Tag: Peter Taylor

Melton took Micky at his word – and saw red 

MIDFIELDER Steve Melton took manager Micky Adams at his word in a notorious pre-season friendly – and ended up being sent off after putting in a waist-high tackle on an opponent.

Adams subbed off a riled Richard Carpenter against Longford Town in July 2001 with instructions to former Nottingham Forest trainee Melton “to give the lad who was booting our players up in the air a taste of his own medicine. Make sure he knows you are around.”

Melton duly put in a flying lunge on Longford midfielder Alan Reynolds that saw him receive an automatic red card and the fall-out from the challenge sparked an almighty punch-up which ended up with Albion’s Charlie Oatway and opponent Alan Murphy also being sent off after an altercation.

That particular battle then led to an even bigger scrap involving coaches and even the Longford chairman who took a punch in the face from one of his own players!

The so-called pre-season “friendly” – later dubbed the Battle of Longford – was abandoned with only 44 minutes on the clock by inexperienced ref Dermot Tone, who had only stepped in to officiate because senior Irish referees were at a seminar.

For Melton, it was all a far cry from making your Premier League debut two years earlier in front of 25,353 fans at the City Ground, Nottingham, in Ron Atkinson’s last-ever game as a manager. Melton was pitched in for already-relegated Forest for an East Midlands derby against Leicester and they went down in style (Blackburn and Charlton also went down), scraping a 1-0 win against the Foxes.

Born in Lincoln on 3 October 1978, Melton first linked up with Forest when he was just 11, playing at the centre of excellence. He signed full time at 16, a matter of days after finishing his GCSEs. He progressed through the youth team and reserves and it was during that time that he first worked with Adams, who’d been assistant manager to Dave Bassett before Atkinson’s arrival. 

Before he got close to the Forest first team, 18-year-old Melton and another trainee had experienced competitive football in Finland where Bassett had sent them to play for Sami Hyypiä’s old club MyPa on a three-month loan.

“He sent us out there to toughen us up. It also got us used to playing in a proper men’s league so that we learnt to value the prize of the three points and the standing within the first team,” he explained in a matchday programme interview.

That experience followed by his Forest first team debut didn’t have the outcome he wanted and after only three games under Atkinson’s successor, David Platt, he picked up an injury and couldn’t force his way back into the first team picture.

In February 2000, he switched 50 miles west to third tier Stoke City and admitted: “It seemed a good move as I didn’t have to travel too far. 

“It was a chance for me to play for a decent-sized club that were going strong in the cup and in the league. It was either that or play reserve team games for the rest of the year at Forest and wait for a break that I didn’t think was going to come.”

As it turned out, it was mainly a watching role, making only seven appearances as a substitute. He was a non-playing bench warmer alongside Chris Iwelumo (who did get on) when City won the Football League (Auto Windscreens Shield) Trophy at Wembley, beating Bristol City 2-1.

Stoke’s new Icelandic consortium hinted that they wanted to keep him on but in the absence of a contract offer, rather than risk uncertainty, he took up Adams’ offer to join fourth-tier Albion. 

A complimentary caption in the club match day programme

On a trial in the Emerald Isle the year before the Longford incident, Melton did enough across the week of the tour to earn a one-year contract. He had a long wait before getting a start but after 11 introductions as a substitute he finally made his full debut in February 2001, stepping in for Carpenter at Torquay after the regular midfield starter pulled out with an injured ankle. 

After playing his part in Albion’s first win (1-0 courtesy of Bobby Zamora) at Torquay for 36 years, Melton told The Argus: “I’m enjoying it here. I’ve settled in with the lads and I share a house with some of them.” 

On playing for Adams, he said: “I think Micky is going to be a really good manager. I enjoy working with him. A lot of the lads do. 

“Hopefully he will take Brighton up. He’s had a taste of managing at a higher level at Forest and I think he has the potential to do it again.” 

Melton’s outlook brightened the following month and he got starts in nine of the season’s remaining 15 matches as Adams led the Seagulls to promotion as champions. 

At home to his future employer Hull City, Melton made his home debut and scored his first goal for the club in a 3-0 win (Paul Watson and substitute Phil Stant also scored).

Reflecting on his involvement, he said: “It’s difficult to break in when the team keep winning every week, and they go unbeaten for 12 or 13 games, maybe drop a point but then go off on another run.

“It’s frustrating because you’re not playing, but you can’t really have too much of a case when the team is sat at the top of the league.”

Come the end of the season, he had done enough to be offered a two-year extension to his contract. As it turned out, the 2001-02 season followed much the same pattern as his first in terms of more appearances off the bench than starts.

He was on the scoresheet twice in the LDV Vans Trophy, scoring an extra time golden goal in a 2-1 home win over Wycombe Wanderers but was then inadvertently the fall guy in a 2-1 quarter-final defeat at Cambridge United.

Having given Albion a 36th-minute lead, latching on to Dirk Lehmann’s lay-off to fire a low right-footer past Lionel Perez from just outside the penalty area, he lost possession to Dave Kitson, who ran away to equalise, and then, four minutes into extra time, a shot by Armand One that was going wide took a wicked deflection off Melton’s shoulder to send United through to the next round.

A happier outing came when he made a rare start and scored as promotion-chasing Albion beat table-toppers Reading at the Withdean in February 2002. Peter Taylor’s Seagulls triumphed 3-1 on a rain-lashed night under the lights (Zamora and Junior Lewis also scored).

Goalscorers Melton and Zamora after a memorable win over Reading

“It was pleasing to start,” Melton told The Argus. “You have got to be patient and I have waited a good few months. 

“I have been on the outside for the last few weeks. Hopefully I can stay on the inside now. 

“Playing against the League leaders is a different matter completely from the LDV appearances that I made earlier in the season. 

“You can only do as well as you can when you are chosen to play and hopefully I did that. Once you have been given the shirt you have to try and keep it.” 

Melton’s goal was only the second league goal of his career and his first for 11 months. 

Taylor reckoned it was the best home performance since he took over from Adams the previous autumn and Albion won eight (and drew five) of the following 14 games to go on and clinch the third-tier title with the also-promoted Royals six points behind.

Melton scored Albion’s first goal of the 2002-03 season when he started in the 3-1 win at Burnley under his third Brighton manager, Martin Hinshelwood (Zamora and Paul Brooker also scored; Hinshelwood’s 18-year-old nephew Adam made his debut). 

Unfortunately, Melton tweaked a hamstring in the process and had to be subbed off. He only made nine more appearances (six starts plus three off the bench) as Hinshelwood’s short reign in charge ended with 10 league defeats in a row.

Incoming boss Steve Coppell brought in the likes of free agent Simon Rodger and Arsenal loanee Steve Sidwell and Melton found himself surplus to requirements.

It was in October 2002 that he moved to Hull on loan shortly after Peter Taylor had replaced Jan Molby as manager with the club about to move out of Boothferry Park and into the Kingston Communications Stadium.

Tiger Melton

Melton made 19 starts plus six appearances off the bench as the Tigers finished 13th in the old Third Division.

According to the website oncloudseven.com: “Despite his promise and Taylor’s persistence, Melton’s career at City was not a success and he showed only brief flashes of good form. Melton is, however, forever enshrined in the City record books because in December 2002 he scored the first ever goal at the KC Stadium against Sunderland, for the honour of lifting the Raich Carter Trophy.”

He found himself only on the fringes the following season and he had moved on to Boston United under Steve Evans by the time Taylor steered Hull to promotion as divisional runners up.

A recurring back injury restricted his playing time at Boston and during 2005-06 he was sent out on loan to Conference National side Tamworth. On his release from Boston in the summer of 2006, he switched to Southern League Premier King’s Lynn FC for two seasons.

Melton at Boston

In September 2008, he rejoined Boston with manager Tommy Taylor telling the club’s website: “Steve has great quality on the ball and that’s what we have been missing in the midfield area. 

Hopefully he will add another dimension to our team.”

But he was released at the end of the season and joined Lincoln United of the Northern Premier League Division One East, alongside his former Boston and King’s Lynn teammate Matt O’Halloran. After spells with Lincoln Moorlands Railway, Grantham Town and Worksop Town, he wound up his playing days back at Lincoln United.

In the meantime, his first job outside of football was in sales for mobile comms company Vodacom. He spent nearly seven years with the now defunct energy advice and installation company the Mark Group and since 2019 has worked for building services certification business The National Association of Professional Inspectors and Testers, where he is now commercial and compliance director.

‘Spider’ Mellor’s first Albion goal was painful for his old boss

IAN MELLOR became a hero strike partner to the mercurial Peter Ward at Brighton after beginning his professional career at Manchester City.

Mellor, who I first featured in this blog in 2016, died in 2024 aged 74 from amyloidosis, a rare disease which also afflicted City legend Colin Bell.

Affectionately known as Spider because of his thin, long legs, it was a nickname given to him by City goalkeeper Ken Mulhearn who playfully likened him to the Spiderman character players would watch on TV if away in a hotel on a Saturday morning before a game.

Signed for Brighton by Brian Clough for what at the time was a record £40,000 fee for the club (fellow Norwich youngsters Andy Rollings and Steve Govier joined at the same time), the opinionated manager had quit for Leeds before Mellor had kicked a ball in anger for the Albion.

Clough’s sidekick Peter Taylor stuck around for two seasons and Mellor made a goalscoring start for him, netting against his old boss Malcolm Allison’s newly-relegated Crystal Palace side in the season’s opening game.

Mellor’s left-foot volley (above) in the 69th minute proved to be the only goal of the game in front of a 26,123 Goldstone Ground crowd. It was the first time in ten seasons that Albion had started with a win.

Mellor later admitted: “Palace were running all over us. It was remarkable that they weren’t about three goals up. Then in the second-half I got the ball some 35 yards out, went on a run, beat a couple of players and scored probably the most memorable goal of my life.”

A frustrated Allison said: “I remember Spider when I was at Manchester City.

“I didn’t want to see him leave for Norwich. Directors force you to do that sort of thing, then they sack you. Spider was a late developer, but his timing is so good now.”

Allison had played a big part in Mellor’s early development and when City chairman Peter Swales’ sold the youngster for £65,000 to Norwich City to bring in some money, he did it behind the manager’s back (he was ill in hospital at the time) and Allison quit Maine Road in protest.

Interviewed in Goal! magazine in June 1973, Mellor said: “It was a wrench leaving the Manchester area. After all, I’d lived all my life within a few miles of City’s ground, and I would never have left Maine Road if things had been left to me, even though I hadn’t nailed down a regular first team place.

“But when I was asked if I would have a chat with Ron Saunders about moving to Norwich, I was ready to go anywhere. After all, if someone tells you that they are prepared to let you go, you know that you are expendable.”

Thirty years later, in an interview with football writer Gary James, Mellor admitted: “I should never have gone to Norwich.  I went from a top five side to a bottom five side overnight and it was such an alien environment. 

In action for Norwich City

“Norwich is a nice place, and a good club, but at that time the move was totally the wrong move to make.  Because they were struggling there was no confidence.  The contrast with City was unbelievable.”

And he said of Allison: “He was the best as a coach and motivator and I learnt so much from him. He could be tough, but you listened because he had already delivered so much by the time I got into the first team.”

Before Allison, Mellor had come under the wing of a trio of notable coaches in City’s backroom: Johnny Hart, Ken Barnes and Dave Ewing. “They were very knowledgeable and men of real quality,” he told James. “They knew what they were talking about and they also cared passionately about the game and the club.  They’d all had great careers and as a young player you listened and learned.”

Mellor was certainly dedicated to the cause having been given a second chance by City after being shown the door following a trial when he was 15. City’s chief scout Harry Godwin told Goal! magazine: “You could see something there, a useful left peg for instance, and other things, but there wasn’t much of him and, frankly we felt it best to leave it a while.

“We suggested he went away, found himself a local club but kept in touch with us. He did, with a letter asking for another trial. We open all letters we receive, of course, but you could say this is one we are particularly glad about looking into.”

Mellor explained to the magazine: “After that first City trial I had about four games with the Blackpool B side and about a season with Bury as an amateur. Nothing came of it, though I was playing in a local Manchester Sunday league.

“Then I had a particularly good game and got a few good write-ups in a local paper near Manchester. So, I cut them out and sent them to City asking ‘What about another trial?’ They gave me one.”

He first signed as an amateur (in July 1968) and shortly before signing on as a professional at the relatively late age of 19 in December 1969, City loaned him (and goalkeeper Ron Healey) to Altrincham and he played in a 2-1 win at Buxton in the North West Floodlit League on 15 October 1969.

Back at City, he made his reserve team debut in October 1970 away at Aston Villa and six months later stepped up to the first team. It was 20 March 1971 when a nervous Mellor made his City first team debut in a 1-1 draw at home to Coventry City. Ironically, Wilf Smith, the full-back he was up against in the first half of that match, was temporarily a teammate during his first season at Brighton – he had five games on loan to the Albion.

Three years earlier, though, Mellor admitted: “I became a nervous wreck, and in the first half I think that was obvious.  I just wasn’t right.  Malcolm Allison had a real go at me at half time and warned: ‘If you don’t pull your finger out, you’ll be off!’  So that got me playing!  The second half I really worked hard and played my normal game.”

Incidentally, that Coventry side also had Mellor’s future Albion teammate Ernie Machin in midfield alongside Dennis Mortimer, who spent the 1985-86 season with the Seagulls.

Four days after Mellor’s debut, he scored in a European Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final against Gornik Zabrze, as City won 2-0 (Mike Doyle the other scorer). He was also on target in an end-of-season Manchester derby match when City lost 4-3 to United. “As a City fan, the derby meant an awful lot and scoring your first league goal in a derby is something special, especially for a local lad,” Mellor told Gary James.

It was in the 1971-72 season that Mellor got more of a look-in at first team level, the majority of his 23 starts (plus one as a sub) coming in the first part of the season, before Tony Towers got the nod ahead of him.

In a departure from the pre-season Charity Shield (now Community Shield) norm of League champions playing FA Cup winners at Wembley – Derby and Leeds chose not to be involved – fourth-placed City played Third Division champions Aston Villa 1-0 at Villa Park in August 1972. Mellor might have missed out on a chance to play at Wembley but he was part of history as two subs were allowed for the first time and he went on for Wyn Davies (other sub Derek Jeffries replaced Willie Donachie).

In the season that followed, cut short by his March 1973 sale to the Canaries, he started 13 games and went on as a sub six times. In both seasons he scored four goals.

In all competitions, Mellor made 42 starts for City, plus eight appearances as a sub and scored a total of 10 goals.

In spite of his goalscoring start at Brighton, Mellor was one of several players who didn’t hit it off with Taylor and he was suspended for a fortnight after missing training and returning to Manchester without the manager’s permission.

Photo call ahead of his debut for the Albion

Perhaps the almost wholesale change in the make-up of the squad was the cause of an indifferent season which saw the side finish uncomfortably close to the relegation places.

Mellor scored six more goals but between the second week of January and the end of the season he only made one start and two sub appearances.

In his end of season summary, John Vinicombe, the Albion reporter for the Evening Argus, said: “Most puzzling aspect of the season was Ian Mellor’s decline.”

The scribe maintained: “There is no satisfactory explanation for what went wrong with Mellor, and his role passed to Gerry Fell, who turned out quite a find considering that he cost only £250 from Long Eaton and had not kicked a ball in the League until the age of 23.”

It wasn’t until the end of November of the 1975-76 season that Mellor resumed a regular starting spot in the side but from then on he was almost ever present and notched nine goals in 33 games playing wide on the left as Albion just missed out on promotion.

The story of what happened next has been told many times: Alan Mullery saw Mellor as a central striker to play in tandem with the nippy newcomer, Peter Ward, and they swiftly developed a partnership which saw Albion win promotion from the Third Division as runners up behind Mansfield Town.

Prolific goalscoing partnership with Peter Ward

The aforementioned Vinicombe gave Mellor man-of-the-match as Albion beat Mellor’s future employer Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 to clinch promotion on 3 May 1977 in front of 30,756 fans at the Goldstone.

“The Goldstone fans were so good to us,’ Mellor remembered, “and that year was the happiest in my playing career.”

In a similar vein to his retrospective view of regretting leaving City, Mellor also said in hindsight he should have stayed longer with the Seagulls, where he had lost his place to big money signing Teddy Maybank.

“I knew I was better than him, but they had to justify his price and that’s why I got dropped,” Mellor told Spencer Vignes in an Albion matchday programme. “In hindsight, of course, I should have stayed. I was still good enough. I was 29, with two good seasons left in me.”

He moved back to his native north west in February 1978 to play for Chester for two years. Their player-manager was former City legend Alan Oakes and his teammates included the aforementioned fellow Charity Shield sub Derek Jeffries and former Albion teammate Jim Walker. Chester FC Memories said of him on Facebook: “His time at the club included scoring in the memorable derby win at Wrexham (2-1) and in the League Cup victory over First Division side Coventry (2-1) early the following season.”

Leading the line for Chester

His last Chester goal came in a 2-2 home draw with Sheffield Wednesday who he went on to join under Jack Charlton the following season. Mellor spent three years and scored 11 goals in 79 matches for Wednesday. One of the most memorable was recalled by The Yorkshire Post who reported in 2021: “Mellor made himself a lifelong hero with Wednesdayites midway through his debut season at Hillsborough, when he opened the scoring in the 1979 ‘Boxing Day massacre’ 4-0 home win over neighbours United with a goal from 25 yards. He also hit the woodwork in that game.

Boxing Day glory in Sheffield

“Despite being played in Division Three, the match was watched by over 49,000 fans – a record for third-tier football. The goal is still occasionally sung about to this day.”

Mellor himself told The Sheffield Star: “It’s stange to me, considering it’s 40-plus years ago but it remains such a strong feeling among Wednesday supporters. It’s flattering but crazy!

“You’re only remembered so many years on if you’re a good player and luckily for me I scored a good goal in such an important game.”

Mellor’s final two seasons in league football were spent at Bradford City, managed by former Leeds and England defender Trevor Cherry, and he ended his playing days with Hong Kong club Tsun Wan, Worksop Town, Matlock Town and Gainsborough.

After he had stopped playing, he worked for Puma and Gola, encouraging players to wear their brands of football boots, and he was also a commercial executive for the Professional Footballers Association.

Following his death at St Anne’s Hospice in May 2024, it was announced that his family were to donate proceeds from his autobiography Spider to get a bedroom named in his honour at the charity’s new hospice in Heald Green, Stockport.

His widow Sue said: “It was Ian’s wish that we raise funds for St Ann’s Hospice as a thank you for the wonderful care he received. Ian was proud of his football career and all proceeds from his book will go to charity.”

Andy Crosby enjoyed the taste of success with Brighton

ROCK-solid centre-half Andy Crosby won a Division 3 Championship medal with the Albion in 2001 before experiencing two frustrating near-miss seasons as captain of Oxford United.

Brighton’s achievement provided him with his first-ever promotion, but it didn’t turn out to be his last: he climbed out of the same division with Scunthorpe United and then, against all the odds, reached the Championship with the Iron – twice.

Micky Adams, who was a player at Leeds when Crosby was in their youth ranks, had been unsuccessful in trying to sign the defender when he was in charge of Brentford.

But as Adams set about building his first squad at the Albion, he managed to secure Crosby’s services for a £10,000 fee in the summer of 1999.

“I didn’t need any convincing at all to sign,” said Crosby. “It was good timing for me and it worked out fantastically well,” he told Richard Walker. “Sometimes it’s hard to see where you’re going when you’re just keeping your head down and working hard at a struggling club so the Albion did wonders for my career.”

In a matchday programme interview with Spencer Vignes, he added: “I couldn’t wait to sign. Even at that level, I still thought of them as a big club.

“My only reservations were that I’d never lived down south and that we’d just bought a house. We also had a one-year-old daughter. But in the end the pros outweighed the cons.”

The family moved into a house at Stone Cross, near Eastbourne, and Crosby made his debut (albeit with a broken toe!) in the 6-0 Withdean win over Mansfield (as featured in my recent blog post about Darren Freeman).

He developed an effective central defensive partnership with Danny Cullip, and he said: “Although we were very different characters away from the 90 minutes, something really clicked between us and everyone knows how vital it is to have a good centre-half pairing, just as much as a good front two working for each other.

“Our paths have crossed since, and the talk’s always of great memories from Brighton days.”

Hired as a stopper rather than a scorer, Crosby helpfully weighed in with five goals as Albion found their feet back in Sussex.

Then in the following season, Crosby was at the heart of the defence when Albion won the league. “That win down at Plymouth and the home game against Chesterfield where we sealed the Championship will stay with me forever,” he said. “It was just an amazing ride.”

Crosby continued: “We had this great spirit, a team desperate to do really well.

Pouncing to score and celebrate against future employer Hull City

“I’ve got nothing but good memories of the place. It was the first time I’d ever been involved in a promotion campaign as a player. For the first time in my life, I was seeing on a day-to-day basis what it takes to be successful.

“We played some great football and the fans were fantastic. I’ve said it before but if you can’t play for them you can’t play for anyone.”

He added: “Withdean was a funny place but somehow we were able to use it to our advantage. Other clubs didn’t like playing there.”

Getting to grips with Paul Watson

Once elevated to the higher level, Crosby lost his starting place to Simon Morgan and Adams’ successor Peter Taylor continued with Cullip and Morgan as his preferred centre-back pairing.

By then 28, Crosby didn’t fancy a watching brief and in December 2001 he moved on a free transfer to Oxford, the first United signing made by Ian Atkins. He said: “I didn’t want to go, and Peter said he wanted me to stay, but I wanted to play. Going to Oxford meant first team football.”

Although Crosby’s first half season with Oxford saw them struggle near the foot of the division, the 2002-03 campaign ended with them only a point off the play-off places and the central defender scored winning goals in four of the 53 matches he played.

It got better for him on a personal level the next season when his fellow pros named him in the 2003-04 PFA team of the year, but United missed out on the play-offs by three points.

Another string to Crosby’s bow at Oxford was being an accomplished penalty taker. He never missed a spot kick in normal play and, in 2003-04, one of the five he buried was at Scunthorpe’s Glanford Park.

In the summer of 2004, he declined a new contract believed to have been on worse terms than the previous one and chose to move back to the north to join Scunny.

Nonetheless, the Oxford Mail said of him: “The 31-year-old centre back has been a model of consistency in his time at the Kassam Stadium.

“Ideally suited to the Third Division with his uncompromising, no-nonsense style, the hard-tackling defender, who is also good in the air, was also greatly respected by his teammates for his cool professionalism.”

He may have started out in the basement division with Scunthorpe, but what followed was the stuff of dreams. Crosby himself later admitted: “When I joined, if someone had told me I’d be playing for Scunthorpe in the Championship, I would have called them a doctor.

“But it reaffirms your belief in football a little bit, especially when you’re involved first-hand, to see a club of Scunthorpe’s size still being able to pull off what was nothing short of a minor miracle.”

In an interview with the Scunny website, Crosby pointed out: “I was 31 when I arrived at Scunthorpe and I had to use my knowledge and experience in whatever capacity I could, and set standards on and off the pitch. It was something I enjoyed doing and I think it’s something that’s either in you or it’s not.

“My whole time at Scunthorpe was great and I never thought when I signed that we’d get to the Championship twice. It was fantastic and the highlight of my career without a shadow of a doubt.

“I was captain of a promotion-winning team from League One to the Championship, playing at some massive stadiums.”

Although knee injury issues limited him to nine appearances in the 2008-09 season, he was restored to the side for the play-offs and led Scunny to a 3-2 League One play-off final win over Millwall at Wembley in May 2009 (Matt Sparrow scored twice for Scunny).

“It was a great way to end playing,” he admitted. “I have some fantastic memories and look back at my time at the club with nothing but fondness.”

By then he had already been working as assistant manager to Nigel Adkins, the former Iron physio and after playing a total of 715 games for six league clubs he was also Adkins’ assistant manager at Southampton, Reading, Sheffield United, Hull City and Tranmere Rovers.

Crosby, who took over from Adkins as manager of League Two Tranmere in February 2025, said “I’ve got a fantastic relationship with Nigel. He’s been fantastic for me, changed me as a person and polished off a few of the rough edges. I’ve got nothing but great words to say about him.”

Into the manager’s chair

In an interview with tribalfootball.com, he said: “My coaching journey has been full of learning experiences, and I’m a much better coach now than when I started. I was fortunate to work with some fantastic players.

“My best experience was at Southampton, where we achieved back-to-back promotions from League One to the Premier League, working with incredible players like Lallana, Lambert, and Schneiderlin. Even the difficult moments teach you a lot, though. Results didn’t always go our way, but even then, those experiences helped me grow as a coach.”

Crosby also saw the development of the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Ward-Prowse and Luke Shaw during nearly two and a half years at Southampton. While at Bramall Lane, he also worked with future England internationals Aaron Ramsdale and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Even at Hull, he had the fortune to work with Fikayo Tomori, on loan from Chelsea, and Jarrod Bowen.

Born in Rotherham on 3 March 1973, miner’s son Crosby was raised in the village of Maltby. He supported the Millers as a youngster but was rejected by them as a player when he was 11. At 14, though, he was taken on at Leeds.

When he didn’t progress beyond the youth team at Elland Road, former Leeds captain and manager Billy Bremner took him on at Doncaster Rovers and gave him his league debut aged 18.

He played 60 times for Donny over a couple of seasons (and spent a month on loan at Conference side Halifax) before moving to the north east and spending five years at Darlington, notching up a total of 211 appearances.

He was captain of the losing side in the 1996 Third Division play-off final at Wembley when Jim Platt’s Darlo lost by a single goal to Neil Warnock’s Plymouth Argyle.

Off-field financial issues marred his time at Chester City in the 1998-99 season, so his move to Brighton was a welcome change.

Reflecting on that time with the Seagulls, he said: “In any walk of life, if you get a really good group together, recruit well and get good characters in who complement each other well, then you should succeed. A lot of that was down to Micky.

“It was the fittest I’ve ever been – that was down to him – but that work and organisation brought its reward which is something I’ve taken with me into my own coaching career.”

Before his current (August 2025) position at Prenton Park, he also coached the Northern Ireland under 21 international side and spent three years coaching and managing at Port Vale.

Top goalscorer Fred Binney ousted by one of the best

DEVONIAN FRED BINNEY was a prolific goalscorer for Brighton but the emergence of one of the club’s all-time great players brought a premature end to his stay in Sussex.

Binney was not afraid to put a head or boot in where it hurt and black and white action photographs in matchday programmes from the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons and in the Evening Argus invariably featured goalmouth action involving the moustachioed or bearded Binney.

I particularly remember a shot of him continuing to play wearing a bloodied head bandage after he’d cut himself but played on in a home game against Hereford United, a club he later played for and coached.

The ‘old school’ centre forward was signed by Brian Clough and Peter Taylor from Exeter City at the end of the 1973-74 season in exchange for Lammie Robertson and John Templeman plus £25,000.

Taylor had sought the opinion of David Pleat, later a manager of Luton, Tottenham and Leicester, who had played alongside Binney for the Grecians.

Mike Bamber and Peter Taylor capture Fred Binney’s signature with John Templeman and Lammie Robertson going to Exeter in exchange

Pleat recalls in the Summer 2025 edition of Backpass magazine: “I told him that he was a clinical finisher, very sharp, had an eye for goal but tended to be caught offside too often.”

Incidentally, Templeman, a Sussex lad who had been an Albion player for eight years, didn’t want to leave but, as he told Spencer Vignes in his book Bloody Southerners (Biteback Publishing 2018), Taylor told him he’d never play league football again if he didn’t agree to the move.

Binney’s arrival came as the former league title-winning duo set about clearing out most of the squad they inherited from Pat Saward as they sought to rebuild. Around the same time, a triple signing from Norwich City saw Ian Mellor, Andy Rollings and Steve Govier arrive.

Clough clearly didn’t fancy the forwards Saward had signed and, as well as using Robertson as a makeweight also let go two previous record signings in Ken Beamish and Barry Bridges.

Binney hadn’t managed to kick a ball in anger for Clough before the outspoken boss left to manage Leeds, but sidekick Taylor felt he owed it to chairman Mike Bamber to stay, and took on the job alone (bringing in ex-Long Eaton manager Brian Daykin as his no.2).

Binney making a splash at the Goldstone

Taylor also recruited Ricky Marlowe, a youngster who’d been a reserve at their old club, Derby County, to play up front with Binney, along with several other new arrivals with past Rams connections, such as Jim Walker and Tommy Mason.

It was not really surprising they thought Binney could do a job for Brighton because in 1972-73 he had scored 28 league goals for Exeter, making him the season’s joint-top goal scorer in the entire Football League (along with West Ham’s Bryan Robson). And in 1973-74, he was voted the PFA Division Four Player of the Year and Exeter City Player of the Year after he’d scored another 30 league and cup goals.

It was said the Grecians had already turned down an offer from Swindon Town before he made the move to Sussex.

With so many new arrivals at the Goldstone, perhaps, not surprisingly, consistency was hard to find in the 1974-75 campaign and Binney didn’t come close to repeating that scoring form with only 13 goals to his name as Albion finished a disappointing 19th in the table.

That all changed in 1975-76 – Albion’s 75th anniversary season – and Binney was on fire, netting 23 goals as Albion narrowly missed out on promotion. Taylor still couldn’t resist chopping and changing Binney’s strike partners. He started out with new arrival Neil Martin, an experienced Scottish international, then had Nottingham Forest loanee Barry Butlin.

When craggy Northern Irish international Sammy Morgan arrived from Aston Villa, it looked like Taylor had finally found his ideal pair, although it took Morgan six matches before he struck a rich vein of form.

Meanwhile a young reserve who’d been blooded in a friendly against First Division Ipswich Town on Friday 13th February 1976 began to find himself included in the first team picture.

He’d been a non-playing substitute three times before a big top-of-the-table clash away to leaders Hereford on 27 March, which BBC’s Match of the Day had chosen to cover.

In the pre-match team meeting, manager Taylor announced that Binney wouldn’t be playing and that Peter Ward would take his place.

“Fred Binney was nice, a great fella; there was no friction between us and I didn’t really have time to think about how he was feeling,” Ward said in Matthew Horner’s 2009 book about him (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media).

Just 50 seconds into the game, Ward scored, the game finished 1-1 – but Ward didn’t look back and went on to become one of the club’s greatest ever players.

Binney wasn’t quite finished but it was the beginning of the end. Ward scored again in his second match as Binney’s replacement (another 1-1 draw, at Rotherham) but after a 2-1 defeat at Chesterfield, Binney was restored to the starting line-up in place of Morgan and opened the scoring in a 3-0 home win over Port Vale (Ward and Mellor also scored).

Sadly, it was Albion’s last win of the season. They lost 3-1 away to promotion rivals Millwall and drew the last three games resulting in them finishing fourth, three points off the promotion spots.

Binney gets a shot away at The Den – and later had to make his own way home!

Binney scored a consolation goal in that game at The Den but ended up having to make his own way home when fuming Taylor ordered the team coach driver to leave without him!

Ward recounted the story in Horner’s book: “Pete Taylor had just had a real go at us in the changing rooms and we were all sitting in silence on the coach, wanting to get home as soon as we could.

“Fred was the only one still not on the bus because he was standing around talking to someone. Pete wouldn’t wait and said to the bus driver, ‘F••• him. Leave him. Let’s go’. It wasn’t the sort of place at which you’d want to be left but, luckily for Fred, he got a lift from some fans and managed to get back to Brighton before the coach.”

In his review of the season for the Argus, John Vinicombe wrote: “Few forwards in the division could match Fred Binney for converting half chances into goals,” although he observed that only eight of his goals were scored away from the Goldstone. “Away from home, Binney did not fit into the tactical plan. He looked lost,” wrote Vinicombe.

While the team missed out on promotion because of those draws, young Ward enhanced his credentials by scoring the equaliser in each of them, taking his tally to six goals in eight games.

Taylor decided to team up with Clough once again, at Nottingham Forest, and disappointed chairman Mike Bamber turned to former Spurs captain Alan Mullery who had thought he was going to take charge of Fulham after retiring from playing but was spurned in favour of Bobby Campbell.

As he assessed the strengths and weaknesses of his squad in pre-season training, Mullery quickly took a liking to Ward and gave Binney short shrift when he tried to persuade him that picking the youngster instead of him would get him the sack.

Even so Binney started the first ten games of the 1976-77 season, and scored four goals, but he was subbed off in favour of Gerry Fell on 50 minutes of the September home game v York City when the score was 2-2 and suddenly the floodgates opened with Albion scoring five without reply in front of the Match of the Day cameras. Binney didn’t play another game for the first team.

In the days of only one substitute, invariably it was his old strike partner Morgan who got the seat on the bench. In his autobiography, Mullery wrongly recollects that he sold Binney to Exeter within two months. While there were plenty of rumours of Binney moving on, with Torquay, Reading, Crystal Palace and Gillingham all keen to sign him, he spent the rest of the season turning out for Albion reserves.

“One of the best goalscorers in the lower divisions and popular with the Albion supporters, Binney was perhaps the biggest victim of Ward’s stunning introduction to league football,” Horner observed, noting that in 15 games in which they played together, that Vale game was the only match when they both scored.

Binney left Brighton having scored an impressive 35 goals in 70 matches and, as was often the case at that time, a chance to play in America would prove to be a blessing for him.

Binney up against Welsh international Mike England, left for Albion v Cardiff, right for St Louis Stars

He joined Missouri-based St. Louis Stars in the North American Soccer League, who had John Jackson in goal and former Spurs player Ray Evans in defence along with ex-Albion defender Dennis Burnett and ex-Palace and Liverpool full-back Peter Wall.

In a side managed by ex-Palace and Orient player John Sewell, Binney kept up his impressive scoring record by bagging nine goals in 18 appearances. Fellow striker Barry Salvage, who’d played for the likes of Fulham, QPR, Brentford and Millwall, only scored once in 25 games.

Born in Plymouth on 12 August 1946, it was to his hometown club that he moved on his return to the UK from America.

Binney had been raised in the Barbican area of Plymouth and I am grateful to Ian De-Lar of Vital Argyle for filling in details of his early playing career.

He was a prolific goalscorer in junior football whilst playing for CM Department juniors and was signed by South Western League side Launceston.

While starting work as an apprentice at Devonport Dockyard, he also played for John Conway in the Devon Wednesday League, where he was spotted by Torquay United scout Don Mills.

Torquay took him on as an amateur before he signed a professional contract in October 1966. Although he made his first team debut in September 1967, he was mainly a reserve team player and went on loan to Exeter City in February 1969 before joining them on a permanent basis in March 1970 for £4,000.

He’d scored 11 goals in 24 starts for the Gulls but in view of his future success Torbay Weekly reporter Dave Thomas declared: “If there was a ‘One That Got Away’ story from that era, it was surely Fred Binney.

“The bustling, irrepressible Plymothian was snapped up by United as a teenager, but despite hitting the net at will in the reserves, he could never convince (manager Frank) O’Farrell that he was the real deal.”

It was during the brief managerial reign of former goalkeeper Mike Kelly that Binney joined Argyle in October 1977 and although he scored nine in 18 matches, he wasn’t able to hold down a regular starting spot.

But when the wily former Crystal Palace and Manchester City manager Malcolm Allison returned to Home Park as manager, Binney’s fortunes turned round and, in the 1978-79 season, he scored a total of 28 goals, was the team’s leading goalscorer and ‘Player of the Year’.

In Allison’s first away match, on 21 March 1978, he was rewarded for giving Binney his first senior game for 10 weeks when the predatory striker scored twice in a 5-1 win at Fratton Park. Also on the scoresheet was 18-year-old substitute Mike Trusson, who replaced the injured Steve Perrin. Pompey’s consolation was scored by Binney’s former Albion teammate Steve Piper, on as a sub for the home side.

Binney’s goal-every-other-game ratio at Argyle saw him net a total of 42 goals in 81 games – 40 while Allison was his manager. That Argyle squad had Tony Burns as back-up goalkeeper to Martin Hodge.

Great Pilgrim

Those goals helped to earn Binney 20th place in a list of the top 25 ‘Greatest Pilgrims’ voted for in July 2019.
But Allison’s successor, the former Argyle player Bobby Saxton, had different ideas and sold Binney to Hereford United for £37,000 in October 1979.

He scored six times in 27 appearances for the Bulls before moving into coaching, at first becoming assistant manager to Hereford boss Frank Lord. When Lord left in 1982 to manage the Malaysia national team, Binney went too.

He returned to England in 1985 to become assistant manager to Colin Appleton at his old club Exeter. When Appleton was sacked in December 1987, Binney went with him, taking up a role as recreation officer at Plymouth University. He subsequently became president and coach of its football club, and retired in 2013.

Albion fan Tony Hall posted this picture on Facebook of a chance pub encounter with Binney in 2025

That year, Binney’s son Adam was in touch with the excellent The Goldstone Wrap blog, saying of his dad: “He is not really interested in being lauded and doesn’t look for any kind of adoration. He doesn’t really like the attention, but he does love Brighton & Hove Albion and remembers his time there fondly.”

• In the Backpass article (left), Pleat recalls how, during his time as Leicester manager, Binney was his West Country talent scout. He also tells how Binney and his wife Lesley ran a cream tea shop in Modbury, Devon, for many years and how the former striker enjoyed travelling the length and breadth of the country’s canals on his own longboat, Escargot.

Bank clerk Fell on his speedy feet at the Albion

In full flight for the Albion

NOT TOO many professional footballers start out as bank clerks, but Gerry Fell broke that mould when he signed for Brighton.

Six-foot winger Fell had worked at the Newark branch of NatWest for five years, combining bank clerk duties with playing semi-professional football for Lincolnshire-based Stamford in the United Counties League.

In the latter part of 1973, Stamford played Long Eaton United in a FA Trophy second round qualifying match and Long Eaton’s manager, Brian Daykin, having liked what he saw, signed Fell for the Derbyshire side the following summer.

Within weeks, Daykin left Long Eaton to become no.2 to Peter Taylor at the Albion – and one of his first moves was to persuade Taylor to sign Fell. Taylor watched the player a couple of times and endorsed his assistant’s opinion.

Fell was 23 when he packed up his NatWest job to move to Sussex and turn professional.

“I loved Brighton from the moment I arrived, absolutely loved it, especially considering where I came from,” he said. “It was a totally different ball game to Newark and I loved the idea of living by the sea. It was so cosmopolitan and a massive eye-opener for me.”

In a matchday programme article, Fell told Spencer Vignes: “I was always very fit and a good trainer, so I didn’t find the training difficult at all. But obviously the step up in terms of actually playing took a bit of getting used to.

“I thought it was great because, as you can imagine, it was a stars-in-my-eyes job for me. I got into the first team within three months of arriving, so it was fantastic. I’ve never regretted any of it.”

Pointing out that he wasn’t the only member of that squad who was late to the game and from non-league (Peter Ward and Brian Horton were too), he said: “You had a few of us who’d experienced the outside world and perhaps appreciated what it meant to be a professional footballer that little bit more because of it.”

Born in Newark on 1 March 1951, Fell’s first football memory was as the mascot for Newark Central, a local team that his grandfather ran. He was educated at Magnus Grammar School in Newark where he earned a reputation for athletic achievements, gaining honours in high jump and 800 metre running.

Fell certainly hit the ground running at the Albion as a pacy goalscoring winger, netting five goals in 20 appearances in the season he arrived plus eight in 28 the following season (1975-76).

His initial first team involvement was as a non-playing sub for a 2-0 home win over Southend United on 7 December 1974 (Tommy Mason and Jim Walker the scorers), but once he’d made his debut at the end of the following month in a 2-0 win over Colchester United, he kept the shirt previously worn by Ian Mellor through to the end of the season (bar one game when Mellor replaced him).

In 1975-76, when Taylor’s much-changed side only narrowly missed out on promotion, Fell twice hit braces in 6-0 wins at the Goldstone, the first pair against Chester in September (Fred Binney 2, Peter O’Sullivan and Mellor also scorers), the other when Colchester United were dispatched by the same scoreline in January 1976 (Binney another two, Andy Rollings and Mellor also scoring).

He revelled in switching from playing in front of 200-300 people to turning out at the Goldstone where crowds could often be more than 20,000 – even for Third Division games.

“To play in front of that amount of people on that ground, well, it was a dream come true,” Fell told Vignes. “The Goldstone was a bit of a fortress at that time and the players in the team were so confident.”

Apart from that first half-season, Fell generally competed with Brighton-born Tony Towner for the no.7 shirt and Taylor’s successor Alan Mullery went with Fell for the final run-in to promotion from the third tier in the spring of 1977. He started 11 games and scored the only goal of the game as top-of-the-table Albion secured a vital 1-0 win over Port Vale in their penultimate home game.

“It wasn’t easy being on the sidelines looking on, but Gerry was a breath of fresh air,” Towner said in a matchday programme interview. “He was the opposite of me; though still a winger, he had loads of pace, though not too much skill!

“He’d knock the ball ahead of him and run past the defender to get it. I’d try to trick my way past.”

Ironically, although Brighton secured promotion by beating Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 in the last home game, the man of the match was the visitors’ Eric Potts – and his next game at the Goldstone was in Albion’s colours… as a replacement for Fell and Towner!

Having liked what he saw in that exciting encounter under the lights in front of a bumper crowd of 30,756, Mullery promptly signed Potts for £14,000 in the close season.

The diminutive winger had previously played for Wednesday at the level of today’s equivalent of the Championship and he was installed in the no.7 shirt for the first 21 games of the season.

Fell played and scored in his first start of the season (a 2-0 home win over Hull City) in September and the following game, his last start in an Albion shirt, was in a 2-2 League Cup second round replay draw at Oldham Athletic.

But Fell wasn’t done with the Seagulls just yet. He proved to be a matchwinner after going on as a 57th minute substitute for the injured Steve Piper in the last league game of September, a 3-2 night game win over Luton Town in front of a Goldstone crowd of 25,132.

The game was finely poised at 1-1 (Ward and Ron Futcher on target) when on 84 minutes Fell, unmarked at the far post, headed in a second Albion goal when Mellor flicked on a corner by Potts. Three minutes later, Fell was once again played in by Mellor and a turn-and-volley into the top corner from the edge of the box put Albion 3-1 up. There was still time for Jimmy Husband to pull one back for the Hatters, but Albion held on to take all the points.

Those goals didn’t earn him a starting place, though. On six further occasions Fell was sub (three playing, three not getting on) before Mullery traded him as a makeweight in the signing of 19-year-old powerhouse midfielder Paul Clark from Southend United.

In the three years between his first involvement with the first team as a non-playing sub at home to those future employers and his last, going on for Potts in a 1-0 defeat away to Notts County on 5 November 1977, only three other players were involved in both fixtures: Graham Winstanley, O’Sullivan and Mellor. Fell departed with the impressive record of 20 goals in 72 starts plus 19 sub appearances.

In his first season in Essex, he helped Dave Smith’s Shrimpers to promotion from Division Four when they were runners up behind Watford. Third-placed Swansea City and Brentford in fourth also went up.

The next season, while his old Albion teammates were celebrating promotion to the elite for the first time in the club’s history, Fell’s Southend finished mid-table in the third tier, although they did have the excitement of a memorable FA Cup third round encounter with mighty Liverpool: he was part of the Southend team that memorably held the European champions to a 0-0 draw in the FA Cup in January 1979 when 31,033 crowded into Roots Hall.

“It was snowy and frosty and we could’ve beaten them on the night,” United manager Smith later told the local Echo newspaper.

“Derrick (Parker) missed a sitter at the end but I remember turning to one of my coaches and saying I was glad he missed. They thought I was mad but it meant we got to go to Anfield and I’d never managed a team there before.”

How did Southend manage such a result against a full-strength Liverpool side captained by Emlyn Hughes with Ray Clemence in goal, Jimmy Case and Graeme Souness in midfield and Kenny Dalglish up front?

In the lead-up to the game, Smith said: “We couldn’t find anywhere to train so we went to the bottom of the pier. We ended up in a pub there drinking hot port and this was only a few days before the game. Maybe that’s the answer to playing so well.”

Liverpool made up for it in the replay a week later when they won 3-0 (goals from Case, Dalglish and Ray Kennedy) and Fell was subbed off on 75 minutes.

The last season of the decade would end in the disappointment of relegation, and Fell’s departure from the club, but they once again had excitement in a cup competition against higher level opposition, winning 2-1 away at Bolton Wanderers (and drawing 0-0 at home in the second leg) in the second round of the League Cup and then twice forcing draws against West Ham in the third round, before losing 5-1 in a second replay.

When it came to the FA Cup though, United were on the wrong end of a giant killing as Isthmian League Harlow Town beat them 1-0 in the second round.

Not long after joining Southend in 1977, Fell had helped them beat Torquay United 2-1 in the first round of the FA Cup and it was to Plainmoor that he headed in July 1980 on a free transfer.

That cup match was remembered in Torquay’s Into The Eighties pre-season magazine which said: “The pace and power of Gerry Fell left a painful memory with us when he helped Southend knock us out of the FA Cup here at Plainmoor three years ago. He had cost the Shrimpers £20,000 then but now he arrives on the south coast on a free transfer and has already impressed in pre-season training. Gerry certainly knows how to score.”

United supporter and programme statistician John Lovis added: “A complete forward who’s got the lot.”

Alongside big-name new arrival Bruce Rioch as a player-coach, Fell had a terrific first season scoring 17 league and cup goals, seven of them from the penalty spot.

Delighted manager Mike Green said in his matchday programme notes: “We certainly look forward to free kicks now because in Gerry Fell and Bruce Rioch we possess two of the hardest and most accurate dead ball kickers in the game.”

Although he was in the side as the 1981-82 season began under ex-Manchester United boss Frank O’Farrell’s third stint as Gulls manager, he lost his starting berth and later that season had a loan spell at York City, where a young John Byrne was finding his feet in a struggling side.

He briefly joined a mini-exodus of ex-Football League pros in Hong Kong at Happy Valley – future Brighton coach and manager Jeff Wood also played for them – but he returned to Brighton and played non-league football with Sussex County League Whitehawk, finishing the 1983-84 season as leading goalscorer with 35 goals, captaining them to the league championship and also representing the Sussex county side.

He finally hung up his boots in 1986 and was a partner for an independent financial adviser before setting up his own financial services company. He remained in Brighton until 2004 before heading back north and settling in Broom Hills, a Lincolnshire rural farming community to the north west of the city of Lincoln.

Fell died from cancer at the age of 74 in May 2025.

Hero and Villain Sammy Morgan got off Albion mark v Palace

FEARLESS NORTHERN Ireland international centre forward Sammy Morgan and his former Port Vale teammate Brian Horton were bought to win promotion for the Albion.

The gamble by manager Peter Taylor didn’t quite pay off and although midfield dynamo and captain Horton went on to fulfil that promise under Alan Mullery, Morgan’s part in the club’s future success was eclipsed by the emergence of Peter Ward.

Morgan, who was in the same Northern Irish primary school year as George Best, was the first to arrive, a £35,000 signing from Aston Villa in December 1975, replacing the out-of-favour Neil Martin alongside Fred Binney. He wasn’t able to find the net in his first seven matches but when he did it was memorable and went down in the annals of Albion history.

Morgan opens his Albion account in style against Crystal Palace

He scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace in front of a 33,000 Goldstone Ground crowd that took Albion into second place in the table, manager Taylor saying afterwards: “I am delighted for Morgan. It must have given him a great boost to get a couple of goals like this.”

That breakthrough looked like opening the floodgates for the aggressive, angular forward who went on to score in five consecutive home games in a month.

And when Horton arrived in March 1976, with Albion still in second place and only 11 games to go, promotion looked a strong possibility.

But an Easter hiccup, losing 3-1 to rivals Millwall, followed by three 1-1 draws to end the season, saw Albion drop to fourth, three points behind the south London club, who went up behind Hereford United and Cardiff City.

Short-sighted Morgan – he wore contact lenses to play – might not have seen it coming, but it was something of a watershed moment for him too.

The man who signed him decided to quit, saying: “I signed two players gambling on them to win us promotion. We didn’t get it, and the only consolation I have in leaving is I feel I have helped build a good team which is capable of going up next time.”

Before he managed to kick a ball in anger under new boss Mullery, Morgan suffered a fractured cheekbone in a collision with Paul Futcher in a pre-season friendly with Luton in August 1976. The injury sidelined him for months.

Morgan shares a training ground joke with Peter Ward

By the time he was fit to resume towards the end of November, young Ward and midfielder-turned-striker Ian Mellor had formed such an effective goalscoring partnership that Morgan could only look on from the substitute’s bench where he sat on no fewer than 29 occasions.

He got on in 18 matches but only scored once, in a 2-1 home win over Chesterfield. Of his two starts that season, one was a New Year’s Day game at Swindon in which Albion were trailing 4-0 when it got abandoned on 67 minutes because of a waterlogged pitch (and he was back to the bench for the rescheduled game at the end of the season).

Nonetheless, Taylor’s promotion premonition was duly achieved at the completion of Mullery’s first season, and Ward had scored a record-setting 36 goals.

Morgan wasn’t involved in Albion’s first two games of the new season – consecutive 0-0 draws against Third Division Cambridge United, in home and away legs of the League Cup – and, by the time of the replay, he had signed for the opponents, who were managed by Ron Atkinson.

So, in a strange quirk of fate, £15,000 signing Morgan’s first match for the Us saw him relishing a bruising encounter up against former teammate Andy Rollings, although Albion prevailed 3-1.

Morgan spoke about the encounter and his long career in the game in a fascinating 2015 televised interview for 100 Years of Coconuts, a Cambridge United fans website.

Morgan’s easing out at Brighton followed a similar pattern to his experience at Aston Villa who replaced him with 19-year-old Andy Gray, a £110,000 signing from Dundee United. Morgan only made three top flight performances for Villa after a pelvic injury had restricted his involvement in Villa’s second tier promotion in 1975 to just 12 games (although he did score four goals – three in the same match, a 6-0 win over Hull City early in the season). He was injured during a 1-1 draw at Fulham in November and subsequently lost his place in the team to Keith Leonard.

Villa scorer

Morgan had been 26 when Vic Crowe signed him from Port Vale as a replacement for the legendary Andy Lochhead. The fee was an initial £22,222 in August 1973 with the promise of further instalments of £10,000 for every 10 goals up to 20. Vale’s chairman panicked when the goals tally dried up with the total on nine but Morgan eventually came good and Villa ended up paying the extra.

He made his Villa debut on 8 September 1973 as a sub for Trevor Hockey on the hour in a 2-0 home win over Oxford United, the first of five sub appearances and 25 starts that season, when he scored nine goals.

Villa writer Eric Woodward said of him: “Sammy was never a purist but he was a brave, lively, enterprising sort who put fear into opposing defences.”

He carved his name into Villa legend during a fourth round FA Cup tie against Arsenal at Highbury in January 1974 when he was both hero and villain.

Morgan put the Second Division visitors ahead with a diving header in the 11th minute but in the second half was booked and sent off for challenges on goalkeeper Bob Wilson. After his dismissal, Arsenal equalised through Ray Kennedy.

Esteemed football writer Brian Glanville reckoned: “Morgan had scored Villa’s goal and had played with fiery initiative but, alas, he crossed the line dividing virility from violence.

“He should have taken heed earlier, when booked for fouling Wilson. But a few minutes later, going in unreasonably hard and fractionally late as Wilson dived, he knocked the goalkeeper out and off he went.”

An incensed Morgan saw it differently, though, telling Ian Willars of the Birmingham Post: “Neither my booking nor the sending-off were justified. I never touched Wilson the first time and the second time I was going for the ball, not the man. It was a 50-50.

“I actually connected with the ball not Wilson. I went over to check if he was hurt and, in my opinion, he was play-acting.”

Morgan had sweet revenge four days later. No automatic ban meant he was able to play and score in the replay at Villa Park which Villa won 2-0 in front of a bumper crowd of 47,821.

Randall Northam of the Birmingham Mail wrote: “Providing the sort of material from which story books are written, the Northern Ireland international Sammy Morgan, who was sent off on Saturday, scored in the 12th minute.

“He had scored in the opening game in the 11th minute and to increase the feeling of déjà vu it was another diving header.” Fellow striker Alun Evans scored Villa’s second.

Northam added: “It was never a great match but the crowd’s enthusiasm lifted it to a level which often made it exciting and they had their reward for ignoring the torrential rain in a driving Villa performance which outclassed their First Division opponents.”

For his part, an unrepentant Morgan said: “It was obvious that we had to put Wilson under pressure as anyone would have done in the circumstances. My goal could not have happened at a better time.”

How heartening to hear in that 100 Years of Coconuts interview that when Morgan was struck down with cancer 40 years later, one of several well-wishing calls he received came from Bob Wilson.

Best and Morgan (back row, left) in the same Belfast school photo

Born in East Belfast on 3 December 1946, Morgan went to the same Nettlefield Primary School as George Best and the first year at Grosvenor High. But Morgan left Belfast as an 11-year-old with his family, settling in Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth (his mother’s birthplace).

His Irish father, a professional musician, took over the running of the Suspension Bridge tavern in Yarmouth and Morgan’s footballing ability continued to develop under the watchful eye of his teacher, the Rev Arthur Bowles, and he went on to represent Gorleston and Norfolk Schools.

Morgan went to the same technical high school in Gorleston that also spawned his great friend Dave Stringer (a former Norwich player and manager), former Arsenal centre back Peter Simpson and ex-Wolves skipper Mike Bailey, who managed Brighton in the top flight in 1981 and 1982.

Morgan’s early hopes of a professional career were dented when he had an unsuccessful trial at Ipswich Town. Alf Ramsey was manager at the time and the future England World Cup winning boss considered him too small. He also had an unsuccessful trial with Arsenal.

Morgan continued to play as an amateur with Gorleston FC and although on leaving school he initially began working as an accountant he decided to study to become a maths and PE teacher at Nottingham University. It was Gorleston manager Roger Carter who recommended him to the then Port Vale manager Gordon Lee, who was a former Aston Villa colleague.

“I loved my time under Roger and my playing days under him were the most enjoyable years of my footballing career even though I went on to play at a higher level,” said Morgan.

He was the relatively late age of 23 when, in January 1970, he had a successful trial with Vale and signed amateur forms. But by July that year he was forced to make a decision between full-time professional football or teaching. He chose football and made a scoring Football League debut against Swansea in August 1970.

However, that summer he was spotted as a future talent by Brian Clough and Peter Taylor when he played against their Derby County side in a pre-season friendly. Clough inquired about taking him on loan but he cemented his place in the Vale side and it didn’t go any further.

nifootball.blogspot.com wrote of him: “The burly centre-forward, he weighed in at up to thirteen and a half stone during his career, proved highly effective in an unadventurous Vale side.”

His strength and aggression in Third Division football caught the attention of Northern Ireland boss Terry Neill and he scored on his debut for his country in a February 1972 1-1 draw with Spain, played at Hull because of the troubles in the province, when he teamed up with old school chum Best.

Morgan remembered turning up at the team hotel, the Grand in Scarborough, and encountering a press camera posse awaiting Best’s arrival – and he didn’t show! The mercurial talent did make it in time for the game though, when another debutant was Best’s 17-year-old Manchester United teammate Sammy McIlroy, who earned the first of 88 caps.

In the home international tournament that followed, Morgan was overlooked in favour of Derek Dougan and Albion’s Willie Irvine who, having helped Brighton win promotion from Division Three (and scored what was selected as Match of the Day’s third best goal of the season against Aston Villa) earned a recall three years after his previous appearance.

In October of 1972, though, Morgan was selected again and took his cap total to seven while at Vale Park, for many years a club record.

While at Brighton, he earned two caps during the 1976 home international tournament, starting in the 3-0 defeat to Scotland and going on as a sub in a 1-0 defeat to Wales.

He earned his 18th and final cap two years later during his time at Sparta Rotterdam in a 2-1 win over Denmark in Belfast. The legendary Danny Blanchflower was briefly the Irish manager and he selected Morgan up front alongside Gerry Armstrong but he reflected that he didn’t play well, was struggling with a hamstring injury at the time, and was deservedly subbed off on the hour mark.

Morgan’s knack for helping sides win promotion had worked at Cambridge too, where he partnered Alan Biley and Tom Finney (no, not that one!) in attack, but after Atkinson left to manage West Brom, he fell out with his successor, John Docherty, and in August 1978 made the switch to Rotterdam.

After one season there, he moved on to Groningen in the Eeste Divisie (level two) and although he helped them win the title, he suffered a knee injury and called time on his professional playing days.

He returned to Norfolk to teach maths and PE in Gorleston, at Cliff Park High School and then Lynn Grove High School, and carried on playing with his first club, Gorleston, where, in 1981, he was appointed manager.

As well as coaching Great Yarmouth schoolboys, he also got involved in coaching Norwich City’s schoolboys in 1990 and in January 1998 he left teaching to work full-time as the club’s youth development manager. As the holder of a UEFA Class A licence, he went on to become the club’s first football academy director, a position he held until May 2004.

In October that year, Morgan was unveiled as Ipswich Town’s education officer, a role that involved ensuring Town’s young players received tuition on more than just football as they went through the academy system. In 2009, he became academy manager and during his three years notable youngsters who made it as professionals included strikers Connor Wickham and Jordan Rhodes.

He admitted in an interview with independent fan website TWTD: “If I’ve contributed to anybody in particular it probably would be the big number nine [Wickham] and Jordan because I was a number nine, and I kick the ball through them – I play the game through the number nines.”

He went on: “I’m very proud to have played a part in the development of a lot of young players. I’m equally proud of those lads who haven’t quite got there in the professional ranks but have maybe gone on to university and have forged other careers and are still playing football at non-league level, still enjoying their football. That means a lot to me as well.”

Morgan continued: “I finished playing in 1980 and I’ve been in youth development since then. I did the Norfolk schools, Great Yarmouth schools, representative sides and the Bobby Robson Soccer Schools. That’s 32 years, I’ve given it a fair crack and I love my football as much now as I ever did.

“I’ve been privileged to work with young people, very privileged. It’s kept me young, kept my passion and kept my enthusiasm going. One thing you could never accuse me of is not having any enthusiasm or passion for the game, and that will remain.”

In 2014, Morgan was diagnosed with stomach cancer and underwent chemo to tackle it. Through that association, in September 2017 he gave his backing to Norfolk and Suffolk Youth Football League’s choice of the oesophago-gastric cancer department at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) as its charity of the year.

Even when he could have had his feet up, he was helping to coach youngsters at independent Langley School in Norwich.

Morgan was on good form in this interview for 100 Years of Coconuts TV

Martin Hinshelwood went down with Palace and up with Albion

REGARDLESS of the often overblown ‘bitter rivalry’ between Brighton and Crystal Palace, many people have served both clubs with equal distinction, none more so than Martin Hinshelwood.

A player at Palace until injury curtailed his career when only 27, he went on to have a long career in the game, much of it with Brighton; more often in youth development as a coach and briefly as the no.1.

In the summer of 2002, his appointment as Albion boss 11 weeks after his former Palace teammate Peter Taylor had quit came as something of a surprise considering chairman Dick Knight declared he had interviewed seven candidates for the post.

In more recent times, Albion have had a Uruguayan, a Spaniard, a Finn and an Italian as head coach, back in 2002 it looked a strong possibility Knight might appoint wild-haired German coach Winfried Schafer, who had just managed Cameroon at the World Cup, but the chairman suspected his lack of command of English might be too big a hurdle to get over.

A terrific start

A clear favourite had been Steve Coppell but when the ex-Palace manager fell asleep during his conversation with Knight, apparently fatigued after a long-haul flight, the chairman was suitably unimpressed and, with time running out before the 2002-03 season got under way, Hinshelwood was appointed instead.

A 3-1 win away to Burnley looked like a terrific start but after a 0-0 home draw with Coventry, the side went on a disastrous 10-game losing spell (a 2-1 League Cup win over Exeter City the only bright spot amid the gloom).

Knight had already publicly signalled he would take decisive action after the sixth defeat in a row – a 4-2 home reverse to nine-man Gillingham!

He told the Argus: “If the team went ten matches losing every one, then you have got to do something about it.

“It’s very easy to criticise him (Hinshelwood). Obviously, he is a manager under pressure because we have just lost six games.

Getting his message across

“To suggest we should instantly sack him puts out the wrong message. Most people right now will think it was the wrong decision to appoint him, but I am not going to panic. I am going to monitor the situation.”

Of course, that monitoring didn’t take long to reach an inevitable conclusion – four more defeats and Hinshelwood was relieved of first team duties. He was made ‘director of football’ and Knight went back to Coppell to try to keep the Albion in the division. He very nearly managed it, too, but such a bad run of defeats had taken their toll on the points total.

As it happened, it wasn’t the first time Hinshelwood had found himself in the Albion hotseat: he was caretaker manager on three occasions: in 1993 (before Liam Brady’s appointment), in 2001 (after Micky Adams left for Leicester) and again in 2009, when he was in charge for a 4-4 FA Cup first round tie at Wycombe Wanderers after Russell Slade had been sacked and before Gus Poyet’s arrival.

When researching backgrounds of any number of players for this blog, Hinshelwood’s name is often cited as the one who either made the approach to bring them to Brighton or who was a major influence in their development.

For example, when Hinshelwood first joined the Albion in 1987, from Chelsea, he was instrumental in bringing from Stamford Bridge to the Goldstone Doug Rougvie and Keith Dublin, who both played their part in getting Albion promoted straight back to the second tier in 1988.

Hinshelwood had been reserve team manager at Chelsea for two years during the managerial reign of John Hollins, after first team coach Ernie Walley, his former Palace youth team coach, put in a good word for him.

His long association with Brighton began with a ‘phone call to Barry Lloyd to congratulate him on landing the Albion manager’s job. The former Fulham captain asked Hinshelwood to join him at the Goldstone – and he stayed for the next six and a half years.

He returned to the club in the summer of 1998, when Brian Horton had taken over, and was appointed Director of Youth, with Dean Wilkins as youth team coach.

Pensive Hinsh

An interview with the matchday programme pointed out that across the following 14 years, he oversaw a youth system that produced 31 players who made it through to the first team, although he said such success had very much been a team effort, name-checking Wilkins, centre of excellence managers Vic Bragg and John Lambert, scouting chief Mark Hendon and physio Kim Eaton.

Dean Hammond, Adam Hinshelwood, Adam Virgo, Adam El-Abd, Dean Cox, Jake Robinson, Dan Harding and later Lewis Dunk, Jake Forster-Caskey and Solly March all graduated from that period. “To have been a part of their journeys makes me immensely proud,” he said.

Hinshelwood left the Albion for a second time in 2012 and worked variously for Crawley, Portsmouth, Stoke City and Lewes. He returned to the Seagulls once again when the former head of academy recruitment at Stoke, Dave Wright, who had joined Brighton in 2019, invited him to take on a role of scouting 13 to 16-year-olds.

When Hinshelwood himself was that age, he had visions of following in his dad Wally’s footsteps. He had been a professional for Fulham, Chelsea, Reading, Bristol City and Newport County, and, although born in Reading (on 16 June 1953), young Martin had become accustomed to an unsettled childhood, moving around the country to wherever dad’s next club took him.

The family finally settled in New Addington, near Croydon, with Wally playing non-league football in Kent and Martin played representative football for Dover Under 15s, Croydon Boys and Surrey Under 16s.

He was on schoolboy terms at Fulham when Bobby Robson was manager but they didn’t think he would make it. It was while he was playing for Surrey Schools that former Spurs and Palace manager Arthur Rowe scouted him for Palace and he was taken on as an apprentice in 1969.

Hinshelwood playing for Palace, up against Stoke’s George Eastham

Hinshelwood was given his first team debut by Bert Head in 1972. He played in midfield in the old First Division for a dozen matches but the side were relegated in his first season. The flamboyant fedora-wearing Malcolm Allison took over as manager and he was later replaced by Terry Venables.

Martin’s younger brother Paul (Jack Hinshelwood’s granddad) played in the same side at full-back and the brothers were alongside the likes of Kenny Samson and Peter Taylor. In 1975-76, when still a Third Division side, they shook the football world by making it to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, where they lost to eventual winners Southampton, although Martin missed the game through a right knee injury. It eventually forced him to quit playing in 1978, after he’d made 85 appearances for Palace in five years.

Venables appointed him as youth team coach at Selhurst Park and although he spent 18 months as player-manager of non-league Leatherhead, he then resumed his Palace role under Steve Kember.

Alan Mullery dispensed with Hinshelwood’s services during his brief managerial reign at Palace but he kept his hand in at coaching with non-league clubs Kingstonian, Barking and Dorking.

Selsey-based Hinshelwood then had a spell as manager of Littlehampton before the Chelsea job came up.

Steady Eddie had plenty of strings to his bow

ONE TIME Albion captain and utility player Eddie Spearritt played in the top flight for Ipswich Town and Carlisle United.

He made five starts and five appearances off the bench for second tier champions Ipswich at the beginning of the 1968-69 season before joining third tier Brighton for £20,000 in January 1969.

Play anywhere Spearritt was then a permanent fixture in the Albion line-up for almost five years, making 225 appearances, before Brian Clough turfed him out at the end of the 1973-74 season.

But he found himself back amongst the elite when newly promoted Carlisle United snapped him up for their one and only season (1974-75) amongst the big boys.

Spearritt made 17 starts and six appearances as a sub for the Cumbrians but, in spite of a superb winning start when they briefly topped the division, United finished the season in bottom spot.

Spearritt shapes to challenge Aston Villa’s Ray Graydon

Equally comfortable playing in midfield, at full back or sweeper, Spearritt had on-off spells as Albion’s chosen penalty-taker as well as chipping in with goals from open play. He even turned his hand to goalkeeping when necessary.

Another key attribute to his game was an ability to send in long throw-ins which could sometimes be as effective as a free kick or corner. It was a skill which earned him a place in a Longest Throw competition staged by BBC’s sport show Grandstand in 1970-71, although he didn’t win it.

Born in Lowestoft on 31 January 1947, Spearritt went to Lowestoft Grammar School and on leaving school was picked up by Arsenal. But when the Gunners didn’t keep him on, he returned to East Anglia and joined Ipswich as an apprentice in August 1963.

He signed a professional contract with Town in February 1965 and, as Tim Hodge details on prideofanglia.com, he made his league debut in the 1965-66 season in a 1-0 win away to Preston in the old Division Two.

That was the season when substitutes were first introduced into the English game and the record books show that Spearritt was the first Ipswich sub to score a goal.

He went on for Irish international Danny Hegan in a match away to Derby County on 15 January 1966 and scored Ipswich’s second goal. The game finished 2-2; Gerry Baker having scored Town’s first.

Over the next three years, Spearritt made a total of 69 appearances (plus 10 as sub) for Bill McGarry’s side, scoring 14 goals along the way. Twenty of those games came in the 1967-68 season when Ipswich won the old Second Division.

A 1-0 home defeat to Spurs in October 1968 was his last for the Suffolk club and he parted company with Town shortly after McGarry left Portman Road to take over at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

A debut v Crewe (left) and slaloming through the Plymouth Argyle defence (right)

Spearritt was one of Freddie Goodwin’s first signings for Brighton – just a few weeks before my first ever Albion game. He made his debut in a 3-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra and kept the number 10 shirt to the end of the season, by which time he had scored five times, including both Albion’s goals in a 2-2 draw at home to Tranmere Rovers.

In the 1969-70 season, not only was he part of the Third Division Albion side who pushed his old manager McGarry’s First Division Wolves side all the way in a memorable third round League Cup tie, it was his header from Kit Napier’s free kick that put the Albion 2-1 ahead just before half-time.

Scottish international Hugh Curran scored twice in eight second half minutes to clinch the win for Wolves but a bumper Goldstone Ground crowd of 32,539 witnessed a terrific effort by their side.

A few weeks’ later, in a marathon FA Cup second round tie with Walsall that required three replays before the Saddlers finally prevailed 2-1, Spearritt took over in goal during the second replay when a concussed Geoff Sidebottom was stretchered off on 65 minutes. Albion hung on for a 1-1 draw.

Spearritt was a midfield regular in his first two seasons but Goodwin’s successor, Pat Saward, switched him to left back halfway through the 1970-71 season and that’s where he stayed throughout 1971-72 when Albion won promotion from the old Third Division as runners up behind Saward’s old club, Aston Villa.

It was in the first half of that season that Spearritt took a call from ex-Ipswich teammate Ray Crawford, the former England international centre forward, who had returned homesick from a short stint playing in South Africa.

He persuaded Saward to offer Crawford a trial and although he didn’t make the league side he scouted upcoming opponents, played for the reserves and subsequently ran the youth team.

Meanwhile, Spearritt was a key part of the promotion side and player-of-the-season Bert Murray generously declared the award could have gone to Eddie for his consistency that season. As it happened, Spearritt did get the award the following season, although somewhat more ignominiously considering Albion were relegated.

All smiles as Pat Saward’s side toast promotion in 1972

In the close season after promotion, Spearritt tied the knot with Penelope Biddulph, “an accomplished professional dancer,” the matchday programme told us, and they moved into a new home in Kingston-by-Sea.

Spearritt started out at left back in Division Two but after ten games was ousted by the arrival of George Ley from Portsmouth. He then switched back into midfield, but by the end of that relegation season was playing sweeper alongside Norman Gall (for nine games) and Steve Piper (for two).

He scored (pictured above), along with Barry Bridges, in a 2-0 win at Huddersfield on 14 October but the team went on a disastrous run of 16 games without a win, although Spearritt did get on the scoresheet three times, including notching two penalties.

When Albion went to that footballing outpost Carlisle on 16 December, they had lost five in a row without managing a single goal. Carlisle were 5-0 up, goalkeeper Brian Powney was carried off with a broken nose, replaced between the sticks by Murray, then Albion won a penalty.

Spearritt took up the story in a subsequent matchday programme. “I used to be the club’s penalty taker but, after I had missed an important one at Mansfield in 1970, I lost the job. Penalty-taking is really all about confidence,” he said. “After I had missed that one at Mansfield, which cost us a point, the players lost confidence in me and the job went first to John Napier and was then taken over by Murray.

“Bert would have taken the penalty at Carlisle. He has already scored two this season. But he had gone in goal and it was decided it was too risky to fetch Bert out of goal to take the penalty.

“Nobody else seemed to want to take it so I just picked the ball up and put it on the spot. We were 5-0 down by then but I thought from a morale point of view that it was extremely important that I scored. You can understand my relief when I saw the ball hit the back of the net.

“Everybody was beginning to wonder when we would score again. I suppose with the run of bad luck we have been having it was almost inevitable that we should break our goal famine from the penalty spot.”

Towards the end of the dismal run, Albion drew First Division Chelsea at home in the third round of the FA Cup. The game was won 2-0 by Chelsea but it was an ugly, violent affair – The Argus labelled it ‘Goldstone day of shame’ – in which five players were booked and each side had a player sent off.

Spearritt, the first to be booked, found himself caught up in a huge controversy which resulted in Chelsea hard man Ron Harris being sent off by Leicester referee Peter Reeves; remarkably the only time in his career he was dismissed.

The Brighton man insisted he’d been hit by the defender and Saward said in diplomatic terms after the game: “Spearritt said he was struck on the mouth and that it was not an involuntary action but a blow. From what I saw, I couldn’t understand it.”

Esteemed football writer Norman Giller subsequently recorded it like this: “Harris got involved in a tussle with Spearritt, and, as he pushed him, Spearritt went down holding his face as if he had been punched. The referee directed Ron to an early bath. All the bones he had kicked, and here was Harris being sent off for a playground push.

“A Brighton-supporting vicar, with a pitchside view, wrote to the Football Association telling them what he had witnessed, and ‘Chopper’ was vindicated.”

Whatever the truth of the matter, Spearritt told Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe that he’d been threatened by a Chelsea player after the incident. “He spoke to me several times and made it quite clear what he had in mind.”

Albion’s Ley was sent off for bringing down Tommy Baldwin and then getting involved in an altercation with Peter Osgood, who scored both Chelsea goals. Two minutes later David Webb went into the book for a ‘blatant foul’ on Spearritt.

Albion finally returned to winning ways the following month with a 2-0 win over Luton (on 10 February), and then beat Huddersfield, Carlisle and Swindon, prompting Saward to refer to “some outstanding individual performances” and adding: “I have been particularly pleased with the way Eddie Spearritt has been playing in recent weeks.

“He has maintained a high level of consistency this season and his work in defence and in midfield has been invaluable as the side has plugged away trying to turn the tide of results.”

Saward made Spearritt Albion’s captain at the start of the 1973-74 season back in Division Three and with the return of central defender Ian Goodwin and then the emergence of Piper in the sweeping role, he was soon back in midfield.

But when Saward was sacked in October and sensationally replaced by former Derby County League title winning management duo Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, Spearritt was one of the first to have his nose put out of joint by the new arrivals.

Journalist Spencer Vignes described what happened in Bloody Southerners (Biteback Publishing, 2018), his excellent book about that era.

Clough sought out long-serving centre back Norman Gall and, because he hailed from the same part of the country (ie the north east), told him he was making him the captain. Gall told Vignes: “Suddenly I’m captain, which I was really happy about. Eddie Spearritt didn’t like it though. He’d been captain up until then. In fact, he didn’t talk to me after that. That was the beginning of the end for Eddie.”

Spearritt was part of the side who capitulated 4-0, 8-2 and 4-1 in successive games against Walton & Hersham, Bristol Rovers and Tranmere Rovers, and he was dropped for six games, along with Ley (who never played for Albion again). Clough went into the transfer market and brought in midfielder Ronnie Welch and left back Harry Wilson from Burnley.

Although Spearritt was restored to the team in mid January, and had a run of seven games — including his 200th league game for Albion — when he was subbed off in a home win over Hereford United on 10 March 1974, it was to be his last appearance in an Albion shirt.

In five years he’d played 225 games (plus seven as sub) and scored 25 goals.

Come the end of the season, Spearritt was one of 12 players released by the club in what became known as the great Clough clear-out.

Perhaps surprisingly, though, his next step was UP two divisions to play in the First Division with then newly promoted Carlisle United.

One of his teammates there was defender Graham Winstanley, who later joined the Albion. The side was captained by Chris Balderstone, who was also a top cricketer. Journeyman striker Hugh McIlmoyle played up front while John Gorman, who later played for Spurs and became Glenn Hoddle’s managerial sidekick, was also in the team.

They memorably topped the division after three games…but predictably finished bottom of the pile by the end. In his two-year stay with the Cumbrians, Spearritt played 29 times, was sub twice and scored a single goal.

He moved back south in August 1976, signed by Gerry Summers at Gillingham, and made his debut in a League Cup first round second leg tie against Aldershot, then made his league debut against Reading.

In total, he made 22 appearances in his one season at the club — one of them at the Goldstone Ground on December 29 1976, when the Albion won 2-0 on a slippery, snow-covered pitch. Spearritt scored just the once for the Gills, from the penalty spot against Rotherham United at Priestfield.

He emigrated to Australia the following summer and settled in Brisbane where he played 56 games for the Brisbane Lions between 1977 and 1980 and was their head coach in 1979. He subsequently coached Rochedale Rovers in the Brisbane Intermediate League, steering them to promotion to the Premier League in 1983.

Outside of football, he became estates manager for L’Oréal and in later years was better known as the uncle of Hannah Spearritt, once of the pop group S Club 7, who became an actress in the ITV drama Primevil.

‘Keeper Kuipers the crowd-pleasing former Dutch marine

The ever-enthusiastic Michel Kuipers celebrates

FORMER DUTCH MARINE Michel Kuipers earned back-to-back promotions with Brighton and Hove Albion and Crawley Town.

He was between the sticks for the Albion when they won promotion from the basement division in 2000-01 and the third tier in 2001-02.

And after 10 years with the Seagulls, during which he made a total of 287 appearances, he spent two years with Crawley where, over 49 matches, he won promotion from the Conference in 2011 and League Two in 2012.

Undeniably, it was Kuipers’ years with the Seagulls that defined his career after an inauspicious start when Micky Adams subbed him off at half-time on his debut away to Southend United. Replaced by Mark Cartwright in that match, he was left out of the next 11 matches before an injury to Cartwright enabled him to win back the shirt. He didn’t look back after that, though, and only missed three more matches as the Seagulls were crowned champions.

Early days between the sticks

Although there were to be plenty of ups and downs over the following years, when he wasn’t always first choice, Kuipers remained a crowd favourite for his agility as a shot stopper and his fanlike celebrations of goals and wins.

“I was a player but I also turned into a fan of the Albion,” he said in an interview with the matchday programme. “On the pitch I would celebrate each goal we scored like I was on the terraces with our supporters.

“After we had a good result in the game, I would celebrate with the players but always expressed my joy and gratefulness to the supporters.”

A sensational double-save in a televised game away to Wolves in November 2002 was a highlight for many and a one-handed reaction stop at Blackpool earned him a ‘save of the month’ award from sponsor Nationwide.

He didn’t always see eye to eye with Mark McGhee, who reckoned his kicking let him down, and the Scot said: “His desire to do well is unquestioned, but I had to make a decision and it was not always one he agreed with.”

McGhee was nonetheless full of admiration for the Dutchman and in a programme for Kuipers’ testimonial match v Reading in 2012, he recounted a specific role he played when Albion’s back-up goalie at the 2004 Second Division play-off final against Bristol City.

“I asked Michel to warm up, but in truth to get the supporters going. I remember him going down to the corner and waving with those huge arms – he absolutely galvanised the support.

“What was brilliant for me was that he did it despite his huge disappointment not to be playing himself – he did it for the team. The rest is history as the fans got behind the team. We got the penalty and went on to win the game.”

Later that evening, the trophy Albion won got bent when someone fell on it: with his bare hands, Kuipers straightened it!

Five years (from 19 to 24) in the Dutch Marines during which he’d parachuted from aeroplanes and learned to survive in harsh conditions, definitely left their mark. His training had taken him into jungles, deserts and the Arctic, but he said: “My love and passion for football was always there. In my spare hours I played for the Marines team.”

Born in Amsterdam on 26 June 1974, as a child Kuipers played football with his mates in front of some garages near the flats where he lived. He recalled they would be told off for hitting the ball against the garage doors, so he went in goal to try to save the ball from making loud bangs every time one of his friends scored.

“I was doing OK, so from that day onwards I played as a goalkeeper,” he said. He played for the local Blauw-wit under six team and went all the way through the age groups to the first team at 18.

A keen Ajax fan as a youngster, his idol was their goalkeeper Stanley Menzo – “one of the best goalkeepers of his generation” – and he also admired Menzo’s successor, Edwin Van Der Sar, who later played in England for Fulham and Manchester United.

Although Kuipers went straight from full-time education into the Marines, he also played part time for AFC Door Wilskracht Sterk (it means Strong Through Willpower) and Kuipers explained: “We won the Amsterdam regional league for the first time in 25 years and this brought me to the attention of Ian Holloway at Bristol Rovers.

“When I was offered a contract by him, I wasn’t sure I could leave the Army, but the officers knew I’d put 110 per cent into my job, so they were happy to release me.”

But in 18 months with Rovers, Kuipers only managed one first team appearance (against Bournemouth in March 1999). Indeed, it was while playing for Rovers Reserves against Brighton at Worthing that he caught the eye of Brighton boss Adams. He jumped at the chance when Albion offered him a trial and he played well enough in a Sussex Senior Cup semi-final against Langney Sports for Adams to persuade him to make a permanent move to the Seagulls with the intention of being back-up to Mark Walton.

When Walton suddenly upped sticks and joined Cardiff before the 2000-01 season had started, Kuipers found himself in the starting line-up for the opening game away to Southend.

Understandably, Kuipers was distraught at being taken off at half time but he knuckled down to try to win back the shirt and said: “If you’re mentally strong and you’ve got good self-confidence and belief then you just fight back and that’s the way I approached it in the following months.”

He credited the work he put in with goalkeeping coaches John Keeley and Mike Kelly, admitting: “They improved my technique and made me more professional.”

Even when Adams left for Leicester, Kuipers remained no.1 under Peter Taylor as the Seagulls soared to a second successive promotion.

Injury meant Kuipers missed the second half of the season when Steve Coppell’s side only just missed out on avoiding an immediate drop back to the third tier.

When Ben Roberts was preferred as first choice goalkeeper, Taylor, by then manager of Hull City, took Kuipers on loan in September 2003.

Albion rebuffed Hull’s attempt to sign him on a free transfer but shortly after his return to Sussex he was involved in a horror car smash on his way to training.

Remarkably, considering he was airlifted to hospital, he escaped serious injury although club physio Malcom Stuart reported: “Michel knows he was very lucky. There’s a degree of shock and he will need time for that to clear his system. Structurally there are no serious injuries, but he’s had several stitches and is very sore and uncomfortable muscularly.”

Manager McGhee added: “My God, we feared the worst. But in a sense it’s an absolute bonus, a miracle – they sent him home with a few cuts and bruises, a swollen face, a sore back and a sore neck, which in a week or two will be fine.”

Nevertheless, it was Roberts who kept his place as Albion won promotion via the aforementioned play-off final win in Cardiff. But in the first half of the 2004-05 Championship season, Kuipers was back in the saddle courtesy of injury to Roberts.

All was fine until a home game v Nottingham Forest on 22 January 2005 when Kuipers came off worse in a challenge with Kris Commons and the shoulder injury he sustained kept him out for the rest of the season. Former Arsenal ‘keeper Rami Shabaan and Southampton loanee Alan Blayney took over the gloves.

New competition arrived in the shape of Aston Villa loanee Wayne Henderson, who took over in goal at the start of the 2005-06 season and with the brief return of Blayney as well as Frenchman Florent Chaigneau as back-up, it seemed Kuipers’ Albion days might be over.

He was sent out on two loan spells at League Two Boston United – initially playing four times in December 2005, then 11 matches between February and April 2006.

With Brighton back in the third tier for the 2006-07 season, and another change of manager when McGhee gave way to Dean Wilkins, Kuipers found himself vying for the jersey with Henderson, who had been signed permanently. Local lad John Sullivan was beginning to emerge too. But there was no keeping a good man down and Kuipers was the ever-present first choice goalkeeper throughout the 2007-08 season.

At that time, he admitted he was still learning ways to improve thanks to goalkeeping coach Paul Crichton and told the matchday programme: “I am very pleased with the progress I have been making under Paul.

“My game has definitely improved and it is great to see the results of hard work on the training ground coming out in games.”

When Adams returned ahead of the 2008-09 season, Kuipers was still in pole position and he famously saved Michael Ball’s penalty when League One Albion beat Manchester City 5-3 on penalties in a second round League Cup tie at Withdean.

Although Sullivan had a run in the side, and Adams’ successor Russell Slade briefly turned to loanee Mikkel Andersen, Kuipers was once again in the box seat come the end of the season.

It wasn’t long after the arrival of Gus Poyet that Kuipers’ time at Brighton finally came to an end. A 2-1 home defeat to Norwich City in February 2010 was his last Albion start as Poyet turned instead to his ‘keeper of choice, Peter Brezovan.

The Dutchman continued his association with the Seagulls through involvement in the Albion in the Community programme and his long service was rewarded with a testimonial game at the Amex (a 1-1 draw v Reading when he played 15 minutes). He told BBC Radio Sussex: “Bar my family, this football club is the closest thing to my heart.

“I’ve been bleeding blue and white for the last 12 years so this is a very proud moment for me and my family.”

He added: “I love the Brighton supporters. They’ve been absolutely fantastic to me and a lot of the times when we had our backs against the wall, they were the 12th man.

“Especially as a goalkeeper, I really appreciate them backing the team. I think people appreciated me because I threw my body on the line for the club.”

Kuipers early days at Crawley saw him making headlines for all the wrong reasons – he was sent off twice in the first month, v Grimsby Town and v Forest Green Rovers – but he was in the Blue Square Bet Premier league side that had a terrific run in the FA Cup, only narrowly losing in the fifth round, 1-0 to Man Utd at Old Trafford in February 2011.

Kuipers’ loyalty was rewarded with a testimonial in 2012

On leaving Crawley in early 2013, he said: “When I joined, the club had finished mid-table in the Conference and I leave challenging for the play-offs in League One.

“The supporters have always backed me and I am really proud of the part I have played in raising the profile of Crawley Town with two successive promotions.

“It’s been a fantastic part of my career and I will always remember my time at the club.”

The final four months of his playing days were spent on the subs bench at Barnet, as back-up to first choice Graham Stack.

In 2020, Kuipers was behind the setting up of the PHX gym at Hollingbury.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Injury has restricted Milner’s outings for the Albion

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

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

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

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

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

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