Tag: Millwall

‘Hendo’ earned Seagulls stripes before becoming Hornets’ hero

WATFORD play-off final goalscorer Darius Henderson was the perfect foil for pint-sized Leon Knight at the beginning of Albion’s 2003-04 season.

Steve Coppell borrowed the 6’4” striker from his old pal Alan Pardew at Reading giving him game time that was eluding him at the Madejski Stadium.

There was plenty of competition for places in Reading’s forward line at the time with Nicky Forster, Shaun Goater and Nathan Tyson ahead of him.

It had led to another forward, Martin Butler, being sold to Rotherham and because Pardew generally picked a lone frontman, Henderson found himself on the fringes.

“The solitary striker system, and the superb form of Nicky Forster, meant the vast majority of his appearances came as a substitute,” the Albion matchday programme noted.

Young Henderson at Reading

In fact, he’d started only five league matches for Reading after turning professional in August 1999; but he had appeared 65 times as a substitute!

Given the chance of a start with the Seagulls, he got off to a flyer with the opening goal of the season from the penalty spot in a 3-1 win at Oldham, as well as netting the opener in a 2-0 home win over Luton Town.

Henderson, who celebrated his 22nd birthday while with the Seagulls, was adept at setting up chances for Knight too, outjumping QPR’s defence to set up Knight to score the winner as Albion won 2-1 at the Withdean and following it up at Plymouth where a strong run and cross teed up Knight for Albion’s third in a thrilling 3-3 draw.

It was good news when Pardew agreed to the loan being extended by another month, Coppell admitting: “It’s as good as it gets as far as I am concerned.

“Darius has given us a physical presence we didn’t have before and with him in the side I didn’t feel as exposed as we were defending set pieces.”

Unfortunately, Coppell couldn’t resist the lure of the Madejski Stadium when Pardew was poached to manage West Ham, and Henderson returned to Berkshire after 10 matches.

Born in Sutton, Surrey, on 7 September 1981, Henderson was brought up in Doncaster, south Yorkshire, and, after being rejected by Leeds, it was Rovers who gave him his first steps towards a professional career.

However, he joined Reading’s academy in 1999 and was one of three of that squad – along with Tyson and Alex Haddow – to make it through to the first team.

Although Coppell gave him game time at Brighton, the manager faced the same striker surplus issues as Pardew once he arrived at Reading, and he therefore sanctioned Henderson’s departure in January 2004. He’d made only 12 starts for the Royals but 71 appearances as a sub.

He was signed by Andy Hessenthaler’s Gillingham, telling the club’s official website: “I have had a good chat with the chairman and the gaffer and as far as I’m concerned I’m over the moon and am looking forward to playing now and getting to know my new team-mates.

“There was limited first-team options for me at Reading which was made clear by Steve Coppell. There was no doubt in my mind that I had to get away.”

He scored 10 goals in one and a half seasons with the Gills, as well as enjoying a prolific loan spell at Swindon Town, where he scored five times in six games.

The day before the 2005-06 season got underway, a £450,000 fee took him to Watford where he enjoyed the best three years of his career.

He became something of a fans’ favourite, with Matt Reveley, of footballfancast.com, explaining: “Darius is a player that often epitomises Watford’s footballing ethic (for) the 110 per cent effort and workrate that Watford fans like to see from their players.”

Manager Aidy Boothroyd paired him with Marlon King and Henderson’s 14 goals in 27 matches contributed towards Watford winning promotion to the Premier League.

Henderson scores against Leeds in the play-off final

It couldn’t have been sweeter when he scored a late penalty to round off Watford’s 3-0 win over Leeds in the 2006 play-off final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

As Henderson told watfordlegends.com: “Leeds released me when I was 16, and ever since that very day they released me I have always had the drive to go on and prove them wrong, so it was a great feeling to prove my point to them.

“The whole day though was memorable, just a terrific day all round and to score as well topped it off perfectly. I was mentally exhausted after the game though. It was incredibly draining and very emotional.”

The win sent the Hornets up with Henderson’s former club Reading and future employer Sheffield United.

Goals were far harder to come by amongst the elite and he managed only three as Watford went back down to the Championship.

He had scored 31 times in 117 appearances for the Hornets before being sold to the Blades for £2m in July 2008.

Before that, the striker could have joined Preston North End after a £1.3m fee was agreed between the clubs, but he decided to stay at Vicarage Road and fight for his place.

When Kevin Blackwell ‘sold’ United to him, though, he was persuaded. “Sheffield United is a massive club and it was a great opportunity for me so I went for it,” he told watfordlegends.com.

Henderson once again got amongst the goals, netting 21 for United, including one in April 2011 in a surprise 3-2 win over his old club Reading. It wasn’t enough to prevent relegation under Micky Adams, though, and Henderson moved to Millwall to take over the main striker role from Steve Morison, who had switched to Norwich City.

Goals galore for the Lions

Henderson’s goals continued to flow and he registered three hat-tricks and a brace in his first Championship season with the Lions. In total, he scored 26 times in 56 matches for them, including his 100th professional goal.

Wage bill trimming in January 2013 saw him move to fellow Championship side Nottingham Forest where his teammates included Dan Harding, Greg Halford and Gonzalo Jara Reyes. Unfortunately, he was more often a substitute than a starter for Billy Davies’ side.

Forest forward

In the summer of 2014, former Albion boss Russell Slade picked him up on a free transfer for third-tier Leyton Orient on a three-year deal, although Slade left the club in September.

Henderson was also on the move again after only one season in East London, heading back up north with Scunthorpe United. But after failing to register a goal in 16 matches, he moved to Tony Mowbray’s Coventry City (above) in February 2016 on a short-term deal, once again failing to get on the scoresheet in five substitute appearances.

He joined his last league club in August 2016, linking up with League Two Mansfield Town, where he scored once in 13 matches before manager Steve Evans released him. He dropped out of the league and moved to Eastleigh Town. But he played only two games for the National League side and retired from playing in April 2017.

According to Everything Orient, Henderson now works as a consultant for AFC Bournemouth.

Bearing in mind the number of clubs he played for, it’s not really surprising @DHenderson7 has 13,500 followers on Twitter.

The Harry Hotspur youngster who went west

MULTIPLE loans away from parent club Tottenham Hotspur didn’t succeed in laying a path to a top level football career for striker Jonathan Obika.

One of the last such arrangements saw the young forward spend three months with the Seagulls in the 2013-14 season.

Nathan Jones, no.2 to Brighton head coach Oscar Garcia, had seen what Obika could do when the young striker had been under him as a coach on loan at Yeovil and Charlton Athletic.

Unfortunately, his impact with the Seagulls was underwhelming even though he scored on his first (and, ultimately, only) full start in a 3-1 win away to Port Vale in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Obika salutes his one and only goal for Brighton

Albion’s other goals that day, from Rohan Ince and Solly March, were also their first for the club – generating the statistic that it was the first Albion game in 110 years in which three players had scored their first goal in the same league or cup match.

It had been an amazing goalscoring performance for Spurs reserves that prompted Albion to make a move for Obika as cover for first choice Leonardo Ulloa, especially with Craig Mackail-Smith and Will Hoskins sidelined by injury and Ashley Barnes on the brink of a move to Burnley.

The Argus reported that Obika had previously been a target but a move had been put on ice because he’d been injured. His return to fitness saw him net a double hat-trick in a friendly for Tottenham against Charlton’s under-21s, watched by Jones.

“The report coming back on him after the game was one word – lethal!” former Seagulls goalkeeper Ben Roberts, then on the coaching staff at Charlton, told the Argus.

“Like Nathan, I worked with Jon at Yeovil and then at Charlton and he’s a really good pro,” said Roberts. “He is guaranteed to score goals. He is a real predator around the box.

Obika in action for Yeovil

“I’ve been waiting for his career to really kick off. When he came to us at Charlton it took him a couple of weeks to get up to speed. But he was brilliant for us. The end of the season came too soon for us.

“He is a great signing for Brighton and he will suit the way they play.”

However, Garcia also brought in Spaniard David Rodriguez at the same time and Obika found himself down the pecking order, especially when Manchester United loanee Jesse Lingard was added to the forward options.

The Vale cup game aside, Obika made just seven appearances as a substitute but didn’t add to the lone goal and was eventually recalled by Spurs and sent out on loan to Charlton again until the end of the season.

Nevertheless, Garcia said: “He came in to give us forward cover and, while he may not have played as much as he would have liked, he has been a great professional and a pleasure to work with.”

Obika’s long association with Tottenham finally came to an end in September that year when he headed west to League One Swindon Town, where he played for three years, scoring 28 times in 108 games for the Robins.

In 2017, he switched to Town’s rivals Oxford United on a two-year deal before then trying his luck in Scotland, playing in the Scottish Premier League for St Mirren.

On the expiry of that contract, Obika moved to League One Morecambe and, in January 2022, found himself back in the news ahead of this year’s FA Cup third round when Morecambe travelled to North London to take on the club who nurtured his early career for 13 years.

Although Morecambe took a shock first half lead against Spurs through defender Antony O’Connor, it wasn’t a fairytale ending as the Premier League side eventually won the tie 3-1 with three goals in the last 16 minutes of the game.

Obika had to watch from the bench until the 58th minute when he replaced Jonah Ayunga – a Brighton reserve player between 2016 and 2018 – with Morecambe still clinging on to their slim lead.

Born in Enfield on 12 September 1990, of Nigerian parents, Obika grew up in Edmonton and it was while playing football for his primary school, St Paul’s & All Hallows, that he was scouted by Tottenham.

“I lived five minutes from the stadium, so I used to walk to training as a 10, 11-year-old,” he said. “That was my only focus back then.” He later attended Bishop Stopford School in Enfield and left with seven GCSEs.

Originally a left winger, Spurs’ under 18s coach Alex Inglethorpe was responsible for moving him to play as a central striker and in the 2007-08 season he was top scorer for the Spurs academy side.

Those goals caught the attention of first team boss Harry Redknapp and he signed his first professional contract at 18, while a second-year trainee in the academy, and earned a call-up to the first team squad.

Wearing the number 80, he made his debut off the bench in a UEFA Cup game in Holland against NEC Nijmegen on 28 November 2008. A few weeks later, he made his first senior start in front of the White Hart Lane faithful, playing against Shakhtar Donetsk in the same competition.

“I didn’t know I was starting at the beginning of the game, there were a few injuries so a lot of the youth team players trained that week and we were in the squad,” Obika remembered.

When announcing the team, Redknapp actually read out his name as John Utaka, his former player at Portsmouth, amid much hilarity. “That broke the ice,” said Obika. “I was less nervous after that. I was more relaxed and actually ended up having a good game. To play at the Lane, having grown up down the road, was a great feeling and I had all my family and friends there that night.”

Along with Inglethorpe, the coaches who most influenced his development at Spurs were John McDermott and, when he progressed to the reserves, Tim Sherwood, Les Ferdinand and former Albion full-back Chris Ramsey.

Obika and fellow Spurs youngster Andros Townsend were sent out on loan to Yeovil – it was the first of four loan spells there for Obika – as recalled by Jones in an interview with coachesvoice.com: “A host of other clubs wanted them, but I think Harry saw two young kids who wanted to play, and he saw something in us as a coaching team.

“Townsend clearly had huge drive and ambition, and Obika scored the goals that kept us in League One that season – so we will always be thankful to Harry for that.”

Obika recalled: “While I was at Yeovil, Nathan Jones was my coach and I built up a good relationship with him. He would stay behind with me while I did extra shooting: he didn’t need to, I could have done it with other teammates, but he wanted to be there and help me progress and I really appreciated that. He is a good man. He also took me to Charlton for a loan spell and, of course, to Brighton.”

Obika also had loan stints at Millwall, Crystal Palace, Peterborough and Swindon although in the 2012-13 season he did manage to get two more games for the Spurs first team, featuring in the League Cup and the FA Cup.

He went on as a 75th minute substitute for Clint Dempsey when André Villas-Boas’ Spurs side beat Carlisle United 3-0 in the League Cup in September 2012, and was a 59th-minute substitute for Gylfi Sigurdsson when Leeds dumped Spurs out of the FA Cup 2-1 in a fourth round tie at Elland Road in January 2013.

Eventful Albion stopover for on-loan Calvin Andrew

JOURNEYMAN striker Calvin Andrew is unlikely to forget his eventful months playing for the Seagulls on loan from Crystal Palace.

The Luton-born forward got off to a great start in January 2009 when he scored a 90th-minute winner on his debut for the Seagulls.

In only his fourth game, he damaged a hamstring against his hometown club – a match that turned out to be the last for the manager who’d brought him in on loan.

While Andrew was back at Selhurst Park recovering from the injury, a new boss – but familiar face – took charge at the Withdean.

Andrew rejoined the Seagulls but couldn’t force his way into the starting line-up because Lloyd Uwusu had arrived to take centre stage. However, the loanee scored two vital goals in Albion’s ‘Great Escape’ when going on as a substitute.

To cap it all, in the nail-biting last game of the season, when Brighton just preserved their League One status with a 1-0 win over Stockport County, Andrew suffered a horrific injury which sidelined him for six months.

Andrew, who had lost his place at Palace after picking up an injury at the start of the season, had joined the Seagulls as part of a major January transfer window overhaul Micky Adams oversaw in an attempt to revive the club’s flagging League One fortunes.

When he signed, Adams said: “Calvin is a young centre-forward and will complement our existing forwards by giving us an added physical presence up front.

“He is over six-foot tall and the type of striker who makes things happen and can be a real handful for opposing defenders.”

The player himself, who had only joined Palace the previous summer for a £30,000 fee, said: “I went there and at the start of the season I was playing games and I was doing well. But then the situation changed. I got injured and since then I haven’t been able to get back in the team.

“The team has been doing really well and it’s totally understandable from my point of view. Neil Warnock still rates me highly, but he wants me to go out and get some games and get myself ready for when my chance does come.

“It was quite an easy decision. There were a few clubs in for me, but Brighton is relatively close to where I’m living so it was an easy choice. It’s a good club.

“I didn’t know any of the players, but I knew the manager. He’s a great manager and I’m looking forward to playing for him. Everybody knows about Nicky Forster. He’s an experienced player and there’s always something to learn as well as forming a good partnership.”

With Forster scoring Albion’s first against Hartlepool United at the Withdean on 31 January 2009, the script looked like it had been perfectly written when Andrew netted a winner in the last minute to seal a 2-1 victory.

Unfortunately, successive home defeats – 4-2 to Peterborough United and 2-0 to Carlisle United – in five days followed by elimination from the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at Luton the following week was too much for Adams to stomach and he decided to quit after meeting chairman Dick Knight the day before the next match, which ironically saw Albion win 1-0 at Millwall.

Andrew wasn’t involved because he’d picked up a hamstring injury at Kenilworth Road, a ground where he’d made a first team debut as a 17-year-old in the 2004-05 season. Born in Luton on 19 December 1986, Andrew was a prolific goalscorer as a youth player at his hometown club.

When he was sent out on loan to gain experience at League Two Grimsby Town in 2005, he played nine matches under manager Russell Slade.

And it was Slade who was parachuted in at the Withdean to try to steer Albion away from the League One relegation trapdoor in the Spring of 2009.

Even though Albion picked up only four points from Slade’s first seven games in charge, the former Yeovil boss slowly turned things around with four wins in the next five games to lift the Seagulls out of the bottom four.

Andrew spoke about the change in fortunes in an Argus interview. He told reporter Steve Hollis: “We have shown different qualities which I don’t think we had when I was at the club before my injury. There is some real resilience now.

“I know Russell Slade quite well and he asks all of his teams to show some grit when the going gets tough. He demands you stick in there when you are struggling and to keep going.”

Andrew was buoyant having headed the winner from Gary Hart’s cross in the 52nd minute at Bristol Rovers after leaving the bench before half-time to replace the injured Dean Cox.

“That was a big goal,” he said. “It was important for me because I am coming back from injury but it was more important for the club and the town.

“I usually hang around the back post when I am playing on the left but Dean White told me to get into attacking positions and it was a cross you dream about from Hart.”

He told Hollis: “When I initially had the injury, my fear was that I wouldn’t play again this season. I had a very bad tear in two places in the hamstring and was told it would take a very long time to repair.

“Fortunately, I seem to recover pretty quickly, and I am glad because I want to play a part in helping Albion stay up. It means a lot for me that Brighton stay up, even though I am only on loan.

“I have been made to not only feel part of the team but part of the town and it would be awful to go down.

“The supporters have been great and welcomed me even though I am from a rival team, so it is my duty to give 110 per cent. Just because I am on loan doesn’t make any difference.”

Andrew had to contend himself with another appearance from the bench in the following match but, again, he made a positive impact after replacing Hart, who limped off injured after only nine minutes of the game at Huddersfield.

The young striker levelled up the game after Town had taken the lead and Owusu continued his purple patch of form by netting a second equaliser to give Albion a share of the spoils.

Palace boss Warnock had been contemplating recalling Andrew but was told he would start in Albion’s crunch final home game against Stockport County. In fact, Slade once again opted to use Gary Hart in the starting line-up instead but Andrew was sent on in injured Hart’s place after only 17 minutes and went close to breaking the deadlock with a header that hit the top of the bar.

Forster, who had also been troubled by injury throughout the season, had to replace Andrew for the second half because he picked up an anterior cruciate knee ligament injury which ultimately prevented him playing for six months.

It wasn’t until October 2009 that Andrew got back playing for Palace reserves, and their assistant manager, Mick Jones told the club’s website: “Calvin played for half-an-hour on Monday. He is miles ahead of schedule following one of the worst injuries I have ever seen.”

The 2009-10 season saw Palace in all sorts of trouble: going into administration, Warnock departing as a result, Paul Hart taking over as manager, and the side only narrowly avoiding relegation. Andrew got 13 starts as Palace battled at the wrong end of the Championship, but he was more often a substitute, coming off the bench on 19 occasions.

With game time limited under new boss George Burley the following season, Andrew once again went out on loan: briefly to feature in three games for fellow Championship side Millwall in November, and in the New Year to League One Swindon Town, where his old Palace boss Hart was in charge.

Although he was involved in the Palace set-up at the start of the 2011-12 season, by the following March he went out on loan again, this time reuniting with Slade at Leyton Orient. He only started two matches, though, and didn’t score in any of the 10 games played while he was at Brisbane Road.

At the end of the season, Palace boss Dougie Freedman didn’t offer Andrew a new contract. His next stop saw him link up with League Two Port Vale on a two-month deal under former Albion boss Adams.

While he managed to earn a contract until the end of the season, he only started eight matches and was used as a substitute on 15 occasions.

With no new deal in the offing, he then switched to another League Two side, Mansfield Town, for the first part of 2013-14 before joining York City in the closing months.

It was in the summer of 2014 that he finally found a more permanent berth, at Rochdale, who’d been newly promoted to League One.

In six seasons at Spotland, Andrew scored 28 goals in 231 appearances and over four years was recognised as a ‘community champion’ for the amount of work he did in the local community, including school visits and involvement with the club’s women’s teams. In 2020, he was declared the League One PFA Community Champion.

One blot on his copybook came in 2016 when he was handed a 12-match FA ban (later reduced to nine games) after video evidence found him guilty of elbowing Oldham’s Peter Clarke in the face in an incident the referee missed.

After leaving Rochdale, he didn’t get fixed up with a new club until March 2021, when he joined Barrow AFC until the end of the season.

• Pictures from matchday programmes.

‘Talent in his boots and balance sheets in his briefcase’

ROBERT CODNER, Brighton’s first black captain in the early ‘90s, was an enigma for plenty of managers throughout his playing days but, by his own admission, the much-maligned Barry Lloyd got the best out of him.

A dynamic midfielder with a terrific shot in his locker, Codner made way more appearances for the Albion than any other club he went to and his attachment to the Seagulls continued into the modern era when he was Solly March’s agent.

Of Lloyd, he told Albion’s matchday programme: “Barry Lloyd was good for me and I don’t think he gets the acknowledgement he deserves as he steered the club through some difficult times. I know I had my moments on and off the pitch, but he always stood by me and backed me all the way.”

Born in Walthamstow on 23 January 1965, nearby Tottenham Hotspur were Codner’s first club and, although he featured in their youth team alongside future first-teamers Ian Crook, Mark Bowen and Tony Parks, he didn’t take the next step with them.

“It is very difficult to come through at White Hart Lane, they always seemed keener to go and buy someone than risk a youngster,” Codner told Shoot! magazine.

And in a matchday programme interview with Dave Beckett, he said: “At 18, Tottenham told me that they wouldn’t put me on a professional contract, so I ended up at Leicester under Gordon Milne for about 18 months.

“I never managed to make a break into the first team which I thought I deserved, and that’s why I left in the end.”

In a slightly different telling of the story, he said: “At the end of my contract he (Milne) didn’t offer me another one which was a bitter disappointment. I felt let down and was disillusioned with the game.”

After a spell working on a building site, he tried to get fixed up with Luton Town but their manager, David Pleat, urged him to get experience playing non-League football while they kept tabs on him.

“That’s why I joined Dagenham for four or five months, but I didn’t particularly like it there, so when Barnet offered me a good deal and Luton said they couldn’t top it, I switched clubs,” he said.

His form for Barnet brought him selection for the England semi-professional side; Wimbledon showed some interest but in a pre-season game in August 1988, as a triallist for Millwall, he played against the Albion.

Brighton boss Lloyd was sufficiently impressed that he was prepared to fork out what at the time seemed like an amazing sum of £115,000 for a non-league player to give him another chance to make it as a professional. (Only a matter of days previously, Lloyd paid the same sum to secure the services of centre back Nicky Bissett from Barnet).

The ebullient Barry Fry, Barnet manager at the time, said: “Codner is a super athlete with two good feet, pace and an ability to score goals.”

The conundrum at the time was that away from football Codner had begun to pursue a successful career in the City, having turned the tables on a would-be finance salesman suggesting he could do a better job.

The salesman’s employers agreed and Codner was suddenly thrust into the world of advising on unit trusts, pensions, mortgages and insurance.

It prompted a description of him in that Shoot! article as the ‘City whizz-kid with talent in his boots and balance sheets in his briefcase’.

In an interview with John Vinicombe in the Argus, Codner denied he was not utterly dedicated to playing.

“That is not so,” he said. “I’m more dedicated because I choose to play. I always believed I would get a second chance after what happened at Leicester, and Brighton have given me that chance.

“Players have to look ahead, and, ten years from now, I want to be comfortably off.

“Of course, I’m ambitious. I want to be a millionaire as a footballer and be a millionaire financial consultant too.

“I’m lucky because I don’t have football as the be all and end all, I play because that’s what I enjoy doing.”

He added: “People may ridicule me sometimes for carrying on in business as well, but a lot of footballers end up on the scrapheap; I’m determined not to be one of them.

“Having been given a second bite of the cherry, I’ll make sure I don’t end up with nothing.”

His time with the Seagulls was certainly not a smooth ride, however, and even the club’s own mouthpiece – ie the matchday programme – said: “His time at the Goldstone has not been without controversy. Earlier this season he failed to report on time for the game at West Bromwich Albion.

“At the beginning of the season the manager said he was hoping that Robert would be one of those players who, having benefited from the experience of more than a season in the league, would play a prominent part in the club’s performances this campaign. However, he is still striving to reach a high level of consistency and his name has now been circulated to other clubs as being available for transfer.”

A retrospective article in a subsequent matchday programme also didn’t spare the midfielder’s feelings. “Codner made an immediate impact and went on to score some brilliant goals, but his relationship with the supporters, like his form, eventually blew hot and cold.

“Several clubs were interested in Codner during his time with the Albion, including West Ham, who were reported to have bid £500,000 for the player in 1991.”

Codner was almost a permanent fixture in the no.10 shirt as Albion reached the 1990-91 end-of-season play-offs with the chance to return to the top tier. He scored in both the home and away semi-final legs against Millwall as the Seagulls guaranteed a place in the Wembley final v Notts County with a 6-2 aggregate win.

After the disappointment of losing 3-1 to Neil Warnock’s County, Codner said: “We’d put in so much to get to the final and unfortunately we didn’t really turn up when it mattered most. We had phenomenal support that day at Wembley but it just didn’t happen for us.”

Albion began to implode financially and were relegated at the end of the next season. Codner was still a mainstay of the midfield, though, making more appearances than any other player, and it was a spot he shared with Mark Beeney and Gary Chivers in the 1992-93 campaign.

Perhaps it was fitting that both Codner and Bissett should be the scorers in the first game after Lloyd parted company with the Albion (Martin Hinshelwood was in temporary charge). Bissett’s 89th-minute goal salvaged a point in a 2-2 draw at Hartlepool on 11 December 1993 but Albion supporter The Groundhog remembered Codner’s 54th-minute goal for the Seagulls thus: “You can’t not love a guy who, at Hartlepool’s Victoria Ground in 1993, while the away fans were shielding themselves from freezing sideways daggers of rain blowing in off the North Sea onto the exposed corner terrace, unleashes a 35-yard thunderbolt thwang-er-wang-er-wanging off the underside of the bar to score. You just can’t.”

While Codner appeared in new manager Liam Brady’s first game in charge, a 1-0 defeat at home to Bradford City, his off-field demons caught up with him when he had to serve three weeks in Lewes Prison for driving offences.

Codner was restored to the side towards the end of January and retained his place through to the end of the season.

A subsequent matchday programme noted: “He emerged from prison a more focused player, but, after an alleged bust-up with (Liam) Brady, was dropped in early 1995 and then released at the end of the season.”

Although Codner had been a regular under Brady in the first half of the 1994-95 season, he didn’t play for the first team again after being part of the side thrashed 4-0 at Crewe Alexandra on 14 January. Brady maintained in his programme notes: “The attitude on the day was not what we were looking for and that’s what contributed largely to losing as badly as we did.”

After finally leaving the Albion with more than 260 appearances for the club under his belt, Codner popped up at a multitude of clubs subsequently (Wikipedia lists 17 he was associated with), playing a handful of games for Reading, Peterborough and Southend United, and having a slightly longer spell back at Barnet in the 1996-97 season.

Codner now operates his own Epsom-based football agency, RC Ballers Ltd.

‘Genuine football man who turned people’s lives around’

George Petchey twice stepped up from backroom man to Albion caretaker manager

THE FORMER Orient and Millwall manager who introduced Laurie Cunningham to the football world was twice caretaker boss of Brighton ten years apart.

George Petchey, once a player then coach at Crystal Palace, was assistant manager to Chris Cattlin in the mid ‘80s and returned to Brighton in the ‘90s as youth development manager under Liam Brady, before becoming no.2 to Jimmy Case.

Working for the Albion was certainly geographically convenient for Petchey because, even when he played, coached or managed in London, he lived in Southwick.

Petchey first arrived at the Albion in 1983 to take charge of youth development and, as described by wearebrighton.com, was the man responsible for introducing Ian Wright on trial, having been impressed when the future Arsenal and England star had tried to begin his career at Millwall, where Petchey was manager between January 1978 and November 1980.

It’s now part of football folklore that Albion rejected Wright and Cattlin opted to take on another triallist, Steve Penney, instead. Meanwhile, in November 1984, Petchey was promoted to assist the relatively inexperienced Cattlin with the first team.

Although he was seen as a figure in the background, a profile article in the matchday programme gave a little insight into his approach.

“I can’t understand people who earn a living from football and still criticise the game,” he told interviewer Tony Norman. “I’ve been involved with it since the age of 14 and I wouldn’t change a thing.

“Molly (his wife) and I have met a lot of good people. We’ve loved the game and it has been good to us. No complaints.”

When Cattlin was sacked in April 1986, Petchey stepped up to manage the side for the final game of the season (a 2-0 defeat away to Hull City) before Alan Mullery returned as boss.

Petchey’s second stint at the Albion began in January 1994, shortly after Brady had been appointed as manager. With finances perilous during that time, bringing through youngsters was seen as an important route and Petchey was appointed to oversee that side of things.

In explaining the appointment, Brady wrote in his programme notes: “I don’t think there are many better in their field than George Petchey.

“He has had a lot of experience at management level and he has always been able to develop young players and this is something we are determined to do here.”

Brady had been to watch the youth team progress in the FA Youth Cup and he added: “There are several outstanding prospects in the side and I am sure George will guide them in the right direction.”

Within a couple of months, Brady had given a first team debut to one of them in Mark Fox.

The Argus later noted how Gareth Barry was among the young players who came through Albion’s centre of excellence under Petchey, Vic Bragg and Steve Avory.

Petchey became no.2 to Jimmy Case, pictured with George Parris in an Albion line-up

When Brady couldn’t stomach the shenanigans of the Bill Archer-David Bellotti regime any longer, Case took charge and promoted Petchey to be his deputy, but with the background interference affecting performances on the field, Case was relieved of his duties in early December 1996.

Petchey stepped forward once again to take temporary charge, although he made it clear he didn’t want the job on a permanent basis. Indeed, he recommended two of his former Orient players be considered for the post.

“I was asked for my suggestions and I recommended Dennis Rofe and Glenn Roeder,” said Petchey, who was 65 at the time. “Hopefully, it will be one of them.”

It was perhaps par for the course that the hierarchy decided to choose someone else, and, within a week, Steve Gritt was appointed.

When Petchey – the first English coach to complete his UEFA coaching qualifications – died aged 88 on 23 December 2019, the tributes paid to him reflected the impact this highly respected football man had on a good many people.

The football writer Neil Harman said: “We often overlook the genuine, honest people, who made football what it is, who went the extra mile, who turned people’s lives around. RIP the great Leyton Orient manager George Petchey who set Laurie Cunningham and many others on the road to stardom.”

David Gipp, a Brighton player in the late ‘80s, tweeted: “took me from London at 14; taught me so much” and John Sitton, who played under Petchey at Millwall, described him as “one of the best managers in the game”.

Born on 24 June 1931 in Whitechapel, London, Petchey’s early footballing experience was in Essex with the Romford and Hornchurch Schools teams. The excellent theyflysohigh.co.uk website details his career, revealing how, on leaving school he played for Upminster Minors and Juniors from 1945 to 1947 before joining West Ham United as an amateur in August 1947.

He signed professional on August 31, 1948, and two days later made his first appearance as a professional against Chelsea ‘A’ at Upton Park in the Eastern Counties League.  

The website explains how National Service interrupted Petchey’s career, although he was still able to play fairly regularly for the Hammers’ ‘A’ team and Football Combination side. It wasn’t until 1 September 1952 that he made his senior debut at the age of 21, playing alongside Ernie Gregory, Malcolm Allison and Frank O’Farrell in a goalless Second Division draw with Hull City at the Boleyn Ground.

Wearing the no.10 shirt, Petchey kept his place for the next game, a 2-1 home defeat by Birmingham City, but he only made one other first-team appearance, on 13 November that year, starting alongside Allison, Noel Cantwell and debuting forward Tommy Dixon in a 3-2 Essex Professional Cup win at Colchester United.

A wing-half, he was described by whufc.com as “a tough-tackling, hard-working defensive midfielder who could also pass the ball with vision and accuracy”.

In July 1953, Petchey moved on to Queens Park Rangers, scoring on his league debut in a 2-1 win at Bristol City on 22 August. Even then, he was commuting to London from Portslade.

QPR supporter Steve Russell spoke fondly of Petchey in an article for indyrs.co.uk, remembering a “tough-tackling, fearless, dynamic” player who took no prisoners.

Petchey scored 24 goals in 278 league and cup appearances for QPR, in the days when they were a Third Division side.

He dropped down to the old Fourth Division to sign for Palace in June 1960 but helped them to promotion in his first season at Selhurst Park.

Petchey’s playing days at Palace came to an early conclusion due to a serious eye injury but the esteem in which he was held was reflected in the quality of players on show at his testimonial match at Selhurst Park on 15 November 1967.

Palace took on an international XI which featured West Ham’s World Cup winning trio of Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, together with the likes of Chelsea’s Peter Osgood and Manchester City’s Colin Bell in front of a crowd of 10,243.

Petchey turned to coaching at Palace, initially under Arthur Rowe and then Bert Head, under whom Palace won promotion to the old First Division in 1969. That side’s goalkeeper, John Jackson – who subsequently followed Petchey to Orient, Millwall, and the Albion as a coach – attributed his achievements to Petchey, telling cpfc.co.uk: “He used to work me hard but the harder you worked at your game the more you learned and the better you would become.

Petchey the Crystal Palace coach

“He made me a more confident player which led to me being more vocal behind the back four, and I always remember Thursday being called shooting practice day so it would become a session where I would put in a massive shift!”

When Jimmy Bloomfield was lured from Brisbane Road to manage Leicester City in 1971, the Os turned to Petchey to continue to build the side the former Arsenal player had developed.

He did just that over six Second Division seasons between 1971 and 1977, Petchey recruiting a number of players who’d previously played under him at Palace; the likes of goalkeeper Jackson, John Sewell, David Payne, Bill Roffey, Alan Whittle and Gerry Queen.

They came agonisingly close to winning promotion to the elite, missing out by a single point in 1973-74, and they took some notable scalps as cup giant-killers.

It was during his reign at Brisbane Road that Petchey discovered Tony Grealish playing on Hackney Marshes and unearthed the raw talent of the mercurial Cunningham, who he would later reluctantly sell for big money to West Bromwich Albion.

Petchey and his assistant Peter Angell carefully nurtured the young Cunningham, hoping his obvious talent would outweigh some of the demons in his life.

“We had one or two problems with him in the early days,” admitted Petchey, as told here. “There was a time when Peter Angell and I wondered if we could win Laurie over. He had to struggle in life and was the sort of youngster who was used to living on his wits.

“He was suspicious of people outside his own circle. He took a long time to trust other people. He often turned up late for training, the eyes flashed when we fined him, but for all that I loved the spark that made him tick.”

Cunningham later admitted: “It was George Petchey and Peter Angell who showed me that the only person who could make my dreams come true was, in fact, myself.”

Petchey gave 18-year-old Cunningham his first-team debut in the short-lived Texaco Cup tournament against West Ham at Upton Park on 3 August 1974. Although Orient lost 1–0, Petchey said afterwards: “It took him a little time to get adjusted to the pace of the game but I was delighted with the way he played from then on. He has a natural talent. He has the speed and agility to take on men. He never gives up. There’s a big future ahead for him.”

Cunningham’s rise to playing for England and Real Madrid was told in the 2013 documentary film First Among Equals and Petchey was a prominent interviewee featured.

Petchey talks about Laurie Cunningham for First Among Equals

When eventually Orient couldn’t resist big money offers for him any longer, the winger went to West Brom for £110,000 plus two players (Joe Mayo and Allan Glover) on 6 March 1977.

“I did not want to sell him, but we were over our limit at the bank and West Brom were ready with a cheque,” said Petchey at the time. “Obviously I’m very disappointed at losing a player who I have seen progress from the age of 15 and I think he was as reluctant to leave as we were to see him go. But it was an offer of First Division football which he could not refuse.”

Petchey enjoyed less success at Millwall. Although he managed to stave off relegation after succeeding Gordon Jago in early 1978, the Lions were relegated from the second tier the following season.

It was during that term he bought Brighton winger Tony Towner for £65,000 after the Sussex lad had lost his place to new signing Gerry Ryan. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though because Millwall’s youngsters won the FA Youth Cup in 1979, beating Manchester City 2-0 (over two legs).

After he’d left the Albion for a second time, Petchey continued to work in football, appointed chief scout at Newcastle United by Sir Bobby Robson, and he later took on a coaching role.

Villa cup winner and captain Pat Saward led Albion to promotion

A FORMER Aston Villa captain and 1957 FA Cup winner steered Brighton to the first promotion I witnessed on my Albion journey.

Genial Irishman Pat Saward, who lived in my hometown of Shoreham during his time as Albion boss, galvanised a squad not expected to be promoted from the third tier and took them up as runners up behind his former club in 1972.

As the champagne flowed in the Goldstone Ground home dressing room, Saward took centre stage surrounded by his blue and white stripe-shirted heroes.

When the promotion tilt had looked like faltering, he’d been bold enough to make drastic changes to the side before a top of the table clash with Villa in front of the Match of the Day cameras. After a memorable 2-1 win in which Willie Irvine scored a goal later judged as the third best in the programme’s Goal of the Season competition, Saward added to his squad on transfer deadline day, bringing in Northern Ireland international Bertie Lutton from Wolves and Ken Beamish from Tranmere Rovers, described in the Official Football League Book as “stocky and packed full of explosive sprinting power, a terrific shot and great appetite for the game”.

Saward told the publication: “They were both last ditch signings and Ken made an astonishing difference. I spent only £41,000 in getting my promotion side together so we were very much Villa’s poor relations in that sense.”

The manager put the success down to: “Dogged determination to succeed from all the players. We stamped out inconsistency. I got rid of ten of the players I inherited and got together a team built on character. That’s the key quality, apart from skill of course.”

However, hindsight reveals the club wasn’t really ready for the higher division and some have suggested Saward broke up the promotion-winning squad rather too hastily. Players he brought in who were used to the level now known as the Championship struggled to gel, and the manager turned to rather too many loan signings.

A mid-season run of 13 consecutive defeats was Albion’s undoing and a glamour FA Cup tie at home to First Division Chelsea in early January 1973 gave a welcome respite from the gloom.

Ahead of the match, Saward opened his heart to Daily Mirror reporter Nigel Clarke, revealing that he couldn’t understand why the side had struggled so much.

“I wish I knew. But I’ve learned more about football these last few weeks than at any other time in my career.

“We are five points behind the next club but I must be the luckiest man in the league. There are no pressures on me,” he said, explaining that supporters were still writing to him, backing him and the team.

“When we came up from the Third Division, I was so big-headed, so confident. I thought with the right results we could go straight through to the First Division. I really did.

“There was spirit and ambition here – and there still is….that’s how this club gets you. My heart is in the place.”

Saward revealed that he had turned down two better paid jobs in the First Division to stay at Brighton after the promotion win, telling Clarke: “What I want is importance, appreciation, understanding and love…not being kicked up the backside and put under the lash.

“Adulation is false. I’ve found my oasis at Brighton and I’m wealthy the way I want to be – in feeling.”

Although the Chelsea game ended in another defeat, fortunes eventually changed the following month – but the damage had been done and Brighton went straight back down.

A defiant Saward promised to blood more youngsters like Steve Piper and Tony Towner, who’d done well when drafted in and Piper, in a matchday programme article, said of him: “Saward was more of a coach than a man-manager, very suave and sophisticated. He knew his football from his days at Coventry.”

However, when results didn’t improve on the return to third tier level, and with a new, ambitious chairman – Mike Bamber – at the helm, Saward was sacked and replaced with the legendary Brian Clough.

Albion’s hierarchy had turned to the untried Saward in the World Cup summer of 1970 after Birmingham City poached Freddie Goodwin from Brighton to replace Stan Cullis as their manager. It was second time lucky for Saward, who’d applied to succeed Archie Macaulay two years previously when Goodwin pipped him to the post.

“Give me ten years and I’ll have Brighton in the First Division,” Saward declared when appointed. Prescient words considering they made it within nine – although it came six years after he’d parted ways with the club.

There’s little doubt Saward was an innovative football man and a popular figure during the first two years of his reign.

Apart from success on the pitch in the 1971-72 season, the way he involved fans in helping him to improve the side also proved a winner.

His buy-a-player appeal was a direct attempt to involve the supporters in the affairs of their club and Saward led a sponsored walk on Brighton seafront as one of the initial events geared towards generating funds to help him compete in the transfer market.

“Too many people spend too much time shouting about how hard up their club is, and too little time fighting to improve the situation,” Saward said in an article for the April 1971 edition of Football League Review. “You never get success if you sit around. You must have courage, even audacity, and work hard for survival.”

The first funds generated provided Saward with the money to bring in experienced Bert Murray from Birmingham City, initially on loan, and then permanently. Murray would go on to be voted Player of the Year in 1971-72.

Another player who signed on loan at the same time as Murray was Preston’s Irvine, who recalled in his autobiography, Together Again, how Saward wooed him.

“Pat sold me the place with his charm and persuasive ways,” he said, describing the former male model as “extrovert, infectious and bubbly”.

He added: “Pat Saward was a gem of a manager and a pleasure to play for. He said what he thought, but never offensively; in a matter-of-fact, plain-speaking kind of way, rather than aggressively.”

Irvine continued: “Saward had the knack of making people feel important. He instilled pride and a sense of identity…..Pat loved attacking, entertaining football and worked tirelessly for the club. I would have run through that proverbial brick wall for him.”

As Brighton neared promotion, Irvine said: “Saward, with a joke or a smile, an arm around the shoulder or a bit of geeing up, knew just how to keep a dressing room happy or dispel any tension or nerves.”

Sadly, Irvine’s opinion of Saward shifted dramatically when, during the summer, the manager told him he intended to bring in a replacement – although it was three months before he eventually signed Barry Bridges from Millwall.

Saward and new signings Barry Bridges (left) and Graham Howell

Irvine was in the starting line-up at the beginning of the season and scored six times in 13 league and cup games, but, once Bridges arrived in October, his days were numbered, and, before the year was out, he was sold to Halifax Town in part exchange for Lammie Robertson.

Saward had already dispensed with the services of Albion’s other main promotion season scorer, Kit Napier, along with his former captain, John Napier.

Irvine said that once Albion were promoted, Saward changed. “He seemed to become unapproachable, or at least he did to me, and where once I could see him whenever I wanted, now I seemed to have to book an appointment two or three days in advance. We all had to.”

Teammate Peter O’Sullivan, who had repaired his relationship with Saward after some difficult early exchanges which saw the Welshman transfer-listed, also witnessed a change in the manager.

“We had one or two players who were over the hill and Pat just lost the plot. It was grim,” he told Spencer Vignes in A Few Good Men.

Albion’s tier two fortunes were picked over in some detail in a feature reporter Nick Harling compiled for Goal magazine.

“I didn’t foresee the snags and the type of league the Second Division was,” Saward told him. “It’s the hardest division of the four. Everyone is fighting either to stay in or get out.

“It’s a hell of a hard division. It’s a mixture of the First and Third. It’s good and very hard football. They don’t give you an awful lot of time to play.

“It’s a division governed by fear because to drop out of it is not good, while to get out at the top is fantastic. I didn’t believe the gap would be so different.

“Teams are so well organised and supplement their lack of ability with tremendous defensive play. It’s very hard to get results.”

While open and honest, they didn’t sound like the words of a manager very confident of finding a solution, and Saward sought to explain part of the problem when he said: “To me the most important thing is the attitude of mind. Players should have an arrogant attitude, an attitude that they’re going to do well even when the chips are down. But some types are destroyed. These are the ones who succumb and want to rely on other people.

“Here we’ve got some great boys, but I wish to God some of them had more determination.”

Bamber was resigned to relegation but nonetheless confident of where the club was heading. “There’s no doubting it – First Division here we come,” he told the magazine.

Saward added: “I haven’t lost any enthusiasm. I’ve had my hopes dampened slightly, but one overcomes that.

“This club has got to be built for the future. I want to put Brighton on the map.”

Sadly, when Albion’s poor form at the start of the 1973-74 season continued, Saward publicly admitted: “I haven’t any more answers. I am in a fog.”

Unsurprisingly, the Albion’s directors interpreted it as a loss of confidence and sacked him.

It’s front page news on the Evening Argus as Saward is sacked

Saward never managed in the English game again, although he coached in Saudi Arabia for a while.

Born in Cobh, County Cork, on 17 August 1928, Saward lived in Singapore and Malta during his childhood, before the family moved to south London.

His first club was Beckenham FC before he turned professional with Millwall in 1951. He made 118 appearances for the Lions in the next four years.

Saward was 26 when Eric Houghton signed him for Villa for £7,000 in August 1955. The legendary Joe Mercer took over as Villa manager in 1958.

Pat enjoyed a goalscoring debut with his new club, hitting the final equalising goal in a 4-4 draw with Manchester United at Villa Park on 15 October 1955. But he struggled to oust left half Vic Crowe and made only six appearances that season.

In Crowe’s absence through injury the following season, Saward became a regular, making 50 appearances.

Saward (right) descends the steps at Wembley as a FA Cup winner with Aston Villa

In total, Saward played 170 games for Villa between 1955 and 1960, most notably featuring in their FA Cup winning team in 1957. Villa beat Manchester United 2-1 in the final at Wembley Stadium in front of a crowd of 99,225, Peter McParland scoring twice to win Villa the Cup for a seventh time.

Saward made only 14 appearances as Villa were relegated from the top-flight in 1959 but he was back in harness as captain when they made a swift return as Second Division champions in the 1959-60 season.

In his final season, he made just 12 appearances, his last coming on 22 October 1960 in a second city derby, Villa beating Birmingham 6-2. The following March, he was given a free transfer and moved on to Huddersfield Town.

Saward in the stripes of Huddersfield Town

He had first been selected for the Republic of Ireland on 7 March 1954 in a World Cup qualifier in which Luxembourg were beaten 1-0, and he went on to make 18 appearances for his country, the last, on 2 September 1962, coming when he was 34: a 1-1 draw away to Iceland in Reykjavík.

He played twice against England in World Cup qualifiers in 1957, a 1-1 draw and a 5-1 defeat, when he was up against the likes of Duncan Edwards, Johnny Haynes and Stanley Matthews, and in the same competition against Scotland, in 1961, when the Irish lost 4-1, and his teammates included Johnny Giles.

After 59 appearances for the Terriers, he dropped out of the league but acquainted himself with Sussex when moving to Crawley Town.

Jimmy Hill signed him for Coventry as a player-coach in October 1963 and although he made numerous reserve team appearances, he really made his mark as a coach and was responsible for the rapid development of City’s youth team in the 1960s.

Saward (left) with assistant manager Alan Dicks and Jimmy Hill at Coventry City

Willie Carr and Dennis Mortimer were just two of several first teamers who made it under his guidance. He stepped up to first team assistant manager when his former Eire teammate, Noel Cantwell, was appointed boss in 1967.

Not long after his switch to the Goldstone, Saward picked up one of his former Sky Blues proteges, Ian Goodwin, initially on loan, and then permanently, and eventually made him Albion captain. The rugged defender’s arrival was remembered in an Argus article.

When Saward died on 20 September 2002 following a period when he’d suffered with Alzheimer’s, an excellent Villa website pieced together a detailed obituary. His career is also recorded on the avfchistory.co.uk site.

Saward was laid to rest in the same Cambridge cemetery as his brother Len, a forward who played a total of 170 games for Cambridge United between 1952 and 1958, scoring 43 times. He went on to serve the club behind the scenes in their commercial department.

Pictures from my schoolboy Albion scrapbook and various online sources.

Spurs’ Junior acted the Dream after scoring for the Seagulls

JUNIOR MCDOUGALD played professional football for 23 years and managed to combine it with acting, featuring in Sky 1’s Dream Team series.

Brighton fans of a certain vintage will remember him as a nippy, diminutive forward who scored 22 goals in 88 matches (+ seven as sub) during a difficult period for the club.

By his own admission (in an interview with the Argus), he left too soon, and a move to Rotherham United didn’t work out.

Born in Big Spring, Texas, on 12 January 1975, McDougald grew up in the UK and his early potential saw him associated with Tottenham Hotspur from the age of nine.

He was subsequently chosen as part of a group of the country’s top 25 14-year-old footballing prospects to be nurtured at the FA’s National School at Lilleshall.

On his graduation from Lilleshall in 1991, he joined Spurs as a trainee. Alongside McDougald both at Lilleshall and Tottenham was Sol Campbell, the defender who went on to star for Spurs and Arsenal, as well as England. Campbell told tottenhamhotspur.com: “I’ve some fond memories of Junior. We used to play against each other when we were 13, then we were at Tottenham and Lilleshall when we were 14.

“He’s a smashing lad and I can’t speak highly enough of him. He’s a good bloke, a good man and a fabulous footballer.”

McDougald joined the full professional ranks at White Hart Lane in the summer of 1993, but when he didn’t make the breakthrough to their first team, he made the switch to Brighton.

He described his time at Spurs as “a dream come true” and, in an article on tottenhamhotspur.com, said: “I know it’s an old cliché but I’d always supported Spurs.

“I think it’s well documented now that I even wrote to Jim’ll Fix It to ask to go training with them!”

He added: “It was a great experience, a positive experience and it was always my dream to play for the club.”

Spurs fanzine My Eyes Have Seen The Glory (mehstg.com), recalled him as “a young striker who scored a large number of goals for the Tottenham junior sides, but progressed no further than the reserves at White Hart Lane. Blessed with good pace, but a little on the short and light side.”

Unfortunately, while his contemporary Campbell went on to superstardom, McDougald was released at the age of 19.

“It was very disappointing to leave,” he said. “But at the same time, I was ambitious and, when Liam Brady at Brighton called me, I saw it as a great opportunity. I wanted first team football.

“Any disappointment was hidden by excitement. It was a new start.”

I can remember seeing McDougald make his debut in the opening game of the 1994-95 season, away to Swansea City at their old Vetch Field ground; Albion resplendent in the turquoise and black striped shirts in the style of the kit once worn by boss Brady at Inter Milan.

McDougald’s subsequent one-in-four scoring ratio with the Seagulls was set against the backdrop of financial turmoil at the club and he was there when the club was relegated to the fourth tier.

“There was no stability off the field and that could transfer itself on to it,” he told the Argus. “I was very young and Liam Brady was a great help. I was pleased to have played with legends like Steve Foster, although he was coming to the end of his career.

“The supporters were fantastic and really good to me as a young player. Overall, I had two enjoyable years there and I’m delighted to see them doing so well now. They’ve always had the potential and the fans deserve the success.”

Towards the end of his second season with the club, he was loaned to Chesterfield, where he scored once in nine games, and he then chose to move to Rotherham United for £50,000 in August 1996.

“It is only when you leave somewhere sometimes that you realise how good a club it was,” he told the Argus. “I have fantastic memories of Brighton. The support was so good and they have such potential.

“I thought I was doing the best thing for my career when I left. I wasn’t to know I would go to Rotherham, score on my debut, get injured in the same game and not play for three months.”

He had a relatively successful six-month spell at Toulon in France but efforts to re-establish himself back in the UK with Cambridge, Millwall and Orient didn’t work out.

“With the gift of hindsight maybe I would have stayed at Brighton for another season or two and established myself,” McDougald said in the Argus interview.

It was only when he signed for Dagenham & Redbridge in 1999 that he got back in the headlines, in particular when, in January 2001, he scored in the FA Cup 3rd round as the non-league Essex side held Alan Curbishley’s then Premier League Charlton Athletic to a 1-1 draw.

The 4th round draw paired the winners of the tie with Spurs, so it looked like it would be a perfect match for the former Spurs youngster, but the Addicks edged the replay 1-0 in extra time to spoil his dream.

Nevertheless, his form for Dagenham saw him selected for the England semi-professional side at a Four Nations Trophy tournament in 2002, where he was up against his clubmate Tony Roberts, the former Spurs goalkeeper.

Alongside the serious business of earning a living from playing football, McDougald also appeared for the fictional Harchester United side in Sky’s Dream Team, together with former Albion players Peter Smith and Andy Ansah.

“It was through Andy who actually recruits the players,” he said. “Pete Smith told me it was fun and it is. We just do what footballers do and are filmed playing, in changing rooms and night clubs. It is a good little avenue.”

By the time Dagenham made it into the Football League, McDougald had moved on to St Albans and, in the 2003-04 season, he was part of a Canvey Island squad that also included former Brighton players Mickey Bennett, the aforementioned Peter Smith, and Jeff Minton.

He later played for Kettering Town, Histon, and Cambridgeshire side St. Ives.

McDougald, a Born-again Christian, has since become the co-founder and director of children’s charity Sports Connections Foundation which uses sport to help and inspire children.

Ups and downs of medal-laden Mark McGhee’s career

MARK McGHEE saw highs and lows as Brighton & Hove Albion manager after a medal-laden playing career that took him from his native Scotland to England and also to Germany.

McGhee was in charge when the Seagulls memorably won the 2004 play-off final to gain promotion from the third tier, beating Bristol City at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff.

Play off final boss

Keeping the Seagulls up the following season was arguably an even greater achievement considering at the time playing home games at the crowd-restricted Withdean Stadium meant the club was at a huge disadvantage compared to most clubs in the division.

With the Amex still a distant dream, relegation came at the end of the 2005-06 season, and it wasn’t long into the following season that Dick Knight wielded the axe on the Glaswegian’s time in charge.

“It was hard to sack Mark, but we had to have a change,” Knight wrote in his autobiography, Mad Man: From the Gutter to the Stars. “Everyone recognised what he had done in taking up and keeping up a team that was not that great, to be honest. Hats off to him, he had done a terrific job. And he is a very intelligent, personable guy.”

Knight took decisive action when part of the crowd became vociferous in wanting McGhee out, and the chairman also felt some of the young players drafted into the team weren’t responding to him.

He was finally toppled over lunch at Topolino’s, and Knight admitted: “It was a difficult decision. There was strong vocal opposition to McGhee, but also a large, less noisy element who were behind him.”

McGhee liked Brighton so much he made it his home despite subsequently taking on a series of other roles the length and breadth of the country.

It’s probably fair to say the Scot has never been afraid to speak his mind, which his former Newcastle boss Bill McGarry mentioned to him. McGhee recounted in an interview with theleaguepaper.com: “I was managing Wolves at the time. He said ‘Mark, you talk too much. Tone it down a bit’. I tried to take his advice, give nothing away in media briefings. Then, somebody would say something interesting and I wasn’t able to stop myself.”

It’s probably what helped him gain a place on the Sky Sports Soccer Saturday panel when he was in between management jobs.

McGhee would most likely look back on some jobs he’d perhaps have been wiser to stay away from, for example taking temporary charge of Eastbourne Borough in 2018, although his enthusiasm was undimmed as he revealed in an interview with thenonleaguefootballpaper.com.

Born in Glasgow on 20 May 1957, his father was an electrical engineer and his mother a fertility consultant at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. McGhee was on the books of Bristol City at the start of his long career but he returned to Scotland and became a part-timer with Greenock Morton while also training to be an architect.

Aforementioned manager McGarry signed him for Newcastle for a £150,000 fee on 30 December 1977 and he made his debut on 2 January 1978.

His face didn’t fit after Arthur Cox took over as boss, but Alex Ferguson took a punt on him in March 1979 and signed him for Aberdeen, and it proved to be one of many shrewd decisions the esteemed Scot would make in his career.

McGhee was named Scottish PFA Players’ Player of the Year in 1982, and the following year was part of the Aberdeen side who beat Real Madrid 2–1 to lift the 1983 European Cup Winners’ Cup in Gothenburg.

mcg cup

He also scored the second goal as Aberdeen defeated Hamburg 2-0 to win the UEFA Super Cup in the same year.

Asked about the best goal he scored, he said: “Probably the winning goal in my last game for Aberdeen.”

McGhee reckoned his best moment in football came on 26 May 1984 when he scored against England at Hampden Park. He headed in a cross (as pictured) from his great pal Gordon Strachan past Peter Shilton.

McG v Eng

“It put us 1-0 up but Tony Woodcock equalised to make the final score 1-1.”

It was one of four caps he won for his country. Nearly two decades later, in January 2013, Strachan appointed him as his no.2 with the Scottish national side.

M McGhee Old Football PhotosBut back to those playing days, and with two Scottish league titles and three Cup wins behind him, McGhee tried his hand at European football and spent 16 months at Hamburg. The spell was probably more of an education than a success, with injuries limiting his game time.

A £170,000 fee took him back to Scotland, to Celtic, where he had mixed fortunes during four years with the Glasgow giants. He was, though, part of the squad that won a League and Cup double in their centenary season.

After winning another Scottish Cup winners’ medal in 1989, he was on the move again, back to Newcastle.

Now with Jim Smith in charge, Newcastle paid £200,000 to take McGhee back to St James’ Park, where he formed an impressive strike partnership with the legendary Micky Quinn as Toon finished third in the old Division Two.

“We were good friends, but we didn’t blend on the pitch like Toshack and Keegan, Quinn told theleaguepaper.com. “Mark was a free spirit. He’d get the ball and drift left or right and drop deep.

“He’d turn defenders and drag them out of position. He would hold the ball up well for me to get into the box and score goals. He went where he wanted, but it worked.”

football back then McGhee

This Football Back Then picture shows McGhee in action for Newcastle against Albion’s Nicky Bissett.

His farewell performance came on 6 April 1991, not long after Ossie Ardiles had taken over as manager, and McGhee departed having scored a total of 36 goals in 115 appearances for the Magpies.

Next stop was Sweden, where he played briefly for IK Brage, but he seized the opportunity to try his hand at management by taking up the role of player-manager at Reading in the summer of 1991.

He’d been recommended for the role by his old boss Ferguson, and, after quitting playing through injury in 1993, he led the Royals to promotion from the third tier the following year.

A struggling Leicester City gave him a chance to manage in the Premier League but he was unable to keep them up and, less than a year after joining, decided to switch to Wolverhampton Wanderers, to succeed Graham Taylor.

Wolves just failed to gain promotion in 1996-97 (they lost in the play-off semi-finals) and were ninth the following campaign. Four months into the 1998-99 season, following a string of poor results, McGhee was fired.

It would be 20 months before he gained his next opportunity, this time at Millwall where he enjoyed initial success, leading them to promotion from the third tier, and then narrowly missing out on another promotion when they lost in the play-off semi-finals to Birmingham City.

McGhee apptWhen he parted company from Millwall in October 2003, he wasn’t out of work long because Brighton needed a replacement for Steve Coppell, who’d been wooed to take over at Reading (pictured above, with chairman Dick Knight, at his unveiling as Albion manager).

Those Albion fans who stuck by the team in the humble surroundings of the Withdean Stadium enjoyed some good moments during McGhee’s time as manager, in particular promotion via the play-off final in 2004.

He certainly found a formula to get the best out of certain players, as Adam Virgo, converted from defender to goalscorer, observed in that theleaguepaper.com article. “Mark is a very good communicator and very experienced,” he said. “He can make you feel ten feet tall. He’s very good at being honest, at analysing your game and telling you what you’re good at.”

After his departure from the Albion, McGhee was out of the game for nine months but got back in at Motherwell, turning them from near relegation candidates to qualifiers for European competition.

The lure of his old club, Aberdeen, proved too strong in the summer of 2009, but his tenure proved to be disastrous – and brief.

He spent the majority of 2012 as manager of Bristol Rovers, where one of the squad he inherited was former Brighton defender-turned-striker, Virgo. The following year, his old pal, Strachan, appointed him as assistant coach to the Scottish national side.

Motherwell manager Mark McGhee before the Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership match at Fir Park, Motherwell.

He later combined the role part-time when he returned to Motherwell but there were mixed fortunes second time round, and he left them again in early 2017. Towards the end of that year, he popped up at League Two Barnet, but the arrangement lasted only two months before he was moved to a ‘head of technical’ role, and then dismissed in March 2018.

McGhee was ‘slaughtered’ on Twitter when he took over as interim manager of National South side Eastbourne Borough in the spring of 2019, after being beaten 3-0 by Wealdstone in his first match in charge, his new side reduced to nine men after two players were sent off. Borough won just once in 11 matches.

When Albion under 23s coach Simon Rusk was appointed manager of Vanarama National League side Stockport County in January 2021, McGhee was appointed as one of his assistants.

His final managerial post was at Dundee in February 2022 when he took temporary charge of the Scottish Premiership side until the end of the season (with Rusk as his assistant), but they couldn’t avoid them being relegated, overseeing just one win in 13 matches.

McGhee finally announced his retirement from the game in September 2022 at the age of 65, telling the Sunday Post: “I won’t be pursuing any other managerial vacancies, and nor would I want to be a director of football or a head of recruitment. That’s not what I am – I’m a manager.

“I feel that players now deserve a young manager who can give them the energy I was able to when I started out. They don’t need a 65-year-old with a dodgy ankle.”

Why Saint Dan riled the Albion

DAN HARDING was promoted twice with Southampton and once with the Seagulls and later cut short his career because of family tragedy.

Personally, I’m not sure he really need to be cast as ‘public enemy no.1’ because of the way he left Brighton.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was really no surprise that he chose to turn his back on playing at Withdean in favour of Elland Road, Leeds.

OK, the stringing-out of the contract negotiations, and public slanging match that accompanied them, didn’t help matters.

But football careers are short and the Amex was a long way off becoming a reality when Harding decided to opt for pastures new.

“I really enjoyed my time at Brighton but you can’t compare the size of the two clubs or the facilities,” he told the Leeds matchday programme at the time. “It has been like going from one world to another.”

Ironically, it seems his success on the pitch with Brighton, which led to him gaining international recognition, might well have been the unsettling influence.

Former Albion boss Peter Taylor selected him for England under-21s as the 2004-05 season got underway. He made his England debut as a substitute for Micah Richards in a 3-1 win over Ukraine at the Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough, on 17 August 2004. Future full internationals James Milner and Darren Bent were in the same squad.

He started the 8 October 2004 match against Wales at Ewood Park, Blackburn: a 2-0 win courtesy of goals from Milner and Bent. He also started the game four days later when the under 21s drew 0-0 away to Azerbaijan in Baku. His last cap came the following month in a 1-0 defeat away to Spain when he was replaced by Ben Watson. Future Albion loanee Liam Ridgewell was also a substitute in that game.

It was this platform that sowed the seeds of discord, according to former chairman Dick Knight’s take on the circumstances surrounding Harding’s acrimonious departure from the Albion.

In his autobiography Mad Man: From the Gutter to the Stars, Knight reckoned it was while on international duty that Harding was “egged on by his agent about his value after talking to players with bigger clubs, on bigger wages”.

Knight went on: “Early on, I offered him a sizeable contract renewal but he sat on it. He kept saying he wanted to stay, but I don’t think he had any intention of doing so.

“Because he was under 24, we were entitled to compensation. Shaun Harvey, the Leeds chief executive – who became CEO of the Football League in July 2013 – tested me with a couple of paltry sums before finally offering £250,000, which I rejected.”

DH Leeds action 2Via the Football League tribunal system, Knight managed to get the figure up to £850,000, part achievement-based, and with a 20 per cent sell-on clause.

All in all, not a bad return for a player who came through the Albion’s youth and reserve ranks after being spotted at 15 playing for Hove Park Colts.

Born in Gloucester on 23 December 1983, the young Harding loved kicking a football from the moment he could walk and enjoyed watching his dad, Kevan, turn out for the Army team.

The family was posted to Brighton, and Harding was taken to the Goldstone Ground by his mum, Linda. One of his earliest memories was on 23 September 1992 seeing a 17-year-old David Beckham make his Manchester United debut as a substitute for Andrei Kanchelskis in a League Cup tie that finished 1-1.

Harding joined the Albion initially on schoolboy terms for a year and was then taken on as a YTS trainee, progressing through the juniors and reserves before eventually making his first team debut on 17 August 2002, during Martin Hinshelwood’s brief reign, as a substitute for Shaun Wilkinson in a 2-0 home defeat to Norwich City.

After Hinshelwood was replaced by Steve Coppell, and Harding sustained a back injury, the youngster played no further part in the first team picture that season, but he was awarded a new contract in April 2003.

In the first part of the 2003-04 season, Harding was a regular on the bench, but, on 21 February 2004, Coppell’s successor, Mark McGhee, gave him his full debut in place of the suspended Kerry Mayo in a 3-0 win over Bournemouth.

Dan Harding

Harding kept his place through to the end of the season, making a total of 23 appearances, including being part of the side that lifted the divisional play-off trophy at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, as the Seagulls beat Bristol City 1-0.

“In hindsight, it was a very lucky time for me. I broke into a team that was winning games and was promoted,” he told the Daily Echo. “Looking back now, I don’t think I appreciated at the time what a big achievement it was.”

Sent off in only the second game of the following season for two bookable offences, it wasn’t long before his contract discussions were aired publicly, with McGhee telling the Argus in October: “It’s starting to really frustrate me.

“Dan keeps telling us and saying publicly he wants to sign but we cannot tie his agent down to have a meeting with us. He has to be honest with us.”

Harding in turn denied he was being difficult, telling the Argus that talks were ongoing.

The off-field issues certainly seemed to be troubling Harding and McGhee publicly blamed the defender for a 2-0 defeat at Millwall in December. He was also outmuscled by Stoke City’s Ade Akinbiyi in a game at Withdean, leading to a late winner for the visitors. Across the season, McGhee dropped him on four occasions because of such inconsistency.

When he won his place back in February, he told the Argus: “I had to prove not only to the gaffer but to the other players and the fans that I want that position back.

“That’s where I prefer to play. I like to call that my position. I don’t mind playing on the left hand side of midfield or centre midfield, but I do love playing at left-back.

“Hopefully I can reproduce the same sort of form and keep my confidence up. Everyone wants to be playing, so when you are left out it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth. It’s not nice, but you have to pick yourself up and try to get back into the team.”

DH leeds action 1However, the Brighton contract offer was declined and on 7 June that summer, Harding put pen to paper on a deal with Leeds, whose fans were no doubt delighted to read that he used to follow their fortunes when he was a youngster.

“When I lived in Germany, they showed quite a lot of Leeds games on telly and, in a strange way, I kind of ended up supporting them because it was the only football I really got to see out there,” he said.

His dad later took him to a Leeds FA Cup match v Wolves, and he added: “I have to admit I have been a closet Leeds fan. Obviously, I didn’t shout about it when I was playing for Brighton and it’s kind of strange now that this move has happened.”

If Harding doubted the size of the task at Elland Road, he’d only have had to read the comments of manager Kevin Blackwell, often Neil Warnock’s no.2, who was the Leeds manager at the time.

In an article about Harding in the club programme, Blackwell said: “It has been a big transition for him. No disrespect to Brighton, but coming from the scaffolding at Withdean to Elland Road was a big step-up for Dan. He was nervous in the first couple of games, but he has started to settle down.”

He talked about how he needed to cement his place at United, and added: “If he does succeed here, all the doors will be open to him. I have no doubt that once he develops certain aspects of his game and his self-confidence, he will go a long way because he is a real athlete with a great left foot.”

Brighton fans vented their displeasure at how things had turned out every time Harding touched the ball when Leeds entertained the Seagulls on 12 September 2005; a game which finished 3-3. The fact two of Albion’s goals came from crosses on Harding’s flank prompted Blackwell to drop him for the following match.

After only seven games, Harding picked up an injury and, over the course of the season, played just 21 matches for United. In August 2006, the Yorkshire club used the full-back as a makeweight in a deal which took future Albion loanee Ian Westlake from Ipswich to Leeds.

He was a regular at Portman Road for a couple of seasons but, in his third season, manager Jim Magilton deemed him surplus to requirements and sent him out on loan to Southend United. I recall going to a match at Roots Hall and seeing him have an outstanding game against Brighton.

Later the same season, with Ipswich bobbing along in mid-table, Harding seized the chance to join Steve Coppell’s promotion-chasing Reading, and he played in their play-offs defeat to Burnley.

When Roy Keane took over at Ipswich in 2009, Harding was sold to Southampton; manager Alan Pardew’s first signing for the Saints. Harding’s former Albion youth coach, Dean Wilkins, was part of Pardew’s coaching team.

Harding reflected in an interview with the Southern Daily Echo that what followed were the happiest three years of his career, in which he played 121 games and chipped in with five goals.

In 2010-11, he was named in the PFA League One team of the year along with teammates Kelvin Davies, Jose Fonte, Adam Lallana and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

In the harsh and fickle world of football, Brighton fans relished Brighton’s 3-0 win over Southampton at the Amex on 2 January 2012 when Albion winger Will Buckley gave Harding such a torrid time that, to compound his humiliation, the former Brighton player was subbed off by boss Nigel Adkins with five minutes of the first half still to play.

Although part of the Saints side that won promotion back to the Premier League that May, Harding didn’t get the chance to play at the top level because Adkins moved him on to Nottingham Forest.

Harding talked in detail to the Echo’s Paul McNamara about life at Forest, which he found an unstable place, especially when Sean O’Driscoll, the manager who signed him, was sacked.

Although he played some games under that legendary left-back Stuart Pearce, when he took over, Harding eventually went on loan to Millwall, but wasn’t able to help them stave off relegation from the Championship.

He reveals in his interview with McNamara how disillusioned he became with the amount of dishonesty in football and, coupled with his pregnant wife losing two of the triplets she was expecting, he put family before football and, at the age of only 31, dropped down four divisions to play non-league with Eastleigh.

He talked about the tough decisions he’d had to make in an interview before a FA Cup tie Eastleigh played against Bolton Wanderers.

In 2016, Harding joined Whitehawk as a player, then became part of the coaching set-up, and was briefly caretaker manager before the appointment of Steve King.

Brighton’s heroic captain Cullip clashed with Warnock

AFTER three promotions and one relegation in five years, Danny Cullip left Brighton for Sheffield United in December 2004.

Hard-up Albion needed the cash at the time and Cullip was keen to join a side who were pushing for promotion to the Premier League.

“They were a massive side and I felt that it was too good an opportunity to miss,” Cullip said in Match of My Life (knowthescorebooks.com), edited by Paul Camillin. “I felt if I didn’t take the opportunity, I would end up regretting it, and although things didn’t work out, I don’t regret it, as I would have lived the rest of my life wondering what might have happened.”

Cullip was virtually ever-present during his three months with the Blades but a clash of personalities with fiery manager Neil Warnock saw him offloaded on loan to Watford before the end of the season.

DC focusThe player who had been an inspirational captain for the Seagulls has chosen not to go into detail about what happened although Warnock had plenty to say in his autobiography, ghostwritten by journalist Oliver Holt.

“At Sheffield United I bought a centre-half, Danny Cullip, with a view to him being my leader on the pitch, my captain,” he said. “I thought he was a good talker. I realised within a week he talked a better game than he played. The only answer was to get shot of him quickly.”

Cullip swerved the controversy in an Albion matchday programme interview in 2019-20, saying instead: “We won my first three games in succession and ended up taking maximum points from five of the first six games.

“It was a great start and I was really enjoying my football but then, out of the blue, Neil said he wanted to bring in another striker, Danny Webber from Watford.

“Ray Lewington, who was coach at Watford at the time and knew me from out time together at Brentford, said they would only sanction it if they could get me in return. It was going to be a permanent move but ended up being a loan as Ray was sacked the following week, which wasn’t ideal.

“My Sheffield United career was over though before it had even begun, which was so disappointing because I’d been playing well and we’d been getting results.”

butts + DC Sheffield United’s Cullip gets to grips with ex- Albion teammate Guy Butters

Lee Connor on footballleagueworld.co.uk reckoned Cullip was one of the top 5 most pointless signings in Sheffield United’s history which seems a harsh assessment of a player who made 216 appearances for Brighton.

The £250,000 fee Brighton received for their captain was certainly much needed at the time and was a good return on the £50,000 they invested in signing him from Brentford for £50,000 on 13 October 1999.

Born on 17 September 1976 in Bracknell, Berkshire, Cullip was scouted by Oxford United while playing Sunday football and shone during a set of trial games. After getting into their under-16s, he then earned a two-year YTS apprenticeship where he was coached by future England manager Steve McLaren.

Oxford were managed by that redoubtable former centre half Denis Smith at the time and Cullip was given a one-year professional contract but faced stiff competition to make the breakthrough to the first team, where future Leicester City stalwart Matt Elliott was excelling.

“I went out on loan to Kettering Town in the Conference,” Cullip told fulhamfocus.com. “Gary Johnson was their manager and I learned a lot from him and played well there.”

Cullip had a trial at Shrewsbury and could have joined them or Kettering. But he chose to join then Fourth Division Fulham because his dad was a Fulham fan, he told fulhamfc.com in an April 2016 interview. Micky Adams had been newly appointed in his first managerial job and handed Cullip his league debut in the first game of the 1996-97 season.

It was a season fondly remembered by Fulham fans because they won promotion but the regime change the following year, when Mohammed Al Fayed took over, saw Adams dumped in favour of Kevin Keegan and Ray Wilkins and eventually Cullip rejoined Adams at Brentford in exchange for a £75,000 fee in February 1998.

Cullip found himself back in the basement division when the Bees were relegated and then on the treatment table for much of the season after suffering a cruciate knee ligament injury.

Having not played a first team game for 13 months because of the injury, Cullip was thrown a lifeline when Adams, by now in charge at Brighton, took him on a month’s loan in September 1999.

CullipHe impressed sufficiently for Adams to persuade chairman Dick Knight to make the transfer permanent, beginning an association with the club which continues to this day.

Cullip became a mainstay of the defence during the back-to-back promotions of 2001-02 and 2002-03 and famously scored the headed winner in a 1-0 win over Chesterfield at Withdean that clinched the third-tier championship.

Cullip took over the captaincy from Paul Rogers and recalls the “unbelievable day” he lifted the play-off final trophy at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, in 2004.

After his Blades spell was cut short, and his brief Watford loan came to an end, Cullip joined Nottingham Forest where his manager was Gary Megson. “I really liked him,” said Cullip. “He was an honest guy; what you see is what you get with him.

“Unfortunately, I missed my first pre-season with Forest due to what was ongoing at United, so I was playing catch-up with the rest of the lads and ended up suffering a hamstring injury. It was a problem that would dog me for the rest of my career.”

He was restricted to a handful of appearances in his first season with Forest but he eventually became a regular in a three-man defence alongside Wes Morgan and Ian Breckin.

DC Forest Cullip in action for Forest, marking Albion’s Alex Revell

In January 2007, he was on the move again, to Queens Park Rangers, where former Albion player John Gregory was in charge. But his 18-month deal was terminated early after one of their many managerial changes saw him surplus to requirements.

With his family based in Sussex, Cullip looked for an opening in the south and spent six weeks training with Millwall before linking up with Gillingham, where he played from February 2008 to the end of the 2007-08 season.

He then played non-league with Lewes but, after a season, the hamstring injury forced him to retire.

Alongside his former Albion centre half partner Guy Butters, Cullip is now a coach with the Albion in the Community scheme.