Tag: Norman Whiteside

Irish goalscoring legend who knew football’s ups and downs

GERRY ARMSTRONG was a raw youngster not long over from Ireland when he was part of a Spurs team relegated from the top division.

“We were playing poorly. People kept telling us we were too good to go down but what a load of rubbish that was. You don’t want to believe that sort of nonsense,” Armstrong told Neale Harvey in a tottenhamhotspur.com interview.

“We started thinking they were right but you had to earn the right to stay up and we lost too many games, simple as that.”

It was 49 years ago when Armstrong suffered that fate, and Spurs bounced straight back courtesy of a mightily convenient last day 0-0 draw at second-placed Southampton (Brighton finished on the same number of points but were edged into fourth spot on goal difference).

Eight years later, Armstrong, fresh from playing for Northern Ireland at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, joined Brighton during Alan Mullery’s unhappy second spell in charge, and endured a turbulent season.

He went 17 games before scoring, joined Millwall on loan when Mullery was unceremoniously shown the door in January 1987, and was then recalled by new manager Barry Lloyd  for the final eight games of the season. He only managed one goal (in a home 1-1 draw with Plymouth) to add to the three he scored earlier in the season, and he experienced relegation again, this time from second to third tier, as Albion finished bottom of the league.

Like Spurs, Albion bounced straight back up but by then Armstrong’s involvement was as a perennial substitute (in the days of two subs). In 1987-88, with Kevin Bremner and Garry Nelson on fire up front, he started one League Cup game early in the season and was a sub on no fewer than 25 occasions, only getting off the bench 11 times.

Albion’s Armstrong gets stuck in at Chesterfield, one of his former clubs

He scored twice, once on the last day of August, when he scored away at Northampton after going on as a sub for John Crumplin and, six months later, he went on for the injured Kevan Brown and netted the only goal of the game in extra time as Albion beat Hereford United in an away Sherpa Van Trophy tie.

Chances of a starting berth in the 1988-89 season were limited because Bremner, Nelson and Paul Wood were regulars, but Armstrong managed four starts and went on three of the seven times he was a sub.

He was eventually appointed reserve team player-coach but his time with the club ended ignominiously. Playing for the reserves in a Sussex Senior Cup tie at Southwick in January 1989, he was shown a red card and, as he walked off, he took exception to a comment from a supporter, jumped into the crowd and headbutted the person concerned.

Armstrong left the club a fortnight after the altercation but the matter ended up in court and the footballer received a conditional discharge.

It wasn’t the first time the red mist had descended, though, as Armstrong explained in an interview with Lionel Birnie for watfordlegends.com. He originally played Gaelic football for St John’s GAC and the Antrim senior team.

“I only started playing soccer at 17. I’d played Gaelic football and hurling. I got suspended for an altercation in Gaelic,” he said. “It’s an amazing game but fights used to break out all over the pitch. It was fun, I loved it but it was a very confrontational game.

“There was an incident where I broke a guy’s jaw in several places and got suspended. I didn’t mean to break it but I caught him one.”

It was while he was suspended from playing Gaelic football that he was picked up by Bangor and in no time at all he found trouble in football too.

“I made my debut for Bangor, came on as a sub with 20 minutes to go, got sent off with 10 minutes to go for whacking the centre- half,” Armstrong told Birnie. “I went past him and put the ball in the net to make it 2-1 and he said, ‘Next time you do that I’m going to do you.’

“When he said he was going to do me, I decided to do him first and I whacked him. The manager, Bertie Neill, gave me a bollocking. He chewed a couple of strips off me and I learned that soccer wasn’t a fighting game.”

It was another three years before he signed for Spurs and, by his own admission, “a load of clubs came to watch me but no one took me on because I was very inconsistent, still learning about the game, really didn’t get to grips with the offside”.

The Gaelic game helped him build stamina and strength and soccer made him sharper. After Bangor won some trophies, Spurs invited him for a week’s trial and he told Harvey: “I thought I did okay but I heard nothing for weeks.

“Arsenal were trying to sign me but, out of the blue, Terry (Neill) came over (in November 1975) and signed me on a one-year contract, with a one-year option. It was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.

“I was overawed. I’d never been to London before, so it was like ‘Paddy’ coming to the big city and being lost. But all the lads were great and there were a lot of Irish boys, like Chris McGrath, Noel Brotherston and, of course, the legendary Pat Jennings.”

Armstrong was a late starter at 21 but he lapped it all up, enjoying training and working on his ball skills in the gym in the afternoons with Peter Shreeves. After six months, he broke into the first team.

Armstrong in Spurs action against Nottingham Forest’s John McGovern

He made his debut on the opening day of the 1976-77 season, in a 3-1 defeat at Ipswich and lost his place after only three matches. He was restored to the first team in February for the final 18 games but Spurs slid all the way to relegation.

Armstrong reckoned with hindsight that it was a five-week pre-season tour that took its toll on the squad. They travelled to Canada, USA, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and India and, he said: “When I got back, I was absolutely knackered. But we only had 10-12 days to recuperate before pre-season began.”

After Neill left for Arsenal, his replacement, Keith Burkinshaw, often played Armstrong as a central defender having liked what he saw in a pre-season game.

Armstrong told Birnie: “He wanted me to play there because I was quick, strong, good in the air. It was nice in one sense but I didn’t want to play at centre half, I wanted to be up front where the action is.” Even so, he also played at right-back, in midfield and wide on the right.

Brighton fans of a certain vintage remember all too painfully how Spurs managed to gain promotion on the last day of the season.

Armstrong recalled: “We nearly lost it three games from the end when we lost 3-2 at home to Sunderland after I made a mistake playing at centre-half. But then we beat Hull and went to Southampton needing a point.

“It was tense, obviously, but they needed a point as well and it was one of those games where nobody really tried to push on because of the fear factor. We got our point and went off to Cornwall for four days to celebrate!”

For a while, Armstrong and Chris Jones were a forward pairing for Spurs but he admitted that neither of them scored enough goals and the beginning of the end for both of them came when Tottenham bought Steve Archibald for a million and Garth Crooks for £650,000.

Armstrong dropped down a division to join Watford in November 1980 for a £250,000 fee – at the time, a record sale for Spurs, and a record buy for the Hornets. He signed in the same week that Graham Taylor also signed Armstrong’s fellow countryman Pat Rice from Arsenal.

He was part of their promotion-winning squad of 1981-82 and said: “Graham Taylor taught me so much about movement and he took my level of fitness up another notch.

“I was fit and strong but I hadn’t tapped into all my resources. The two years at Watford prior are one of the reasons I had such a good World Cup [in 1982].”

Indeed, it was his winning goal for Northern Ireland against Spain at the 1982 World Cup that he is most remembered for and Armstrong later told The Argus: “If I had to pick one moment in football to relive again it would be that. It would be the highpoint of any player’s career to perform in the World Cup finals. But to score the winning goal against the home nation would be a dream. It was for me.”

In an interview with Andrew French of the Watford Observer, he recalled: “The goal came early in the second half. I was playing as a right-sided midfield player, and I won the ball off the Spanish left-back Gordillo.

“I went on a run for about 60 yards, went past a couple of players – I remember Xavi Alonso’s father, Joaquin, tried to clip my heels – but I then played the ball out wide to Billy Hamilton and kept my run going.

“Billy put in a great cross which the keeper, Luis Arconada, came for and palmed straight out to me. I was about 12 yards out and I just got my head and my knee over the ball and hammered it as hard as I could, and it hit the back of the net.

“It was actually a funny one as the ground went silent because the Spaniards weren’t going to celebrate, and the South American referee had been so poor and given us nothing. I was worried and I remember thinking ‘why isn’t anybody cheering?’

“But then I saw Norman Whiteside and Sammy McIlroy throwing their hands in the air, and then I looked at the ref and he was pointing to the centre. Once I knew he’d given the goal, that’s when the celebrations started.”

Armstrong had already netted in a 1-1 draw with Honduras and in the next round he scored in Ireland’s 4-1 defeat against France (pictured above); those goals were enough to earn him a golden boot (right) for best British Player of the Tournament.

On his return to the UK, he was back in the top flight but was sidelined for several weeks with a broken ankle sustained when he fell awkwardly in a reserves match.  Towards the end of the season, Real Mallorca bid £200,000 for him and he spent two seasons playing in the Spanish league.

Armstrong told Birnie: “I didn’t want to leave. It was a case of Mallorca coming in. It was 200 grand so the club would get almost all their money back on me after three years, which was not a bad deal at all.

“When you go to talk to them and see the money they are going to offer and you realise the tax situation is very different there suddenly it is very attractive. You realise you can make in two years at Mallorca what you could make in six or seven years at Watford or any other English club.

“There was a challenge in Spain, playing in a different country, learning a different language and it did appeal to me in ways other than the money. I was 30, 31, so I thought I’d give it a go because I knew the opportunity would probably not come up again.”

The experience served him well because after his playing days were over he was a TV co-commentator on Spanish football.

In that respect, Armstrong’s typically Irish gift of the gab long made him an ideal pundit for broadcasters and a journalist’s dream interviewee: tales from his playing days have filled plenty of columns and air time over a good many years, and in 2021 Curtis Sport published his autobiography, Gerry Armstrong: My Story, My Journey.

Born in the County Tyrone village of Fintona on 23 May 1954, Armstrong was a teenager in Belfast at the height of Northern Ireland’s sectarian and political conflict. “There were bombs going off, paramilitaries burning buses and it was a horrific time,” he said.

“At times it felt as if you were living in a movie set, but it was real life. The book isn’t just about the highs, it also paints a picture of what it was like growing up back then.”

Armstrong won 63 caps for Northern Ireland and scored 12 goals, making his debut in 1977 at the age of 22 alongside George Best and Pat Jennings in a 5-0 friendly defeat to West Germany in Cologne.

His first two international goals were scored in a 3-0 World Cup qualifying win over Belgium at Windsor Park seven months later.

Without a doubt, though, 1982 was when he was at the pinnacle of his career. While he’ll forever be remembered for the winner against Spain, he also fondly remembered scoring against Portugal and Israel in qualifying.

“We had to beat Portugal at Windsor Park and we only got one chance that night. Terry Cochrane crossed and I managed to head it into the roof of the night,” he said.

“That win set us up and it then came down to the last game at home to Israel which we had to win to reach Spain. I managed to score the winner and the noise was unbelievable.

“There were 43,500 people inside Windsor. It was only supposed to hold 40,000, so I don’t know how everyone got in. But that’s one of a lot of very special memories.”

By the time of the 1986 World Cup, Armstrong had been in a bit of limbo. He’d returned to the UK the previous August and signed for West Brom on a free transfer but he struggled with travelling to and from London to train and play, didn’t see eye to eye with manager Ron Saunders, and picked up some injuries.

It was former Spurs teammate John Duncan who rode to his rescue. Duncan was in charge of Division Three Chesterfield and he took Armstrong on loan and then signed him permanently, giving him a dozen games, which were enough to put him in contention to be selected by Northern Ireland for the upcoming World Cup in Mexico.

Billy Bingham’s side didn’t make it past the group stage (drawing 1-1 with Algeria; losing 2-1 to Spain and 3-0 to Brazil) and Armstrong only saw action as a 71st minute sub in the Brazil game. Albion winger Steve Penney started the first two matches and was subbed off in each.

It was while Armstrong was away with the Irish squad that Mullery made contact with an offer for the following season.

Although Brighton was the last professional English club Armstrong played for, he lived in the area for several years afterwards. His second wife, Caron, came from Brighton and although his final games as a player were at Glenavon, back in Ireland, he spent some time as a player-coach at Crawley Town, who were in the Beazer Homes League at the time.

In November 1991, he became manager of Worthing and led them to a promotion before being appointed assistant manager of Northern Ireland by his former teammate Bryan Hamilton. He reprised that role for two years under Lawrie Sanchez between 2004 and 2006.

Byrne made Hoops happy before taking flight with the Seagulls

JOHN BYRNE, who had three different spells as a Brighton player, is viewed as an all-time-great by QPR fans where he scored 36 goals in 149 appearances.

Through his Irish father Jim, Wythenshawe-born Byrne qualified to play for the Republic of Ireland and he won 13 of his 23 Republic of Ireland caps while a QPR player playing in the old First Division.

His place in the annals of QPR’s history was etched courtesy of following two other greats (Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles) into the no. 10 shirt.

“I was always conscious of the traditions at Rangers and so I was dead proud to wear the Number 10,” he told qprreport in 2008. “I think I did the shirt justice most of the time.”

In the same way Brighton fans remember his highly effective striking partnership with Mike Small in the 1990-91 season, so QPR supporters recall his combination up front with Gary Bannister.

Bannister and Byrne

“I enjoyed playing up front with ‘Banna’,” he said. “He was a great centre-forward, right out of the top drawer. I don’t know how our partnership worked but we just seemed to have a good understanding.

“He was more of a prolific goalscorer than I was. He also had superb quality and awareness for bringing people into the game.”

Byrne, who later became a familiar voice as an expert summariser for BBC Radio Sussex coverage of Albion matches, has always been happy to indulge requests from Rs writers to look back on his four years at Loftus Road.

As would become something of a pattern in his career, it was an impressive performance playing against QPR that led them to sign him. He featured in a two-legged League Cup game for York City against Rangers, and he recalled the game at Loftus Road when talking to qprnet.com in 2013:

“It was so brilliant to play in that stadium under the floodlights and coming from York to run out at QPR was something to remember.

“Afterwards I said to our assistant manager Viv Busby that I would love to play here every week. Lo and behold a couple of weeks later I was!”

The man who took him to west London was none other than Alan Mullery, the former Brighton manager, during his unhappy six months as QPR manager.

It’s now generally recognised that some of the senior pros at the club were none too pleased with Mullery taking over from Terry Venables, who had moved to Spain to manage Barcelona. Byrne admitted: “It was difficult for me to fully understand having been signed by Mullery but you could feel it with some of the senior pros.

“The likes of Terry Fenwick, John Gregory and Steve Wicks were big Venables men and, understandably, as he was obviously a great coach. You got a feeling that a few of them weren’t overly impressed with Mullers at the time.”

As it turned out, Mullery’s time in charge came to an abrupt end and Byrne remembered playing under caretaker manager Frank Sibley before Jim Smith got the job permanently.

“Frank was lovely; he was a really nice man and probably too nice for football management,” said Byrne. “He really helped me a lot, he would always welcome a chat with you and put his arm round you to talk about your game. I had a lot of time for Frank.”

And of the former Birmingham and Oxford boss Smith, who went on to manage Newcastle and Portsmouth, among others, he said: “Smithy was brilliant. I loved playing for Jim. He loved you, he hated you but he would never ignore you or freeze you out.”

It was in 1986 when Byrne suffered the first of three losing experiences in Wembley finals. QPR went down 3-0 to Smith’s former club Oxford United

“Unfortunately we never turned up for the final,” Byrne told QPRnet. “I just remember that after we were introduced to the dignitaries I went off for the warm up and I had nothing in the tank. I had heavy legs before the game and I think a lot of the players felt like that.

“At the end of the day we didn’t perform and Oxford were better than us but there should be no excuses we were a better side on paper and we should have won.”

A far happier memory from that spring of 1986 happened three weeks previously when the Rs thrashed Chelsea 6-0 and Byrne scored twice (Bannister netted a hat-trick and Michael Robinson the other).

“I’ll never forget that day,” said Byrne. “It was just one of those occasions when everything went right for us.

“I remember one of my goals where I picked up possession on the halfway line. It was funny on that plastic pitch, because bodies would fall all around you if you got into your stride. So eventually I wriggled free and slotted a shot into the bottom corner.”

Another of his favourite QPR memories was scoring in two home games against Manchester United, the team he had supported as a boy. Recalling a 1-0 win in March 1986, he said: “I remember lobbing the ball over two defenders’ heads in the box. Then I flicked it back before shooting past Chris Turner in goal at the Loft End. It was great for me – especially being a Manchester lad as well.”

In much the same way as his move to QPR came about, it was in a couple of friendly matches against Le Havre that the French side liked what they saw of him and QPR were happy to accept their bid for the player.

“It was disappointing to leave QPR but I think it was probably the right time to go,” he recalled. Unfortunately, he broke a leg only three weeks into his stay with Le Havre. But when he was fit again, a few English clubs started watching his recovery with interest.

And it was following a friendly Brighton played against Le Havre that prompted Albion boss Barry Lloyd to bring Byrne back to England to play in early September 1990. He made his Seagulls debut for the reserves in a 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic and then went on as a sub for the first team in Albion’s 3-2 home win over the same opponent 10 days later.

He scored on his first start, in a 2-1 win away to Blackburn Rovers, and on his first start at home he netted in a 3-3 draw with Swindon Town, who were managed by Ossie Ardiles.

Crocked in the last game of the league season against Ipswich

How the rest of that season panned out was covered in my previous post about Byrne, as were his subsequent moves, the most successful of which saw him play for Sunderland in the 1992 FA Cup final when Liverpool beat the Wearsiders 2-0.

“I scored in every round except the final then missed a sitter on roughly thirteen minutes twenty seconds; I see that one every day!” he told QPRnet.

Byrne’s future work as a podiatrist came about largely through the network provided by the Professional Footballers’ Association.

“When I finished playing football in the late 1990s, I was hoping to become a physio but couldn’t get a place at university to study it,” he explained. “Then the ex-Manchester United star Norman Whiteside advised me to look at the PFA’s course for podiatry, because he was a podiatrist himself. The PFA said they would help me with finance and backing.”

He went on to graduate from university in 2001 – gaining his BSC Honours degree was the hardest thing he’d done in his life, he said.

“My brain had been dormant for twenty years playing football, but I’ve been qualified now for nearly 10 years,” he said in a 2010 interview with Sussex Life. “I love my NHS career and also the private work I do and I get a lot of job satisfaction improving patients’ foot problems.”

And in his interview with QPRnet, he added: “I was lucky, I look back now and I had a good career, I played for some great clubs and whilst I might have had disappointments with finals I have got plenty of great memories.”  

Goal machine Frank Stapleton ended his playing days in a Brighton shirt

stapleton stretch

FRANK STAPLETON hit the heights as a goalscorer for Arsenal and Manchester United but his prize-winning playing days came to an end in a Brighton & Hove Albion shirt.

Stapleton was the scorer of the first top flight goal at the Goldstone Ground – unfortunately, it was the opener in Arsenal’s 4-0 win in 1979! He was also one of the Manchester United scorers in the 1983 FA Cup Final against Brighton, having moved to Old Trafford two years earlier (above, however, he just fails to connect for Arsenal against Brighton with Steve Foster and Gary Williams looking on).

His two appearances for Brighton came in 1995 when his old pal Liam Brady brought him in to try to improve the front line of an ailing side.

Born in Dublin on 10 July 1956, the promising young Stapleton was rejected by United as a teenager but the Gunners reaped the benefit of that decision by snapping him up at the tender age of 15 on chief scout Gordon Clark’s recommendation.

Arsenal’s confidence in the prospects for the promising young Irish duo were reflected in a Goal magazine article of 7 October 1972 in which boss Bertie Mee talked about them as future first team players. At the time, they were still part of the club’s junior ranks, aged just 15 and 16.

goal cutting

Mee said: “Brady is almost established as a regular in the reserve side. He needs building up but has the potential to become a first-team player. Stapleton has made quite an impact in his first season and, providing he maintains a steady improvement, he could also follow the path of Brady.”

It was only Brady’s second season and Clark, the Arsenal chief scout who unearthed him, said, at first, he thought he would be better suited to becoming a jockey because he was so small and frail!

He quickly changed his mind when he saw his ability with a football. “He was like a little midget but he had so much confidence. He’s really shot up now and although he’s still not very tall, he’s strong enough to hold his own,” said Clark.

Stapleton, at 15, joined Arsenal in the summer of 1972 and quickly developed a reputation as a goalscorer, netting 11 goals in seven games.

“Frank is tall and very good in the air,” said Clark. “He seems to get up and hang for the ball. He is also very good on the floor and reads the game intelligently for a youngster.”

As expected, Stapleton progressed to the first team and made his debut in 1975 against Stoke City. He initially formed an impressive partnership with England striker Malcolm Macdonald and in three successive seasons was Arsenal’s leading goalscorer.

Such prowess brought him to the attention of the Republic of Ireland international selectors and player-manager Johnny Giles gave him his full debut aged just 20 in 1976 against Turkey in Ankara.

It was the first of a total of 71 caps for his country, during which time he became their captain and scorer of 20 goals. He led Eire when they famously beat England 1-0 at the Euro 1988 finals in Germany. Although he was part of the 1990 World Cup squad – alongside former Albion boss, Chris Hughton –  he was by then behind Niall Quinn, John Aldridge and Tony Cascarino in the pecking order.

Stapleton was part of Arsenal’s three successive FA Cup final teams (1978, 1979, 1980), scoring against United in Arsenal’s 3-2 win in 1979.

When the Gunners sold Brady to Juventus in 1980, Stapleton started to question the club’s ambition and, the following year, on expiry of his contract, decided he would move on himself.

He had scored 108 goals in 300 appearances for Arsenal – some strike rate! – and it wasn’t a popular move to join a major rival in the same division, but he wasn’t the first or last player to have done so.

In the Sixties, United had taken David Herd from the marble halls of Highbury to lead their line and, of course, in more recent times, United signed Alexis Sanchez.

stapleton utd

When Robin van Persie made the same transfer switch from Arsenal to Manchester United in 2012, the Daily Mail took Stapleton back 30 years to talk about the circumstances of his own move.

Stapleton was Ron Atkinson’s first major signing for United and in his first season was partnered up front with Garry Birtles. Stapleton was the leading scorer for United in that first season, with 13 goals in 41 league games.

Subsequently, his main strike partner was the Northern Ireland international, Norman Whiteside.

img_4637

Stapleton scored United’s first goal, a 55th minute equaliser, in the 2-2 Cup Final draw against Brighton: one of 19 he notched during the 1982-83 season in which he played in 59 of United’s 60 games.

By the end of the following season, Stapleton’s regular strike partner was Mark Hughes and he scored in the 1985 FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool to set up yet another Wembley appearance, this time collecting his third winners’ medal when Whiteside’s winner beat Everton.

Despite a good start to the following season, with Stapleton once again amongst the goals, poor league form eventually cost Atkinson his job and his successor, Alex Ferguson, began rebuilding the side.

After six years at United, Stapleton, by then 30, was amongst those to be let go, and he was sold to Ajax of Amsterdam, lured by the fact they were managed by Johan Cruyff. But the move failed to live up to expectations, as detailed by the42.ie, and he ended up having a spell on loan at Anderlecht.

It was the first of a series of moves which didn’t really work out for him, although in the 1988-89 season he found himself playing in France alongside fellow Irish international – and future Brighton striker – John Byrne for Le Havre.

stapleton 4 derby

Derby County offered him a platform back in the UK game and he featured 10 times for them in 1987-88 and, after his stint in France came to an end, he spent two seasons with Blackburn Rovers.

He played once for lowly Aldershot and five times for Huddersfield Town before landing a player-manager’s post with Bradford City. In three years at Valley Parade, he made 68 appearances before the axe fell, and he answered Brady’s call for help at the Goldstone Ground.

The brilliant The Goldstone Wrap detailed his brief involvement in a March 2015 post, explaining how he featured as a substitute in a 0-0 draw at home to Bournemouth and started in a 3-0 defeat away to Cardiff City.

It was a final swansong for his playing career, as he looked to get back into coaching or management. He had two stints working under his former United teammate Ray Wilkins: at QPR and, in 2014, with the Jordan national side.

Stapleton spent eight months in 1996 as the first head coach of American Major Soccer League side New England Revolution, of Massachusetts.

His last appointment in the English game was briefly as a specialist striker coach at Bolton Wanderers, appointed during Sam Allardyce’s reign, in 2003-04.

Nowadays, Stapleton is more likely to be found talking about his illustrious career, his availability for bookings listed by football-speakers.com.

Did Chris Ramsey’s injury alter outcome of 1983 FA Cup Final?

2-near-post-guardBRIGHTON & HOVE Albion’s May 1983 FA Cup Final clash with Manchester United was historic for the club and for their 21-year-old right back it was even more eventful.

Who would have known that former Bristol City apprentice Chris Ramsey’s ignominious departure from the field in a firemen’s lift on Glen Wilson’s shoulder would more or less be the end of an all-too-brief playing spell in the top echelons of the English game?

Might the match – and Ramsey’s career – have panned out differently if it hadn’t been for that diabolical tackle by Norman Whiteside?

Trouble had been brewing in the weeks leading up to the final and the national media, looking for every possible angle to pick at, had singled out Ramsey for criticism. Did that stoke the fire?

Let’s rewind a little and explore what happened.

Born in Birmingham on 28 April 1962 , Ramsey, whose father came to the UK from St Lucia, was one of two boys and five girls. Rejected by Charlton Athletic as a schoolboy, he became an apprentice at Ashton Gate but was then released and, after a successful trial, Brighton took him on.

The 1980-81 season was Albion’s second in the top division and, as it drew towards its close, it was looking increasingly likely they were heading for relegation.

Manager Alan Mullery was openly criticising his players for their efforts and his big ally off the field, vice-chairman Harry Bloom (current chairman Tony Bloom’s granddad) had died of a heart attack on the team coach on an away trip to Stoke.

Something had to change and, at the tender age of 19, Ramsey was called up from the reserves and plunged in at the deep end.

In three of the last four games, he took over the no.2 shirt after Mullery switched John Gregory from right back into midfield. Ramsey’s debut came in a crucial Easter Saturday clash away to rivals Crystal Palace when, released from the shackles of defending, Gregory scored twice in a 3-0 win. Ramsey also played in the wins over Sunderland away and Leeds at home.

The Seagulls stayed up by the skin of their teeth and Evening Argus reporter John Vinicombe said in his end of season analysis that Ramsey had been “a revelation” in those three games.

Within a matter of weeks, Mullery quit as manager in the furore over chairman Mike Bamber selling Mark Lawrenson to Liverpool (after Mullery had already agreed a deal to sell him to Manchester United).

Gregory was sold to QPR for £300,000 but, far from that move opening up an opportunity for Ramsey, Mullery’s replacement Mike Bailey brought in on a free transfer from Loftus Road the experienced Don Shanks, who was immediately installed as the first choice right back.

Indeed Bailey froze out Ramsey for the following 19 months! At one point he was transfer listed but it was Bailey who departed the Goldstone first – his sacking working to the advantage of the young defender.

When George Aitken and Jimmy Melia took over in December 1982, Ramsey was instantly promoted from the reserves and seized his opportunity.

In a profile in an Albion matchday programme in February 1983, Ramsey told Tony Norman: “Like any other young apprentice, my dream was to play in the First Division. I must admit that even after coming to Brighton, I had times when I wondered if I’d make it. But now I’ve got my chance and I’m keen to make the most of it.”

In one of the most comprehensive profiles on Ramsey, former Brighton teammate, Andy Ritchie, told Adam Ellis of The Football League Paper: “He was quite a shy lad back then but he had everything you want in a full back. Aggression, pace, agility – and he could tackle like a demon.”

These were the attributes that Melia appreciated too. In a Daily Mail preview of the Norwich quarter final, Melia told reporter Brian Scovell: “The other players love playing with him. He’s a great competitor, tackles well and uses the ball with a bit of style.

“I’m pleased he’s taken his chance. He deserves to play at Wembley if we manage to get there.”ramsey + mel

As it turned out, Ramsey’s place was in jeopardy because of two sendings off in the league in April which led to him being banned for the semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday at Highbury.

After being sent off in a 2-1 home win over Spurs, Terry McNeill reported in the News of the World: “Ramsey was lucky to stay on earlier after bringing down Mark Falco in a probable scoring position. When he took the striker again from behind, there was no escape.”

The 20-year-old Ramsey was fairly phlegmatic about the situation and told Alex Montgomery of The Sun: “Whatever I did, I did for the club. You can’t think about Cup games when you are struggling for points at the bottom of the First Division.”

His second dismissal, along with Coventry’s Steve Jacobs (who later played for the Albion under Chris Cattlin) after a scuffle in a 1-0 win at the Goldstone, was lambasted by one of the pre-eminent football writers of the day, Frank McGhee of the Daily Mirror.

“Can Brighton afford to field at Wembley a man who by then won’t have been able to play for 19 days?” he intoned. “And can they trust Ramsey not to sully soccer’s great state occasion by a moment of blind madness?”

Nevertheless, after Wednesday were beaten, Melia was happy to restore his first-choice right back to the starting line-up but one wonders now whether Ramsey had a sense of foreboding about how the big occasion would unfold.

Reflecting on those dismissals in the build-up to the final, he told The Sun’s Montgomery: “I just hope people aren’t looking for me. I’ll certainly be careful. I honestly don’t think I deserve the reputation which I’ve been saddled with in the last few weeks.

“The dismissals were just coincidences – nothing more than that. I know I am an aggressive type of player but that is my game. I always want to give 100 per cent for the club. The last thing I want is trouble at Wembley.”

After Albion had taken a shock lead through Gordon Smith’s header, United piled on the pressure and Ramsey headed a goalbound Gordon McQueen effort off the line.

But then came a pivotal moment early in the second half. Tim Carder and Roger Harris record it thus in their excellent Seagulls! The Story of Brighton & Hove Albion FC: “Whiteside went in high on Ramsey’s shin as the Albion full back cleared, and then trod on his ankle. The referee had a strong word with the United forward but did not signal a foul.”

The tackle had rendered Ramsey lame and while he tried in vain to carry on, two minutes later he wasn’t able to challenge for a ball to the far post which Frank Stapleton duly dispatched to equalise.

Those of us watching in the stadium, together with millions glued to TV screens around the world, saw Ramsey carried from the Wembley turf and, in those days of only one substitute, wondered how Albion would cope with a makeshift defender in the shape of Gerry Ryan.

After United took the lead through Ray Wilkins, Ramsey’s friend – and fellow England under-20 teammate – Gary Stevens’ equalised to send the game into extra time and ultimately a replay. Stevens was adamant about the impact Whiteside’s challenge had on the game.

In Match of My Life, edited by Paul Camillin, he said: “It was a bad tackle and perhaps cost us the game. In those days we only had one substitute and Gerry Ryan came on and did a great job at right back, even though he was a midfield player, but we did miss Chris because he had been having a great game.”

Whiteside was unapologetic about the challenge but Ramsey fumed to The Sun’s Montgomery: “It could have broken my leg. If I’d done it, I’d have been off. I just can’t understand how Whiteside got away with it.”

The injury deprived Ramsey of the chance to play in the replay five days later and, after that sad exit, his playing career never reached similar heights again.

Indeed he actually only played 37 games for the Albion, most of those coming in that 1982-83 season. He played only a handful of games in the following season and in August 1984 went on loan to Swindon Town before joining them permanently four months later.

There, he played alongside the likes of Sky Sports reporter Chris Kamara and one-time Albion assistant manager Colin Calderwood and clocked up over 120 appearances, including being part of Lou Macari’s Fourth Division champions in 1986 and Third Division play-off winners in 1987.

In August 1987, he joined Southend United but played just 13 games for them before persistent back injuries forced his early retirement at the age of just 26.

Some business ventures he embarked on didn’t work out and former Albion right back rival Shanks set him up with a trial for a team in Malta, Naxxar Lions, where he made a playing comeback.

Eventually the ongoing injury problems made him look to other ways of making a living. He coached in the United States but also started studying like crazy.

Amongst lots of qualifications, he got a Master’s degree at the University of North London in Health, Physical Education and Recreation (a qualification which enabled him to become a primary school teacher) and simultaneously obtained his UEFA coaching badges.

That Football League Paper piece records: “With an MSc, ten diplomas and myriad other qualifications, Ramsey is so highly educated that he actually sets the test for pro licence candidates.”

ramsey EngA stint in charge of youth development at Leyton Orient and coaching Newham Ladies was followed by an FA appointment as coach to the England under-20 side in the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship when among the players under his direction were Ashley Cole, Peter Crouch, Matthew Etherington and John Piercy, who later played for the Albion. At the FA he learned from the likes of Les Reed and one-time Albion winger Howard Wilkinson.

He had a short and unsuccessful three-month spell as assistant to Ricky Hill at Luton Town, and he said: “Ricky Hill was a massive inspiration to me.”

Just when it appeared new offers had dried up, Ramsey got the chance to manage Charleston Battery in the USA, where he stayed for three years.

Winning the USL A-League (second division) with Battery in 2003 brought him to the attention of Spurs, and, as head of player development, many of the young players he coached in tandem with Les Ferdinand and Tim Sherwood were Harry Kane, Ryan Mason, Danny Rose, Nabil Bentaleb, Andros Townsend, Steven Caulker and Jake Livermore.

“He was massive for all of us,” French midfielder Bentaleb told The Football League Paper. “He believed in us, he encouraged us. He told the manager we were ready when everyone else believed we were not. He was not shy or scared of anybody and he knew exactly what he wanted.”

chris ramsey (spurs)In the Evening Standard in 2012, Spurs and England centre back, Ledley King, said: “He is one of the best coaches in the country. The youngsters love the way he works and they have really bought into his methods.”

Ramsey left Spurs in 2014 to take up a coaching role at QPR, and when Harry Redknapp left the floundering Hoops in February 2015, Ramsey stepped up to become a fully-fledged Premier League manager.

He was not able to halt Rangers’ relegation from the elite, though, and lasted only until November in charge of the side as they struggled to come to terms with life back in the Championship.

However, in January 2016, he was appointed technical director at QPR to oversee the club’s academy coaching and player development.

The club’s director of football, Ferdinand, told The Guardian: “While we were disappointed things didn’t work out with Chris at first team level, we were determined to retain his services. As such, we actually put a clause in his contract which allowed us to retain Chris’s services in a player-development role should things not work out for him as head coach.”

Ramsey finally left QPR in January 2024. By then 61, the head of coaching and technical director told the club website: “I have had a fantastic nine years at QPR and the club will always have a special place in my heart.”

The club’s chairman Lee Hoos said: “Chris has been a great servant to the club. I cannot thank him enough for his incredible hard work, dedication and guidance.

“However, as we thoroughly rationalise everything we do, and following very amicable discussions with Chris, it is felt this move is in the best interests of all parties. He will always remain a friend of the club.”

  • Shootthedefence.com did a face-to-face interview with Ramsey on 23 September 2016 which is well worth a listen as he talks in detail about his whole career.
  • In pictures from my scrapbook, Ramsey graces the cover of an Albion matchday programme; (top) he defends the near post during the 1983 FA Cup Final with Gordon McQueen in attendance; he is photographed by Tony Norman outside the Goldstone and criticised in the Daily Mirror by Frank McGhee.