whit weekend tournament.
“For a group of London lads, playing at Wembley Stadium was magnificent,” said Éamonn Whelan, a teammate of Grealish’s for St Agnes and London.
Ireland was certainly in his blood even if he wasn’t born there: his father, Packie, was from Athenry in Galway, and although his mother, Nora, was born in London, both her parents came from Limerick.
No surprise then, that Grealish represented Eire with some distinction, winning 45 caps between 1976 and 1985, and It was during Alan Kelly’s brief reign in charge, in 1980, that Grealish was first made Eire skipper – in a 2-0 win over Switzerland at Lansdowne Road, Dublin.
One of the goalscorers that day, Don Givens, said of Grealish: “He gave so much effort that he wasn’t going to accept anything less from his teammates.
“Tony was a 100 per cent tough little midfield player, and a great character off the pitch.”
Former Ireland manager Eoin Hand chose Grealish as Eire captain for the 1984 European qualifying campaign, when Ireland ended in third place behind Spain and Holland.
In his book, First Hand My Life and Irish Football, Hand said Grealish was “more Irish than the Irish themselves”.
“With his dynamic, combative style in the midfield engine room, Tony, with his tousled hair and Viking beard, was the kind of guy you were happy to go into battle alongside,” he said.
Grealish on the international stage with the Republic of Ireland
“He was a natural leader, and although known for his ceaseless industry, he was no mere artisan. Grealish could play as well and conjure up the odd goal from deep positions.”
Previous manager Johnny Giles had given Grealish his Ireland debut at the age of 19, in a friendly against Norway at Dalymount Park, Dublin on 24 March 1976.
Grealish, unusually, started at full back as Ireland won 3-0 thanks to goals from Liam Brady, Jimmy Holmes and a penalty from Mickey Walsh.
“Tony was very good for me when we played together in midfield because he was a ball winning all action player, and we had a good understanding,” said Brady, who later became Brighton’s manager.
“Around the Ireland dressing room, he was very enthusiastic, determined and very motivating – he liked to motivate everyone around him,” he told the Irish World in 2013. “He’d be up for every match.”
Brady added: “We had a strong friendship, and I haven’t met anyone who played with him who wasn’t a friend of Tony Grealish’s.
“He was a super man, and a super bloke. He made the atmosphere better wherever he was.”
Grealish took his first steps to becoming a professional footballer aged 15 in 1972 when he joined Leyton Orient as an apprentice. Manager George Petchey took him on as a professional in 1974 and he was the club’s player of the year at the end of the 1975-76 season.
In 1977-78, Orient reached an FA Cup semi-final at Stamford Bridge, where they lost 3-0 to Arsenal, although the aforementioned Liam Brady mentioned: “He man-to-man marked me that day and put me out of the game. Luckily some of our other players performed despite the fact that I didn’t.”
One of the last of his 171 appearances for Orient was in the April 1979 3-3 draw with promotion-chasing Brighton in front of The Big Match cameras (John Jackson was in goal for the Os and Martin Chivers scored his only goal for Brighton).
Grealish transferred to David Pleat’s Luton Town in the summer of 1979 for a fee of £150,000, racking up 78 Division Two appearances over two seasons before joining Brighton.
In total, Grealish played 116 games plus five as a sub for Brighton, and his last game for the Seagulls ironically saw him score in a 1-1 home draw with Manchester City.
Having known what he could bring to a side, it was Giles, when manager of West Bromwich Albion, who took Grealish to the Hawthorns in March 1984 for £75,000.
Reunited with Johnny Giles at West Brom
In one and a half seasons with the Baggies, Grealish made 65 appearances before that move to City.
He spent a brief period with Salgueiros in Portugal before former Leeds hard man Norman Hunter signed him for Rotherham United in August 1987. He made 110 appearances over three seasons, going down with them in 1987-88 and helping them to bounce straight back by winning the Fourth Division title the next year under another former Albion midfield player, Billy McEwan.
His last league club was Walsall during Kenny Hibbitt’s managerial reign before he continued playing at various non-league clubs in the Midlands: Bromsgove Rovers, Moor Green, Halesowen Harriers, Sutton Coldfield and Evesham United.
He returned to Bromsgrove Rovers as player-manager before calling it a day, and then worked in the scrap metal business. He died of cancer aged 56 in April 2013.
An obituary in Albion’s matchday programme saw tributes paid by several former teammates. Gary Stevens, who memorably scored Albion’s equaliser in the 2-2 Cup Final draw against Man Utd, said: “Off the field, Tony was the life and soul of the party.
“When he was with us, he was always laughing, joking and just enjoying life. Yet on the pitch he always gave 100 per cent, was tenacious in the tackle and he had a tremendous will to win.”
Ex-skipper Foster added: “Tony was a lovely man off the pitch and a passionate footballer on it. He was a fantastic midfielder.”
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.”
DEAN WILKINS might have lived in the shadow of his more famous elder England international brother Ray but he certainly carved out his own footballing history, much of it with Brighton.
Albion fans of a certain vintage will never forget the sumptuous left-footed free-kick bouffant-haired captain Wilkins scored past Phil Parkes at the Goldstone Ground which edged the Seagulls into the second-tier play-offs in 1991.
Supporters from the mid-noughties era would only recall the balding boss of a mid-table League One outfit at Withdean comprising mainly home-grown players who Wilkins had brought through from his days coaching the youth team.
After Dick Knight somewhat unceremoniously brought back Micky Adams over Wilkins’ head in 2008, he quit the club rather than stay on playing second fiddle and subsequently went west to Southampton where he worked under Alan Pardew and his successor Nigel Adkins as well as taking caretaker charge of the Saints in between the two reigns.
Wilkins’ initial association with the Seagulls went back to 1983, when Jimmy Melia brought him to the south coast from Queens Park Rangers shortly after Albion’s FA Cup final appearances at Wembley.
Melia’s successor Chris Cattlin only gave him two starts back then and although he pondered a move to Leyton Orient, where he’d had 10 matches on loan, he opted to accept to try his luck in Holland when his Dutch Albion teammate Hans Kraay set him up with a move to PEC Zwolle. Playing against the likes of Johann Cruyff, Marco Van Basten and Ruud Gullit proved to be quite the footballing education for Wilkins.
Wilkins in the thick of it in Dutch football for PEC Zwolle
After two years in the Netherlands, 25-year-old Wilkins rejoined the relegated Seagulls in the summer of 1987 as the club prepared for life back in the old Third Division under Barry Lloyd.
Relegation had led to the sale for more than £400,000 of star assets Danny Wilson, Terry Connor and Eric Young but more modest funds were allocated to manager Lloyd for replacements: £10,000 for Wilkins, £50,000 for Doug Rougvie, who signed from Chelsea and was appointed captain, Garry Nelson, a £72,500 buy from Plymouth and Kevin Bremner, who cost £65,000 from Reading. Midfield enforcer Mike Trusson was a free transfer.
The refreshed squad ended up earning a swift return to the second tier courtesy of a memorable last day 2-1 win over Bristol Rovers at the Goldstone.
At the higher level, Wilkins had the third highest appearances (40 + two as sub) as Albion finished just below halfway in the table. The following season Wilkins was appointed captain and was ever-present as Albion made it to the divisional play-off final against Notts County at Wembley, having made it to the semi-final v Millwall courtesy of the aforementioned spectacular free kick v Ipswich.
Wilkins scored again at Wembley but it turned out only to be a consolation as the Seagulls succumbed 3-1 to Neil Warnock’s side.
As the 1992-93 season got underway, Wilkins, having just turned 30, was the first matchday programme profile candidate for the opening home game against Bolton Wanderers (a 2-1 win) when he revealed the play-off final defeat had been “the biggest disappointment of my career”.
The 1993-94 season was a write-off from October onwards when he damaged the medial ligaments in both his knees after catching both sets of studs in the soft ground at home against Exeter City.
Although injury plagued much of the time during Liam Brady’s reign as manager, the Irishman acknowledged his ability saying: “He is a very fine footballer and a tremendous passer of the ball and he possesses a great shot.”
Ahead of the start of the 1995-96 season, Wilkins was granted a testimonial game against his former club QPR, managed at the time by big brother Ray. But at the end of the season, when the Seagulls were relegated to the basement division, he was one of six players given a free transfer.
Born in Hillingdon on 12 July 1962, Wilkins couldn’t have wished for a more football-oriented family. Dad George had played for Brentford, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Hearts and appeared at Wembley in the first wartime FA Cup final. While Ray was the brother who stole the limelight, Graham and Steve also started out at Chelsea.
In spite of those older brothers who also made it as professionals, Wilkins attributed his development at QPR, who he joined straight from school as an apprentice in 1978, to youth coach John Collins (who older fans will remember was Brighton’s first team coach under Mike Bailey).
He made seven first team appearances for Rangers, his debut being as a substitute for Glenn Roeder in a 0-0 draw with Grimsby Town on 1 November 1980. After joining the Albion in August 1983, he had to wait until 10 December that year to make his debut, in a 0-0 draw at Middlesbrough, in place of the absent Tony Grealish. He started at home to Newcastle a week later (a 1-0 defeat), this time taking the midfield spot of injured Jimmy Case.
Perhaps the writing was on the wall when Cattlin secured the services of Wilson from Nottingham Forest, initially on loan, and although Wilkins had a third first team outing in a 2-0 FA Cup third round win at home to Swansea City, boss Cattlin didn’t pick him again. Instead, he joined Orient on loan in March 1984.
A long career in coaching began when Wilkins was brought back to the Albion in 1998 by another ex-skipper, Brian Horton, who had taken over as manager. With Martin Hinshelwood as director of a new youth set-up, Wilkins was appointed the youth coach – a position he held for the following eight years.
Return to the Albion as youth coach
His charges won 4-1 against Cambridge United in his first match, with goals from Duncan McArthur, Danny Marney and Scott Ramsay (two).
That backroom role continued as managers came and went over the following years during which a growing number of youth team products made it through to the first team: people like Dan Harding and Adam Virgo and later Adam Hinshelwood, Joel Lynch, Dean Hammond and Adam El-Abd.
At the start of the 2006-07 season, with Albion back in the third tier after punching above their weight in the Championship for two seasons, Wilkins was rewarded for his achievements with the youth team with promotion to first team coach under Mark McGhee.
By then, more of the youngsters he’d helped to develop were in or getting close to the first team, for example Dean Cox, Jake Robinson, Joe Gatting and Chris McPhee.
After an indifferent start to the season – three wins, three defeats and a draw – Knight decided to axe McGhee and loyal lieutenant Bob Booker and to hand the reins to Wilkins with Dean White as his deputy. Wilkins later brought in his old teammate Ian Chapman as first team coach.
Into the manager’s chair
Tommy Elphick, Tommy Fraser and Sam Rents were other former youth team players who stepped up to the first team. But, over time, it became apparent Knight and Wilkins were not on the same page: the young manager didn’t agree with the chairman that more experienced players were needed rather than relying too much on the youth graduates.
Indeed, in his autobiography Mad Man: From the Gutter to the Stars (Vision Sports Publishing, 2013), Knight said Wilkins hadn’t bothered to travel with him to watch Glenn Murray or Steve Thomson, who were added to the squad, and he was taking the side of certain players in contract negotiations with the chairman.
“In my opinion, his man-management skills were lacking, which was why I made the decision to remove him from the manager’s job,” he said. It didn’t help Wilkins’ cause when midfielder Paul Reid went public to criticise his man-management too.
Knight felt although Wilkins hadn’t sufficiently nailed the no.1 job, he could still be effective as a coach, working under Micky Adams. The pair had previously got on well, with Adams saying in his autobiography, My Life in Football (Biteback Publishing, 2017) how Wilkins had been “one of my best mates”.
But Adams said: “He thought I had stitched him up. I told him that I wanted him to stay. We talked it through and, at the end of the meeting, we seemed to have agreed on the way forward.
“I thought I’d reassured him enough for him to believe he should stay on. But he declined the invitation. He obviously wasn’t happy and attacked me verbally.
“I did have to remind him about the hypocrisy of a member of the Wilkins family having a dig at me, particularly when his older brother had taken my first job at Fulham.
“We don’t speak now which is a regret because he was a good mate and one of the few people I felt I could talk to and confide in.”
Youth coach
Knight knew his decision to sack the manager would not be popular with fans who only remembered the good times, but he pointed out they weren’t aware of the poor relationship he had with some first team players.
Knight described in his book how a torrent of “colourful language” poured out from Wilkins when he was called in and informed of the decision in a meeting with the chairman and director Martin Perry.
“He didn’t take it at all well, although I suppose he felt he was fully justified,” wrote Knight. “He was fuming after what was obviously a big blow to his pride.”
Reporter Andy Naylor perhaps summed up the situation best in The Argus. “The sadness of Wilkins’ departure was that Albion lost not a manager, but a gifted coach,” he said. “Wilkins was not cut out for management.”
Saints coach
One year on, shortly after Alan Pardew took over as manager at League One Southampton, he appointed Wilkins as his assistant. They were joined by Wally Downes (Steve Coppell’s former assistant at Reading) as first team coach and Stuart Murdoch as goalkeeping coach.
Saints were rebuilding having been relegated from the Championship the previous season and began the campaign with a 10-point penalty, having gone into administration. The club had been on the brink of going out of business until Swiss businessman Markus Liebherr took them over.
A seventh place finish (seven points off the play-offs because of the deduction) meant another season in League One and the following campaign had only just got under way when Pardew, Downes and Murdoch were sacked. Wilkins was put in caretaker charge for two matches and then retained when Nigel Adkins, assisted by ex-Seagull Andy Crosby, was appointed manager.
It was the beginning of an association that also saw the trio work together at Reading (2013-14) and Sheffield United (2015-16).
Adkins, Crosby and Wilkins were in tandem as the Saints gained back-to-back promotions, going from League One runners up to Gus Poyet’s Brighton in 2011, straight through the Championship to the Premier League. But they only had half a season at the elite level before the axe fell and Mauricio Pochettino took over.
When the trio were reunited at Reading, Wilkins, by then 50, gave an exclusive interview to the local Reading Chronicle, in which he said: “This pre-season has given me time to learn about the characters of the players we’ve got at Reading and find out what makes them tick.
At Reading with Crosby and Adkins
“It’s my job then to make sure every player maximises his potential. That’s what I see my role as, to bring out the very best of them from now on and make them strive to attain new levels of performance.
“I will always keep working toward that goal. If we can do that with every individual and get maximum performances out of them, I believe we will be in for a great season.
“We’re back together now and it’s going fantastically well. I have loved every minute of it. I’m used to working with Nigel and Andy and we are carrying out similar work to what we’ve done in the past.”
The Royals finished seventh, a point behind Brighton, who qualified for the play-offs, and the trio were dismissed five months into the following season immediately following a 6-1 thrashing away to Birmingham City.
Six months later the trio were back in work, this time at League One Sheffield United, but come the end of the 2015-16 season, after the Blades had finished in their lowest league position since 1983, they were shown the door.
Between January 2018 and July 2019, Wilkins worked for the Premier League assessing and reporting on the accuracy, consistency, management and decision-making of match officials.
In the summer 0f 2019, he was appointed Head of Coaching at Crystal Palace’s academy, a job he held for 15 months.
A return to involvement with first team football was presented by his former Albion player Alex Revell, who’d been appointed manager of League Two Stevenage Borough. Glad to support and mentor Revell in his first managerial post, Wilkins spent a year as assistant manager at the Lamex Stadium.
STEELE is a familiar name in an Albion goalkeeper’s shirt. In the current set-up, there’s Jason. Back in the 1970s there was Eric. And very briefly, in the early 1980s, there was Simon.
After three years as an Everton youth player, Simon Steele joined the Albion a few weeks after they’d lost to Manchester United in the 1983 FA Cup Final.
When the Albion went on a pre-season tour in Majorca, the new arrival suddenly found himself keeping goal for the Seagulls in a match against the mighty Real Madrid.
“It may well only have been the City of Palma Tournament, a four-team pre-season competition, but Steele will never forget that evening on August 18, 1983,” The Argus reported in a 2004 article.
By then 40 and with 14 years behind him as a detective with Sussex Police, Steele recalled: “I had joined Brighton just after the FA Cup final. I had done a bit of pre-season training and then we went out to Majorca for this tournament.
“I was really surprised to be selected for the game. I think Perry thought we would get a good hiding and threw an injury.”
A crowd of more than 20,000 watched the game and Steele told the newspaper: “They had a good side with plenty of internationals. We had quite a bit of support so the atmosphere was really good, especially considering it was a pre-season game with not a lot resting on it. There were a lot of Brits out there who came to support us and we were playing for personal pride.
“I just remember them scoring in injury time. Santillana turned on a sixpence and put the ball in the bottom corner from eight or ten yards out.
“Other than that we held them at bay. Although I had quite a bit to do, I dealt with it comfortably. I never felt under any great pressure and it was gutting when the goal went in.”
Indeed, The Argus said the match report of the time raved about Steele’s performance, in particular picking out “one breathtaking stop” from Camacho, who had played for Spain at the 1982 World Cup.
Steele retained his place when Albion beat Hungarian side Vasas Diosgyori 3-2 in the tournament’s third place play-off, with goals from Steve Gatting, Tony Grealish and a Terry Connor penalty.
However, although Steele reckoned he had done enough to earn a place when the action proper began, he was to be disappointed.
“I did play well and it catapulted me on to the fringes of the first team,” he told The Argus. “I really thought I would start the season, then I got a call the day before the season started and Jimmy Melia said he would start with Moseley in the first game at Oldham.
“It was a bolt out of the blue because I thought I had played well in pre-season.”
Thankfully, he didn’t have long to wait for his chance, though. Two days later, with Moseley injured and Digweed suspended, the youngster made his League debut in a 3-2 defeat against Leeds at Elland Road.
Simon Steele keeping goal for the Albion at Elland Road
Grealish gave the Seagulls the lead before, as the matchday programme highlighted, Steele came out well to make saves at the feet of Andy Ritchie and John Sheridan.
He also “saved brilliantly” from George McCluskey but was beaten by an equaliser from Andy Watson and a Frank Gray penalty.
Connor levelled the match, rising high to head home against his old club, but, agonisingly, a last-minute 25-yard right-footed shot from Sheridan left Steele helpless and gave Leeds the win.
Melia turned to the more experienced Digweed for the next match, at home to Chelsea, and within a matter of days, former England international Joe Corrigan arrived to dominate the goalkeeper pecking order – and Steele’s brief Albion career was over.
He went on loan to fourth tier Blackpool and Melia explained in his matchday programme notes: “With the surfeit of goalkeepers at present at the Goldstone, his opportunities are limited and I felt that he could get some valuable experience in the league with Blackpool which will stand him in good stead.
“He is only nineteen and I think he has a great future; we feel that a loan spell will sharpen up his game, but it certainly doesn’t mean he has left the Goldstone permanently.”
Steele played three games for the Tangerines and the following spring went on loan to third tier strugglers Scunthorpe United, where he featured five times.
The Iron, managed by ex-Leeds and England striker Allan Clarke, actually wanted to keep him but Steele said he was not happy with the terms being offered and reckoned he would be better off getting a job and playing part-time football instead.
Born in Southport on 29 February 1964, Steele went to Ainsdale High School in the seaside town between 1975 and 1979. He joined Everton at the same time as Shaun Teale (according to the website efcstatto.com), who later won the League Cup with Aston Villa.
Despite his best efforts in goal for Everton’s youth side in the 1982 FA Youth Cup, they lost 2-0 to Villa in the third round. The Liverpool Echo report of the game noted: “Paul Kerr picked up a free kick rebound and seemed certain to score until Steele denied him with a spectacular save. But the Midlanders went ahead after 41 minutes when winger Obi beat Steele with a powerful swerving shot from 25 yards.”
It added: “After Mark Walters had struck the face of the Everton bar, Kerr chipped the advancing Simon Steele with devastating accuracy to notch Villa’s second in the 83rd minute.”
After turning his back on the chance to play lower league football with Scunthorpe, Steele turned out for a variety of Sussex non-league sides – Worthing, Bognor, Pagham, Peacehaven, Whitehawk and Withdean – and became a detective constable with Sussex Police in October 1990.
He was in the news in 2019 when, in his role as secretary of the Sussex Police Federation, he spoke out about the lack of investment in detectives in the county.
Speaking up on behalf of police colleagues
He said victims of crime weren’t getting the service they should have done because of a lack of sufficient detectives in the force.
“It used to be easy to fill the detective roles,” he said. “Now officers don’t want to go into the department for whatever reason, down to the workloads that they’re carrying, the pressures, the hours that they’re working, and a lot of them are pretty close to breaking point.”
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 13th 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.
Bailey’s ambition laid bare
“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 13th 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 18th 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.”
“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.
RAY CRAWFORD, one of the foremost goalscorers of the 1960s, came close to a swansong with the Albion and ended up coaching the club’s youngsters.
Crawford had been a key player in Alf Ramsey’s First Division title-winning Ipswich Town side having begun at hometown club Portsmouth and later netted 41 goals in 61 appearances for Wolverhampton Wanderers.
He joined Brighton in the autumn of 1971 after he had read they were struggling to score goals. Earlier the same year, he’d hit the headlines at the age of 35 when he scored twice for Fourth Division Colchester United as they sensationally beat Don Revie’s First Division Leeds United 3-2 in the FA Cup.
After a subsequent short stint playing in South Africa, homesickness brought him and his family back to the UK and the search began for a way to continue his celebrated career in the game.
He got in touch with his former Ipswich teammate, Eddie Spearritt, a key member of Albion’s squad, and the utility player persuaded manager Pat Saward to offer Crawford a trial.
“I did well enough in my trial week for Pat to ask me to stay for another month and to see how things went,” Crawford recalled in his eminently readable autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing, 2007).
Crawford found the net for the reserves, but a contractual issue with his last club, Durban City (who wanted a fee the Albion weren’t prepared to pay) prevented him joining as a player.
Meanwhile, the previous goalscoring slump that had first drawn him to the club was remedied by a decent run of goals from Peter O’Sullivan to supplement a revival in the form of strikers Kit Napier and Willie Irvine.
It meant Crawford, at 36, hung up his boots (although he still managed a cameo 15 minutes for the reserves in October 1973) to concentrate on coaching.
In the days before large teams of scouts and analysis tools, he would also run an eye over Albion’s future first team opponents to highlight their strengths and weaknesses.
“His dossiers on opposing styles and individual players have proved of great value in the team talks,” reported John Vinicombe in an Evening Argus supplement celebrating Albion’s promotion from the Third Division.
“When I returned to England after a spell with Durban City my only thoughts were of playing,” Crawford recalled. “Before I went to South Africa, I had a good season with Colchester United scoring 32 goals, and, of course, there were the two goals that I scored against the great Leeds United, knocking them out of the FA Cup, which still made me believe that my career was in playing.
Crawford scores v Leeds in the FA Cup
“But when my month’s loan from Durban City expired, and Pat Saward asked me if I would like to join the staff, I jumped at the chance.”
It didn’t stop Saward continuing to search for someone to supplement the strikeforce as the Albion went neck and neck with Aston Villa and Bournemouth for promotion.
Saward even brought in on trial another former England striker, the ex- Everton, Birmingham and Blackpool striker Fred Pickering from Blackburn Rovers. Like Crawford, he scored for the reserves but he wasn’t deemed fit enough for the first team.
Eventually, in March 1972, Saward found the missing piece of his jigsaw in Ken Beamish, a record transfer deadline day signing from Tranmere Rovers.
Beamish chipped in with some vital late goals to help Albion edge out the Cherries to secure Albion’s promotion as runners up to Villa.
The new man’s contribution earned Crawford’s approval in Brighton & Hove Albion Supporters’ Club’s official souvenir handbook, produced to celebrate the promotion.
Crawford as coach
He said: “I don’t like to single out players because football is a team game, but I must on this occasion. Ken Beamish added the final bite up front, and those vital goals that he scored helped us into Division II. What a player this boy is – he never gives up!”
It emerged in Crawford’s autobiography that he also had a friend in Albion chairman Mike Bamber, having got to know him when the Colchester team stayed at Bamber’s Ringmer hotel before a FA Cup tie.
Ever one for rubbing shoulders with stars, Bamber had subsequently invited Crawford back to Sussex to open a local fete in exchange for a weekend stay at the hotel with his family.
“Since that time, I had regarded Mike as a friend and a man I could trust,” said Crawford.
The former striker’s work with the club’s youngsters was evidently appreciated; for instance by Steve Barrett (below left) who said in 2011: “Ray was my coach when I was an apprentice and a young pro. Always had a great enthusiasm for the game and, even in training at the age of about 40, had a good touch and great eye for goal.
“Was great fun on our annual youth trips to tournaments to Holland or Germany. Was very modest in general but loved to remind everyone of his two goals for Colchester against the then mighty Leeds in the FA Cup. A really nice man.”
When Saward was sacked in the autumn of 1973, Crawford assisted caretaker manager Glen Wilson for the home fixture against Southport, which Albion won 4-0.
As for his relationship with Bamber, it counted for nothing as soon as the chairman astonished the football world by appointing Brian Clough and Peter Taylor to succeed Saward.
Crawford was angered by Clough’s “abrasive and stubborn” shenanigans, for instance being bought a pint in a Lewes hotel bar and then left waiting with Wilson as the former Derby duo disappeared for two hours.
“I wasn’t prepared to be treated like that and I soon found out that the way he spoke to people was as I’d expected,” Crawford recalled. “One day he left the players sitting in the dressing room for two hours before training. I don’t know why. It left a sort of threatening pressure on the players that I didn’t agree with.”
It probably didn’t help matters that Crawford’s outspoken wife Eileen also took issue with Clough when he tried to stop the players’ wives having a smoke while socialising before a match. “I don’t smoke, but if I did, it wouldn’t be anything to do with you!” she told him.
Crawford had heard that his first club, Portsmouth, were looking to revive a youth set-up that had been abandoned under a previous manager, so he applied to take on the role of setting it up and running it and headed back to Fratton Park in December 1973.
Born just a mile away from Portsmouth’s famous home ground, the eldest of four children, on 13 July 1936, Crawford initially looked unlikely to follow the sporting prowess of his dad, who had been a professional boxer, because of asthma.
Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for football was sparked by a display of skill from Pompey player Bert Barlow when he did a coaching session at his school, and he joined a local football club called Sultan Boys.
Then he was taken to see Portsmouth play at Fratton Park and he set his heart on stepping out onto that turf himself.
At 14 he started to fill out in height and weight. “I changed quickly from a skinny, shy, asthmatic youth into a strong, young athlete, representing Hilsea Modern School and Portsmouth Schools in cross country running and in the 440 yards,” he said.
He also excelled at cricket and was offered the chance to have a trial with Hampshire County Cricket Club. But his heart was set on football.
Eventually a break came courtesy of a friend who was already in Portsmouth’s youth team. Crawford was invited to twice-weekly training and, after impressing, was taken on as a junior.
In the meantime, he worked by day for the Portsmouth Trading Company making concrete and breeze blocks, which involved spending around eight hours every day lifting 500 heavy blocks onto pallets to dry. It certainly got him fit.
The football club eventually offered him a contract after two years of training with them, but then (as was the case with all young men at the time) he had to do two years’ National Service in the army.
That’s where the title of his book comes in because he was posted to Malaya where word of his footballing ability had already spread. He was invited to play for Selangor Rangers, the biggest club in Kuala Lumpur, and the army also gave him permission to play for the Malayan Federation on a tour of Cambodia and Vietnam.
“Whilst I took part in many more football matches in Malaya than military exercises, I did go out into the jungle on a few occasions with the battalion,” he recalled.
Back at Portsmouth in the autumn of 1956, Crawford resumed his football career, initially in Pompey’s reserve team. After scoring 33 goals in 39 reserve team games, he finally got a first team call-up, making his debut in a 0-0 draw against Burnley at Fratton Park on 24 August 1957.
In the following game, he scored two in two minutes as Spurs were beaten 5-1 at home, but the following month he suffered a broken ankle that sidelined him for two months.
The beginning of the end of his fledgling Pompey playing career came in December that year when he lost it with the club chairman, Jack Sparshatt, who puzzlingly decided to enter the dressing room at half-time during a game, voicing his disapproval at the performance. Crawford told him to f*** off!
Perhaps not surprisingly he was left out of the side for a month.
He did get selected again in the new year, playing up front with Irishman Derek Dougan, but, that summer, Eddie Lever, the manager who’d given him his debut, was sacked and it wasn’t long before his replacement, Freddie Cox, sold Crawford to Ipswich.
Although he hadn’t wanted to move, future England boss Ramsey was persuasive and Crawford admitted: “I had no idea at the time that this would eventually turn out as one of the best decisions I ever made in life.”
The Hampshire lad adapted well to Suffolk and by the end of his first season at Town had scored 25 goals in 30 league games. Not a bad return but even better was to come and with Crawford and strike partner Ted Phillips rattling in the goals, Ipswich won back-to-back titles, winning the second tier championship in 1960-61 and the elite title in 1961-62.
Crawford scored 40 and Phillips 30 as Ipswich won promotion in 1961 and, at the higher level the following season, Crawford bagged another 37 goals.
Such prolific scoring inevitably brought him to the attention of the international selectors and, at the age of 25, he won two England caps. The mystery was why he didn’t win more.
Crawford made his England debut in a Home International against Northern Ireland at Wembley on 22 November 1961. He was credited with setting up England’s goal, scored by Bobby Charlton in the 20th minute, and the game ended in a disappointing 1-1 draw.
The 30,000 crowd for the Wednesday afternoon match was a record low for Wembley at that time. The prolific Ipswich striker only won one more cap, and then only because of a fractured cheekbone injury to first choice Alan Peacock of Middlesbrough.
Nonetheless, Crawford seized his chance and got on the scoresheet after only seven minutes against Austria in a friendly at Wembley on 4 April 1962.
He turned and buried a shot to give England an early lead which Ron Flowers increased with a penalty before half-time. Roger Hunt scored a third for England in the second half. Hans Buzek pulled one back for the visitors in the 76th minute.
As well as Hunt, future World Cup winners Ray Wilson and Bobby Charlton were also in the England line-up, together with 1966 squad members Jimmy Armfield and John Connelly. The team was captained by Fulham’s Johnny Haynes. Jimmy Melia was part of the squad but didn’t play.
Jimmy Magill, who later joined Brighton from Arsenal, was in the Irish side whose equaliser was scored by Burnley’s Jimmy McIlroy. Spurs’ Danny Blanchflower won his 50th cap for his country that day.
Having scored 33 goals in the First Division, Crawford was gutted not to be selected in the England squad for the 1962 World Cup in Chile and future England boss Ramsey was mystified too. “I just don’t understand it and I will go as far as saying it is downright unfair,” he said.
Crawford reckoned it was because England coach Harold Shepherdson, who also held a similar role at Middlesbrough, always advanced the claims of Boro’s aforementioned Peacock, who was chosen ahead of him despite scoring fewer goals, and in the Second Division.
Although Crawford was selected three times for the Football League representative side, he didn’t win any more full international caps.
Probably more surprising was that his old club boss Ramsey, who had seen him at close quarters for Town, didn’t turn to him after he’d taken charge of England in October 1962. But Ramsey had an embarrassment of riches at his disposal, not least in the shape of Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Smith along with Liverpool’s Hunt and later Geoff Hurst.
Crawford’s first meeting with Jackie Milburn, who took over from Ramsey as Ipswich boss, simply involved the former Newcastle and England centre-forward saying: “Nice to meet you Ray, you won’t be here long.”
Sure enough, he wasn’t. Despite his past successes, Ipswich cashed in and sold him to Wolves for £55,000 in September 1963.
His debut was somewhat ignominious as Wolves succumbed 6-0 at Liverpool (their ‘keeper Malcolm Finlayson was forced off injured) but Crawford scored twice in his second game as Wanderers won 2-1 at Blackpool (for whom Alan Ball scored).
Crawford went on to finish that first season with 26 League goals to his name in 34 games and was named Player of the Year, although Wolves finished in a disappointing 16th place.
Crawford, who is remembered fondly on the website wolvesheroes.com, had been joined at Molineux by Liverpool’s Melia (“a fine passer of the ball”) but when Stan Cullis, the manager who signed them both, was sacked, neither of them saw eye to eye with his successor, Andy Beattie.
Melia was sold to Southampton and the rift with the new boss saw Crawford switch to Black Country rivals West Brom in February 1965 for a £35,000 fee. He later reflected it was a case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire because he didn’t enjoy a good relationship with Baggies boss Jimmy Hagan.
The striker played only 16 matches for Albion, scoring eight goals, before asking for a transfer in March 1966 and being granted his wish. “I did my best but never had a decent run of games in the first team,” he said. “It never quite worked out but I enjoyed most of my time there and the fans could not have been better.”
It was former club Ipswich, battling at the wrong end of the Second Division, who rescued him and, even though it meant dropping down a division, he was happy to return to Portman Road under Bill McGarry.
Crawford struck up a useful striking partnership with prolific American-born Gerry Baker. By the end of the season, he’d scored eight goals in 13 appearances and Town managed to avoid relegation.
He was part of the Ipswich side that won the Second Division championship the following season, netting 25 goals in 48 appearances, and by then was approaching his 32nd birthday.
The goals continued to flow with Ipswich back amongst the elite, Crawford scoring 21 in 42 games in the 1967-68 season. But more managerial upheaval was around the corner, when McGarry left to become manager of Wolves.
“When McGarry left for Wolves, I had lost my master and mentor, leaving a psychological gap for me that wasn’t going to be filled by anyone else however qualified or good they were as a manager,” said Crawford.
Even before Bobby Robson succeeded McGarry, Crawford started to weigh up his options and he decided he fancied a move to South Africa, where his old Ipswich teammate Roy Bailey had settled.
Although Town chairman John Cobbold initially agreed to give him a free transfer, the Board later changed their mind and decided they wanted some compensation for his services. Instead of going to South Africa, he ended up moving to Charlton Athletic for £12,000.
The move to The Valley turned sour after he refused to join a training camp organised by manager Eddie Firmani because his family were ill and he needed to be at home to look after them. He was sacked after playing just 22 games for the Valiants, during which time he scored seven goals.
Southern League Kettering provided a short-term means of getting back into playing but it was Fourth Division Colchester United who took him on and he repaid their faith by scoring 31 goals in 55 matches under Dick Graham, the most memorable being that pair against Leeds.
Crawford eventually got his move to South Africa in August 1971, joining Durban City, but his family couldn’t settle and they returned to the UK three months’ later.
During his time as youth coach at Portsmouth, he was responsible for signing Steve Foster and, in his autobiography, recalls how a tip-off from Harry Bourne, a local schoolteacher set him on the path of the future Albion and England centre-back.
Foster had been released by Southampton and Crawford went to the family home in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, to invite him to train with Pompey. Foster’s mother was at a works disco at Allders and Crawford went to find her there and had to shout above the sound of the music that Portsmouth were interested in signing her son.
The youngster, 18 at the time, got in touch the next day and, before long, was switched from a centre-forward to a centre-back, after Crawford’s former Ipswich teammate Reg Tyrrell told him: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward, but he’d be a good number 5.”
After he left Portsmouth in 1978, Crawford took over as manager at Hampshire league side Fareham Town and later managed Winchester City before finally retiring from the game in 1984 to become a merchandising rep.
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 40th 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 gamefilmed 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.
ONE OF West Ham’s less well-known ‘Boys of ‘86’ tried to boost his stuttering career on a month’s loan with the Seagulls.
Hammers fans still laud the achievements of John Lyall’s title-chasing side of the 1985-86 season because they finished third, the club’s highest-ever position in the top division.
The form of twin strikers Frank McAvennie (26 goals) and Tony Cottee (20) meant chances were few and far between for Greg Campbell, a youngster trying to get a break into the first team.
However, by virtue of one start and two substitute appearances early on in that famous season, Campbell can claim a place amongst the ‘Boys of 86’ whose achievements have since been captured in a book and in a video.
The group of ex-players, that included George Parris who later played for Brighton, regularly get back together for social occasions to raise funds for various charities.
It was in the season following West Ham’s close finish behind champions Liverpool and runners up Everton that Campbell sought to get some first team football at Brighton.
In his matchday programme notes, manager Barry Lloyd said: “He is a young player who has learned the game at West Ham and I believe he has something to offer as a conventional target man.”
Unfortunately for him he joined a club that was sliding inexorably towards relegation from the second tier, Lloyd having taken over as boss the previous month after the controversial sacking of Alan Mullery only six months into his return to the scene of past glories.
When Campbell joined, Lloyd had presided over five straight defeats in which 10 goals were conceded and Albion had dropped to second from bottom in the table.
The manager shook things up for the visit to West Brom on 28 February, dropping goalkeeper John Keeley, Darren Hughes and Terry Connor and putting Campbell, who had made his debut in the Reserves against Norwich, on the substitute’s bench (in the days of only one sub).
A dour 0-0 draw was ground out to earn a much-needed point but Campbell didn’t get on. He led the line for the reserves in a midweek 2-0 defeat at home to Fulham and had to wait until the following Saturday to make his first team debut.
Then, he was sent on as a substitute for Steve Penney in the home game against Derby County but to no avail as Albion succumbed to a 1-0 defeat. It was Dean Saunders’ last game for Brighton; shortly afterwards he was sold to Oxford United for just £60,000 (four years later, Liverpool bought him for nearly £3m).
Four days later, Campbell scored for the reserves in a 4-1 defeat at Swindon Town, but it still wasn’t enough to gain a starting spot. Away to Barnsley the following Saturday, once again Campbell found himself on the bench, the restored Connor and ex-Worthing striker Richard Tiltman preferred up top. Tiltman scored but once again Albion were on the losing side, going down 3-1.
When Ipswich Town visited the Goldstone on 21 March, only 8,393 turned up (700 down on the previous home game) and the increasingly frustrated faithful saw the Albion lose again, 2-1.
Campbell once more only got on as a substitute, replacing right-back Kevan Brown, and that was his last involvement in a Seagulls shirt.
Born in Portsmouth on 13 July 1965, Campbell had footballing footsteps to follow into: his dad Bobby Campbell (a great friend of Jimmy Melia’s) played for Liverpool and Portsmouth, coached Arsenal and QPR, and was manager of Fulham, Pompey and Chelsea.
Campbell and George Parris line up for West Ham’s youth team
After progressing through West Ham’s youth and apprentice ranks, the young Campbell was given his first team debut by Lyall, up front alongside Cottee and Bobby Barnes in a 3-1 home win over Coventry on 4 September 1984.
He made his second start just four days later, in a 2-0 home victory over Watford, but a broken jaw put paid to his involvement in that game.
The injury meant he had a long wait before he was next on first team duty, making a return as a substitute in a 1-0 home defeat to Luton Town on 24 August 1985.
He appeared from the bench again two days later in a 2-0 defeat at Manchester United before making his only start of the aforementioned 1985-86 campaign in a 1-1 draw at Southampton.
He started alongside McAvennie but was replaced by Cottee and that appearance at The Dell on 3 September 1985 was Campbell’s last in the Hammers first team.
After he was released by West Ham, he tried his luck in Holland, playing 15 games for Sparta Rotterdam in the 1987-88 season, during Hans van der Zee’s reign as manager.
On his return from Holland in November 1988, Campbell joined Plymouth Argyle where the former West Ham defender and Norwich City manager, Ken Brown (see picture below), was in charge.
As the excellent greensonscreen.co.uk website records, Campbell’s first match was against his dad’s Chelsea side in the Simod Cup at Stamford Bridge.
It wasn’t a happy return to English football, though, because Chelsea ran out 6-2 winners.
Nevertheless, he celebrated his Argyle league debut two weeks later with a goal in a 3-0 home win over Oldham Athletic.
Campbell spent 18 months with the Devon side and scored six times in 24 starts plus 15 games as a sub.
He moved on to Division Four Northampton Town, where former Cobblers stalwart Theo Foley had returned as manager.
Campbell (circled) lines up for Northampton Town
Campbell teamed up with former West Ham teammate Barnes, who went on to become a respected administrator for the PFA for more than 20 years.
Campbell scored seven goals in 47 appearances for the Cobblers before retiring from the game at the age of 27 in 1992.
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).
In parallel lines 