Imperious Mark Lawrenson starred at Brighton before hitting Liverpool heights

MARK LAWRENSON was without doubt in my mind the best player ever to play for Brighton and Hove Albion. Peter Ward was exceptional but Lawrenson did it for Brighton and went on to have a glittering career with Liverpool, the top club in the country at the time.

And, whatever your thoughts about his contribution as a pundit – and many are very disparaging – you can’t take away his longevity on our TV screens and across our media.

Although now slightly less prominent as a TV pundit, for a good many years, Lawrenson reprised his successful Liverpool central defensive partnership with Alan Hansen in the BBC Match of the Day studios.

But where did it all begin? Born on 2 June 1957 in Penwortham, Lancashire, Lawrenson joined nearby Preston at 17 in 1974, who at the time were managed by the legendary Bobby Charlton.

Lawrenson made his full debut for the Lilywhites the following year, two months before his 18^th birthday. However, it was Charlton’s fellow World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles, to whom Lawrenson was most grateful.

“I was a winger when I joined Preston, while he was coach, and he was the one who converted me to my present position – in the middle of the back four,” Lawrenson told Keir Radnedge in Football Weekly News.

“Nobby was very good with the youngsters. He was almost like a father-figure. He commanded respect not only because of what he’d achieved himself but because of the way he’d help iron out your faults.”

At the age of 19, and thinking he’d never be good enough to play for England, Lawrenson opted to play for the Republic of Ireland when player-manager Johnny Giles (perhaps not coincidentally, Nobby’s brother-in-law) found out that he qualified to play for them through his grandfather.

That debut for Ireland in April 1977, in a 0-0 draw with Poland, came at the end of a season in which he was voted Preston’s Player of the Year.

Within weeks, he joined the Albion for £112,000 (£100,000 + VAT @ 12 per cent) after Brighton manager Alan Mullery persuaded Albion to outbid Liverpool to get their man.

Shoot article

Mullery recalled in his 2006 autobiography how he had taken the board of directors to see Lawrenson perform superbly in an end-of-season game at Crystal Palace, where he marked their new star striker Mike Flanagan out of the game.

Lawrenson recollects how he was on an end-of-season ‘jolly’ in Spain with his Preston team-mates when Brighton chairman Mike Bamber and director Dudley Sizen turned up and ‘sold’ the club to him in a Benidorm beachside bar.

There was nearly a hitch in the deal when his medical showed high sugar levels in his blood – but it turned out he had been drinking blackcurrant-flavoured Guinness while on the Spanish holiday.

Mullery was building on the success of guiding the Seagulls to promotion from Division Three in his first season in charge, and the young defender replaced the experienced Graham Cross, who went to Preston in part-exchange.

Shortly after signing Lawrenson, Mullery told Shoot magazine: “I know a lot of people have not heard too much about him yet. But they will – believe me, they will. He is only 20, is big and strong and will make his mark in a big way.”

And, in his autobiography, Mullery said: “Any manager would love to have a player of Mark’s ability in their side. He had a calm, strong temperament, he never caused any problems and he always performed brilliantly on the field. His presence helped to lift the team to a whole new level of performance in the 1977-78 season.”

Lawrenson made his Brighton debut on the 20 August 1977 in a 1-1 draw against Southampton at The Dell and went on to make 40 league appearances by the end of his first season at the club.

The following season, when Albion went one better and earned promotion to the top division for the first time, Lawrenson was a stand-out performer. In his book, A Few Good Men, author Spencer Vignes said: “His timing in the tackle and ability to read the game belied his relative youth, but what really caught the eye was his skill on the ball, which, for a centre-back still earning his wages in English football’s second tier, was little short of remarkable.”

Skipper Brian Horton told Vignes: “The way he used to bring the ball out from the back had to be seen to be believed.”

In a special Argus supplement of April 1997, to mark Albion’s departure from the Goldstone, Lawrenson was interviewed by Mike Donovan, and told him: “The Goldstone was a great place to play and I was extremely happy there.

“It was an excellent team that played good football the way it should be played – by passing it around. Also, we had a great team spirit, mainly because a lot of the team were outsiders coming in and stuck together. We all played and socialised together.”

Unfortunately, Albion’s first season amongst the elite was only five games in when Lawrenson received a serious injury in a clash with Glenn Hoddle at White Hart Lane.

Badly torn ankle ligaments and a chipped bone was the diagnosis and it sidelined Lawrenson for 12 matches, although his absence created an opportunity for young Gary Stevens.

lawro yellow When Lawrenson was fit to return, Mullery sprung a surprise by utilising him in midfield, but it was an inspired decision and he stayed there for the rest of the season, helping Albion to finish a respectable 16^th of 22.

He went on to make 152 league appearances by the end of 1980-81.

It was his sale to Liverpool in the summer of 1981 that was part of the reason Mullery’s reign at the club came to an end. Mullery had negotiated with Ron Atkinson to sell him to Manchester United with two United players coming to Brighton as part of the deal.

But, behind his back, chairman Bamber had been talking to Liverpool and, in exchange for what was then a Liverpool club transfer record of £900,000, he was destined to be heading back to the North West with midfielder Jimmy Case coming South as part of the deal.

Interestingly, though, Lawrenson revealed in his autobiography how new manager Mike Bailey had actually made him Albion captain, but then asked him how he saw his future, which sowed a seed of doubt about the club’s intentions.

“I don’t know if there was a financial crisis and they were looking for a big transfer fee from my sale to sort themselves out, but the uncertainty did unsettle me,” he wrote. Lawrenson was sent off in an ill-tempered pre-season friendly (against FC Utrecht in the Dordrecht Tournament) and put it down to his personal frustration.

“On our return flight, there was a message that Terry Neill of Arsenal was waiting to meet the chairman at Gatwick,” Lawrenson recalled. “Somehow they missed each other and the next day there was talk of me going to Manchester United.

“But then Mike Bailey asked me if I would meet Liverpool, and I travelled to the Aerial Hotel at Heathrow to meet Bob Paisley, Peter Robinson and Liverpool chairman John Smith.

“Terry Neill was, at the time, waiting in the next hotel in case discussions broke down. He missed out because it only took me 15 minutes to agree to move to Liverpool.

“I travelled North and had a medical at 11.30 at night. I even took the registration forms to the League offices myself, because they are only a few doors away from my mother’s home at St Annes.”

Argus front page

Lawrenson went on to form a formidable central defensive partnership with Hansen after England centre back Phil Thompson suffered an injury, but, as he had showed at Brighton, he was versatile enough also to play at full back or in midfield.

Indeed, Lawrenson made his first start for Liverpool at left-back in a 1-0 league defeat to Wolves. In his first season, Liverpool won the League championship and the League Cup. They won it again in 1982 and retained both for another two seasons, becoming only the third club in history to win three titles in a row. They also added the club’s fourth European Cup in 1984.

Many believed Lawrenson and Hansen were the best central defensive partnership in English football by the time Liverpool clinched the League and FA Cup “double” in 1986.

But Lawrenson was being put under pressure by young centre back Gary Gillespie and an Achilles tendon injury in 1988 prematurely ended his career after 332 appearances and 18 goals, although he earned a fifth and final title medal when that season ended.

Lawrenson tried his hand at management at Oxford United in 1988 but, in almost a mirror image of the situation over his own transfer from Brighton, he resigned after their star striker Dean Saunders, the former Albion player, was sold by the board of directors without Lawrenson’s blessing.

Lawrenson later managed Peterborough United for 14 months between September 1989 and November 1990, but it was a largely unsuccessful tenure.

Apart from one brief foray back into football as a defensive coach at Newcastle during Kevin Keegan’s first reign in the North East, Lawrenson’s involvement since has been one step removed as a pundit and newspaper columnist.

At the 2018 World Cup, Lawrenson particularly hit the headlines when many observed his cantankerous and sarcastic observations were just too much.

Never shy of voicing his opinions, they once led to him losing what at the time was a trademark moustache!

He was so convinced that Bolton would be relegated that he said live on Football Focus that he would shave it off if they proved him wrong, which they did!

In 2003, my friend Andrew Setten somehow blagged tickets which gave us the opportunity to go into the exclusive Football Association area at the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Southampton at the Millennium Stadium and, all those years later, I finally got the chance to meet Lawro and to get his autograph.

• Pictures from Shoot magazine, cuttings from the Evening Argus and the matchday programme.

Goalkeeping guru Eric Steele: a promotion talisman at Brighton

GOALKEEPER Eric Steele was involved in an incredible six promotions as a player before becoming one of the country’s top goalkeeping coaches.

Two of those promotions came in his three years with Brighton & Hove Albion and another during a five-year spell at Watford.

His penchant for coaching began during his time at Brighton who he joined in February 1977 for £20,000 from Peterborough United.

As a replacement for the injured Peter Grummitt, Steele made his debut in a 3-1 defeat away to Crystal Palace but the season was to end in triumph. With Peter Ward making the headlines at one end, Steele kept the ‘keeper’s jersey to the end of the season as Albion won promotion to the old Second Division in runners up spot behind Mansfield Town.

As Albion chased a second successive promotion in 1977-78, Steele’s terrific form meant new signing Graham Moseley had to wait five months to make his debut. Steele played 38 matches but Moseley took over for the final four games of the season, as Albion just missed out.

The following season, manager Alan Mullery opted for Moseley as his first choice but the accident-prone former Derby ‘keeper twice caused himself damage – once with a hedge trimmer and then by falling through a plate glass window – which opened the door for Steele, who, by the season’s end, played 27 times compared to Moseley’s 20.

Steele 4 Albion Steele was between the posts as the Seagulls won 3-1 at St James’ Park to win promotion to the elite for the first time in their history, a particularly sweet moment considering Newcastle had discarded him early on in his career.

“It was important to go back as part of something, to show that I should have been given a chance,” he said in a 2019 Albion matchday programme article. And rather than join the infamous promotion party train ride back to Brighton, after the match Steele stayed over in Newcastle.

“I wanted to be with my family,” he said. “They’d supported me all the way from when I was a kid. To actually do it at my hometown club as well was a bit special. It was a great day for me, a really great day.”

In Spencer Vignes’ excellent book A Few Good Men, it’s interesting to hear Moseley’s view about his rival for the shirt. “He was very dedicated, much more so than I ever was. He would train every day after everybody else had finished.”

Nevertheless, at the higher level, it was not long before Mullery decided to dispense with Steele’s services, and it came within a matter of days of an amazing incident at Old Trafford when Steele exchanged punches with his own defender, Gary Williams, in a 2-0 defeat.

*Steele and Williams together in the 1979-80 Albion squad photo*

Argus reporter John Vinicombe produced a book (Super Seagulls) to document the history of Albion’s memorable first season in the first tier and covered in detail Steele’s somewhat acrimonious departure.

“Mullery knew from the beginning that one day he would have to choose between the lightning-on-the-line reflexes of Steele and the aerial domination of his great rival, Moseley,” said Vinicombe.

Mullery told the reporter: “Eric is an exceptionally good goalkeeper on the line, there’s no doubting that. But I feel he is not as commanding in the air as Graham, especially on crosses.”

Steele’s departure was felt quite keenly by the fans who, as much as his contribution on the pitch, had applauded his coaching in local schools and support for Sussex charities, in particular Chailey Heritage.

Regardless of that, in October 1979, Mullery turned a sizeable profit on his original investment and sold Steele to Second Division Watford for £100,000.

The articulate Steele shared his thoughts with the readers of Shoot! magazine.

“I didn’t want to leave Brighton,” he said. “That’s the first and most important point. It wasn’t my decision, it was Alan Mullery’s. I think he was wrong and I’ll be proved right in time. Once he’d made up his mind, I had to resolve myself to leaving.

“But it hurt. It took me a long time to get to the First Division and I think that in the ten games I played, I proved I was good enough to keep my place at that level. But once I knew I was on the move, I wanted to get away as quickly as I could.

“I went on the list on a Thursday and Watford came straight in for me the next day. I’d signed for them within a week. I was very happy to join such a progressive club. I would never have come here if I didn’t believe we would be a First Division side in a couple of years.”

Steele maintained he was taking one step back to take two forward and must have remembered those thoughts when Watford won promotion to the top division for the first time in their history in 1981-82.

However, vying for the no.1 jersey with Steve Sherwood, he made just 65 appearances in five years and said it was when watching from the stands as Watford played in the 1984 FA Cup Final that he realised he needed to move on.

Born on 15 May 1954, Steele’s path to professional football was the one taken by many talented Geordies – via Wallsend Boys Club to Newcastle United.

He never made it to the first team at St James’ Park but put that right when he joined Peterborough, setting a record of 124 consecutive appearances, including being part of the side that won the Fourth Division championship in 1974.

After those spells with Brighton and Watford, he linked up with former Newcastle United boss Arthur Cox at Derby County, and was part of their promotions from the third tier through to the first.

When he retired in 1988, it was to run a pub, but he also set up Eric Steele Coaching Services and began an illustrious career in which he has been instrumental in the development of some of the country’s top goalkeepers, working with ‘keepers at Manchester City, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Derby County, and Barnsley, as well as overseas in Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Germany and the United States.

When another former Watford ‘keeper, Tony Coton, was forced to retire as Manchester United’s goalkeeping coach because of injury, he recommended Steele as his successor.

Coton told the Republik of Mancunia website: “Eric Steele was my goalkeeping coach when I was a player at Manchester City, and it soon became evident after just a couple of training sessions that Eric was a unique and talented coach.

“Eric was different due to his innovative teaching style. Every session was challenging and interesting, and his breadth and depth of knowledge was second to none. Because of this I decided to call Eric ‘The Guru’, a name that he is now known by throughout the Premier League.”

As well as former Brighton ‘keeper Wayne Henderson at Villa, Steele also coached Kaspar Schmeichel at Manchester City. And at Man Utd, he famously played a part in Ben Foster successfully saving a penalty in the 2009 League Cup Final penalty shoot-out after the game ended 0-0.

Foster explained: “We went into the shootout as well prepared as possible. We have had things to look at over the last couple of days and before the shootout you can see me looking at an iPad with Eric Steele.

“It had actual video on it and showed where players put things. It is a new innovation for us. Eric brought it when he came to the club. I have never seen anything like it. It is a fantastic tool for us.”

Steele was part of Sir Alex Ferguson’s team at United between 2008 and 2013 and helped to recruit long-standing no. 1 David de Gea.

When Ferguson stood down at Old Trafford, Steele returned to Derby – where he’d previously worked as a coach for four years – under Steve McLaren and then went on to coach young goalkeepers for the English FA. He’s also an ambassador for Evolution Goalkeeper Coaching.

*Steele has coached young England goalkeepers*

Scrapbook photos from the Albion matchday programme, the Argus, and the republikofmancunia.com.

Top one shows Steele in action in one of his early Albion matches, a top-of-the-table clash against Mansfield Town in front of a packed Goldstone. I am one of those supporters crammed into that south west corner terrace!
Peter O’Sullivan (left) looks on as Steele claims a cross in a home game against Crystal Palace.
Steele and ref Pat Partridge see the funny side of it as spongeman Glen Wilson fixes a facial injury to Steve Piper.
A thumbs up to the crowd as Steele says his farewell at the Goldstone.
Steele working at Man Utd with David de Gea.

Cup winner Bert Murray: Brighton’s People’s Player

5-bert-v-villa ON HOLIDAY in Jersey in 2016 my eyes were drawn to a picture on a display in St Helier’s Fort Regent entertainment complex.

“That’s Bert Murray,” I declared to my bemused wife, and, let’s face it, who would have thought Brighton & Hove Albion’s combative former Chelsea and Birmingham City winger would still be on a public display 45 years after the picture was taken?

The display featured sports stars from Jersey who had gone on to make a name for themselves – and, ironically, the picture in which Bert appeared (below) was about Geoff Vowden (born in Barnsley but raised in Jersey), then with Aston Villa, but a player who had been a teammate during Murray’s five years at St Andrew’s.

1-jersey-poster Versatile Murray – mainly a winger but equally adept at right back – wrote himself into the Albion’s history books when he was bought from Birmingham with funds raised by fans.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Born in Hoxton, London, on 22 September 1942 Murray started his football career with Chelsea in 1958 and scored in the first leg of their 1960 FA Youth Cup Final win against Preston as part of a team which spawned many future star players, such as Peter Bonetti, Terry Venables and Bobby Tambling.

Bert made his Chelsea first team debut in 1961 and in 1963 was part of the squad that won promotion from Division 2. His form for Chelsea attracted the England selectors and in the 1964-65 season he played in six of England under 23s’ seven games, scoring on his debut.

That was on 25 November 1964 in a 5-0 romp over Romania at Coventry’s old Highfield Road ground when Alan Ball, Mick Jones, Alan Hinton and Martin Chivers also scored.

Sadly for Bert, that was the only win he experienced as an England player: in the remaining games there were four 0-0 draws and a 1-0 defeat to West Germany. Other big name players who were part of the same team included Nobby Stiles, Norman Hunter and George Armstrong

Murray’s final international was in front of 70,000 fans in Austria on 2 June 1965 when his Chelsea colleague Bonetti had taken over in goal from Gordon West and Ball, who, like Stiles would become part of the following year’s England World Cup winning team, was sent off.

2-1965-lge-cup-winners At least at club level in 1965 Murray won some silverware (above image discovered on The Shed End Chelsea fans website), playing alongside Bonetti, Venables, Eddie McCreadie, Barry Bridges and John Boyle as Tommy Docherty’s Chelsea won the League Cup in April via a narrow 3-2 aggregate win over Leicester.

Murray + Bridges Chelsea Murray and Bridges alongside each other in a 1963-64 Chelsea team picture.

In the same season, Chelsea were top of Division One for nearly the whole season, and were looking good for the domestic treble but lost 2-0 to Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final.

The young team started to show signs of strain and slipped to third in the league. Murray and Bridges were amongst a group of eight players who defied a curfew when the team were staying in Blackpool prior to a game against Burnley and the manager sent them home. The team Docherty put out capitulated 6-2.

According to ‘Bluebeard’ on theshedend.com the following nearly-but-not-quite season – fifth in the league, beaten FA Cup semi-finalists again and Fairs Cup semi-finalists – led to Docherty breaking up the team and selling Murray, Venables, Bridges and George Graham.

So, in 1966, having scored 44 goals in 183 games, Murray was transferred to Birmingham for £25,000 and Bridges went too, as Birmingham’s new wealthy owner, Clifford Coombs, splashed the cash for manager Stan Cullis.

3-brumbert The pair were part of the side which in successive seasons got to the semi-final of the League Cup (in 1967) and FA Cup (in 1968) only to lose on both occasions. Because these things are important in the Midlands, joysandsorrows.co.uk remembers Murray as part of the 1968 Blues side who beat rivals Villa home and away. In five years, he played 132 games scoring 22 goals.

murray brum

It was the Blues former Brighton manager Freddie Goodwin who loaned him to his old club in early 1971. The loan became a permanent move thanks to £10,000 raised through innovative manager Pat Saward’s famous Buy-a-Player scheme which saw fans respond to the club’s lack of cash to bring in new players by coming up with sponsored walks and suchlike to raise the necessary money to enable Saward to bring in new faces. Thus Murray was swiftly dubbed the People’s Player.

4-bertwillie1971 Saward brought in Willie Irvine on loan from Preston at the same time and the pair combined well on 10 March 1971 (pictured above by the Evening Argus before the game) as high-flying Fulham were beaten 3-2. In Irvine’s 2005 book with Dave Thomas, Together Again, he recalls how the pair hit it off and began a friendship that endures.

Murray was an influential right winger who made and scored goals and he became a reliable penalty taker too, notably keeping a cool head from 12 yards in the 12-game unbeaten run in 1972 which culminated in promotion as runners up behind Aston Villa.

In the famous game televised by BBC’s Match of the Day at home to Villa in April 1972, Saward moved Murray to right back to replace previously ever-present Stewart Henderson. It wasn’t completely alien to him, though, because he’d slotted into that role on occasion at Birmingham.

The photographers were busy during that tightly-fought 2-1 win against Villa and several different shots of Bert’s tussle with Villa’s talented winger Willie Anderson appeared in the newspapers and magazines following the game (see pic at top of article).

While others might have been grabbing the bulk of the goals and the headlines, Murray’s consistent performances earned him the player of the season award (below, receiving the award from chairman Tom Whiting).

murray poy

The newly-promoted side struggled badly and Saward chopped and changed the line-up, bringing in a host of new faces – including Bert’s old Chelsea colleague Bridges – as he tried in vain to find the right formula to keep the Albion up. But Murray was one of the few who kept his place at the higher level, mainly back in midfield. He took over the captaincy from Ian Goodwin and contributed nine goals in 39 appearances.

Although eventually the side clicked in the final third of the season, the damage had been done early on and the recovery wasn’t enough to avoid an immediate return to Division 3.

Murray wrote in the matchday programme: “The last two months have been amazing and although I say it myself I beleive that we have played some really good football recently. I also believe we deserve a better fate.”

He added: “We must hope we have learned our lessons well for next season.” Murray appeared in the front row of the 1973-74 team line-up but his time on the south coast was drawing to a close – along with manager Saward. Murray was involved in only two games as a substitute in October and after a total of 102 games and 25 goals he moved on to Peterborough United, initially on loan and then signing permanently.

It was Noel Cantwell, the man Saward had served as assistant manager at Coventry City, who signed Murray for Posh. “He needed a right midfielder,” Murray said in a 2012 interview with the Argus. “I went up there and had four wonderful years. I still see some of the lads now.”

Saward, with his own days at the Goldstone numbered and, without naming any names, wrote some cryptic programme notes for the 13 October home game against Halifax. “In deciding that a player can leave a club, the manager must consider the player’s contribution to the club and decide whether he fits into his plans for the future,” he wrote.

“When a manager decides it is time for the player and club to part he is not necessarily governed solely by the ability of the player but he has to look at his squad as a whole and assess whether there are younger players with longer futures waiting their chance to come through.

“A governing factor must be that the strongest possible team should be fielded at all times and the manager must decide when other players should take over from established favourites.”

In the programme for the 24 October game with Southport – by which time Saward himself had been sacked – there was a brief paragraph under the headline ‘Bert Murray Leaves’.

At 31, Bert still had plenty of football left in him and he went on to make 123 appearances for Posh, scoring another 10 goals, before retiring and going into the pub trade, in Market Deeping, nine miles north of Peterborough.

Many have been the occasions Albion fans following the team at London Road have taken a detour to pop in to see Bert and chat over old times over a pint.

In 2013, when he had his 70^th birthday, The Society of Independent Brewers did an article about his 20 years running Everards pub The Bull in Market Deeping with his wife Eileen. They had also spent 17 years at two other pubs in the town, The Winning Post and The White Horse.

“Everards have been good and seem happy with what we are doing here. So if they are happy, Eileen and I plan to keep on going for a few more years yet as we really enjoy running the pub,” he said.

In September 2013, Bert returned to Stamford Bridge for a 50^th anniversary reunion with the Chelsea ‘class of ‘63’ – chatting over old times over dinner with Terry Venables, John Hollins, Peter Bonetti, Barry Bridges, Ken Shellito and Bobby Tambling.