Tag: Ronnie Howell

First signing Goodeve was bad day for Clough and Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goodeve in action for Watford against Albion’s Fred Binney

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Burnley graduate Ronnie Welch briefly captained the Albion

welch and wilsonTHE FOOTBALLING fortunes of two graduates from Burnley’s famous talent academy of the 1970s took quite different paths after the legendary Brian Clough signed them for Brighton.

While left-back Harry Wilson stayed for four years and enjoyed promotion success under Alan Mullery, midfielder Ronnie Welch left the club less than a year after he’d joined, ‘used’ (together with fellow midfielder Billy McEwan) as a makeweight in the transfer of Ken Tiler to the Albion.

The early signs following Welch’s arrival on the south coast had been positive. Although he and Wilson’s debuts at home to Aldershot on Boxing Day 1973 ended in a 1-0 defeat, results gradually picked up and, at the tender age of 21, Welch even found himself captaining the Albion in the absence of skipper Norman Gall.

Clough had turned to them as he tried to sort out a side who’d experienced a series of heavy defeats (the now-infamous 8-2 home loss to Bristol Rovers; a 4-0 reverse v non-league Walton & Hersham in the FA Cup, and a 4-1 loss away to Tranmere Rovers).

The tale of how Clough turned up at Turf Moor to sign them one lunchtime, only to find the place deserted apart from groundsman Roy Oldfield, has been recounted in said groundsman’s memoirs.

A fee of £70,000 for virtually untried youngsters was quite a lot of money in those days.

Midfielder Welch took over the no.4 shirt previously worn by Eddie Spearritt, who’d started the season as the club captain, and Wilson replaced George Ley, a big-money signing from Portsmouth the season before.

wilson and R WelchWelch stood just 5’6½” tall and weighed 10st 7lb, but Evening Argus football writer John Vinicombe was suitably impressed. His match report of the 1-0 home defeat to Aldershot was unearthed by thegoldstonewrap.com, and we learned: “After a subdued first-half, Welch had a storming second half against the Shots, impressing with his energy.”

Vinicombe reckoned Welch wasn’t as extrovert as Wilson “but is no less involved in midfield and has a fine turn of speed. He made one mistake through trying to play the ball instead of hoofing it away, but this can only be described as a ‘good’ fault.”

For a while, the Albion midfield featured the two Ronnies — Welch and Ronnie Howell became Clough’s preferred pairing — although Spearritt replaced the former Swindon player for a short spell, and competition for those spots hotted up at the end of February with the arrival of fiery Scot McEwan from Blackpool.

In his 10th match in Albion’s colours, Welch scored his first goal as Brighton beat Blackburn Rovers 3-0 in front of a 12,102 Goldstone crowd on 23 February 1974 (Barry Bridges scored twice), and he was on the scoresheet again in the 3 April 1974 midweek evening home game v Cambridge United, as the visitors were dispatched 4-1 (Bridges, McEwan and Howell the other scorers).

Clough was happy to give Welch the responsibility of captaining the side in Gall’s absence, although thegoldstonewrap.com reported: “Unfortunately, the burden of being skipper at such a young age affected his form for the side.”

Nevertheless, after Clough quit the Albion in July 1974, leaving his old sidekick in sole charge, Welch was in the starting line-up for the new season.

Ronnie W 74 pre-seasonAlbion got off to a cracking start with a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, and Welch played in the opening eight matches. But results didn’t go Taylor’s way and he shook up the midfield by introducing the experienced Ernie Machin, the former Coventry City captain, and also brought in Coventry’s Wilf Smith on loan.

Welch filled in at right-back for three matches and his last involvement in an Albion shirt was as a non-playing substitute away to Gillingham on 26 October.

Ever one for wheeler-dealing, Taylor had his eye on right-back Tiler at Chesterfield, but he had to exchange Welch and McEwan to land his man.

Welch had been born in Chesterfield on 26 September 1952, so it no doubt suited him down to the ground to move back home.

RW ChesterfieldHe was at Chesterfield for three years during the managerial tenure of the former Sheffield United legend Joe Shaw, but only played 24 games.

Welch at BostonIn the 1978-79 season he popped up at non-league Boston United where he played 39 matches plus four as a sub and scored four times.

It must have all seemed a long way from the heady days when he graduated from apprentice through to the Burnley first team. He featured three times for the England Youth team in February and March 1969 and Burnley awarded him a professional contract in September that year.

At the time, Burnley had a reputation for bringing through a succession of talented young players.

RW BurnleyHis breakthrough came on 30 January 1971, in a home 1-1 draw against Newcastle United, but it was to be his only appearance in the first team. There were a number of established midfield players ahead of him: the likes of Doug Collins, Mick Docherty and Martin Dobson, and later Geoff Nulty and Billy Ingham

While Welch may have ‘disappeared’ in a footballing sense, when in June 2019 a picture of him was posted by someone on a Chesterfield FC history Facebook page – the excellent Sky is Blue – a flurry of followers came forward to identify him, including his daughter and sister! It was said he now lives in the New Whittington area of Chesterfield.

Boylers’ service appreciated both sides of the Atlantic

MIDFIELD enforcer John Boyle was born on Christmas Day 1946 and went on to play more than 250 games for Chelsea.

Towards the end of his career, he spent two months on loan at Brighton trying to bolster the Albion’s ailing midfield in the dying days of Pat Saward’s spell as manager.

Indeed, Boyle was in that unenviable position of being at the club when the manager who brought him in was turfed out, and the man who replaced him (in this case none other than Brian Clough) swiftly dispensed with his services and sent him back to Chelsea.

By then, Boyle’s time at Chelsea was at an end and, after his 10-game Goldstone spell was also over, he went the shorter distance across London to play for Orient, before ending his playing days in America with Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Born in Motherwell, Boyle went to the same Our Lady’s High Secondary school that spawned Celtic greats Billy McNeill and Bobby Murdoch and, just around the time he turned 15, his stepbrother, who lived in Battersea, organised through a contact they had with then boss Tommy Docherty for him to go down to London for a trial.

He did enough to impress and 10 days later Chelsea sent him a letter inviting him to join their youth team, together with the train ticket from Motherwell to London.

“When I got off the train, Tommy Doc was waiting for me to take me to my digs,” Boyle told chelseafc.com in a recent interview. “I stayed in the digs that Bobby Tambling and Barry Bridges had stayed in before.”

Boyle – known to all as ‘Boylers’ – made his debut in the 1965 League Cup semi-final against Aston Villa and, at 18, it couldn’t have been much more memorable.

“I played on Monday in a Scottish youth trial and Wednesday I was playing against Aston Villa in the semi-final of the League Cup,” Boyle recounted. “After 20 odd minutes, I tackled this guy and he got injured and carried off. The crowd then booed me, he limped back on and then the crowd booed me more!

“It went to 2-0, to 2-2 and then with about 10 minutes to go I got the ball 30 yards out, rolled it forward and went crack and it went into the top corner of the net. I remember Terry Venables ran up to me and said ‘John, I am so pleased for you,’ and that was my first game. To score the winning goal in your first game was Roy of the Rovers stuff.”

He went on to become Chelsea’s youngest ever cup finalist when he was in the team that won the trophy. In those days, it was played over two legs, and, after beating Leicester City 3-2 in the home game, they drew the away leg 0-0. His teammates in the second leg were Bert Murray and the aforementioned Bridges, who he would go on to play alongside at Brighton in 1973.

The Goldstone Ground was familiar territory to him. On 18 February 1967, he was famously sent off for the visitors in a FA Cup 4th round tie when Albion held their more illustrious opponents to a 1-1 draw in front of a packed house. Chelsea went on to win the replay 4-0 and that year went all the way to the final where Boyle was part of the side who lost 2-1 to Spurs. In another fiery FA Cup tie between Brighton and Chelsea, in January 1972, Boyle was Chelsea’s substitute as they won 2-0 in a game which ended 10 a side, George Ley and Ron Harris being sent off.

john boyle chels blueWhen Docherty moved on from Stamford Bridge, and Dave Sexton took over as manager, Boyle’s involvement in the side was more sporadic, as he told fan Ian Morris on his Rowdies blog.

“Dave appreciated my energy and willingness, but I don’t think he really fancied me as a player. Basically, I became an odd-job man, filling in here and there, and in football it doesn’t help to get that reputation,” he said.

Although he wasn’t in the squad that beat Leeds in the 1970 FA Cup Final, he was back in the side when Chelsea beat Real Madrid over two legs in May 1971 to win the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

After Brighton’s disastrous 1972-73 season in the second tier – the general consensus is that they’d not properly been prepared for promotion and didn’t invest sufficiently in the team to have a fighting chance of staying up – the side continued to be in the doldrums as they adjusted to life back in the old Third Division.

Manager Saward was struggling to come up with the right formula and, having transferred former captain Brian Bromley to Reading, sought to boost his midfield with the experienced Boyle, who was surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge.

With the paperwork signed on 20 September, Boyle was handed the no.8 shirt and made his debut alongside Ronnie Howell in a 0-0 draw away to Grimsby Town.

He made his home debut the following Saturday, but the Albion went down 1-0. Three days later, this time partnering Eddie Spearritt in the middle, Boyle helped Albion to a 1-0 win at Oldham Athletic.

After a 3-1 defeat away to Blackburn Rovers, at home to Halifax Town Boyle had a new midfield partner in John Templeman. But again they lost by a single goal.

With Howell back alongside him for the home game v Shrewsbury Town, Albion prevailed 2-0 in what turned out to be Saward’s last game in charge. Perhaps by way of another interesting historical note, Boyle was subbed off to be replaced by Dave Busby, who became the first black player to play for the Albion.

Caretaker boss Glen Wilson retained Boyle in midfield for the midweek 4-0 hammering of Southport and he was also in the line-up for Clough’s first game in charge, a 0-0 home draw against York City on 3 November. But the 2-2 draw away to Huddersfield Town on 10 November was his last game for the Albion.

As someone who’d gained something of a reputation as enjoying the social side of things at Chelsea, particularly with the likes of Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke and Alan Birchenall, it maybe doesn’t come as too big a surprise to learn that Clough advised him “always buy two halves instead of a pint, or people will think you’re a drinker”.

Boyle was still only 28 when he tried his hand in Florida in February 1975, being appointed Tampa Bay Rowdies captain, and leading them to victory in the Super Bowl against Portland Timbers in August that year.

His former Chelsea teammate Derek Smethurst scored 18 goals in that inaugural season, playing up front alongside ex-West Ham striker Clyde Best, while former Crystal Palace ‘keeper Paul Hammond was in goal.

A newspaper article about Boyle’s contribution resides on tampapix.com, a hugely entertaining site featuring loads of players of yesteryear who turned out for the Rowdies.

It somewhat flamboyantly says: “‘Captain Rowdie’ John Boyle was a barrel-chested midfielder with legs as white as snow and hair as thin as a wheat crop during a summer drought.  He became the role model for the club, as much because of his leadership as well as the fact that he knocked opponents ‘grass-over-tea kettle’ when they came his way.”

He retired from playing in November the same year but, two years later, he stepped in as Rowdies coach when Eddie Firmani quit. However, he had also gone into the pub business in the UK and ultimately the need to be behind the bar at Simon the Tanner in Bermondsey, with his wife Madeline, meant he had to turn his back on the sunshine state and return to London.

Unable to resist the lure of the States once more, Boyle played five matches for indoor league side Phoenix Inferno in the 1980-81 season.

In that wide-ranging interview Boyle gave to chelseafc.com earlier this year, he said: “I wouldn’t change a thing in my life, I am just grateful for what I have done. I have been blessed and one of the great things about it is 50 years later you can still talk about it! I was a lucky young man to have played when I did and meet the people I did.”