Toon scourge Ian Baird no stranger to red cards

A GOALSCORING scourge of Newcastle United once pulled on the famous black and white stripes – and was booked in three of the five games he played for them!

Baird, who notoriously got himself sent off in the crucial last ever game Brighton played at the Goldstone Ground, led the line in an infamously fiery New Year’s Day derby between Newcastle and Sunderland when the Toon won 3-1 courtesy of a hat-trick by Peter Beardsley.

Jeff Clarke, who’d previously spent seven years at Sunderland and had five games on loan at Brighton at the start of that season, was at the back for Newcastle and future Albion veteran Clive Walker was in attack for the visitors.

A crowd of 36,529 watched the First Division fixture on 1 January 1985 when Sunderland were reduced to nine men through the sendings off of Howard Gayle and Gary Bennett. Baird was one of five bookings made by ref David Scott.

It was Baird’s fourth match for Newcastle after England World Cup winner Jack Charlton signed him on loan from Southampton. He made his debut three days before Christmas 1984 in a 4-0 defeat away to Aston Villa when his former England Schoolboys strike partner Paul Rideout scored a hat-trick. Baird’s only goal for United came in a Boxing Day 2-1 defeat at West Brom.

Three days later, as United lost 3-1 at home to Arsenal, Baird’s involvement was from the bench as a sub for David McCreery. His last game, on 12 January, was another tonking, 4-0 away to champions-in-waiting Everton.

Five years after his Toon cameo, Baird twice stymied Newcastle’s hopes of promotion from the second tier, scoring against them for Leeds in a 1-0 win in December 1989 (it turned out to be his last goal for them) and, after he’d fallen out with manager Howard Wilkinson and been transferred to Middlesbrough in January 1990, netted twice for Boro as they beat Newcastle 4-1 in the last game of the season.

Leeds finished that campaign as second tier champions (Newcastle, who by then had Mark McGhee up front, were five points behind in third place) and Baird’s goals in Boro’s win put paid to the Magpies’ hopes of automatic promotion. To add salt to the wound, Newcastle lost to Sunderland in the semi-final of the play-offs.

Six years later Baird was Brighton’s captain in the penultimate must-win game of the season, when Doncaster Rovers were the visitors.

Albion needed all three points to give themselves a chance of avoiding relegation out of the league when they travelled to Hereford the following week for the final fixture of that tumultuous season.

What they really didn’t need was for the captain to get himself sent off after just 18 minutes of the match!

Talking to The Athletic about it in a 2022 interview, Baird recalled: “I was fired up for it. Darren (Moore) had come right through me, literally in the first minute. The referee didn’t give anything.

“Then he came through me again, and the referee gave a foul. The third time, I lost it. I just turned around and tried to wallop him. There was a big melee. Everyone knew what was at stake.”

Both players were dismissed (it was one of 11 sendings off in Baird’s career) and thankfully Stuart Storer’s memorably-scrambled goal in the 67th minute settled the game in Albion’s favour, although Baird admitted: “It was nerve-racking. I felt guilty that I’d let my team-mates down, let everybody down by getting sent off. It was a massive relief when we won.”

Thankfully, disciplinary rules were different back then (bans were only applied 14 days after the offence) and Baird was able to play his part in the match at Hereford when a 1-1 draw ensured Albion stayed up and The Bulls went down.

*Baird’s exploits for the Albion highlighted in the matchday programme*

Brighton were the tenth and last league club Baird had played for and he had only ended up with the Seagulls because of a pre-season falling out with Plymouth Argyle manager Neil Warnock.

Living near Southampton, only a 15-minute drive from Brighton manager Jimmy Case, a move east along the coast made good geographical sense, and a £35,000 fee took him to the Goldstone at the start of the 1996-97 season.

“Whenever I’d played against Brighton, I seemed to score,” Baird told The Athletic. “I loved the Goldstone Ground and there was the lure of playing for Jimmy.”

Although born in Rotherham on 1 April 1964, Baird had moved to Southampton with his family, via Glasgow, when he was a young lad, his father having sailed from the port when he worked on the Queen Mary.

After surviving meningitis as a six-year-old, Baird’s footballing ability saw him turn out for Bitterne Saints, St. Mary’s College, Southampton, Southampton and Hampshire Schools. He joined Southampton on schoolboy terms after he’d been spotted in the same boys’ team, Sarisbury Sparks, as Lawrie McMenemy’s son, Sean.

Baird won two England schoolboy caps: he was in England’s Victory Shield team that beat Wales 2-1 at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground on 27 April 1979, playing alongside Rideout and winger Mark Walters, who went on to star for Aston Villa, Rangers and Liverpool.

In the same competition, he also played at St James’ Park – two days after Brighton had won 3-1 on the same pitch to win promotion to the top division for the first time in the club’s history.

On 7 May 1979, young England drew 1-1 with Scotland and 14-year-old Rideout’s goal was enough to enable England to retain the Victory Shield. The following month, Baird was an unused sub when England drew 2-2 with West Germany at Wembley.

Baird was offered pro terms by Swindon, but he chose instead to sign for his adopted home town club. However, with McMenemy preferring the more experienced Frank Worthington and Joe Jordan, Baird was restricted to 21 starts and three sub appearances for Saints, and, after that loan spell at Newcastle, he moved to Leeds.

His two spells at Leeds (sandwiched either side of an unhappy time at Portsmouth) produced 50 goals in more than 160 appearances and he was in the Leeds side alongside Mervyn Day and Micky Adams that lost the 1986-87 Division Two play-off final to a Charlton Athletic team that included his future Brighton boss Steve Gritt and teammate John Humphrey.

Baird scored 19 goals that season for Billy Bremner’s side, four of them in the FA Cup as United reached the semi-final where they were beaten 3-2 by eventual cup winners Coventry City.

He had taken Saints’ teammate Jordan’s advice to move to Leeds and his next move was to Scotland where Jordan was in charge of Hearts. He later played under the Scottish international striker at Bristol City too.

*The Pilgrim who fell out with Neil Warnock*

Baird scored six in 29 appearances for Plymouth before that move to Brighton. Discipline might have been a problem but Baird scored eight goals in 10 games from January 1997 as nine wins and a draw at the Goldstone went a huge way to enabling Albion to escape the drop.

As Albion began the 1997-98 season in exile at Gillingham, Baird began the campaign with a three-match ban for that red card against Doncaster — and it wasn’t long before he was seeing red again!

It came in the 13^th game of the season and it was certainly unlucky for Baird, well, unlucky in that a linesman spotted his off-the-ball headbutt on a Chester defender. Gritt publicly condemned Baird’s “out of order” behaviour and stripped him of the captaincy.

The following month, with another knee operation required, a surgeon advised him to pack in the game and he left Brighton in December that year having scored 14 goals in 41 appearances in 16 months.

“At least we kept Brighton up,” he told The Athletic. “There were a multitude of problems, it was a weird period, but it was a big thing.”

Post-Brighton, Baird ended up coaching in Hong Kong and was put in charge of the national side for three Asian Cup qualifiers, playing in Jakarta in front of 75,000 people, and then in Cambodia in front of 1,200 people. “It was certainly an experience, that is for sure,” he said.

Baird eventually returned to Hampshire, developed business interests in the vehicle sales and leasing and sports gear industries, while keeping his football links going in non-league circles: at Eastleigh, Sutton United and Havant & Waterlooville.

*Baird certainly never ducked a challenge*

Mullery’s deputy Ken Craggs had a keen eye for football talent

ONCE A PROMISING Newcastle United youth team footballer, Ken Craggs didn’t make it as a player but went on to serve Albion as a ‘backroom boy’.

Indeed, he had three separate spells with the club, the first being the most prominent. Having joined the Albion in 1978, Craggs was at Alan Mullery’s side as assistant manager when Brighton first climbed to the top of English football.

He later worked as a scout for Jimmy Melia, who himself had been a scout for the Albion under Mullery.

And Brian Horton, the captain who led the Seagulls all the way from the Third Division to the First, appointed Craggs as a scout when he managed the Albion between 1998 and 1999.

Craggs had also worked for Horton when he was the manager at Manchester City, Huddersfield Town and Hull City.

Horton viewed Craggs as a mentor and kept in touch with him long after their footballing days were over.

When Craggs died aged 85 in July 2021, Horton told Brian Owen of The Argus: “Ken knew an awful lot of people in the game. We got on great. He was just fun to be around.”

Referring to how Mullery and Craggs worked together, he said: “Mullers was a hard task master, which I enjoyed. I like people who demand more. Ken was his back stop.

“He would be the buffer between manager and players. They would work in tandem and they were good for each other.”

It was chairman Mike Bamber’s instruction for Mullery to sack Craggs, Melia and coach George Aitken as a cost-cutting measure that prompted the ebullient ex-Spurs and Fulham captain to quit the club in 1981.

“He even wanted to get rid of the kit-man Glen Wilson, who had been at Brighton for years,” Mullery wrote in his autobiography. “The club meant the world to him. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d fired these people.”

Mullery swapped managerial chairs with Mike Bailey and moved to newly-promoted Charlton Athletic and Craggs went with him. When Mullery left the club after a year, his assistant took over the Second Division side.

Craggs was in the job for six months and the club history books record how he was the manager when the Addicks pulled off something of a coup in October 1982 by signing former European footballer of the year and Danish international Allan Simonsen from Barcelona for £324,000 after he had been forced out by the signing of Diego Maradona. It had been thought Simonsen would either go to Tottenham or Real Madrid but he revealed publicly that he wanted to play for a club at a less stressful level.

With only five wins in 16 league matches, Craggs’ last game in charge at The Valley saw Rotherham United wallop the home side 5-1 with ex-Brighton winger Tony Towner proving a handful on the right and scoring one of the goals and Ronnie Moore hitting a hat-trick.

Craggs was born on 10 April 1936 in Quarrington Hill, a small mining community in County Durham, close to Cassop Colliery, where his father worked and he expected to follow him.

But he was noticed playing for the local village school football team and he was selected to play inside forward for the Durham Schools representative side. That got him noticed by Newcastle United.

He joined them as an amateur and played in the club’s youth team, although it wasn’t uncommon for him to play two games in a day, turning out for United and then his local youth club side as well.

Young Craggs was invited to have a trial for the England Youth team and it was during one of these sessions that he was spotted by Fulham scout Bill Rochford.

At the tender age of 17, he seized the chance to leave home and head for the bright lights of London and a career as a professional at Fulham.

Craggs shared digs with Bobby Robson, another miner’s son from Durham who had joined Fulham.

“Ken never won a first team place, but he was a powerful centre-half for the reserves,” Mullery remembered.

Craggs spent seven years on the playing staff without breaking into the first team.

He dropped into non-league football, initially with King’s Lynn in the summer of 1960 and later played for Folkestone, Tunbridge Wells United, Dartford and Hounslow, where he was the player-coach.

He then returned to Fulham in September 1968 as a part-time youth team coach and scout under Robson. He found and developed the likes of Brian Greenaway, Les Strong, Tony Mahoney, Terry Bullivant and goalkeeper Perry Digweed, who later moved to Brighton for £150,000.

He eventually joined Fulham in a full-time coaching capacity and Robert Wilson, who went on to make 256 appearances for the Cottagers, recalled: “I joined Fulham as a 16-year-old in 1977, when Ken Craggs was in charge of the youth side and from there the likes of Tony Gale, Dean Coney, Paul Parker, Jeff Hopkins, Jim Stannard, Peter Scott, John Marshall and many others all progressed to the league team.”

Team line-ups of that time show Craggs pictured alongside Barry Lloyd and Teddy Maybank, who later followed Craggs to the Goldstone for a fee of £238,000.

Another striker who caught Craggs’ eye when he was a coach at Fulham was Malcolm Poskett. After Craggs moved to Brighton, the player’s goalscoring form at Hartlepool eventually led to a transfer to the Goldstone, the £60,000 fee representing a tidy profit for the struggling north east minnows.

*Clothes modelling with Gary Stevens and Mark Lawrenson*

Others who benefited from his acumen included Gary Stevens, who was released by the aforementioned Robson when he was manager at Ipswich Town, but picked up by Brighton.

Stevens said: “Ken played a huge part in many of our careers. He was the main reason I came to Brighton as a 16-year-old and I will always be grateful for his contribution.”

Giles Stille was a part-time player at Kingstonian when Craggs spotted him and after turning pro he made his top flight debut against Manchester City in December 1979 when going on as a sub for Horton in Albion’s 4-1 win. Unfortunately, his time at Brighton was beset by injuries and illness and he was forced to retire prematurely when only 26.

The Albion was quite a different club when Craggs returned for a third spell in 1998, not least because the side was playing home games in exile at Gillingham. His role was to help Horton and his no.2 Jeff Wood to look for bargain signings.

For instance, Craggs and Wood unearthed Gary Hart, who signed from Stansted for £1,000 and a set of playing kit and he went on to become something of a club legend.

“Ken and Jeff knew more players from down south than me ,” said Horton. “He would have definitely gone to watch him on Jeff’s recommendation.

“We put him into a reserve game at Worthing and he only needed one game for me and that was it, we were doing the deal.”

Outspoken Scot whose words and tactics divided opinion

MENTION Mark McGhee to supporters of Wolverhampton Wanderers and most are less than complimentary about the Scot who won third tier promotion with Brighton in 2004.

Steering the Seagulls to that 1-0 play-off final win over Bristol City at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, (as I covered in my previous blog post about McGhee) emulated his feat of taking Millwall out of the same division three years previously, and certainly helped to repair a reputation sullied by his experience at Wolves.

*A play-off winners’ medal at last for Mark McGhee*

It also delivered much relief for a manager who’d previously only experienced play-off heartache, seeing Wolves’ hopes of returning to the Premier League dashed by a play-off semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace in 1997 and losing to Birmingham with the Lions at the same stage in 2002.

After cutting his managerial teeth at Reading and Leicester, McGhee succeeded former England boss Graham Taylor at Wolves, appointed by chairman Jonathan Hayward, the son of owner Sir Jack Hayward (the pair subsequently had a big falling out and McGhee was caught in the crossfire).

McGhee’s three years at Molineux weren’t all bad – many supporters said he certainly rated higher than the hated Glenn Hoddle – and he couldn’t be faulted for spotting genuine talent having given Irish striker Robbie Keane his Wolves debut as a 17-year-old away to Norwich. “I always believed he could be special,” he said. “Even at that age he was sensational.”

*Young Mark McGhee on his arrival at Molineux*

But fans of the boys in old gold disliked his managerial style of winding up forthcoming opponents with disparaging remarks. They also felt some of his signings weren’t up to it – a feeling echoed in the spat that emerged between Sir Jack and Jonathan.

“Nice man, Mark, and he had done well enough at Reading and Leicester. But he didn’t buy very well, did he? You have to ask questions about the quality of the players he brought to this club,” Sir Jack told reporter Paul Weaver in January 1999.

“We should never have let Graham Taylor go. Graham is an outstanding football manager. I’m afraid we bowed to pressure from the fans. We didn’t give him enough time. Then we gave McGhee plenty.”

For many, the final straw in the McGhee reign was when he left club legend Steve Bull on the subs bench in favour of much-derided Steve Claridge when Wolves lost the 1998 FA Cup semi-final to Arsenal.

“No turning back after that really, he’d lost it,” said ‘Bend It Like Dennison’ on molineuxmix.co.uk. “A very negative manager, prone to making stupid comments which wound opposition teams up and made us one of the most hated teams in the division,” opined ‘Nashie’ on the same platform.

“I had high hopes for McGhee and sometimes I quite liked the way he wound up the opposition with his arrogance, however, while he could talk the talk, he couldn’t quite walk the walk!” said ‘Bill McCai’.

The Scot was never afraid to speak his mind and even his former Newcastle boss, Bill McGarry (a figure well known to Wolves fans from his days as manager between 1968 and 1976) told him: ‘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,” McGhee admitted in an interview with theleaguepaper.com.

On molineuxmix.co.uk, ‘stuj4z’ reckoned: “McGhee started to believe his own hype and became a parody of himself. Stupid signings were his downfall because overall I thought his tactics were ok. McGhee wasn’t the devil incarnate and did do some good things for the club.”

‘Florida Wolfey’ maintained: “McGhee was a decent manager and he certainly cared about this football club. He was unfortunate not to get us up in his first season and we never really recovered from that failure. Like all managers he made some good decisions and some decisions he’d rather have made again.”

When the axe fell, McGhee admitted to Nick Townsend of The Independent: “For that first month after I was sacked by Wolves, until I got over the initial shock, I never really opened the door. I became a recluse. I was feeling angry and frustrated.”

Townsend observed that having previously walked out on Reading and Leicester to take the Wolves’ job, “many supporters among his former clubs relished the spectacle of the assured and articulate McGhee being thrown from the steed of his own galloping ambition, his features ground in the dirt”.

“I was 100 per cent justified in leaving Reading after John Madejski gave me permission to talk to Leicester” McGhee told Townsend. “Leaving Filbert Street, a year later, was different. I knew when I walked out of there that it was, in a sense, wrong.

“I knew I’d let their chairman, Martin George, down badly, and the players I’d brought in. People thought, when Wolves dangled the bait, that was me, off and out, no hesitation, no qualms, and that’s where I got my reputation. But it wasn’t like that. It was torture.

“Two minutes before I made the decision to go, I was staying. There was pressure from all kinds of people I respected to go. Against my own conscience, I took the job.”

He added: “I read the papers and I don’t recognise myself. But, obviously, people are thinking that a guy who can up and leave Leicester after a year like that must be one kind of arrogant, callous bastard. All I can do to fix that impression is to go on from here and prove to people that’s not the way I am.”

As it turned out, he feared the football community had turned its back on him when no further managerial opportunity surfaced for nearly two years. It was only a regular punditry slot on Sky Sports that reminded people he was still around.

When he eventually got back in the game as manager of Millwall in September 2000, McGhee garnered a sympathetic ear from The Guardian football writer Roy Collins.

“I don’t think I got a bad deal,” McGhee told Collins. “I think I got exactly what I deserved. The biggest mistake I made was in underestimating the reaction of people when I walked out on Leicester. That is not to say that I regret leaving Leicester but it tarnished my reputation in such a way that Wolves’ fans never really accepted me.

“I was only fulfilling my ambition but I’ve learned that sometimes you have to think twice and maybe it would have been right for me to have said, no matter how much I want to take what I see as a bigger job, I can’t have it.”

McGhee admitted to the reporter he’d had sleepless nights and restless days wondering whether any club would forgive him, so he was grateful for the chance Millwall gave him, admitting: “This is a second chance for me and if I mess it up, I won’t get a third.”

A relieved McGhee told the Evening Standard: “To say I am very pleased to get back into the game is an understatement. I am absolutely ecstatic, but I would not have come back for any job.

“I haven’t been applying for everything that has been going because I felt the opportunity had to be one I was motivated by.

“It did not have to be the biggest club, or in the top league, but I had to really want to do it. I got a gut feeling about some jobs and I had that for Millwall.

“You get a feel for the place and I had an idea what they were about because I am a good pal of their old manager Mick McCarthy.

“In my playing career I was at Newcastle and Celtic. They have demanding, but passionate fans and I know that is the same at Millwall. It is very exciting.”

Millwall chairman Theo Paphitis admitted: “Mark was not always the front runner for the job, but got himself into the position at the interview.

“He said the right things. I believe he was sincere and I am very pleased we have him on board. He is the right person for the job.”

When there was a mutual parting of the ways in October 2003, Paphitis said: “He took over in September 2000 with the brief to get the club into the First Division that season which he duly achieved.

“We then enjoyed a very successful first season at this level, reaching the play-offs the following year. Last season was a frustrating one for the club and whilst expectations were high at the start of the current campaign, we have struggled to live up to them.”

Interestingly, when he was shown the door at Brighton, likewise there was appreciation rather than dismay at what he had brought to the club.

“No matter where you stand on the club’s decision to part company with the former Scottish international, you can’t say he didn’t leave us without one or two golden memories, especially during his first season in charge,” the matchday programme reminded readers.

“There are more than a few supporters out there who rate what happened inside the Millennium Stadium that May day in 2004 as their top Albion moment, above Wembley 1991 and – whisper it – even 1983. Why? Well, for once, we actually won on a big stage. But there was more to it than that: thirty thousand fans invading Wales and laying siege to what is generally regarded as one of the finest stadiums in the world.”

The piece reminded supporters that in the higher division, against clubs with hugely superior resources, Albion beat the likes of Leeds United and Sunderland at humble Withdean as well as nicking unlikely wins at Leicester City, West Ham and Sheffield United.

Even in the season (2005-06) when they weren’t able to retain that hard-earned status, they managed a first win in 22 years at Selhurst Park, toppling the old rivals on their own patch with the only goal of the game scored by loanee Paul McShane.

After a fascinating 3-3 draw at Elland Road, home boss Kevin Blackwell observed that McGhee had “the hardest job in football”.

The programme pondered: “One can’t help but wonder what McGhee’s record would have been had the club been playing inside a stadium worthy of the upper echelons of the English game, with some finance to burn and facilities good enough to tempt Championship and Premier League calibre players to Sussex.” Indeed.

Milner: ‘a player Toon should have built the club around’

FROM being given his Premier League debut at 16 by one former England manager to being signed by another when only 18, James Milner’s career was on an upwards trajectory from an early age.

Terry Venables, when manager of Leeds, was happy to make Milner the youngest player to feature in the league (shortly after Wayne Rooney had become that at Everton and until the Toffees also gave that honour to James Vaughan).

Then, when Leeds were relegated from the top flight, Sir Bobby Robson took the teenager from his boyhood club to join Newcastle United for a fee of £3.6m. Leeds needed the money even though Milner was reluctant to leave.

The young winger made an instant impression on Robson in pre-season friendlies on the club’s tour of the Far East, expressing his delight with his workrate and desire to run at defenders and support the attack.

Even when Milner missed a crucial penalty against Thailand in a penalty shoot-out, he was confident enough to take another and score in the next game.

“We’re very pleased with him in the two games we’ve seen him in so far,” said Robson. “He’s shown a willingness to go forward and attack his full back, which I like very much.

“He’s got confidence and on this display he is a young talent who is going to be very good for us. I was desperate to get him and we have done. He has a big future, I’m certain of that. He’s comfortable with both feet and he’s versatile because of that.”

Having mainly played on the left for Leeds, Newcastle initially put him on the right wing, but Milner was unfazed. “I really enjoyed myself,” he said. “I can play on the left as well but I would play anywhere as long as I am in the team. It doesn’t bother me.

“At my age, getting experience in The Premiership is all that matters. I have to use that experience to try and become a better player.”

The early positivity didn’t last long, though, when Robson was sacked at the end of August 2004 after five years in charge. His successor, Graeme Souness, didn’t share the previous manager’s view of young Milner and although he made 16 starts for Toon he was a sub on no fewer than 23 occasions.

“It’s very frustrating not playing every week but that’s the same if you are 39 or 19,” said Milner when interviewed ahead of an important England under 21 match against Azerbaijan at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium. “I am hopeful that between now and the end of the season I can show my best form and hold down a regular spot in the side.

“It is an important match for the Under-21s as it is a qualifying game but it is also important for me on a personal basis as it will keep me match fit and ready for Newcastle.

“I hope the manager will be watching and I am determined to show him what I can do in a competitive situation.

“I have got to be patient because there are a lot of high-class players at Newcastle and I have got to wait to get my chance.

“I have got to prove myself to the manager and show that I should be involved in every game.”

Former Brighton manager Peter Taylor, who managed Milner for many of his record 46 appearances for England under 21s, said of him: “You couldn’t meet a nicer, more professional boy. He works his socks off for the team.

“If he is playing wide right and you are the right-back, then you are over the moon because he will put his shift in defensively and always be available when you have got the ball. He has an incredible work ethic.

“He is great to have in your team and he just keeps working and working to improve.

“The beautiful thing about him is when I first got involved with him at under 21 level, I wasn’t sure if he was right footed or left footed!

“He can use both feet and I think he can play in midfield as well as out wide and up front.”

When Newcastle were in somewhat of a slump under Souness, the Scot preferred experience over youth and was happy to let Milner go to Aston Villa on a season-long loan.

Many years later, in a column for the Daily Mail, Souness said: “At Newcastle, I knew him as a young boy. He has matured into a professional you can bet is a ten out of ten around the dressing room. He was upset with me many years ago at Newcastle when I said ‘You won’t win the league with James Milners’ and he took that as me saying he wasn’t good enough.

“I was trying to say that you needed men. He was only 19 at the time. I apologised to him for that and I hope he’s forgiven me. You can never have enough James Milners in the dressing room. He makes other players turn up.”

Milner certainly didn’t bear a grudge, as he described in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2018. “Newcastle was tough – the manager who’d signed me, Bobby Robson, got sacked three games into the season, so a new manager arrived and I ended up going on loan again, to Aston Villa,” he said.

“The first time I finished a season with the same manager who started it was Martin O’Neill at Villa, probably five seasons into my career. When someone has an opinion, even if it ends up misquoted, people jump on it.

“But as a player you love the chance to shut people up. Any time that you’re criticised, it drives you on and you try to prove people wrong. That’s what I did in that part of my career.

“But I get on with Graeme – there’s no beef. When I won the Premier League title at Manchester City, he was covering the game and he came over to congratulate me.”

As covered in my previous blog post, Newcastle had a change of heart about making the player’s move to Villa permanent in the summer of 2005 and he returned to St James’ Park to become a regular under Glenn Roeder, supplying crosses to the likes of Obafemi Martins, Michael Owen and Mark Viduka.

He made 46 league and cup appearances plus seven as a sub and, in half of the 2007-08 season under Sam Allardyce and the other half under Kevin Keegan, he played 28 games plus four as a sub.

It was during the brief England managership of Allardyce in 2016 that Milner decided to step away from his international career after winning 61 caps. Allardyce told the media:“James has had the chance to reflect on his international career in recent months and consider his next steps, particularly with a young family at home and having allowed himself little free time away from the professional game in the past 15 years. James can be proud of his seven-year career as a senior England player.”

How Milner left Newcastle was a lot less convivial. He said their transfer valuation of him wasn’t reflected in what he was paid at the club, and he was further angered by what he thought was a private negotiation being made public by the powers that be at St James’.

It forced the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association), who were representing Milner, to speak out in his defence. Expressing disappointment that the club had not respected the privacy the player expected, PFA chief executive Mick McGuire said: “All James wanted was a deal that reflected his development and that was in line with Newcastle’s transfer valuation of him.

“Whilst James does have three years left on his current agreement, it is common practice that when a young player signs a long-term contract, this is reviewed and improved on a regular basis with a player’s development, but equally it protects the club’s position in regard to their transfer value.”

As it turned out, Milner got a permanent transfer to Villa that August (2008) and Keegan toldthe media: “He’s a player, in an ideal world, you would not want to lose, but I just want to make it absolutely clear that at the end of the day, it was my decision to sell him.

“We got an offer that I feel was his value. We are all aware James has had a difficult time – he almost signed for them once before and was dragged back.

“But he has always behaved impeccably. He’s a fantastic professional, and there’s no doubt about it, they’ve got an outstanding player and we have got to move on.”

However, in a 2016 Interview with the Birmingham Mail, Keegan’s former deputy Terry McDermott said they only agreed to the sale because the Newcastle hierarchy promised they’d sign Bastien Schweinsteiger – at the time one of the world’s most in-demand players – as a replacement.

But after the Milner sale had been agreed, Bayern Munich wanted £50m for the German midfielder and there was no chance United would spend that kind of money.

“So, we had no one to replace him,” said McDermott. “But he was irreplaceable anyway because he could play anywhere.”

The saga was symptomatic of the strained relationship Keegan discovered working under new owner Mike Ashley and the football operations triumvirate of Dennis Wise, Tony Jimenez and Derek Llambias. Within a few days he walked out of the club.

*Injury has restricted Milner’s outings for the Albion*

Meanwhile, on completing his move, Milner spoke out about the way Newcastle had handled things insisting their asking price was not reflected in his salary at St James’ Park, saying there was “never” any indication the club were willing to discuss a new contract.

“I enjoyed every minute at Newcastle and working with the manager,” said Milner. “But the way things were going, I knew offers had come in over the summer and the club had turned them down.

“Their valuation of me wasn’t reflected in the deal I was on. Speaking to Newcastle I thought it was the right thing to do to put in a transfer request to show how I felt, seeing they weren’t on the same wavelength as me. They then made the decision to sell me.”

Newcastle fans were certainly disappointed to see Milner leave the club, for example independent online newsletter The Mag said: “His dedication, workrate and energy could never be questioned and the Toon Army loved his wholehearted commitment to the cause.

“His crossing and goal threat needed work but everyone was in agreement that this was a player that the club should be building its future around.”

Reflecting on the numerous trophies the player won with City and Liverpool, the title concluded: “Undoubtedly one of the most successful players that we allowed to slip through our grasp.”

Milner in the centre hailed ‘sensational’ by manager O’Neill

THE RECORD books show James Milner’s most prolific season with Aston Villa came in 2009-10 although the club’s nearly-but-not-quite campaign proved to be a signal for him to move on.

Milner at 23 won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award after scoring 12 goals and assisting 16 more in 49 appearances for the club.

Villa repeated the previous season’s sixth place finish in the Premier League (and qualified for Europe again), reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and were runners-up to Man Utd in the League Cup final (Milner scored a fifth minute penalty but United prevailed 2-1).

Milner also collected the fans’ player of the year accolade that season, after he had successfully moved into a central midfield role, playing alongside Stylian (Stan) Petrov.

“I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “I used to play there a bit when I was younger and obviously played a lot of football out wide since then.

“But I’ve enjoyed it immensely moving into the middle and, having Stan in there, you just seem to get a bit more of the ball and get involved a bit more. I’m still learning the role but enjoying it.”

In March that year, with Villa in contention for a top four finish, manager Martin O’Neill positively drooled about the player after an outstanding second-half performance at Wigan when he fired in a winner on the hour.

“It was an extraordinary performance by a really good player,” said O’Neill. “Since he has stepped into central midfield his game has improved tenfold and he continues to go from strength to strength.

“When you play wide you depend on other people giving you the ball to get into the game but when you have got that determination and energy, you might as well use it in the centre of the field.

“It is something we have been crying out for, a midfielder scoring double figures, and he has been sensational.”

*Milner in action for Villa against League One Albion’s Alan Navarro in the FA Cup* *in 2010*

O’Neill walked out on Villa five days before the start of the 2010-11 season and it turned out Milner’s imminent move to Manchester City was the cause. O’Neill later explained that he over-reacted to an about-turn by Villa owner Randy Lerner.

He told the Claret & Blue podcast Lerner had promised to keep Milner and bring in Scott Parker to play alongside him, but within 24 hours the plan was ditched and Milner was sold to City for £26m, with Stephen Ireland going in the opposite direction as a makeweight.

“I have to say I took these things too personally,” said O’Neill. “I brought James into the football club, he’d been out on loan at Villa and done fine but I changed him from wide right to central midfield and he was fantastic for us.”

However, Milner’s rationale for wanting the move was explained in an interview with The Guardian. “Villa came very close to winning a trophy, they had a lot of good players but were just that tiny bit short of getting to the next level,” he said.

“They needed to bring players in but it became clear from Randy Lerner that Villa might have to sell to buy. It made me think City had a better chance of progressing and challenging for trophies. I had a great time at Villa and improved as a player, but City is a club going places very quickly.”

Ever the professional, Milner played for Villa in the opening Premier League match of the season while the finer details of his move were completed and he was even applauded off at the end having been booed at the start of it.

In another edition of the Claret & Blue podcast, Villa’s former chief executive Paul Faulkner said: “I remember that game and 10 or 15 minutes in there was a 50-50 ball and he went in and it felt like all of Villa Park held its breath but he won the ball, got up and ended up scoring as well and went off a few minutes later to a standing ovation.

“There was that sense of ‘What an individual he is’. He did it for Villa and the fans, because he is a decent person.”

Faulkner added: “His attitude, approach and what he brings on the football pitch – and still does – he’s an amazing guy. He’s a straightforward, stand-up guy and absolutely decent.

“What a player, he would do anything for the team.”

Milner’s first spell in Villa’s colours had come in the 2005-06 season after Newcastle manager Graeme Souness had made it plain Milner wasn’t his kind of player.

Former Toon midfielder Nolberto Solano wanted to return to his old club from Villa so Milner’s old Leeds boss David O’Leary, by then in charge at Villa Park, insisted any deal should include Milner on loan in return.

“Nobody at the club wanted Nobby to leave. So, we initially rejected Newcastle’s offer,” O’Leary told the club website. “But Nobby made it very clear that he wanted to leave. There is clearly no point in trying to hold on to a player under those circumstances.

“We were determined to ensure his departure benefited Aston Villa. We held out for a fee that reflects what we paid to Newcastle and also insisted that James Milner was included in the package.

“When you consider what we’ve got in return for a player who wanted to be elsewhere, we’ve definitely got the best of the deal.”

Milner didn’t take long to get on the scoresheet, scoring in a 1-1 draw at home to Spurs. Three days later he scored twice in an 8-3 mauling of Wycombe Wanderers in the League Cup.

But any hopes of Villa finishing in the top half of the Premier League were dashed by them only registering 10 league wins all season. They finished third from bottom of the table and O’Leary was sacked. Shortly after, the chairman, ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis, ended a 38-year association with Villa by selling the club to Lerner and O’Neill was appointed manager.

It seemed like Newcastle had finally agreed to let Milner join Villa on a permanent basis for £4m but they then pulled out of it at the last minute.

“They accepted a bid for me to go to Aston Villa on deadline day after I’d be on loan there. I went down to Villa, offer had been accepted and then Martin O’Neill said the plug’s been pulled on it,” Milner recalled.

“I started laughing thinking he was joking, he said ‘No, they’ve changed their minds’. So, I went back up to Newcastle, they’d changed their mind.”

O’Neill told the club’s website: “We are disappointed because of the lateness of the decision,”

“Newcastle are entitled to do what they did, but we are disappointed because it came so late in the day.”

Milner duly returned to Newcastle and became a regular but a permanent switch to Villa eventually happened in August 2008, by then the fee was £12m. He signed a month after Steve Sidwell arrived at Villa Park from Chelsea and was Villa’s eighth summer signing.

O’Neill said: “I am not a kid in a sweet shop but this is an opportunity for us. James has got a great spirit about him and I definitely think his best years are in front of him. It was disappointing two years ago not to sign him when we thought the deal was done and dusted but it is nice to have got it all sorted this time.”

Milner expressed his relief that the deal had finally gone through and believed the club was capable of breaking into the top four. “The top four is tough to get into. But a club will get in there at some point and Villa are in as good as position as any,” he said.

O’Neill’s side had a terrific season up to the beginning of February and, after 25 games, were in third place in the Premier League, on course to qualify for the Champions League. But a dreadful run of form in the final third of the season, with only two wins in 13 matches, saw them drop down to sixth by the end.

As mentioned at the top of this piece, fortunes would change in 2009-10 and Milner in particular was earning plaudits for his performances in central midfield.

At the beginning of the season, he had made his full England debut (going on as a sub for Ashley Young in a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands under Fabio Capello) having played for his country at all age group levels from under 16s up, including a record 46 appearances for the under 21s. Over the next seven years, Milner won 61 caps.

Following a man-of-the-match showing in Villa’s 6-4 Carling Cup semi-final, second-leg victory over Blackburn Rovers, Milner declared: “The next step for this side is to win a trophy. The owner and the manager have done a great job and the club has changed massively since the last time I was here on loan.

“Hopefully we are improving year by year and we can show that in the league but also to get a piece of silverware would be great.”

Milner was hoping he’d have a better League Cup final experience than in 1996 when, as a Leeds United fan, United lost 3-0 and their supporters jeered manager Howard Wilkinson at the end. “I was supporting Leeds. I was only 10 and remember being disappointed,” he said.

The Withdean visitors’ teenage winger went on to great things

MY FIRST memory of watching James Milner play was at Withdean Stadium when he was on loan to Swindon Town from Leeds United.

Even then, as a seventeen-year-old, he had something about him – but I certainly didn’t imagine I would be watching him playing in the Premier League and Europe for Brighton 20 years later!

*Young Milner tackles Brighton’s Kerry Mayo*

That League One game on 6 September 2003 finished 2-2. Sam Parkin scored twice for Town and Albion’s goals came from Gary Hart and a penalty from on-loan Darius Henderson.

The Albion matchday programme subsequently recorded: “Kerry Mayo had a fine match, mainly subduing the impressive teenager James Milner.” (although, as the picture suggests, he wasn’t afraid to launch himself into a tackle).

Swindon’s manager Andy King had persuaded his old Everton teammate, Peter Reid (in charge of Leeds at the time) to loan Milner to the Robins for a month. In just six matches, the young winger scored twice.

“The boy is a terrific talent and everyone has been able to see the skills he has and I have no doubt he will go on to perform in the Premiership,” King told Sky Sports.

Milner already had two goals to his name for his parent club having scored twice in the Premier League in 2002-03 while still only 16.

On Boxing Day 2002, ten days short of his 17^th birthday, he became the youngest player to score in the elite division, with a goal in a 2–1 win at Sunderland (the record had been set a couple of months earlier by Wayne Rooney for Everton and was subsequently taken by James Vaughan, also for the Toffees).

Milner had gone on as a 36^th-minute sub for Alan Smith, a player he had admired when a boy growing up in Leeds. Terry Venables, Leeds manager at the time, said: “It’s not just a case of him simply coming through and helping out because every day he is getting better and better.”

Milner scored again three days later after going on as a 31^st minute sub for Harry Kewell as Leeds beat Chelsea 2-0 at Elland Road.

“Picking up Mark Viduka’s pass in first-half injury time, Milner beat his man before thumping a right-foot shot low into the net with Blues keeper Ed de Goey powerless to stop him,” said the BBC report of the match.

“I am very pleased with him,” said Venables. “He is growing in this group and he has taken advantage of every day’s training to show what he can do.

“He has two good feet, he is courageous and everyone likes him a lot. He also is not only a nice, solid, good, well-mannered boy, he is a very talented player.

“It’s early days for the boy. At the moment he has not achieved anything and he is the first to admit that.

“But I think a lot of people are confident about his development. We have just got to take it easy.”

Wind on the clock more than two decades and Albion are now enjoying the benefit of Milner’s vast experience gained winning trophies galore for two of the country’s top clubs and playing for his country.

Born in Wortley, Leeds, on 4 January 1986, Milner broke through with Leeds United before joining Newcastle United at 18 and having loan and permanent spells at Aston Villa.

Milner went on to make more than 200 league and cup appearances for Manchester City and more than 300 for Liverpool as well as earning 61 full England caps and a record 46 at under 21 level.

Against Wolves on 22 January 2024, 38-year-old Milner overtook Ryan Giggs to go second outright on the Premier League’s all-time appearance list when he played in his 633rd top-flight match, 20 short of record holder Gareth Barry.

“I’ve had some luck,” Milner told TNT Sports. “I’ve worked hard and you have to enjoy it to put the work in every day. I’ve hopefully got a few more games in me.”

Milner’s free transfer move to Liverpool from Manchester City in the summer of 2015 proved an inspiration that brought him even more medals than he had won with the Sky Blues.

Over eight seasons, he made 332 appearances, scored 26 goals and lifted seven trophies along the way.

“He’s a role model,” said manager Jürgen Klopp. “Nothing we have achieved in the last few years would have happened without James Milner, it’s as easy as that.

“Whether he was on the pitch or not, he’s set standards in a way not a lot of people can set standards, and it educated all of us.”

In a heartfelt tribute to the player, Klopp added: “From the first moment for me, he was a super-important player reference point.

“When you have a meeting and you look at Millie’s eyes and he’s not shaking his head, you know you’re on the right way. Nothing would have happened here without Millie because he kept it always going.

“From the player who was super-angry when he didn’t play, to the player when he did play, the way he pushed the whole dressing room before a game is absolutely second to none.”

For his part, Milner enjoyed a good relationship with Klopp, apart from once during a half-time flashpoint when the manager lost it, as Milner revealed to The High Performance Podcast.

“We had one moment where he was sharing his thoughts and I was sharing mine and I remember him smashing his hands on down the table and shouting, ‘Will you shut the f**k up!’ But Jurgen was brilliant, we had a great relationship and we were great off the pitch.”

It was Klopp’s predecessor, Brendan Rodgers, who persuaded Milner to make the journey along the M62, and he said at the time he signed him: “He had won the Premier League, he had won cups. His whole ambition was to win the Champions League and he felt that he would have a better opportunity to win it at Liverpool.”

Rodgers revealed that when Liverpool were trying to persuade him to sign, his wife Charlotte spent time chatting to Mrs Milner while he spent time with her husband!

“His actual football talent has probably gone under the radar because he’s played around some outstanding talents, but this is a guy who works tirelessly at his game,” said Rodgers.

“He’s in here at 7.45am making sure he’s prepared for his training, getting all of his food supplements and getting everything correct before training – he’s in two-and-a-half hours before he trains and then does his work, gives his maximum.

“He prepares himself like an elite player should. He’s also got big character and a big mentality.”

Rodgers was effusive in his praise of the new signing even before a ball had been kicked in anger after he scored the winner in a 2-1 pre-season victory over Brisbane Roar. Playing in the central role he preferred, he also provided a pass for Adam Lallana’s 27th-minute equaliser.

*Former Liverpool teammates Adam Lallana and James Milner reunited at Brighton*

“James Milner is a class act,” he told reporters. “We had to work very hard to get him in but I think we’ll see over the course of the season how important he is for us.

“He’s a wonderful personality and a top class footballer. When you see him play in his favourite position, you see all these qualities come out.”

*Milner in action for Liverpool against Brighton during a lockdown match*

Rodgers departed Anfield not long after Milner’s arrival but the player grew in stature under Klopp and, although it wasn’t his favourite position, he spent much of 2016-17, filling in at left-back.

That season he made 40 appearances – 36 in the Premier League – as Liverpool qualified for the Champions League. They made it all the way to the final, only to lose to Real Madrid in Kyiv. But they made amends the following season and returned from Madrid with Liverpool’s sixth European Cup.

Milner went on as a second-half substitute in the Estadio Metropolitano in the 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur. “It will be nice going to Melwood seeing No.6 there,” he said. “Liverpool has a great history and when I signed for the club, I was desperate to add trophies as this club expects to win trophies and it has an amazing history – but we want to create our own history.”

Not only did they add the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, Milner made 22 appearances as Liverpool clinched the Premier League title in 2019-20 with 99 points.

In 2021-22, Milner scored the first in Liverpool’s 11-10 penalty shoot-out win in Liverpool’s Carabao Cup defeat of Chelsea at Wembley, having gone on as an 80^th minute sub, and he repeated the feat (as a 74^th-minute sub) when the teams were also goalless at the end of the Emirates FA Cup final three months later. Liverpool won that 6-5 on penalties.

In his final season at Anfield, Milner featured 43 times and moved up to third spot on the Premier League’s all-time appearances list.

“I’m Leeds through and through and always have been and always will be – but I never probably thought that another club would get into me as much as Liverpool has,” said Milner.

The player he followed from Anfield to the Amex, Lallana, told the BBC exactly what Milner brings to a squad, especially in setting an example to younger players.

“He helps the management team in so many ways with the experience he’s built up,” said Lallana. “He knows what it takes to win. He knows what sacrifices need to be made.

“I’m not sure how he got the boring James Milner label, but he couldn’t be further away from that. He’s one of the loudest in the dressing room for sure. Full of life. Full of banter. But he’s definitely old school.”

Lallana added: “Those basics are always there and they’ll never change. I think that’s what’s made him who he is and given him his success. Those values that he’ll always live by. He taught me how to be a better professional and a better role model.”

It all began at Westbrook Lane Primary School in Horsforth and the secondary Horsforth School. He played local amateur football with Rawdon whose coach Graeme Coulson had first noticed Milner as a nine-year-old.

“I first came across him when I was refereeing a junior match involving Westbrook under nines at Horsforth,” Coulson told the Craven Herald and Pioneer. “He was so outstanding then that I asked some of the Horsforth parents who he was.

“I noted his name and it was one not to be forgotten. He was an outstanding talent scoring lots of goals but he was also very strong.”

Horsforth School spokeswoman Fran Morris said: “He was a first class student and he did really well at his GCSEs (he got eleven).

“He was very sporty at school and he won the PE prize which was handed out just before we broke up.

“He was the most wonderful young man and he was very popular, so we wish him all the best in his career. I am very sure he will do well and we are all proud of him at the school.”

Let alone his football ability, the young Milner also played cricket for Yorkshire Schools and excelled as an athlete: he was Leeds Schools’ cross-country champion for three successive years and district 100 metres champion for successive years.

Milner was a season ticket holder at Elland Road along with his parents Peter and Lesley before becoming a ball boy. He joined the Leeds United Academy after being spotted playing for Westbrook in Horsforth.

The sporty youngster was forced to decide between cricket and football, explaining in one interview: “I played for Yorkshire at the ages of 10 and 11 as a wicketkeeper-batsman. It was something I enjoyed but you get to a stage where you have to make a choice.

“I stopped playing cricket at 16 when I moved full time to the Leeds United Academy. They couldn’t take the risk of me getting injured, having my foot broken by a yorker or something like that.

“A couple of months later I made my Leeds debut. I still can’t take the risk for the same reason, but as soon as I retire from football, I’ll look forward to taking up cricket again.”

He completed his formal education at sports college Boston Spa School, which works in partnership with Leeds United, and, as soon as he left school, he was taken on as a trainee.

As he worked his way through United’s youth ranks, he also played for England at under-15 and under-17 levels.

*Milner in action for the Albion against Everton at Goodison Park*

Calderwood’s switch to promotion rivals backfired

SCOTTISH international Colin Calderwood played for and managed Nottingham Forest in a lengthy playing and managerial career that has spanned a host of clubs across the country.

His 21 months as assistant manager to Chris Hughton at Brighton came to an abrupt end that drew harsh criticism at the time but thankfully didn’t hinder Albion’s upward trajectory.

Calderwood worked under Hughton at three other clubs: Newcastle United, Birmingham City and Norwich City.

The pair first met on the same A licence coaching badge course and Hughton was later a coach at Tottenham when Calderwood was a player. He then played a part in Calderwood becoming reserve team coach at White Hart Lane after his playing days were over.

Calderwood went on to become a manager in his own right at League Two Northampton Town, where he got them promotion at the end of his second season (in 2006).

Two and a half years as boss at Forest followed, during which he got them promoted from League One to the Championship. In 2007-08, his Foest side took four points off the Albion, winning 2-0 at Withdean but being held to a goalless draw at home.

Forest were promoted in second place behind champions Swansea City (Albion finished seventh) but Calderwood was sacked just before Christmas in 2008 with the side struggling in the Championship relegation zone.

When Hughton succeeded Sami Hyypiä at the start of 2015, it wasn’t long before he turned to trusted ‘lieutenant’ Calderwood to help Albion’s cause.

The no.2 had first worked with him at Newcastle in 2009 when, after relegation from the Premier League, the pair led the Magpies back to the elite as Championship champions in 2010.

Hibernian in Edinburgh lured him to try a third spell as a no.1 but, after just 13 months in charge, and only securing 12 wins from 49 matches, he was sacked. He was not out of work for long, moving later the same month to Birmingham to become Hughton’s assistant at the Championship side, where another of Hughton’s backroom team, Paul Trollope, was first team coach.

When Hughton left for Premier League Norwich in June 2012, Calderwood, Trollope and chief scout Ewan Chester (who also later joined him at Brighton) all decamped to Carrow Road. City dispensed with their services in April 2014.

Having helped steer Albion to the Championship promotion near-miss of 2015-16 (when they suffered the agonising play-off semi-finals defeat to Sheffield Wednesday), the Seagulls were well geared up to go one better the following season.

So it came as something of a shock when Calderwood quit in November 2016 to become assistant manager to Steve Bruce at promotion rivals Aston Villa.

Hughton was said to be “very disappointed” and “very surprised” by his assistant’s departure, “particularly at this stage of the season”. Albion watcher Andy Naylor reckoned that amounted to a “withering condemnation” from the normally placid manager.

In an excoriating article for the Argus, Naylor wrote: “He clearly feels let down – and he is entitled to feel that way. Is there any justification for treating Hughton the way he has?”

It emerged that the move gave Calderwood a much shorter daily commuting distance from his home in Northampton, but, even so, Naylor reckoned Hughton deserved better.

Thankfully, there was a ready-made replacement in the wings because Trollope had just lost his job at Cardiff City.

Naylor wrote: “Trollope is in the right place at the right moment to bring his promotion-winning mentality as both a player and manager into the camp. Let’s hope he demonstrates more loyalty than Calderwood.”

Perhaps it was the supreme irony that as Albion marched to promotion from the Championship the following spring, the side Calderwood had moved to only finished in 13^th place – although the last-game draw at Villa stymied Albion’s chances of going up as champions.

Nevertheless, there were no bitter recriminations on Calderwood’s part. “Chris did a terrific job turning around the shape and the balance of the team,” he recalled in an interview with the Argus in January 2021.

Ahead of his subsequent club Blackpool’s visit to the Amex for a fourth round FA Cup tie (Albion won 2-1), the former assistant boss said: “We found, as I’ve found at most clubs I’ve been at, there’s a core group of players that have an appetite and an ability level that can give you a chance of success.

“When it falls into place, it is really nice to watch and it is very heart-warming and you feel justified in what you preach and practice.

“A lot of the time you are determined by the quality of the person and the player within the club. We found some really good people down there.”

Born on 20 January 1965 in Stranraer, Calderwood didn’t play professionally in Scotland, instead joining Mansfield Town as a 17-year-old in 1982.

He realised in hindsight that he learned a lot from Town’s manager at the time, the experienced Ian Greaves, and he went on to play over 100 matches for the Stags before Swindon Town boss Lou Macari signed him for £27,500 in 1985.

“Ian and Lou were the ones that built the foundations of my career,” he told the Albion matchday programme.

The centre back spent eight seasons at the County Ground and is recognised as a Swindon legend having featured in 412 matches (plus two as a sub).

At only 21, he was made club captain and, despite a difficult start, led Town to back-to-back promotions as they won the Division Four title in 1986 and overcame Gillingham in a Division Three play-off final replay in 1987.

Calderwood was said to be “a rock at the heart of the defence” and eventually led Town to their first promotion to the top-flight, after beating Sunderland in the play-off final at Wembley in 1990. But Swindon were demoted due an irregular payments scandal in which Calderwood was implicated: he was arrested just four weeks before the Wembley match but released the same day without charge.
Calderwood missed five months of the 1990-91 season following a horror tackle by Wolves legend Steve Bull but he returned stronger than ever and was ever present when, under Glenn Hoddle, Swindon were promoted at the end of the 1992-1993 season, beating Leicester 4-3 in the play-off final.

But instead of featuring for Swindon in the Premiership, Town’s former manager Ossie Ardiles took him to Tottenham for a fee of £1.25 million.

Playing in the top division for Spurs earned him international recognition. He made his Scotland debut aged 30 in a Euro 1996 qualifier against Russia and was a regular under Craig Brown, winning 36 caps in four years, including playing at the 1998 World Cup.

According to Spurs fan website mehstg.com (My Eyes Have Seen The Glory), Calderwood was “a solid defender, who could tackle and was good in the air, but lacked the pace and distribution skills to be a top class centre half.

“Calderwood gave Spurs a tough presence in the middle of the back four they had been missing for some time and showed that Ardiles’ judgement had been sound.”

After 198 appearances for Spurs (more than 150 in the Premier League), he left White Hart Lane in March 1999 when a £230,000 move saw him join Aston Villa under John Gregory. A year later, he switched to David Platt’s second tier Forest for £70,000.

He had only been at Forest a month when, ironically at Birmingham’s St Andrews ground, Calderwood, by then 35, suffered an injury that would ultimately force him to retire.

Forest goalkeeper Dave Beasant had already been injured in a clash with City’s Jon McCarthy earlier in the game but recovered. Calderwood wasn’t so fortunate. He ended up being stretchered off after a collision with the same player. He had fractured his leg and dislocated his ankle, causing ligament damage.

The injury overshadowed Forest’s 1-0 win and it meant he played only a handful of games at the City Ground. He later had a brief spell on loan at neighbours Notts County before calling it a day.

Calderwood initially returned to Spurs as reserve team manager before leaving for Northampton in October 2003. Spurs director of football and caretaker manager, David Pleat, said: “Colin leaves us with our very best wishes. He’s had two-and-a-half years here as a coach which I’m sure has been valuable experience.

“Colin is young, he has energy, ideas and, most importantly, ambition. This could be a terrific apprenticeship for him and everyone at the club wishes him well in his new role.”

Fast forward 15 years, and after he left Villa along with Steve Bruce in October 2018, two months later he was back in the game at League Two strugglers Cambridge United. He was given an initial 18-month contract and a year later he was given a two-year extension on his deal.

However, after a 4-0 home defeat to Salford City in January 2020 which meant Cambridge had taken only one point from their previous six games, he was sacked.

In October that year he was taken on at Blackpool as part of Neil Critchley’s managerial team and was part of the set-up that saw the Tangerines win a place in the Championship in 2021.

In June 2021 Calderwood returned to his old club Northampton as assistant manager to Jon Brady, and he told the League Two club’s website: “I have learned a lot in the years since I was last at the club and hopefully I can put all of that experience to good use.

“The situation here is similar to the situation I arrived in at Blackpool in working with a talented young manager.
“I have spoken with Jon Brady a number of times, that relationship will build quickly and I am really looking forward to working with him and the rest of the coaching staff.”

The Cobblers finished fourth in League Two and made it through to the division’s play-off semi-finals where they lost 3-1 on aggregate to Calderwood’s first club, Mansfield.

They made up for it in 2022-23 when they earned automatic promotion in third place behind Leyton Orient and Stevenage.

Nevertheless, in October 2023, Calderwood returned to Championship level as part of Russell Martin’s backroom team at Southampton.

“First and foremost, he’s a brilliant human being. I really trust him and know him very well,” Martin told the Daily Echo.

“We worked together at Norwich many moons ago when he was the assistant manager. I used to moan all the time to him and he had a brilliant way of being able to deal with that.

“He just has a great relationship with the players, and he’s a coach throughout my career who I’ve stayed in real constant contact with and discussed football.

“We’ve spoken a lot even when he’s not worked with me. I tried to get him at my two previous clubs and it couldn’t quite happen for various reasons.

“He’s been a manager, an assistant manager, he’s helped some young managers recently get promoted in Neil Critchley and Jon Brady, and added huge experience and value to them.”

The Liddle and large story of Dan Burn’s football rescue

WHEN Albion beat Wigan Athletic 2-1 to win promotion to the Premier League in April 2017, few Brighton supporters were paying much attention to the tall defender lining up for the opposition.

“There was a party atmosphere around the place, with the players and everyone on the pitch – so it was a great time for Brighton, but not such a great time for us as Wigan players,” recalled 6’6” Dan Burn. “We were all but relegated to League One, which was a low point in my career.”

By the time he next stepped out at the Amex, in January 2019, he was wearing Albion’s colours, and making his debut in a 0-0 stalemate v West Brom in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Signed on a four-year contract towards the end of the Chris Hughton era, to say Burn’s Albion career had a slow start would be an understatement. He joined the Seagulls on August deadline day in 2018, but was immediately loaned back to the Latics while also nursing a foot injury.

He told the Albion matchday programme: “I’m buzzing to get another crack at the Premier League but I know it won’t be easy. The competition within the squad is very good in my position.

“I’m under no illusions that it’s going to be a very tough ask but, when I do get a chance, I’ve got to show what I can do.”

Hughton, a former Newcastle United boss when Burn was a season ticket holder at St James’s Park, said: “Dan has a wealth of experience from his time with Fulham, Birmingham City and Wigan, amongst others.

“He’s an imposing figure and had an excellent season helping Wigan to the League One championship. He also impressed in an excellent FA Cup run to last season’s quarter-finals.”

Once recovered from his foot injury, Burn played 13 games, plus once as a sub, for Paul Cook’s Latics before arriving at Falmer in January.

He managed just three FA Cup games under Hughton, but his fortunes changed dramatically with the arrival of Graham Potter, initially slotting in on the left of Shane Duffy and Lewis Dunk in a back three, and later showing versatility and no little ability on the ball as a left-back or left wing back.

“Graham had a meeting with the lads, sat us down and told us the past was past and we just had to go out and prove we could play.

“I’m a good trainer; I train as I play and so always felt I had a chance. I also learn best when I’m out of my comfort zone. Playing left of three or left-back or left wing back, I’ve proved a lot of people wrong, which is what I like to do.”

Burn’s Albion Premier League debut came in the impressive 3-0 away win at Watford that opened the 2019-20 season, and, after Albion supporters had voiced their approval, Burn told the matchday programme: “It’s nice to be appreciated by our fans who are tremendous both home and away and for me to prove to people that I can play at this level.”

It was certainly a special occasion for Burn when Albion travelled to St James’s Park on 14 September 2019. He admitted: “Even coming out the tunnel and listening to Local Hero being belted out of the speakers was emotional for me. As a season-ticket holder for years, I could see my old seat.

“All my family were there, dotted around the stadium, people I used to go to school with, parents of friends. On the day I just had to focus solely on the game and then afterwards I could relax a little bit and go up to see my family.”

Burn was born in Blyth, the seaside town 13 miles north of Newcastle, on 9 May 1992. Because his dad was an ardent Newcastle fan, his son was quickly enrolled as a supporter and, having begun playing football with some pals when he was six or seven, he admitted: “Once I started going with him and watching games I never looked back. I was always out on the back field playing football or playing at school.

“Around 99 per cent of people in Blyth supported Newcastle. Everyone dreamed of playing for Newcastle.”

The dream looked like it might become a reality when he was just nine. While playing for the junior side of Blyth Spartans, he was scouted by Newcastle and invited to join their development centre.

“You have the Academy, where the best players went, and the development centre would run alongside that, where you would train Fridays, and they kept an eye on the players’ progress,” Burn recalled in a matchday programme interview.

“It wasn’t that great to be honest. While I was a good footballer when I joined them, as the two or three years went on, I declined quite rapidly. My body shot up, and I didn’t really catch up with myself football-wise until I was 15 or 16.”

He left the Toon at 11 and reflected: “It wasn’t a particularly good experience being let go by the club you support, with the realisation setting in that you’re probably not good enough to play at that level. I got released around Christmas time too, and it knocked my confidence.”

His chance of making it in the game wasn’t lost, though. He played for Blyth Town and Blyth Spartans, as well as New Hartley Juniors, and was spotted by a scout working for an organisation which selected players who weren’t associated with professional clubs.

Still a sixth former at school, he played for an England representative side against the other home nations and did enough to persuade Darlington’s youth team manager Craig Liddle to invite him for a trial. Burn credits Liddle with giving him the belief he could play at a higher level.

He was given a two-year YTS deal in July 2009 and it certainly beat pushing shopping trolleys for ASDA, which he’d been doing to make a bit of money.

In December 2009, with the League Two club in some trouble, Burn suddenly found himself given a first team chance. At just 17, he made his debut as a first half substitute away to Torquay.

“Although we got beat 5-0, I came off the pitch buzzing,” he recalled. “Here I was, a 17-year-old, and I was playing in League Two. We’d been pumped away from home, facing this horrendous journey home, but I was over the moon when I got back to my car – ridiculous really.”

Unfortunately, Darlo were relegated to the Conference at the end of that season. In January the following season, Burn managed to get a foothold in the side.

His performances caught the eye of Premier League Fulham and a £350,000 fee – a lifeline towards keeping the Quakers going for a little while – took him to London. Somewhat ironically, Burn revealed that Newcastle (at the time managed by Alan Pardew) matched Fulham’s offer “but I’d already been down to Fulham, had a tour of the ground and done my medical, so was happy to sign for them”.

Being 18 at the time, he realised staying in the north-east could have made it difficult to avoid the temptations of nights out with his mates, quite apart from the scrutiny that locals give their local football heroes.

“I would have loved to play for Newcastle but, at that age, at that time in my career, it was the best decision for me to get away from that goldfish bowl where everyone’s analysing what you’re doing,” he reflected. “I just wanted to get away and concentrate solely on my football which was the correct decision.”

Burn spent five years as a Fulham player but with decidedly mixed fortunes, as managers came and went.

He spent most of 2012-13 on loan at Gary Johnson’s Yeovil Town and scored the winner in the 2013 League One play-off final at Wembley when the Glovers beat Brentford 2-1.

“I remember my header going in and losing all control,” he said. “I was running round like a madman!” He added: “For a club like that to be in the Championship was ridiculous but I’ll forever be thankful for Yeovil taking a punt on me.

“I really grew up as a player and learnt what it really meant to be a footballer.”

*Loan spell at Bimingham under Toon legends Lee Clark and Steve Watson*

Although he signed a new two-year contract with Fulham, he then went to Birmingham on loan (playing under Toon ‘legends’ Lee Clark and Steve Watson) for six months before returning to the Cottage in January 2014.

With Rene Meulensteen having succeeded Martin Jol as manager, Burn made his Premier League debut in a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates, and retained his place against the likes of Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool.

By then he was 21 and was just enjoying playing but, when relegation saw Meulensteen sacked, in the Championship Burn sometimes found himself not even getting into matchday squads under Slavisa Jokanovic.

“It was such an anti-climax; I’d been on top of the world playing and now it was the complete opposite.” He admitted speaking to a psychologist about the situation to help him through.

He played 35 matches in 2015-16 as Fulham narrowly avoided dropping into League One but was not retained at the end of the season. He made the switch to newly-promoted Wigan Athletic whose manager Gary Caldwell said: “He is a powerful defender, but he likes to play as well.”

The 2016-17 season proved to be bittersweet: the Latics were relegated back to League One, but, according to Paul Kendrick of Wigan Today: “After a shaky start, Burn barely put a foot wrong on a personal level, with a series of highly consistent displays that ensured he was the landslide winner of the Player of the Year award.”

Under new manager Paul Cook, Burn was an ever-present for Wigan throughout the 2017-18 season when they bounced straight back, collecting the League One title with 98 points, two ahead of Blackburn Rovers.

Burn’s performances earned him a place in the PFA’s League One team of the year, and the new season was less than a month old when Albion made their move for him.

Of course, a significant part of Burn’s three years with the club covered the period when Covid prevented fans from attending matches but Burn scored a truly memorable first goal for the club when there was a partial return of supporters.

In front of 8,000 noisy fans at the Amex on 18 May 2021, Burn, in his 60^th match for the club, sealed a remarkable comeback from 2-0 down to secure a 3-2 win for the Seagulls. His 76^th-minute winner came after Leandro Trossard (50^th minute) and Adam Webster (72^nd) had made it 2-2. It was the Seagulls’ first top-flight win over City since 1981.

“That was a real high point for the team and for me personally,” he said.

Burn’s second goal was pretty special too, coming at Goodison Park on 2 January 2022, sandwiched between Alexis Mac Allister’s brace, as Albion beat Everton on their own turf for the first time ever.

It was towards the end of that month’s transfer window that Albion initially rebuffed newly-Saudi-enriched Newcastle’s attempts to sign Burn, but the lure of a return ‘home’ was too great and on deadline day he eventually departed for a fee said to have been £13million.

In an emotional farewell on the club website, he said: “The transfer came as a surprise. I had no desire to leave, but the opportunity to join my hometown club Newcastle United was the only way I would have wanted to leave. While I am excited to begin this new chapter, I am also sad to be ending another.

“Brighton has been a hugely successful period of my career and it’s been a memorable time for me off the pitch. We had my son down here, and I have loved seeing my family grow up as part of the community and living in Brighton & Hove.

“Newcastle were the only club who could have tempted me away. Second to Newcastle United, Brighton & Hove Albion, the city and those associated with the club will always have a special place in my heart.”

When Burn scored his first goal for Newcastle in a 2-0 Carabao Cup quarter final at home to Leicester on 10 January 2023, manager Eddie Howe described it as an “incredible moment”, telling the media: “I am so pleased for him. This is his club and he has come back here and he is savouring every moment.”

The goal came when Burn ran on to Joelinton’s pass, beat two defenders and slotted a shot into the bottom corner.

“I used to sit in the east stand,” he said. “You always want to score in front of the Gallowgate end. To do that in front of my family was amazing.

“I like to get forward and it’s entertaining watching a guy my size running into the box.”

Early promise faded for teenage Geordie debutant McGarrigle

A GRADUATE of the famous Tyneside boys club that spawned the likes of Alan Shearer and Peter Beardsley escaped the clutches of Newcastle United to play for Brighton instead.

After progressing through the ranks at Wallsend Boys Club, Newcastle-born Kevin McGarrigle and two teammates – Ian Thompson and Nicky Henderson – were snapped up by Brighton’s scouting network in the north-east.

Thompson wasn’t taken on and, although Henderson was, he returned home to play for Gateshead in the GM Conference. But McGarrigle stayed on and won a place in Albion’s first team at the tender age of 17, doing enough to earn a three-year contract.

Against a backdrop of turmoil off the pitch, with the club run by a hated regime, McGarrigle played 34 games plus 11 as a substitute under three different managers, mostly as a centre back.

He made his debut in the final game of the 1993-94 season (replacing the injured Steve Foster) when Liam Brady was in charge and cemented a regular place in the starting line-up for the final third of the 1994-95 season.

McGarrigle was drafted in to play alongside Foster, with Paul McCarthy on the other side, as Brady sought to bring a run of three defeats to an end.

“Although it can look like five at the back at times, it does give the chance for the flank players (Peter) Smith and (Ian) Chapman to get much more forward,” the manager explained in his programme notes.

“It has suited Foster at the centre at the back organising McCarthy and McGarrigle in front of him. All in all I think it has worked very well and it is something that I am very pleased about because the players have managed to cope.”

McGarrigle played 16 games on the trot in which Albion posted six wins, seven draws and only three defeats to finish in mid table.

Brady also gave the young defender a special mention in his programme notes at the beginning of the 1995-96 season, pointing out: “I have been telling you that we have some very good talent among the younger element at the club.

“Kevin McGarrigle is doing very well. He has had to come into the middle of the park and do a job. He is there because of the injuries we have had, and he has done well.”

Although he played in the opening two games of the following season, his involvement in the side which was eventually relegated from the third tier under Jimmy Case was more often than not only from the bench.

One of those appearances, when he replaced an injured Smith in a midweek away game at Wycombe Wanderers (on 6 March), saw him score his one and only goal for the Seagulls to bring an eight-game winless run to an end.

Relegation-haunted Albion inflicted a fifth defeat in six games on Alan Smith’s Chairboys. Midfielder Jeff Minton put the Albion ahead on 55 minutes.

McGarrigle scored with what Claire Nash of the Bucks Free Press described as an “excellent” goal. “McGarrigle perfectly timed a run from midfield to meet a left-wing cross from Craig Maskell on 80 minutes,” she wrote.

Case’s preference had been to go with just two centre backs, initially with Foster alongside McCarthy, then, when age caught up with Foster, trying another former England international, Russell Osman, before introducing Ross Johnson alongside the young Irish defender.

Although McGarrigle was assistant Junior Seagull president in the 1996-97 season (Peter Smith was president), his playing time was even more reduced under Case’s successor, Steve Gritt, and he made only a handful of starts.

Gritt went for more experienced heads, like Mark Morris and Gary Hobson.

Nevertheless, the matchday programme showed he wasn’t forgotten, when, for the Wigan Athletic home game on 12 April 1997, it devoted a page photo feature of him in action.

But the following month he wasn’t given a new contract by Gritt, and he made his way back to the north-east. Initially he linked up with Spennymoor United. Before the year was out, though, he switched to Blyth Spartans and was soon involved in a much publicised and televised FA Cup first round match away to Blackpool.

The tie was a magnet for the media because it pitched the 1953 FA Cup winners against a non-league side renowned for past cup exploits and, on this occasion, Blyth’s player-manager was veteran goalkeeper John Burridge, for whom Blackpool was one of his early former clubs.

The occasion, which saw the Tangerines edge it 4-3, was described in detail in this Blyth Spirit blog, which bemoaned a foul on McGarrigle not given which led to a Blackpool goal.

The following season McGarrigle switched to Tow Law Town, turning out for them for three years before moving on again, to Crook Town. His last club was Albany Northern League side Chester-le-Street Town.

Born on 9 April 1977 to Carol, who worked at a local dairy, and Ken, a self-employed gardener, McGarrigle spent his first and middle school years at Wallsend’s Stephenson Memorial School and then moved on to Longbenton High School.

He confessed in a matchday programme article that he wasn’t particularly interested in football up to the age of 12. That all changed when his school pal, John McDonald, took him along to Wallsend Boys Club when he was 13.

The club manager, Kevin Bell, quickly recognised his talent and put him in the XI who competed in the National Association of Boys’ Clubs League on Tyneside.

Steve Bruce, later Toon manager, of course, was said to be McGarrigle’s idol and he too had gone through the Wallsend production line.

The programme reported that McGarrigle was invited for trials at several clubs: he went to Everton, Ipswich Town and Bradford City, while Blackpool, Wimbledon and Charlton Athletic all offered him a YTS place.

But Albion’s north-east scout Steve Burnip won the day and Ted Streeter who ran the youth team at the time persuaded him to sign for Brighton.

Fiery Ian Baird saw red in crucial last Goldstone game

FIERY Ian Baird was no stranger to yellow and red cards – in five games for Newcastle United he was booked three times!

And in Brighton’s last ever game at the Goldstone Ground, against Doncaster Rovers, Baird was sent off long before the game had even reached half time.

Something of a disciple of Joe Jordan, the tenacious centre forward who starred for Leeds United and Manchester United, Baird was his teammate at Southampton and played under the Scot at Hearts in Scotland and at Bristol City.

Baird didn’t fear incurring the wrath of supporters, happily playing for arch-rival clubs in his pursuit of goals. Indeed, on Teesside he earned a place in fans’ folklore by scoring two goals in an end-of-season clash that not only kept Middlesbrough up but prevented their noisy north-east neighbours Newcastle from getting automatic promotion to the elite (to make matters worse, they then lost a play-off semi-final to Sunderland).

Baird scored twice in that 4-1 win over United on the final day of the 1989-90 season at Ayresome Park, and earlier the same season he’d scored a winner for Leeds United against Newcastle at Elland Road.

Baird played on the south coast for both Southampton and Portsmouth before making the Albion his 10^th and last English league club. He joined for £35,000 from Plymouth Argyle when the club was in turmoil off the field and floundering at the bottom of the basement division. But he went on to net 14 goals in 41 games.

He spoke about the move to Tim Ashton of the Sutton and Croydon Guardian in July 2016. “I was at Plymouth, and Jimmy Case took me on and explained all the problems to me about the likes of (David) Bellotti,” he said.

“To be honest, as a player, all you are bothered about is making sure you get your wage, and you’re not really taking any notice of what he is saying.

“I played at Brighton on many occasions, I have been there with Leeds and Middlesbrough, and it was always a favourite place of mine to go – and as soon as I got there as a player, I knew the importance of survival.”

Baird continued: “Brighton are a big club, and I could not believe what was happening. It took a strain on Jimmy, that’s for sure, and he was not the man he was normally with all the pressure.

“Then he was sacked and we were 12 points adrift at Christmas – they brought in Steve Gritt, and he brought a different kind of management.

“It got to February and March time, then all of a sudden Doncaster Rovers and Hereford were sucked into it – we had to beat Doncaster in the final (home) game.”

Sent off 11 times in his career, it was his dismissal just 18 minutes into that game in 1997 that threatened the very existence of the club – and he was captain that day!

Baird later told portsmouth.co.uk: “It was just a natural thing really. Sometimes my enthusiasm got the better of me. There were plenty of times I chinned someone or got into trouble.

“The most stupid one was when me and Darren Moore had a fight. He was playing for Doncaster and I was playing for Brighton in the last game at their old Goldstone Ground.

“He came through the back of me, there was a bit of afters and I ended up trying to give him a right hook, and there was a bit of a ruck.

“We had a bit of rough and tumble and I was just lucky he didn’t chase me up the tunnel because he’s huge!”

Thankfully, Albion famously still won that match courtesy of Stuart Storer’s memorable winner. Because red card bans were delayed for 14 days back then, Baird was able to play in what has since been recognised as the most important game in the club’s history: away to Hereford United.

As the history books record, it was Robbie Reinelt, on as a sub, who stepped into the breach to rescue a point for the Albion, enough to preserve their league status and to send the Bulls down.

In November of the following season, Baird still had six months left on his Brighton contract, but a surgeon told him he should not play pro football any more because of a troublesome knee, so he decided to retire.

But, when he had turned 35, he said: “I had a phone call from Mick Leonard (former Notts County and Chesterfield player) who played in Hong Kong, and he said they were desperate for a striker.

“I went for a month’s trial and ended up signing an 18-month deal. My knee flared up again and they offered me a coaching role, and it ended up with me managing the side.”

He added: “Then I was put in charge of the national side for the Asian Cup qualifiers and we played in Jakarta in front of 75,000 people, and then in Cambodia in front of 1,200 people – it was certainly an experience that is for sure.”

Over the 17 years of his league career, Baird commanded a total of £1.7m in transfer fees; £500,000 Boro paid Leeds being the highest.

Although born in Rotherham on 1 April 1964, the family moved first to Glasgow and then Southampton when Baird was small, his father having sailed from the south coast port when working on the Queen Mary.

The always comprehensive saintsplayers.co.uk notes the young Baird survived meningitis as a six-year-old and later came to the attention of Southampton when appearing in the same boys team, Sarisbury Sparks, as their manager Lawrie McMenemy’s son, Sean.

The excellent ozwhitelufc.net.au details how Baird’s footballing ability saw him play for Bitterne Saints, St. Mary’s College, Southampton, Southampton and Hampshire Schools, before earning England Schoolboy caps in 1978-79 alongside the likes of Trevor Steven and Mark Walters.

He was offered terms by Swindon Town but he chose to stay closer to home and Southampton took him on as an apprentice in July 1980. He turned professional in April 1982 but McMenemy’s preference for old stagers Frank Worthington and the aforementioned Jordan limited his opportunities and he made just 21 appearances for Saints, plus three as a sub, scoring five times.

He was sent out on loan a couple of times: to Cardiff City in November 1983, where he scored six goals in twelve League games, and that spell at Jack Charlton’s Newcastle in December 1984 where aside from a booking in each of his four starts and one appearance from the bench, he scored once – in a 2-1 defeat at West Brom on Boxing Day.

Taking the advice of former teammate Jordan, Baird signed for Eddie Gray at Second Division Leeds in March 1985 and undoubtedly his most successful playing years were there, in two separate spells.

He played more than 160 matches and scored 50 goals. In the 1986-87 season, Gray’s successor, Billy Bremner, made him captain. The Yorkshire Evening Post spoke of “the powerhouse striker’s fearless commitment, no-holds-barred approach and goalscoring ability”.

In the blurb introducing his autobiography Bairdy’s Gonna Get Ya! (written by Leeds fan Marc Bracha) it says “he’s best remembered for his spells at Leeds, where goals, endless running, will to win and fearless approach ensured he was adored by the fans”.

In the 1987-88 season, though, he was wooed by the prospect of playing at the higher level he had just missed out on with Leeds (they’d lost in end-of-season play-offs) and signed for Alan Ball at Portsmouth for £250,000; he later described it as “the worse move I ever made”.

The season was disrupted by injury and disciplinary problems, and he returned to Leeds the following season, being named their Player of the Year in 1989.

But when ex-Albion winger Howard Wilkinson, then manager of Leeds, signed Lee Chapman, Baird sought the move to Boro. He told Stuart Whittingham in 2013 for borobrickroad.co.uk:

“I felt a little aggrieved and basically I spat the dummy out and asked for a move.

“He (Wilkinson) said that he didn’t want me to go but I insisted and within 24 hours I was speaking to Bruce Rioch and Colin Todd and I was on my way to Middlesbrough.”

Curiously, though, when Leeds won promotion at the end of the season, Baird picked up a medal because he had played his part in the achievement.

At the end of the 1990-91 season, Baird spent two years playing for Hearts under Jordan, although a torn thigh muscle restricted the number of appearances he’d hoped to make and at the end of his deal he moved back to England and signed for Bristol City, initially under Russell Osman and then Jordan once again.

After his experience in Hong Kong, Baird returned to Hampshire to put down roots back in Southampton, and pursued business interests in vehicle sales/leasing and the sports gear industry. He also spent five years managing Eastleigh before becoming Paul Doswell’s assistant at Sutton United. He then followed him to Havant & Waterlooville in May 2019.

In parallel lines

Memories from 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Newcastle United