‘Rattling good’ Tranter’s 50-plus Albion games

WILF TRANTER, who died in July 2021, was one of a number of former Manchester United players to pitch up at Brighton in the 1960s.

He arrived at the Goldstone Ground on 5 May 1966, signed by Archie Macaulay, and made his debut the following day, taking over Derek Leck’s no.4 shirt in a 3-1 defeat at Shrewsbury Town.

A back injury kept him out of action at the start of the 1966-67 season and he had to wait until the end of October to return to the first team, in a home 1-1 League Cup draw against Northampton Town. He must have been thankful to have been a non-playing sub for the replay at Northampton as the Cobblers smashed Albion 8-0 to progress to the fifth round.

Restored to the side for the 5 November 2-0 home win over Oldham Athletic, Tranter settled into a regular slot and, according to the matchday programme, had a run of “rattling good games”.

“Strongly-built Tranter has played his part in our recent recovery and climb up the league table,” it declared. He only missed three games over the following four months, through to the beginning of March.

He then dropped right out of the picture, with Albion flirting dangerously close to the drop, before returning in a much-changed line-up for the last game of the season (a 1-1 draw away to Doncaster) after safety had been secured two games previously, courtesy of a 1-1 home draw against Middlesbrough.

*Tranter and fellow defender* *Norman Gall*

With big money signing John Napier preferred alongside Norman Gall in the centre, and young Stewart Henderson looking to take over the right-back shirt from the ageing Jimmy Magill, there was stiff competition for places in defence.

However, at the start of the 1967-68 season, Tranter made the right-back spot his own and even managed to get on the scoresheet with a goal in Albion’s 3-1 win at Mansfield on 21 October 1967.

The Albion programme said Tranter raced through and caught Town by surprise before hammering home and Evening Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe described the goal as “a truly splendid effort”. It was Tranter’s only goal for the club. One of the other scorers that day, John Templeman, notched his first for the Albion. Charlie Livesey had opened the scoring.

A familiar face arrived at the Goldstone that autumn when former United midfielder Nobby Lawton joined for a £10,000 fee from Preston North End. Tranter missed only a handful of matches as Albion hovered in mid-table but his time at the club drew to a close with 55 league and cup appearances to his name, plus two as a sub.

His final start for Brighton came in an ignominious 4-0 defeat at Watford on 23 March 1968. He did appear as a substitute for Dave Turner in a 1-1 home draw with Barrow on 27 April but, at the season’s end, he was one of seven players transfer listed.

Maybe if he’d stuck around, his Albion career would have been longer because by the end of that year another of his former United colleagues, Freddie Goodwin, took over as manager, and among his first signings was former Busby Babe Alex Dawson.

But, by then, Tranter was playing for Baltimore Bays in the North American Soccer League (NASL), featuring in 12 matches during a six-month spell alongside former Manchester United inside forward Dennis Viollet. The side was coached by Gordon Jago, later QPR and Millwall manager.

On his return to the UK in January 1969, Tranter signed for Fulham where he played 23 matches in three years. Among his teammates at Craven Cottage were Barry Lloyd, who later managed Brighton, together with goalkeeper Ian Seymour and midfielder Stan Brown, who both had loan spells with the Albion.

Tranter was born in Pendlebury on 5 March 1945 and went to St Gregory’s Grammar School, Ardwick Green, Manchester, from 1956 until 1961.

He progressed from his school team to become captain of Manchester Boys and also played for Lancashire Boys before signing apprentice forms with United in September 1961.

Although he was taken on as a professional in April 1962, he had to be content with reserve team football for the majority of his time at Old Trafford. In United’s reserve side, Tranter played alongside Bobby Smith (who also later played for Brighton) and Nobby Stiles in midfield, when George Best was on the left wing.

On 7 March 1964, Tranter got to make his one and only first team appearance for United in a 2-0 win away to West Ham.

A crowd of 27,027 at the Boleyn Ground saw him take Bill Foulkes’ place in the side. While United’s goals were scored by David Herd and David Sadler, by all accounts Tranter did well to quell the threat of Hammers’ striker Johnny Byrne.

Manager Matt Busby rested Denis Law, Best and Bobby Charlton for the game – because United were facing the Hammers in the FA Cup semi-final the following Saturday. The weakened Reds might have won the league game but the back-to-full-strength side lost the Cup semi-final 3-1 in front of 65,000 at Hillsborough.

In the final at Wembley, the Hammers won the cup 3-2, beating Preston North End, captained by the aforementioned midfielder, Lawton. Hammers conceded two goals, one scored by the also-referrred-to Dawson.

After his previous post-Albion stint in the States, Tranter returned four years later and played 14 NASL matches for St Louis Stars. Amongst his teammates in Missouri was John Sewell, the former Charlton, Crystal Palace and Orient defender, who later managed the Stars.

Back in the UK, Tranter dropped into non-league football with Dover Town but in the late ‘70s linked up with fellow former United reserve Smith as assistant manager at Swindon Town.

His time in the County Ground dugout proved eventful in more ways than one.

Towards the end of the 1978-79 season, when Town and Gillingham were both chasing promotion, a fiery encounter at Priestfield in March (when a fan got on the pitch and knocked out the referee!) was followed by an even more explosive encounter between the two clubs in May.

The whole story is told from different angles but Town midfielder Ray McHale, who would later join Brighton, was at the centre of some ugly tackling by the Gills. In the tunnel after the game Tranter was alleged to have made some “unsavoury” remarks which led to someone punching him in the face. He had to go to hospital for treatment.

Two Gillingham players – future Albion coach Dean White and Ken Price – were accused of inflicting Tranter’s injuries but they were subsequently found not guilty at Swindon Crown Court.

The following season, Swindon memorably beat Arsenal in the League Cup after forcing a draw at Highbury, although Tranter was lucky to be at the game. On the eve of the match, he escaped serious injury when his car spun out of control in heavy rain and skidded through a gap in a roadside hedge before landing safely in a field.

After leaving Swindon, Tranter had spells managing non-league sides, notably following in the footsteps of his old United teammate Foulkes by taking the reins at Southern Midland Division side Witney Town.

He then had a season in charge at Banbury United and took over at Hungerford Town between 1992 and 1993. At Hungerford, he is fondly remembered for overseeing the refurbishment of the old changing rooms, leaving a 20-year legacy at the club.

According to the Pitching In title, Tranter eventually left the game to focus on business interests in property and care homes.

His wife Carol died aged 70 in 2016 and Tranter died in his sleep aged 76 on 2 July 2021.

• Pictures from matchday programmes and online sources.

Career-ending leg break spawned physio role for George Dalton

A CAREER-ENDING leg break led one-time international hopeful George Dalton into a new career as a football physio.

Geordie-born Dalton was an emerging left-back at Newcastle United being watched as a possible candidate for a call-up to the England Under-23 side.

But he was never the same player after breaking a leg in a tackle with Leeds United’s Johnny Giles.

Then, only seven months after trying to resurrect his career with third tier Brighton, unlucky Dalton sustained a double fracture of the same leg in a freak collision and never played professionally again.

However, he turned his familiarity with the treatment table to good use and he later became Coventry City’s physio for the best part of 20 years.

Born in Dilston, Northumberland, on 4 September 1941, Dalton went through the junior ranks at Newcastle and turned professional at St James’s Park in 1958.

He made his Toon debut on 10 October 1960 in a 4-1 League Cup defeat away to Colchester United, and made his First Division debut the following February, ending up on the losing side in a 5-3 defeat away to Leicester City.

After Newcastle’s relegation to the old Division Two, Dalton made a lot more appearances (including being in the Toon side who thumped Brighton 5-0 at St James’ on 21 October 1961).

He was in and out of the side over the next two years but became a regular from March 1963 and, in January 1964, eagle-eyed Ken McKenzie, reporter for Newcastle’s The Journal, spotted England Under-23 selector Mr E.Smith in the stands at St James’s.

“This visit can only mean imminence of England Under-23s selection to meet Scotland at St James’s Park on Wednesday evening, February 5, and check up, particularly on George Dalton and Alan Suddick, of United,” he wrote. “On this basis, I feel that Mr Smith’s trip to Tyneside holds out very bright prospect of Forest Hall, Newcastle, product, Dalton, gaining his first representative honour on February 5.

“I know that Dalton has been recommended to the England selectors for some time by United directors and manager, and his consistency and clean, strong play has been commented on by influential observers at several away games.”

Unfortunately, the call-up didn’t happen, and revered reporter Ken Jones wrote in the Daily Mirror: “Despite local claims for left back George Dalton and inside forward idol Alan Suddick; neither has been chosen by the England team manager, and clearly they have no place in his ideas at present.”

Interestingly, the left-back berth went to Keith Newton, who later went with England to the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Mike Bailey and Graham Cross both played in the Under-23s’ 3-2 win over Scotland, while the reserves that day were Peter Grummitt, Alan Mullery and Martin Chivers.

Within a matter of weeks, Dalton’s football fortunes were turned upside down when, in his 40^th game of the season, on 30 March 1964, three days after Newcastle had surrendered an eight-game unbeaten run losing 1-0 at home to promotion-chasing Leeds on Good Friday, the full-back suffered a leg break that virtually finished his Newcastle career.

The Journal saw it thus: “This is the tale of a noble resistance by a Newcastle side who had Alan Suddick crippled in the 17th minute and lost George Dalton with a broken right leg (just above the ankle) with 14 minutes to go.”

mightyleeds.co.uk recorded it like this: “Newcastle finished with one man in hospital and another limping, but Leeds just about deserved to win their third hard match in four days. For once, however, there was no malice attached to the game and left-back Dalton confirmed he had broken his right tibia after himself kicking the sole of Giles’ boot.”

Dalton didn’t play his next Newcastle first team game for nearly two and a half years, and then it was just the one game. After that solitary appearance – his 94^th for Toon – on 27 August 1966, when they lost a Division One match 2-1 at home to Spurs, he was cast into the shadows and eventually given a free transfer in May 1967.

*Albion’s 1967-68 squad with Dalton circled in the back row*

Third Division Brighton gave the player the chance to salvage his career and he arrived on the south coast in June 1967 together with a young centre forward, Bob Fuller, who went on to score regularly for Albion’s reserves but subsequently moved to South Africa and in later life became a senior executive at mobile phone companies Orange and 3.

There were a couple of familiar faces amongst Dalton’s new teammates: Dave Turner, had been a fringe player at Newcastle before joining Brighton in December 1963, while forward Kit Napier had moved to the south coast the previous summer.

Stewart Ogden also joined straight from school in the north east in the summer of 1967 and the matchday programme declared: “Instead of Sussex by the Sea, Albion’s rousing signature tune, they may be playing The Blaydon Races this season, with so many Geordies on the staff.”

Dalton took over the no.3 shirt from Bobby Baxter, who had moved on to Torquay United, and went straight into Albion’s starting XI alongside new £25,000 record signing John Napier from Bolton Wanderers.

The matchday programme acknowledged Dalton’s past injury misfortune and said: “We all hope the change of club will see this fine defender recapturing his old form. He is married and recently moved into a pleasant club house at Portslade.”

Dalton made 28 appearances in the first half of that 1967-68 season under Archie Macaulay before tragically suffering a double fracture of his right leg in a 0-0 draw at home to Oxford United.

It was on 27 January 1968 that Dalton was involved in a heavy collision with United’s Graham Atkinson (big Ron’s brother) and Albion goalkeeper Brian Powney.

The cruel blow came almost four years after the injury he’d sustained at Newcastle and the Albion matchday programme commented how he had “completely shaken off the effects and was playing with great confidence” adding: “Albion’s popular left-back has played some fine games this season and his stylish work has been admired by supporters of other clubs, as well as the Albion fans.”

In its Albion Postbag column, a correspondent from Newhaven, calling himself ‘Veteran Player’, wrote: “George Dalton has had two unlucky accidents and we all hope he comes back fit and well and able to continue to delight us with his polished full-back play.

“Brighton have nearly always been lucky with their left-backs, and we have had a string of really fine players in that position. George Dalton can be included in that impressive list.”

Macaulay was optimistic the player would recover and in October 1968 the programme told supporters: “George is doing light training, jogging round the pitch, up the terracing also carrying out weight training exercises.”

In the meantime, Mike Everitt had been brought in to fill the gap and, by the time Macaulay was succeeded as manager by Freddie Goodwin, as 1968 drew to a close, Dalton still wasn’t in contention.

It looked even less likely he’d get back in when Goodwin signed his former Leeds teammate Willie Bell from Leicester City, but his next career step was closely linked to both of them.

In the summer of 1970, Dalton, who’d combined studying physiotherapy with coaching the Albion junior team in the latter part of his contract, joined Goodwin and Bell as part of the new management team at Birmingham City.

Albion took serious umbrage at the exodus and the matter ended up with City having to pay £4,500 compensation for Goodwin (who still had 18 months of his contract remaining) and a £5,000 fine for illegally approaching Bell.

Dalton’s situation was viewed differently because he’d technically been a player out of contract thus free to make a move.

When Goodwin left City in 1976 and returned to manage in America, Dalton moved on to Midlands neighbours Coventry City, taking over as physio from Norman Pilgrim, and he retained the position for two decades.

Several former players had nothing but good things to say about him when interviewed in Steve Phelps’ book 29 Minutes From Wembley. Striker Garry Thompson spoke highly of the care with which Dalton treated him when he suffered a broken leg that put him out of the game for 11 months.

“George Dalton, our physiotherapist, was magnificent with me,” he said. “He kept saying my leg was going to be like a twig and I’d have to rebuild the muscles and learn to walk again.

“My Mum and Dad thought it was career over, but, the way I think about it now, I was so lucky because there weren’t that many options for me and I had to play football.

“George’s own career was ended by injury. He was a very good footballer when he trained with us so, when I broke my leg, he really took care of me and was superb.

“I couldn’t thank him enough and all George had was the sponge and two machines in the treatment room, the electric currents and the ultrasound, that was it.

“He worked miracles down the years with players and, if it wasn’t for him, I would not have played until I was 37. I owe him a lot.”

Garry’s praise for Dalton was echoed by Paul Dyson, who spent prolonged periods in the treatment room with ankle and back injuries during his teenage years. “George was a real character. We all had a lot of time for him and he tended a lot of us through our respective injuries.

“He used to drive us to the hospital in his Morris 1100 and had a great left foot. He’d played left-back for Newcastle United before his own career was ended by injury. There were the two machines in his room and he used to have ice cubes on sticks in his freezer.”

*Dalton alongside boss John Sillett in the front row of this Coventry squad picture*

Scottish international winger Tommy Hutchison was another admirer. “He was a smashing lad, George, very old-school. He suffered no fools and could always tell if a player was injured or not.

“In our days broken legs did finish careers, along with knee ligament injuries, and George rehabilitated so many players at Coventry. There was no squad rotation as you wanted to stay in the team and play every week because if you didn’t someone else would step in to take your place and you wouldn’t be able to get back in.”

Midfielder Andy Blair added: “George was a great physiotherapist, a terrific calming influence and a great man to have around.”

Experienced full-back Mick Coop was another who appreciated the physio. “George really was a lovely man who worked injured players very hard in the gym to get them back on to the pitch,” he said. “He was very quiet but did his job well and garnered a lot of respect off the playing squad. I can’t speak highly enough of him.”

Dalton keeps in touch with many of his former colleagues through the Coventry City Former Players’ Association, which has reported how he returned to live in Newcastle in retirement.

* Pictures from matchday programmes and various online sources.

Steady Eddie Spearritt ‘Mr Versatility’ and a long throw specialist

2-signed-eddie-spearritt IN THE days before managers had a bench of substitutes, players who could slot into virtually any position were a major asset. One of my favourites was Eddie Spearritt.

A wholehearted, tough character, Spearritt was equally comfortable playing in midfield, at full back or sweeper, would occasionally get on the scoresheet, and even turned his hand to goalkeeping when necessary.

Long before anyone had heard of Rory Delap, Spearritt was a top exponent of the long throw which could sometimes be as effective as a free kick or corner. It was a skill which earned him a place in a Longest Throw competition staged by BBC’s sport show Grandstand in 1970-71, although he didn’t win it.

Born in Lowestoft on 31 January 1947, Spearritt started out at Arsenal but on failing to make the grade there, switched to Ipswich Town as an apprentice in August 1963.

On prideofanglia.com, Tim Hodge details Eddie’s Ipswich career. He made his league debut in the 1965-66 season in a 1-0 win away to Preston in the old Division Two.

Over the next two years, he made a total of 69 appearances (plus 10 as sub) for Bill McGarry’s side, scoring 14 goals along the way (Spearritt is pictured in Ipswich squad photos above, including the side who were Second Division winners).

A 1-0 home defeat to Spurs in October 1968 was his last for the Suffolk club and three months later, surplus to new manager Bobby Robson’s requirements, was one of Freddie Goodwin’s first signings, for £20,000, just a few weeks before my first ever Albion game. ES debut Crewe

He made his debut in a 3-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra (above with the superb backdrop of a packed EastTerrace at the Goldstone Ground) and kept the number 10 shirt to the end of the season, by which time he had scored five times, including both Albion’s goals in the 2-2 draw at home to Tranmere Rovers.

1-spearritt-v-wolves-69-copy In the 1969-70 season, not only was he part of the Third Division Albion side who pushed his old manager McGarry’s First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers side all the way in a memorable third round League Cup tie, it was his header from Kit Napier’s free kick that put the Albion 2-1 ahead just before half-time (aftermath pictured above).

Scottish international Hugh Curran scored twice in eight second half minutes to clinch the win for Wolves but a bumper Goldstone Ground crowd of 32,539 witnessed a terrific effort by their side.

ES Shoot action

A few weeks’ later, in a marathon FA Cup second round tie with Walsall that required three replays before the Saddlers finally prevailed 2-1, Spearritt took over in goal during the second replay when a concussed Geoff Sidebottom was stretchered off on 65 minutes. Albion hung on for a 1-1 draw.

Spearritt was a midfield regular in his first two seasons but Goodwin’s successor, Pat Saward, switched him to left back halfway through the 1970-71 season and that’s where he stayed throughout the 1971-72 promotion campaign. Player-of-the-season Bert Murray generously declared the award could have gone to Eddie for his consistency that season.

In the close season after promotion, Spearritt tied the knot with Penelope Biddulph, “an accomplished professional dancer,” the matchday programme told us, and they moved into a new home in Kingston-by-Sea.

Spearritt started out at left back in Division Two but after ten games was ousted by the arrival of George Ley from Portsmouth. He then switched back into midfield, but by the end of that relegation season was playing sweeper alongside Norman Gall (for nine games) and Steve Piper (for two).

He scored, along with Barry Bridges, in a 2-0 win at Huddersfield on 14 October but the team went on a disastrous run of 16 games without a win, although Spearritt did get on the scoresheet three times, including notching two penalties.

When Albion went to that footballing outpost Carlisle on 16 December, they had lost five in a row without managing a single goal. Carlisle were 5-0 up, goalkeeper Brian Powney was carried off with a broken nose, replaced between the sticks by Bert Murray, then Albion won a penalty.

Spearritt took up the story in a subsequent matchday programme.

“I used to be the club’s penalty taker but, after I had missed an important one at Mansfield in 1970, I lost the job. Penalty-taking is really all about confidence,” he said. “After I had missed that one at Mansfield, which cost us a point, the players lost confidence in me and the job went first to John Napier and was then taken over by Bert Murray.

“Bert would have taken the penalty at Carlisle. He has already scored two this season. But he had gone in goal and it was decided it was too risky to fetch Bert out of goal to take the penalty.

“Nobody else seemed to want to take it so I just picked the ball up and put it on the spot. We were 5-0 down by then but I thought from a morale point of view that it was extremely important that I scored. You can understand my relief when I saw the ball hit the back of the net.

“Everybody was beginning to wonder when we would score again. I suppose with the run of bad luck we have been having it was almost inevitable that we should break our goal famine from the penalty spot.”

Albion finally returned to winning ways with a 2-0 win over Luton on 10 February, and then beat Huddersfield, Carlisle and Swindon, prompting Saward to refer to “some outstanding individual performances” and adding: “I have been particularly pleased with the way Eddie Spearritt has been playing in recent weeks.

“He has maintained a high level of consistency this season and his work in defence and in midfield has been invaluable as the side has plugged away trying to turn the tide of results.”

Spearritt was Saward’s captain at the start of the 1973-74 season back in Division Three and with the return of central defender Ian Goodwin and then the emergence of Steve Piper in the sweeping role, he was soon back in midfield.

When Saward was sensationally replaced by Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in October, Spearritt was part of the side who capitulated 4-0, 8-2 and 4-1 in successive games against Walton & Hersham, Bristol Rovers and Tranmere Rovers. He was dropped for six games, along with Ley (who never played for Albion again) as Clough went into the transfer market and brought in midfielder Ronnie Welch and left back Harry Wilson from Burnley.

Spearritt was restored to the team in mid January and had a run of seven games — including his 200^th league game for Albion — but when he was subbed off in a home win over Hereford United on 10 March 1974, it was to be his last appearance in an Albion shirt.

In five years he’d played 225 games (plus seven as sub) and scored 25 goals.

In common with lots of players from the Saward era, Spearritt was a victim of the great Clough clear-out. Perhaps surprisingly, though, his next step was UP two divisions to play in the First Division with then newly-promoted Carlisle United.

One of his teammates there was defender Graham Winstanley, who later joined the Albion. The side was captained by Chris Balderstone, who was also a top cricketer. Journeyman striker Hugh McIlmoyle played up front while John Gorman, who later played for Spurs and became Glenn Hoddle’s managerial sidekick, was also in the team.

They memorably topped the division after three games….but predictably finished bottom of the pile by the end. In his two-year stay with the Cumbrians, Spearritt played 29 times, was sub twice and scored a single goal.

He moved back south in August 1976, signed by Gerry Summers at Gillingham, and made his debut against Reading, going on to make 22 appearances in his one season at the club, scoring once, from the spot, against Rotherham United at Priestfield.

One of those games was against the Albion on December 29 1976, when the home side won 2-0 on a slippery, snow-covered pitch.

Eddie emigrated to Australia the following summer and settled in Brisbane where he played for and managed the Brisbane Lions before retiring. He subsequently became estates manager for L’Oréal.

3-spearritt-graydon 4-spear-pen-v-black 5-gill-eddie-v-mellor-dec-76

Pictures from my scrapbook show him celebrating after scoring in the League Cup against Wolves; an autographed Goal action shot in the white with blue cuffs kit — when I was an autograph hunter around the players’ tunnel before a game, Eddie was always happy to oblige; a Shoot colour shot of him in action against winger Ray Graydon in the famous 1972 televised win over Aston Villa; from a matchday programme, Eddie’s successful penalty kick in a 2-1- home defeat to Blackpool in December 1972 nestles in the back of the net, with ‘keeper John Burridge beaten, and, from the Argus, challenging Ian Mellor playing for Gillingham against the Albion in December 1976.

Goalscorer Gilliver was heading for trouble in the days of heavier footballs

MOST football fans of a certain age will be familiar with the story of former West Brom and England centre forward Jeff Astle’s death in 2002 from early on-set dementia caused by heading footballs during his career.

The same condition has befallen Allan Gilliver, who played up front for Brighton and Lincoln City.

In September 2015, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus carried a report in which they said: “In 2013 Allan discovered he had dementia and that the likely cause is heading the ball – something he did throughout his football career.”

‘I scored a lot of goals heading the ball, we had heading practice every day,’ Allan told the newspaper. ‘It hurt like hell; footballs were much heavier back then and retained moisture.’

The story was being told in the run-up to a charity event to raise funds and awareness of dementia and Gilly was something of a legend in Bradford having worked behind the scenes at Bradford City for many years after his playing career had ended.

He had originally moved to City from Lincoln in 1972, where he teamed up with former Brighton captain and centre half John Napier (pictured below in a Bradford team photo).

Gilliver arrived at the Goldstone in the summer of 1969 on a free transfer from his hometown club, Rotherham United. He’d been born in the village of Swallownest (in the borough of Rotherham) on 3 August 1944. He was a keen all-round sportsman and when he was 14 was invited for net practice with the Yorkshire county side.

But he opted to pursue a career in football and joined Huddersfield Town in 1961. He scored on his debut in a 4-1 win at home to Swansea and he went on to score 22 goals in 45 appearances for Town. But in June 1966 a £12,000 fee saw him switch to Blackburn Rovers where he netted nine goals in 34 matches. Gilli Rovers

Two years later, Tommy Docherty signed him for Rotherham to partner Jim Storrie up front and he scored four goals in 29 matches for the Millers. His signing for Brighton proved to be a shrewd bit of business by manager Freddie Goodwin because Gilliver ended the 1969-70 season top scorer with 16 league and cup goals.

He made an encouraging start by netting on his debut in the pre-season 6-0 win over a Gibraltar XI. It wasn’t long before he was off the mark in the league too, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win at Plymouth on 16 August.

Gilliver also scored in two of the Albion’s memorable League Cup ties in the autumn of 1969, netting in the 2-0 defeat of Birmingham, who were then in the division above Brighton, and also in the closely-fought epic against First Division Wolves when Albion narrowly lost 3-2.

Later that same season he scored a hat-trick in a 4-0 home win over Halifax. Even when Goodwin departed for Birmingham during the summer of 1970, Gilliver retained his place under new manager Pat Saward, and scored eight times.

But, presumably in the knowledge he’d got the loan signings of Bert Murray and Willie Irvine lined up, Saward surprisingly sold Gilliver and former captain Nobby Lawton to Lincoln in February 1971. The pair’s appearance in a 2-1 defeat away to Shrewsbury that month turned out to be their farewell.

As a youngster, I used to watch games from behind the manager’s dugout beneath the West Stand at the Goldstone.

I remember vividly how during one game, as the players trooped off down the tunnel for the half-time break, someone in the crowd behind me, clearly not impressed by the striker’s performance, shouted: “Gilly, why don’t you come off?” The forward looked into the crowd for the source of the comment and retorted: “And why don’t you p*ss off!”

The forward’s spell with Lincoln was ultimately a brief one but his switch to Valley Parade for a £4,000 fee began a lifetime association with the Bantams.

In researching this piece, I came across a picture of Gilliver in action for Bradford against Arsenal at Highbury in 1973.

He moved on to Stockport County in 1974 and had a brief spell with the Baltimore Comets in America, playing alongside the aforementioned Napier, before returning to England.

Back at Bradford in 1978-79, he played twice before his playing days came to an end but he stayed with the club and his subsequent roles included groundsman, safety officer, bar supervisor, stadium manager and commercial manager. He retired in 2007.

In May 2023, Gilliver’s wife Chris opened up to the Telegraph & Argus about the sad impact of the former footballer’s condition, which had necessitated putting him in a care home.

“The grandchildren miss grandad as he was,” she said. “He doesn’t recognise them. He smiles but he would smile at anyone.

“He has got no incentive. He would just sit in one place all day unless someone does something with him.”

She told reporter Rowan Newman: “They are not suffering in many ways because they don’t know, but we are – the families who love and care for them.

“Every day you lose a little bit more. He could speak last week, he can’t speak now. He could use a knife and fork, he can’t cut his food up any more. He has lost so much.”

Gilliver appeaed briefly in a news bulletin on BBC One News on 25 March 2025 about professional footballers and dementia. He died aged 81 on 23 December 2025.

napier-gilliver-73-74-bradford ag-v-arsenal

Pictures from my scrapbook show Gilliver in aerial action for the Albion; alongside John Napier in a Bradford team photo (and below with Baltimore Comets); in Goal magazine playing for Bradford City, challenging goalkeeper Bob Wilson in a 1973 FA Cup tie against Arsenal, a portrait in the stripes of City, and various shots that first appeared in Albion matchday programmes.

*Allan Gilliver living with dementia in a care home, as featured on BBC One news in March 2025*

Tidy full back Stewart Henderson polished Saints diamonds

1 SH mono ALBION’S right back when I first started watching them in the late 1960s was someone who would go on to make much more of a mark as a coach.

Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott and Adam Lallana were among the players developed by Stewart Henderson. Wayne Bridge and Chris Baird, too.

That was all to come for Stewart when I first saw him wearing the number 2 shirt in Freddie Goodwin’s Division 3 side.

hendo biog

Henderson, who shares the same June birthday as me, albeit he was born 11 years earlier, was only 5’6″ tall but he had noticeably muscular thighs. Hailing from Bridge of Allan in Scotland, his stature didn’t stop him earning Scottish schoolboy international honours and he was on the winning side in three matches.

The Scots beat Northern Ireland 5-1 at Windsor Park, Belfast – when future Albion teammate John Napier was playing for the home side – Wales at Ninian Park, Cardiff, and England at Ibrox Park where a 30,000 crowd watched.

That recognition followed his success playing for his school team, St Modans High School in Stirling, and Stirlingshire Schoolboys. It eventually took him to England at the age of 17 in 1964 to join Chelsea.

Tommy Docherty was their manager at that time and he obviously wasn’t convinced Henderson was good enough for the First Division, so he dropped down to the Third with Brighton where, for a couple of seasons, he had the unenviable task of trying to oust captain and Northern Irish international Jimmy Magill from the right back slot.

Stew Hendo blue

He made his debut on 3 May 1966 away to Exeter a month before his 19th birthday and didn’t make his home debut until 1 October that year, stepping up when Magill was injured and helping Albion to a 5-2 win over Peterborough.

It wasn’t until March 1968, though, that he eventually cemented his place in the side. But when he did, he became a near-permanent fixture for the next four years. He only scored once in 199 appearances, that coming in a 6-0 drubbing of Oldham Athletic on 24 August 1968.

Stew Hendo PoY In the 1969-70 campaign, he missed only one game and the supporters chose him as player of the season. He played 36 league games in Pat Saward’s first season in charge and in the 1971-72 promotion campaign was a regular in the line-up right through until the famous televised Aston Villa home game in March 1972 when Saward made two shock changes and left out both Henderson and captain John Napier for the top of the table clash.

It was the beginning of the end for Henderson and he cuts a rather-forlorn looking figure in a picture of the newly-promoted team captured in the Goldstone dressing room after gaining the necessary point against Rochdale, standing fully-clothed alongside his team mates in their kit, taking a sip of champagne.

Saward made him available for transfer at the end of the season and although he stayed with the club, he played only two more league games, and a league cup game, in the following season before being transferred to Reading in June 1973.

Henderson had chalked up 198 league games and 14 cup games during his time with Brighton but the move to Berkshire was by no means a petering out of his career.

I am grateful to the website of the Reading FC Former Players Association (readingformerplayers.co.uk) to discover how, although manager Charlie Hurley signed Stewart initially as a full-back, in 1975 he pushed him into a midfield role with immediate success: Stewart scored twice in the first 17 minutes at Bradford City.

He went on to be an influential member of Reading’s 1976 Fourth Division promotion winning side. In May 1977, he was made club coach and worked closely with manager Maurice Evans helping the club win the 1978/79 Fourth Division Championship.

Amazingly Stewart was recalled to the playing squad at the beginning of the 1979/80 season, at the age of 32, and continued playing intermittently until May 1983 when he played the last of his 186 games for the Royals and became Reading’s first Centre of Excellence director.

Coaching became his new direction and he was at manager Ian Branfoot’s side when Reading beat Luton at Wembley to win the Simod Cup in 1988 (a game incidentally in which former Albion winger Neil Smillie was one of the goalscorers for the Royals and Steve Foster and Danny Wilson were playing for Luton).

Henderson left Elm Park in 1989 to take up the role of youth development officer at Southampton, where his work began helping to produce some of the finest footballing talent in the country.

He was to spend over 20 years at Southampton in various roles working with the youth and academy teams, the reserve side and even had a short spell as first team manager.

It’s worth quoting an article from the Mirror in October 2012, when Matt Law reckoned Southampton owed a £55million debt of gratitude to Malcolm Elias, Steve Wigley, Huw Jennings and Stewart Henderson who spotted and coached the incredible Southampton Fame Academy, which through transfer fees effectively saved the club from extinction.

Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wayne Bridge, Kenwyne Jones, Adam Lallana, James Ward-Prowse and Luke Shaw were all named as coming under the influence of the quartet who, after being released by Southampton moved on together to Fulham.