Goalscorer Ray Crawford took on Brighton backroom role

RAY CRAWFORD, one of the foremost goalscorers of the 1960s, came close to a swansong with the Albion and ended up coaching the club’s youngsters.

Crawford had been a key player in Alf Ramsey’s First Division title-winning Ipswich Town side having begun at hometown club Portsmouth and later netted 41 goals in 61 appearances for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

He joined Brighton in the autumn of 1971 after he had read they were struggling to score goals. Earlier the same year, he’d hit the headlines at the age of 35 when he scored twice for Fourth Division Colchester United as they sensationally beat Don Revie’s First Division Leeds United 3-2 in the FA Cup.

After a subsequent short stint playing in South Africa, homesickness brought him and his family back to the UK and the search began for a way to continue his celebrated career in the game.

He got in touch with his former Ipswich teammate, Eddie Spearritt, a key member of Albion’s squad, and the utility player persuaded manager Pat Saward to offer Crawford a trial.

“I did well enough in my trial week for Pat to ask me to stay for another month and to see how things went,” Crawford recalled in his eminently readable autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing, 2007).

Crawford found the net for the reserves, but a contractual issue with his last club, Durban City (who wanted a fee the Albion weren’t prepared to pay) prevented him joining as a player.

Meanwhile, the previous goalscoring slump that had first drawn him to the club was remedied by a decent run of goals from Peter O’Sullivan to supplement a revival in the form of strikers Kit Napier and Willie Irvine.

It meant Crawford, at 36, hung up his boots (although he still managed a cameo 15 minutes for the reserves in October 1973) to concentrate on coaching.

In the days before large teams of scouts and analysis tools, he would also run an eye over Albion’s future first team opponents to highlight their strengths and weaknesses.

“His dossiers on opposing styles and individual players have proved of great value in the team talks,” reported John Vinicombe in an Evening Argus supplement celebrating Albion’s promotion from the Third Division.

“When I returned to England after a spell with Durban City my only thoughts were of playing,” Crawford recalled. “Before I went to South Africa, I had a good season with Colchester United scoring 32 goals, and, of course, there were the two goals that I scored against the great Leeds United, knocking them out of the FA Cup, which still made me believe that my career was in playing.

“But when my month’s loan from Durban City expired, and Pat Saward asked me if I would like to join the staff, I jumped at the chance.”

It didn’t stop Saward continuing to search for someone to supplement the strikeforce as the Albion went neck and neck with Aston Villa and Bournemouth for promotion.

Saward even brought in on trial another former England striker, the ex- Everton, Birmingham and Blackpool striker Fred Pickering from Blackburn Rovers. Like Crawford, he scored for the reserves but he wasn’t deemed fit enough for the first team.

Eventually, in March 1972, Saward found the missing piece of his jigsaw in Ken Beamish, a record transfer deadline day signing from Tranmere Rovers.

Beamish chipped in with some vital late goals to help Albion edge out the Cherries to secure Albion’s promotion as runners up to Villa.

The new man’s contribution earned Crawford’s approval in Brighton & Hove Albion Supporters’ Club’s official souvenir handbook, produced to celebrate the promotion.

He said: “I don’t like to single out players because football is a team game, but I must on this occasion. Ken Beamish added the final bite up front, and those vital goals that he scored helped us into Division II. What a player this boy is – he never gives up!”

It emerged in Crawford’s autobiography that he also had a friend in Albion chairman Mike Bamber, having got to know him when the Colchester team stayed at Bamber’s Ringmer hotel before a FA Cup tie.

Ever one for rubbing shoulders with stars, Bamber had subsequently invited Crawford back to Sussex to open a local fete in exchange for a weekend stay at the hotel with his family.

“Since that time, I had regarded Mike as a friend and a man I could trust,” said Crawford.

The former striker’s work with the club’s youngsters was evidently appreciated; for instance by Steve Barrett (below left) who said in 2011: “Ray was my coach when I was an apprentice and a young pro. Always had a great enthusiasm for the game and, even in training at the age of about 40, had a good touch and great eye for goal.

“Was great fun on our annual youth trips to tournaments to Holland or Germany. Was very modest in general but loved to remind everyone of his two goals for Colchester against the then mighty Leeds in the FA Cup. A really nice man.”

When Saward was sacked in the autumn of 1973, Crawford assisted caretaker manager Glen Wilson for the home fixture against Southport, which Albion won 4-0.

As for his relationship with Bamber, it counted for nothing as soon as the chairman astonished the football world by appointing Brian Clough and Peter Taylor to succeed Saward.

Crawford was angered by Clough’s “abrasive and stubborn” shenanigans, for instance being bought a pint in a Lewes hotel bar and then left waiting with Wilson as the former Derby duo disappeared for two hours.

“I wasn’t prepared to be treated like that and I soon found out that the way he spoke to people was as I’d expected,” Crawford recalled. “One day he left the players sitting in the dressing room for two hours before training. I don’t know why. It left a sort of threatening pressure on the players that I didn’t agree with.”

It probably didn’t help matters that Crawford’s outspoken wife Eileen also took issue with Clough when he tried to stop the players’ wives having a smoke while socialising before a match. “I don’t smoke, but if I did, it wouldn’t be anything to do with you!” she told him.

Crawford had heard that his first club, Portsmouth, were looking to revive a youth set-up that had been abandoned under a previous manager, so he applied to take on the role of setting it up and running it and headed back to Fratton Park in December 1973.

Born just a mile away from Portsmouth’s famous home ground, the eldest of four children, on 13 July 1936, Crawford initially looked unlikely to follow the sporting prowess of his dad, who had been a professional boxer, because of asthma.

Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for football was sparked by a display of skill from Pompey player Bert Barlow when he did a coaching session at his school, and he joined a local football club called Sultan Boys.

Then he was taken to see Portsmouth play at Fratton Park and he set his heart on stepping out onto that turf himself.

At 14 he started to fill out in height and weight. “I changed quickly from a skinny, shy, asthmatic youth into a strong, young athlete, representing Hilsea Modern School and Portsmouth Schools in cross country running and in the 440 yards,” he said.

He also excelled at cricket and was offered the chance to have a trial with Hampshire County Cricket Club. But his heart was set on football.

Eventually a break came courtesy of a friend who was already in Portsmouth’s youth team. Crawford was invited to twice-weekly training and, after impressing, was taken on as a junior.

In the meantime, he worked by day for the Portsmouth Trading Company making concrete and breeze blocks, which involved spending around eight hours every day lifting 500 heavy blocks onto pallets to dry. It certainly got him fit.

The football club eventually offered him a contract after two years of training with them, but then (as was the case with all young men at the time) he had to do two years’ National Service in the army.

That’s where the title of his book comes in because he was posted to Malaya where word of his footballing ability had already spread. He was invited to play for Selangor Rangers, the biggest club in Kuala Lumpur, and the army also gave him permission to play for the Malayan Federation on a tour of Cambodia and Vietnam.

“Whilst I took part in many more football matches in Malaya than military exercises, I did go out into the jungle on a few occasions with the battalion,” he recalled.

Back at Portsmouth in the autumn of 1956, Crawford resumed his football career, initially in Pompey’s reserve team. After scoring 33 goals in 39 reserve team games, he finally got a first team call-up, making his debut in a 0-0 draw against Burnley at Fratton Park on 24 August 1957.

In the following game, he scored two in two minutes as Spurs were beaten 5-1 at home, but the following month he suffered a broken ankle that sidelined him for two months.

The beginning of the end of his fledgling Pompey playing career came in December that year when he lost it with the club chairman, Jack Sparshatt, who puzzlingly decided to enter the dressing room at half-time during a game, voicing his disapproval at the performance. Crawford told him to f*** off!

Perhaps not surprisingly he was left out of the side for a month.

He did get selected again in the new year, playing up front with Irishman Derek Dougan, but, that summer, Eddie Lever, the manager who’d given him his debut, was sacked and it wasn’t long before his replacement, Freddie Cox, sold Crawford to Ipswich.

Although he hadn’t wanted to move, future England boss Ramsey was persuasive and Crawford admitted: “I had no idea at the time that this would eventually turn out as one of the best decisions I ever made in life.”

The Hampshire lad adapted well to Suffolk and by the end of his first season at Town had scored 25 goals in 30 league games. Not a bad return but even better was to come and with Crawford and strike partner Ted Phillips rattling in the goals, Ipswich won back-to-back titles, winning the second tier championship in 1960-61 and the elite title in 1961-62.

Crawford scored 40 and Phillips 30 as Ipswich won promotion in 1961 and, at the higher level the following season, Crawford bagged another 37 goals.

Such prolific scoring inevitably brought him to the attention of the international selectors and, at the age of 25, he won two England caps. The mystery was why he didn’t win more.

Crawford made his England debut in a Home International against Northern Ireland at Wembley on 22 November 1961. He was credited with setting up England’s goal, scored by Bobby Charlton in the 20^th minute, and the game ended in a disappointing 1-1 draw.

The 30,000 crowd for the Wednesday afternoon match was a record low for Wembley at that time. The prolific Ipswich striker only won one more cap, and then only because of a fractured cheekbone injury to first choice Alan Peacock of Middlesbrough.

Nonetheless, Crawford seized his chance and got on the scoresheet after only seven minutes against Austria in a friendly at Wembley on 4 April 1962.

He turned and buried a shot to give England an early lead which Ron Flowers increased with a penalty before half-time. Roger Hunt scored a third for England in the second half. Hans Buzek pulled one back for the visitors in the 76^th minute.

As well as Hunt, future World Cup winners Ray Wilson and Bobby Charlton were also in the England line-up, together with 1966 squad members Jimmy Armfield and John Connelly. The team was captained by Fulham’s Johnny Haynes. Jimmy Melia was part of the squad but didn’t play.

Jimmy Magill, who later joined Brighton from Arsenal, was in the Irish side whose equaliser was scored by Burnley’s Jimmy McIlroy. Spurs’ Danny Blanchflower won his 50^th cap for his country that day.

Having scored 33 goals in the First Division, Crawford was gutted not to be selected in the England squad for the 1962 World Cup in Chile and future England boss Ramsey was mystified too. “I just don’t understand it and I will go as far as saying it is downright unfair,” he said.

Crawford reckoned it was because England coach Harold Shepherdson, who also held a similar role at Middlesbrough, always advanced the claims of Boro’s aforementioned Peacock, who was chosen ahead of him despite scoring fewer goals, and in the Second Division.

Although Crawford was selected three times for the Football League representative side, he didn’t win any more full international caps.

Probably more surprising was that his old club boss Ramsey, who had seen him at close quarters for Town, didn’t turn to him after he’d taken charge of England in October 1962. But Ramsey had an embarrassment of riches at his disposal, not least in the shape of Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Smith along with Liverpool’s Hunt and later Geoff Hurst.

Crawford’s first meeting with Jackie Milburn, who took over from Ramsey as Ipswich boss, simply involved the former Newcastle and England centre-forward saying: “Nice to meet you Ray, you won’t be here long.”

Sure enough, he wasn’t. Despite his past successes, Ipswich cashed in and sold him to Wolves for £55,000 in September 1963.

His debut was somewhat ignominious as Wolves succumbed 6-0 at Liverpool (their ‘keeper Malcolm Finlayson was forced off injured) but Crawford scored twice in his second game as Wanderers won 2-1 at Blackpool (for whom Alan Ball scored).

Crawford went on to finish that first season with 26 League goals to his name in 34 games and was named Player of the Year, although Wolves finished in a disappointing 16^th place.

Crawford, who is remembered fondly on the website wolvesheroes.com, had been joined at Molineux by Liverpool’s Melia (“a fine passer of the ball”) but when Stan Cullis, the manager who signed them both, was sacked, neither of them saw eye to eye with his successor, Andy Beattie.

Melia was sold to Southampton and the rift with the new boss saw Crawford switch to Black Country rivals West Brom in February 1965 for a £35,000 fee. He later reflected it was a case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire because he didn’t enjoy a good relationship with Baggies boss Jimmy Hagan.

The striker played only 16 matches for Albion, scoring eight goals, before asking for a transfer in March 1966 and being granted his wish. “I did my best but never had a decent run of games in the first team,” he said. “It never quite worked out but I enjoyed most of my time there and the fans could not have been better.”

It was former club Ipswich, battling at the wrong end of the Second Division, who rescued him and, even though it meant dropping down a division, he was happy to return to Portman Road under Bill McGarry.

Crawford struck up a useful striking partnership with prolific American-born Gerry Baker. By the end of the season, he’d scored eight goals in 13 appearances and Town managed to avoid relegation.

He was part of the Ipswich side that won the Second Division championship the following season, netting 25 goals in 48 appearances, and by then was approaching his 32^nd birthday.

The goals continued to flow with Ipswich back amongst the elite, Crawford scoring 21 in 42 games in the 1967-68 season. But more managerial upheaval was around the corner, when McGarry left to become manager of Wolves.

“When McGarry left for Wolves, I had lost my master and mentor, leaving a psychological gap for me that wasn’t going to be filled by anyone else however qualified or good they were as a manager,” said Crawford.

Even before Bobby Robson succeeded McGarry, Crawford started to weigh up his options and he decided he fancied a move to South Africa, where his old Ipswich teammate Roy Bailey had settled.

Although Town chairman John Cobbold initially agreed to give him a free transfer, the Board later changed their mind and decided they wanted some compensation for his services. Instead of going to South Africa, he ended up moving to Charlton Athletic for £12,000.

The move to The Valley turned sour after he refused to join a training camp organised by manager Eddie Firmani because his family were ill and he needed to be at home to look after them. He was sacked after playing just 22 games for the Valiants, during which time he scored seven goals.

Southern League Kettering provided a short-term means of getting back into playing but it was Fourth Division Colchester United who took him on and he repaid their faith by scoring 31 goals in 55 matches under Dick Graham, the most memorable being that pair against Leeds.

Crawford eventually got his move to South Africa in August 1971, joining Durban City, but his family couldn’t settle and they returned to the UK three months’ later.

During his time as youth coach at Portsmouth, he was responsible for signing Steve Foster and, in his autobiography, recalls how a tip-off from Harry Bourne, a local schoolteacher set him on the path of the future Albion and England centre-back.

Foster had been released by Southampton and Crawford went to the family home in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, to invite him to train with Pompey. Foster’s mother was at a works disco at Allders and Crawford went to find her there and had to shout above the sound of the music that Portsmouth were interested in signing her son.

The youngster, 18 at the time, got in touch the next day and, before long, was switched from a centre-forward to a centre-back, after Crawford’s former Ipswich teammate Reg Tyrrell told him: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward, but he’d be a good number 5.”

After he left Portsmouth in 1978, Crawford took over as manager at Hampshire league side Fareham Town and later managed Winchester City before finally retiring from the game in 1984 to become a merchandising rep.

Brighton trial was curtain call for Fred Pickering’s career

PROLIFIC goalscoring centre-forward Fred Pickering, who at his peak scored hat-tricks on his Everton and England debuts, ended his career after an unsuccessful two-month trial with Brighton.

Pickering was a transfer record signing for Everton (the previous season’s league champions) when he joined them from Blackburn Rovers for £85,000 in March 1964.

On his debut for Harry Catterick’s side, he scored three past Nottingham Forest’s Peter Grummitt in a 6-1 thrashing.

Eight years later, a player who’d played for his country and, but for injury, might have been involved in the 1966 World Cup, scored once for Brighton’s reserve side: in a 3-0 home win over Colchester United on 8 March 1972.

Brighton won promotion from the old Third Division two months later thanks in no small part to 19 goals scored by Kit Napier and 17 from Willie Irvine (Pickering’s former Birmingham City teammate Bert Murray netted 13 and Peter O’Sullivan hit 12).

Throughout the season, manager Pat Saward had been hankering for something a bit extra in the forward line. While he appreciated the skill of Napier and Irvine, he said “none had the devil in him. We wanted more thrust.”

Pickering was the second seasoned striker Saward had run the rule over, wondering whether their experience of goal plundering at the highest level several years before might be revived in third tier Albion’s quest for promotion.

Earlier in the season, he tried recruiting an ageing Ray Crawford but contract issues with the player’s last club, Durban City, meant the former Portsmouth, Ipswich, Wolves and Colchester centre-forward ended up joining the staff as a scout and coach instead.

In February 1972, 31-year-old Pickering, by then not even getting a game in Blackburn’s Third Division side, was given a chance by Saward to show he still had the goalscoring ability he had demonstrated so effectively earlier in his career.

Photographs of a rather heavy-looking Pickering training appeared in the Evening Argus and the former England striker was interviewed on Radio Brighton (as it was then) about his illustrious career. Although he played for the reserves, he wasn’t deemed fit enough to make it into the first team.

Saward eventually got the thrusting forward he sought on March transfer deadline day when he signed Tranmere Rovers’ Ken Beamish, who, at 24, was younger and fitter, and quickly endeared himself to Albion fans by scoring a handful of late goals which helped clinch promotion.

But what of Pickering? Born in Blackburn on 19 January 1941, he played junior football in his hometown before joining Rovers as an amateur aged 15.

As a schoolboy, he’d been an inside forward (a no.8 or no.10 in today’s parlance) but he was a full-back when he signed as a professional for Rovers on his 17^th birthday.

Indeed, he was at left-back in the Rovers side that won the FA Youth Cup in 1959, beating West Ham United 2-1 on aggregate over two legs.

Alongside him for Rovers were future Spurs and Wales centre-half Mike England and Keith Newton, who also later moved to Everton and played for England at the 1970 World Cup. West Ham included Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst in their line-up.

With the likes of Dave Whelan and Bill Eckersley ahead of Pickering in the Blackburn pecking order, his chances of a first team breakthrough were limited.

But after a successful outing for the reserves up front, and with wantaway Irish striker Derek Dougan dropped, Pickering was given a chance as a centre forward – and he never looked back.

He scored twice in a 4-1 win over Manchester City and went on to strike up successful partnerships with Ian Lawther, initially, and then Andy McEvoy.

“It was a big turning point for me to be playing centre forward,” Pickering told the Lancashire Telegraph. “Especially when you consider in 1961, Dally Duncan (Blackburn manager, and later Brighton guesthouse owner) told me that Plymouth wanted me and that I was free to leave. I didn’t want to go because Blackburn was my club.

“I only left in the end because the club wouldn’t give me a rise of a couple of quid. It was absurd.”

By then Pickering had scored 74 goalsin158 appearances – some strike rate – which meant he always held a special place in the hearts of the Ewood Park faithful, as reporter Andy Cryer described in a 2011 article for the Lancashire Telegraph.

“Had fate been kinder to him he could easily have been a national darling too,” wrote Cryer.

“When hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst was firing England to World Cup final glory in 1966, an injured Pickering was left reflecting on what might have been after an incredible journey took him from Rovers reserves to international stardom.”

Pickering, nicknamed Boomer for his powerful right foot, had scored five goals in three England appearances and looked set for inclusion in England’s 1966 World Cup squad having been named in Sir Alf Ramsey’s provisional selection.

But he suffered a knee injury in an FA Cup quarter final replay against Manchester City which not only caused him to miss Everton’s FA Cup final win that Spring, but also meant he had to withdraw from the England squad. Cryer reckons it also led to the subsequent demise of his career.

Pickering told the reporter: “I played three games for England and I scored in every game I played, I scored five goals and I was playing well. I was named in the World Cup squads. I was going and from that day it was the following weekend when the knee started to go.

“I watched all the Brazil games at Goodison. England struggled in their first game against Uruguay and that is when Jimmy Greaves got injured.

“Obviously that is how Hurst got in, he wasn’t even really in the set up before. There was every chance if I had been fit it that might have been me who had got in. I wouldn’t say I would have done what Geoff Hurst did but you never know what might have happened.”

Pickering had made his England debut two months after moving to Everton, in a 10-0 demolition of the USA on 27 May 1964. It was the same match that saw future Albion manager Mike Bailey play his first full international for his country. Roger Hunt went one better than Pickering by scoring four, Terry Paine got two and Bobby Charlton the other. Eight of that England side made it to the 1966 World Cup squad two years later – alas Pickering didn’t.

The same scoring rate he had enjoyed at Blackburn continued at Everton and in his first full season he scored 37 goals in all competitions – the most by an Everton player since Tommy Lawton scored 38 in 1938-39.

In three years with the club, he scored 70 times in 115 matches but his exclusion from the 1966 FA Cup final squad soured his relationship with manager Catterick, as covered in detail by the efcstatto.com website. Injuries disrupted his involvement at the start of the following season, and a cartilage operation put him out of action for nearly six months.

Although he made his comeback in March 1967, his Everton days were numbered and, in August 1967, moneybags Birmingham City bought him for £50,000 to form a hugely effective forward line with Barry Bridges and Geoff Vowden.

Pickering and Bridges played in all 50 of Birmingham’s matches in the 1967-68 season; the aforementioned Bert Murray 47. Bridges was top scorer with 28 goals and Pickering netted 15.

The Second Division Blues made an eye-catching run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, but they lost 2-0 to West Brom (who went on to beat Everton 1-0 in the final).

The following season, Pickering scored 17 times in 40 appearances (Phil Summerill also scored 17, and Jimmy Greenhoff 15) but City finished a disappointing seventh.

That signalled the end of the striker’s time in the Midlands and he returned to his native north west with Blackpool, who paid £45,000 for his services.

It was money well spent as Pickering top-scored with 18 goals as the Tangerines won promotion back to the elite, finishing runners up to Huddersfield Town. His most memorable performance was on 13 April 1970 when he scored a hat-trick away to local rivals Preston North End in front of a Deepdale crowd of 34,000. It earned Blackpool promotion while simultaneously relegating North End to the third tier.

But the 1970-71 season didn’t go well for Blackpool or Pickering. The club got through three managers and only won four matches all season, which eventually saw them finish bottom of the pile and relegated along with fellow Lancastrians Burnley. Pickering found himself fined and excluded for breaches of club discipline (mainly involving missing training) and before the season was over he was sold back to his first club, Blackburn.

That was a blow to Preston, who had just loaned Willie Irvine to Brighton and were keen to install Pickering as his replacement. But it was to Rovers, for £9,000, that he went, but he couldn’t prevent the Ewood Park outfit being relegated to the third tier.

He scored just twice in 11 League games in his second spell at Blackburn before that two-month trial at Brighton.

After he retired from football, he became a forklift truck driver. Warm tributes were paid when Pickering died aged 78 on 9 February 2019. Well-known football obituarist Ivan Ponting said of him: “At his rampaging best, Fred was an irresistible performer.

“Though neither outstanding in the air, nor overly-physical for a man of his power, not even particularly fast, he could disrupt the tightest of defences with his determined running and a savage right-foot shot that earned him the nickname of ‘Boomer’.

“Boasting nimble footwork for one so burly – he could nutmeg an opponent as comprehensively as many a winger – he was especially dangerous when cutting in from the flank, a manoeuvre that yielded some of his most spectacular goals.”

In March 2022, a road in the Mill Hill district of Blackburn, where he lived all his life, was named after him and his family spoke of their pride as they unveiled the street sign in his honour.

Barry Butlin’s belter at Selhurst helped revive Forest career

BARRY BUTLIN is one of that pantheon of players who’ve scored winning goals for the Albion against Crystal Palace.

He may sound like the alliterative title of a south Wales holiday camp, but this was a moustachioed striker who’d joined Third Division Brighton on loan from Second Division Nottingham Forest.

When former Albion boss Brian Clough couldn’t find a place for him in his Forest line-up in September 1975, previous managerial partner, Peter Taylor, going it alone at the Albion, was more than happy to add Butlin to his forward line options.

Butlin had started his career at Derby County on the periphery of Clough and Taylor’s squad at the Baseball Ground.

During his five years as a Rams player, he’d twice been out on loan to Notts County, scoring eight in 20 games in 1968-69 and another five in 10 appearances in the 1969-70 season.

While Derby won the First Division title in 1972, Butlin was sold for £50,000 to Luton Town, where he made his mark with an impressive 24 goals in 57 matches.

One of them came in a 1-1 draw at Elland Road during Clough’s ill-fated 44-day spell as Leeds manager, and, in a typically odd Clough way, in the post-match press conference he put his arm around Butlin and told the journalists: “This is who you want to write about after that wonderful goal. He deserves it.”

The following month, Butlin’s goalscoring exploits for the Hatters saw Forest boss Allan Brown take him to the City Ground for a fee of £120,000.

Imagine how he must have felt when his old Derby boss Clough arrived to take over at Forest in January 1975!

Nevertheless, the striker said all the right things publicly ahead of the manager’s first game, a third round FA Cup replay against Spurs, as recorded in Jonathan Wilson’s excellent book Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You The Biography (Orion Books 2011).

“The lads all know that everybody is starting from scratch with everything to prove,” said Butlin. “Brian Clough has the ability to make an average player good and a good player great.”

Such a show of loyalty might have been understandable in the circumstances but Wilson also recalls Clough’s eccentric attitude towards players when they were injured. Butlin fractured his cheek in a training ground incident when at Derby.

“As he lay on the ground, Clough screamed at him to get up, insisting there was nothing wrong with him,” wrote Wilson. “Even after he’d been taken to hospital, Clough refused to believe anything was the matter.

“When Butlin’s wife turned up looking for her husband and mentioned an ‘accident’ to Clough, he snapped: ‘I’ll tell you when there’s been an accident’.”

Although Butlin feared the worst when Clough arrived at Forest, he wasn’t instantly discarded, finishing that season with seven goals in 33 games (plus one as a sub), while fellow forward Neil Martin netted 12 in 30 matches (plus two as a sub).

*Butlin had a front row seat in this Forest line-up*

But Clough clearly had other ideas about who he wanted in attack and brought in John O’Hare, who had done well for him at Derby, but less well during the ill-fated spell at Leeds, and introduced a young Tony Woodcock.

Intriguingly, that summer Martin was reunited with Taylor at Brighton and, within a matter of weeks, Butlin was also heading to the Albion, although his move was only temporary.

As it happened, Martin got off to a decent start alongside Fred Binney up front, scoring three times in the opening matches. But Taylor obviously considered Butlin offered a more potent threat; and it wasn’t long before fans saw why.

*Butlin lets fly and scores the winner at Selhurst Park in 1975*

In only his second game, in the third minute of Albion’s clash with Palace at Selhurst Park on 23 September 1975, Butlin got on the end of a Gerry Fell cross and hit an unstoppable shot that turned out to be the only goal of a pulsating game played in front of a crowd of 25,606 – a quite remarkable number for a third tier fixture.

“It still sticks with me, that one,” Butlin told Spencer Vignes, in his book Bloody Southerners (Biteback Publishing), which details the Clough-Taylor period at the Goldstone.

“It was the start of a cracking time down at Brighton,” said Butlin. “I only wish I could have gone on a little longer.”

*Butlin soars to connect with this header*

Butlin followed up that midweek winner at Palace with another goal on his home debut four days later when Chesterfield were beaten 3-0 (Peter O’Sullivan and Binney the other scorers).

Although not on the scoresheet, he also featured in two more wins (2-1 at Shrewsbury Town and 1-0 at home to Preston). However, in his absence Forest had gone through a mini slump, losing four out of five matches.

Butlin had taken his wife and children to Sussex with him, staying in the Courtlands Hotel in Hove. They all really liked the area, and the player had hopes of making the move a permanent one. Clough had other ideas.

“Brighton made me so welcome, but Forest weren’t doing very well at all,” Butlin told Vignes. “When I came to the end of my loan period, Brian got me straight back up to Forest and I had a real purple patch during which I played really well.”

In fact, he finished the season with eight goals from 38 games played as Forest finished eighth in the old Second Division.

“We had this team meeting before one game and Brian said: ‘If sending you down to Brighton gives you that impetus, then I’d better start sending some more players down there!’

“I’d seen the seafront and the wonderful countryside and thought it was the prelude to us staying there as a family, but it wasn’t to be. I was disappointed to say the least.”

Born in the south Derbyshire village of Rosliston, on 9 November 1949, Butlin attended Granville County Secondary School in Woodville from 1961 to 1966, and proudly records on his LinkedIn profile that he obtained six GCEs. He was also the school football captain.

He signed on for Derby in July 1967 but the likes of Richie Barker and Frank Wignall initially, then O’Hare and Kevin Hector, were ahead of him as the Rams progressed from the old Second Division into the First, before winning the title in 1972.

Chances for Butlin were few and far between. He made just four first team appearances in five years but those loan spells at Notts County at least demonstrated there was a player in the making, able to find the back of the net.

A knee injury prevented him making an immediate impact at Luton, after Harry Haslam had signed him, but he was the top scorer as Town gained promotion to the elite in second place in 1973-74.

The Hatters assured promotion by securing a 1-1 draw at West Brom in the penultimate game of the season, and midfield player Alan West relived the moment in an interview with theleaguepaper.com.

“I remember Barry Butlin, who was magnificent in the old centre forward’s role that season, got the vital goal,” he said. “I played in midfield with Peter Anderson and Jimmy Ryan. Peter was a great player and finished that season as our second highest scorer behind Barry.”

Just before Christmas in 2014, Butlin and West were among several former players who got together for a 40^th anniversary celebration dinner. Also there were John Faulkner, Gordon Hindson, Alan Garner, Jimmy Husband, John Ryan, Jimmy Ryan, Don Shanks and Ken Goodeve.

Luton history website hattersheritage.co.uk remembers Butlin as “brilliant in the air and no slouch on the ground” and mentions the shock fans felt when he was sold to Forest, particularly as Town were desperate for goals at the time.

In the 1976-77 season, Butlin once more went out on loan, this time to Reading, and the heave-ho from Forest he had long expected finally came when Peter Withe was brought in.

Butlin was sold to Peterborough United and in two seasons with the Posh he scored 14 goals in 77 matches. His teammates at London Road included former Forest colleagues Jim Barron and Peter Hindley as well as former Albion midfielder Billy McEwan.

United just missed out on promotion from the Third Division, finishing fourth in 1977-78. It was a disastrously different second season, by which time another former Albion player, Lammie Robertson had joined them – when Posh were relegated to Division Four.

Butlin’s final club was Sheffield United, as they faced their first season outside the top two divisions. Signed by his former Luton boss Harry Haslam, Butlin scored 12 times in 53 matches for the Blades, but by the end of 1980-81 season, after Martin Peters had taken over, United were relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in their history.

Butlin retired and spent three decades working as a financial adviser and mortgage manager in Sherwood, Nottingham.

He lived in Derby and between July 2000 and October 2010 was secretary and treasurer of the Derby County Former Players’ Association.

First signing Goodeve was bad day for Clough and Taylor

BRIAN CLOUGH and Peter Taylor were shrewd operators in the transfer market but their first signing for Brighton was a flop.

Possibly panicked into making changes to a side shipping goals at an alarming rate, their spending of £20,000 on Ken Goodeve was money wasted.

The former Manchester United youth captain managed only six appearances and left the club seven months later.

In the autumn of 1973, fresh with a transfer fund previous manager Pat Saward could only have dreamt of, the former Derby County managerial duo bought Goodeve from Luton Town, where he’d struggled for games after leaving Old Trafford.

Clough and Taylor had been less than impressed with the squad they’d inherited at the Goldstone Ground – particularly after witnessing successive capitulations to Bristol Rovers (8-2) and non-league Walton & Hersham (4-0).

As they sought to shape the side with their own players, the first arrival through the door was Goodeve, who would at least have found one familiar face in the dressing room. He and Peter O’Sullivan played in the same Manchester United youth and reserve sides (see programme line-ups below).

In April 1969, they had reached the FA Youth Cup semi-finals where West Brom beat them 5-3 on aggregate, winning 3-2 at home in the first leg and 2-1 at Old Trafford, when it was reported a crowd of 20,000 were watching.

Goodeve and O’Sullivan played in the same United reserve side as the likes of Jimmy Rimmer in goal, John Fitzpatrick, Nobby Stiles and Don Givens.

In April 1970, Goodeve was one of four fringe United players – Givens, Jimmy Ryan and Peter Woods were the others – who were sold to Luton for a combined total of £35,000.

In two seasons at Kenilworth Road, Goodeve captained the Town reserve side but managed only nine appearances, plus six as a sub for the first team.

He was still only 23 when he joined the Albion. He was handed the no.6 shirt alongside Norman Gall for the away game at Tranmere Rovers on 8 December, along with fellow debutant Peter Grummitt, initially on loan from Sheffield Wednesday, in goal.

But neither new boy could halt the slump, as Albion caved in to a 4-1 defeat. Left-back George Ley didn’t play another game for the club after that game at Prenton Park.

Young Steve Piper was drafted in to play alongside Gall in the following match – a 1-0 defeat at Watford – and Goodeve was handed Eddie Spearritt’s no.4 shirt instead.

He retained his place in the side for the Boxing Day clash with Aldershot (when Burnley youngsters Harry Wilson and Ronnie Welch made their debuts) but this time in place of Ronnie Howell in midfield. Again, Albion lost 1-0.

Clough and Taylor continued to chop and change and Goodeve was dropped to the bench for the next four matches, only getting a brief look-in on the action when going on for Welch in the 2-1 home win over Rochdale on 19 January.

John Vinicombe, Albion writer for the Evening Argus, was not impressed. “The chief disappointment so far has been the failure of Ken Goodeve to recapture his Luton form. Goodeve, who started in the back four with Albion at Tranmere, has subsequently appeared in midfield and so far not made his mark,” he wrote.

Goodeve found himself playing in the reserves with a growing band of former first-teamers and, it wasn’t until 25 March that he got another sniff of first team action.

That was when he stood in at right-back for Paul Fuschillo away to Wrexham (0-1) and five days later at York City (0-3). But that was it. After five starts and one appearance as a sub, he didn’t play for the Albion again.

In the close season, he was offloaded to Watford for half the amount Albion had forked out seven months earlier.

At last, at Vicarage Road, he got plenty of playing time under his former Luton teammate, Mike Keen, who had taken over as Hornets manager.

Indeed, in only the second month of the new season, Goodeve was back at the Goldstone in the Watford side beaten 2-0 courtesy of goals by Ricky Marlowe and Welch.

*Goodeve in action for Watford against Albion’s Fred Binney*

Born in Manchester on 3 September 1950, Goodeve joined United on schoolboy terms in October 1965 and was signed up as an apprentice the following year. In September 1967, he signed a professional contract at Old Trafford.

By the time he departed Old Trafford in April 1970, he’d not managed to make the step up to the United first team.

At Luton, his teammates included John Moore, who’d previously been on loan with Brighton, Barry Butlin, who played five games on loan at Brighton in 1975, and Don Shanks, who was a Mike Bailey signing in 1981.

After the sparse playing time with Brighton, Goodeve played 69 consecutive games for Watford between 1974 and 1976 but a groin strain ended his professional career.

He was able to pursue a non-league career at Bedford Town for five years and was in their 1980-81 side that won the Southern League Cup.

He subsequently played for a number of non-league outfits in the same region, as detailed in this Watford FC archive and ended up as player-manager of Bedfordshire side Wootton Blue Cross between 1993 and 1997.

According to the Hatters Heritage website, Goodeve continued to play football until he was 47 before becoming customer care manager for Galliard Homes in London, commuting from Wootton every day.

All-time Albion hero Peter Ward scored inside a minute of debut

ward v bpool

ARMS aloft in familiar salute to yet another goal, the smiling footballer in a black and white picture on a Florida football club’s website dates back 40 years!

All around the world, it seems, Peter Ward’s goalscoring exploits for Brighton & Hove Albion are still the stuff of legend.

Four decades may have come and gone but the memories of this mercurial talent have never dimmed.

FC Tampa Rangers say of their youth coach: “During the 1976–77 season at Brighton, he scored 36 goals, beating the club record and winning him the golden boot.

“He is still revered by Brighton fans who sing a song dreaming of a team in which every player is Peter Ward: ‘We all live in a Wardy Wonderland’.”

If the word legend gets bandied about a little too frequently, where Peter Ward is concerned it is perfectly apt.

1-ward-scores Few Brighton players have managed to approach the esteem in which this extraordinary talent is held by supporters who saw him score the goals which took the Seagulls from perennial third tier also-rans to a place among the elite.

It takes genuine talent, bravery and skill to score goals at all three levels but Ward delivered. In 220 games for the Albion (plus seven as sub) he scored 95 goals.

In his splendid 2007 book, A Few Good Men (The Breedon Books Publishing Company Limited), Spencer Vignes refers back to 1980 and says of Ward: “No centre forward since has managed to steal his crown. Some have come close – Garry Nelson and Bobby Zamora spring to mind – but Wardy remains special, the golden boy of what proved to be a golden time for the club.”

I was sorry to have missed Ward’s latest return to Brighton when in 2016 he joined some of the Goldstone heroes of the past at the Theatre Royal.

Impishly donning a curly wig on top of his now bald pate to make his grand entrance, Ward showed he’d still got something of the showman about him.

There was never a shortage of superlatives to describe his skills on the pitch. While his dad Colin was a compositor on the Tamworth Herald, his son’s talents with a football filled dozens of column inches in a variety of football publications.

PW green BW Alan Mullery, the manager who benefited most from his audacious skill and compared him to the great Jimmy Greaves, said: “He was just the skinny little kid who could do fantastic things with a football.”

Mullery told Shoot: “Peter has the ability to kill a ball no matter how it comes at him. His pace over short bursts is incredible and he shoots powerfully and accurately with either foot.”

He continued: “Above all else, Peter’s strength on the ball, for a player of his stature, is remarkable. He fools defenders who believe they can easily knock him flying.”

Two of Ward’s former teammates told Vignes what made him so special. “He had this long stride that just seemed to take him away from people,” said Peter O’Sullivan. “One step and he’d be gone. Once he got goal-side of a player, that was it really – bang! Nobody ever seemed to be able to catch him, even in training.”

Brian Horton joined the club around the same time as Ward and said of his younger teammate: “He was this thin, scrawny little player that needed to learn the game, but his finishing was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.”

Nottingham Forest fans will have less happy memories of a player the managerial duo of Clough and Taylor took to the City Ground as they strived to replace Garry Birtles and Trevor Francis with any pairing from Ward, Ian Wallace and Justin Fashanu.

It just didn’t work out for Wardy at Forest although he tells Vignes in A Few Good Men: “I had a great time at Forest. I got on well with the lads and had a laugh.”

While he always got on well with Taylor, his relationship with the erratic Clough was a lot stormier which meant he was in and out of the side.

When Lichfield-born Ward left school he was only 4’8” and because he was told he was too small to make a career playing football he got a job as an apprentice fitter at Rolls Royce and played local football in the Derby area.

The detail of those early years can be discovered in Matthew Horner’s excellent biography of Ward (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media).

Scout Jim Phelps recommended Ward to the then non-league Burton Albion manager Ken Gutteridge having worked with the freescoring player at a Sunday afternoon side, Borrowash United.

After joining the newly-promoted Brewers initially in the Reserves, the 1974-75 season was only a month old when he made his first team bow alongside former England internationals Frank Wignall and Ian Storey-Moore – and promptly scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over Tamworth, his hometown team.

By the middle of November that season, with 10 goals to his name, Ward’s scoring exploits had attracted the attention of league clubs and Brighton boss Peter Taylor, with plenty of contacts in the area, put in a bid.

The Burton chairman, Jim Bradbury, went public on the approach – which Gutteridge found completely unacceptable. He promptly resigned… and before long was appointed to Taylor’s backroom staff!

In the meantime, Burton resisted Brighton’s money and it later emerged that Gutteridge had told Taylor he would only take up the post on condition that Ward would eventually be brought to the Goldstone.

Taylor stuck to his word and eventually signed Ward for £4,000 in the close season of 1975.

The rest, as they say, is history and in researching for this piece it was difficult to sift through the multitude of material from my scrapbooks, programmes, books and other places to condense it all into something manageable.

Because of his popularity, most of the story is familiar to fans of a certain generation anyway and anyone who has not yet read Horner’s book should get themselves a copy because it is rich with material from Ward himself and others who played alongside him or observed him.

Scoring within 50 seconds of his Albion debut away to Hereford United in front of the Match of the Day cameras couldn’t have been a better start and the partnership he struck up with beanpole Ian Mellor was key to promotion from the old Division 3.

For what at times seemed like a fantasy coming to life, it’s intriguing to learn that Ward’s watching of the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me on the eve of two games was followed the next day by him scoring hat-tricks.

In the 1977-78 season, he saw it before making his England under 21 debut at the Goldstone against Norway in a 6-0 win, and, later the same season, he saw it again before an away game at Mansfield and scored three once again!

It seemed a natural progression that Ward would make it to the full England team and he did eventually – winning one cap for a six-minute substitute appearance against Australia in May 1980.

In fact he made the full England squad three years earlier for a game against Luxembourg but wasn’t involved in the match itself and, by his own admission, reckons he blotted his copybook with manager Ron Greenwood by being ill in the room he shared with Trevor Brooking after going out drinking with Brian Greenhoff.

ward cover In the way that all good things must come to an end, the beginning of the end of the fairytale came as Albion struggled to come to terms with their first season at the top level.

Ward was certainly not as prolific as he had been lower down the football pyramid although, as reported in my previous blog post, the arrival of Ray Clarke helped him rediscover his form to finish that season as top goalscorer with 17.

However, a return to his Midlands home territory looked increasingly likely. He nearly went to Derby in November 1979 but a swap deal with Gerry Daly fell through, and Forest also wanted him but Clough walked away from the deal.

Eleven months later, though, Clough and Taylor were back in for him when Birtles was sold to Man Utd, paying the Albion £450,000 for his services. Andy Ritchie, being displaced by Birtles’ move to United, promptly replaced Ward at the Albion.

Ward made just 33 appearances for Forest, scoring seven goals, and in 1981-82 went on loan to Seattle Sounders.

In the autumn of 1982, Brighton brought him back to the Goldstone on loan and it was in the fourth game of a 16-game spell that he scored (above) what he considered his favourite goal, the winner against his boyhood idols Manchester United at the Goldstone on 6 November 1982.

Ward was part of the Albion line-up that won that memorable FA Cup fifth round tie at Anfield en route to the 1983 FA Cup Final but it was to prove his penultimate game as the eccentric Clough quashed Ward’s desire to stay with the Seagulls and that potential trip to Wembley.

At that time, Clough’s Forest hadn’t been to a FA Cup Final and he told Ward: “Son, I’ve never been to a Cup Final and neither will you.”

That spelled the end of Ward’s time at the City Ground and by the end of 1983 he was sold to Vancouver Whitecaps for £20,000; the beginning of what became a 13-year career playing mainly indoor football in America, where he still lives.

• Pictures from various sources: the matchday programme, Evening Argus and Shoot! / Goal.