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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Photo call ahead of his debut for the Albion*

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Prolific goalscoing partnership with Peter Ward*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top goalscorer Fred Binney ousted by one of the best

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Binney making a splash at the Goldstone*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graham Winstanley: fledgling Magpie, Carlisle legend, able Albion deputy

GRAHAM Winstanley spent five years at Brighton but only made 70 appearances, plus one as a sub. Most of his time with the Seagulls was spent as a dependable reserve.

Manager Peter Taylor drafted in the central defender to replace Grimsby-bound Steve Govier in the autumn of 1974 and he kept the no.6 shirt for all but two games through to the end of the season.

Govier had only been signed from Norwich City in May that year (together with Andy Rollings and Ian Mellor) but, unlike his co-signings, who had long Albion careers, Govier lasted only 16 games.

Winstanley, a Carlisle United regular for several seasons, had been edged out of the first team picture at Brunton Park following their surprise rise to the top division.

He arrived at the Goldstone in October 1974, on loan initially, and was even made captain during that time. He signed permanently for £20,000 the following month, moved into a house in Shoreham with wife Joan, and stayed in the south for five years despite limited first-team opportunities.

Born in the small north-east village of Croxdale, three miles south of Durham, on 20 January 1948, Winstanley joined Newcastle United straight from Washington Grammar School and, after serving an apprenticeship, turned professional.

He made his first team debut on Christmas Eve 1966, in a 2-1 home defeat to Leeds United.

With the likes of Ollie Burton, John McNamee and Bobby Moncur ahead of him, Winstanley struggled to establish himself at St James’ Park, only featuring seven times for the first team, five times as a starter and twice as a substitute.

Newcastle sold him to Carlisle for £8,000 in 1969, and it was at Brunton Park where he carved out a reputation as a powerful centre back who could also play full back.

In June 1972, against the Italian giants Roma in the Olympic Stadium, he scored a goal for United seven minutes from time that sealed a famous 3-2 win in the Anglo-Italian Cup. Four-Four-Two magazine voted it 45th of 50 top Greatest European Moments!

It may seem implausible to today’s reader to believe that Carlisle could win promotion from the equivalent of the Championship and play a season in the Premier League but that’s exactly what the Cumbrians did in 1974. They finished in third place, in the days before play-offs, a point behind Luton Town and 16 points behind champions Middlesbrough.

Although Winstanley had been part of Alan Ashman’s promotion side, he was not a first choice in the top division, and, after 165 appearances for United, headed south to Brighton.

His influence initially alongside Rollings, and then Steve Piper, brought much needed stability to the defence but the side struggled for goals that season and eventually could only achieve 19^th place.

In January 2014, the excellent blog The Goldstone Wrap reflected on Winstanley’s influence at that time, and reproduced an Argus article angled on how the player – nicknamed Tot (he was the youngest of three brothers) – wore contact lenses while playing.

Having taken over the Albion team captaincy from Ernie Machin, Winstanley was appointed club captain in August 1975 but, with the arrival of the cultured former Millwall and West Ham defender, Dennis Burnett, was dislodged from a starting berth and only played three more times that season.

Even when Taylor’s successor, Alan Mullery, dispensed with Burnett’s services, the 1976-77 season saw Graham Cross partner Rollings, restricting Winstanley to just five appearances.

The following season Mark Lawrenson arrived, so it wasn’t as though the competition for a place was getting any easier! However, in that season, Rollings missed several matches through injury and Winstanley proved an able deputy on 19 occasions.

One of his stints in the side included the final seven matches when Albion came so close to earning promotion and Winstanley even got on the scoresheet in the 3-1 home win over Tottenham Hotspur on 15 April 1978.

“It was from a free-kick that got played out wide to the left and when the ball came over I just sneaked in at the back and hit it,” he recalled in an Albion programme feature of 14 March 2009. “It spent a long time coming to me in the air and an even longer time before it hit the back of the net.” It happened in front of a crowd of 32,647 packed into the Goldstone, and the game was interrupted by trouble-making Spurs supporters.

He kept the shirt for the opening two fixtures of the 1978-79 season but only played three more times in that promotion-winning campaign, the last of which came in a 1-1 draw away to Luton Town on 21 April, when neither Lawrenson nor Rollings were available.

When his contract was up in July 1979, he was granted a free transfer and he returned to Carlisle where he made a further 69 appearances. “I could have stayed but I didn’t really fancy it to be honest,” he told Spencer Vignes in a matchday programme article. “I knew I only had a certain amount of ability. I was never a First Division player. That’s why it was the best thing to do.”

During his time in Sussex, he coached Sunday team Boundstone Old Boys and, after his playing career came to an end, he was manager of non-league Penrith for a while. However, he subsequently had a variety of jobs outside the game, in and around Carlisle. He worked for a wholesale electrical company, as a milkman, selling insurance, as a partner in a building supplies company, as well as working for the Post Office and a local newspaper.

Shankly ‘disciple’ George Aitken coached Mariners and Seagulls

MEDIA-friendly Jimmy Melia stole all the limelight as Brighton stormed to the final of the 1983 FA Cup but a quiet, wavy-haired Scot alongside him played a big part in the achievement.

George Aitken was joint caretaker manager with Melia for three months after Mike Bailey’s dismissal in December 1982, and he’d previously been in the dugout alongside Alan Mullery and Ken Craggs during Albion’s rise through the divisions having originally been brought to the club by Peter Taylor.

.When he died aged 78 in August 2006, Jimmy Case told the Cumbrian Times & Star: “George was a great character, a great friend and coach right the way through my time at the club. “Jimmy Melia was in the front line with his white shoes but George was right there in terms of the workings of the club and picking the team. He was well respected for his knowledge of the game.”

Mark Lawrenson also paid tribute in an interview with Argus reporter Paul Holden, telling him: “George never got carried away. He had seen it all before. He was a very wily old fox. He was from the old school, a good, honest, true, loyal man.

“He knew his football, knew his players and liked a laugh. He had one of those infectious laughs.”

Micky Adams said: “He was a great football man, George. When I first joined Brighton as manager, he was one of my biggest allies. He always popped into the office to chew the cud and talk football. He loved Brighton and was a well-respected man who loved the game.”

Holden also reported that at Aitken’s testimonial dinner in 1988, former Albion secretary, Stephen Rooke, said: “He may never have reached the dizzy heights attained by many of his friends and acquaintances over the years but he represents a rare breed, in fact the very lifeblood of our national game.

Aitken tiler sully 78

Aitken puts Ken Tiler and Peter O’Sullivan through their paces in pre-season training in 1978

“Deep down George is a very private person but his reliability and honest, down-to-earth approach has, quite rightly, earned him enormous respect throughout the football world.”

Aitken had been a manager in his own right at Workington, and he and Melia had both been players under one of the game’s legends – Bill Shankly.

Shankly managed Workington between 6 January 1954 and 15 November 1955, when Aitken was a strong and commanding centre back for the Cumbrian side, and five of Melia’s 10 years playing for Liverpool were under Shankly’s managership.

Born in Dalkeith, Scotland, on 13 August 1928, Aitken was educated at Dalkeith High School and played football for Midlothian Schools.

His step up to senior football came at Edinburgh Thistle, which was essentially a feeder side for Hibernian.

David Jack, remembered as the first player ever to score at Wembley, had become manager of Middlesbrough in 1944, and took Aitken to Ayresome Park after the war.

“I was 20 at the time and it took me two seasons to reach the first team,” Aitken recalled in an Albion matchday programme article.

“Middlesbrough had a great team at the time and I played alongside the likes of (England internationals) Wilf Mannion and George Hardwick.”

Aitken made his debut against Fulham in 1951-52, but only made 18 top division appearances and, in July 1953, was sold to nearby Workington for £5,000.

It was the beginning of a long-standing relationship with a club who in those days played in the basement division of the Football League and is now in the Northern Premier League – the seventh tier of English football.

Aitken amassed 262 league appearances for Workington and, in the 1957-58 season, played against the famous Busby Babes at home in the 3^rd round of the FA Cup in front of a record 21,000 crowd – just a month before the Munich air crash. Dennis Viollet scored a hat-trick for United in a 3-1 win.

“The game was an experience that I’ll never forget,” said Aitken, who kept on the wall of his house a picture of him with United’s skipper that day, Roger Byrne, who not long after that match perished in the Munich air crash.

Aitken retired as a player in 1960 but he stayed on at Borough Park as a coach, initially under Joe Harvey, who later enjoyed success at Newcastle United, and then Ken Furphy, who went on to manage Watford, Blackburn and Sheffield United before moving to the USA and taking charge of four different clubs.

Aitken had a brief spell as Workington manager between March and June 1965 (stepping in after Keith Burkinshaw – later famously boss of Spurs – had left) but then followed Furphy to Watford in 1965 as his coach. During that time, Watford, then in Division Two, famously beat Shankly’s Liverpool 1-0 in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup before losing to eventual winners Chelsea in the semi-finals.

The lure of Workington was to draw him back to the north west, though. When the manager’s job became vacant in 1971, Aitken took over and stayed for three seasons, eventually leaving in October 1974.

grimsby 75

In the 1975-76 season, he was trainer-coach during Tommy Casey’s spell managing Grimsby Town (where, as in picture, one of the players was former Albion defender Steve Govier), but left the Lincolnshire outfit to join Peter Taylor’s coaching set-up at Brighton in 1976. The Scot ended up staying for 10 years.

Aitken and wife Celia had three children and I well remember one of them, Bruce, appearing for Worthing FC. Aitken 2

George was clearly football daft, and in a matchday programme feature of September 1985, Celia told Tony Norman: “Football has always been his hobby, as well as his way of earning a living. He really loves the game. It’s not unusual for us to be driving somewhere and to stop because George has seen a game going on in a park by the road. He can’t resist watching for a while.”

During Chris Cattlin’s reign as manager, Aitken was the reserve team manager and chief scout, and in the programme article he said: “I can look back on some very happy memories. I was assistant manager when we took the club to Wembley and that experience is something I’ll never forget. But that is all in the past and what really matters to me is the future for Brighton Football Club. So, I enjoy going out to look for youngsters who could do a good job for us in years to come.”

After being sacked by Brighton, Aitken did scouting work for Graham Taylor during his spells at Watford and Aston Villa and then had three years working for the FA during Taylor’s reign as England manager. His last football role was at Bolton Wanderers when Colin Todd was the manager.

end shot aitken armchair

Pictures from a variety of sources including the matchday programme, online sites and the Argus.

Ian Mellor – the postman who delivered for Peter Ward

Mellor BHA THE 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 3^rd 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.