200th Andy Ritchie goal at crumbling Goldstone Ground

WHEN ANDY RITCHIE scored at the Goldstone Ground on 7 September 1996, it was a very different place to the stadium he’d graced as Player of the Year 14 years previously.

Ritchie was in his 20^th season as a professional when he scored his 200^th career goal for Scarborough against his former Albion teammate Jimmy Case’s Seagulls in a Nationwide Division 3 match.

Just 4,008 hardy souls dotted around the crumbling old stadium supported the Albion that afternoon compared to the sell-out 28,800 crowd who packed in to see Ritchie’s last home match in Albion’s attack when they beat Norwich City 1-0, courtesy of a Case goal, in a quarter-final of the 1983 FA Cup.

Ritchie’s last endeavours in Albion’s colours came a week later and, ironically, were in front of 36,700 at Old Trafford on 19 March 1983 when he had a goal disallowed against the club who sold him to the Seagulls for what at the time was a record £500,000.

The curiosity of that deal was covered in my 2017 blog post about Ritchie and I’ve since discovered how a number of observers were dumbfounded by Dave Sexton’s decision to let him leave United.

That Sexton more often preferred the strike pairing of Joe Jordan and Jimmy Greenhoff baffled football writer Mike Anderson who, after Ritchie’s switch to the Albion, detailed how the departed forward’s numbers were more favourable.

“Since making his debut for United against Everton three seasons ago he has proved himself to be a more consistent marksman than the Scottish international,” wrote Anderson.

“By the end of the 1978-9 season Ritchie had scored 10 goals in only 20 full League appearances, compared with Jordan’s nine goals in 44 games. And when last season finished he had hit 13 goals in 23 full games (plus six substitute appearances), whereas Jordan had taken his tally to only 22 goals in 76 games.”

Anderson’s opinion was shared by Tony Kinsella, writing in When Saturday Comes in November 1997, he described Ritchie as “a muscular whippet of a striker with two scorching feet, a delicious first touch, and a bonce of solid granite”.

Kinsella wrote: “In four frustrating campaigns, Ritchie notched an admirable average of a goal every two games, a somewhat superior rate to his cohorts. In retrospect, I guess Ritchie was in the right place at the wrong time. He possessed more skill than Jordan and cut a more daunting physical presence than Greenhoff, but fell short of both when it came to vice versa.

“Sexton, notorious for fielding sides greyer than a Mancunian sky, had the courage to blood a teenage goalkeeper, Gary Bailey, but got cold feet when dealing with the loose cannon that was Andy Ritchie.”

In a lengthy chat for the Fore Four 2 podcast, Ritchie revealed how it was Steve Coppell who took him under his wing as a newcomer to the United first team and ensured he got fixed up with a pension; something Ritchie hadn’t even considered.

And his roommate at United was wandering winger Mickey Thomas, who ended up following him to Brighton and also to Leeds!

While Sexton may have had reservations about Ritchie, plenty of other managers were keen to take him from United. Tommy Docherty, who had first signed Ritchie for the Red Devils, had wanted to take him to Queen’s Park Rangers but he was sacked as Rangers’ manager before a bid was in the offing. Chelsea and Newcastle made inquiries too.

Aston Villa offered United £350,000 for him but, after attending with his dad a face-to-face meeting with the glum-faced manager Ron Saunders, they turned down the move feeling he hadn’t conveyed that he really wanted him.

Ritchie also declared: “United were my home town team and I loved it at Old Trafford.

“It had been my aim since joining the United staff to be a success in their first team. I would have got a large amount of money had I gone to Villa, but I put self-satisfaction before money. I had received a lot of encouragement from the training staff at Old Trafford and I wanted to justify their faith in me by doing well at United.

“I knew that a transfer would mean adjusting to a side playing a different style of football. I felt that I might just as well spend that time proving I was worthy of a place at United where I was part of possibly the best club in the country. Unfortunately, I found myself playing reserve team football again until Brighton came in for me.”

In a 2019 interview with the Albion website, Ritchie remembered: “We always had a good team spirit and we all used to go out together. Everyone played golf and we’d be out in the nightclubs, Bonsoir and others where you had to wipe your feet on the way out.

“Great times, absolutely fantastic. And the spirit transferred itself onto the pitch. I used to joke at Q&As that we had so many great individuals but put us together and we were crap because the social life got in the way of our football. But no, it was a fantastic club to be involved in.”

Ritchie attended a rugby-playing grammar school and played cricket and hockey for Cheshire, only turning to football at 13 or 14. He played for Manchester and Stockport Boys and scored six goals in nine games for England schoolboys under skipper Brendan Ormsby, who went on to play for Aston Villa.

In the 1983 Shoot! album, Ritchie explained: “It was while I was playing for Stockport Boys that I first realised I had a chance of a career as a professional footballer.

“I was selected for the England Under-15 side and played at Wembley Stadium. The first was against Wales. We won 4-2 and I scored a couple of goals. I then scored another when England beat France 6-1. They were great moments for me and my family.

“Appearing for England was definitely the highlight of my young career but I also enjoyed playing for Stockport and in local Sunday football.

“I played for a team called Whitehill, who were sponsored by Manchester City. It was then that I realised I could play for the Maine Road club.

“I had trials with Leeds United, Burnley and Aston Villa, but I only wanted to play for City.”

It was while playing for Stockport Boys v Manchester Boys that former United captain Johnny Carey, scouting for his old club, spotted Ritchie and made an approach.

“I went down to The Cliff (United’s training ground) and never looked back,” he said. “It didn’t take me very long to soak in the atmosphere and appreciate the tradition and name of Manchester United and, in the end, I was quite happy to sign for the Old Trafford club.”

Ritchie was 15 when he put pen to paper, and he turned professional on 5th December 1977.

Handed his first start in United’s first team shortly after his 17^th birthday, he played four matches without scoring but had caught the eye of the England Youth selectors. He made four appearances under joint managers Brian Clough and Ken Burton, making his debut in a 3-1 win over France on 8 February 1978. England drew the return leg of that UEFA Youth tournament preliminary match 0-0.

He went with the England squad to Poland for the 31^st UEFA Youth tournament in May 1978, played in a 1-1 draw v Turkey and a 1-0 defeat v Spain but a trapped nerve in his hip meant he sat out the 2-0 defeat to Poland that meant England didn’t qualify from their group. That squad included Terry Fenwick and Vince Hilaire, Tony Gale and Ray Ranson.

“The following year I was selected for England Youth again for the Mini World Cup in Austria. Unfortunately, I went over on my ankle in training and could not make the trip,” Ritchie recalled.

Ritchie hoped his move to Brighton might boost his chances of gaining a full England cap, but he ended up winning a solitary England under-21 cap when he was called up by the same Dave Sexton who’d sold him from United! “That really was a bit bizarre,” Ritchie later recalled.

He featured in a 2-2 draw with Poland at West Ham’s Boleyn Ground on 7 April 1982. Fellow striker Mark Hateley scored both England’s goals.

*Ritchie in action for Leeds against Brighton*

Ritchie’s time with Leeds was something of a mixed bag. The record books show he scored 44 times in 159 matches after he was signed by player-manager Eddie Gray. Playing in the second tier at the time, Leeds still had Gray, Peter Lorimer and David Harvey from the Revie era but Ritchie joined a mainly young side where the likes of John Sheridan, Tommy Wright and Scott Sellars were developing.

As Tony Hill observed on motforum.com: “Much of his time at Leeds was spent in dispute over his contract and for over a year he was on a weekly contract before moving to Oldham Athletic for £50,000 in August 1987.”

It was at Oldham where Ritchie really made his mark, scoring 82 goals in 217 league games (including 30 as a substitute) and helping them reach the League Cup Final and the FA Cup semi-final in 1990 and to win the old Second Division in 1991.

In 2020 the club’s official website declared: “Andy Ritchie is regarded as a club legend at Oldham Athletic and one of the greatest players to play for the club, having served Latics as a player as well as having a spell as manager.”

That goalscoring return to the Goldstone with Scarborough in early September 1996 came a year after he had joined the Seadogs as player coach on a free transfer. It was one of 17 he netted in the league from 59 starts and nine appearances from the bench.

By then a couple of months short of his 36^th birthday, thankfully the Seagulls prevailed 3-2 courtesy of goals from Stuart Storer and two from Craig Maskell (the 99^th and 100^th of his career).

It certainly wasn’t the first time Ritchie had netted against the Seagulls. Twenty months after departing the Goldstone he scored the only goal of the game, tapping in from eight yards out, when Leeds beat the Seagulls at Elland Road.

He also scored for Oldham to knock Albion out of the FA Cup when the Latics won 2-1 in the fourth round on 27 January 1990. In a 1-1 draw at the Goldstone two months later, Ritchie missed a penalty but he made amends the following season scoring home and away against the Albion, netting twice in their 1 December 1990 6-1 thumping of the Seagulls on Oldham’s plastic pitch and scoring both when the Latics left the Goldstone 2-1 winners on 2 March.

He returned to Oldham on 21 February 1997 after Neil Warnock took him to Boundary Park as his player-assistant manager. He scored three times in 32 appearances, many of which were as a sub.

But when Warnock left to join Bury at the end of the following season, Ritchie was appointed as his successor. He managed 179 games, winning 59, drawing 45 and losing 75 with a win percentage of 32.96%.

After being sacked in 2001, he was out of work for three months before being appointed academy director at Leeds at a time when fellow ex-Man Utd player and coach Brian Kidd was head coach under Terry Venables and David O’Leary.

He found himself out of work again in 2003 when Peter Reid took charge but six months later he joined Barnsley, initially as academy manager before becoming first team coach under Paul Hart.

When Hart left Barnsley in March 2005, Ritchie was appointed caretaker manager and then landed the position permanently in two months later.

At the end of the following season, he led the club to a penalty shoot-out win over Swansea City in the League One play-off final at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff.

But the Championship season was only four months old when Ritchie was relieved of his duties with the Tykes struggling in the relegation zone.

Four months later, he was appointed manager of League One Huddersfield Town and told the club’s website: “There’s such massive potential here.

“There is no doubt that the club is geared up for promotion to the Championship and that has to be the aim now. It’s now a case of getting the players re-motivated and once we get into the Championship, we can reassess the situation.

“I tasted promotion last season and it was a great feeling – now I want to do it again as soon as possible.”

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to steer the Terriers to that goal and, after a 4-1 defeat against his former employers Oldham, he parted company in April 2008.

They won only 22 of his 51 games in charge although they did enjoy their best FA Cup run for 10 years which only came to an end in the fifth round when they were beaten 3-1 by a Chelsea side under Avram Grant that included Wayne Bridge and Steve Sidwell.

After all that, Ritchie returned in a watching brief to where it all began: at Old Trafford.

On matchdays, he worked as an ambassador in a hospitality lounge, and contributed to MUTV and Radio Manchester.

Button rarely pressed into action with the Albion

JOURNEYMAN goalkeeper David Button has travelled the length and breadth of the country in pursuit of playing time, his three years at Brentford being a rare settled spell in which he played 141 games.

Normally only a loanee or a back-up ‘keeper at a multitude of clubs, he had a season and a half as Fulham’s first choice but at Brighton between 2018 and 2020 he only made 10 first team starts.

Button was 29 when he signed for the Albion and he stepped into the boots vacated by Tim Krul, the previous back-up ‘keeper, who had moved on to Norwich City. With both upcoming goalkeepers Christian Walton and Robert Sanchez out on loan, boss Chris Hughton wanted a third senior ‘keeper.

“He has a wealth of experience, having made over 300 appearances during his career so far, and I’m sure he will work well with Maty Ryan and Jason Steele,” said Hughton.

Button made his debut in a pre-season 2-1 friendly defeat against AFC Wimbledon, and realised from the outset that Ryan was going to be ahead of him.

“I’m not coming in blind to the situation, but I want to impress and be ready for the chance in the side – there has to be healthy competition wherever you are as a player and hopefully I can provide that for him,” he said.

“There could be a chance for me and Jason in January if Maty goes away to the Asia Cup with Australia, so we’ll both be working hard to ensure we’re ready for that if the opportunity arises.

“I know he’s very well thought of but at the same time you have to back yourself and work hard every day and do as well as you can.”

Indicating what might be expected of him, he said: “I’m confident with the ball at my feet – it’s a slightly different style to Fulham and we are allowed to go a bit more direct here and it’s something I feel I’m good at.

“I think it’s a bit less risky – we play when we can and keep it when we can – the risk factor involved in playing it out of defence is less for me here though.”

Button certainly found a familiar face at training: goalkeeper coach Ben Roberts had previously worked with him at Charlton Athletic, and he said of him: “He has got a great reputation within the game and everyone he’s worked with speaks highly of him. I genuinely believe he’s one of the best at what he does.”

Button’s first competitive action for the Seagulls came in the fourth game of the season, a 1-0 home League Cup defeat to Southampton. He had to wait until December, when Ryan was away playing for Australia, to play in the Premier League.

He kept a clean sheet in the first of them, a 1-0 home win over Everton, when he made a handful of saves, including turning a Richarlison effort onto a post.

“Although he’s a very experienced goalkeeper, it’s never easy when you’re coming in at this stage of the season and following Maty Ryan, who’s done so well for us,” Hughton said. “It wasn’t an easy decision because I’ve got two goalkeepers who are really pushing. But probably his experience managed to get him the nod (over Steele).

“It’s great for him to come into this first game and, not only be on a winning team, but also a clean sheet and that will do him the world of good.”

But that was as good as it got; Albion drew 2-2 at West Ham on New Year’s Day and lost to Liverpool (1-0) at the Amex and Man Utd (2-1) at Old Trafford. A 3-1 third round FA Cup win at Bournemouth saw then no.3 Jason Steele given a chance between the sticks.

On Ryan’s return, Button was back to the bench although he kept goal twice in Albion’s run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup: Button in the fourth round win over West Brom and in the fifth round win over Derby County. Hughton went with Ryan for the quarter final at Millwall and the semi v Man City.

When Graham Potter succeeded Hughton, Button spoke about the changes the goalkeepers then had to embrace. “We are now doing more work with our feet,” he told the matchday programme. “There is more onus on us to be better with the ball and to be comfortable with it.”

The opportunity to put it into practice was even less than previously for Button, though: he played just two League Cup matches in 2019-20 (Bristol Rovers and Aston Villa and one FA Cup tie (v Sheffield Wednesday).

At the start of the 2020-21 season, the ‘keeper swapped one Albion for another and signed for newly-promoted West Brom.

“I have ambitions of playing and helping the team as much as possible but I obviously understand that Sam (Johnstone) has got them promoted last season so he will start the season,” said Button.

“It’s up to me to push him and show the manager what I can do and take my chances when I get them. Hopefully there’ll be things I can bring to the squad certainly. I’m quite calm and comfortable with my feet too and commanding in my box so I’d say they’re my main strengths.”

However, Button played just one Premier League game in that first season plus three cup matches.

There was slightly more involvement in 2021-22 when the experienced stopper made 11 appearances in all competitions, including playing the final five Championship games and keeping consecutive clean sheets in the last three matches, against Coventry City, Reading and Barnsley.

When Button swapped West Brom for League One Reading in August 2023, one Baggies supporter wasn’t sorry to see the back of him. “’It is definitely the right move to offload David Button, he has been the worst goalkeeper I have ever seen at Albion,” said fan Matt Smith on footballleagueworld.co.uk.

“We’ve had some pretty decent goalies since I’ve been going, however Button was absolutely atrocious over a significant period of time too. How on earth did we spend £1m on him?

“How Steve Bruce gave him a two-year contract at the end of the 2021-22 season is beyond me. He’s so bad honestly. He can’t catch a bloody cold. He’s awful.”

Born in Stevenage on 27 February 1989, Button was with local club Stevenage Borough in their centre of excellence and acknowledged the input of the Coaching FX goalkeeping school in his early development.

“Keith Fenwick was my first coach: his first-class and very enjoyable sessions definitely helped to develop my love of being a keeper,” he said.

*Button moved from youth academy to professional at Spurs*

An England schoolboy and youth international, Button moved on to Tottenham’s youth academy in 2003, signed a scholarship deal two years later and then earned a four-year professional contract in December 2007. However, he only had eight minutes of first team action for Spurs – as a substitute for Carlo Cudicini in a League Cup match – and was loaned out 13 times.

Over his four years as a Spurs pro, he had two spells each at Crewe Alexandra and non-League Grays Athletic, plus stints at Rochdale, Bournemouth, Luton, Dagenham & Redbridge, Shrewsbury Town, Plymouth Argyle, Leyton Orient, Doncaster and Barnsley.

In the 2009-10 season, he notched up a total of 36 League Two appearances (10 for Crewe and 26 for Shrewsbury) and 30 in League One the following season, when with Peter Reid’s Plymouth, where he kept Romain Larrieu out of the team for much of the campaign.

When he eventually left Spurs permanently, he didn’t travel too far, joining Chris Powell’s Charlton in the Championship for £500,000. Powell preferred Ben Hamer in goal, though, and Button was restricted to a handful of appearances before moving on to Brentford.

In an interview with getwestlondon, Button said: “It was a little bit of a frustrating time for me at Charlton. I would like to think I would have been given a chance a bit sooner there. It was a difficult year but it helped build my character.”

When Brentford sold Simon Moore to Cardiff, manager Uwe Rösler took Button to Griffin Park declaring: “We decided David was the perfect choice for us. He is at the right age and he is very hungry to make the number one spot his own.

“As soon as Simon left, David was our first choice. David will face strong competition for the goalkeeper spot from Jack Bonham and Richard Lee, when Richard is fit again.

“We have been strong there (in the goalkeeping positions) over the past two seasons and are even stronger this year.

“Goalkeeper is a crucial position and David is a very good player.”

For once, fortune fell favourably for Button and he ended up first choice as the Bees won promotion from League One at the end of his first season and reached the play-off semi-finals at the end of his second season.

The Brentford fans website bcfctalk was full of praise for the stopper, saying: “He was very much our first point of attack as well as our last line of defence and his quick and accurate distribution played a massive part on our overall style of play and freedom of expression.”

The website added: “He sometimes failed to deal effectively with crosses and he could also use his physique better as he is an enormous man, but he was utterly reliable and often quite brilliant and he won us numerous points with some incredible saves.”

Ahead of the 2015-16 season, at a pre-season training camp in Portugal, Button spoke about all of the club’s ‘keepers being put through their paces by goalkeeping coach Simon Royce, a one-time Albion loanee ‘keeper, and how he wanted to maintain his run of form.

“I need to find that level of consistency now for me,” he said. “I feel like I had quite a few good games last season but there were a few where I wanted to do better. I am aiming to keep my standards high in every minute of every game this season.”

He remained first choice in 2015-16, making 47 appearances, but talks on a new contract broke down. He came in for a bit of a backlash on social media when he decided to move on to west London rivals Fulham instead but he told getwestlondon: “It’s football. Probably in their eyes it’d have been nicer for me to move on to a different club. It is what it is.

“Hopefully they remember the good times and what I did for the club. I’ve got a great respect for the fans and for the way they treated me while I was there.

“I had a great three years at Brentford but felt it was time for a change and the opportunity to come here arose and it was something that interested me.”

Button had the support of manager Slavisa Jokanovic at Fulham but gradually lost the backing of the supporters to the extent he was jeered at Craven Cottage.

Supporter Dan Smith did a detailed analysis of where he thought things went wrong on fulhamfocus.com. “Having narrowly missed out on promotion in the playoffs, Button signed off his Brentford career as a good keeper at this level and someone highly regarded by the Bees faithful,” wrote Smith. “His shot stopping one of the best in the league with a very strong ‘long’ kick.”

Button kept a clean sheet on the opening day of the 2016-17 season and Smith said: “He looked decisive, confident and capable. But something happened gradually as the season developed.”

He maintained the ‘keeper’s form slowly deteriorated and blamed the way he was being managed rather than the player himself. “He looks very uncomfortable with the ball at his feet and isn’t helped by the lack of movement from the deeper players making it very difficult for him to pick someone out,” wrote Smith. “Mistake after mistake giving the ball away clearly damaged his confidence because mistakes in possession led to poor keeping errors, letting in shots he should be saving and would have saved at Brentford.”

Interestingly, with echoes of what Roberto De Zerbi has said of Steele and Bart Verbruggen, Jokanovic did blame himself rather than Button, saying he trusted the ‘keeper and had full confidence in him.

“It’s my responsibility sometimes. I put my keepers in some sort of trouble. We play a bit different and I want to start playing from the keeper.

“It’s more simple to kick the ball to the strikers as it’d give him more opportunity to be comfortable in the goal.

“He has all my confidence. Sometimes, when he makes a mistake it’s partly my responsibility as well.”

Nevertheless, eventually Button lost his starting spot to Marcus Bettinelli.

The Withdean visitors’ teenage winger went on to great things

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

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

*Young Milner tackles Brighton’s Kerry Mayo*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Uruguayan who saw red on Lewis Dunk’s debut

URUGUAYAN international Diego Arismendi shook his Staffordshire neighbourhood but left football followers somewhat unmoved.

Noisy late-night parties hosted by the defensive midfielder at his Newcastle-under-Lyme home hit the headlines for the wrong reasons but on the pitch he made little impact, in spite of high expectations. He ended his first season in England on loan at Brighton – and got sent off in his last game for the Seagulls.

Stoke City, then in the Premier League, paid £2.6m for the 20-year-old after he had already won medals at one of his home country’s top teams – Nacional – and two caps for his country.

He made his first appearance for Stoke on his first day at the club, setting up the only goal of the game in a reserve team win over Wolves.

Peter Reid, assistant manager at the time, said: “Diego was excellent. He broke up the play and the beauty with him is, for a defensive midfielder, he can pass, which he did extremely well.

“It will take him a little bit of time to get used to the pace but first impressions on him, I’m very pleased. He has had a smile on his face since being with us and he really enjoys his football. He has the attributes to be a very good player for us.”

Arismendi made his first team debut in a League Cup match against Blackpool but was forced off with an injury on 47 minutes of the 4-3 win.

Having struggled with the language barrier and not being able to force his way into Tony Pulis’s starting line-up, he was loaned to third tier Albion…where there was a Uruguayan in charge.

Gus Poyet was excited by signing his fellow countryman and saw it as quite a sign of the Albion’s intentions under Tony Bloom. He told The Argus: “We are showing where we want to go as a club, starting from the chairman and going through the whole of the staff.

“We are trying to achieve things that are not very easy but, because of the knowledge of the game and the contacts we’ve got, sometimes they work.

“When you know people and people know you personally and they are happy to let you have a player like Diego, you have to take advantage of that.

“I know him and his agent very well from before he came to England. He was a player growing up in one of the two biggest teams in Uruguay (Nacional) and playing for them regularly.

“I was surprised when he came because, I don’t know why, but Uruguayans have got a little bit of fear about England. I suppose it’s because of the language and the weather. They prefer Italy or Spain.

“I was very pleased by his decision to come and join Stoke. Of course, I have been following him a bit to see if he was making the first team.

“Unfortunately, Stoke are doing very well and there is no place for him right now there. He wants to play football, so he is very welcome.”

One place he wasn’t so welcome was Newcastle-under-Lyme. The month before he joined Brighton he had upset his neighbours by holding a number of noisy, late night parties, playing loud music and apparently having indoor kickabouts with his friends.

One neighbour at the prestigious No 1 London Road apartment complex, plastic surgeon Dr Muhammad Khan, told the Daily Mail: “I can’t sleep and I can’t concentrate doing my work. I am at my wits’ end. My flat vibrates from the volume of the music and it is like elephants stomping across the floor.

“Sometimes it sounds like he is playing football in the flat. It makes my lights flicker. It is every single night and then gets worse at weekends. I have spoken to Mr Arismendi twice, but all he said was that it was his friend’s birthday.”

In Sussex, Poyet hoped Arismendi would find the surroundings more to his liking. “I think he will love the city, a young boy with his girlfriend. He is going to adapt to Brighton very nicely. He wants to enjoy playing football so, slowly, I think he is going to get into the team.”

Poyet thought Arismendi would adjust to life in League One and the English game in general, but things didn’t work out that way and he only made three starts and three appearances off the bench for the Seagulls.

To make matters worse, in his final game he saw red (above) after scuffling with MK Dons’ Alex Rae. It was the same match that saw Lewis Dunk make his debut.

Poyet considered bringing Arismendi back to the Albion the following season on a season-long loan but they couldn’t afford to buy him and instead he ended up joining Barnsley, newly promoted to the Championship, on a similar arrangement.

He scored once (against Yorkshire rivals Leeds United in a 5-2 win) and featured in 32 games for Mark Robins’ Tykes, together with fellow loanees Kieran Trippier (from Man City), Chris Wood (from West Brom) and Paul McShane (from Hull) before returning to Stoke at the end of the season.

Because previous season’s FA Cup winners Man City had qualified for the Champions League in third place, cup runners up Stoke got to play in the Europa League (their first venture into Europe since 1975) and Arismendi started two matches and was sub in another two.

As an aside, in August 2011 I was on holiday in Split, Croatia, when City and their fans arrived to play local side Hadjuk (the visitors won 1-0). Our swimming pool sunbeds were taken over by red and white striped towels!!

Back in England, Arismendi remained firmly rooted to the bench as an unused sub for league matches and in March 2012 he was sent out on loan again, this time to Huddersfield Town until the end of the season.

Newly appointed manager Simon Grayson gave him seven starts and two appearances off the bench but he was not involved as the fourth-placed Terriers won promotion via an 8-7 penalty shoot-out win over Sheffield United at Wembley.

When Stoke excluded him from their 25-man squad at the start of the 2012-13 season, the writing was on the wall and his unhappy three-year spell in England came to an end when his contract was terminated in November 2012. He rejoined Nacional back in Uruguay.

Born in Montevideo on 25 January 1988, Arismendi said: “I had a tough upbringing. Everybody in Uruguay has a hard life, that is just the way it is there. But I come from a working class family and my childhood was not really any harder than anyone else.

“The aim, though, for me was always to play football and I have managed to realise that dream.”

He was only 20 when he won his first international cap in a friendly match against Norway in May 2008 and his second came in a World Cup qualifier against Bolivia. Both games finished 2–2.

After he returned to Montevideo and helped Nacional continue their domestic dominance by winning the Torneo Apertura (round robin South American tournament) and Uruguayan championship, he won two more caps in 2014.

He spent the 2015-16 season in Saudi Arabia playing for Al-Shabab but returned to Nacional for a third spell between 2016 and 2018. He then moved to Argentina, and at Rosario Central he once again didn’t leave a lasting impression.

*A Copa Argentina win for Rosario in 2018 – but Arismendi was a non-playing sub*

In a rather scathing assessment elciudadano.com reported: “Arismendi had the confidence of the coach when he signed earlier this year but did not meet expectations at all.

“(Coach) Paton Bauza thought he would fit in quickly but that was very far from reality. He never adapted to the team. When he had chances to show himself, he wasted them; he suffered injuries and he always showed more errors than virtues when he got on the pitch.”

Arismendi once again returned to the Uruguayan capital, this time to play for Racing Montevideo, where he spent one season, before switching to one of the city’s other clubs, Montevideo City Torque.

Confrontation was seldom far away in Micky Adams’ career

THE FIRST player ever to be sent off in a Premier League game managed Brighton twice.

Fiery Micky Adams saw red playing for Southampton when he decked England international midfielder Ray Wilkins.

“People asked me why I did it. I said I didn’t like him, but I didn’t really know him,” Adams recalls in his autobiography, My Life in Football (Biteback Publishing, 2017).

It was only the second game of the 1992-93 season and Adams was dismissed as Saints lost 3-1 at Queens Park Rangers.

Adams blamed the fact boss Ian Branfoot had played him in midfield that day, where he was never comfortable.

“He (Wilkins) was probably running rings around me. I turned around and thumped him. I was fined two weeks’ wages and hit with a three-match ban.”

It wasn’t the only time he would have cause not to like Wilkins either. The former Chelsea, Manchester United and England midfielder replaced Adams as boss of Fulham when Mohammed Al-Fayed took over.

His previously harmonious relationship with Ray’s younger brother, Dean, turned frosty too. When Adams first took charge at the Albion, he considered youth team boss Dean “one of my best mates”. But the two fell out when Seagulls chairman Dick Knight decided to bring Adams back to the club in 2008 to replace Wilkins, who’d taken over from Mark McGhee as manager.

“He thought I had stitched him up,” said Adams. “I told him that I wanted him to stay. We talked it through and, at the end of the meeting, we seemed to have agreed on the way forward.

“I thought I’d reassured him enough for him to believe he should stay on. But he declined the invitation. He obviously wasn’t happy and attacked me verbally. I did have to remind him about the hypocrisy of a member of the Wilkins family having a dig at me, particularly when his older brother had taken my first job at Fulham.

“We don’t speak now which is a regret because he was a good mate and one of the few people I felt I could talk to and confide in.”

With the benefit of hindsight, Adams also regretted returning to manage the Seagulls a second time considering his stock among Brighton supporters had been high having led them to promotion from the fourth tier in 2001. The side that won promotion to the second tier in 2002 was also regarded as Adams’ team, even though he had left for Leicester City by the time the Albion went up under Peter Taylor.

Adams first took charge of the Seagulls when home games were still being played at Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium. Jeff Wood’s short reign was brought to an end after he’d failed to galvanise the side following Brian Horton’s decision to quit to return to the north. Horton took over at Port Vale, where Adams himself would subsequently become manager for two separate stints.

Back in 1999, though, Adams had been at Nottingham Forest before accepting Knight’s offer to take charge of the Albion. He’d originally gone to Nottingham to work as no.2 to Dave Bassett but Ron Atkinson had been brought in to replace Bassett and Adams was switched to reserve team manager.

The Albion job gave him the opportunity to return to front line management, a role he had enjoyed at Fulham and Brentford before regime changes had brought about his departure from both clubs.

On taking the Albion reins, Adams said: “For too long now this club has, for one reason and another, had major problems. The one thing that has remained positive is the faith the supporters have shown in their club.

“The club has to turn around eventually and I want to be the man that helps to turn it around.”

The man who appointed him, Knight, said: “Micky is a formidable character with a proven track record. He knows what it takes to get a club promoted from this division. But, more than that, Micky shares our vision of the future and wants to be part of it. That is why I have offered him a four-year contract and he has agreed to that commitment.”

Not long after taking over the Albion hotseat, he was happy to say goodbye to the stadium he’d previously known as home when a Gillingham player in the ‘80s and it was a revamped squad he assembled for the Albion’s return to Brighton, albeit within the confines of the restricted capacity Withdean Stadium.

Darren Freeman and Aidan Newhouse, two players who’d played for Adams at Fulham, scored five of the six goals that buried Mansfield Town in the new season opener at the ‘Theatre of Trees’.

Considering he was only too happy to be photographed supporting the campaign to build the new stadium at Falmer, it’s disappointing to read in his autobiography what he really thought about it.

“My mates and I nicknamed it ‘Falmer – my arse’ although I never said this to Dick’s face,” he said. “There was always so much talk and we never felt like it was going to get done.”

The turning point in his first full season in charge was the arrival of Bobby Zamora on loan from Bristol Rovers. “The first time I saw him he came onto the training ground; he looked like a kid. But he was tall and gangly with a useful left foot; there was potential there.”

Interestingly, considering Adams makes a point of saying he usually ignored directors who tried to get involved on the playing side, he took up Knight’s suggestion that the side should switch to a 4-4-2 formation – and the Albion promptly won 7-1 at Chester with Zamora scoring a hat-trick!

After a so-so first season back in Brighton, not long into the next season Adams was forced to replace his no.2, Alan Cork, with Bob Booker because Cork was offered the manager’s job at Cardiff City, at the time owned by his former Wimbledon chairman, Sam Hammam. Adams reckoned Booker’s appointment was one of the best decisions he ever made.

Surrounded by players who had served him well at Fulham and Brentford, together with the additions of Zamora, Michel Kuipers and Paul Rogers, Adams and Booker steered Albion to promotion as champions. Zamora was player of the season and he and Danny Cullip were named in the PFA divisional XI.

Not long into the new season, the lure of taking over as manager at a Premier League club saw Adams quit Brighton, initially to become Bassett’s no.2 at Leicester City, but with the promise of succeeding him.

“While I thought I had a shot at another promotion, it wasn’t a certainty,” Adams explained. “I knew I had put together a team of winners, and I knew I had a goalscorer in Bobby Zamora, but football’s fickle finger of fate could have disrupted that at any time.”

He admitted in the autobiography: “Had I been in charge at the age of 55, rather than 40, then I perhaps would have taken a different decision.”

While Albion enjoyed promotion under Taylor, what followed at Leicester for Adams was a lot more than he’d bargained for and, to his dismay, he is still associated with the ugly shenanigans surrounding the club’s mid-season trip to La Manga, to which he devotes a whole chapter of his book, aiming to set the record straight.

On the pitch, he experienced relegation and promotion with the Foxes and he doesn’t hold back from lashing out about ‘moaner’ Martin Keown, “one of the worst signings of my career”. Eventually, he’d had enough, and walked away from the club with 18 months left on his contract.

After a break in the Dordogne area of France, staying with at his sister-in-law and her husband’s vineyard, he looked for a way back into the game. He was interviewed for the job of managing MK Dons but was put off by a Brighton-style new-ground-in-the-future scenario. Then Peter Reid, a former Southampton teammate, was sacked by Coventry City. He put his name forward and took charge of a Championship side full of experienced players like Steve Staunton and Tim Sherwood.

The side’s fortunes were further boosted by the arrival of Dennis Wise, but, in an all-too-familiar scenario Adams had encountered elsewhere, the chairman who appointed him (Mike McGinnity) was replaced by Geoffrey Robinson. It wasn’t long before it was obvious the relationship was only going to end one way. As Adams tells it, Robinson was influenced by lifelong Sky Blues fan Richard Keys, the TV presenter, and it was pretty much on his say-so that Adams became an ex-City manager after two years in the job.

With an ex-wife and three children to support as well as his partner Claire, Adams couldn’t afford to be out of work for long and fortunately his next opportunity came courtesy of Geraint Williams, boss of newly promoted Colchester United, who took him on as his no.2.

However, it only got to the turn of the year before he was out of work once again, although, from what he describes, he wasn’t enjoying his time with the U’s anyway because Williams kept him at arm’s length when it came to tactics and team selection.

He was amongst the ranks of the unemployed once again when Albion chairman Knight gave him a call, but, with the benefit of hindsight, he said: “Going back turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

Adams blamed the backdrop of “the power struggle” between Knight and Tony Bloom on the lack of success during his second stint in the hotseat, and he reckons it was Bloom who “demanded my head on a platter”. The fateful meeting with Knight, when a parting of the ways was agreed, famously took place in the Little Chef on the A23 near Hickstead.

Looking back, Adams conceded he bowed to pressure from Knight to make certain signings – namely Jim McNulty, Jason Jarrett and Craig Davies in January 2009 – who didn’t work out. He reflected: “I shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. I’d let my heart rule my head but, in fairness, I didn’t have any other offers coming through and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

“I wouldn’t ever say he (Knight) let me down, but he had his idea about players. I did listen to him, and maybe that’s where I went wrong.”

He added: “Going back to a club where success had been achieved before felt good, yet, the second time around, the same spark wasn’t there no matter how hard I tried.”

Born in Sheffield on 8 November 1961, Micky was the second son of four children. It might be argued his penchant for lashing out could have stemmed from seeing his father hitting his mother, which he chose to spoke about at his father’s funeral. Adams is obviously not sure if he did the right thing but he felt the record should be straight.

The Adams family were always Blades rather than Wednesdayites and, at 15, young Micky was in the youth set-up at Bramall Lane having made progress with Sunday league side Hackenthorpe Throstles.

While he thought he had done well under youth coach John Short during (former Brighton player) Jimmy Sirrel’s reign as first team manager, Sirrel’s successor, Harry Haslam, replaced Short and, not long afterwards, Adams was released.

However, Short moved to Gillingham and invited the young left winger to join the Gills. Adams linked up with a group of promising youngsters that included Steve Bruce.

In September 1979, he had a call-up to John Cartwright’s England Youth side, going on as a sub in a 1-1 draw with West Germany, and starting on the left wing away to Poland (0-1), Hungary (0-2) and Czechoslovakia (1-2) alongside the likes of Colin Pates, Paul Allen, Gary Mabbutt, Paul Walsh and Terry Gibson.

Adams honed his craft under the tutelage of a tough Northern Irishman Bill ‘Buster’ Collins and began to catch the attention of first team manager Gerry Summers and his assistant Alan Hodgkinson, who had played 675 games in goal for Sheffield United.

He made his debut aged just 17 against Rotherham United but didn’t properly break through until Summers and Hodgkinson were replaced by Keith Peacock (remember him, he was the first ever substitute in English football, in 1965, when he went on for Charlton Athletic against John Napier’s Bolton Wanderers) and Paul Taylor.

“Keith saw me as a full-back and that was probably the turning point of my career,” Adams recalled.

Once Adams and Bruce became regulars for the Gills, scouts from bigger clubs began to circle and at one point it looked like Spurs were about to sign Adams. That was until he came up against the aforementioned Peter Taylor, who was playing on the wing for Orient at the time (having previously played for Crystal Palace, Spurs and England).

“He nutmegged me three times in front of the main stand and, to cut a long story short, that was the end of that. Gillingham never heard from Spurs again,” Adams remembered.

Even so, Adams did get a move to play in the top division when Bobby Gould signed him for Coventry City. Managerial upheaval didn’t help his cause at Highfield Road and when John Sillett preferred Greg Downs at left-back, Adams dropped down a division to sign for Billy Bremner’s Leeds United (pictured below right with the legendary Scot).

“He had such a big influence on my career and life that I wouldn’t have swapped it for the world,” said Adams. But life at Elland Road changed with the arrival of Howard Wilkinson, and Adams found himself carpeted by the new boss after admitting punching physio Alan Sutton for making what an injured Adams considered an unreasonable demand to perform an exercise routine even though he was in plaster at the time.

Nevertheless, Adams admits he learned a great deal in terms of coaching from Wilkinson, especially when an improvement in results came about through repetitive fine-tuning on the training pitch.

“It is the one aspect of coaching that is extremely effective, if delivered properly,” said Adams. “I learnt this from Howard and took this lesson with me throughout my coaching and managerial career.”

However, Adams didn’t fit into Wilkinson’s plans for Leeds and he was transferred to Southampton, managed by former Aston Villa, Saints and Northern Ireland international Chris Nicholl. Adams joined Saints in the same week as Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock and the pair were quickly summoned by Nicholl to explain the large size of the hotel bills they racked up.

Adams moved his family from Wakefield to Warsash and he went on to enjoy what he reflected on as “the best few years of my playing career”. He was at the club when a young Alan Shearer marked his debut by scoring a hat-trick and the “biggest fish in the pond at the Dell” was Jimmy Case.

Adams described the appointment of Branfoot in place of the sacked Nicholl as a watershed moment in his own career. “Overall he was decent to me and I found his methods good,” he said. And he pointed out: “I was getting older, I’d started my coaching badges and I already had one eye on my future.”

Adams recalled an incident during a two-week residential course at Lilleshall, after he had just completed his coaching badge, when he dislocated his shoulder trying to kick Neil Smillie.

“I was left-back and he was right-wing, and he took the piss out of me for 15 minutes. The fuse came out and I decided to boot him up in the air,” Adams recounted. “The only problem was that I missed. I fell over and managed to dislocate my shoulder hitting the ground. It was the worst pain I’ve ever had.”

If life was sweet at Southampton under Branfoot, that all changed when he was replaced by Alan Ball and the returning Lawrie McMenemy. Adams and other older players were left out of the side. Simon Charlton and Francis Benali were preferred at left-back. Eventually Adams went on a month’s loan to Stoke City, at the time managed by former Saints striker Joe Jordan, assisted by Asa Hartford.

On his return to Southampton, and by then 33, Adams was given a free transfer.

Former boss Branfoot came to his rescue, inviting him to move to League Two Fulham as a player-coach in charge of the reserve team. Branfoot also signed Alan Cork and he and Adams began a longstanding friendship that manifested itself in becoming a management pair at various clubs.

On the pitch, Branfoot struggled to galvanise Fulham and, with the team second from bottom of the league, he was sacked – and Adams replaced him. He kept Fulham up by improving fitness levels and introducing more of a passing game.

But he knew big changes were needed if they were going to improve and he gave free transfers to 17 players, despite clashing with Jimmy Hill, who had different ideas.

An admirer of what Tony Pulis was doing at Gillingham, Adams signed three of their players: Paul Watson, Richard Carpenter and Darren Freeman. He also got in goalkeeper Mark Walton and centre back Danny Cullip. Simon Morgan was one of the few who wasn’t let go, and Paul Brooker emerged as a skilful winger. All would later play under him at Brighton.

Promotion was secured and Adams was named divisional Manager of the Year but after all the celebrations had died down Mohamed Al-Fayed bought the club and things changed dramatically.

“The club was in a state of flux as it tried desperately to come to terms with its new status as a billionaire’s plaything,” Adams acerbically observed. “From having nothing, we had everything.”

Before too long, in spite of being given a new five-year contract, Adams was out of the Craven Cottage door, replaced by Wilkins and Kevin Keegan.

But he wasn’t out of work for long because Branfoot’s former deputy, Len Walker, introduced him to the chairman of Swansea City, who were on the brink of relieving Jan Molby of his duties as manager.

Various promises were made regarding funds that would be made available to him but when they were not forthcoming he realised something was not right and he quit, leaving Cork, the deputy he’d taken with him, to take over.

By his own admission, if he hadn’t been sitting on the £140,000 pay-off he’d received from Fulham, he probably would have stayed. As it was, he was out of work once again…..until he had a ‘phone call from David Webb, the former Chelsea and Southampton defender who was the owner of Brentford, but in the process of trying to sell the club.

His brief was to keep the side in the league and to make it attractive to potential purchasers. It was at Griffin Park that he first met up with the aforementioned Bob Booker, who was managing the under 18s at the time. “He is one of the most loyal and trustworthy friends I have ever known,” said Adams. “He would do anything for you.”

However, although he signed the likes of Cullip and Watson from Fulham, he wasn’t able to stop the Bees from being relegated. During the close season, former Palace chairman Ron Noades bought the club and announced he was also taking over as manager.

Once again, Adams was out of a job but his next step saw him appointed as no.2 to Dave Bassett at Nottingham Forest.

Which brings us almost full circle in the Adams career story, but not quite.

After the debacle of his second stint in charge of Brighton, he was twice manager at Port Vale, each spell straddling what turned out to be a disastrous period in charge of his family’s favourite club, Sheffield United.

It was Adams who gave a league debut to Harry Maguire during his time at Bramall Lane, but the side were relegated from the Championship on his watch, and he was sacked.

Adams took charge of 249 games as Vale boss but quit after a run of six defeats saying he’d fallen out of love with the game.

It didn’t prevent him having another go at it, though. He went to bottom of the league Tranmere Rovers and admitted in his book: “It was arrogance to think I could turn round a club that had been relegated twice in two seasons.”

In short, he couldn’t and he ended up leaving two games before the end of what was their third successive relegation.

“It was a really poor end to a career that had started so promisingly at Fulham,” he said.

Knock-out stories of Mark ‘The Fizz’ Leather

MARK LEATHER spent six years as the first team physiotherapist at Anfield having previously been Brighton’s physio in the early days of Barry Lloyd’s reign as manager.

Leather tended the injured when Albion were promoted from the old Third Division in 1987-88 and half of the 1988-89 tier two campaign before moving back to his native north west.

Roy Evans added Leather’s specialist knowledge to the backroom team at Anfield in 1994 but the physio was controversially sacked by his successor Gerard Houllier following a row over the then teenage striker Michael Owen’s fitness.

A sign of the way Leather expected to work with managers came in an interview for Albion’s matchday programme. “Barry Lloyd will respect the decision if I say a player needs more time to get back to fitness,” he told interviewer Dave Beckett. “From that point of view, he is sadly in the minority.

“If it was different, I wouldn’t hang around, but it still amazes me that some clubs don’t realise that if we all stick to what we know things will run more smoothly.”

Leather, who’d spent three years studying for a diploma, and gained experience in the National Health Service, added: “We’re getting away from the old ‘bucket-and-sponge’ image.”

Ahead of his arrival at the Goldstone, Leather had combined his studies with helping out Exeter City, Leek Town, Port Vale and Sheffield Wednesday. And during the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986, Leather provided specialist medical support for the weightlifters and wrestlers.

He revealed a funny story against himself in a matchday programme article. Asked to reveal his ‘most embarrassing moment’ he said: “During the Port Vale and Scunthorpe match in 1985, when Port Vale scored, I jumped up out of the bench hitting my head on the dugout roof and needed smelling salts and a cold sponge.”

Perhaps predictably nicknamed ‘The Fizz’, Leather sought to give an insight to his role in his matchday programme interview. “I try to be friends with all of the lads and the management too, but sometimes you really do have to sit on the fence,” he said.

“There’s pressure sometimes from both sides to say a player’s ready to return, but you have to stand back from the situation and give a professional opinion.”

The Albion gave him a regular slot in the matchday programme which he used to give readers updates on the progress of injured players, and in recent times he has become a regular source for the media seeking expert comments on football injuries.

Leather now has his own physiotherapy business and back in the day at Brighton he and his physiotherapist wife Lucy ran a sports injury clinic for the general public two evenings a week.

Born in Bolton on 24 June 1961, Leather left the Seagulls halfway through the 1988-89 season to return to more a familiar part of the country and took a job in the NHS in Chorley, Lancashire.

Leather had been an ardent Bolton Wanderers fan from an early age and his all-time favourite player was Frank Worthington, who had played for the Seagulls during the 1984-85 season.

When Evans stepped up to take charge of Liverpool, Leather was one of his first appointments (along with goalkeeping coach Joe Corrigan, whose playing career had ended with the Seagulls).

*Leather and Corrigan together in Liverpool backroom team*

An insight into Evans’ decision-making was given in the book Men In White Suits, by Simon Hughes. “With Mark Leather’s arrival, there was an end to the running repair jobs carried out by a succession of unqualified coaches mid game,” he wrote.

“Regularly injured players had long been treated with suspicion at Liverpool. (Bill) Shankly maintained his side were the fittest in the league, with pre-season geared towards building stamina and therefore preventing muscle tears.

“It was a difficult theory to argue against. Liverpool won the 1965-66 title using just 14 players all season. Anyone who suffered an injury was almost bullied into feeling better. ‘Otherwise you really were persona non grata,’ Alan Hansen said.

“Leather’s recruitment meant that (Ronnie) Moran could focus on drilling the first team in the Liverpool way rather than writing what Evans describes as ‘little scribbles’ on an old ledger, charting training patterns.”

Endorsements to Leather’s attributes appear on his website from the likes of Robbie Fowler and Jamie Redknapp, who is quoted as saying: “Mark Leather has been brilliant with me. He has kept me going and it’s because of him really that I’m back to full fitness as soon as I am.”

In 1999 media reports said Houllier was facing “a furious players’ backlash after his escalating row with Liverpool physio Mark Leather took a dramatic twist”.

Leather was left in the UK when Liverpool went to Oslo for pre-season games, a move which was said to be causing disquiet in the dressing room.

*Leather clashed with Houllier over the condition of injured Michael Owen*

“Leather is one of the game’s top physios and he was publicly praised by Robbie Fowler after helping the striker make a miraculous recovery from a cruciate knee ligament injury last season,” said one report in the Scottish Daily Record. “Other stars, including Michael Owen and skipper Jamie Redknapp, are known to have a close bond with the medic.”

Houllier was angry at the length of time it was taking for Owen to return to full training after a hamstring injury and sent him to a specialist in Germany for a course of treatment.

In 2013, when Owen’s many injuries finally forced him to his retire from the game, he recalled bad decisions in the past that ultimately affected his career.

“I was compromised because I played too much too soon as a youngster at Liverpool. In my opinion, had I been managed differently I would have been at my best for longer as opposed to being a better player,” he said in The Mirror.

“I basically run on two hamstrings on my right leg and three on the other. I lost a third of the power.

“If I hadn’t, 90 per cent of the other injuries wouldn’t have happened and I would have been the all-time leading scorer for England.”

The Mirror article continued: “If there was a defining moment in his career, then it was a snapped hamstring when his then-manager Houllier ignored the advice of his physio and insisted Owen be brought back from injury quickly because he needed his goal threat so desperately.

“The French coach fell out so badly with the physio, Mark Leather, he forced him out, but Houllier later admitted to the mistake, which Owen believes led to the moment that changed his career – on a cold March evening at Elland Road, Leeds, in 1999. ‘My hamstring snapped in two and it was at that point that my ability to perform unimpeded was finished,’ said Owen.

Leather wasn’t finished with football, however, and he moved to his beloved Bolton Wanderers as Sam Allardyce’s physio for a year, before joining former Trotter Peter Reid at the Stadium of Light.

“From a personal point of view, I’ve had the privilege of working with two guys I used to support from the terraces at Burnden,” Leather told the Bolton News ahead of a match between Bolton and the Black Cats in September 2001. “There’s only one team I’ve ever supported and leaving them last year was purely a professional decision,” he said. “Financially and from a facility point of view, it was the right move for me, but I’ll never stop supporting the Wanderers.”

Leather spent four years (2000-2004) as the head physio at Sunderland straddling the managerial reigns of Reid, Howard Wilkinson and Mick McCarthy.

It certainly wasn’t all plain sailing for Leather on Wearside, as the Republic of Ireland winger Kevin Kilbane, now a TV pundit on the BBC, mentioned in his autobiography (Killa: The Autobiography of Kevin Kilbane; Aurum Press Ltd, 2014).

The player was determined to play for his country but the physio obviously didn’t feel he should because he was still trying to recover from an ankle injury.

Leather had already put him through some tough routines to test the strength of his ankle and when they were then on opposing sides in a two-a-side hockey match, Leather caught Kilbane on the tender joint with his hockey stick.

“After a few times and much pain, I finally snapped, and I gave him a left hook and decked him, leaving him with a fat lip and a very surprised look on his face,” Kilbane admitted.

Although he told the assistant manager Bobby Saxton what had happened, nothing more was done about it. Kilbane said: “I later apologised to Mark Leather but was disappointed he didn’t reciprocate. Things were never right between us after that, although we didn’t let it interfere with our professional relationship.”

After Sunderland, Leather switched sports and took on a similar position with Wigan Warriors rugby league side before moving into the world of academia. He spent seven years at Edge Hill University as a senior lecturer in sports therapy and programme leader for the Football Rehabilitation MSc course.

In October 2006,Leather joined Chester City as club physio, with City chairman Stephen Vaughan declaring: “He is a fully qualified physio and has a wealth of experience at Premier League level, so it’s something of a coup to bring him to the Deva Stadium.”

In 2013, he returned to Bolton, spending three years as Head of Sports Performance.

He had also set up his own physiotherapy business in 2008 and, since 2016, has been a senior lecturer and course leader for the Football Science and Rehabilitation MSc course at the University of Central Lancashire.

• Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and various online sources.

Horton’s place in the hearts of Brighton and Man City fans

ARGUABLY the finest captain in Brighton & Hove Albion’s history went on to have a far less successful spell as the club’s manager having also been a boss at the highest level, at Maine Road, Manchester.

The £30,000 signing of tenacious midfielder Brian Horton from Port Vale on the eve of transfer deadline day in March 1976 proved to be one of the most inspirational moments of Peter Taylor’s managerial tenure at the Albion and for such a fee was widely hailed as “an absolute steal”.

Even though Taylor didn’t hang around long enough to reap the benefit of the man he instantly installed as captain, his successor Alan Mullery certainly did.

In the early days after his appointment, there was some suggestion Mullery would be a player-manager but the former Spurs and England captain reassured a concerned Horton that wouldn’t be the case, admitting that he wouldn’t get in ahead of him anyway!

“Fortunately, that next year went really well. It was my best year without a doubt,” Horton told Evening Argus reporter Jamie Baker. “I’d never met Alan Mullery, and he’d probably never heard of me, so I was delighted and surprised when he made me his captain.”

It was the beginning of a strong bond between captain and manager and Horton added: “We had that relationship for all the five years I was with him.

“That first season was great. We went 20 odd games unbeaten and I was scoring left, right and centre, and I was very proud to be voted player of the year.

“Suddenly everything was coming right for me, although we were disappointed not to beat Mansfield for the championship because we felt we were far better than them.

“You’ve got to hand a lot of our success down to Alan Mullery. He was a terrific motivator of players. He was a bubbly character and it used to rub off on players.

“He was new to the game of management but he brought fresh ideas, and he’d been under some top managers as a player.

“The team spirit during those first three years was incredible. When you are winning games every week it makes a hell of a difference and we had that for three years. You just couldn’t describe how good the team spirit was.

“My treasured memory will always be of the day we beat Newcastle to clinch promotion to the First Division. It was even greater because I scored the first goal. It had always been my ambition to play in the First Division and now I had achieved it.”

In an inauspicious start, Horton found himself in the referee’s notebook as Albion were hammered 4-0 by Arsenal as the season opened at the Goldstone. After a narrower defeat away to Aston Villa, the next game was away to Man City – and Horton had the chance to earn the Seagulls their first top level point.

On 25 August 1979, Albion were trailing 3-2 when Horton had the chance to equalise from the penalty spot with only eight minutes of the game left. But the normally reliable spot-kick taker fluffed his lines, meaning Albion succumbed to their third defeat in a row.

While the superior opposition was clearly testing the Seagulls, it was testament to the resilient skipper that he was continuing to lead them having started out in the third tier and, on 20 December 1980, before a 1-0 home win over Aston Villa, he received a cut-glass decanter from chairman Mike Bamber to mark his 200^th league appearance for the Seagulls.

As the 1980-81 season drew to a close, Albion were perilously close to the drop but four wins on the trot (3-0 at Palace, 2-1 at home to Leicester, 2-1 at Sunderland and 2-0 at home to Leeds) took them to safety. What Horton didn’t realise was the Leeds game would be his last for the Albion (as it also was for Mark Lawrenson, Peter O’Sullivan and John Gregory).

“I’d bought a house in Hove Park off Mike Bamber and I was sunbathing that summer when there was a knock at the door. It was Alan Mullery come to tell me he’d just resigned,” Horton told interviewer Phil Shaw in issue 26 of the superb retro football magazine, Back Pass.

Mullery told him how he’d quit over the proposed Lawrenson transfer, how O’Sullivan and Gregory were off as well, and that the club wanted to sell him too, for £100,000.

Although Mullery advised him to sit tight because he still had a year left on his contract, new boss Mike Bailey – with a swap deal involving Luton’s Republic of Ireland international, Tony Grealish, lined up – told him he’d have to fight for his place and would have the captaincy taken from him.

“I said I didn’t want to go, that I loved the club and the fans, that I’d bought a house, and, at 31 I thought I had two or three good years left.

“I spoke to Mike Bamber and he said: ‘I don’t want you to go but I have to back the manager’.” Horton felt he had no option but to make the move.

He chose the platform of the Argus to thank the supporters for the backing they’d always given him and said his one disappointment was that he didn’t get the chance to lead Albion at a Cup Final. “That I would have really loved.”

Looking ahead, he added: “The Luton move gives me a new challenge. You can get in a rut if you stay at one club too long. Six years at Port Vale and five and a half at the Albion is enough. It will probably put a little sparkle back into my game.”

And so, Horton went to Kenilworth Road and under David Pleat the Hatters won the 1981-82 Second Division championship by eight points clear of arch rivals Watford. Looking back in his interview with Back Pass, Horton reckoned two of his Luton teammates, David Moss and Ricky Hill, were up there alongside Lawrenson as the best players he’d played alongside.

An all-too-familiar tale of struggle in the top division saw Luton needing to win at Maine Road in the last game of the season to ensure their safety, and Raddy Antic scored a winner six minutes from time that preserved Town’s status and sent City down.

Television cameras memorably captured the sight of Pleat skipping across the turf at the end of the game and planting a kiss on Horton’s cheek.

After one more year at the top level, he began his managerial career as player-manager of Hull City in 1984, working for the mercurial Don Robinson, and steered them to promotion to the old Division Two at the end of his first season in charge. He is fondly remembered by Hull followers, as demonstrated in this fan blog.

When he parted company with the Tigers in April 1988, his old Brighton teammate Lawrenson, by then manager of Oxford United, invited him to become his assistant. United at the time were owned by Kevin Maxwell, son of the highly controversial Robert Maxwell.

When Dean Saunders, who Brighton had sold to Oxford for £70,000, was sold against Lawrenson’s wishes – astonishingly he went to Derby for £1million – Lawrenson quit. Horton took over as manager and stayed in charge for five years, during which time he recruited former Albion teammate Steve Foster to be his captain.

Horton’s managerial break into the big time came in August 1993 when Man City sacked Peter Reid as manager four games into the 1993-94 season. Horton didn’t need to think twice about taking up the role, even though City fans were asking ‘Brian who?’

In Neil McNab, Horton recruited to his backroom team a former playing colleague who’d been a City favourite. “I played with McNab at Brighton and knew his strengths and knew he was well liked here,” he told bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk.

Horton brought in Paul Walsh, Uwe Rossler and Peter Beagrie and City managed to stay up.

The new boss acquired the services of Nicky Summerbee (to follow in the footsteps of his famous father Mike) along with Garry Flitcroft and Steve Lomas and at one point City were as high as sixth in the table.

They eventually finished 17^th but fans to this day still stop Horton (who lives in the area) and ask him about a terrific match which saw City beat Spurs 5-2.

It was Horton’s bad luck that when City legend Francis Lee took over the club from previous owner Peter Swales, he was always looking to install his own man in the hot seat, and Lee eventually got his way and replaced Horton with Lee’s old England teammate Alan Ball.

Ball took City down the following season while Horton embarked on a nomadic series of managerial appointments either on his own or in tandem with Phil Brown.

Initially he was boss of Huddersfield Town; then he was a popular appointment when he took over as Albion boss during their exile playing at Gillingham, but, because he wanted to live back in the north, he left in February 1999 to join another of his former clubs, Port Vale.

He led Vale for five years and pitched up next at the helm of Macclesfield Town, where, on 3 November 2004, he marked his 1,000^th game as a manager. It was at Macclesfield where one of his players was the self-same Graham Potter whose stewardship of Swansea City came mightily close to upsetting City in the 2019 FA Cup quarter-finals.

A bad start to the 2006-07 season saw him relieved of his duties in September 2006 but, by the following May, he was back in the game as Brown’s no.2 at Hull City. In March 2010, he was briefly caretaker manager following Brown’s departure, until the Tigers appointed Iain Dowie.

Next stop saw him as no.2 to Brown at Preston North End; then a second brief spell as Macclesfield boss at the end of the 2011-12 season.

In June 2013, he was appointed assistant manager to Paul Dickov at Doncaster Rovers, a role he filled for two years before linking up with Brown once again during his tenure at Southend United. Horton was his ‘football co-ordinator’ but left the club in January 2018. He followed Brown to Swindon Town but, in May 2018, decided not to continue in his role as assistant manager.

Born in the Staffordshire coal-mining village of Hednesford on 4 February 1949, Horton went to its Blake Secondary Modern School. Spotted playing football for the Staffordshire Schools side and the Birmingham and District Schools team, the Wolves-supporting youngster was awarded a two-year apprenticeship at Walsall when he was 15.

But, at 17, his hopes of a professional career were dashed when he wasn’t taken on. He ended up finding work in the building trade while continuing his football with Hednesford Town in the West Midlands (Regional) League.

He played at that level for four seasons and it was there he acquired the moniker Nobby because he gained a reputation for World Cup winner Stiles-like aggression. It was a nickname that stuck.

At the time, he was playing up front and scoring a lot of goals so he caught the attention of a few league clubs, but only Gordon Lee at Port Vale made a move. Lee sealed the deal by buying the Town secretary a pint of shandy and promising to take Vale to play Hednesford in a friendly.

Vale had little money so the squad was made up of free transfer signings but Horton said it made them strong collectively with “a fantastic spirit” and it wasn’t long before he was made their captain.

Vale legend Roy Sproson took over from Lee as manager and in March 1976 the cash-strapped Potteries outfit were forced to sell their prize asset.

When Vale headed to Selhurst Park that month, Crystal Palace player-coach Terry Venables got a message to Horton before the game urging him to sit tight until the summer and they’d sign him then. But Albion stole a march on their rivals and Sproson told him: “I’m sorry but we’re selling you to Brighton for thirty grand. We need the money.”

Funnily enough, the previous summer Horton had a chance holiday encounter in Ibiza with Albion’s Peter O’Sullivan. He later told the Argus: “Sully asked me if I fancied a move. Little was I to know that I would be joining him soon after. There was a wealth of ability in the Albion side when I joined them and it was outrageous that we didn’t go up that year.

“I felt they had to go places and I wanted to be part of it. I’d never been in a promotion side but then to be made captain of it was really the icing on the cake.”

Albion’s gain was certainly a loss to two other clubs who’ve since encountered similar troubles in their past. Horton explained: “I knew clubs were interested although Roy Sproson said he wouldn’t let me go to another Third Division team. I think he released me to Brighton because at the time they looked certain for promotion.

“Also, it was the highest bid they’d had. Hereford and Plymouth had offered £25,000 and I would have been happy to have gone to either club.”

In November last year, Horton reflected on his long and varied career in an interview with The Cheshire Magazine.