Tag: Spencer Vignes

Winger Mark Barham was no stranger to Wembley

1 Barham progBRIGHTON’S wingers in the 1991 Division Two play-off final had previously been on opposing sides in a Wembley final.

Mark Barham was a winner with Norwich City as they beat Sunderland 1-0 in the 1985 League Cup Final and Clive Walker missed a penalty for the Wearsiders.

Six years on, Barham had levelled for Albion in the first leg of the semi-final at home to Millwall (more of which later) and Walker got the third when the Seagulls upturned the form book and beat Bruce Rioch’s side 4-1.

The 6-2 aggregate victory pitched the Albion against Neil Warnock’s Notts County under the shadow of the famous Twin Towers of Wembley.

Walker saw a Wembley post prevent him from scoring as Brighton’s dream of promotion was ended in a 3-1 defeat.

Folkestone-born Barham joined the Seagulls on a two-year contract after an initial trial and made his debut as a substitute for Kevin Bremner in a 1-0 home defeat to Oxford United on 30 December 1989.

He got his first start two days later in a 3-0 defeat at West Brom, who he’d played for briefly under ex-Ipswich and Arsenal midfielder Brian Talbot earlier that season.

On the second Saturday of the new decade he scored his first Albion goal in a 1-1 draw at home to Barnsley and had played 18 games by the end of the season.

Young John Robinson was beginning to get first team opportunities but Barham managed 42 appearances in 1990-91, culminating in that Wembley appearance against Notts County, although he was subbed off on 10 occasions.

That play-off first leg game against Millwall was Lloyd’s selection in Paul Camillin’s 2009 Match of My Life book (www.knowthescorebooks.com). He said: “Perry Digweed put in one of his incredibly long punts and the ball was about to bounce on the edge of the Millwall box when the centre half (David) Thompson ducked under it, I think intending to allow it to bounce through to Brian Horne in the visitors’ goal.

“But as he took his eye off the ball he also turned his back and the ball actually landed on the back of his head and squirted off right into Mark’s path. The little winger raced in and cracked the ball into the bottom corner. It really was a vital goal so close to the interval and the fans knew it.”

The goal also gave Barham much personal pleasure because he’d not seen eye-to-eye with Millwall boss Rioch when he’d been his manager at Middlesbrough.

With Robinson winning the shirt more frequently in the disastrous relegation season of 1991-92, Barham managed 25 appearances plus two as a sub but he was released at the end of the season and moved on to Shrewsbury Town.

Born on 12 July 1962, Barham’s football career began when he joined Norwich as an apprentice in 1978.

He was part of the City youth team that won the South East Counties League in 1979-80 and in the same season, at the tender age of just 17, manager John Bond gave him his first team debut. No fairytale start, though, as City lost 5-0 to Manchester United at Old Trafford.

However, he went on to make himself a regular in the City first team, making 213 appearances and scoring 25 goals for the Canaries.

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Barham in action for England v Australia

He also won two full England caps on the 1983 tour of Australia in a side captained by Peter Shilton and also featuring Trevor Francis and Terry Butcher. Barham spoke warmly of Bond when he died in 2012 telling the local pinkun:

“When I first came up from Folkestone I had what you might call long hair. The first time he played me in a five-a-side in training he told me ‘I’m letting you play this one but if you don’t go out and get your hair cut you won’t be playing another one’.”

Barham continued: “He was my first manager, he gave me my debut at 17 and I went on to play for England so he must have done something right.

“He loved wingers but you had to adhere to certain rules. You had to play wide with your foot on the line, it was your responsibility to score goals, get crosses in and defend at the same time.”

A knee injury suffered in a match against Spurs was a major blow to Barham’s career. He ruptured cruciate ligaments in his left knee and he ended up in plaster for 14 months.

Although he remained at Carrow Road for four more seasons, Dale Gordon and Ruel Fox emerged as challengers for his place and eventually, in July 1987, Barham moved on to Huddersfield Town.

It was there that he teamed up with former Albion full back Chris Hutchings who spoke favourably about his time on the south coast with the Seagulls. Barham only played 27 games for the Terriers and, with former England striker Malcolm MacDonald replacing Steve Smith as manager, found himself released on a free transfer in 1988.

He joined Middlesbrough on an 18-month contract but as Rioch’s Middlesbrough were relegated he only played four games in eight months and was on the move again, ending up at non-league Hythe Town.

Determined he still had what it took to hold down a league career, Barham wrote to all 92 clubs. He joined Division Two West Brom and played four times for them but they didn’t keep him on.

Barham tight crop“I knew I hadn’t suddenly become a bad player and that I could succeed again,” Barham told the Albion matchday programme in March 1990. “So I wrote to all the clubs again and that’s when Barry (Lloyd) contacted me. His was only one of six replies.

“Since being here I’ve found that all Hutch said about the club and the area was right and now I want to prove myself, show that managers were wrong to ignore me and enjoy my time in Brighton in the hope that my two-year contract will be extended.”

After the disappointments elsewhere, Barham certainly got his career going again at Brighton.

He scored once in eight matches for the Shrews but his career was on the wane in 1992-93 and he had short spells in Hong Kong and played non-league with the likes of Sittingbourne, Southwick and Fakenham Town, who he managed for 20 months from April 1996.

According to Mike Davage’s excellent article Canaries Flown From The Nest in the 1998-99 club handbook, Barham joined Mulbarton in February 1998.

At a Norwich centenary dinner in 2002, Barham told Davage he’d had more than 20 operations on his knee. By the time he was interviewed by Spencer Vignes for Albion’s matchday programme in 2015, he’d had 38 operations on it!

After retiring from the game he ran a toolhire business in Norwich and according to his LinkedIn profile he’s now a business development manager with facilities management company, Mitie.

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  • Pictures show Barham in Albion’s NOBO kit, from the Wembley play-offs programme, a portrait from a matchday programme and in a team line-up wearing the dreadful pyjama kit.

All-time Albion hero Peter Ward scored inside a minute of debut

ward v bpool

ARMS aloft in familiar salute to yet another goal, the smiling footballer in a black and white picture on a Florida football club’s website dates back 40 years!

All around the world, it seems, Peter Ward’s goalscoring exploits for Brighton & Hove Albion are still the stuff of legend.

Four decades may have come and gone but the memories of this mercurial talent have never dimmed.

FC Tampa Rangers say of their youth coach: “During the 1976–77 season at Brighton, he scored 36 goals, beating the club record and winning him the golden boot.

“He is still revered by Brighton fans who sing a song dreaming of a team in which every player is Peter Ward: ‘We all live in a Wardy Wonderland’.”

If the word legend gets bandied about a little too frequently, where Peter Ward is concerned it is perfectly apt.

1-ward-scoresFew Brighton players have managed to approach the esteem in which this extraordinary talent is held by supporters who saw him score the goals which took the Seagulls from perennial third tier also-rans to a place among the elite.

It takes genuine talent, bravery and skill to score goals at all three levels but Ward delivered. In 220 games for the Albion (plus seven as sub) he scored 95 goals.

In his splendid 2007 book, A Few Good Men (The Breedon Books Publishing Company Limited), Spencer Vignes refers back to 1980 and says of Ward: “No centre forward since has managed to steal his crown. Some have come close – Garry Nelson and Bobby Zamora spring to mind – but Wardy remains special, the golden boy of what proved to be a golden time for the club.”

I was sorry to have missed Ward’s latest return to Brighton when in 2016 he joined some of the Goldstone heroes of the past at the Theatre Royal.

Impishly donning a curly wig on top of his now bald pate to make his grand entrance, Ward showed he’d still got something of the showman about him.

There was never a shortage of superlatives to describe his skills on the pitch. While his dad Colin was a compositor on the Tamworth Herald, his son’s talents with a football filled dozens of column inches in a variety of football publications.

PW green BWAlan Mullery, the manager who benefited most from his audacious skill and compared him to the great Jimmy Greaves, said: “He was just the skinny little kid who could do fantastic things with a football.”

Mullery told Shoot: “Peter has the ability to kill a ball no matter how it comes at him. His pace over short bursts is incredible and he shoots powerfully and accurately with either foot.”

He continued: “Above all else, Peter’s strength on the ball, for a player of his stature, is remarkable. He fools defenders who believe they can easily knock him flying.”

Two of Ward’s former teammates told Vignes what made him so special. “He had this long stride that just seemed to take him away from people,” said Peter O’Sullivan. “One step and he’d be gone. Once he got goal-side of a player, that was it really – bang! Nobody ever seemed to be able to catch him, even in training.”

Brian Horton joined the club around the same time as Ward and said of his younger teammate: “He was this thin, scrawny little player that needed to learn the game, but his finishing was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.”

Nottingham Forest fans will have less happy memories of a player the managerial duo of Clough and Taylor took to the City Ground as they strived to replace Garry Birtles and Trevor Francis with any pairing from Ward, Ian Wallace and Justin Fashanu.

It just didn’t work out for Wardy at Forest although he tells Vignes in A Few Good Men: “I had a great time at Forest. I got on well with the lads and had a laugh.”

While he always got on well with Taylor, his relationship with the erratic Clough was a lot stormier which meant he was in and out of the side.

When Lichfield-born Ward left school he was only 4’8” and because he was told he was too small to make a career playing football he got a job as an apprentice fitter at Rolls Royce and played local football in the Derby area.

The detail of those early years can be discovered in Matthew Horner’s excellent biography of Ward (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media).

Scout Jim Phelps recommended Ward to the then non-league Burton Albion manager Ken Gutteridge having worked with the freescoring player at a Sunday afternoon side, Borrowash United.

After joining the newly-promoted Brewers initially in the Reserves, the 1974-75 season was only a month old when he made his first team bow alongside former England internationals Frank Wignall and Ian Storey-Moore – and promptly scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over Tamworth, his hometown team.

By the middle of November that season, with 10 goals to his name, Ward’s scoring exploits had attracted the attention of league clubs and Brighton boss Peter Taylor, with plenty of contacts in the area, put in a bid.

The Burton chairman, Jim Bradbury, went public on the approach – which Gutteridge found completely unacceptable. He promptly resigned… and before long was appointed to Taylor’s backroom staff!

In the meantime, Burton resisted Brighton’s money and it later emerged that Gutteridge had told Taylor he would only take up the post on condition that Ward would eventually be brought to the Goldstone.

Taylor stuck to his word and eventually signed Ward for £4,000 in the close season of 1975.

The rest, as they say, is history and in researching for this piece it was difficult to sift through the multitude of material from my scrapbooks, programmes, books and other places to condense it all into something manageable.

Because of his popularity, most of the story is familiar to fans of a certain generation anyway and anyone who has not yet read Horner’s book should get themselves a copy because it is rich with material from Ward himself and others who played alongside him or observed him.

Scoring within 50 seconds of his Albion debut away to Hereford United in front of the Match of the Day cameras couldn’t have been a better start and the partnership he struck up with beanpole Ian Mellor was key to promotion from the old Division 3.

For what at times seemed like a fantasy coming to life, it’s intriguing to learn that Ward’s watching of the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me on the eve of two games was followed the next day by him scoring hat-tricks.

In the 1977-78 season, he saw it before making his England under 21 debut at the Goldstone against Norway in a 6-0 win, and, later the same season, he saw it again before an away game at Mansfield and scored three once again!

It seemed a natural progression that Ward would make it to the full England team and he did eventually – winning one cap for a six-minute substitute appearance against Australia in May 1980.

In fact he made the full England squad three years earlier for a game against Luxembourg but wasn’t involved in the match itself and, by his own admission, reckons he blotted his copybook with manager Ron Greenwood by being ill in the room he shared with Trevor Brooking after going out drinking with Brian Greenhoff.

ward coverIn the way that all good things must come to an end, the beginning of the end of the fairytale came as Albion struggled to come to terms with their first season at the top level.

Ward was certainly not as prolific as he had been lower down the football pyramid although, as reported in my previous blog post, the arrival of Ray Clarke helped him rediscover his form to finish that season as top goalscorer with 17.

However, a return to his Midlands home territory looked increasingly likely. He nearly went to Derby in November 1979 but a swap deal with Gerry Daly fell through, and Forest also wanted him but Clough walked away from the deal.

Eleven months later, though, Clough and Taylor were back in for him when Birtles was sold to Man Utd, paying the Albion £450,000 for his services. Andy Ritchie, being displaced by Birtles’ move to United, promptly replaced Ward at the Albion.

Ward made just 33 appearances for Forest, scoring seven goals, and in 1981-82 went on loan to Seattle Sounders.

In the autumn of 1982, Brighton brought him back to the Goldstone on loan and it was in the fourth game of a 16-game spell that he scored (above) what he considered his favourite goal, the winner against his boyhood idols Manchester United at the Goldstone on 6 November 1982.

Ward was part of the Albion line-up that won that memorable FA Cup fifth round tie at Anfield en route to the 1983 FA Cup Final but it was to prove his penultimate game as the eccentric Clough quashed Ward’s desire to stay with the Seagulls and that potential trip to Wembley.

At that time, Clough’s Forest hadn’t been to a FA Cup Final and he told Ward: “Son, I’ve never been to a Cup Final and neither will you.”

That spelled the end of Ward’s time at the City Ground and by the end of 1983 he was sold to Vancouver Whitecaps for £20,000; the beginning of what became a 13-year career playing mainly indoor football in America, where he still lives.

• Pictures from various sources: the matchday programme, Evening Argus and Shoot! / Goal.

Flamboyant Frank Worthington’s career included a brief Brighton stopover

3-fw-albionFRANK Worthington was one of football’s genuine entertainers and it was a privilege to witness his season at The Goldstone between 1984 and 1985.

An all-too-brief England career which saw him win eight caps in 1974 was a long way behind him by the time his former Huddersfield Town teammate Chris Cattlin secured his signature for Brighton, but what the legs could no longer do, the brain more than made up for.

He was on the scoresheet in only his second game, a bruising encounter when Notts County were beaten 2-1, even though Albion played the second half with only 10 men – centre backs Eric Young and Jeff Clarke having been hospitalised by clashes with Justin Fashanu.

Worthington went on to make 30 appearances (plus five as sub) scoring eight times in total. Two of the goals came in his penultimate match against Wolverhampton Wanderers, one being a penalty struck so hard that it broke the hand of their ‘keeper Tim Flowers.

In June 2013, in the Huddersfield Examiner, Cattlin told interviewer Doug Thomson: “He did a good job for me. Frank wasn’t only a great player, but a great bloke as well, a dedicated trainer and a great bloke to have around a club.”

Worthington reflected on his time at the club in a matchday programme interview with Spencer Vignes in 2003. “I’d known Chris since my early days at Huddersfield,” he said. “I’d liked him so when he asked whether or not I’d be prepared to come to Brighton, I didn’t really have to think too long about it. They were a good side that hadn’t long been out of the First Division, so it sounded attractive.”

He continued: “We had some good players and certainly had no problems finding the net. I felt as though I was playing OK and the fans seemed to like me. But Chris did have this thing where he would chop and change the team around quite a bit, even if we were winning. He never really seemed sure what his best side was, and I think our form began to suffer because of it.”

Worthington reckoned it led to disharmony in the dressing room, and, for his own part, while he was good friends with Jimmy Case and Hans Kraay, he couldn’t say the same for Chris Hutchings or Kieran O’Regan. Albion finished sixth in the table, three points off automatic promotion and, although he was offered a new one-year contract, he decided to move on to try his hand at management.

So Brighton was only a brief stop-off in a 20-year career which saw Worthington score 236 goals in 757 league games. Add in games he also played in the United States with Philadelphia Fury and Tampa Bay Rowdies, in South Africa, Sweden and in English non-league, and the games total amounts to an amazing 828.

Halifax-born Worthington’s father was a pre-war professional and his two brothers, David and Bob, were also professionals. Unlike his brothers, the hometown club dithered over signing Frank and Huddersfield jumped in and secured his signature.

After manager Ian Greaves selected him for the opening fixture of the 1969-70 season, he clocked up 100 consecutive appearances for the Terriers.

The flamboyant Worthington famously almost joined Liverpool in 1972 but the deal was called off when he failed a medical due to a reported high blood pressure reading.

Liverpool signed John Toshack instead while Worthington went to Leicester City for £85,000.

Having made nearly a quarter of a million pounds from the sale of David Nish to Derby County, Leicester boss Jimmy Bloomfield had a useful kitty which he splashed on Worthington, Dennis Rofe, Keith Weller, Jon Sammels and Alan Birchenall.

Worthington scored on his Leicester debut at Old Trafford and in an article with Goal magazine on 21 October 1972, he said: “It’s different playing for Leicester City compared with Huddersfield. At Huddersfield the emphasis was on hard running and effort – here it is on skill, and there is a hell of a lot of skill in this side.”

In the same publication two years later, he had finished the 1973-74 season with 25 goals to his name and he was full of compliments for Bloomfield.

“Basically I am a player who relies on skill and that fits perfectly into Jim’s plans,” he said. “I always think that teams reflect the style and outlook of their managers. That’s why Leicester’s philosophy is that there is no substitute for skill.”

His time at Leicester lasted five years and spanned more than 200 appearances before he switched to Bolton Wanderers – where one audacious goal he scored against Ipswich remains a YouTube favourite – and then Birmingham City, helping both sides to promotions.

In 1982 he played for Leeds, the following season Sunderland and the next, Southampton, before pitching up at The Goldstone.

Worthington’s first go at management, while continuing to play, came with two years at Tranmere – and his first signing was Albion’s Ian Muir. He told Vignes: “Ian Muir was a fantastic forward with great touch. He did things in training you just wouldn’t believe, yet he wasn’t even making the side at Brighton under Chris.”

Muir became a hero on Wirral, scoring 141 goals as Rovers won promotion twice and won the Associate Members Cup at Wembley in 1991. By then, Worthington was long gone, having moved on to Preston, then Stockport County, and, after a succession of brief stays with various non-league clubs, ended up with hometown club Halifax Town, where he was briefly joined by Case.

Albion’s shirt sponsor during his season with the club was Phoenix Brewery. Quite apt for a player who was famously quoted as saying: “I’ve squandered fortunes on booze, birds and gambling – it’s better than wasting it!”

Tellingly, his autobiography, published in 1995, entitled One Hump or Two, was a classic tell-all romp of a colourful career on and off the pitch.

Worthington died aged 72 on 22 March 2021 and, in a statement, his wife Carol said: “Frank brought joy to so many people throughout his career and in his private life. He will be greatly missed by everyone who loved him so much.”

The great man’s lifestyle spawned many eye-catching headlines over the years and there is no shortage of stories about him to be found on the internet.

Follow the links for just three examples.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/06/frank-worthington-denies-being-diagnosed-with-alzheimers-disease

http://www.90min.com/posts/26691-england-s-wasted-talent-1-frank-worthington

http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~sph2/lufc/mag/worthing.htm

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Pictures from my scrapbook show Worthington in Goal magazine in Huddersfield and Leicester’s colours, in Albion’s Phoenix Brewery-sponsored shirt and a classic headline. Pictures also from the Albion matchday programme.

‘Keeper Perry Digweed’s in and out 12 years with the Albion

THEY say goalkeepers are different and Perry Digweed certainly came into that category with his name alone!

Digweed switched from Craven Cottage to play for the Seagulls when signed for £150,000 by former Fulham favourite, Alan Mullery, in January 1981.

It seems remarkable to record that he was still at the club – indeed earning the player of the season accolade – a decade later.

In fact his Albion career stretched to 12 years, by which time you’d have imagined he would have racked up around 400 appearances.

That his total number of games played for the Albion amounted to 182 reflects periods when he was either out of favour courtesy of various managerial changes or sidelined through injury.

Born in Chelsea on 26 October 1959, the young Digweed started playing football at Park Walk Primary School and he was soon featuring in inter-school matches played at Battersea Park. It was only when he was 12 that he started playing in goal and before long he gained representative honours, playing for the West London Schools under-13 side.

He played at Highbury in one match but he started training with Fulham’s youngsters from the age of 13. Ken Craggs, Mullery’s no.2 at Brighton, was in charge of Fulham’s youth team at the time, but Digweed didn’t get an immediate offer of an apprenticeship after he left St Michael’s School; instead he became a trainee salesman at Covent Garden market (his dad ran a busy greengrocer’s close to Putney Bridge).

Craggs finally offered him the apprenticeship six months later, in September 1976, and only four months afterwards manager Bobby Campbell gave Digweed his first team debut in a 2-0 defeat at home to Bolton Wanderers. Fulham were in the old Second Division at the time and the form of Irish international Gerry Peyton restricted Digweed to only 15 league games.

A chance to step up a division came following one of Mullery’s public fits of pique with Brighton’s first choice Graham Moseley in the middle of the 1980-81 season. He put reserve goalkeeper John Phillips into the Albion line-up for the Boxing Day match at home to Crystal Palace and, although Moseley was restored to the line-up for three matches at the start of 1981, on Craggs’ recommendation, Mullery returned to his former club to sign Digweed. The young ‘keeper made his debut in a 2-0 defeat away to West Bromwich Albion on 17 January 1981.

DIG BWAfter only three games in the old First Division for Brighton, Digweed was called up to the England under 21 squad, although Leeds’ John Lukic and Blackpool’s Iain Hesford were chosen to play ahead of him.

A colourful insight into Digweed’s lifestyle came in Spencer Vignes’ excellent book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books Publishing, 2007) in the section about ‘rival’ Moseley.

“Very much the boy about town with his dandy dress sense and coiffured hair, Perry looked more like one of Adam’s Ants than a goalkeeper,” wrote Vignes, who discovered Digweed and Moseley got on well in spite of the rivalry.

“Perry was a single boy who still lived in London and would tell you all about his conquests the night before,” Moseley told Vignes. “He was a great lad and a lot of fun to be with.”

Dig colourIn one of many matchday programme profiles, Digweed talked about his love of looking round the Kings Road, Chelsea, clothes shops on his way back home from training. He also liked his golf and told the matchday programme in August 1991: “I try and play as much as I can and get quite a few invitations to pro-am events along with other footballers and celebrities.”

Remarkably at one point in his topsy turvy career with the Seagulls he was loaned to Chelsea and played three top tier games for them in the 1987-88 season, when John Hollins was their manager. He featured in a 3-3 draw away to Coventry City, a 0-0 home draw v Everton and a 4-4 draw at Oxford United.

“Playing wise it couldn’t have been better,” he told Dave Beckett in an interview. “I used to watch Chelsea always as a youngster, I was only born round the corner, so when circumstances meant I ended up in the first team I was overjoyed.”

He said Chelsea were keen to keep him until the end of the season but manager Barry Lloyd called him back to the Goldstone because he needed the goalkeeping cover.

Having watched the great Peter Bonetti keep goal for Chelsea for many years, Digweed was delighted to receive specialist coaching from the ex-England goalkeeper once a week at Brighton. When he’d been at Fulham, ex-QPR stopper Mike Kelly, who went on to work with England’s goalkeepers, had been his specialist coach.

Indeed he said it was through Kelly’s connections that he got a brief look-in with the England Youth set-up, although it was difficult to dislodge first choice Chris Woods, who went on to become a full England international.

Apart from Moseley, Digweed’s other competition for the number one spot during his time at the Goldstone came from the likes of Joe Corrigan, John Keeley and Mark Beeney.

He played under five different managers and, while other goalkeepers came and went, Digweed remained on the Albion’s books and played in some memorable games – as well as missing out on plenty of others. For instance, he had the green jersey in the famous 1983 FA Cup 5th round 2-1 victory at Anfield (although Moseley returned for the later rounds) but he was also between the sticks when Albion won 1-0 at Anfield the season before.

“Funnily enough, I’ve never lost against Liverpool in the four first-team and two reserve matches I’ve played against them,” he told Beckett.

Digweed memorably saved a Chris Kiwomya penalty as Brighton beat Ipswich to reach the play-offs in 1991 but one of his personal highlights was a mid-season game Albion played against the Nigeria national side in Lagos during Mike Bailey‘s reign.

“It was unbelievable,” he said. “The people were poverty-stricken yet all the money they had went on these huge football stadiums. There were trumpets and music going all the way through….it’ll take soomething to beat playing in front of nearly 100,000 fanatical Nigerians.”

Any Albion fans at the Brighton v West Brom game at the Goldstone on 21 September 1988 will wince with the recollection of Digweed being injured in the most intimate of places.

Forward John Paskin lunged in attempting to score and his studs tore Digweed’s urethra. Not surprisingly the ‘keeper was forced off the pitch but I recall he went off under his own steam rather than on a stretcher which, when the extent of the injury was revealed later, seemed remarkable!

Digweed lost four-and-a-half pints of blood through the wound, was in hospital for three weeks initially and required four operations to repair the damage.

“I realise now I was lucky that they weren’t just internal injuries otherwise it would have been even more serious and who knows what could have happened,” Digweed told Beckett in the matchday programme.

“I had a catheter bag and everything for a while and I couldn’t even lay down because it was so uncomfortable. I had to sleep in an armchair for three weeks.”

A subsequent article by Vignes in a later matchday programme revealed how the club tried to get him back playing sooner than the medical people advised.

“The doctors had said not to play for the rest of the season,” he told Vignes. “When I got out (of hospital) Brighton tried to rush me back into training and I said ‘Er, I don’t think so’. Sometimes some things are more important than football.”

In fact it would be 18 months before he played his next first team game, largely because Keeley seized the opportunity to establish himself as a more than useful no.1. Digweed didn’t reappear between the Albion sticks until March 1990, stepping back onto the Goldstone pitch for a midweek match against Plymouth Argyle which the Seagulls won 2-1.

In August 1990, through impeccable sources, I was able to break the story exclusively that Albion were transferring Keeley to Oldham Athletic for £238,000. Barry Lloyd briefly flirted with erratic American Tony Meola in goal before restoring Digweed to the first team.

He ended up playing 52 games over the course of a season extended by involvement in the play-off final against Notts County – his highest season’s tally in all his years with the Albion. And he was voted player of the season.

In an Argus supplement previewing the Wembley final, Digweed was interviewed by Mike Donovan and couldn’t hide his delight that instead of watching from the sidelines, as he did in 1983, he’d be out on the pitch.

“It’s the biggest match of my career,” he declared.

The only other season Digweed came close to what you might refer to as first choice was in Chris Cattlin’s 1985-86 squad when he played in 41 games, including a memorable FA Cup third round 2-0 win away to Newcastle when, according to the definitive Albion history book Seagulls! The Story of Brighton & Hove Albion FC (by Tim Carder and Roger Harris): “Perry Digweed was magnificent between the posts.”

By 1992-93, Beeney had established himself as first choice and after Digweed had stepped in when Beeney served a one-game suspension, manager Lloyd declared: “We believe we have on our books the best two ‘keepers in Division Two.”

Older readers will recall how later that season Beeney pulled off the biggest save in Albion’s history: the proceeds of his sale to Leeds United being used to pay off the Inland Revenue who were threatening to close the club down.

With Beeney transferred, Digweed came back in for the final three games of the season, the 3-2 home win over Chester turning out to be his last game for the club.

When finally released by the Albion in June 1993, he joined Wimbledon initially without getting a game but then had two years at Watford where he featured in 29 league games. Among his teammates there was former Albion defender Keith Dublin.

Since leaving the football scene, Digweed has had interests in property and run executive chauffeur-driven cars for racehorse owner Sheikh Mohammed, and other wealthy Arab families.

He also had an acting role (playing  a character called Marsden) alongside Vinnie Jones and the stand-up comic Omid Djalili in the 2001 film Mean Machine – a fact that earns him a mention on the goalkeepersaredifferent.com website!

On the same site, bearing in mind I like a parallel line, I was interested to note the aforementioned Meola had also appeared on the silver screen since giving up playing, with a cameo role as a card player in the 2001 Jason Priestly film Zigs.

  • Pictures from my scrapbook show Digweed’s look of despair as Notts County score in the 1991 play-off final at Wembley; his portrait in the 1983 FA Cup Final programme, and another portrait from the matchday programme.

Barry Lloyd’s turbulent time as Brighton boss

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HISTORY may have judged Barry Lloyd’s reign as Brighton manager unfairly: while bleak times cloud the memory, the former Fulham captain did chalk up some successes.

For instance, it’s worth remembering he put together two of the most entertaining strike partnerships in Albion’s history.

However, when managers start getting involved in the boardroom, it’s probably not going to end well and that certainly proved to be the case after Lloyd was handed the role of managing director.

Frankly, there is probably not enough space in one blog post to cover the various off-the-field shenanigans that were an ugly backdrop to the Lloyd era.

From an outsider’s perspective, it appeared he was the unfortunate public figure put up to deal with a huge amount of flak generated by others wielding power in the background.

Inheriting the hotseat at a time of financial turmoil, from a distance it could be said he did well to win promotion as well as coming mighty close to restoring the elite status lost in 1983.

But fans who had seen huge success under high profile bosses were not best pleased to see their club’s fortunes put in the hands of someone who had previously only managed outside of the league.

Let’s look first at Lloyd’s playing career because, from early on, he was obviously a shrewd observer who made contacts he would be able to call on in later years.

Born in Hillingdon on 19 February 1949, Barry’s early footballing ability was rewarded with selection for the Middlesex and South of England schoolboy sides. He was signed up by Chelsea and was in their 1964-65 youth team alongside former Albion right-back Stewart Henderson in defence and future England international and Chelsea legend Peter Osgood up front.

In an extended interview with Fulham’s club historian, Dennis Turner, Lloyd recalled: “I chose Chelsea because under Tommy Docherty’s management they were an exciting team, with the likes of Osgood, Charlie Cooke and Bobby Tambling.”

Former Albion player Dave Sexton was the reserve-team manager – “a really nice man and terrific coach” – and Lloyd says in his four years at Stamford Bridge he learned a lot.

He made his debut in the top flight in April 1967 aged just 18, but competition for places was tough and, after only 10 first team appearances, in January 1969 he moved to neighbours Fulham with their centre half John Dempsey moving in the opposite direction.

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Fulham were struggling for survival in the old Second Division having been relegated from the top flight and the man who signed him, Bill Dodgin, was their fourth manager in a year.

They dropped down into the old Third Division but as part of his rebuilding, Dodgin made Lloyd captain in succession to the legendary Johnny Haynes, who was coming to the end of his career.

Lloyd is pictured below getting in a header against the Albion at the Goldstone, watched by John Napier (left) and Stewart Henderson. The packed East Terrace never looked like that by the time Lloyd was sitting in the Albion manager’s chair.

Lloyd at Goldstone

Fulham regained their tier two status in 1971 when they went up from Division III as champions. Manager Dodgin was sent packing in the summer of 1972, though, and Alec Stock took over, famously bringing in a number of top name players nearing the end of their careers – notably one Alan Mullery, along with Bobby Moore.

Lloyd remained part of the set-up but when Fulham surprised everyone by reaching the FA Cup Final against West Ham in 1975, he had to be content with what in those days was the single substitute’s berth on the bench, and didn’t get on.

Nonetheless, he chalked up 290 games for Fulham, before having brief spells at Hereford and Brentford (where Dodgin was the manager) and ending his playing days with Houston Hurricanes in the United States.

“I lived in Texas for a year. The league was never going to last but I learnt a lot about how the game can be promoted. They were very good at that over there,” he said in a matchday programme article. “Everyone was made to feel part of the club. It was an interesting experience; I’ve never regretted going.”

During his brief time at Hereford, Lloyd had an eye to the future and took his full coaching badge at Lilleshall, which wasn’t far away.

After his time in America came to an end, he got his first managerial experience with Yeovil Town (then a non-league club) and then headed to Sussex where he took Worthing from the Second Division of the old Isthmian League to runners-up in the Premier Division.

It was in 1986 when he got the call from Mullery to become reserve and youth team manager at the Albion. Dodgin was also on the staff.

lloyd desk

In January 1987, Mullery was unceremoniously dumped and Lloyd came out of the shadows to take charge. Perhaps what fans didn’t know at the time was that the day after Mullery left, Lloyd was summoned to a meeting with chairman Bryan Bedson and told to “get rid of everyone” because the club was going bust.

Against that backdrop, it was 15 games before the side managed to register a win under Lloyd and, unsurprisingly,  Albion were relegated. Some of the mainstays of the side, like Danny Wilson, Eric Young and Terry Connor were sold. Fortunately, Lloyd was able to re-invest part of the proceeds from those sales in some buys who gelled together to form a promotion-winning team.

Screen Shot 2021-05-03 at 20.37.12He returned to former club Chelsea to secure the signing of centre back Doug Rougvie who was made captain and he paired left winger Garry Nelson, a £72,500 signing from Plymouth, with tenacious Scot Kevin Bremner, from Reading, to lead the line. Nelson in particular was a revelation, scoring 32 goals and voted player of the season.

Lloyd reckoned the backbone of the side were two other shrewd signings: Alan Curbishley and Gary Chivers. “Alan was a very level-headed guy, an excellent passer and really disciplined,” he told Spencer Vignes in a matchday programme article. “Chivers was exactly the same, and a real joker at the same time. But there were a lot of great individuals in that side.”

The following two seasons saw Albion maintain their status with lower half finishes but, with the Goldstone Ground crumbling and debts mounting, there was little investment in the team and Lloyd had to use all his contacts to try to find some gems.

One was former England international winger Mark Barham, another was a former Soviet international, Sergei Gotsmanov, a real crowd-pleaser obviously capable of playing at a higher level (as was proved when he opted to join Southampton the following season).

Then, in 1990-91, he rescued two forwards languishing with also-ran clubs in Europe and together John Byrne and Mike Small were superb in attack as Brighton made it to the play-off final at Wembley only to lose 3-1 to Neil Warnock’s Notts County.

No-one had been expecting Brighton to get a tilt at promotion, particularly as the season had once again begun with big money departures of players like Keith Dublin and John Keeley.

But with Byrne and Small on fire and former Fulham and Chelsea winger Clive Walker added to the squad they clawed their way into contention and famously clinched the play-off spot on the last game of the season, courtesy of Dean Wilkins’ curling free kick past Ipswich Town’s Phil Parkes.

Another crucial signing that season was thanks to one of Lloyd’s old Chelsea teammates, George Graham. The Arsenal boss loaned cultured central defender Colin Pates to the Seagulls and he proved a mainstay in the final third of the season. Pates would later sign permanently.

Even though they were clearly beaten by the better side on the day, looking back now, I don’t think anyone could have realised what bad news it was for Albion not to win the final against County.

Starved of the funds promotion would have delivered, Lloyd was forced to sell star performers Small and Byrne and, 11 months after appearing at Wembley, Albion were relegated back to the third tier.

Lloyd had tried to repeat his previous successful European scouting mission with two former league players, but the hapless Mark Farrington turned out to be one of the worst buys ever, managing to score one solitary goal while former Arsenal youngster Raphael Meade fared slightly better but only just got into double figures.

Mark Gall, a £45,000 signing from Maidstone, arrived towards the end of October and ended up top goalscorer and was player of the season, but his 14 goals were still not enough to spare the team from the drop.

In the following season, the very survival of the club was under serious threat with the taxman chasing an unpaid bill. Lloyd rescued the club at the 11th hour by managing to secure a £350,000 fee for goalkeeper Mark Beeney (bought two years earlier from Maidstone for £25,000), former Albion winger Howard Wilkinson buying him for League Champions Leeds United.

With the financial issues continuing in the background, a run of only two wins in 18 league games in the first half of the 1993-94 season eventually brought the Lloyd era to an end – the axe wielded by chief executive David Bellotti, who had arrived only a month earlier.

Fans who were euphoric to see Lloyd go might well have felt differently if they’d known what would eventually transpire, but that’s a story for another day.

The record books show Lloyd made a total profit of £1.2m in his seven years at the helm and he certainly knew his way around the transfer market, particularly in Europe, when it was a lot less fashionable than it is today.

Another of his discoveries was Dean Wilkins, playing for FC Zwolle in Holland, and in 2007 – 14 years after he had left the Albion – Lloyd returned as chief scout during Wilkins’ reign as first team manager.

Also part of the set-up then was director of football Martin Hinshelwood, who had been Lloyd’s assistant during his time in the dugout. Lloyd later returned to the club to assist in the recruitment department but retired in 2021.

He died aged 75 on 28 September 2024 and players in the Chelsea v Brighton game that afternoon wore black armbands in tribute to him.

Lloyd in 2022

‘Cultured’ Nobby Lawton a Cup Final captain who led Brighton

 

WHEN NOBBY Lawton died of cancer aged 66 in 2006, Ivan Ponting, the principal football obituarist of The Independent, penned a marvellous piece about a player who never quite reached the heights his early promise suggested he might.

Lawton was captain of Brighton when I first started watching them in 1969 but he had once played for the post-Munich Manchester United side and was part of Proud Preston’s illustrious history having captained them in the 1964 FA Cup Final. Not surprisingly, Ponting’s obituary began with that showpiece against a West Ham United side led by the imperious Bobby Moore.

“When the two clubs staged one of the most exhilarating of all Wembley FA Cup finals, in 1964, the unassuming Lancastrian was anything but upstaged by the recently appointed England skipper,” Ponting observed.

“Indeed, though Preston of the Second Division were pipped by a stoppage-time goal as the top-flight Hammers prevailed 3-2, many neutral observers made Lawton the man of a rollercoaster of a contest in which his plucky side had twice led.”

In the Lancashire Evening Post’s The Big Interview 40 years after that momentous day, Lawton touchingly shared his memories of the occasion when, aged 24, he’d stood in the famous old tunnel waiting to lead out Preston at Wembley.

“All of a sudden the wave of punishing noise from the 100,000 crowd just ebbed away, and the band struck up the first verse of Abide with Me,” recalled Nobby. “I’d held on to the emotion and nerves until then, but I was a bit overcome at that moment, close to tears in fact.

“I looked over my shoulder and the rest of the lads were coming down the tunnel in those famous white shirts, with the PP crest of Preston on them. It was an unbelievable moment for a young lad.”

Lawton then recalled his early days at Man Utd watching the Busby Babes train and how he thought he’d never make it in the game.

“But there I was at Wembley, captain of the famous Preston North End and I felt on top of the world,” Nobby told the newspaper. “I never thought anything like that would happen to me.

“That day was my proudest moment in football. 1964 was an incredible time in my life, and nobody can ever take that away.”

Readers of a certain vintage will be aware one of Preston’s goals that day were scored by Alex Dawson, another ex-Lilywhite who later linked up with Lawton at the Albion. The pair, who first played together at Man Utd, remained friends for 40 years and Lawton was best man at Dawson’s wedding.

In Ponting’s obituary, he recalled: “a stylish, cultured wing-half who might have been destined for eminence with Manchester United, the club with whom he shared a birthplace of Newton Heath.

“After excelling as a teenager with Lancashire Schoolboys, he signed amateur forms with the Red Devils in 1956, training on two evenings a week while working for a coal merchant.”

Lawton and Dawson were both on the scoresheet as United beat West Ham 3-2 in the first leg of the 1957 FA Youth Cup and Dawson scored twice in the 5-0 second leg win. West Ham’s side included John Lyall, who later went on to manage them.

After the Munich air crash of February 1958, the 18-year-old Lawton gave up his job with the coal company and joined United full time. “However, within days, his fledgling career was in jeopardy,” Ponting related. “After playing for the reserves while suffering from heavy flu he succumbed to double pneumonia, lost the use of his legs and was out of action for many months.”

Matt Busby kept faith with the fledgling talent and gave Lawton his first-team début as an inside-forward at Luton in April 1960. By the middle of the following season, he was a first team regular, forming a promising left-wing partnership with Bobby Charlton.

“Lawton was ever-present in United’s run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, where they were well beaten by Tottenham Hotspur, but somehow his confidence was never quite on a par with his abundant ability, and soon, in the face of inevitably brisk competition for midfield places, he slipped out of Busby’s plans,” said Ponting.

Lawton recalled in an interview with Spencer Vignes in the Albion matchday programme: “I was in an out of the team. I’d play one game, and go back to the reserves. I’d play another, then back to the reserves again. By the time I was 23, I really wanted – no, needed – to play first-team football.”

After just 36 league games for United, and with Pat Crerand picked ahead of him, he decided to drop down a division and rebuild his career at Preston, joining them in exchange for an £11,500 fee in March 1963.

Lawton explained: “I broke my leg at Manchester United, and although I was in and out of the team at Old Trafford, it knocked the confidence out of me.”

Preston were struggling when he joined them but they enjoyed a mini-revival just missing out on promotion to the top division, and he was made skipper for the 1963-64 season, which culminated in that Wembley final.

Lawton remained Preston captain even though he was hampered by serial knee problems and he admitted to the LEP: “I came back after two knee operations at Preston, but I was a shadow of the player I was in 1964. I was butchered really.”

After 164 league and cup appearances and 23 goals for North End, in September 1967, he dropped a further grade, joining Third Division Brighton for a £10,000 fee.

He was signed by Archie Macaulay but just over a year later found himself helping to select the team as part of a committee after Macaulay stepped down. It wasn’t long though before a familiar face took the helm in the shape of his former Old Trafford playing colleague Freddie Goodwin, and that’s when he first came to my attention, as my Albion-supporting journey began in February 1969.

“I enjoyed playing under him so much. I think we all did,” Lawton told Vignes. “I’ve got some really good memories of us playing well in front of big crowds with him in charge.”

Vignes recounted how Lawton was the scorer of one of the all-time classic goals witnessed at the Goldstone when the midfielder rifled home a volley from around 40 yards against Shrewsbury Town. “I remember their goalkeeper kicking it clear and it bounced in front of me, so I just hit it and it went straight back past him into the net. That was a nice strike,” said Lawton.

After just missing out on promotion in the 1969-70 season, Goodwin left to take over at Birmingham City and, according to the programme article, Lawton didn’t see eye to eye with his successor, Pat Saward, from day one. The player was also suffering a recurrence of his knee problems.

“I went to see a specialist about it , and he said that if I played again, then I could be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life,” he said. “It was around that time that (Fourth Division) Lincoln said they were interested in buying me. The way my knee was, I was going to finish any day soon, and I told them that. But they were still keen, so I signed. ” After a total of 127 games for the Albion, Lawton went to Lincoln in February 1971 together with striker Allan Gilliver.

The following year, at 32, the injury finally put paid to his playing days. He went on to carve out a successful career as a sales director with a Newton Heath-based imports and exports business.

When his death was announced in 2006, former Albion teammate Norman Gall said of him: “Nobby was a true gentleman. When he arrived at the Goldstone his ability and behaviour made him the obvious choice for captain.

“He never criticised or argued with anyone and just encouraged people to play better. A fantastic player and a great friend.”

lawton w Napier

  • Top, Nobby Lawton in action for the Albion during the 1970-71 season, above, celebrating with Kit Napier after scoring a goal. Below, footballinprint.com found this old magazine front cover of a 1962 Man Utd team photo in which Lawton appears alongside Nobby Stiles and behind Bobby Charlton. Other pictures from Albion’s matchday programme.

Ian Mellor – the postman who delivered for Peter Ward

Mellor BHATHE SONGS still sung today that immortalise Peter Ward sadly fail to recognise the man who laid on so many of the nimble striker’s goals.

But fans of a certain vintage will never forget the contribution of former postman Ian ‘Spider’ Mellor.

Nicknamed because of his long-legged build, the beanpole midfielder-turned-striker, scored 31 goals in 122 appearances for Albion between 1974 and 1978.

Born in Wythenshawe on 19 February 1950, Mellor grew up supporting Manchester City and dreamt of playing for them. He went to Sale Moor Secondary School in the city and, aged 15, he was offered a trial at Maine Road but he didn’t get taken on. Undeterred, two years later he got a second chance after bombarding the club with cuttings of his exploits playing Sunday league football in the area.

He lapped up the experience of being coached by Malcolm Allison. It was towards the end of the Bell, Summerbee, Lee era and Mellor managed 40 appearances for City. In March 1973, however, while Allison was ill, chairman Peter Swales sold him to Norwich City for £60,000.

“Malcolm said he left Maine Road because I’d been sold without his permission when he was ill in hospital,” Mellor told the Manchester Evening News.

“I didn’t really stop to think what I was letting myself in for,” he said. “I should have stayed at City and then, to make it even worse, soon after I’d left, Denis Law rejoined the club. I could have been playing in the same team as my idol.”

After Mellor scored the only goal of the game in Albion’s 1-0 win over Allison’s Crystal Palace at the start of the 1974-75 season, Allison said: “I remember Spider when I was at Manchester City.

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

Norwich were struggling at the wrong end of the old First Division when Mellor moved to Norfolk and although he agreed to the deal, he reflected years later that he regretted it.

Perhaps, therefore, it was no surprise when Brian Clough arrived at Carrow Road in the spring of 1974 with the promise of making him Brighton’s record signing for a fee of £40,000, he jumped at the chance to play for the league title-winning manager.

Mellor was part of a triple signing from Norwich as Clough persuaded him and centre backs Andy Rollings and Steve Govier to drop down a division to play for Brighton.

Ironically, he never played competitively under Clough because of ol’ Big Ed’s move to Leeds that summer but under Peter Taylor he played mainly in a left-sided midfield role.

It was Taylor’s successor, Alan Mullery, who changed him from a wide midfield player to a centre forward, a position from which he contributed so many ‘assists’ for Ward. Those in the know certainly recognised his contribution.

In Matthew Horner’s excellent biography of Ward, He shot, he scored, Mullery is quoted as saying: “Ian Mellor had the ability: he was a big tall lad and he had super pace and a great left foot. I thought that they would form a terrific partnership.

“In my opinion, Mellor was wasted in midfield. He could hold on to the ball and he’d learnt his skills from Malcolm Allison and Joe Mercer at Manchester City, who were both great coaches. He shouldn’t really have been playing at the level we were at – he was too good – but he was and that was great for us.

“Spider would get the ball to him and Peter would go on these mazy runs and, nine times out of 10, would knock the ball into the back of the net.

“The partnership is history now but they were absolutely fantastic together.”

Former Albion colleague, now BBC pundit, Mark Lawrenson said of him: “Playing Ian Mellor alongside Ward was the masterstroke really – Mellor was an out-and-out footballer and a perfect partner for Wardy.”

Club skipper at the time, Brian Horton, added: “In the first year Ward and Spider were unbelievable. We didn’t have a big target man but the movement with those two was fantastic. They got about 50 goals between them and I chipped in with about a dozen more.”

Ironically one of the stand-out games of his Albion career, on 3rd May 1977, came against Albion’s play-off opponents, Sheffield Wednesday, in front of 30,756 fans at the Goldstone.

Argus reporter John Vinicombe named him his Albion man-of-the-match as Wednesday were beaten 3-2 to earn promotion.

Not long into the following season, Mullery splashed £238,000 on centre forward Teddy Maybank from Fulham and he went straight into the team alongside Ward, which unsurprisingly didn’t go down well with Mellor.

“I knew I was better than him, but they had to justify his price and that’s why I got dropped,” Mellor maintained in a an Albion matchday programme interview with Spencer Vignes. Mellor requested a transfer in spite of chairman Mike Bamber urging him to stay.

“In hindsight, of course, I should have stayed,” said Mellor. “I was still good enough. I was 29, with two good seasons left in me.”

Instead, in February 1978, he moved back to his native north west from Brighton to play for Chester for two years but then had three years at Sheffield Wednesday where he managed 11 goals in 70 games and, like his spell alongside Ward, provided a perfect foil for Terry Curran to bang in the goals.

He ended his career at Bradford City and later worked as a commercial executive for the PFA. He also worked for football boot supplier Puma and was a representative for football kit supplier Pelada.

Younger readers will be more familiar with the former Liverpool striker Neil Mellor, who now works in the media, who was one of Ian’s sons.

Ian Mellor died aged 74 in Cheadle on 1 May 2024 after a long battle with amyloidosis.

  • Pictures from my scrapbook and Albion matchday programmes show headlines Mellor made and the player in action.

scrapbok mellor

A little less hirsuit than in his playing days…

Welsh wizard Peter O’Sullivan an all-time Albion great

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WHILE Peter Ward rightly attracted much of the attention during Albion’s rise to the top in the late ‘70s, few would deny that midfield maestro PETER O’SULLIVAN also deserves a place amongst the club’s all-time greats.

Sully had a long career with the Seagulls before a short stint with Fulham towards the end of his playing days.

The statisticians of the modern football era would have needed their calculators to record the ‘assists’ racked up by Sully, who, from the left wing or left midfield, found goalscoring teammates with unerring accuracy throughout a remarkable 11 years with the Albion.

Managers came and went, a huge swathe of teammates were discarded, but Sully stayed put, showed his worth to whoever sat in the manager’s chair, and entertained the watching faithful.

He played in the same position as the Brazilian genius Rivelino and even sported the same style of moustache in homage to him.

As Brighton rose through the footballing pyramid, Sully was a constant, displaying the talent to make an impact in the third, second and top tiers. One of his former teammates, Andy Rollings, maintained: “He should have played at the top level all the time, he was that good a player.

“He had natural ability and great fitness,” Rollings told freelance journalist Spencer Vignes. “What he did at this club was incredible, and as an individual player he was one of the best I ever played with. He’s a lovely, smashing guy.”

In the excellent Vignes’ book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books Publishing),  Sully admitted there had been occasions when he couldn’t wait to get away from Brighton, and he had some serious arguments with all of the managers he played under.

Sully shared his thoughts in a Goal magazine article of 22 December 1973, a couple of months after the arrival of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. Having won promotion from the Third Division, won five Wales under 23 caps and made his full international debut against Scotland, he was disillusioned after relegation from Division 2.

“I was bitterly disappointed at that,” he said. “It seemed at last I was getting over the depression of being in the Manchester United reserves for four years when life began to turn sour again.”

However, with the arrival of Clough and Taylor, O’Sullivan changed his outlook and told the magazine: “I’ve been impressed with their ideas and they have completely overhauled the set up down here. Now I am more than happy to stay – that is if Mr Clough still wants me – and help Brighton back into the big time.

“The potential down here is enormous and I am sure we will realise it under Mr Clough.”

Vignes’ 2007 interview with Sully explained exactly how he ended up at Brighton having been given a free transfer from Manchester United. None other than the great Bobby Charlton was responsible.

sully man u

Young Peter crouches alongside George Best in a Manchester United team photo

Born in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, on 4 March 1951, Sully had trained alongside the United legend while at Old Trafford as a youngster and, on being released on a free transfer in 1970, was considering offers from several different clubs.

He’d gone to Bristol to have a trial with Bristol City when, on a neighbouring pitch, Charlton was taking part in an England training session prior to the 1970 Mexico World Cup.

The kindly maestro exchanged the time of day with his recently departed colleague and asked which clubs were in for him. On hearing that one of them was Brighton, managed by his former Busby Babe teammate, Freddie Goodwin, Charlton advised him to link up with his old pal……and the rest, as they say, is history.

What Charlton and Sully didn’t know, however, was that no sooner had he arrived on the south coast than Goodwin was heading for the exit, en route to Birmingham City. Sully hadn’t even kicked a ball in anger for him.

“I was a little apprehensive about joining Brighton and it was unsettling when Freddie Goodwin left the club before I had even played for Albion,” he said. “I wondered what was going on and how it would affect me.

“But then Pat Saward arrived and I was overjoyed when he put me in the team. My hopes were quickly dashed again, though, when he dropped me after about six games.”

A homesick Sully struggled to settle at first but he stuck at it and went on to cement his place in the side. He ultimately featured under four different managers, Saward, Clough, Taylor and Alan Mullery.

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He was part of the promotion-winning teams in 1972, 1976 and 1979, and was player of the season in 1978. He won promotion with Fulham too, going up to the old Division 2 in 1982 when the former Newcastle, Arsenal and England centre forward Malcolm MacDonald was in charge.

Sully had one amazing period with the Albion in which he made 194 consecutive appearances, an Albion record for an outfield player.

IMG_5091The performances of the lad from Colwyn Bay also saw him earn three international caps for Wales, two against Scotland and one in a rout against Malta when he also got on the scoresheet. Unfortunately for him, during the same period, a superb left-sided player called Leighton James was the first choice for the national side.

“When I joined Manchester United from school it was always one of my ambitions to play for Wales,” he told the Albion matchday programme. “But I thought those hopes had been dashed when Manchester United released me.”PO Wales

Sully’s 491 appearances for Brighton made him the club’s longest-serving post-war player. He actually left the club in 1980 to play in America for San Diego Sockers but a £50,000 transfer fee saw him return just five months later.

Eventually Sully moved on to Fulham in 1981 and notched up 46 appearances. There were short loan spells with Reading and Charlton in 1982-83 and his Football League career came to an end when he made 14 appearances for Aldershot in the following season.