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.
GUS POYET’s loyal deputy, Mauricio Taricco, once labelled ‘The Premiership’s most hated footballer’, had a late and unexpected swansong to his playing career with Brighton.
It came six years after the Argentinian full-back thought his playing days were over when he sustained a bad injury on his debut for West Ham, having switched across London from Tottenham Hotspur, where he played alongside Poyet.
Taricco was no stranger to a red card during his days playing at the top level and he was also sent for an early bath in his comeback game when the Seagulls beat Woking on penalties in the FA Cup.
Some of Taricco’s actions drew fierce cricitism when he was at White Hart Lane, for instance the BBC’s chief football writer, Phil McNulty, wrote an excoriating piece which he began: “Taricco may have a modicum of limited talent, but he hides it brilliantly behind a selection of all that is sneaky and cynical in football.”
Spitting, diving and feigning injury were among the accusations levelled at Taricco, and he left Everton’s Thomas Gravesen nursing a shin wound that required 30 stitches.
After two sendings off in three games in 2002, McNulty said the Argentine was “swiftly becoming the Premiership’s most hated footballer” and concluded: “Taricco is a scar on the Premiership and on a club with a name for a certain style – and (Glenn) Hoddle must operate to remove it.”
Strong stuff but the BBC man was not alone in his scathing criticism; Leicester boss Dave Bassett was incensed when Taricco feigned injury to try to get Foxes’ Andy Impey sent off at White Hart Lane. “That man should be done away with,” said Bassett. “He is a disgrace to the game.”
After Taricco had been sent off at Old Trafford, and then again following “a wild lunge” on Graeme Le Saux in a match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Hoddle stood up for the Argentine defender, saying he’d been harshly criticised and that the reaction was disproportionate.
“I’m not saying that there haven’t been times this season that he’s done some silly things, and he admits that, but the two sendings off, in my eyes, have not been warranted,” said Hoddle. “The press have gone OTT on it.”
Not everyone viewed him harshly. Jonas Ahrell, of sports internet company Sportal, said: “A string of assured performances, along with great control, touch and distribution, has shown him to be a shrewd purchase by Spurs boss George Graham, who knows a thing or two about defenders.”
He explained how his nickname Tano is Argentine for Italian – his father was from Sardinia – and he described the defender as “articulate, impeccably-mannered and an all-round lovely bloke”.
Born in Buenos Aires on 10 March 1973, Taricco grew up playing football in the capital’s streets and he would eventually follow in the footsteps of Argentina’s famous World Cup stars Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa to White Hart Lane.
It was John Lyall who was instrumental in his arrival on European soil. Taricco had been playing for home city club Argentinos Juniors for only a year when Ipswich Town boss Lyall and experienced scout Charlie Woods were in South America on the hunt for new talent. Their main target was Uruguayan midfielder Adrián Paz, but they took a chance on 21-year-old Taricco too for whom a £175,000 fee was paid.
“You often see two players coming over together to help each other with a new culture and a new way of life but it proved to be me who stayed,” Taricco recalled in an Albion matchday programme article. “Although I was playing in the top league in my homeland, it was always an ambition to play in Europe.
“I think that Adrian leaving after a few months helped me. I was now more isolated, but it helped me to stand on my own two feet. I had to understand the language and mix with people.”
While Taricco quickly made his debut in the League Cup against Bolton Wanderers, he mainly had to be content with reserve team football initially until a change of management – from Lyall to George Burley – and relegation from the Premier League eventually worked in his favour.
Taricco made 167 starts for Town and although defending was his priority, he also scored half a dozen goals – memorably in a 2-0 League Cup win over Manchester United in 1997 and a 3-0 league win against Crystal Palace in 1998 which followed a solo run from inside his own half.
In a March 2020 interview with the East Anglian Daily Times, Taricco looked back fondly on his days at Portman Road, telling Richard Woodall: “I have great memories of being an Ipswich player – in particular the derby games against Norwich. I always knew what that game meant for the fans and for everybody involved with the club. Winning the derby, oh my god, it was a nice feeling.”
Woodall said fans remembered him as a big game player; for example, following a pre-match presentation of his Supporters’ Player of the Year award in 1997, he went on to score in that evening’s 2-0 win against Norwich. The Argentinian described the award at the time as the “greatest honour of my career”.
His cult status among Tractor Boys fans was best described by Csaba Abrahall in a piece for When Saturday Comes and, when he was sold to Spurs for £1.75m in November 1998, there was widespread outcry amongst the faithful.
Taricco became the first signing of Graham’s reign as manager at White Hart Lane, although he was injured at the time, causing a delay before he could make his debut.
“It was always my ambition to move to the Premier League, although I still left Ipswich with a heavy heart,” he said. “I was George Graham’s first signing, but I didn’t see that as an extra pressure – I knew Spurs had been watching me for a while, so I just got on with my football and I coped with the step up – I was a regular for much of my time at the club.
“At Ipswich, we lost in the play-offs and I was absolutely devastated because my dream had gone, that’s why I was so determined to make the most of the opportunity to play at the top level.”
Taricco maintained: “I think the fans at Ipswich and Tottenham liked me because they could relate to me. I’m like a fan when I’m playing. I want to win. When fans get a penalty, even if their player has dived, they jump for joy. I was the same and I’m on the pitch! I didn’t care about other players, fans, clubs. I was playing for my team and nothing else mattered.
“I always got stuck in. You don’t have to be big but you have to have the will to do it. Sometimes you give it, sometimes you take it, that’s football.
“Saying that, there were things I only learnt when I came here. For instance, when you see a 50-50 tackle here and someone gets hurt you just say ‘both players were committed’ and you carry on. In Argentina, there would be a red card and a fight breaking out. So, I learnt that I could get away with things here. If a bad tackle’s coming in and I knew a player was not going to get booked, I had to ‘manage’ things.”
Off the field, there were several managerial changes during his time at the Lane but Taricco learned most from Hoddle. “He was a very technical type of manager, as he was a player, and it was of prime importance to him to have his teams playing a particular type of football,” he said.
“I really appreciated this as someone who always wanted to play the ball on the ground, think forward and create lots of goal-scoring opportunities. He was a really positive manager and I can take a lot from my days working under him.”
The other important take from his time there was getting to know Poyet well (after the midfielder’s move from Chelsea in 2001) and developing a strong bond of friendship that would last through appointments at Albion and several other clubs.
Taricco’s time at Spurs came to an end in 2004 after 149 games (plus seven as a sub) when French manager Jacques Santini told him he was not part of his plans. He missed the start of the season through injury and then suspension and was allowed to join West Ham on a free transfer. It’s now quite well known that he sustained a bad injury on his Hammers debut against Millwall and voluntarily tore up his contract.
He moved to Sardinia with his wife and children, managed a property portfolio by day and kept himself fit turning out for his local team.
The idyll lasted five years before his old friend Poyet asked if he’d be interested in becoming his no.2 at Brighton. “Gus is a person I respect both as a man and for his football brain,” he said. “When he asked if I wanted to join him, I said ‘yes’ straight away – I was willing to swap everything I had for Brighton and it’s been a great decision.”
While the plan was always for him to use his knowledge and experience on the training ground and in the dugout, on 18 August 2010 there was a hint of a comeback when he suddenly played 45 minutes for Albion reserves in a 0-0 draw with Gillingham at Culver Road, Lancing. By then he was 37.
The matchday programme observed how he “turned in a cultured display, likewise one feisty challenge that has become a hallmark of an illustrious career”.
The assistant manager himself said: “It was a normal match and nothing more – there was not a lot of thinking behind my decision to play.
“West Ham v Millwall was my last professional game, although I played amateur league (for Castiadas) and regional league football (for Villasimius) in Sardinia right up until last November when I arrived at Brighton.
“But I’m not thinking about coming back to play, I’m just thinking about getting myself as fit as I can.”
However, he added: “If something happens with the team regarding an injury crisis or suspension and I can get fit enough and powerful enough to cope with League One, then who knows?
“I will now try to push myself more and try to get involved in training more often, when I can. If I can mix it up and do my own specific programme to get my sharpness and explosive power back, then I’m sure I will.”
Sure enough, three months later, Taricco stepped into first team action in the FA Cup, playing against Woking on 16 November 2010, although his involvement ended prematurely when he was sent off for two yellow cards – the second one for dissent.
He also played in the next round when it took two games to see off FC United and he finally made his 350th senior appearance after a six-year absence from playing professionally.
“I love playing football, so it’s nice to play, although I feel like I need a bit more power in my legs,” he said. “If I can get that bit more power for the first four or five yards I’ll be happier, but I am 37 years old.
“Any game could be your last, so you have got to make the most of every opportunity. Every player needs to give his all because that’s what you need to make it to the top. That goes for training as well as matches and it’s the way I’ve always approached the game of football.”
He didn’t expect to play regularly, though, and said: “I still see myself as part of the coaching staff rather than the playing staff. I’m there if we need to rest players or if somebody is recovering from an injury, because it is a very long and intense season.
“It is nice to play, don’t get me wrong, and I have enjoyed training with the team, but there are players with better legs than me in the squad.”
By the end of the season in which Albion won promotion to the Championship, he’d started five games and been sub twice, but he was still not done with playing.
The following season, Poyet called on his assistant’s playing experience on nine occasions (plus three as a sub) although Taricco was never far from the headlines for the wrong reasons.
Taricco looks back in anger after seeing red at St Mary’s
I can remember watching at St Mary’s as Taricco so hotly disputed a controversial penalty award by Peter Walton when Lewis Dunk downed Jose Fonte, quite clearly outside the box, that his protests gained him a straight red card.
Taricco also didn’t cover himself in glory at the Madejski Stadium on Boxing Day when lively wideman Jobi McAnuff gave him a torrid time and got two goals in a 3-0 win.
He featured in a six-game spell spanning December and early January but the surprise New Year 3-0 home win over Saints, when young Grant Hall replaced him in the 54th minute, turned out to be his last appearance as a player.
After his departure from the Seagulls with Poyet following the defeat to Palace in the 2013 Championship play-offs, Taricco followed his friend to Sunderland, AEK Athens, Real Betis, Shanghai Shenhua and FC Bordeaux.
He told the East Anglian Daily Times: “When I choose who to work with, I want to know that they are a decent human being, and Gus Poyet is certainly that. This quality is not always easy to find in football.
“Both of us come from similar cultures and we think about football the same way. As well as wanting to win, we both want to put our players in situations where they will flourish. Both of us feel that sometimes as players, our managers didn’t necessarily give us that chance.”
In October 2020, Taricco told the EADT: “Not being a coach now means I’ve had the time to think a lot, and I’m currently learning about world finance, how the world’s monetary system works, and why poverty still exists, so quite big topics!”
But he added: “When the phone goes and the right opportunity comes along, I’ll be ready to be assistant manager again!”
• Pictures from online sources and matchday programmes.
AN AIR of excitement swept around the crumbling terraces of the Goldstone Ground when one of the finest midfield players of his generation became Brighton’s manager.
Liam Brady had been the darling of Highbury in the 1970s, won titles in Italy with Juventus and then brought the curtain down on a glorious playing career in three years with West Ham United.
After six years watching Brighton’s fortunes fluctuate under the low profile guidance of Barry Lloyd, fans who craved a return to the glory days of Alan Mullery’s first reign had great expectations when such a well-known footballing figure as Brady arrived at the Goldstone in December 1993.
But how did it come about? Brady’s first foray into management – at Glasgow giants Celtic – had not gone well and he was unemployed having resigned in early October.
With only four wins in 26 games, Lloyd’s near-seven-year reign at the Goldstone was in its final throes as autumn turned to winter, and in early December he was said to have left “by mutual consent”.
The managerial vacancy caught the eye of former Albion favourite – and Brady’s former Irish international teammate – Gerry Ryan, who’d been forced to retire from playing and was running a pub in Haywards Heath, and he got in touch.
“He asked if I’d be interested. I saw it as another part of my learning curve as a manager and was happy to take it,” said Brady.
Ryan was promptly installed as Brady’s assistant and before long he’d persuaded Jimmy Case to return to the Seagulls at the age of 39 (he’d been playing non-league for Sittingbourne) to bring experience to the battle against relegation and lend a hand on the coaching side.
Brady takes charge at the Albion
By a strange quirk of fate, the opponents for Brady’s first game in charge, Bradford City, were managed by his former Arsenal and Eire teammate, Frank Stapleton, who the following season he recruited for a couple of games.
Unlike the effect of Brian Clough’s arrival at the Goldstone 20 years previously, the gate for the Bradford match the Saturday before Christmas was only 6,535. Albion lost 1-0 but in the next four games, played over the course of 13 days, there were two wins and two draws. Steady improvement on the pitch was helped by the introduction on loan of two exciting youngsters from Brady’s old club Arsenal – firstly Mark Flatts and then Paul Dickov.
The threat of relegation lifted and, looking back, Brady said his favourite match in charge came on 6 April 1994.
“We beat Swansea 4-1 in an evening game towards the end of my first season, when we had (Paul) Dickov on loan in a very good partnership with Kurt Nogan,” he said.
“There was a real buzz that we were going to avoid relegation. The players believed the club was going places again, as we all did.”
At the start of the following season, Brady picked up two youngsters from Arsenal’s north London neighbours, Spurs, in lively forward Junior McDougald and midfielder Jeff Minton.
Right-back Peter Smith, who assistant manager Ryan had spotted playing in a non-league charity match, was brought on board and crowned his first season by being named player of the season.
Brady also brought in the former England international Mark Chamberlain, but the balance of the side remained youthful and, with money remaining tight, a mid-table finish was not entirely unexpected.
In a matchday programme article in 2015, Brady reflected on how relegation had been avoided against the ugly backdrop of what the directors were doing to the club (selling the ground with no new home to go to) and realised subsequently that he should have left at the end of that second season.
“I became aware that Bill Archer had no intention of taking the club forward, despite his public announcements to the contrary. I could tell that the club was going nowhere.
“Archer and Bellotti were winding the club down and it wasn’t right. But it wasn’t a case of me walking away. I was living in Hove, I had grown attached to the club, the fans, and feelings were running high.”
After 100 games in charge of the Seagulls, he quit in November 1995, handing the reins to Case, who was reluctant to take on the job.
Brady’s fondness for the club remained undiminished, though, and he was subsequently involved in Dick Knight’s consortium trying to wrestle control of the club out of Archer’s hands.
It had been planned that he would return as manager but as the negotiations dragged on he was offered the opportunity to return to Arsenal as head of youth development and couldn’t turn it down.
“I had a family to think about and it was a dream job for me. Dick understood, particularly as there were no guarantees with what was happening at the time at Brighton.”
The fact he had the Arsenal job for the following 25 years meant he probably made the right decision! Even after leaving that role, Brady retained his links with Arsenal by becoming an ambassador for the Arsenal Foundation.
Brady was born into a footballing family in Dublin on 13 February 1956 – a great uncle (Frank) and older brother, Ray, were internationals, older brother Frank played for Shamrock Rovers and another brother, Pat, played for Millwall and QPR.
Brady went to St Aidan’s Catholic Boys School but left at 15 in 1971 to join Arsenal after their chief scout, Gordon Clark, had spotted him and Stapleton playing for Eire Schoolboys.
A Goal magazine article of 7 October 1972 featured boss Bertie Mee talking about the pair as future first team players – even though they were only aged just 15 and 16.
Mee said: “Brady is almost established as a regular in the reserve side. He needs building up but has the potential to become a first-team player. Stapleton has made quite an impact in his first season and, providing he maintains a steady improvement, he could also follow the path of Brady.”
It was only Brady’s second season and Clark said at first he thought he would be better suited to becoming a jockey because he was so small and frail!
He quickly changed his mind when he saw his ability with a football. “He was like a little midget, but he had so much confidence. He’s really shot up now and although he’s still not very tall, he’s strong enough to hold his own,” said Clark. “Liam’s got a very mature head on his shoulders. His maturity shows in his play.”
Brady became a professional at 17 in 1973 and made his debut in October that year as a substitute in a league game against Birmingham City. Mee used him sparingly that season and he picked up the nickname Chippy – not for any footballing prowess but for his liking of fish and chips!
Initially dovetailing with former World Cup winner Alan Ball in Arsenal’s midfield, he eventually took over as the key man in the centre of the park. He became a first team regular in 1974-75 and began to thrive when Terry Neill took over as manager with Don Howe returning to Arsenal as coach. In the second part of the decade, Brady was named the club’s player of the year three times and, in 1979, he won the prestigious Players’ Player of the Year title from the PFA.
Brady played in three successive FA Cup finals for Arsenal – in 1978,1979 and 1980 – winning the competition in the 1979 classic against Manchester United, courtesy of his driving run and pass to Graham Rix whose sublime cross from the left wing into the six-yard area allowed Alan Sunderland a simple tap-in for the winner.
Having lost to Ipswich Town the year before, it was Brady’s first trophy with the Gunners and he said: “It was just wonderful to experience being a Wembley winner. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
The opening game of the following season saw Brady line up for Arsenal at the Goldstone in Albion’s very first top level match.
There was nothing more likely to rile Arsenal than a former Spurs captain claiming beforehand what his team were going to do to the Gunners.
Arsenal promptly romped to a 4-0 win and Brady recalled: “Alan Mullery was shooting his mouth off. Brighton had arrived in the big time and were going to turn Arsenal over.
“Mullers was good at motivating players but he motivated us that day.
“We all thought it was going to be a hard game, but once we got the first goal we settled down and Brighton were in awe of us. I scored a penalty and we ran out comfortable winners.”
However, it was the start of Brady’s last season as an Arsenal player. The following May, Arsenal lost to Trevor Brooking’s headed goal for West Ham in the FA Cup Final and Arsenal also lost to Valencia in the Cup Winners’ Cup Final in a penalty shoot-out – Brady and Rix missing their spot kicks in Brussels.
Nevertheless, having played 307 games (295 starts + 12 as sub), arsenal.com recalls one of their favourite sons warmly: “Chippy had everything a midfielder could want – skill, vision, balance, strength, a powerful shot and the ability to glide past opponents at will.
“Like all great players he always had time on the ball and almost always chose the right option. On a football pitch, Brady’s brain and feet worked in perfect harmony.”
Brady moved on to Italy where he spent seven years, initially with Juventus, winning two Italian league titles and then with Sampdoria, Inter Milan and Ascoli. In his second season at Brighton, Brady had the Seagulls wearing the colours of Inter as their change kit – I still consider it to be the best the club has had.
As well as a highly successful club career, Brady won a total of 72 caps for his country. He made his Republic of Ireland debut on 30 October 1974 in a 3-0 home win over the Soviet Union and went on to win 72 caps for his country.
He retired from internationals ahead of qualification for the 1990 World Cup and, although he later made himself available for selection, manager Jack Charlton decided to choose only those who had helped Eire qualify for the finals.
Brady had returned to the UK in March 1987 to enjoy three years at West Ham in which he scored 10 goals in 119 appearances. His first somewhat ironically came against Arsenal while he reckoned his best was a 20-yarder past Peter Shilton that proved to be the winner in a league game against Derby County.
Brady explained the circumstances of his move to the Hammers in an interview with whufc.com. He nearly ended up joining Celtic instead, but he’d given his word to West Ham boss John Lyall and, because he’d retained an apartment in London, it made sense to return there.
Brady in action for West Ham at the Goldstone, faced by ex-Hammer, Alan Curbishley
In only his fourth West Ham game, he found himself up against Arsenal and was mobbed after netting the final goal in a 3-1 win at the Boleyn Ground.
“With ten minutes remaining, I won the ball on half-way before running to the edge of the 18-yard box, where I hit a low curler around David O’Leary and beyond Rhys Wilmott’s dive, into the bottom right-hand corner,” he said. “The place went wild! I certainly wasn’t going to just walk back to the centre-circle without celebrating my first goal for my new team.”
While the Hammers finished 15th that campaign, they were relegated in 1989 which brought about the departure of Lyall. Brady clearly didn’t see eye to eye with his successor, Lou Macari, but was pleased when he was replaced by Hammers legend Billy Bonds.
Brady eventually called time on his playing days in May 1990, Wolves and West Ham players lining up to give him a guard of honour as he took to the pitch for the final game of the season.
He was substitute that day but went on for Kevin Keen and rounded off his remarkable career by scoring in a 4-0 win.
“Having scored at the Boleyn Ground with my last-ever kick in professional football, I couldn’t have written a better script,” he told whufc.com.
After not making the move to Celtic as a player, his first step into management came at Celtic Park as successor to former club legend Billy McNeill in June 1991. He was the first manager not to have played for the Hoops.
It was a big step to take for a novice manager, and hindsight suggested the players he signed didn’t do him any justice. He later admitted: “I didn’t do particularly well as Celtic boss. Second place behind Rangers was seen as a failure and, even if you’ve had a good reputation as a player, it counts for little as a manager.”
Brighton (well, Hove actually) would prove to be as far from the cauldron of Glasgow as he could possibly get, but the club management game clearly didn’t suit Brady, and he didn’t take on any other senior managerial hotseats after the Seagulls.
Alongside his youth team responsibilities at Arsenal, he did assist his country’s national team between 2008 and 2010. He was assistant to Giovanni Trapattoni during his time in charge, also working alongside Brady’s former Juventus teammate Marco Tardelli.
Brady still lives in Sussex and he told whufc.com how he occasionally meets up with Billy Bonds at Plumpton Races and enjoys a round of golf with Trevor Brooking.
ALEX DAWSON remains the youngest player to have scored a hat-trick in a FA Cup semi-final.
He was just 18 years and 33 days on 26 March 1958 when his perfect treble (header, right foot and left foot shots) for a makeshift post-Munich Manchester United helped to secure a 5-3 win over Fulham in a replay in front of 38,000 fans at Highbury.
Eleven years later he scored twice for Brighton & Hove Albion in what for many might have been a meaningless Third Division match against Walsall.
But for me, it was the beginning of a lifelong journey supporting the Albion. It was the very first Brighton game I saw and the burly Dawson, wearing number 9, became an instant hero to an impressionable 10-year-old.
Little did I know then of the famous background of the man who played a big part in Brighton’s 3-0 win over the Saddlers that afternoon.
What I’ve learned since makes him even more of a hero, and it’s evident that fans of other sides he played for remembered him with great fondness when learning of his death at the age of 80 on 17 July 2020.
Returning to that 1958 match, it was just six weeks after the Munich air disaster that claimed the lives of eight of United’s first choice team – Dawson’s pals – so youngsters and fringe players had to be drafted into the side to fulfil the remaining fixtures that season.
Thirteen days after the accident, Dawson took his place beside survivors Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg and scored one of United’s goals as they beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 in the fifth round of the Cup. He scored again as United drew 2-2 with West Brom in the sixth round, before winning through 1-0 in a replay to go up against Fulham in the semi-final.
Dawson told manutd.com: “In our first game with Fulham (played at Villa Park), Bobby Charlton scored twice in a 2-2 draw, and I was put on the right wing. I was a centre-forward really and, when we played the replay at Highbury four days later, I was back in my normal position.
“Jimmy (Murphy) said before the game: ‘I fancy you this afternoon, big man. I fancy you to put about three in.’ I just said: ‘You know me Jim, I’ll do my best,’ but I couldn’t believe it when it happened.
“The first was a diving header, I think the second was a left-footer and the third was with my right foot.
“It was a long time ago, of course, and it’s still a club record for the youngest scorer of a hat-trick in United’s history. Records are there to be broken and I’m surprised that it’s gone on for over half a century.
“I’m a proud man to still hold this record. Even when it goes, nobody can ever take the achievement away from me.”
Also in the United side that day was Freddie Goodwin….and he was the manager of that Brighton side I watched for the first time v Walsall in February 1969.
Born in Aberdeen on 21 February 1940, Dawson went to the same school as United legend Denis Law, but his parents moved down to Hull where he went to Westbourne Street School. Dawson joined United straight from Hull Schoolboys.
Dawson and future Preston and Brighton teammate Nobby Lawton were both on the scoresheet as United beat West Ham 3-2 in the first leg of the 1957 FA Youth Cup Final and Dawson scored twice in the 5-0 second leg win. West Ham’s side included John Lyall, who later went on to manage them.
On redcafe.net, Julian Denny recalled how Dawson once scored three hat-tricks in a row for a United reserve team that was regularly watched by crowds of over 10,000.
He scored on his United first team debut against Burnley in April 1957, aged just 17, and in each of the final two matches that season (a 3-2 win at Cardiff and a 1-1 draw at home to West Brom) to help win the title and secure United’s passage into Europe’s premier club competition.
They were the first of 54 goals in 93 United appearances, but was it all too much too soon? Some say Dawson’s career with United may have panned out differently if he hadn’t been thrust into first team action at such a young age.
Was he mentally scarred by the loss of those teammates, in the knowledge he could well have been with them on that fateful journey?
Let’s not forget he was just short of his 18th birthday when the accident happened. In an interview with Chris Roberts in the Daily Record (initially published 6 Feb 2008 then updated 1 July 2012), he recalled: “I used to go on those trips and had a passport and visa all ready but the boss just told me I wasn’t going this time. I had already been on two or three trips just to break me in. I know now how lucky I was to be left in Manchester. The omens were on my side.”
Dawson went on to describe the disbelief and the feelings they had at losing eight of the team, including Duncan Edwards several days later.
“We were all so close and Duncan was also a good friend to me before the accident,” said Dawson. “Duncan was such a good player, there is no doubt about that. He was a wonderful fellow as well as a real gentleman.
“I will never, ever forget him because he died on my birthday, 21 February, and before that he was the one who really helped me settle in.”
Dawson gradually became an increasingly bigger part of the first-team picture at United, making 11 appearances in 1958-59 and scoring four times. The following season he scored 15 in 23 games then went five better in 1960-61, scoring 20 in 34 games.
He was at the top of his game during the last week of 1960 when he scored in a 2-1 away win at Chelsea on Christmas Eve, netted a hat-trick as Chelsea were thumped 6-0 at Old Trafford on Boxing Day, and then scored another treble as United trounced neighbours City 5-1 on New Year’s Eve.
A fortnight later he had the chance to show another less well-known string to his footballing bow…. as a goalkeeper!
It was recalled by theguardian.com in 2013. When Tottenham were on their way to the first ever double, and had an air of near-invincibility about them, they arrived at Old Trafford having lost only once all season, and had scored in every single game.
Long before the days of a bench full of substitutes, when ‘keeper Harry Gregg sustained a shoulder injury, Dawson had to take over in goal.
Dawson excelled when called upon, at one point performing, according to the Guardian’s match report, “a save from Allen that Gregg himself could not have improved upon”.
The article said: “Tottenham’s attempts to get back into the game came to nought and Dawson achieved what no genuine goalkeeper had all season: keep out Tottenham’s champions-elect. In the end, there were only two games all season in which Spurs failed to score, and this was one of them.”
Tottenham’s north London neighbours, Arsenal, finished a disappointing 25 points behind Spurs in 11th place, but United manager Matt Busby had been keeping tabs on the Gunners’ prolific centre forward David Herd (Arsenal’s top scorer for four seasons), and in July 1961 took him to Old Trafford for £35,000. It signalled the end of Dawson’s time with United.
When the new season kicked off, Dawson had a new apprentice looking after the cleaning of his boots….a young Irishman called George Best. In his 1994 book, The Best of Times (written with Les Scott), Best said: “Alex Dawson was a brawny centre forward whose backside was so huge he appeared taller when he sat down. To me, Alex looked like Goliath, although he was only 5’10”. What made him such an imposing figure was his girth.
“He weighed 13st 12lbs, a stone heavier than centre half Bill Foulkes who was well over 6ft tall. What’s more, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on Alex – it was all muscle.”
Best’s responsibilities for Dawson’s boots didn’t last long, however, because in October that year, Busby sold the centre forward to Preston for £18,000.
During a prolific time at Preston, Dawson scored 114 goals in 197 appearances, and became known as The Black Prince of Deepdale. In the 1964 FA Cup Final at Wembley, Dawson scored in the 40th minute but Preston lost 3-2 to a Bobby Moore-led West Ham United.
The Preston captain that day was his former Man Utd teammate Lawton, who he subsequently joined at Brighton.
Lawton, now no longer with us, mentioned “that great striker Alex Dawson” in an interview he gave to the Lancashire Evening Post, published in May 2004.
“I’d known Alex since we were both on the groundstaff at Old Trafford,” Lawton recalled. “He was a bull of a centre-forward and was a Deepdale hero.
“He’s a lovely man and I was best man at his wedding. He hasn’t changed at all, and we are still great friends.
“Alex and the rest of the team would have graced any Premiership side today.”
Clearly Preston fans felt the same way. ‘Albertan’ on pne.net in 2012 said: “Alex Dawson was a super player … He was the complete centre forward – powerful, mobile and lethal with either foot or his head. He was also brave, committed and characterful.”
While ‘sliper’ on the same forum added: “In his prime Dawson was a powerhouse and great to watch. I can safely say I’ve never seen a better header of a ball at Deepdale.”
‘Curlypete’ recalled: “You could literally see goalkeepers tremble when Dawson was running at them, it was either the ball, ‘keeper or more likely both who ended up in the net.”
In 1967, Dawson took the short journey to Bury FC where his goalscoring exploits continued with 21 goals in 50 appearances. I was intrigued to see in a team photo of the Bury squad before the 1968-69 season, a young Lammie Robertson sitting at Dawson’s feet.
In December 1968, the aforementioned Freddie Goodwin had just taken over as Brighton manager and he paid Bury £9,000 to make his old United teammate his first signing at the Goldstone. An early programme profile revealed the surprising news that Dawson also had a sideline as a men’s hairdresser.
He certainly added a cutting edge to Albion’s attack, finding the net no fewer than 17 times in just 23 games, including three braces and four in an away game at Hartlepool. Dawson was no mean cricketer, either. An all-rounder who used to play for the Newton Heath club, as well as a collection of half-centuries to his credit, he once took eight wickets for 35 runs as a lively fast-medium bowler.
The following season, Goodwin added Allan Gilliver to the strikeforce and he outshone Dawson in the scoring stakes, although the Scot still scored 12 in 36 games.
As is so often the case, it was a change of manager that marked the end of his time with the Albion. With Goodwin departed for Birmingham, replacement Pat Saward didn’t give the old-timer much of a look-in and he went out on loan to Brentford where he showed he could still find the back of the net with familiar regularity.
Greville Waterman, on bfctalk.wordpress.com in July 2014, recalled: “He was a gnarled veteran of thirty with a prominent broken nose and a face that surely only a mother could love, but he had an inspirational loan spell at Griffin Park in 1970 scoring seven times in eleven games including the winner in that amazing late, late show FA Cup victory against Gillingham.
“Typical of the times at Griffin Park, he departed after his loan spell as apparently the club was unable to agree terms with him. A classic example of both parties suffering given that Dawson never played another Football League game and Brentford lacked a focal point in their attack until the arrival of John O’Mara later that same season.”
Released by the Albion at the end of the 1970-71 season, Dawson’s final footballing action was with non-league Corby Town.
Nevertheless, he could look back on a fantastic career as a goalscorer, with a strike rate the envy of many a modern day forward.
Pictures: Top: Alex Dawson portraits – in the 1969-70 and 1970-71 kits.
A montage showing Dawson:
scoring the first of his goals in the 1958 FA Cup semi final
in a Bury line-up (from the Bury Times) with future Albion forward Lammie Robertson also encircled.
WHEN NOBBY Lawton died of cancer aged 66 in 2006, Ivan Ponting, the principal football obituarist of The Independent, penned a marvellous piece about a player who never quite reached the heights his early promise suggested he might.
Lawton was captain of Brighton when I first started watching them in 1969 but he had once played for the post-Munich Manchester United side and was part of Proud Preston’s illustrious history having captained them in the 1964 FA Cup Final. Not surprisingly, Ponting’s obituary began with that showpiece against a West Ham United side led by the imperious Bobby Moore.
“When the two clubs staged one of the most exhilarating of all Wembley FA Cup finals, in 1964, the unassuming Lancastrian was anything but upstaged by the recently appointed England skipper,” Ponting observed.
“Indeed, though Preston of the Second Division were pipped by a stoppage-time goal as the top-flight Hammers prevailed 3-2, many neutral observers made Lawton the man of a rollercoaster of a contest in which his plucky side had twice led.”
In the Lancashire Evening Post’sThe Big Interview 40 years after that momentous day, Lawton touchingly shared his memories of the occasion when, aged 24, he’d stood in the famous old tunnel waiting to lead out Preston at Wembley.
“All of a sudden the wave of punishing noise from the 100,000 crowd just ebbed away, and the band struck up the first verse of Abide with Me,” recalled Nobby. “I’d held on to the emotion and nerves until then, but I was a bit overcome at that moment, close to tears in fact.
“I looked over my shoulder and the rest of the lads were coming down the tunnel in those famous white shirts, with the PP crest of Preston on them. It was an unbelievable moment for a young lad.”
Lawton then recalled his early days at Man Utd watching the Busby Babes train and how he thought he’d never make it in the game.
“But there I was at Wembley, captain of the famous Preston North End and I felt on top of the world,” Nobby told the newspaper. “I never thought anything like that would happen to me.
“That day was my proudest moment in football. 1964 was an incredible time in my life, and nobody can ever take that away.”
Readers of a certain vintage will be aware one of Preston’s goals that day were scored by Alex Dawson, another ex-Lilywhite who later linked up with Lawton at the Albion. The pair, who first played together at Man Utd, remained friends for 40 years and Lawton was best man at Dawson’s wedding.
In Ponting’s obituary, he recalled: “a stylish, cultured wing-half who might have been destined for eminence with Manchester United, the club with whom he shared a birthplace of Newton Heath.
“After excelling as a teenager with Lancashire Schoolboys, he signed amateur forms with the Red Devils in 1956, training on two evenings a week while working for a coal merchant.”
Lawton and Dawson were both on the scoresheet as United beat West Ham 3-2 in the first leg of the 1957 FA Youth Cup and Dawson scored twice in the 5-0 second leg win. West Ham’s side included John Lyall, who later went on to manage them.
After the Munich air crash of February 1958, the 18-year-old Lawton gave up his job with the coal company and joined United full time. “However, within days, his fledgling career was in jeopardy,” Ponting related. “After playing for the reserves while suffering from heavy flu he succumbed to double pneumonia, lost the use of his legs and was out of action for many months.”
Matt Busby kept faith with the fledgling talent and gave Lawton his first-team début as an inside-forward at Luton in April 1960. By the middle of the following season, he was a first team regular, forming a promising left-wing partnership with Bobby Charlton.
“Lawton was ever-present in United’s run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, where they were well beaten by Tottenham Hotspur, but somehow his confidence was never quite on a par with his abundant ability, and soon, in the face of inevitably brisk competition for midfield places, he slipped out of Busby’s plans,” said Ponting.
Lawton recalled in an interview with Spencer Vignes in the Albion matchday programme: “I was in an out of the team. I’d play one game, and go back to the reserves. I’d play another, then back to the reserves again. By the time I was 23, I really wanted – no, needed – to play first-team football.”
After just 36 league games for United, and with Pat Crerand picked ahead of him, he decided to drop down a division and rebuild his career at Preston, joining them in exchange for an £11,500 fee in March 1963.
Lawton explained: “I broke my leg at Manchester United, and although I was in and out of the team at Old Trafford, it knocked the confidence out of me.”
Preston were struggling when he joined them but they enjoyed a mini-revival just missing out on promotion to the top division, and he was made skipper for the 1963-64 season, which culminated in that Wembley final.
Lawton remained Preston captain even though he was hampered by serial knee problems and he admitted to the LEP: “I came back after two knee operations at Preston, but I was a shadow of the player I was in 1964. I was butchered really.”
After 164 league and cup appearances and 23 goals for North End, in September 1967, he dropped a further grade, joining Third Division Brighton for a £10,000 fee.
He was signed by Archie Macaulay but just over a year later found himself helping to select the team as part of a committee after Macaulay stepped down. It wasn’t long though before a familiar face took the helm in the shape of his former Old Trafford playing colleague Freddie Goodwin, and that’s when he first came to my attention, as my Albion-supporting journey began in February 1969.
“I enjoyed playing under him so much. I think we all did,” Lawton told Vignes. “I’ve got some really good memories of us playing well in front of big crowds with him in charge.”
Vignes recounted how Lawton was the scorer of one of the all-time classic goals witnessed at the Goldstone when the midfielder rifled home a volley from around 40 yards against Shrewsbury Town. “I remember their goalkeeper kicking it clear and it bounced in front of me, so I just hit it and it went straight back past him into the net. That was a nice strike,” said Lawton.
After just missing out on promotion in the 1969-70 season, Goodwin left to take over at Birmingham City and, according to the programme article, Lawton didn’t see eye to eye with his successor, Pat Saward, from day one. The player was also suffering a recurrence of his knee problems.
“I went to see a specialist about it , and he said that if I played again, then I could be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life,” he said. “It was around that time that (Fourth Division) Lincoln said they were interested in buying me. The way my knee was, I was going to finish any day soon, and I told them that. But they were still keen, so I signed. ” After a total of 127 games for the Albion, Lawton went to Lincoln in February 1971 together with striker Allan Gilliver.
The following year, at 32, the injury finally put paid to his playing days. He went on to carve out a successful career as a sales director with a Newton Heath-based imports and exports business.
When his death was announced in 2006, former Albion teammate Norman Gall said of him: “Nobby was a true gentleman. When he arrived at the Goldstone his ability and behaviour made him the obvious choice for captain.
“He never criticised or argued with anyone and just encouraged people to play better. A fantastic player and a great friend.”
Top, Nobby Lawton in action for the Albion during the 1970-71 season, above, celebrating with Kit Napier after scoring a goal. Below, footballinprint.com found this old magazine front cover of a 1962 Man Utd team photo in which Lawton appears alongside Nobby Stiles and behind Bobby Charlton. Other pictures from Albion’s matchday programme.
“We were all so close and Duncan was also a good friend to me before the accident,” said Dawson. “Duncan was such a good player, there is no doubt about that. He was a wonderful fellow as well as a real gentleman.
In parallel lines 