THE starry-eyed teenager who made half a dozen top level appearances for eventual league champions Everton had to wait a long time for his share of that distant glory.
But Warren Aspinall was nonetheless delighted when his contribution to the Toffees achievement in 1986-87 was finally recognised with a medal more than 30 years later.
That’s happened since I last featured Aspinall in this blog, which recalled his early days at hometown club Wigan Athletic and darker days after he had ended his playing days in the blue and white stripes of the Albion (three goals in 24 starts plus 13 as sub) in the 1999-2000 season.
Aspinall is now more often heard rather than seen by Brighton supporters who listen to match commentaries on Radio Sussex, and it was commentator Johnny Cantor, who the summariser sits alongside for the regional BBC radio station’s coverage of all Albion’s games, who instigated a presentation of the belated honour.
“It was JC who pushed it forward and he kept it to himself before surprising me with the news that Everton would be making a presentation,” Aspinall told the matchday programme. “I was shocked but absolutely over the moon.”
The number of games to qualify for a winners’ medal used to be 14, or a third of the season, but the EFL in 2021 decided retrospectively to fall in line with the Premier League which awards medals to players who’ve made a minimum of five appearances.
Aspinall had been unaware of the rule change but Cantor had words in the right places and when Albion played at Goodison Park on 3 January 2023, the former player was finally presented with his medal by Graeme Sharp, one of his fellow Everton forwards back in the day who subsequently became an Everton director.
It’s probably a good job the presentation was made before the game because Albion romped to a 4-1 win that day with goals from Karou Mitoma, full debut-making Evan Ferguson, Solly March and Pascal Gross.
“The medal means the world to me and my family and it now sits proudly on my mantelpiece along with my England under 20 caps,” said Aspinall.
He earned the first of those two caps in the same month that Everton paid £125,000 to sign the 18-year-old from Wigan Athletic, although he saw out the season on loan with the Latics.
He featured in Young England’s 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland at Elland Road, Leeds, and the following month was in the side that suffered a 4-1 defeat to Scotland at Aberdeen’s Pittodrie ground. Tottenham’s David Howells and Neil Ruddock, then of Millwall, also played in both matches, as did Millwall goalkeeper Brian Horne.
Teenager Aspinall signs for Everton’s Howard Kendall watched by Wigan boss Bryan Hamilton
On his return to Goodison Park at the end of the 1985-86 season, Aspinall was on the bench for the last league game (Kendall rested several players because it was five days before the FA Cup Final, which Everton lost 3-1 to Liverpool) and he made his debut in the 3-1 home win over West Ham when going on for two-goal Gary Lineker, who was playing his last league game for Everton before joining Barcelona.
Everton finished as league runners up that season but they went one better the following season, when competition for forward places saw manager Howard Kendall able to pick Sharp and Adrian Heath as his preferred pair, with Paul Wilkinson and Ian Marshall as alternatives. It meant Aspinall’s playing contributions came in the form of nine league and cup appearances as a substitute (he was also a non-playing sub on four occasions). Although first team chances were limited, he bagged plenty of goals for the club’s reserve side, netting 21 in 23 games.
That was enough to convince former Celtic stalwart Billy McNeill, in charge of relegation-bound Aston Villa, to splash £300,000 to take him to Villa Park – where competition for a starting spot was again daunting, with Andy Gray, Gary Shaw, Simon Stainrod and Garry Thompson all striker options.
Aspinall made his Villa debut on 21 February 1987 in a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool and by the season’s end, while his former Everton teammates were lifting the league trophy, he was part of a Villa side that was bottom of the pile.
McNeill was duly sacked and the picture changed the following season when Aspinall was joint top-scorer as Graham Taylor’s Villa bounced straight back to the top tier as runners up behind Millwall.
“Garry Thompson and I hit it off up front and we had such a good understanding that we kept Alan McInally out of the team for a long time,” he told Villa supporter Colin Abbott. “Garry was good to play alongside because he was like a battering ram and I fed off him.”
Aspinall made his 50th and final appearance for Villa on 7 May 1988 in a 0-0 draw away to Swindon (playing left back for Villa was Bernie Gallacher and in the opposition line-up was Colin Calderwood and Kieran O’Regan).
Already warned by Taylor that he needed to improve ill discipline that had resulted in too many cautions, Aspinall got himself sent off for stamping in a pre-season friendly against St Mirren and Taylor transfer-listed him.
Happy at Pompey
England World Cup winner Alan Ball, in charge at recently relegated Portsmouth, seized the moment and took him to Fratton Park for a fee of £315,000 in August 1988, where his teammates included Mark Chamberlain and Terry Connor. In six years with Pompey, Aspinall also played under John Gregory, Frank Burrows, caretaker Tony Barton and Jim Smith.
Briefer stays followed along the coast at Bournemouth (loan and permanent), Swansea City (loan) and two seasons at Carlisle United.
Aspinall at Colchester
Keen to return to the south, Micky Adams first signed him when he had taken over as manager at Brentford and he made 48 appearances (plus three as sub) for the Bees but Aspinall then went on loan and then permanently to Colchester United for nine months before Adams brought him on loan and then permanently to the Albion in the autumn of 1999. It was a part exchange for midfielder Andy Arnott.
In only his third game, Aspinall was a delighted scorer of the only goal on his old stomping ground of Brunton Park as Albion returned to Sussex with all the points. The News of the World said: “Former Carlisle favourite Warren Aspinall seized on Billy Barr’s poor back pass to chip keeper Andy Dibble.”
In the Argus, Andy Naylor wrote: “The colourful midfielder then dashed towards the Albion supporters huddled in the seats on a drizzly day in Cumbria before sliding full-length on the greasy turf.”
Aspinall continued his celebration with a finger-on-lip gesture and an ear cupped towards the home support. He told the matchday programme: “I heard the keeper shout for the ball and anticipated the defender’s pass. I think I showed a great turn of pace for a veteran.”
In fact, Aspinall was 32 when he joined the Seagulls and he added experience to a side that went on to finish its first season back in Brighton in 11th place in the fourth tier
At the start of the following season, when he went on as a sub for Gary Hart in Brighton’s home 2-1 win over Rochdale (Bobby Zamora scored both Albion goals), it was to be his last ever appearance.
Suffering from the niggle of a piece of floating bone in his right ankle, he followed physio advice to have it removed in what was expected to be a routine operation. But while in hospital, he caught the MSRA superbug which ate away tendons and ligaments in his ankle.
“They eventually said I would never play football again as a result. I was finished,” he told The News, Portsmouth, in a graphic account of the trauma. “Yet now I needed an operation to get rid of this infection, which involved me scheduled to stay on a hospital ward for 14 days, attached to an intravenous drip while antibiotics were fed into my body.
“After 13 days, my body broke out in a rash from head to toe. It had rejected the drug. So, I had the operation once more – and it happened again. After 13 days, my body rejected it.
“For 28 days I’d been on that hospital ward, so I was then offered the chance to return home if I underwent an operation to insert two tubes into my heart, one for the intravenous drip to enter and the other to take blood out.
“That sounded good to me – apart from my heart subsequently stopping during the procedure. I died. I’m told it was for a few seconds, but I died on that operating table,’ Aspinall told The News. “But they brought me back, and I was allowed to go home to Hedge End, with a district nurse checking on me every day, even Christmas Day.
“There were two six-inch tubes hanging out of my chest, with the nurse taking blood out of one and putting the drugs into the other.
“I lived. The antibiotics killed the superbug, but my career ended there and then. I was aged 33, with nothing planned, no coaching badges. I had to go into the real world.”
The story of what happened in his post-playing days – battles against gambling and alcohol addictions – have been well documented in various media interviews, including a detailed one with the Birmingham Mail in October 2012, when he spoke openly about a near-miss suicide attempt.
He has been Cantor’s co-commentator on Albion matches for Radio Sussex since 2015.
VIKING lookalike Paul Clark made a lasting impression on plenty of players with robust tackling which earned him ‘legend’ status among fans of Brighton and Southend United.
Described in one programme article as “the big bustling blond with the biting tackle”, Clark was given the nickname ‘Tank’ for his no-nonsense approach. A Southend fan lauded “his crunching tackles and never say die attitude”.
Clark himself reflected: “Wherever you go the supporters tend to like someone who is wholehearted and when it came to 50-50 challenges, or even sometimes 60-40, I didn’t shy away from too many, and the supporters just took to it.”
In Albion yellow against Palace
Giving further insight to his approach, he said: “You can go right up to the line – as long as you don’t step over it, then you’re OK.
“I used to pick up a booking during the first five or 10 minutes, then I knew I had to behave myself for the rest of the game. Despite the reputation I had, I was never sent off in over 500 games.”
A trademark strike at home to West Ham
Former teammate Mark Lawrenson said of him: “You would hate to have to play against him because quite often he would cut you in two. With him and ‘Nobby’ (Brian Horton) in the side, we definitely didn’t take any prisoners. One to rely on.”
A former England schoolboy international, it was said of the player in a matchday programme:
“Paul is the first to admit that skill is not his prime asset but there is no doubt as to the strength of his tackle. He is a real competitor and is also deceptively fast, being one of the best sprinters on the Goldstone staff.”
Born in south Benfleet, Essex, on 14 September 1958, Clark went to Wickford Junior School where he played for the school football team and the district primary schools’ side. When he moved on to Beauchamp Comprehensive, selection for his school team led to him playing for the Basildon Schools’ FA XI.
Clark as an England schoolboy
This in turn led to him being selected to play for England Schools at under 15 level, featuring against Scotland, Ireland, Wales, West Germany and France before going on a tour of Australia with the same age group. Contemporaries included future full time professionals Mark Higgins, Ray Deakin, Kevin Mabbutt and Kenny Sansom.
Clark left school at 16 before taking his O levels when Fourth Division Southend offered him an apprenticeship. He made his first team debut shortly before his 18th birthday in a 2-1 win over Watford.
Two months later, he won the first of six England Youth caps. He made his debut in the November 1976 mini ‘World Cup’ tournament in Monaco against Spain and West Germany alongside future full England internationals Chris Woods, Ricky Hill and Sammy Lee.
The following March, he played in England’s UEFA Youth tournament preliminary match against Wales when they won 1-0 at The Hawthorns. Sansom was also in that side. And he featured in all three group matches at the tournament that May (England beat Belgium 1-0, drew 0-0 with Iceland and 1-1 with Greece). Teammates included Russell Osman and Vince Hilaire.
Clark was only a third of the way into his second season at Southend when Alan Mullery sought to beef up his newly-promoted Brighton side in the autumn of 1977, and, in a part exchange deal involving Gerry Fell moving to Roots Hall, Clark arrived at the Goldstone. He made his debut for the Seagulls in a goalless draw at White Hart Lane on 19 November 1977 in front of a crowd of 48,613. And he came close to crowning it with a goal but for an outstanding save by Spurs ‘keeper Barry Daines.
In full flight, as captured by photographer George Erringshaw
When Spurs visited the Goldstone later that season, Clark put in a man of the match performance and scored a memorable opener, following a solo run. A subsequent matchday programme article was suitably poetic about it.
“It showed all the qualities looked for in a player: determination, speed, skill and most of all the ability to finish….if any goal was singled out, Paul’s was certainly one to treasure.”
Albion went on to beat Spurs 3-1, although the game was remembered more because it was interrupted twice when the crowd spilled onto the pitch.
After only 12 minutes, referee Alan Turvey took the players off for 13 minutes while the pitch was cleared of Albion fans who’d sought safety on the pitch from fighting Spurs’ hooligan fans.
In the 74th minute, with Spurs 3-1 down and defender Don McAllister sent-off, their fans rushed the pitch to try to get the game abandoned. But police stopped the invasion getting out of hand and the game continued after another four-minute delay.
Clark’s goal on 16 minutes had been cancelled out six minutes later when Chris Jones seized on a bad goal kick by Eric Steele but defender Graham Winstanley made it 2-1 just before half-time.
Albion’s third goal was surrounded in controversy. Sub Eric Potts claimed the final touch but Spurs argued bitterly that Malcolm Poskett was offside.
Clark remembered the game vividly when interviewed many years later by Spencer Vignes for the matchday programme. The tenacious midfielder put in an early crunching tackle on Glenn Hoddle and after the game the watching ex-Spurs’ manager Bill Nicholson told him: “Well done. You won that game in the first five minutes when you nailed Hoddle.”
Said Clark: “I was 19 at the time so to get a pat on the back from him was much appreciated.”
It was one of three goals Clark scored in his 26 appearances that season (nine in 93 overall for Albion) but he wasn’t always guaranteed a starting berth and in five years at the club had a number of long spells stuck in the reserves.
Midfield enforcer or emergency defender were his primary roles but Clark was capable of unleashing unstoppable shots from distance and among those nine goals he scored were some memorable strikes.
For instance, as Albion closed in on promotion in the spring of 1979, at home to Charlton Athletic, Clark opened the scoring with a scorching 25-yard left foot volley in the 11th minute. Albion went on to win 2-0.
The following month, Clark demonstrated his versatility at St James’ Park on 3 May 1979 when Albion beat Newcastle 3-1 to win promotion to football’s elite level for the first time. Clark played in the back four alongside Andy Rollings because Mark Lawrenson was out injured with a broken arm.
Celebrating promotion with Peter O’Sullivan and Malcolm Poskett
“Not many people can say they played in a side that got Brighton up to the top flight,” said Clark. “It’s something I’m still immensely proud of.”
Once they were there, Clark missed the opening two matches (defeats at home to Arsenal and away to Aston Villa) and had an ignominious start to life at the higher level when he conceded a penalty within three minutes of going on as a sub for Rollings away to Manchester City on 25 August 1979.
Some observers thought Clark had played the ball rather than foul Ray Ranson but referee Pat Partridge thought otherwise and Michael Robinson stepped up to score his first goal for City from the resultant penalty. It put the home side 3-1 up: Teddy Maybank had equalised Paul Power’s opener but Mike Channon added a second before half-time.
Partridge subsequently evened up the penalty awards but Brian Horton blazed his spot kick wide of the post with Joe Corrigan not needing to make a save. Peter Ward did net a second for the Seagulls but they left Maine Road pointless.
Ahead of Albion’s fourth attempt to get league points on the board, Clark played his part in beating his future employer Cambridge United 2-0 in a second round League Cup match.
Three days later, he was on the scoresheet together with Ward and Horton as Albion celebrated their first win at the higher level, beating Bolton Wanderers 3-1 at the Goldstone.
It was Clark’s neat one-two with Ward that produced the opening goal and on 22 minutes, Maybank teed the ball up for Clark, who “belting in from the edge of the box, gave it everything and his shot kept low and sped very fast past (‘Jim’) McDonagh’s right hand,” said Evening Argus reporter John Vinicombe.
Gerry Ryan replaced Clark late in the game and after 12 starts, when he was subbed off three times, and four appearances off the bench, his season was over, and it wasn’t even Christmas.
A colour photo of a typical Clark tackle (on QPR’s Dave Clement) adorned the front cover of that season’s matchday programmes throughout but he didn’t start another game after a 4-0 League Cup defeat at Arsenal on 13 November.
Programme cover shot
He was sub for the following two games; the memorable 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest and a 1-1 draw at Middlesbrough, but Mullery had signed the experienced Peter Suddaby to play alongside Steve Foster, releasing Lawrenson to demonstrate his considerable repertoire of skills in midfield alongside skipper Horton and Peter O’Sullivan.
Young Giles Stille also began to press for a place and later in the season, Neil McNab was added to the midfield options, leaving Clark well down the pecking order in the reserves. Portsmouth wanted him but he rejected a move along the coast, although he had a brief loan spell at Reading, where he played a couple of games.
But Clark wasn’t finished yet in Albion’s colours and, remarkably, just over a year after his last first team appearance, with the Seagulls struggling in 20th spot in the division, he made a comeback in a 1-0 home win over Aston Villa on 20 December 1980.
Albion had succumbed 4-3 to Everton at Goodison Park in the previous match and Mullery told the Argus: “We badly needed some steel in the side and I think Clark can do that sort of job.”
Under the headline ‘The forgotten man returns’ Argus reporter Vinicombe said Mullery hadn’t changed his opinion that Clark was not a First Division class player, but nevertheless reckoned: “Paul’s attitude is right and I know he’ll go out and do a good job for me.”
For his part, Vinicombe opined: “The strength of Clark’s game is a daunting physical presence. His tackling is second to none in the club and Mullery believes he will respond to the challenge.”
Clark kept the shirt for another nine matches (plus one as a sub), deputising for Horton towards the end of his run, but his last first team game was in a 3-1 defeat at Norwich at the end of February.
Clark remained on the books throughout Mike Bailey’s first season in charge (1981-82) but, with Jimmy Case, Tony Grealish and McNab ahead of him, didn’t make a first team appearance and left on a free transfer at the end of it.
Back to Southend
He returned to Southend where he stayed for nine years and was player-manager on two occasions. Fans website shrimperzone.com moderator ‘Yorkshire Blue’ summed up his contribution to their cause thus: “In the top five all-time list for appearances, an inspiration in four promotions, one of the toughest tacklers of all-time and a man whose commitment for his home-town club could never be doubted.”
Clark was still only 27 when he had his first spell as manager, in caretaker charge after Dave Webb had quit following a bust-up with the club chairman, and he managed to steer United to promotion back to the third tier.
When Webb’s successor Dick Bate lasted only eight games of the new season, Clark was back at the helm, in turn becoming the youngest manager in the league.
His first hurdle ended in a League Cup giant killing over top flight Derby County (who included his old teammate John Gregory) when the Us had another former Albion teammate, Eric Steele, in goal.
A Roy McDonough penalty past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton at Roots Hall settled the two-legged tie (the second leg was goalless at the Baseball Ground) which the writer described as “arguably their biggest ever cup shock”.
In the league, player-manager Clark guided Southend to a safe 17th place but it went pear-shaped the following season. Clark only played 16 games, Southend were relegated, and Webb returning midway through the season as general manager.
Back-to-back promotions in 1989-90 and 1990-91 proved to be a more than satisfactory swansong to his Southend career, and in the first of those he found himself forming an effective defensive partnership with on-loan Guy Butters in the second half of the season.
In 1990-91, he missed only six games all season as the Shrimpers earned promotion to the second tier for the first time in their history, and he had a testimonial game against Arsenal.
But, after a total of 358 games for Southend, he left Roots Hall to join Gillingham on a free transfer.
Over three seasons, he played 90 league games, and was caretaker manager in 1992, before retiring at the end of the 1993-94 season. Gillingham’s top goalscorer with 18 that season was a young Nicky Forster and other Albion connections in that squad included Mike Trusson, Paul Watson, Neil Smillie, Andy Arnott and Richard Carpenter.
After Gillingham, Clark played non-league for Chelmsford City but left to become assistant manager to Tommy Taylor at Cambridge United. In 1996 he followed Taylor in a similar role to Leyton Orient.
Southend fans hadn’t heard the last of him, though – quite literally. He became a co-commentator on Southend games for BBC Radio Essex.
In the 2009-10 season, Clark was temporarily assistant manager to Joe Dunne at Colchester United.
STEVE CLARIDGE became a Leicester City hero long before briefly coming to Brighton’s rescue.
He scored the winner in a play-off final at Wembley to take the Foxes up to the Premier League at the expense of Crystal Palace, who’d discarded him at an early age.
Both sides had been relegated from the top flight the year before and Claridge’s right-foot strike past Nigel Martyn in the 120th minute meant it was an immediate return for Martin O’Neill’s side.
“The high is not equal to anything,” Claridge told Leicestershire Live.
Scoringplay-off winner v Palace
It came in 1996 and a year later he scored the only goal of the game (past Ben Roberts) in the 100th minute of a replay against Middlesbrough to win Leicester the League Cup, leading to him being named FourFourTwo’s ‘Cult Hero of 1997’.
Claridge had only completed a £1.2m move from Birmingham City two months before that play-off and he labelled it the most important goal of his life coming after a worrying period in which he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to play again.
A mystery illness had ravaged his form and in only his fifth Leicester game he was taken off after 15 minutes. “Pins and needles from my knees down were so extreme, I could not even feel the ball,” he recalled.
It turned out a drug prescribed for a thyroid problem he’d had since the age of 12 was destroying his thyroid gland. “The main energy provider of my body was no longer functioning,” said Claridge.
However, once on the right medication, he made an almost unbelievable recovery, was restored to the side and helped to secure a play-off place.
After beating Stoke City in the semi-finals, they went a goal down to Palace in the final but pulled it back through a Garry Parker penalty before Claridge seized his chance in the dying moments of extra time.
Wembley winners for Leicester: Garry Parker and Steve Claridge
He collected a quick free kick from Parker and took aim, his shot from distance kissing the stanchion with goalkeeper Martyn motionless.
“The crowd is just really stunned in disbelief, I don’t know if that was because I’d hit it,” laughed Claridge. “It was so far out, and everybody was used to me scoring goals inside the six-yard box.”
He reflected: “To finish off after the lows I went through, the absolute lows where you’re thinking, ‘my career is over I can’t see a way out of this,’ to doing that and taking you to the ultimate high – winning that game of football. It’s unparalleled.”
Albion cover ‘boy’
Such experience was exactly what Championship strugglers Albion required when, on the back of three defeats, they faced the daunting prospect of promotion-seeking West Ham away on 13 November 2004.
Manager Mark McGhee, who’d previously signed Claridge when he was at Wolves and Millwall, was desperate to stem a tide which had seen eight goals conceded and no points on the board.
“He is one of the fittest players I’ve worked with and I had no doubt that after 18 months away from this level he would be able to perform,” said McGhee.
Claridge’s professional career looked to have run its course after he left Millwall in 2003 and became player-manager of Southern League side Weymouth.
But the disappointment of missing out on promotion had seen him and chairman Ian Ridley leave the club and Claridge, at the age of 38, was keen to give league football another go.
In what turned out to be a real backs-to-the-wall smash and grab raid, Albion earned the unlikeliest of 1-0 wins courtesy of a Guy Butters header from Richard Carpenter’s free kick.
Albion held firm despite a relentless wave of attacks by the home side and afterwards McGhee said: “We approached the game differently. Whereas before we thought we could win, today we did not, and played to make sure we didn’t get beaten.
“We kept the ball up front more which is important. Steve Claridge was key to that.”
Unfortunately, Brighton were not able to build on the win at the Boleyn Ground and there was only one more win (1-0 at home to Rotherham) during Claridge’s month with the club.
His fifth and final game for the Seagulls came away to his old club Millwall on 11 December 2004, when Albion lost 2-0.
In a programme feature about him that day, Claridge likened the circumstances of both clubs. “The club has no money and it is tough just to survive, but everyone is in it together,” he said. “At Millwall we had a great team spirit and togetherness, and that is very much the case here.”
McGhee’s tight budget prevented Claridge’s stay at Albion being extended and, after his deal was over, rather than it being one last hurrah, he went on to continue his league playing days at Brentford, Wycombe Wanderers, Gillingham, Bradford City and Walsall.
And, at the age of 40, and with him needing just one more game to fulfil the landmark of 1,000 professional games, his old club Bournemouth – where he’d started out as a professional in 1984 – gave him a match against Port Vale on 9 December 2006. No fairy tale, though, as they lost 4-0.
Born in Portsmouth on 10 April 1966, Claridge was brought up in Titchfield and began his football career at nearby Fareham Town in 1983. His initial foray into the pro game at Bournemouth only amounted to seven games before he moved to Weymouth for three years.
Crystal Palace offered him a route back to the full professional game in 1988 but he didn’t make their league side and after three months moved on to fourth tier Aldershot Town.
Two spells with Cambridge United followed between 1990 and 1994 for whom he scored 46 goals in 132 games. A falling out with manager John Beck saw him sold to Luton Town in 1992, but he was then bought back after Beck’s departure.
Birmingham City paid £350,000 to take Claridge to St Andrews and he became one of the club’s most prolific goalscorers, netting 35 in 88 games, and was top scorer with 25 goals when part of Barry Fry’s Blues side that won the Second Division title and the Auto Windscreens Shield (Football League Trophy) in the 1994-95 season.
After spending two years at Leicester, he went on a two-month loan to his hometown club, Portsmouth, but, in March 1998, McGhee signed him for the first time – and it didn’t go well.
The Scot, who had controversially left Leicester to take over at Wolves, took Claridge to Molineux for a £350,000 fee. But Wolves fans were not impressed, as Levelle revealed in this 2012 piece, and after just six games and no goals in the famous old gold shirt, he was sold to Portsmouth for £250,000 at the end of the season.
Even more galling for Wolves followers was that no sooner had Claridge made the switch to Portsmouth, he scored all three in a 3-1 win at Fratton Park!
David Miller in The Telegraph wrote: “The 34-year-old Steve Claridge, who had failed to score in five months when previously with Wolves, now gave sun-blessed Portsmouth a bank holiday funfair with a first- half hat-trick that was as easy as licking an ice-lolly.”
On the ball for Pompey
The goals and games came thick and fast for Claridge back on home turf – 34 in 104 – but his reign as player-manager at Fratton Park in 2000 was curtailed after just 25 games by the quirky chairman Milan Mandarić.
Remembering the player he’d seen only briefly a couple of years earlier, McGhee, by now in charge at Millwall, offered the striker a lifeline with the Lions, initially on loan and then as a permanent signing.
Going through the pain barrier at Millwall
Over two seasons in south east London, he became something of a fans’ favourite, scoring 26 in 85 matches, his efforts summed up by writer Mark Litchfield. “His style was unconventional, to say the least: shirt untucked, one sock down and no shin pads, any naïve defender probably thought they could eat him for breakfast. But hard work was a pre-requisite for Claridge – he wouldn’t give any opposition player a moment’s rest and would more often than not always get the better of them, too.”
Claridge had a less happy association with Millwall too when in July 2005 he was sacked after just 36 days as manager when the chairman who appointed him, Jeff Burnidge, was replaced by Theo Paphitis, who wanted Colin Lee instead.
Even after achieving the 1,000-game landmark courtesy of Bournemouth, Claridge couldn’t resist the lure of another game, turning out for Worthing, Harrow Borough, Weymouth and Gosport Borough.
He was one of a group of five that formed Salisbury FC at the end of 2014, and as team manager was involved in gaining two promotions in the Southern League before leaving in October 2022.
Although he had officially hung up his boots in 2012 after helping Gosport to promotion to the Southern League Premier Division, in 2017 he played in a friendly defeat to Portsmouth in July and then put himself on against Paulton Rovers in the league a few weeks later.
His final ever game as a player came in a 3-2 victory over Fareham Town, when he was a remarkable 51, but he had to go off in the 71st-minute after picking up an injury.
Pundit Claridge contributed his thoughts on radio and TV
Claridge also became a familiar face and voice working as a pundit for the BBC on TV at Football Focus and Final Score and on BBC Radio 5 Live. He also wrote scouting reports on promising players for The Guardian, numbering future Brighton signing Matt Sparrow among them.
“He is easy on the eye, links well with his forwards but also protects and helps his defenders by tackling from the wrong side and makes sure he tracks his runner whenever he threatens to get goal-side,” wrote Claridge of the then Scunthorpe United player in 2007.
Claridge later set up his own coaching scheme for youngsters in Salisbury and Warsash.
In 2023, he took over as manager of Gosport-based Wessex League Division One side Fleetlands FC for the 2023-24 season. In August 2024 they announced he was stepping down from the role “due to personal reasons”. On its website, a statement added: “The club would like to place on record our huge thanks to Steve for taking up the role in our hour of need and taking us to a fantastic 5th place finish last season.”
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.
FORMER BRIGHTON apprentice Kevin Russell enjoyed a 20-year playing career in which he scored 105 goals in 552 games but he had forgettable spells at three South Coast clubs.
As we learned in my previous blog post, England Youth international Russell scored goals for Albion’s youth team and reserves but moved on before making the first team after a falling out with manager Chris Cattlin.
He got on better with Alan Ball at Portsmouth but only played eight games in three years at Pompey.
In March 1994, he was back in the south after a £125,000 move from Burnley to AFC Bournemouth. Unfortunately, his time at Dean Court coincided with dismal form on the pitch and financial pressures off it.
Russell was signed by Tony Pulis, who, it turned out, was in the final throes of his first spell as a manager, having succeeded Harry Redknapp at Dean Court.
The side had a dreadful run of form the month after Russell joined, suffering five defeats and three draws in eight matches. It was in the last of these that Russell finally got on the scoresheet for the Cherries as they picked up a point in a 1-1 draw at Hull City (his only goal in 17 matches).
While Mark McGhee won the Division Two title with Reading and Russell’s former club Burnley won promotion via a play-off final win over Stockport County, the Cherries finished a disappointing 17th in the table.
Cotterill recalled in a 2023 interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk: “I know Rooster very well. I played with him at Bournemouth and he’s a great guy and a good coach.
“I liked him when I played with him because he used to stick crosses on a sixpence for me. I remember scoring a few goals from his crosses.”
Back in 1994, Pulis was sacked early on in the new season and former player Mel Machin took over, but the Cherries had managed only one win and a draw in their first 14 matches by the time they met the Albion at the Goldstone on 2 November 1994.
The game ended in a 0-0 draw and, although they won their next game, by Christmas they’d only got nine points from 21 games. Staring down the barrel of relegation, a last ditch revival in fortunes saw the season go down in memory as ‘The Great Escape’ because Bournemouth managed to avoided the drop by two points.
Russell, who had scored twice in 18 matches, had moved on by then and according to Aspinall, in a September 2011 interview with the Bournemouth Daily Echo: “Mel wanted rid of myself and Kevin Russell.”
Russell, who later had a habit of scoring against the Cherries – he hit four in 10 games against them – said after a 2001 encounter between Wrexham and Bournemouth: “The club was in a bad state when I was there, but Mel Machin and Sean O’Driscoll have turned things round and you know you’re always going to have a hard game against them.
“I don’t try any harder than normal when I play against them, but because I am playing up front and not in midfield or out wide, I get more chances to score.”
Aspinall had a couple of trial matches for the Albion before being packed off to Carlisle, while in February 1995 Russell joined First Division strugglers Notts County where he was reunited with former Leicester teammates Gary Mills and Phil Turner.
Howard Kendall was in charge at the time but County, who got through four managers that season (including Russell Slade for four months), finished bottom of the table having won only nine matches all season.
Russell then returned to his spiritual home in north Wales and, over the next seven years, played a further 240 matches for Wrexham, scoring 23 goals along the way.
One of the most memorable was a last-minute winner at the Boleyn Ground in January 1997 as Wrexham pulled off a FA Cup giant-killing against West Ham. Having held the Hammers to a 1-1 draw at the Racecourse Ground, Russell went on as a 75th minute sub in the replay and scored a screamer in the dying seconds against a side that included Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard.
While the Dragons fans were elated, protesting home supporters spilled onto the pitch in anger at Harry Redknapp’s side’s performance and lowly Premier League position.
Slaven Bilic, later West Ham’s manager, was playing alongside Ferdinand and remembered the game thus: “We were struggling. We weren’t conceding a lot of goals but we couldn’t score and then Wrexham came and they scored at the end of the game, a great goal from 25 yards. After that we signed Johnny Hartson and Paul Kitson and we stayed up.”
When Russell’s playing days were over, he stayed on as a coach and worked as assistant manager under Denis Smith, taking Wrexham to promotion from the Third Division in 2002-03 and winning the LDV (English Football League) trophy in 2005.
That same year his loyalty and service to the club were rewarded with a pre-season testimonial against Manchester United – managed by his former teammate and captain Darren Ferguson’s dad!
Russell played the first 14 minutes of the match against a largely youthful United before being replaced by Ferguson. United won the game 3-1 with goals from Giuseppe Rossi, Liam Miller and Frazier Campbell and one of their subs that day was Paul McShane.
“I can’t speak highly enough of Alex for bringing his side here for me,” said Russell. “I’ve been treated to a special team with a lot of quality. I know there were a lot of young players out there, but you could see the potential they’ve got is immense.”
A crowd of nearly 6,000 watched the match and Wrexham secretary Geraint Parry said: “It just shows how well respected Kevin Russell is after his many years in the game.”
Smith and Russell were sacked in January 2007 but he went straight to Peterborough with Ferguson, who had been appointed Posh player-manager.
“We had an unbelievable time at Peterborough,” Russell told John Hutchinson. “We took them from the bottom league to the Championship in successive seasons in 2008 and 2009.”
There was a brief and unsuccessful spell for the managerial duo at Preston North End in 2010 – they were sacked four days after Christmas with Preston bottom of the Championship – but they weren’t out of work for long because they were re-appointed at Peterborough the following month.
They lost their first game back in charge though – to Brighton. Albion, on course to be league one champions under Gus Poyet that season, beat Posh 3-1: Chris Wood two and Elliott Bennett the scorers while Craig Noone made his home debut for the Seagulls.
After three years at Peterborough, Russell moved back to the Potteries to join the coaching staff at Stoke (below) and stayed for nine years! He mainly worked with the under 18s and under 21s but also helped with the first team in between managerial changes in 2018 and 2019.
In May 2023, Russell joined Cheltenham Town as assistant manager to Wade Elliott. He was in caretaker charge for two matches when Elliott was sacked four months later but didn’t want the job on a permanent basis and left the club in October 2023 when Darrell Clarke was appointed.
Robins chairman David Bloxham said: “I am extremely grateful to Kevin for all his hard work and dedication and for his willingness to step in to manage the side in an extremely difficult period between Wade leaving and Darrell’s appointment.”
Once again, Russell wasn’t out of work for long. In January 2024, he was reunited with former Stoke technical director Mark Cartwright, a former goalkeeper who played 15 matches in Brighton’s 2000-01 promotion winning side, at Huddersfield Town.
Back in the game at Huddersfield Town
He was appointed as B team manager with a glowing endorsement from Cartwright, now Town’s sporting director, who said: “Not only is Kevin a great coach, but he also has a brilliant ability to develop relationships with young players.
“He’s a lively character and he knows how to relate to individuals to get the best out of them. Whilst at Stoke City, he played the pivotal role in developing players such as Nathan Collins, Harry Souttar, Tyrese Campbell, and Josh Tymon, alongside many others.
“He’s been so successful in doing that because he has a great understanding of the qualities that senior coaching staff want to see in young players.”
BEING LET GO by the Albion as an apprentice didn’t stop Kevin Russell from going on to enjoy a multi-club league career as a player and a coach involved in no fewer than eight play-off finals and promotions.
A talented teenager good enough to earn selection for the England Youth team, Russell didn’t progress beyond Brighton’s youth and reserve sides between 1982 and 1984.
Although he was a regular goalscorer in the junior sides, a falling out with manager Chris Cattlin saw him depart the club without earning a competitive first team call-up.
Hailing from Paulsgrove in north Portsmouth, Russell returned home and linked up with his hometown club to complete his scholarship under World Cup winner Alan Ball.
Ball also gave him his first team debut but he only had eight first team outings for Pompey. It wasn’t until he joined Fourth Division Wrexham for £10,000 that his career began to take off and he was in the Wrexham side that reached the 1989 play-off final where they lost 2-1 to Frank Clark’s Leyton Orient. In the first of two spells in north Wales, playing at centre forward, Russell scored an impressive 47 goals in 102 games.
Prolific goalscorer for Wrexham
An ever-present in the 1988-89 season, his 25 goals in a total of 60 league and cup matches was recognised by his peers when he was selected in the PFA divisional team of the year.
That caught the eye of David Pleat at Leicester City, then playing in the ‘old’ Second Division, and a fee of £175,000 took him to Filbert Street.
At Leicester he played wide right rather than in the centre but he still had a knack for scoring goals and he eventually became something of a cult hero with Foxes supporters for the goals he scored in City’s escape from second tier relegation in 1991 and in their run up to the 1992 play-off final.
However, only a month after joining Leicester he had to undergo a hernia operation that put him out of action for eight weeks. When fit, he was sent out on a month’s loan to Peterborough …and suffered a broken leg!
When ready to play again, his effort to resume match fitness saw him go on another month’s loan, to Fourth Division Cardiff City. In the meantime, Pleat was sacked and Gordon Lee took over. Russell returned as the Foxes fought to avoid relegation to the third tier.
Perhaps inevitably one of the vital goals he scored (on 6 April 1991) was against promotion-seeking Albion in a 3-0 win that helped the Foxes in the hunt to stave off the dreaded drop.
Two years later, after he had moved on to Burnley via Stoke City, Russell’s first goals for the Clarets (above) were also scored in a 3-0 win over the Seagulls.
Born in Portsmouth on 6 December 1966, the nickname Rooster was coined at an early age because his hair formed something of a quiff when he was a boy – ironically, he went prematurely bald but the name stuck.
Russell’s first appearances in Albion’s colours came in the early autumn of 1982 playing in the junior division of the South East Counties League. He was still a 15-year-old schoolboy at the time.
By the spring of 1983, while the Albion first team were edging towards the FA Cup final at Wembley, Russell had stepped up to the reserves, as the matchday programme reported after he’d been involved in a close game against an experienced West Ham second string.
“Kevin Russell is just sixteen and he doesn’t leave school until he has taken his examinations next month,” it said. “But at Upton Park he found himself playing against such experienced men as Trevor Brooking and Jimmy Neighbour.
“Many schoolboys would have given their right arm to play on the same field as Brooking and there was Kevin playing on equal terms.
“Although we lost 2-1, it should be remembered that in Kieran O’Regan, Mark Fleet, Matthew Wiltshire, Gerry McTeague, Gary Howlett, Chris Rodon and Kevin Russell we had seven players under 20, while the Hammers had Paul Allen, Paul Brush and Pat Holland, all of whom have played in European competition, as well as Neighbour and Brooking in their line-up.”
John Shepherd was in charge of the side, aided by John Jackson, who had been signed as goalkeeping cover and was helping out with coaching too.
Russell’s official arrival as an apprentice at Brighton earned a mention in the matchday programme for the home game with Chelsea on 3 September 1983 and he was one of five apprentices on the staff that autumn, together with Dave Ellis, Darron Gearing, Gary Mitchell and Mark Wakefield. Martin Lambert had stepped up to sign as a full professional that summer.
In those days, the youth team played home matches at Lancing College and were looked after by Shepherd and Mick Fogden before experienced George Petchey was brought in to oversee youth development and run the reserves.
It was while a Brighton player that Russell won the first of six England under-18 caps (five starts plus one as sub), and he scored in the first of them – a 2-2 draw with Austria on 6 September 1984 – and in his fourth game, six days later, which England lost 4-1 to Yugoslavia. His strike partner in that side was Manchester City’s Paul Moulden, later an Albion loanee.
With the likes of Terry Connor, Alan Young and Frank Worthington in the first team, and promising youngsters in the reserves, such as Lambert, Rodon and Michael Ring, it is perhaps not surprising that Russell couldn’t break through.
He did have one outing in first team company, though, in a testimonial match for Gary Williams: he scored (along with Young and Connor) in a 3-3 draw against an ex-Albion XI.
The same game saw defender Jim Heggarty appear: like Russell he also went on to play for Burnley without playing a competitive first team game for the Albion.
While on that theme, a frequent partner of Russell’s in the reserves was Ian Muir, another striker who slipped through Albion’s net and ended up scoring goals for Burnley.
After his departure from the Albion in October 1984, Russell made the most of the opportunity Portsmouth presented him to learn from the former Everton, Arsenal and Southampton midfield dynamo Ball.
“I had three years there under him which was fantastic,” Russell told Leicester City club historian John Hutchinson in March 2018. “He was brilliant as a coach and it was very educational. I got the rest of my (under-18) caps at Portsmouth.
“Alan Ball treated us well. I was playing men’s football at 18. I played a few games in the first team and we managed to get promoted into what is now the Premier League.”
Although disappointed to be advised to move on to get more games, Russell’s switch to north Wales was the launchpad for his career, and the beginning of an association with Wrexham that lasted many years.
“It was a gamble worth taking because it meant first team football,” said Russell. “Dixie McNeill was the manager. He used to be a famous striker for them. He was fantastic for me and was an old school kind of manager; a proper man’s manager. It was a good time.”
Mixed fortunes at Leicester City
After Russell’s part in keeping Leicester in the second tier in 1991, he found himself on the outside looking in when Brian Little replaced Gordon Lee as manager and to get some playing time went on a month’s loan to Hereford United and then spent a month at Lou Macari’s Stoke City.
But Little recalled him in February and in his first game back he once again found the net against a former club, scoring in a 2-2 draw with Portsmouth. He kept his place through to the play-off final at Wembley, where they faced Kenny Dalglish’s Blackburn Rovers, and lost to a “dodgy penalty” scored by ex-Leicester player Mike Newell.
“It was a very scrappy game. Both teams were under a lot of pressure and never really got into their rhythm,” said Russell. “We had worked so hard that season to get to where we did get to. The result was a big disappointment, but it was an occasion that I’ll never forget.”
A promotion winner with Stoke City
It also turned out to be his last game for Leicester because that summer he returned to third tier Stoke on a permanent basis. He is fondly remembered for his part in Stoke winning promotion in 1992-93, scoring six goals in 39 league and cup matches (plus 11 as a sub), but he moved on again, this time to Burnley.
Third-tier Burnley signed him from Stoke for £150,000 (or was it £95,000 – I’ve seen both prices quoted) in June 1993 and, although he only stayed for eight months at Turf Moor, he scored eight goals in 35 games (plus two as sub) in Jimmy Mullen’s Clarets side.
Two of those goals – his first for Burnley – were scored against the Albion. I was at Turf Moor for a midweek game on 14 September 1993 when Russell scored with only a minute on the clock and he got a tap-in on 47 minutes in a 3-0 stroll for the home side. Steve Davis got Burnley’s third.
Brighton were a very different club to the one Russell had left in 1984, though. With a win in a League Cup match their only victory in the opening eight matches, it was the beginning of the end of Barry Lloyd’s tumultuous reign in charge, against a backdrop of financial hardship and boardroom mismanagement off the pitch.
Russell’s habit of scoring against his former clubs manifested itself again two days after Christmas, when he netted in a 2-1 home win over Wrexham. He scored again five days later in a New Year’s Day 3-1 home win over Lancashire rivals Blackpool.
But he was not around to be part of the side promoted via the play-offs, having moved back south, to Bournemouth, for £125,000 in March 1994.
• Another move, a return to north Wales and a career in coaching as Russell’s story continues.
FOR 40 YEARS, Mike Bailey was the manager who had led Brighton & Hove Albion to their highest-ever finish in football.
A promotion winner and League Cup-winning captain of Wolverhampton Wanderers, he took the Seagulls to even greater heights than his predecessor, Alan Mullery.
But the fickle nature of football following has remembered Bailey a lot less romantically than the former Spurs, Fulham and England midfielder.
The pragmatic way Brighton played under Bailey turned fans off in their thousands and, because gates dipped significantly, he paid the price.
Finishing 13th in the top tier in 1982 playing a safety-first style of football counted for nothing, even though it represented a marked improvement on relegation near-misses in the previous two seasons under Mullery, delivering along the way away wins against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and then-high-flying Southampton as well as a first-ever victory over Arsenal.
Bailey’s achievement with the Albion was only overtaken in 2022 with a ninth place finish under Graham Potter; since surpassed again with a heady sixth and European qualification under Roberto De Zerbi.
Fascinatingly, though, Bailey had his eyes on Europe as far back as the autumn of 1981 and laid his cards on the table in a forthright article in Shoot! magazine.
Bailey’s ambition laid bare
“I am an ambitious man,” he said. “I am not content with ensuring that Brighton survive another season at this level. I want people to be surprised when we lose and to omit us from their predictions of which clubs will have a bad season.
“I am an enthusiast about this game. I loved playing, loved the atmosphere of a dressing room, the team spirit, the sense of achievement.
“As a manager I have come to realise there are so many other factors involved. Once they’re on that pitch the players are out of my reach; I am left to gain satisfaction from seeing the things we have worked on together during the week become a reality during a match.
“I like everything to be neat – passing, ball-control, appearance, style. Only when we have become consistent in these areas will Brighton lose, once and for all, the tag of the gutsy little Third Division outfit from the South Coast that did so well to reach the First Division.”
Clearly revelling in finding a manager happy to speak his mind, the magazine declared: “As a player with Charlton, Wolves and England, Bailey gave his all, never hid when things went wrong, accepted responsibility and somehow managed to squeeze that little bit extra from the players around him when his own game was out of tune.
“As a manager he is adopting the same principles of honesty, hard work and high standards of professionalism.
“So, when Bailey sets his jaw and says he wants people to expect Brighton to win trophies, he means that everyone connected with Albion must forget all about feeling delighted with simply being in the First Division.”
Warming to his theme, Bailey told Shoot!: “This club has come a long way in a short time. But now is the time to make another big step…or risk sliding backwards. Too many clubs have done just that – wasted time basking in recent achievements and crashed back to harsh reality.
“I do not intend for us to spend this season simply consolidating. That has been done in the last few seasons.”
Mike Bailey had high hopes for the Albion
If that sounds a bit like Roberto De Zerbi, unfortunately many long-time watchers of the Albion like me would more likely compare the style under Bailey to the pragmatism of the Chris Hughton era: almost a complete opposite to De Zerbi’s free-flowing attacking play.
It was ultimately his downfall because the court of public opinion – namely paying spectators who had rejoiced in a goals galore diet during Albion’s rise from Third to First under Mullery – found the new man’s approach too boring to watch and stopped filing through the turnstiles.
Back in 2013, the superb The Goldstone Wrap blog noted: “Only Liverpool attracted over 20,000 to the Goldstone before Christmas. The return fixture against the Reds in March 1982 was the high noon of Bailey’s spell as Brighton manager.
“A backs-to-the-wall display led to a famous 1-0 win at Anfield against the European Cup holders, with Andy Ritchie getting the decisive goal and Ian Rush’s goalbound shot getting stuck in the mud!”
At that stage, Albion were eighth but a fans forum at the Brighton Centre – and quite possibly a directive from the boardroom – seemed to get to him.
Supporters wanted the team to play a more open, attacking game. The result? Albion recorded ten defeats in the last 14 matches.
At odds with what he had heard, he very pointedly said in his programme notes: “It is my job to select the team and to try to win matches.
“People are quite entitled to their opinion, but I am paid to get results for Brighton and that is my first priority.
“Building a successful team is a long-term business and I have recently spoken to many top people in the professional game who admire what we are doing here at Brighton and just how far we have come in a short space of time.
“We know we still have a long way to go, but we are all working towards a successful future.”
Dropping down to finish 13th of 22 clubs, Albion never regained a spot in the top half of the division and The Goldstone Wrap observed: “If Bailey had stuck to his guns, and not listened to the fans, would the club have enjoyed a UEFA Cup place at the end of 1981-82?”
Bailey certainly wasn’t afraid to share his opinions and, as well as in the Shoot! article, he often vented his feelings quite overtly in his matchday programme notes; hitting out at referees, the football authorities and the media, as well as trying to explain his decisions to supporters, urging them to get behind the team rather than criticise.
It certainly didn’t help that the mercurial Mark Lawrenson was sold at the start of his regime as well as former captain Brian Horton and right-back-cum-midfielder John Gregory, but Bailey addressed the doubters head on.
“I believe it was necessary because while I agree that a player of Lawrenson’s ability, for example, is an exceptional talent, it is not enough to have a handful of assets.
“We must have a strong First Division squad, one where very good players can come in when injuries deplete the side.
Forthright views were a feature of Bailey’s programme notes
“We brought in Tony Grealish from Luton, Don Shanks from QPR, Jimmy Case from Liverpool and Steve Gatting and Sammy Nelson from Arsenal. Now the squad is better balanced. It allows for a permutation of positions and gives adequate cover in most areas.”
One signing Bailey had tried to make that he had to wait a few months to make was one he would come to regret big time. Long-serving Peter O’Sullivan had left the club at the same time as Lawrenson, Horton and Gregory so there was a vacancy to fill on the left side of midfield.
Bailey had his eyes on Manchester United’s Mickey Thomas but the Welsh wideman joined Everton instead. When, after only three months, the player fell out with Goodison boss Howard Kendall, Bailey was finally able to land his man for £350,000 on a four-year contract.
Talented though Thomas undoubtedly was, what the manager didn’t bargain for was the player’s unhappy 20-year-old wife, Debbie.
She was unable to settle in Sussex – the word was that she gave it only five days, living in a property at Telscombe Cliffs – and went back to Colwyn Bay with their baby son.
Thomas meanwhile stayed at the Courtlands Hotel in Hove and the club bent over backwards to give him extra time off so he could travel to and from north Wales. But he began to return late or go missing from training.
After the third occasion he went missing, Bailey was incandescent with rage and declared: ”Thomas has s*** on us….the sooner the boy leaves, the better.”
At one point in March, it was hoped a swap deal could be worked out that would have brought England winger Peter Barnes to the Goldstone from Leeds, but they weren’t interested and so the saga dragged out to the end of the season.
After yet another absence and fine of a fortnight’s wages, Bailey once again went on the front foot and told Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe: “He came in and trained which allowed him to play for Wales.
“He is just using us, and yet I might have played him against Wolves (third to last game of the season). Thomas is his own worst enemy and I stand by what I’ve said before – the sooner he goes the better.”
Thomas was ‘shop windowed’ in the final two games and during the close season was sold to Stoke City for £200,000.
In his own assessment of his first season, Bailey said: “Many good things have come out of our season. Our early results were encouraging and we quickly became an organised and efficient side. The lads got into their rhythm quickly and it was a nice ‘plus’ to get into a high league position so early on.”
He had special words of praise for Gary Stevens and said: “Although the youngest member of our first team squad, Gary is a perfect example to his fellow professionals. Whatever we ask of him he will always do his best, he is completely dedicated and sets a fine example to his fellow players.”
The biggest bugbear for the people running the club was that the average home gate for 1981-82 was 18,241, fully 6,500 fewer than had supported the side during their first season at the top level.
“The Goldstone regulars grew restless at a series of frustrating home draws, and finally turned on their own players,” wrote Vinicombe in his end of season summary for the Argus.
He also said: “It is Bailey’s chief regret that he changed his playing policy in response to public, and possibly private, pressure with the result that Albion finished the latter part of the season in most disappointing fashion.
“Accusations that Albion were the principal bores of the First Division at home were heaped on Bailey’s head, and, while he is a man not given to altering his mind for no good reason, certain instructions were issued to placate the rising tide of criticisms.”
If Bailey wasn’t exactly Mr Popular with the fans, at the beginning of the following season, off-field matters brought disruption to the playing side.
Steve Foster thought he deserved more money having been to the World Cup with England and he, Michael Robinson and Neil McNab questioned the club’s ambition after chairman Bamber refused to sanction the acquisition of Charlie George, the former Arsenal, Derby and Southampton maverick, who had been on trial pre-season.
Robinson went so far as to accuse the club of “settling for mediocrity” and couldn’t believe Bailey was working without a contract.
Bamber voiced his disgust at Robinson, claiming it was really all about money, and tried to sell him to Sunderland, with Stan Cummins coming in the opposite direction, but it fell through. Efforts were also made to send McNab out on loan which didn’t happen immediately although it did eventually.
All three were left out of the side temporarily although Albion managed to beat Arsenal and Sunderland at home without them. In what was an erratic start to the season, Albion couldn’t buy a win away from home and suffered two 5-0 defeats (against Luton and West Brom) and a 4-0 spanking at Nottingham Forest – all in September.
Other than 20,000 gates for a West Ham league game and a Spurs Milk Cup match, the crowd numbers had slumped to around 10,000. Former favourite Peter Ward was brought back to the club on loan from Nottingham Forest and scored the only goal of the game as Manchester United were beaten at the Goldstone.
But four straight defeats followed and led to the axe for Bailey, with Bamber declaring: “He’s a smashing bloke, I’m sorry to see him go, but it had to be done.”
Perhaps the writing was on the wall when, in his final programme contribution, he blamed the run of poor results simply on bad luck and admitted: “I feel we are somehow in a rut.”
It didn’t help the narrative of his reign that his successor, Jimmy Melia, surfed on a wave of euphoria when taking Albion to their one and only FA Cup Final – even though he also oversaw the side’s fall from the elite.
“It seems that my team has been relegated from the First Division while Melia’s team has reached the Cup Final,” an irked Bailey said in an interview he gave to the News of the World’s Reg Drury in the run-up to the final.
Hurt by some of the media coverage he’d seen since his departure, Bailey resented accusations that his style had been dull and boring football, pointing out: “Nobody said that midway through last season when we were sixth and there was talk of Europe.
“We were organised and disciplined and getting results. John Collins, a great coach, was on the same wavelength as me. We wanted to lay the foundations of lasting success, just like Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley did at Liverpool.
“The only problem was that winning 1-0 and 2-0 didn’t satisfy everybody. I tried to change things too soon – that was a mistake.
“When I left (in December 1982), we were 18th with more than a point a game. I’ve never known a team go down when fifth from bottom.”
Bailey later expanded on the circumstances, lifting the lid on his less than cordial relationship with Bamber, when speaking on a Wolves’ fans forum in 2010. “We had a good side at Brighton and did really well,” he said. “The difficulty I had was with the chairman. He was not satisfied with anything.
“I made Brighton a difficult team to beat. I knew the standard of the players we had and knew how to win matches. We used to work on clean sheets.
“With the previous manager, they hadn’t won away from home very often but we went to Anfield and won. But the chairman kept saying: ‘Why can’t we score a few more goals?’ He didn’t understand it.”
Foster, the player Bailey made Albion captain, was also critical of the ‘boring’ jibe and in Spencer Vignes’ A Few Good Men said: “We sacked Mike Bailey because we weren’t playing attractive football, allegedly. Things were changing. Brighton had never been so high.
“We were doing well, but we weren’t seen as a flamboyant side. I was never happy with the press because they were creating this boring talk. Some of the stuff they used to write really annoyed me.”
Striker Andy Ritchie was also supportive of the management. He told journalist Nick Szczepanik: “Mike got everyone playing together. Everybody liked Mike and John Collins, who was brilliant. When a group of players like the management, it takes you a long way. When you are having things explained to you and training is good and it’s a bit of fun, you get a lot more out of it.”
Born on 27 February 1942 in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, he went to the same school in Gorleston, Norfolk, as the former Arsenal centre back Peter Simpson. His career began with non-league Gorleston before Charlton Athletic snapped him up in 1958 and he spent eight years at The Valley.
During his time there, he was capped twice by England as manager Alf Ramsey explored options for his 1966 World Cup squad. Just a week after making his fifth appearance for England under 23s, Bailey, aged 22, was called up to make his full debut in a friendly against the USA on 27 May 1964.
He had broken into the under 23s only three months earlier, making his debut in a 3-2 win over Scotland at St James’ Park, Newcastle, on 5 February 1964.He retained his place against France, Hungary, Israel and Turkey, games in which his teammates included Graham Cross, Mullery and Martin Chivers.
England ran out 10-0 winners in New York with Roger Hunt scoring four, Fred Pickering three, Terry Paine two, and Bobby Charlton the other.
Eight of that England side made it to the 1966 World Cup squad two years later but a broken leg put paid to Bailey’s chances of joining them.
“I was worried that may have been it,” Bailey recalled in his autobiography, The Valley Wanderer: The Mike Bailey Story (published in November 2015). “In the end, I was out for six months. My leg got stronger and I never had problems with it again, so it was a blessing in disguise in that respect.
“Charlton had these (steep) terraces. I’d go up to them every day, I was getting fitter and fitter.”
In fact, Ramsey did give him one more chance to impress. Six months after the win in New York, he was in the England team who beat Wales 2-1 at Wembley in the Home Championship. Frank Wignall, who would later spend a season with Bailey at Wolves, scored both England’s goals.
“But it was too late to get in the 1966 World Cup side,” said Bailey. “Alf Ramsey had got his team in place.”
During his time with the England under 23s, Bailey had become friends with Wolves’ Ernie Hunt (the striker who later played for Coventry City) and Hunt persuaded him to move to the Black Country club for a £40,000 fee.
Thus began an association which saw him play a total of 436 games for Wolves over 11 seasons.
In his first season, 1966-67, he captained the side to promotion from the second tier and he was also named as Midlands Footballer of the Year.
Wolves finished fourth in the top division in 1970-71 and European adventures followed, including winning the Texaco Cup of 1971 – the club’s first silverware in 11 years – and reaching the UEFA Cup final against Tottenham a year later, although injury meant Bailey was only involved from the 55th minute of the second leg and Spurs won 3-2 on aggregate.
Two years later, Bailey, by then 32, lifted the League Cup after Bill McGarry’s side beat Ron Saunders’ Manchester City 2-1 at Wembley with goals by Kenny Hibbitt and John Richards. It was Bailey’s pass to Alan Sunderland that began the winning move, Richards sweeping in Sunderland’s deflected cross.
Bailey lifts the League Cup after Wolves beat Manchester City at Wembley
This was a side with solid defenders like John McAlle, Frank Munro and Derek Parkin, combined with exciting players such as Irish maverick centre forward Derek Dougan and winger Dave Wagstaffe.
Richards had become Dougan’s regular partner up front after Peter Knowles quit football to turn to religion. Discussing Bailey with wolvesheroes.com, Richards said: “He really was a leader you responded to and wanted to play for. If you let your standards slip, he wasn’t slow to let you know. I have very fond memories of playing alongside him.”
“He gave me – just as he did with all the young players coming into the team – so much help and guidance in training and matches on and off the pitch,” said Richards.
“There were so many little tips and pieces of advice and I remember how he first taught me how to come off defenders. He would say ‘when I get the ball John, just push the defender away, come towards me, lay the ball off and then go again’.
“There was so much advice that he would give to us all, and it had a massive influence.”
Midfielder Hibbitt, another Wolves legend who made 544 appearances for the club, said: “He was the greatest captain I ever played with.”
Steve Daley added: “Mike is my idol, he was an absolute inspiration to me when I was playing.”
Winger Terry Wharton added: “He was a great player…a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character as well. On the pitch he was a great captain, a winner, he was tenacious and he was loud.
“He got people moving and he got people going and you just knew he was a captain. And then off the pitch? He could have been a vicar.”
When coach Sammy Chung stepped up to take over as manager, Bailey found himself on the outside looking in and chose to end his playing days in America, with the Minnesota Kicks, who were managed by the former Brighton boss Freddie Goodwin.
He returned to England and spent the 1978-79 season as player-manager of Fourth Division Hereford United and in March 1980 replaced Andy Nelson as boss at Charlton Athletic. He had just got the Addicks promoted from the Third Division when he replaced Mullery at Brighton.
In a curious symmetry, Bailey’s management career in England (courtesy of managerstats.co.uk) saw him manage each of those three clubs for just 65 games. At Hereford, his record was W 32, D 11, L 22; at Charlton W 21, D 17, L 27; at Brighton, W 20 D 17, L 28.
In 1984, he moved to Greece to manage OFI Crete, he briefly took charge of non-league Leatherhead and he later worked as reserve team coach at Portsmouth. Later still, he did some scouting work for Wolves (during the Dave Jones era) and he was inducted into the Wolves Hall of Fame in 2010.
In November 2020, Bailey’s family made public the news that he had been diagnosed with dementia hoping that it would help to highlight the ongoing issues around the number of ex-footballers suffering from it.
Perhaps the last words should go to Bailey himself, harking back to that 1981 article when his words were so prescient bearing in mind what would follow his time in charge.
“We don’t have a training ground. We train in a local park. The club have tried to remedy this and I’m sure they will. But such things hold you back in terms of generating the feeling of the big time,” he said.
“I must compliment the people who are responsible for getting the club where it is. They built a team, won promotion twice and the fans flocked in. Now is the time to concentrate on developing the Goldstone Ground. When we build our ground, we will have the supporters eager to fill it.”
Pictures from various sources: Goal and Shoot! magazines; the Evening Argus, the News of the World, and the Albion matchday programme.
LANKY Slovakian stopper Peter Brezovan, who saved penalties on his Albion and Swindon Town debuts, once came close to a dream move to Everton.
The Merseyside outfit had him on a five-day trial with a view to signing him on a permanent basis from Swindon.
“It was very rewarding just to train alongside Tim Howard and face all these international players,” he said. “It was an experience I’ll never forget.”
Former Man Utd ‘keeper Howard was Everton’s no.1 in 2007 and, having released Richard Wright that summer, manager David Moyes had only new signing Stefan Wessels and the little-used Iain Turner as back-up ‘keepers. Everton’s goalkeeper coach was the former England international Chris Woods.
While Everton didn’t follow up their interest in Brezovan with an offer (three years later they did sign a Slovakian goalkeeper, Jan Mucha), it sounded like Swindon rather over-egged their expectations of a big payday.
Robins stopper
The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald reckoned a £300,000 eve of deadline day offer from Wolverhampton Wanderers had been rejected, saying: “Town will be asking for a substantial amount more.”
The newspaper added: “If the price is right, Town are ready to cash in on their number two keeper.” And manager at the time, Paul Sturrock reportedly told the Mirror: “If I was offered something like £2m, Brez would be an Everton player.”
The Toffees had originally taken an interest in Brezovan and invited him for a trial when he made an eye-catching start in English football in 2006. Not only did he save two penalties in his first game for Swindon, he conceded only five goals as Town won six of their opening seven matches and won the PFA Player of the Month award for September. Unluckily, a badly broken arm put him out of the game for nine months but Everton revived their invitation when Brezovan was fit again.
It probably didn’t help the ‘keeper’s progress at Swindon that successive managers came and went during his time at the club. It was Dennis Wise who signed him on a year’s loan from Czech side 1.FC Brno shortly after he’d taken over as Swindon manager, assisted by his former Chelsea teammate Gus Poyet, but by October the pair (along with goalkeeper coach Andy Beasley, who later spent a year at Brighton) left Wiltshire to take over at Leeds United.
County Ground caretaker managers David Tuttle and Ady Williams were followed by Sturrock for a year; David Byrne twice held the fort temporarily and Maurice Malpas was in charge for 11 months in 2008. When he left in November that year, Danny Wilson arrived the following month.
Born on 9 December 1979 in Bratislava, Brezovan’s first football memories were playing at right-back. In a matchday programme article, he explained: “In the first game of the season our ‘keeper got injured, so the biggest kid had to go in goal – and I’ve been there ever since. I’ve always been tall so looked upon to go in goal but, unlike a lot of kids, I enjoyed it.”
Brezovan spent his youth career at the city’s MŠK Iskra Petržalka and also played for Devin in the city before spending two years in the Czech Republic with FC Slovan Břeclav and HFK Olomouc. He then spent four years at FC Brno in South Moravia, although it was while he was on loan back in Bratislava, playing for FK Inter Bratislava, that he was spotted by Swindon and subsequently made the move to England.
In spite of his spectacular start for the Robins, when he couldn’t speak a word of English, it would be fair to say Swindon have mixed memories of his time at the County Ground, chronicled in detail on swindon-town-fc.co.uk. After former Albion captain Wilson released him at the end of the 2008-09 season, he was without a club for six months.
He had an unsuccessful trial at Crewe Alexandra in October 2009 but Poyet, not long after succeeding Russell Slade as Albion boss, signed him for a month at the beginning of December to cover a mini goalkeeper crisis he inherited.
Regular no.1 Michel Kuipers was injured and Slade’s misfit summer signing Graeme Smith had conceded 11 goals in three defeats and one win.
Handed his debut on a drizzly, grey December afternoon at Exeter (I know, because I was there, getting wet on the uncovered terrace behind the goal!), Brezovan went from zero to hero, according to writer Richie Morris, after upending former Albion loanee Stuart Fleetwood in the penalty area and then impressively saving Marcus Stewart’s spot kick.
“The former Slovakian under 21 international pulled off a string of comfortable, but reassuring saves,” wrote Morris. “True, he did nearly gift the home side a goal with a wayward clearance, but, considering how long he has been out of first team football, he can be happy with a solid performance.”
A somewhat modest Brezovan attributed his penalty save to goalkeeper coach Tony Godden’s homework. “He told me where Marcus Stewart puts his penalties and I dived the right way but it was a great feeling to help the team to victory,” he said.
Penalty-saver!
On another occasion, Brezovan expanded on his technique with penalties, telling the matchday programme: “It’s mainly instinct on the day. You get the stats guys who help you with your preparation – they will tell you where certain players tend to put the ball but sometimes you just have to go with how you feel in that moment and go for it.
“I don’t get the lads to take penalties at me after training either – I hate doing that. It’s all about how you are on the day.”
Brezovan’s arrival signalled the departure of the hapless Smith who ended his six-month nightmare in English football by returning to Scotland, moving on a free transfer to Hibernian. And the Slovakian’s short-term arrangement ultimately extended into a four-and-a-half-year spell as a Brighton player.
There were occasions when he was tempted to move on for more regular game time, but he confessed to loving the area and stayed put even though first team opportunities were few and far between.
In that first season, fans’ favourite Kuipers, not for the first time, found his place under threat because of the 6’6” Brezovan’s form. But a blunder by the new man in a game at home to Wycombe prompted Poyet to bring back the former Dutch marine (chef) at the start of the new year.
Kuipers had an eight-game run in the starting line-up but then broke a finger. Brezovan, having had his contract extended, seized his chance and kept his place through to the end of the season.
Brezovan told the matchday programme: “We are good friends, we train well together, and so I really feel for him. We don’t feel like rivals at all in that respect but I know that while I am in the team I will be giving my all to make sure I maintain my place.”
It paid off because Poyet offered him a two-year contract at the end of the season, saying: “Peter has earned his new contract. Initially he came to play and help us out but I expected he would prove he was worth a longer deal and he has done that.
“He has been a very important part of our turnaround since Christmas and now his challenge is to make the position his own for next season and beyond.”
And the ‘keeper told the Argus: “Together with my girlfriend, I’ve really settled here. I think that Brighton is the nicest city in England and we’re really happy here.
“I owe a lot to the manager because he brought me to the club and I’m glad he wants me to stay. That’s why it was so easy to sign the deal. The manager will no doubt bring in more good players in the summer so it’s going to be an exciting season.”
He was right about the excitement because Albion went on to win the League One championship title; what he might not have anticipated was that because he was nursing a wrist injury on the eve of the season opener against his old club Swindon, Poyet moved quickly to sign another ‘keeper who he’d worked with at a previous club: Casper Ankergren.
The Dane, released by Leeds, instantly became first choice ‘keeper and Brezovan spent most of the season watching from the bench, making just seven starts in the FA Cup (the first and second round matches both went to replays). Close to the end of the season he went on as a sub for the injured Ankergren in the 18th minute of the 25 April league game at Colchester United, making important saves from Ian Henderson and David Mooney as the Albion salvaged a point in a 1-1 draw.
Brezovan was also in goal for the penultimate game of the season, and the last ever played at the Withdean, when Huddersfield won 3-2. A defensive gaffe by Inigo Calderon, who left Brezovan stranded by chesting the ball down inside the area, let in Benik Afobe to put Town 2-1 ahead; sub Matt Sparrow equalised for the Seagulls and, although Brezovan twice made excellent saves to deny defender Jamie McCombe, sub Danny Ward scored a last-minute winner.
Brezovan resumed his place on the bench as 2011-12 got under way with Ankergren once again Poyet’s first choice no.1, although, after he’d shipped 13 goals in eight games in the autumn, the manager brought experienced Newcastle custodian Steve Harper on loan for five games.
Brezovan preferred to see the positive side of it, though, telling the matchday programme: “That was a good experience for all the goalkeepers. He is a vastly experienced ‘keeper and we have learned from his time here.”
After Albion went through a four-game losing streak in December, Brezovan got the call to take over from Ankergren in the new year match at home to Southampton when an injury-hit Albion sprung a surprise, winning 3-0 with a memorable brace from midfielder Sparrow.
It was only after the game that Poyet revealed how his plan to change ‘keepers nearly didn’t come to fruition. “For the last week Peter has been waiting for his wife to have a baby, every day,” Poyet told the Argus. “I needed to wait until 1.30 to tell him he was playing. The baby was due three or four days ago, so we were all thinking ‘come on girl, go on’!”
Later the same month, Brezovan was hailed a hero when he saved a crucial spot-kick in a penalty shoot-out in a third round FA Cup replay at Wrexham and he told Brian Owen of the Argus: “I enjoyed it. The pressure is all on the strikers at penalties because they can just mess it up. You have nothing to lose, you are practically without pressure.
“I knew one player and where he goes and I saved his penalty so we could have a laugh in the end.”
Nevertheless, Poyet was obviously still unsure about the goalkeeping situation. He let third choice Michael Poke go on loan to Bristol Rovers but brought in Columbian David Gonzalez, who’d been with Man City for two years, to put pressure on Brezovan and Ankergren.
“The gaffer wanted to bring in another keeper. You have to face it, with Casper, and keep working to keep our positions,” said Brezovan.“I’ve got another year. If you want to stay at a club for a long time, you have to play. You can’t be just like a useless second or third choice. This is my opportunity and I am going to do everything to stay in goal.”
He did indeed stay in goal but on two occasions let in six! The first drubbing was handed out by Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup at Anfield (with Albion famously conceding three own goals in a 6-1 defeat).
After Brezovan shipped another six against West Ham at the Boleyn Ground, Poyet had seen enough. The patient Gonzalez replaced Brezovan in goal for the following game, one of six changes to the side that capitulated to the Hammers.
Come the new season, Brezovan and Ankergren had even more of a challenge on their hands when experienced Polish international and former Manchester United ‘keeper Tomasz Kuszczak arrived at the Amex.
It pushed Brezovan down the pecking order to third choice ‘keeper and he played only once all season, in a 2-1 win at Huddersfield when Kuszczak had a finger infection that ruled him out and Ankergren picked up an injury in training two days before the game.
Brezovan stayed at the club as no.3 ‘keeper for the 2013-14 season and once again injuries to the first and second choices in Oscar Garcia’s side presented him with a rare opportunity. He ended up playing eight games, four in the league and four in the FA Cup.
He made his first appearance for 13 months in the 7 December 3-1 win at home to Leicester after Kuszczak pulled out in the warm-up with a stomach muscle strain, with Ankergren already sidelined with a wrist injury. In an interview with the Argus, on his 34th birthday, Brezovan spoke openly about possibly moving on to get more games.
“It’s hard because Brighton is a beautiful place and I love the people around here. It’s not easy to go.
“If there was an offer from the same level, I would probably try it. Going to a lower division, getting injured and then to be there on the bench is risky.”
And of his sudden chance back in the Albion goal, he reflected: “That’s football. Things can happen quickly and it’s beautiful. It shows how everyone is important. When you don’t play for a long time, even in training, you start to think it’s hard to motivate yourself.
“That’s why you need good lads around you. I love the guys here. They always help you to be motivated. When you play and your contract is running out you need to find that motivation.”
His appearance in the fifth round FA Cup replay defeat (1-2) at Hull City on 24 February turned out to be his last first team game and he was released at the end of his contract that summer having featured 62 times for the Seagulls.
He trained with Oxford United during pre-season and at the start of the next season joined Portsmouth for a month as cover for Paul Jones. On transfer deadline day, he signed a one-year contract with Tranmere Rovers.
Although he played seven games for Rovers, he lost his place to regular ‘keeper Owain Fon Williams. He had a loan stint at Southport in early 2015 but at the end of the season, following Rovers’ relegation from League Two, he was released.
Interviewed by the Argus in December 2015, Brezovan had returned to Brno in the Czech Republic, quit football and turned to publishing music online.
“I lost a little bit of motivation,” he said. “The football wasn’t going anywhere and I’d had enough. I’m focusing on this now.”
THE STORY of Matthew Edwards scoring for Brighton against Manchester United in the same cup match in which David Beckham made his debut has been told many times, and who wouldn’t be proud of that memory.
The history books can’t take it away from him, nor should they. “Scoring that goal against Manchester United was certainly the highspot of my career. Everyone wanted to talk about it and I was mentioned in all the papers and (I was) interviewed on television,” he said.
While that second round League Cup game on 23 September 1992 stands out, Edwards actually played 78 matches for the Albion after being released by Tottenham Hotspur, where his only first team outings were in testimonials or friendlies.
Albion were a very different proposition in September 1992, just beginning to reacquaint themselves to life back in the third tier of English football barely 16 months after having come close to returning to the top flight.
Big name players had been sold to try to balance the books and manager Barry Lloyd had to turn to free transfers, loanees and young hopefuls to put out a side.
Edwards was in that category and he probably only played in that United match because the respective parent clubs didn’t want loan forwards Steve Cotterill and Paul Moulden to be cup tied. He played alongside Scot Andy Kennedy, a recent arrival from Watford.
The youngster seized his chance and made a name for himself by heading home an Ian Chapman cross to cancel out Danny Wallace’s 35th-minute opener for the illustrious visitors.
Beckham had been sent on for his United bow in place of Andrei Kanchelskis (serenaded by a familiar North Stand chant of ‘Who the f****** h*** are you?’) but the game finished 1-1 at the Goldstone Ground, setting things up nicely for the second leg at Old Trafford (which United won 1-0).
Edwards once again earned a place in the headlines four months later when he scored the only goal of the game in a FA Cup third round win over south coast rivals Portsmouth, a side playing in the division above the Seagulls, and who had reached the previous season’s semi-finals.
Born in Hammersmith on 15 June 1971, the family lived in Brighton for a time and the young Edwards, who first started kicking a football around the age of six, played for local side Saltdean Tigers. At 13, he was on the Albion’s books under the guidance of Colin Woffinden, a former player who became youth coach.
But the family relocated to Surrey and it was while playing schoolboy football for Elmbridge Borough that he was spotted by Tottenham. In an extended interview with Lennon Branagan, Edwards explained how he got his big break courtesy of Fred Callaghan, Fulham’s left-back for 10 years who managed Brentford in the 1980s.
His son was playing in the same side as Edwards and Callaghan recommended Edwards to his friend Ted Buxton, a renowned coach and scout, who was working for Spurs at the time.
“I didn’t know that Ted had come along to watch me and then after one of the games they said: ‘Do you want to come to Spurs?’” Edwards recounted.
Young Spur Matthew Edwards
He signed associate schoolboy forms and while at Hinchley Wood Secondary School, Esher, travelled up to White Hart Lane on a Tuesday and Thursday night for training on an indoor pitch next to the main reception area.
On leaving school, he was taken on as an apprentice at Spurs and worked through his YTS under the auspices of youth team manager Keith Blunt and coach (and Blunt’s successor) Keith Waldon.
At 17, he signed on as a professional and he was on the books for three and a half years.
“We were quite successful in the reserves and I think that we used to win the league pretty much every season,” Edwards recalled.
It was tours abroad that he remembered most fondly from his time at Spurs, playing in Hawaii and Japan, and he also joined up with the first team squad for tours to Norway, Ireland and Italy.
A rare first team opportunity came in Billy Bonds’ testimonial at West Ham on 12 November 1990.
“I was young and had long blond hair and I can remember getting absolutely slaughtered by the West Ham fans that day,” he said.
In his final year, he went on loan to Reading, where he played eight games before returning to Spurs, and later the same season went to Peterborough on a similar arrangement, although he only played in one cup match for Posh.
He sensed his days at Spurs were drawing to a close, telling an Albion matchday programme: “I knew it was time for me to go when (manager) Peter Shreeves forgot my name!”
He said: “I had three months on loan at Peterborough but didn’t get a league game. Martin Hinshelwood rang me up in May and asked if I would be interested in coming to Brighton.”
Edwards marked by ex-teammate Justin Edinburgh
One of the first matches he played for the Seagulls was in a pre-season friendly against his former club, a 1-1 draw at the Goldstone on 29 July 1992. In a shocking excuse for a programme for the visit of Croatian side FC Inker Zapresic, a barely recognisable picture of the new signing was included. Thankfully a more professional programme appeared for the opening home league game, against Bolton Wanderers, and Edwards was pictured (left) in action up against his former teammate Justin Edinburgh
After Cotterill and Moulden had returned to their parent clubs because Albion couldn’t afford to make their moves permanent, Edwards started to forge a fledgling forward partnership with Kennedy. But Kurt Nogan took over and his prolific goalscoring saw Edwards have more of a peripheral role, although he ended the season taking over from soon-to-depart Clive Walker on the left wing.
Edwards was in the starting line-up for the first half of the 1993-94 season, won a man-of-the-match award for his performance against Gillingham in the League Cup and scored in a 2-2 draw at home to Huddersfield.
He was the programme cover boy for the Exeter City home game on 2 October (0-0) but, with Albion dangerously close to the drop zone, Liam Brady took over from Lloyd and it soon became quite a different picture for the former Spurs youngster.
He played in the first seven games under the new boss, and scored in a 3-3 FA Cup tie v Bournemouth, but Brady had his own ideas and started looking elsewhere for solutions.
“Me and him didn’t really see eye to eye, or he didn’t particularly fancy me as a player,” Edwards told Branagan.
Although Edwards was a sub three times in March, his appearance off the bench in a home 1-1 draw with Burnley was his last involvement with the first team.
A regular in the reserves in the latter part of the season, at the end of it he was released and joined Conference side Kettering where he had barely got his shorts dirty before suffering a cruciate ligament injury.
“That that was the start of the end of my career as such,” he confessed. “I had a year out of the game.”
On his return to fitness, he had two good seasons for Walton & Hersham, and then Enfield. “My knees just kept on going for me,” he recounted. Over the course of another couple of years, he appeared for Carshalton Athletic, Sutton United, Molesey, Yeading, Bognor and Egham.
But he said: “My knees just weren’t up to playing football, so I had to call it a day and that was the end of the career.”
Interviewed for an Albion matchday programme article in 2019, he told journalist Spencer Vignes he had developed a career in computer software sales and had been a visitor to the Amex on behalf of a ticketing company that worked with the club.
He had subsequently moved on to providing similar expertise for visitor attractions such as zoos, museums, aquaria and cathedrals.
Reflecting on his all too brief career, he said: “I suppose I’m lucky in that I was in the right place at the right time to play for the Albion at the Goldstone, rather than Withdean. Saltdean Tigers to Spurs to Brighton; there can’t have been many people who have done that!”
ALBION had something of a love-hate relationship with Alan Pardew over the years – mainly the latter – but occasionally there was cause to be grateful to him.
One such instance involved former Olympic Marseille midfield player Therry Racon, who Pardew loaned to Brighton for three months in 2008.
Pardew had signed the young Frenchman for £400,000 when he was manager of Championship side Charlton Athletic. He was only in the first year of a four-year contract and struggling to get games for the Addicks.
Racon told the Argus: “It’s been a big disappointment. When I signed for Charlton it was to play and help the club to promotion.
“I haven’t really had a chance but when I’ve played I think I’ve played well. I hope I will be playing next season.”
The midfielder told the matchday programme: “Before I came to Brighton Alan Pardew said to me I needed to get some games under my belt and after the loan I could get my chance at Charlton.
“My ambition is to play in the Premiership. When I signed for Charlton I signed for four years and I felt they were capable of reaching the Premiership – but I am happy to play in the Championship and League One to learn my trade.”
Albion had an outside chance of making the League One play-offs under Dean Wilkins and Racon made an impressive start at the base of Wilkins’ midfield diamond supplementing the higher level nous provided by Leeds loanee Ian Westlake and the experienced Steve Thomson.
In a 2-1 home win over Swindon Town, when Albion came back from going a goal down in three minutes, Racon was denied a goal by the outstretched foot of visiting ‘keeper Peter Brezovan.
“I wasn’t surprised by the football,” he told Brian Owen, of the Argus. “I had been told it was a very good level.
“The intensity is good. You have to be switched on all the time. Communication was fine. I’ve been in England for six-and-a-half months and I speak English quite well.
“I understand football language. There are no worries about that.”
By the end of his second game (a creditable 0-0 draw at Nottingham Forest), Owen reported: “Albion fans were exploiting the great acoustics in the Bridgford End at Forest to sing, among other things, the name of their team’s latest Frenchman.
“They used the same tune as Arsenal fans when they used to hail Thierry, rather than Therry, Henry.”
Racon declared: “So far League One has been good for me. I came thinking about the end of the season and the only thing I am focused on is ending the season strongly with Brighton – then I will worry about what to do next.”
When reporter Andy Naylor asked about the possibility of joining Albion for good, Racon said: “Why not? I’m 23, almost 24, so I have to play. I cannot stay on the bench or play for the reserves.
“I did not come to England to play in League One but I have to play, so it doesn’t matter now if it is League One. It’s good here. I’ve played a lot of games quickly and when you play you are always happy.”
A 3-2 home defeat to Port Vale and a 2-0 loss at Southend scuppered Albion’s faint play-off ambitions and, after featuring in his eighth game, a 2-0 win at Bristol Rovers in the penultimate game of the season, Racon was recalled by Charlton just ahead of the last game of the season.
Born on 1 May 1984 in Villeneuve-Saint-George, a suburb south-east of Paris, Racon made his Olympique Marseille debut on his 20th birthday against RC Lens.
After a single appearance for Marseille, he spent the 2004-05 season on loan at Lorient and then decided to join Brittany-based tier two side En Avant Guincamp where he made 29 appearances over two years. The move to Charlton came in the summer of 2007.
In spite of Racon’s Premiership ambitions, he actually found himself back in League One with the Addicks and towards the end of the 2009-10 season was joined by Nicky Forster, on loan from the Albion, after he had fallen out with new manager Gus Poyet.
Earlier that season, there had been speculation linking Racon to a possible move to the Premiership or Championship. Blackburn, Fulham, Portsmouth and Leicester were rumoured to be interested in him.
But Addicks boss Phil Parkinson, who’d taken over from Pardew, told the News Shopper the midfielder was still a big part of his plans.
“I can only say we haven’t had any calls at all, so I don’t know where that came from,” he said. “Therry is a good player and it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few clubs interested in him because he is a very good player.”
However, at the end of his four-year deal with Charlton, and having played 115 matches, he joined south London neighbours Millwall on a two-year contract in August 2011.
Sadly, he badly injured his ankle during the second half of his debut, a Carling Cup win over Plymouth Argyle, and missed the whole of the rest of the season.
Racon went on as a substitute for the Lions in an early season 3-2 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday in August 2012 but he failed to gain a starting berth under Kenny Jackett and in January 2013 joined League One Portsmouth on loan, featuring in 16 matches.
Pompey boss Guy Whittingham said: “I think Therry was getting better and better with every game.
“The only proper thing missing was a goal and we kept badgering him, trying to get him one, but he wouldn’t take it on.
“He added some individual class to the midfield and the way he was able to keep the ball was very good.”
Released by Millwall in the summer of 2013, there was some speculation he might link up once again with his old Charlton boss Phil Parkinson at Bradford City.
Bradford Telegraph & Argus reporter Simon Parker described him thus: “A ball-playing central midfielder, Guadeloupe international Racon is known for his guile and ability to keep possession.”
Although born in France, Racon also qualified to play for Guadeloupe, the French island group in the southern Caribbean. He made his debut for them in 2009 and made two other appearances.
When nothing came of the potential move to Yorkshire, Racon rejoined Portsmouth in October 2013.
“I feel happy to be back and I’m hungry to get out onto the pitch as soon as possible,” he said. “I’ve been training by myself over the summer, but I feel fit and can’t wait to get started.
“I know what to expect from the fans. They do a fantastic job.”
After a further 16 appearances for Pompey, his time at Fratton Park brought an end to his time in English football.
On his return to France, he played for three different clubs making just a single appearance for Sedan, playing 49 times for Drouais between 2016 and 2018 and ended his playing days with Racing Columbes.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Racon is now a “young entrepreneur” and football agent.
In parallel lines 