BRIGHTON v Chelsea in the FA Cup sparks memories for supporters of my generation stretching back several decades.
Many began as Albion followers the day the then First Division side from Stamford Bridge visited the Goldstone Ground in February 1967 when a dubious refereeing decision denied Third Division Brighton a shock win.
Others, me included, recall a fiery encounter in Hove six years later when Second Division strugglers Brighton were beaten 2-0 courtesy of two Peter Osgood goals in a game marred by violence on and off the pitch.
That third-round tie in January 1973 was dubbed “a day of shame” in the newspapers after two players were sent off, five were booked and crowd trouble erupted.
The chance for lower ranked teams to pitch their lesser talents against the big boys has always been at the heart of the FA Cup’s appeal.
That was certainly the case when Archie Macaulay’s mid-table Albion hosted Tommy Docherty’s top 10 Chelsea on 18 February 1967. To give it musical context, Georgy Girl by The Seekers had just taken over from The Monkees’ I’m A Believer at no.1 in the pop charts!
At a time when home crowds were normally 12,000 – 13,000, a sell-out gate of 35,000 packed into the Goldstone.
Cup fever had certainly captured the imagination of the Sussex public. In the previous round, 29,208 watched Albion beat Aldershot 3-1 in a third-round replay for the chance to take on the top division Pensioners (as Chelsea were called back then).
The two clubs hadn’t met in any other competition for 34 years – back in January 1933 Brighton beat the London side 2-1 in a third round FA Cup tie.
After such a long gap, maybe it was understandable that Albion’s young captain, Dave Turner, at 22, fell off the settee at home in excitement when he saw the cup draw made on the television.
Canny Brighton decided to sell tickets for the game at a reserve home fixture against Notts County, meaning a stunning 22,229 paid to watch the second string win 1-0 in order to secure their entry to the big game.
The matchday programme revealed how Docherty and several of his players had watched the Aldershot match to check out what would be in store for them.
Docherty meanwhile was very complimentary in his programme notes, declaring: “Chelsea know that we have a hard and difficult task today, and are not facing it in a complacent manner.”
He added: “We know that there is great potential for the Albion club. They have a First Division set-up at the Goldstone Ground, and First Division ideas, as well as a first-class pitch.
“The day cannot be very far away when they become one of our top clubs, and I am just one of many people in the game who will welcome their promotion to a higher class.”
However, the game was only five minutes old when Bobby Tambling gave Chelsea the lead. But before half-time, Chelsea’s John Boyle (who would several years later joined Albion on loan) was sent off for kicking Wally Gould. And just four minutes into the second half, Turner gave Albion parity.
Goalkeeper Tony Burns, who had top flight experience with Arsenal, made several decent saves in the game and, with the clock ticking down, a cracking strike by winger Brian Tawse in the closing minutes of the game looked to have won it for the Third Division side.
“I smashed a volley past Peter Bonetti from 20 yards out with the score at 1-1 and thought I’d got the winner,” Tawse told Brian Fowlie of the Sunday Post in 2015. “It was a goal that could have made my career – but the referee chalked it off.”
Unfortunately, the official had spotted an infringement by Kit Napier and the ‘goal’ was disallowed.
As Brighton would discover again only too painfully in the 1983 final, these winning chances rarely happen twice, and, sure enough, in the replay at Stamford Bridge Chelsea ran out 4-0 winners in front of a massive crowd of 54,852.
Chelsea went on to reach that season’s final at Wembley only to lose 2-1 to a Spurs side that had Joe Kinnear at right-back and Alan Mullery in midfield.
Hardman Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, their captain in 1967, was still leading the side by the time of the 13 January 1973 game and John Hollins and Tommy Baldwin also played in both. The dismissed Boyle was on the Chelsea bench in 1973. Only John Templeman (right) played in both games for Brighton.
The UK had just joined the European Economic Community (as it was then called) and You’re So Vain by Carly Simon was no.1 in the charts. Albion had moved up a division under Pat Saward having won promotion the previous May, but the side was struggling at the foot of the Second Division, unable to cope at the higher level.
Nevertheless, there were two players looking forward to the cup tie: Bert Murray and £28,000 signing Barry Bridges had both won silverware at Chelsea in the 1960s.
Barry Bridges slots home for Chelsea in a FA Cup tie v Peterborough and, pictured by the Daily Mirror’s Monte Fresco, ahead of the 1973 match against his old club.
“It’s a tremendous draw for the club and a dream draw for Bert Murray and myself who both started our careers at Chelsea,” Bridges told Goal magazine. “Personally, it will be nice to see most of the Chelsea lads again. I grew up with Peter Bonetti, Ron Harris and Ossie (Peter Osgood).”
Unfortunately the Albion game was one of several former Worthing schoolboy Bonetti missed through injury and illness in the 1972-73 season, John Phillips deputising in goal at the Goldstone.
How this young supporter recorded the team info in his scrapbook
Dave Sexton, a promotion winner with Brighton in 1958, saw his Chelsea side put the ball in Albion’s net within the first 10 seconds of the game but Bill Garner’s effort was ruled out for offside, to the bemusement of the football writers watching. As the game unfolded, not only did it end in defeat for the Albion but it attracted ugly headlines for all the wrong reasons as Harris and Brighton left back George Ley were sent off.
Ley was dismissed in the 85th minute for bringing down Baldwin from behind and then getting involved in a punch-up with England international Osgood, the scorer of Chelsea’s goals in the 17th and 60th minutes, who himself was booked for his part in the altercation.
Albion’s Eddie Spearritt had been the first to go in the book on 23 minutes (for a foul on Alan Hudson) and on 73 minutes was involved in the incident which led to Harris being sent off for the first time in his career.
Esteemed football writer Norman Giller recorded it like this: “Harris got involved in a tussle with Spearritt, and, as he pushed him, Spearritt went down holding his face as if he had been punched. The referee directed Ron to an early bath. All the bones he had kicked, and here was Harris being sent off for a playground push.”
1970 Cup winner Dave Webb went in the book for wiping out Spearritt, joining colleague Steve Kember who was cautioned for fouling Steve Piper. Albion’s Graham Howell also went into referee Peter Reeves’ notebook for taking down Baldwin.
The kicking and aggression on the pitch led to fighting on the terraces with 25 people arrested. And Leicester referee Reeves had to be given a police escort off the pitch.
Former Spurs captain-turned-journalist Danny Blanchflower, writing in the Sunday Express: declared: “This FA Cup third-round tie was as disgraceful as any match I’ve ever seen.”
In the opinion of Albion scribe John Vinicombe in the Evening Argus: “Football anarchy gripped the Goldstone during the last 20 minutes of Albion’s FA Cup tie with Chelsea.
“In the frenzy, players fought one another, hacked and kicked, and the violence tiggered an all-too-predictable chain reaction on the terraces where rival factions became one mass of writhing, mindless hooligans.”
Interestingly, Harris’ dismissal was subsequently overturned, Giller recording: “A Brighton-supporting vicar, with a pitchside view, wrote to the Football Association telling them what he had witnessed, and ‘Chopper’ was vindicated.”
Chelsea made it through to the quarter-finals of that season’s tournament before losing 2-1 to Arsenal in a replay. Arsenal lost in the semis to Sunderland, the Second Division side who stunned the football world at the time by beating Leeds United in the final.
ONE TIME Albion captain and utility player Eddie Spearritt played in the top flight for Ipswich Town and Carlisle United.
He made five starts and five appearances off the bench for second tier champions Ipswich at the beginning of the 1968-69 season before joining third tier Brighton for £20,000 in January 1969.
Play anywhere Spearritt was then a permanent fixture in the Albion line-up for almost five years, making 225 appearances, before Brian Clough turfed him out at the end of the 1973-74 season.
But he found himself back amongst the elite when newly promoted Carlisle United snapped him up for their one and only season (1974-75) amongst the big boys.
Spearritt made 17 starts and six appearances as a sub for the Cumbrians but, in spite of a superb winning start when they briefly topped the division, United finished the season in bottom spot.
Spearritt shapes to challenge Aston Villa’s Ray Graydon
Equally comfortable playing in midfield, at full back or sweeper, Spearritt had on-off spells as Albion’s chosen penalty-taker as well as chipping in with goals from open play. He even turned his hand to goalkeeping when necessary.
Another key attribute to his game was an ability to send in long throw-ins 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 went to Lowestoft Grammar School and on leaving school was picked up by Arsenal. But when the Gunners didn’t keep him on, he returned to East Anglia and joined Ipswich as an apprentice in August 1963.
He signed a professional contract with Town in February 1965 and, as Tim Hodge details on prideofanglia.com, he made his league debut in the 1965-66 season in a 1-0 win away to Preston in the old Division Two.
That was the season when substitutes were first introduced into the English game and the record books show that Spearritt was the first Ipswich sub to score a goal.
He went on for Irish international Danny Hegan in a match away to Derby County on 15 January 1966 and scored Ipswich’s second goal. The game finished 2-2; Gerry Baker having scored Town’s first.
Over the next three years, Spearritt made a total of 69 appearances (plus 10 as sub) for Bill McGarry’s side, scoring 14 goals along the way. Twenty of those games came in the 1967-68 season when Ipswich won the old Second Division.
A 1-0 home defeat to Spurs in October 1968 was his last for the Suffolk club and he parted company with Town shortly after McGarry left Portman Road to take over at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
A debut v Crewe (left) and slaloming through the Plymouth Argyle defence (right)
Spearritt was one of Freddie Goodwin’s first signings for Brighton – just a few weeks before my first ever Albion game. He made his debut in a 3-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra 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 a 2-2 draw at home to Tranmere Rovers.
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 Wolves 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.
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.
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 1971-72 when Albion won promotion from the old Third Division as runners up behind Saward’s old club, Aston Villa.
It was in the first half of that season that Spearritt took a call from ex-Ipswich teammate Ray Crawford, the former England international centre forward, who had returned homesick from a short stint playing in South Africa.
He persuaded Saward to offer Crawford a trial and although he didn’t make the league side he scouted upcoming opponents, played for the reserves and subsequently ran the youth team.
Meanwhile, Spearritt was a key part of the promotion side and player-of-the-season Bert Murray generously declared the award could have gone to Eddie for his consistency that season. As it happened, Spearritt did get the award the following season, although somewhat more ignominiously considering Albion were relegated.
All smiles as Pat Saward’s side toast promotion in 1972
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 (pictured above), 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 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 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.”
Towards the end of the dismal run, Albion drew First Division Chelsea at home in the third round of the FA Cup. The game was won 2-0 by Chelsea but it was an ugly, violent affair – The Argus labelled it ‘Goldstone day of shame’ – in which five players were booked and each side had a player sent off.
Spearritt, the first to be booked, found himself caught up in a huge controversy which resulted in Chelsea hard man Ron Harris being sent off by Leicester referee Peter Reeves; remarkably the only time in his career he was dismissed.
The Brighton man insisted he’d been hit by the defender and Saward said in diplomatic terms after the game: “Spearritt said he was struck on the mouth and that it was not an involuntary action but a blow. From what I saw, I couldn’t understand it.”
Esteemed football writer Norman Giller subsequently recorded it like this: “Harris got involved in a tussle with Spearritt, and, as he pushed him, Spearritt went down holding his face as if he had been punched. The referee directed Ron to an early bath. All the bones he had kicked, and here was Harris being sent off for a playground push.
“A Brighton-supporting vicar, with a pitchside view, wrote to the Football Association telling them what he had witnessed, and ‘Chopper’ was vindicated.”
Whatever the truth of the matter, Spearritt told Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe that he’d been threatened by a Chelsea player after the incident. “He spoke to me several times and made it quite clear what he had in mind.”
Albion’s Ley was sent off for bringing down Tommy Baldwin and then getting involved in an altercation with Peter Osgood, who scored both Chelsea goals. Two minutes later David Webb went into the book for a ‘blatant foul’ on Spearritt.
Albion finally returned to winning ways the following month 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.”
Saward made Spearritt Albion’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 Piper in the sweeping role, he was soon back in midfield.
But when Saward was sacked in October and sensationally replaced by former Derby County League title winning management duo Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, Spearritt was one of the first to have his nose put out of joint by the new arrivals.
Journalist Spencer Vignes described what happened in Bloody Southerners (Biteback Publishing, 2018), his excellent book about that era.
Clough sought out long-serving centre back Norman Gall and, because he hailed from the same part of the country (ie the north east), told him he was making him the captain. Gall told Vignes: “Suddenly I’m captain, which I was really happy about. Eddie Spearritt didn’t like it though. He’d been captain up until then. In fact, he didn’t talk to me after that. That was the beginning of the end for Eddie.”
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, and he was dropped for six games, along with Ley (who never played for Albion again). Clough went into the transfer market and brought in midfielder Ronnie Welch and left back Harry Wilson from Burnley.
Although Spearritt was restored to the team in mid January, and had a run of seven games — including his 200th league game for Albion — 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.
Come the end of the season, Spearritt was one of 12 players released by the club in what became known as 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 in a League Cup first round second leg tie against Aldershot, then made his league debut against Reading.
In total, he made 22 appearances in his one season at the club — one of them at the Goldstone Ground on December 29 1976, when the Albion won 2-0 on a slippery, snow-covered pitch. Spearritt scored just the once for the Gills, from the penalty spot against Rotherham United at Priestfield.
He emigrated to Australia the following summer and settled in Brisbane where he played 56 games for the Brisbane Lions between 1977 and 1980 and was their head coach in 1979. He subsequently coached Rochedale Rovers in the Brisbane Intermediate League, steering them to promotion to the Premier League in 1983.
Outside of football, he became estates manager for L’Oréal and in later years was better known as the uncle of Hannah Spearritt, once of the pop group S Club 7, who became an actress in the ITV drama Primevil.
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.
ALEX DAWSON was even younger than Evan Ferguson when he scored a FA Cup semi-final hat-trick.
The bull-like centre forward who broke through at Manchester United in the wake of the Munich air crash wrote his name in football record books on 26 March 1958.
Dawson was just 18 years and 33 days old when he netted three goals in United’s 5-3 win over Fulham in front of 38,000 fans at Highbury, north London. No-one that young has ever repeated the feat.
Eleven years later, Dawson scored twice for Brighton in a Third Division match against Walsall. It was my first ever Albion game. He followed up the two he got in that game with six more in four other games I saw that 1968-69 season. They were enough to sow the seeds of a lifetime supporting the Albion and the burly Dawson, wearing number 9, became an instant hero to an impressionable 10-year-old.
Dawson scored twice v Walsall in 1969
Dawson is no longer with us but the memory of his goalscoring exploits live on amongst those fans of a certain vintage who had the pleasure of seeing him in action.
A man who played alongside him at Wembley in 1958 – Freddie Goodwin – made Dawson his first signing for Brighton, for £9,000, not long after he had taken over as manager in the winter of 1968.
By then, he was plying his trade with Bury. He had left United in 1961 after scoring a remarkable 54 goals in 93 games, including one on his debut aged just 17 (in a 2-0 win over Burnley).
After losing 2-0 to Bolton Wanderers in 1958, another losing Wembley appearance followed six years later. He scored a goal for Preston North End but the Lancastrian side lost 3-2 to West Ham United.
United pair Freddie Goodwin and Alex Dawson were reunited at Brighton
Nevertheless, Dawson was prolific for Preston scoring 132 goals in 237 league and cup games over six years. The purple patch I saw him have for Brighton saw him find the net no fewer than 17 times in just 23 games, including three braces and four in an away game at Hartlepool. That was only one behind top scorer Kit Napier whose 18 came in 49 matches.
Alex Dawson in snow action at the Goldstone Ground
In a curtain-raiser to the 1969-70 season, Dawson scored four times as Albion trounced a Gibraltar XI 6-0 at the Goldstone. But the signing of Allan Gilliver and, in the New Year, young Alan Duffy, began to reduce his playing time. He got 12 more goals in 28 appearances (plus three as sub) but, when Goodwin left the club, successor Pat Saward edged him out.
Even in a loan spell at Brentford he scored seven in 11 games. 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.”
Still smiling and scoring goals at Corby
Released by the Albion at the end of the 1970-71 season, Dawson’s final footballing action was with non-league Corby Town, where he didn’t disappoint either.
In his first season at Occupation Road, he finished top scorer with 25 goals in 60 appearances and by the time he retired from playing on 4 May 1974, his tally for the Steelmen was 44 in 123 appearances.
When the curtain came down on his career, Dawson had scored 212 goals in 394 matches – more than one every two games. A true goalscorer.
It was in the wake of the decimating effect of the Munich air disaster that Dawson found himself thrust into the limelight at a tender age.
The crash claimed the lives of eight of United’s first choice team – Dawson’s pals. Youngsters and fringe players had to be drafted into the side to fulfil the remaining fixtures that season. One was Dawson, another was Goodwin.
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.”
While Dawson was my first Albion hero, when he died in a Kettering care home at the age of 80 on 17 July 2020 the esteem in which he was held by others also came to the fore in the tributes paid by each of the clubs he played for.
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 and 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.
After that goalscoring first team debut against Burnley in April 1957, he also scored 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 United win the title and secure their passage into Europe’s premier club competition.
Obviously, circumstances dictated Dawson’s rapid rise but, with the benefit of hindsight, some say his United career may have panned out differently if he hadn’t been thrust into first team action at such a young age.
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.”
Scoring for Preston North End
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.
In 1967, Dawson took the short journey to Bury FC where his goalscoring exploits continued with 21 goals in 50 appearances, before he joined Goodwin’s regime at Brighton.
What a career to look back on: Alex Dawson recalling his goalscoring exploits
BARRIE WRIGHT (not to be confused with the deep-voiced crooner with a similar-sounding name) was a former Leeds United playing colleague of Freddie Goodwin who followed him to Brighton via America.
Despite showing plenty of early promise, including captaining the England Schools side, Bradford-born Wright played more games for Goodwin’s New York Generals than he did in English league football.
Goodwin signed Wright and goalkeeper Geoff Sidebottom together for the Albion on 31 December 1968, a matter of weeks after he’d succeeded Archie Macaulay as Brighton manager.
The Albion programme in those days eschewed full-scale profiles and simply noted of the new arrival that he “can play on either flank in defence”.
His first Brighton appearance was as a substitute for Charlie Livesey in a 1-1 draw away to Plymouth Argyle on 4 January. He took over Mike Everitt’s left-back slot for the following two games, also both 1-1 draws, at home to Stockport County and away to Bristol Rovers.
But he tweaked his groin in the game against Rovers and missed six matches.
He was restored to left-back for a home goalless draw with Plymouth Argyle on 5 March, and played in the following two games.
One was the 4-0 hammering of Southport at the Goldstone, which was only my second Albion game (having watched them beat Walsall 3-0 three weeks earlier).
The plentiful goalscoring – notably two in each match by Alex Dawson – had me hooked!).
Wright kept the shirt for a 2-1 away win at Shrewsbury, but was then dropped to the bench for the next game, a 2-0 defeat at Oldham, when John Templeman took over at left-back and Stewart Henderson won back the no.2 shirt.
The Yorkshireman didn’t play another game that season although the matchday programme finally got round to telling us more about the player in a short profile item for the home game against Barrow, when I saw Albion score another four goals to secure a comfortable 4-1 win (Dawson again scored twice, the others from Kit Napier and Dave Armstrong).
“Barrie rates Albion as the happiest club he has known, and has quickly settled down in Sussex,” the programme told us.
We also learned he had been a keen angler and was a member of the Bradford Anglers Association, “finding this the perfect relaxation from soccer”.
A useful batsman and medium-fast bowler too, he had added golf to his sporting repertoire when in America and was regularly to be found on a course with Sidebottom.
But back to the football, and Goodwin, having steadied the ship with a number of his own signings, saw Albion finish the 1968-69 season in a comfortable mid-table position.
Norman Gall, Wright (top right) and Dave Armstrong enjoy a dressing room laugh with Norman Wisdom.
An alarm Bell would have rung for Wright that summer though – in the shape of experienced Scottish international left-back Willie Bell. Goodwin signed their former Leeds teammate from Leicester City as a player-coach; Wright had understudied Bell at Elland Road.
However, it was Everitt who stepped in for the only two games Bell missed all season, and Wright’s involvement was confined to one substitute appearance in a 2-0 defeat away to Doncaster Rovers, and three games in November and December deputising for Dave Turner in midfield.
The 0-0 draw at home to Orient on 13 December proved to be his last outing for the Albion.
In September 1970, Wright went on loan to Hartlepool United but when he wasn’t able to earn a regular place, decided to quit league football at the age of 25 to become a warehouseman.
He carried on playing in non-league, though, and appeared in the Northern Premier League with Bradford Park Avenue (right) and Gainsborough Trinity and spent some time with Thackley of the Yorkshire League.
Born in Bradford on 6 November 1945, Wright was one of eleven children – nine of them boys (one brother, Ken, played for Bradford City). Barrie earned selection for Yorkshire Boys and went on to captain the England Schools side on seven occasions in 1960-61.
England Schools captain
He was taken on by Leeds as a teenager, turning professional in 1962 at the age of 17.
mightyleeds.co.uk described Wright as “a defender of rich potential” who first caught the eye in a pre-season friendly against Leicester City, alongside the legendary John Charles.
The Yorkshire Post’s Richard Ulyatt spoke of Wright’s “excellent form” and said he “looked to have the necessary technique”, while accepting that conclusions from “half-speed friendlies … must be taken with reservations”.
Wright spent four seasons at Leeds and was captain of United’s Central League side. He did make a total of eight first team appearances, though. mightyleeds.co.ukdiscovered this wonderful description of Wright’s league debut for Leeds at home to Preston on 13 April 1963, when he deputised for veteran Grenville Hair at left-back.
Leeds won 4-1, and the aforementioned Ulyatt reported: “For a time Preston tried to probe for a weakness on the Leeds left, where Barrie Wright, 17, was playing his first game as a senior.
“A better forward line might have found him a bit uncertain and occasionally inclined to commit himself too soon to a sliding tackle, but any judge of a footballer would recognise that here was a great talent.
Wright was part of a star-studded squad at Leeds United
“His first contact with the game came after about ten minutes when he delicately headed a pass to Albert Johanneson with the artistry of a basketball player. Soon afterwards he tried to pass the ball 20 yards along the touchline edge from a foot inside the field and failed by inches: that was football. In recent years I have seen only (Jimmy) Armfield, (Alf) Ramsey, (Tony) Allen and (Johnny) Carey do it better.”
He kept his place for two more games: two days later in a 2-1 away win over Charlton Athletic on 15 April (Easter Monday) and a 4-1 home win against the same side the following day!
In the 1963-64 season, when Leeds went on to become Division Two champions, he replaced Paul Reaney in a 2-0 win away to Leyton Orient on 23 November 1963.
Phil Brown in the Evening Post reported: “It was most encouraging to see another youngster, Wright, in the side for the first time this season, respond so well to the occasion.
“He was sharper and sounder than on any of his previous three outings, and that against the fleet and strong Musgrove, and hard trying inside-left Elwood.”
However, it was another two months before he got another chance. On 1 February 1964, he took over at left-back in a 1-1 home draw against Cardiff City. On that occasion the Post’s Brown was less complimentary.
“I was most disappointed with young Wright at left-back,” he wrote. “He grew progressively worse, probably through increasing nervousness.”
Nevertheless, Wright was selected in the England Youth team squad for the 17th UEFA Youth Tournament in the Netherlands in March and April 1964.
England won it and Wright appeared in two of their five matches, both won 4-0: against Portugal in Den Haag on 3 April and against Spain two days later in Amsterdam.
His teammates in those matches included Everton’s Howard Kendall as captain, John Hollins (Chelsea), Harry Redknapp and John Sissons (West Ham), Peter Knowles (Wolves), David Sadler (Man Utd) and Don Rogers (Swindon).
Rather like in the modern era, fringe players tended to get a run-out in the League Cup and Wright made two appearances in the competition in 1964-65, taking over from Reaney in the second round 3-2 win over Huddersfield Town on 23 September, and the third round tie on 14 October when United lost 3-2 at home to eventual semi-finalists Aston Villa.
Wright’s final Leeds first team appearance came once again in the League Cup, when he took Norman Hunter’s no.6 shirt in a much-changed side who lost 4-2 at home to eventual winners West Brom in the third round on 13 October 1965. (West Brom won the two-legged final 5-3 on aggregate against a West Ham side that included Dennis Burnett).
Wright and Sidebottom line up for New York Generals
With first team opportunities so rare, Wright eventually left Elland Road in 1966 to try his luck with Goodwin’s New York Generals, joining fellow Brits Sidebottom and Barry Mahy, who had followed Goodwin to the States from Scunthorpe.
The Generals’ most famous player was Cesar Luis Menotti, who later coached Argentina to a World Cup triumph in 1978.
nasljerseys.com records that Wright wore the no.12 shirt and played 26 matches in 1967 and 32 games in 1968.
A STRIKER who once scored five goals in 20 minutes for West Ham took slightly longer when playing for Brighton but still netted five in seven games.
Brian Dear (nicknamed Stag, geddit?) won the European Cup Winners’ Cup with West Ham in front of 97,974 fans at Wembley in May 1965. Only the month before, he’d netted in the 44th, 53rd, 56th, 59th and 64th minutes of West Ham’s 6-1 demolition of West Brom in front of 27,706 fans at the Boleyn Ground.
Dear scores one of his five v WBA
Two years later, 23-year-old Dear found himself travelling to Workington to make his debut for Third Division Albion. The train journey there had been made worse by a derailment that meant Albion only arrived at the Borough Park ground 45 minutes before kick-off. Although Kit Napier scored against his former club, a sparse crowd of just 2,863 saw the visitors beaten 2-1.
Quite some change in fortunes for Dear, who had joined Brighton the previous day – transfer deadline day – in March 1967 when manager Archie Macaulay, a one-time Hammers player, went back to his old club to secure the forward’s services.
“No fee was paid at the time of the transfer. This will be discussed at the end of the season, and from now until then, it is up to Brian to prove his worth as to whether there will be a place at the Goldstone Ground for him in the future,” Macaulay wrote in the matchday programme.
Albion were bumping along in the lower half of the old Third Division at the time so it was quite a step down for Dear, but Brighton were keen to make his move permanent.
It wasn’t long before he showed what he was made of; Dear scored twice in his third game, on Easter Saturday, as Scunthorpe United held the Albion to a 2-2 draw at the Goldstone. Two days later he scored the only goal of the game as Albion beat visitors Watford 1-0. He was on the scoresheet again when Albion visited Boundary Park, Oldham, but the home side rallied in the second half to end up 4-1 winners.
Back at the Goldstone the following Saturday, he scored Brighton’s opener in a 2-0 win over Oxford United (top picture), but that was the end of his scoring in Albion’s colours. He missed three matches in April and his last game for Brighton was in a goalless draw away to Shrewsbury.
His hoped-for permanent signing didn’t happen and he returned to West Ham where the following season he went on to enjoy the most consistent spell of his Hammers career, scoring 16 goals in 29 matches (plus one as sub). The East Londoners finished in mid-table: a season in which Manchester City were champions, two points ahead of second-placed Man Utd.
Dear rises to get in a header at the Goldstone Ground, with the West Stand in the background
“As a fan watching him, he was frustrating at times but he had the natural talent required for the top level and he certainly knew how to score goals,” said Tony Hanna, of the excellent fans website West Ham Till I Die.
Born in Plaistow, London, on 18 September 1943, Dear joined West Ham straight from school at the age of 15 and was an England schoolboy international who played against Scotland, Wales and Ireland in 1959.
On 29 December 1960, he scored twice for an England Youth XI when they beat an AFA Public Schools XI 8-0. Phil Beal and Bert Murray were among his teammates.
Dear made his league debut for the Hammers away to Wolves on 29 August 1962 but there were only two more first team appearances that season.
The following season, which culminated in West Ham beating a Preston North End side captained by Nobby Lawton 3-2 (Alex Dawson scored one of Preston’s goals), saw Dear struggle to get into the side and he made just three league appearances.
That five-goal haul v West Brom – when the crowd taunted the Baggies with a rendition of ‘Oh Dear what can the matter be’ – helped take his 1964-65 season stats to 14 goals in just 15 appearances but he was part of the XI who won the European Cup Winners Cup 2-0 at Wembley. He scored four goals in previous rounds but it was outside right Alan Sealey who scored both Hammers goals against TSV Munich 1860 in the final.
Dear once again spent most of the 1965-66 season in a back-up role, featuring in just 10 first team matches while Hammer of the Year Geoff Hurst scored an impressive 40 goals in all competitions before going on to cement his name in English football history with a hat-trick as England won the World Cup in July 1966.
Hurst went one better the following season, netting 41 times, while Dear ended the season exploiting an opportunity to play competitive football with the Albion.
Throughout it all, Dear became a close friend of the legendary Bobby Moore, and in April 2021 West Ham invited the former striker to talk to the club’s academy players about the man he first met when he joined the club in 1958, the year Moore made his first-team debut against Manchester United at the tender age of 17.
“After that first period, that’s when we began to become friends,” Dear told the schoolboys. “We were all mates. You are all different ages at the academy, but you all know one another, how you play, what you do – it’s the same as us.
“Bobby was a bit shy. Once he felt comfortable with you, that was it. You had everything he could give, and he’d give everything to you. He was an amazing fella.”
The West Ham website said: “Dear and Moore were also inseparable off the pitch, enjoying a close friendship for over three decades before the icon’s tragic passing on 24 February 1993, at the age of just 51.”
Dear told the schoolboys: “You would have loved him if you’d have met him. He was a wonderful, wonderful man, and you lads should be very proud that you’re involved in the club that he was a part of.”
West Ham through and through, Dear did eventually leave Upton Park in February 1969, scoring seven times in 13 appearances for Fulham but they were relegated to the Third Division. He swiftly moved on to Millwall but only managed a handful of games before returning to West Ham in 1970.
However, his short-lived second spell is best remembered for his involvement in a curfew-busting drink before a FA Cup tie at Blackpool on 2 January 1971. Having been told icy weather would most likely mean the match would be called off, Dear, Moore, Jimmy Greaves, Clyde Best and physio Rob Jenkins went out late to ex-boxer Brian London’s club in the seaside resort.
Unfortunately, the game went ahead, West Ham were surprisingly beaten 4-0 by bottom-of-the-league Blackpool, and someone dobbed in the errant Hammers group.
Dear’s appearance as a sub that day was his last involvement in professional football. Manager Ron Greenwood turfed him out, along with Greaves, while Moore and Best were fined. Best later told his version of the story to the Knees Up Mother Brown website.
Before hanging up his boots, Dear played briefly for non-league Woodford Town. Football was in his blood and he became catering manager at Southend United and later worked in its commercial department.
West Ham Till I Die writer Tony Hanna concluded: “By Brian’s own admission he ‘enjoyed life’ more than most professional footballers. His stocky build was more often likened to being overweight and he enjoyed a beer after training, and also after matches.
“Being left out of the team, especially if he had scored the previous week, only further demotivated him in a career where he never really cemented a first team place.”
PROLIFIC goalscoring centre-forward Fred Pickering, who at his peak scored hat-tricks on his Everton and England debuts, ended his career after an unsuccessful two-month trial with Brighton.
Pickering was a transfer record signing for Everton (the previous season’s league champions) when he joined them from Blackburn Rovers for £85,000 in March 1964.
On his debut for Harry Catterick’s side, he scored three past Nottingham Forest’s Peter Grummitt in a 6-1 thrashing.
Eight years later, a player who’d played for his country and, but for injury, might have been involved in the 1966 World Cup, scored once for Brighton’s reserve side: in a 3-0 home win over Colchester United on 8 March 1972.
Brighton won promotion from the old Third Division two months later thanks in no small part to 19 goals scored by Kit Napier and 17 from Willie Irvine (Pickering’s former Birmingham City teammate Bert Murray netted 13 and Peter O’Sullivan hit 12).
Throughout the season, manager Pat Saward had been hankering for something a bit extra in the forward line. While he appreciated the skill of Napier and Irvine, he said “none had the devil in him. We wanted more thrust.”
Pickering was the second seasoned striker Saward had run the rule over, wondering whether their experience of goal plundering at the highest level several years before might be revived in third tier Albion’s quest for promotion.
Earlier in the season, he tried recruiting an ageing Ray Crawford but contract issues with the player’s last club, Durban City, meant the former Portsmouth, Ipswich, Wolves and Colchester centre-forward ended up joining the staff as a scout and coach instead.
In February 1972, 31-year-old Pickering, by then not even getting a game in Blackburn’s Third Division side, was given a chance by Saward to show he still had the goalscoring ability he had demonstrated so effectively earlier in his career.
Photographs of a rather heavy-looking Pickering training appeared in the Evening Argus and the former England striker was interviewed on Radio Brighton (as it was then) about his illustrious career. Although he played for the reserves, he wasn’t deemed fit enough to make it into the first team.
Saward eventually got the thrusting forward he sought on March transfer deadline day when he signed Tranmere Rovers’ Ken Beamish, who, at 24, was younger and fitter, and quickly endeared himself to Albion fans by scoring a handful of late goals which helped clinch promotion.
But what of Pickering? Born in Blackburn on 19 January 1941, he played junior football in his hometown before joining Rovers as an amateur aged 15.
As a schoolboy, he’d been an inside forward (a no.8 or no.10 in today’s parlance) but he was a full-back when he signed as a professional for Rovers on his 17th birthday.
Indeed, he was at left-back in the Rovers side that won the FA Youth Cup in 1959, beating West Ham United 2-1 on aggregate over two legs.
Alongside him for Rovers were future Spurs and Wales centre-half Mike England and Keith Newton, who also later moved to Everton and played for England at the 1970 World Cup. West Ham included Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst in their line-up.
With the likes of Dave Whelan and Bill Eckersley ahead of Pickering in the Blackburn pecking order, his chances of a first team breakthrough were limited.
But after a successful outing for the reserves up front, and with wantaway Irish striker Derek Dougan dropped, Pickering was given a chance as a centre forward – and he never looked back.
He scored twice in a 4-1 win over Manchester City and went on to strike up successful partnerships with Ian Lawther, initially, and then Andy McEvoy.
“It was a big turning point for me to be playing centre forward,” Pickering told the Lancashire Telegraph. “Especially when you consider in 1961, Dally Duncan (Blackburn manager, and later Brighton guesthouse owner) told me that Plymouth wanted me and that I was free to leave. I didn’t want to go because Blackburn was my club.
“I only left in the end because the club wouldn’t give me a rise of a couple of quid. It was absurd.”
By then Pickering had scored 74 goalsin158 appearances – some strike rate – which meant he always held a special place in the hearts of the Ewood Park faithful, as reporter Andy Cryer described in a 2011 article for the Lancashire Telegraph.
“Had fate been kinder to him he could easily have been a national darling too,” wrote Cryer.
“When hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst was firing England to World Cup final glory in 1966, an injured Pickering was left reflecting on what might have been after an incredible journey took him from Rovers reserves to international stardom.”
Pickering, nicknamed Boomer for his powerful right foot, had scored five goals in three England appearances and looked set for inclusion in England’s 1966 World Cup squad having been named in Sir Alf Ramsey’s provisional selection.
But he suffered a knee injury in an FA Cup quarter final replay against Manchester City which not only caused him to miss Everton’s FA Cup final win that Spring, but also meant he had to withdraw from the England squad. Cryer reckons it also led to the subsequent demise of his career.
Pickering told the reporter: “I played three games for England and I scored in every game I played, I scored five goals and I was playing well. I was named in the World Cup squads. I was going and from that day it was the following weekend when the knee started to go.
“I watched all the Brazil games at Goodison. England struggled in their first game against Uruguay and that is when Jimmy Greaves got injured.
“Obviously that is how Hurst got in, he wasn’t even really in the set up before. There was every chance if I had been fit it that might have been me who had got in. I wouldn’t say I would have done what Geoff Hurst did but you never know what might have happened.”
Pickering had made his England debut two months after moving to Everton, in a 10-0 demolition of the USA on 27 May 1964. It was the same match that saw future Albion manager Mike Bailey play his first full international for his country. Roger Hunt went one better than Pickering by scoring four, Terry Paine got two and Bobby Charlton the other. Eight of that England side made it to the 1966 World Cup squad two years later – alas Pickering didn’t.
The same scoring rate he had enjoyed at Blackburn continued at Everton and in his first full season he scored 37 goals in all competitions – the most by an Everton player since Tommy Lawton scored 38 in 1938-39.
In three years with the club, he scored 70 times in 115 matches but his exclusion from the 1966 FA Cup final squad soured his relationship with manager Catterick, as covered in detail by the efcstatto.com website. Injuries disrupted his involvement at the start of the following season, and a cartilage operation put him out of action for nearly six months.
Although he made his comeback in March 1967, his Everton days were numbered and, in August 1967, moneybags Birmingham City bought him for £50,000 to form a hugely effective forward line with Barry Bridges and Geoff Vowden.
Pickering and Bridges played in all 50 of Birmingham’s matches in the 1967-68 season; the aforementioned Bert Murray 47. Bridges was top scorer with 28 goals and Pickering netted 15.
The Second Division Blues made an eye-catching run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, but they lost 2-0 to West Brom (who went on to beat Everton 1-0 in the final).
The following season, Pickering scored 17 times in 40 appearances (Phil Summerill also scored 17, and Jimmy Greenhoff 15) but City finished a disappointing seventh.
That signalled the end of the striker’s time in the Midlands and he returned to his native north west with Blackpool, who paid £45,000 for his services.
It was money well spent as Pickering top-scored with 18 goals as the Tangerines won promotion back to the elite, finishing runners up to Huddersfield Town. His most memorable performance was on 13 April 1970 when he scored a hat-trick away to local rivals Preston North End in front of a Deepdale crowd of 34,000. It earned Blackpool promotion while simultaneously relegating North End to the third tier.
But the 1970-71 season didn’t go well for Blackpool or Pickering. The club got through three managers and only won four matches all season, which eventually saw them finish bottom of the pile and relegated along with fellow Lancastrians Burnley. Pickering found himself fined and excluded for breaches of club discipline (mainly involving missing training) and before the season was over he was sold back to his first club, Blackburn.
That was a blow to Preston, who had just loaned Willie Irvine to Brighton and were keen to install Pickering as his replacement. But it was to Rovers, for £9,000, that he went, but he couldn’t prevent the Ewood Park outfit being relegated to the third tier.
He scored just twice in 11 League games in his second spell at Blackburn before that two-month trial at Brighton.
After he retired from football, he became a forklift truck driver. Warm tributes were paid when Pickering died aged 78 on 9 February 2019. Well-known football obituarist Ivan Ponting said of him: “At his rampaging best, Fred was an irresistible performer.
“Though neither outstanding in the air, nor overly-physical for a man of his power, not even particularly fast, he could disrupt the tightest of defences with his determined running and a savage right-foot shot that earned him the nickname of ‘Boomer’.
“Boasting nimble footwork for one so burly – he could nutmeg an opponent as comprehensively as many a winger – he was especially dangerous when cutting in from the flank, a manoeuvre that yielded some of his most spectacular goals.”
In March 2022, a road in the Mill Hill district of Blackburn, where he lived all his life, was named after him and his family spoke of their pride as they unveiled the street sign in his honour.
John Napier competes with Aston Villa’s Andy Lochhead
JOHN NAPIER is still coaching youngsters in America as he approaches his 76th birthday. NICK TURRELL’s In Parallel Lines blog caught up with him for a trip down memory lane. Here, in the fourth of five articles, he recalls his Albion teammatesand some memorable opponents.
AS A YOUNG lad starting out watching Brighton in the late ‘60s, I assumed two players sharing the same not-particularly-common surname must have been brothers.
But defender John Napier and striker Kit Napier spoke with different accents.
“I think back then most people thought we were brothers, but we had to explain he was from Scotland and I was from Northern Ireland,” he said.
“But I was a great friend of Kit’s. Our families spent a lot of time together. I even went up one summer with Kit to Dunblane in Scotland where he was from, and we had a great time.
No relation – Kit Napier
“Kit was a really good player. He knew how to finish in the box, a real goal shark. He was quick over short distances and scored some great goals over his time at Brighton.
“You would not see him for a while and then, like all good goalscorers, he would jump in with a half chance, and you would think ‘Where did he come from’?”
Napier was sorry to hear of Kit’s death in 2019. “His son did keep in touch with me from South Africa and kept me up to date with what was happening,” he said.
“I know he will always be remembered fondly in Brighton.”
The towering centre-half spoke warmly about the team spirit he experienced during his time with the Albion.
In that 1971-72 promotion squad, Napier was one of three Northern Irish internationals, and I wondered whether their nationality gave them a special bond.
“We were all good friends and spent family times together,” he said. “The great thing about Brighton back then was how all the players jelled together.
“There were no cliques in the group. We all liked being together, it did not matter which part of the country we were from. When we went out, it was always as a group with families.
“Willie Irvine was another known for his goalscoring ability, much like Kit Napier; sharp around the box and tried to get on the end of every cross in the box.
Napier with fellow Irishman Willie Irvine
“I remember Willie scoring a great goal for us against Aston Villa in our promotion year.”
Bertie Lutton
And Bertie Lutton? “Bertie was also a good player. He had some flair about his movement with the ball. I remember his long flowing head locks back then also.
“Both were well received by the Goldstone crowds. We had several Irish players through the years.”
Sadly, having been based in America for a good many years, Napier has not managed to stay in touch with his former teammates, although, via this article, he issued an open invitation to any of them to get in touch with him.
George Ley
“I did talk to George Ley, who lived in Dallas, a couple of times, and Kit Napier’s family in South Africa,” he said.
“I did see Peter O’Sullivan when Brighton were over in America on a tour in the 80s, but nothing else. I wish I had.
“But I was also at Bradford many years before I came to America in 1979, so I completely lost touch.
“The years have gone by so fast.”
In my previous article, I referred to Pat Saward’s praise for Napier’s handling of marksman Ted MacDougall, so I wondered who were the toughest opponents he faced.
“That’s a good question: back then the old Third Division was a tough league, it didn’t matter who you played against,” he said. “You were in for a physical battle in every game. It was never easy.”
The big man continued: “I did not really pay attention to who I was marking. I always went out with the mindset to get my job done for the club.
Penalty box ‘wrestling’ isn’t anything new; at least the ref saw the funny side!
“We would talk about individuals sometimes, and what their strengths were, but very rarely worried too much about players.
“MacDougall was at Bournemouth at the time: he was a handful. Andy Lochhead at Aston Villa was another. I am sure there were many more, but I did not lose sleep thinking about how I was going to stop players.
“There were good days and bad days, which we all had. But if we were on the winning side, it was always a good day!”
Napier added: “I met up with Ted MacDougall a few years ago when we were both in a US coaching class in Los Angeles.
“He was based in Atlanta at the time. We talked about old times and battles we had through the years. It is amazing how many former UK players are living over here in the States, working in various coaching positions.”
A little-seen away strip for the Albion in the 1970-71 season
• In the final part of this series of articles, the blog looks at how Napier got into coaching, the influences he sought, and what he’s doing now.
JOHN NAPIER is still coaching youngsters in America as he approaches his 76th birthday. NICK TURRELL’S In Parallel Lines blog caught up with him for a trip down memory lane. In the second of five articles, John recalls Pat Saward signalling the end of his time with the Albion.
SUCH WAS JOHN Napier’s prominence at Brighton, he made an extraordinary 106 consecutive appearances for Albion. Until March 1972.
“I was lucky with injuries, which normally keeps players out,” he recalled. “Mine were mostly cuts around the head area or a broken nose – but nothing serious to keep me out.
“And with Norman Gall beside me, we had a great understanding together. I always took pride in my role in the team. Nothing is for ever, for sure, but you always wanted to be on the field.”
Captain Napier in the number 5 shirt was the status quo as winter turned to spring in 1972 and Albion’s chances of promotion from the Third Division looked ever more promising as they vied for one of the top two spots with Aston Villa and Bournemouth.
On the back of two defeats, Albion prepared to face Villa at the Goldstone on 25 March.
Manager Pat Saward – a former FA Cup winner with Villa – mysteriously and controversially dropped his ‘kingpin’ for what was undoubtedly one of the biggest games of the season. Even BBC’s Match of the Day had taken a rare foray into the lower leagues to feature the match.
Napier found himself replaced by Ian Goodwin, a rugged but injury-prone defender who had played under the manager during his coaching days at Coventry City. Regular right-back Stewart Henderson was also left out.
Not only had Napier been ever present and the captain up to that point, only two months earlier, Saward had been publicly singing his praises to the extent that he was suggesting the defender deserved a recall to the Northern Ireland side.
“The way he is playing, he ought to walk into the side,” Saward told Goal magazine. “He has been consistent all season. Recently Ted MacDougall hardly got a kick against him (that was in a 2-0 Boxing Day win for the Albion against Bournemouth). Ted is dangerous when he is inside the box but John hardly let him get near the ball.”
The article referred to Napier as “the kingpin of the Brighton defence” and went on to say Napier, 25, formed “one of the best pairings in the Third Division with 28-year-old Norman Gall”.
Speculation around Napier’s possible call-up came because Liam O’Kane, who normally partnered Allan Hunter in the Ireland side, was sidelined with a broken leg at the time.
How the programme covered Napier’s omission
The matchday programme following Napier’s shock dropping highlighted that he had previously played 239 matches for the Albion “the last 106 of these being played successively, a splendid record”.
Saward didn’t refer specifically to the player but in his column for the Evening Argus ahead of the Villa game had written: “A manager must always make decisions for the good of the club as a whole. There can be no room for sentiment. There are times when a player who has given his all, and fallen under severe pressure, has to come out of the side for a rest.”
In his programme notes for the following match, he simply said: “We had lost the previous two matches (1-0 at home to Oldham and 2-1 at Bradford City) and I made several team changes which I thought were necessary, and our players responded magnificently.”
Indeed, Albion won the match 2-1 and Willie Irvine scored a terrific goal, still available to watch on YouTube, that was judged by legendary Celtic manager Jock Stein to be Match of the Day’s third best goal of the whole season.
So, all these years later, can Napier shed any more light on exactly what happened? In short, no. “I still am not sure why that happened,” he said. “I know it is all part of the game. There were no signs that I was playing any different.
A signed photo from my scrapbook
“I was the club captain when Pat arrived and he did not change that. I played many games with him as the manager. He had me in the office the week before the Villa game and we talked about a lot of things, as we were right in the promotion mix with a good chance of going into the Second Division.
“I should have probably realised when he wanted to talk in the office. That was not too common with Pat, it was usually a full team meeting.
“He did say he was leaving me out and I would be sub (ed. he wasn’t). Obviously, I was not happy and told him so. I really did not get an explanation as to why, and that is the part that was difficult.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, Napier added: “That is about the time my relationship with Pat started to go downhill fast. Even though we won promotion, I felt that there were going to be changes going into the Second Division.
“I had been in that promotion side for mostly all the season and felt I did not get the recognition for being part of our success. We were barely on speaking terms at the end of the season.
“Players react in different ways with different managers. I also was a little stubborn back then and was not afraid to speak my mind. I have nothing bad to say about Pat: he had success at the club which was needed at that time. We moved on. It happens all the time in soccer.”
I imagined it must have been hard to watch from the sidelines as the team went on to win promotion, and Napier admitted: “Every player wants to play, of course, and being a sub or even not in the game day squad, I had never experienced that part before, so it was tough.”
But he added: “Even though I was disappointed in not playing the last few games, I was really happy for the club and the players.
“Those guys at that time were my brothers; we went through a lot the previous few years trying to battle out of the Third Division, and the Goldstone crowd deserved it.
“We had an unbelievable year; the stadium was full each home game towards the end, everywhere we went the town was buzzing with excitement, nothing brings the fans and players closer than a promotion race.”
I wondered too whether it was a small consolation that it was Napier’s former Bolton teammate Brian Bromley who took over as captain.
“Brian was a great friend. We were both young 15-year-olds on the Bolton Wanderers ground staff, so we were together every day for many years, and both got in the Bolton first team about the same time and played many games together.
“He was very much a technical player. I thought he would go on to play for England, I really did. When he came to Brighton from Portsmouth, I was happy we got him, and knew he would do well at this club. Brian was always a leader; he led by example on the field with his play, never really a ‘get in your face’ person, but respected as a player. There are always different types of leadership qualities that help with teams.”
The defender was not involved in any of the 12 games that rounded off the season with promotion from the old Third Division in runners up spot, although he did return to the side for an end-of-season joint testimonial game for Brian Powney and Gall which First Division Chelsea won 3-2.
Nevertheless, Saward let it be known he would entertain offers for both him and his namesake Kit.
How the Argus reported the transfer listing of John and Kit Napier
Napier takes up the story. “I asked Pat for a transfer at that time. I thought about it deeply as I loved the area and my home on Shoreham Beach. My daughter was born in Hove (she is 52 now), but I did not see me getting back in the team whilst the management remained, so I felt it was best for me to try to move my family back to the north of England.
“I worked hard every day in training hoping maybe there would be reconciliation, but it was not to be, and I was still on the outside looking in. I wanted to play and realised that was not going to happen.
“Pat did say he would help but would want a decent size fee for me to move on. We were both hotheads and I wasn’t a very patient person and wanted it to happen as quickly as possible.”
Both Napiers were still at the club as the new season got under way although Kit was transferred to Blackburn Rovers in September and John eventually got his move north the following month. Before that, though, he was recalled for a 2-1 home win over Exeter City in the League Cup.
A rare Division Two outing for Napier shortly before he left the club.
He went on as a substitute for Ken Beamish in a 1-1 draw at Aston Villa, and then, with Goodwin hospitalised for knee cartilage surgery, Napier was restored alongside Gall for a five-game run in September 1972. But his last appearance for the Albion came at home to Hull City on 7 October, when a 14,330 crowd saw Albion recover from a half-time deficit to draw 1-1 with a goal from Bert Murray.
“Back then, as there were no agents, you had to try to help yourself as a player and it was not uncommon for players to call other clubs and managers or coaches they knew,” Napier explained. “But it is not so easy when there is a transfer fee involved.
“I did get a call from Bryan Edwards who had taken over as the manager of Bradford City in the Third Division. Incidentally, I had taken over the centre-half position at Bolton when Bryan retired as a player.”
Edwards had a long career at Bolton and was in their 1958 FA Cup winning side when two Nat Lofthouse goals settled the game against a Manchester United side depleted by the Munich air disaster three months earlier. Freddie Goodwin and Alex Dawson were in the United line-up that day.
Napier eventually signed for Bradford City after a wrangle over the fee
But back to October 1972. Edwards was told Albion wanted £15,000 for Napier, who said: “I did go in to see Pat after Bradford talked to them, but he told me the club wanted the full asking price. I was mad at the time and some heated words were said. Finally, after a few weeks of happenings, they both decided to make the fee £10,000, and I moved north to Bradford.”
Napier enjoying life playing in the States
He played 107 games for Bradford City across six seasons at Valley Parade, interspersed with loan spells in the USA at Baltimore Comets, playing alongside former Albion and Bradford teammate Allan Gilliver, and its franchise follow-up, San Diego Jaws (which later became San Diego Sockers).
Following his release by Bradford, and temporary return from the States, Napier joined non-league Mossley in September 1975.
His central defensive partner there was his former Bradford City teammate, and former Leeds United and Huddersfield Town defender, Roy Ellam.
Napier made his Mossley debut in a 4-0 win over Macclesfield Town on 23 August 1975, and he went on to play in all but one of the Lilywhites’ next 24 games. He even got on the scoresheet in a 2-1 win over Gateshead in November 1975.
But, by the end of the month, he had returned to Bradford City as an assistant coach, which was an area of the game he had always looked to move into.
• In the next instalment of this series of articles, we look at the early days of Napier’s career.
A GOALKEEPER with film star looks signed for Brighton from Arsenal just after England lifted the World Cup.
Tony Burns had kept goal for the Gunners in 31 top-flight matches and Albion boss Archie Macaulay, who had played for Arsenal himself, went back to his old club to sign a no.1 to challenge the emerging local lad, Brian Powney.
It wasn’t difficult for Burns to settle at the Goldstone because the dressing room included Northern Irish full-back Jimmy Magill and winger Brian Tawse, familiar faces from his time in north London who’d also made the switch to Brighton.
It also wasn’t long before female fans who admired his smouldering good looks were sending in letters to the office inquiring about his eligibility!
Burns relived his career in detail in 2020 when interviewed by 17-year-old would-be journalist Jed Vine, who watches games at the Amex with his mother, and games at the Emirates with his dad.
Born in Edenbridge, Kent, on 27 March 1944, Burns first showed his goalkeeping prowess during his schooldays in the town before he joined Southern League club Tonbridge (now Tonbridge Angels) who he returned to twice more and later managed three times.
He made his Southern League debut against Yiewsley (later to become Hillingdon Borough) in February 1963 and only his third game for Tonbridge was as an 18-year-old against Arsenal at Highbury.
With long term custodian Jack Kelsey retiring, Arsenal were looking around for likely successors and, liking what they saw of Burns, offered him a contract.
“In his early days at Highbury, he showed immense potential and, after benefitting from Kelsey`s coaching, made encouraging strides,” a 2020 Pitching In piece for the Southern League recalled.
Manager Billy Wright gave him his senior Arsenal debut in a friendly against Enschede in Holland in August 1963, with Magill in defence, and he got his first taste of South Africa on a five-game tour the following May when he was in goal for Arsenal’s 5-1 win over a Western Province XI and their 6-0 win over an Eastern Province XI.
But his big breakthrough came when he made his league debut in a 3-2 home win over Burnley in October 1964 (three days earlier he’d played in goal in a 7-0 friendly win over non-league Corinthian Casuals).
“I felt on top of the world. I had always wanted to play for the Gunners and here I was keeping goal for them, and on the winning side at that,” he told the Albion matchday programme. “There’s only one first match and I’ll never forget this one.”
Once he got the shirt, he had a run of 26 games (32 including friendlies) from October 1964 through to the end of March 1965.
He generally played in front of a defence featuring the likes of Don Howe, Frank McLintock and Ian Ure with John Radford and Joe Baker up front.
During the first half of the 1965-66 season, Burns appeared in seven league games and three friendlies, but his final Gunners first team appearance came on 27 December 1965 in a 4-0 defeat away to Sheffield Wednesday.
Jim Furnell was Wright’s preferred first choice, and, as the season wore on, the emerging Bob Wilson was getting the nod ahead of him as stand-in (although it wasn’t until 1968 that Wilson finally ousted Furnell).
Disappointed to leave, Burns nonetheless went in search of regular football by joining Third Division Brighton for £2,000 in July 1966.
He made his first appearance for the Albion on 17 September 1966, when he took over from the injured Powney, but Brighton went down 2-0 to Grimsby Town.
Powney returned the following week and Burns had to wait until January for his next games – two FA Cup ties against Aldershot.
Burns in action versus Chelsea
He kept his place for the big fourth round FA Cup game against First Division Chelsea at the Goldstone which finished 1-1 when his former Arsenal teammate Tawse controversially had what he thought was a cracking late winner ruled out for a foul by Kit Napier.
Unfortunately, Burns conceded four in the replay at Stamford Bridge as the superior Chelsea side made the most of home advantage to ease their way through comfortably, 4-0. That was the season they went all the way to the final only to lose 2-1 to Tottenham Hotspur, whose ranks included Alan Mullery and Joe Kinnear.
By the end of the season, Burns had played 18 matches against Powney’s 37. But Burns had the upper hand in 1967-68 featuring in 29 games compared to Powney’s 21.
He also started the 1968-69 season as first choice but his 54th and final game for the Albion was in the 2-1 home defeat to Northampton in the second round of the FA Cup on 20 December 1968.
New manager Freddie Goodwin brought in former Wolves and Aston Villa ‘keeper Geoff Sidebottom to challenge Powney and let Burns leave on a free transfer in March 1969.
He joined Charlton Athletic, where he made 10 appearances in their unsuccessful tilt at promotion, but declined what he saw as a derisory contract offer. He returned to Tonbridge briefly and in January 1971 headed off to play in South Africa, initially for Durban United, and later, Maritzburg.
In his interview with Jed, he recalls playing in an English All Stars team managed by Malcolm Allison who invited him to return to England with Crystal Palace when his contract was up.
Burns made the move in October 1973 after previous Palace no.1 (and later Albion youth coach) John Jackson had moved to Orient.
He shared goalkeeping duties with Paul Hammond, playing a total of 90 matches between the sticks for Palace over the next four years under Allison and his successor Terry Venables.
In 1977, Burns played half a dozen games on loan for Brentford before heading off to the States like a lot of ageing players did at that time.
The ‘keeper played a dozen games for Memphis Rogues in the North American Football League. They were coached by former Chelsea defender and manager Eddie McCreadie although Burns had gone there to team up with former boss Allison who was sacked without a ball being kicked because he hadn’t signed enough players!
Burns played for Memphis Rogues in the USA
Among Burns’ teammates were a young Neil Smillie, who’d been struggling for games at Palace, Phil Beal, who had left Brighton the year before, John Faulkner, the one-time Leeds and Luton defender, and the flamboyant Alan Birchenall, beloved by Leicester City supporters of many generations.
Back in the UK in 1978, Burns joined Plymouth Argyle as cover for Martin Hodge, and ended his league playing days in this country appearing in 11 games in the first half of the 1978-79 season.
However, he left Home Park to rejoin Tonbridge Angels for a third time and he also played for Hastings United and Dartford.
After his playing days were over, Burns had three spells in charge of Tonbridge, from August 1980 to December 1982, August 1989 to May 1990, and in a caretaker role from November 2001 to May 2002 (by which time he was goalkeeping coach at Millwall, who he joined in 1992 under Mick McCarthy.
Burns served as goalkeeper coach under several Millwall managers. Picture: Brian Tonks.
He also spent seven years as manager of Gravesend and Northfleet (who became Ebbsfleet United) between 1982 and 1989.
But it was at Millwall where he finally found a permanent home, working under no fewer than 18 different managers, including Steve Gritt and Mark McGhee.
He was even at the helm himself for a while, working as co-caretaker manager with former Lions boss Alan McLeary after Dave Tuttle’s departure in April 2006, when Millwall’s relegation had already been confirmed.
The appointment of Nigel Spackman the following month led to Burns’ departure in July 2006, when he took up a similar role at his old club Palace, working under former Albion boss Peter Taylor coaching Julian Speroni and Scott Flinders.
Goalkeeping coach at Palace under Peter Taylor
He left Selhurst in November 2007 when Taylor lost his job, and Speroni told yourlocalguardian.co.uk: “It was sad to lose Tony Burns because we worked well with him. During last season when I wasn’t playing regular football, Tony was the one who kept me going which was very important.”
Burns moved with Taylor to Conference side Stevenage Borough but later returned to Millwall under Kenny Jackett before stepping down in 2012, when he was succeeded by Kevin Pressman.
Still, he wasn’t finished with the game, though, and at the age of 70, in the summer of 2014, he teamed up with Taylor yet again to become goalkeeping coach at Gillingham. He joined them on a part-time non-contract basis as a replacement for Carl Muggleton.
In parallel lines 