Tag: Manchester United

When Chris Cattlin rocked up to play for and manage Brighton

1-cat-in-goalIT MUST BE difficult for today’s reader to imagine a player with the opportunity to sign for either Coventry City or Chelsea choosing the Sky Blues over the London giants.

But in 1968, when the choice faced Huddersfield Town’s Cattlin, he moved to Highfield Road because the following day they were playing a star-studded Manchester United side and, as the full-back who’d be marking the legendary George Best, he couldn’t resist pitting his ability against the Irish wizard.

It was one of several career insights Cattlin revealed in an excellent interview by Doug Thomson in the Huddersfield Examiner in June 2013.

Huddersfield were happy to collect a £70,000 transfer fee when Coventry bid for Cattlin, but he told the Examiner: “Chelsea also came in for me and I was due to speak to them in the afternoon after talking to Coventry in the morning.

“City were playing Manchester United the next day and the manager, Noel Cantwell, told me I would definitely be in the team.

“I knew that if I could say I’d played against George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, I could die a happy man, so I never got as far as Stamford Bridge!

“I signed for £65 a week when the man in the street was probably getting £20, so to be paid like that for playing football made me more than happy!”

As it turned out, Cattlin marked Best out of the game and his new team won 2-0 with goals from Ernie Machin (who later left the Albion at the same time Cattlin arrived at the Goldstone) and Maurice Setters, against his old team.

Cattlin went on to play more than 250 league and cup games for Coventry, (then in the equivalent of today’s Premier League), before moving to Brighton in 1976, where his playing career finished, but he returned as manager between 1983 and 1986.

Going back to the beginning, though, Cattlin was born in Milnrow, Lancashire, on 25 June 1946, the son of a rugby league player, Bob, and his early school days were spent at Milnrow Parish School. He moved on to Ashton-under-Lyne Technical College (Geoff Hurst was three years his senior there) and then took a job in textile engineering.

In the meantime, he trained and played for Burnley’s youth team but he struggled with the 40-mile round trip travelling from his home. A Huddersfield Town scout, Harry Hooper, had spotted his potential and he was offered a professional contract with the Terriers in the summer of 1964 which allowed him to carry on working two days a week at the textiles factory.

“I went across to Leeds Road, and just fell in love with the place. It was far from luxurious, but there was just a feel about the ground and the people there,” he recalled.

Maybe it was also a feeling that Huddersfield knew a thing or two about decent left backs. Cattlin took over from Bob McNab, who later made a name for himself at Arsenal, and played four games for England, and McNab had replaced England World Cup winner Ray Wilson, who Town transferred to Everton.

Cattlin was signed by Eddie Boot only for the manager to resign the day after, following a 2-1 home defeat by Plymouth. Boot’s successor was Tom Johnston and he insisted on Cattlin becoming a full-time pro, which caused a degree of angst with Cattlin’s concerned parents, but he went for it and didn’t look back.

It was emerging coach Ian Greaves, a former Manchester United player (who later took Town to the top flight as manager), who was to have a lasting effect on Cattlin. “Ian lived in Shaw, the next village to Milnrow, and he’d give me a lift to Leeds Road each day, in the days before the M62, on that winding old road over the moors,” he explained.

“He was a great coach and later manager, and a superb motivator, just a football man through and through.”

Cattlin made his debut in a 3-1 home win over Derby on the final day of the 1964-65 Division 2 (now Championship) campaign but didn’t fully establish himself in the side until the 1966-67 campaign.

In total, he played 70 times for Huddersfield and, for a while, he was playing for the town’s football team while dad Bob was playing for its rugby league side. “My dad played for Huddersfield at rugby league, I played for Huddersfield Town at football. I think we’re the only father and son to have done that,” he said.

After that 1968 transfer to Coventry, Cattlin became a firm favourite at Highfield Road and although he didn’t quite emulate Wilson and McNab, he did play twice for England Under 23s. He made his debut on 2 October 1968 in a 3-1 win over Wales at Wrexham in a side that also included Peter Shilton in goal, West Ham’s Billy Bonds and John Sissons and Everton’s Howard Kendall and John Hurst.

Six weeks later he won his other cap in a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands at Birmingham’s St Andrews ground, when Arsenal’s John Radford and Hurst were the scorers. Cattlin also represented the Football League v the Scottish Football League.

Cattlin was part of the only Coventry side ever to qualify for Europe (in 1970-71) and remembered relative success, only eventually getting knocked out by a Bayern Munich side that included the likes of Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller.

On another occasion, in a tour match, he played in a 2-2 daw against Santos of Brazil, with Pele in their team, in front of an 80,000 crowd. “Pitting your wits against those kinds of players was a fantastic education,” he said.

When manager Gordon Milne decided to give Cattlin a free transfer after nine years and 239 matches for Coventry, fans organised a petition to keep him at Highfield Road.

But there was no turning back and Peter Taylor signed him for Brighton – along with another experienced defender, Graham Cross (from Leicester City) – a short time before quitting the club to rejoin Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest.

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It was Alan Mullery’s good fortune to inherit a squad that would take Division 3 by storm to earn promotion and Cattlin was able to contribute in both full back positions although mainly at left back, having the edge on Harry Wilson.

With the arrival of Gary Williams from Preston, Cattlin switched to the right and vied with Ken Tiler for the shirt, regaining the upper hand for the final two thirds of the season which ended with promotion from the old Division 2 in 1978.

“That Brighton promotion team – what a fantastic set of lads, with no little ability,” he said. “They could all play and were great characters. I was a very lucky lad to come along at the end of my career and join a dressing room like that.”

Although he made just one appearance (in the disastrous 4-0 League Cup defeat at Arsenal) during the 1979-80 season, he notched up a total of 114 games for Brighton.

And he obviously liked the place so much that once his playing days were over he opened a rock shop on Brighton seafront, as well as investing in property. However, three years after quitting as a player, he returned to the Goldstone as a coach, appointed in the summer of 1983 by chairman Mike Bamber to assist manager Jimmy Melia – without Melia’s knowledge!

It all got rather messy with Melia and Cattlin clearly not getting on and talk of a takeover rumbling on in the background.

By the middle of October, Melia quit and Cattlin took over as manager, with another well known former left back, Sammy Nelson, elevated from reserve team manager to assistant manager.

Cattlin then began to shape his own squad and among notable signings who served Albion well were Steve Penney, Danny Wilson and Dean Saunders while there were some memorable cup games, including beating Liverpool in what I believe was the first FA Cup tie – other than finals – to be shown live on TV.

One of TV’s pundits of today, Martin Keown, was another Cattlin signing, joining on loan from Arsenal and beginning with Brighton what was a memorable career with the Gunners, Aston Villa, Everton and England.

Cattlin admitted in 2010: “I had to sell a lot of the popular, best players for financial reasons and bring other ones in to keep the show on the road and make it interesting for the crowd. That was my job.” The likes of Steve Foster (to Aston Villa), Jimmy Case (to Southampton), Tony Grealish (to West Brom) and Gordon Smith (to Manchester City) were all sold by Cattlin.

In 1984, Cattlin certainly found an entertainer when he brought to the Albion a former teammate from his days at Leeds Road, the mercurial Frank Worthington, who moved along the south coast from Southampton.

By that time, Worthington wasn’t too mobile but he’d lost none of his skill and flamboyance and Cattlin told his 2013 interviewer: “He did a good job for me.

“Frank wasn’t only a great player, but a great bloke as well, a dedicated trainer and a great bloke to have around a club.”

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Barking up the wrong tree? Cattlin couldn’t quite restore Albion to the elite when he returned as manager

Cattlin stayed in the manager’s chair until April 1986, overseeing finishes of ninth, sixth and 11th in the second tier, although he clearly felt the writing was on the wall as far as his job was concerned when the Albion board wouldn’t give him £6,500 to sign the experienced defender Jeff Clarke from Newcastle, as Cattlin explained at the Albion Roar live show in December 2018 (skip to 28 minutes in).

Distractions and changes in the boardroom were an uncomfortable backdrop to much of his time in charge and it was evident that the fans didn’t perceive Cattlin to be to blame for the failure to finish higher.

When he was sacked, there were protests from supporters, a 2,000-signature petition calling for his reinstatement and Cattlin himself addressed a 200-strong rally in Hove.

But it was all to no avail. His former boss, Mullery, returned and Cattlin went back to his non-football business interests.

In a 2010 interview in the matchday programme, Cattlin said: “I think I deserved another season at least to get them back into what is now the Premiership.

“If it had gone wonky then they wouldn’t have had to fire me – I’d have gone myself. Nevertheless, to play, coach and manage Brighton and Hove Albion made me a very proud man. But I wish I could have put them back where I felt they belonged.”

  • Pictures show (top) Chris Cattlin pictured in Goal magazine in Coventry’s sky blue; in an Evening Argus shot alongside new manager Alan Mullery and fellow close season signing Graham Cross; how the Albion programme headed his managerial notes.

Cattlin pictured in 2010

Why centre forward Alex Dawson’s boots were kept spotless by George Best

Dawson BHAThe mercurial footballing genius George Best used to clean the boots of the centre forward who scored twice in the very first Albion game I saw.

By the time of that 3-0 win v Walsall in 1969, Alex Dawson was on his way down the footballing pyramid, just over a decade after he came mighty close to perishing with some of his Manchester United teammates in the Munich air disaster.

Only five years earlier the swashbuckling centre forward had scored twice in the FA Cup Final at Wembley as his Preston North End side lost 3-2 to a Bobby Moore-led West Ham United.

The former Manchester United centre forward arrived at the Goldstone through a connection made at Old Trafford in that post-Munich era. Freddie Goodwin, another pitched from the United reserves into the first team as a consequence of the tragedy, made Dawson his first signing when he took over as Brighton manager in December 1968. A £9,000 fee brought him to Sussex from Bury.

At the Albion, he linked up with another familiar face in Nobby Lawton, a tenacious midfield player who had also been at Man U with him and then captained Preston in the aforementioned cup final.

Lawton, now sadly no longer with us, mentioned “that great striker Alex Dawson” in an interview he gave to the Lancashire Evening Post, published in May 2004.

“I’d known Alex since we were both on the groundstaff at Old Trafford,” Lawton recalled. “He was a bull of a centre-forward and was a Deepdale hero.

“He’s a lovely man and I was best man at his wedding. He hasn’t changed at all, and we are still great friends.

“Alex and the rest of the team would have graced any Premiership side today.”

Dawson certainly arrived with a bang on the south coast finding the net no fewer than 17 times in just 23 games, including three braces and four in an away game at Hartlepool.

The following season, Goodwin added Alan Gilliver to the strikeforce and he outshone Dawson in the scoring stakes, although the Scot still scored 12 in 36 games.

As is so often the case, it was a change of manager that marked the end of his time with the Albion. With Goodwin departed for Birmingham, replacement Pat Saward didn’t give him much of a look-in and he went out on loan to Brentford where he showed he could still find the back of the net with familiar regularity.

Greville Waterman, on bfctalk.wordpress.com in July 2014, shared a great magazine front cover featuring Dawson and recalled: “He was a gnarled veteran of thirty with a prominent broken nose and a face that surely only a mother could love, but he had an inspirational loan spell at Griffin Park in 1970 scoring seven times in eleven games including the winner in that amazing late, late show FA Cup victory against Gillingham. Typical of the times at Griffin Park, he departed after his loan spell as apparently the club was unable to agree terms with him. A classic example of both parties suffering given that Dawson never played another Football League game and Brentford lacked a focal point in their attack until the arrival of John O’Mara later that same season.”

Released by the Albion at the end of the 70-71 season, Dawson’s final footballing action was with non-league Corby Town.

Nevertheless, he could look back on a fantastic career as a goalscorer, with a strike rate the envy of many a modern day forward.

To this day, he is still the youngest player (at 18 years and 33 days) to have scored a hat-trick in a FA Cup semi-final (in Man U’s 5-3 1958 win over Fulham) and he is one of only nine players to score in each of his first three Man U games.

Originally from Aberdeen (he went to the same school as that United legend Denis Law), his parents had moved down to Hull and Dawson joined United straight from Hull Schoolboys. He made his United debut in April 1957 aged just 17.

On redcafe.net, Julian Denny recalled how Dawson once scored three hat-tricks in a row for a Man U reserve team that was regularly watched by crowds of over 10,000!

In researching for this piece, I’ve read some views that Dawson’s career with United may have panned out differently if he hadn’t been thrust into first team action at such a young age.

But that was one of the consequences of the Munich air disaster, which he has spoken about in several interviews since, usually around notable anniversaries of the tragedy.

It’s difficult to tell whether there were mental scars from the trauma of the crash but Dawson was just short of his 18th birthday when several of his close mates died. 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, February 21, and before that he was the one who really helped me settle in.”

Just 13 days after the accident, Dawson took his place beside survivors Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg as United faced Sheffield Wednesday in the fifth round of the FA Cup – and won 3-0.

That 5-3 semi-final replay win against Fulham was not surprisingly an early career highlight and when talking about it in 2013 (on the 55th anniversary of the disaster), Dawson told manutd.com: “In our first game with Fulham, 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.

“Nobody can ever take that afternoon away from me. 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 – I’ll remember that afternoon for as long as I live.”

In the two seasons following Munich, Dawson became a more established first team player although it would be wrong to describe him as a regular.

Another Scot, David Herd had scored a hat-trick for Arsenal against United and Matt Busby took him to Old Trafford in July 1961. It signalled the end of Dawson’s time with United.

Nevertheless, by the time he was sold to Preston in October 1961 for £18,000, he’d scored 54 goals in 93 United appearances.

And what about Best and his boots? It was the job of apprentices to look after the footwear of United’s first team players, and it was the young Best, who became a United apprentice in August 1961, who was detailed to keep Dawson’s scoring boots in good order.

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.”

During a prolific time at Preston, Dawson scored 114 goals in 197 appearances, with the highlight that FA Cup Final in 1964.

Albertan on pne.net in 2012 said: “Alex Dawson was a super player … He was the complete centre forward – powerful, mobile and lethal with either foot or his head. He was also brave, committed and characterful.” While sliper on the same forum added: “In his prime Dawson was a powerhouse and great to watch.. I can safely say I’ve never seen a better header of a ball at Deepdale.”

Curlypete recalled: “You could literally see goalkeepers tremble when Dawson was running at them, it was either the ball, ‘keeper or more likely both who ended up in the net.”

Pictures:

• Top, pictured wearing the 1970-71 kit.

• Kneeling, from a 1969 Albion line-up.

• A magazine front cover.

• Brighton Herald’s black and white photograph in a 1969 Albion programme shows Dawson in goalmouth action watched by colleague John Napier (no.5).

Welsh wizard Peter O’Sullivan an all-time Albion great

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WHILE Peter Ward rightly attracted much of the attention during Albion’s rise to the top in the late ‘70s, few would deny that midfield maestro PETER O’SULLIVAN also deserves a place amongst the club’s all-time greats.

Sully had a long career with the Seagulls before a short stint with Fulham towards the end of his playing days.

The statisticians of the modern football era would have needed their calculators to record the ‘assists’ racked up by Sully, who, from the left wing or left midfield, found goalscoring teammates with unerring accuracy throughout a remarkable 11 years with the Albion.

Managers came and went, a huge swathe of teammates were discarded, but Sully stayed put, showed his worth to whoever sat in the manager’s chair, and entertained the watching faithful.

He played in the same position as the Brazilian genius Rivelino and even sported the same style of moustache in homage to him.

As Brighton rose through the footballing pyramid, Sully was a constant, displaying the talent to make an impact in the third, second and top tiers. One of his former teammates, Andy Rollings, maintained: “He should have played at the top level all the time, he was that good a player.

“He had natural ability and great fitness,” Rollings told freelance journalist Spencer Vignes. “What he did at this club was incredible, and as an individual player he was one of the best I ever played with. He’s a lovely, smashing guy.”

In the excellent Vignes’ book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books Publishing),  Sully admitted there had been occasions when he couldn’t wait to get away from Brighton, and he had some serious arguments with all of the managers he played under.

Sully shared his thoughts in a Goal magazine article of 22 December 1973, a couple of months after the arrival of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. Having won promotion from the Third Division, won five Wales under 23 caps and made his full international debut against Scotland, he was disillusioned after relegation from Division 2.

“I was bitterly disappointed at that,” he said. “It seemed at last I was getting over the depression of being in the Manchester United reserves for four years when life began to turn sour again.”

However, with the arrival of Clough and Taylor, O’Sullivan changed his outlook and told the magazine: “I’ve been impressed with their ideas and they have completely overhauled the set up down here. Now I am more than happy to stay – that is if Mr Clough still wants me – and help Brighton back into the big time.

“The potential down here is enormous and I am sure we will realise it under Mr Clough.”

Vignes’ 2007 interview with Sully explained exactly how he ended up at Brighton having been given a free transfer from Manchester United. None other than the great Bobby Charlton was responsible.

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Young Peter crouches alongside George Best in a Manchester United team photo

Born in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, on 4 March 1951, Sully had trained alongside the United legend while at Old Trafford as a youngster and, on being released on a free transfer in 1970, was considering offers from several different clubs.

He’d gone to Bristol to have a trial with Bristol City when, on a neighbouring pitch, Charlton was taking part in an England training session prior to the 1970 Mexico World Cup.

The kindly maestro exchanged the time of day with his recently departed colleague and asked which clubs were in for him. On hearing that one of them was Brighton, managed by his former Busby Babe teammate, Freddie Goodwin, Charlton advised him to link up with his old pal……and the rest, as they say, is history.

What Charlton and Sully didn’t know, however, was that no sooner had he arrived on the south coast than Goodwin was heading for the exit, en route to Birmingham City. Sully hadn’t even kicked a ball in anger for him.

“I was a little apprehensive about joining Brighton and it was unsettling when Freddie Goodwin left the club before I had even played for Albion,” he said. “I wondered what was going on and how it would affect me.

“But then Pat Saward arrived and I was overjoyed when he put me in the team. My hopes were quickly dashed again, though, when he dropped me after about six games.”

A homesick Sully struggled to settle at first but he stuck at it and went on to cement his place in the side. He ultimately featured under four different managers, Saward, Clough, Taylor and Alan Mullery.

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He was part of the promotion-winning teams in 1972, 1976 and 1979, and was player of the season in 1978. He won promotion with Fulham too, going up to the old Division 2 in 1982 when the former Newcastle, Arsenal and England centre forward Malcolm MacDonald was in charge.

Sully had one amazing period with the Albion in which he made 194 consecutive appearances, an Albion record for an outfield player.

IMG_5091The performances of the lad from Colwyn Bay also saw him earn three international caps for Wales, two against Scotland and one in a rout against Malta when he also got on the scoresheet. Unfortunately for him, during the same period, a superb left-sided player called Leighton James was the first choice for the national side.

“When I joined Manchester United from school it was always one of my ambitions to play for Wales,” he told the Albion matchday programme. “But I thought those hopes had been dashed when Manchester United released me.”PO Wales

Sully’s 491 appearances for Brighton made him the club’s longest-serving post-war player. He actually left the club in 1980 to play in America for San Diego Sockers but a £50,000 transfer fee saw him return just five months later.

Eventually Sully moved on to Fulham in 1981 and notched up 46 appearances. There were short loan spells with Reading and Charlton in 1982-83 and his Football League career came to an end when he made 14 appearances for Aldershot in the following season.