Hero and Villain Sammy Morgan got off Albion mark v Palace

FEARLESS NORTHERN Ireland international centre forward Sammy Morgan and his former Port Vale teammate Brian Horton were bought to win promotion for the Albion.

The gamble by manager Peter Taylor didn’t quite pay off and although midfield dynamo and captain Horton went on to fulfil that promise under Alan Mullery, Morgan’s part in the club’s future success was eclipsed by the emergence of Peter Ward.

Morgan, who was in the same Northern Irish primary school year as George Best, was the first to arrive, a £35,000 signing from Aston Villa in December 1975, replacing the out-of-favour Neil Martin alongside Fred Binney. He wasn’t able to find the net in his first seven matches but when he did it was memorable and went down in the annals of Albion history.

*Morgan opens his Albion account in style against Crystal Palace*

He scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace in front of a 33,000 Goldstone Ground crowd that took Albion into second place in the table, manager Taylor saying afterwards: “I am delighted for Morgan. It must have given him a great boost to get a couple of goals like this.”

That breakthrough looked like opening the floodgates for the aggressive, angular forward who went on to score in five consecutive home games in a month.

And when Horton arrived in March 1976, with Albion still in second place and only 11 games to go, promotion looked a strong possibility.

But an Easter hiccup, losing 3-1 to rivals Millwall, followed by three 1-1 draws to end the season, saw Albion drop to fourth, three points behind the south London club, who went up behind Hereford United and Cardiff City.

Short-sighted Morgan – he wore contact lenses to play – might not have seen it coming, but it was something of a watershed moment for him too.

The man who signed him decided to quit, saying: “I signed two players gambling on them to win us promotion. We didn’t get it, and the only consolation I have in leaving is I feel I have helped build a good team which is capable of going up next time.”

Before he managed to kick a ball in anger under new boss Mullery, Morgan suffered a fractured cheekbone in a collision with Paul Futcher in a pre-season friendly with Luton in August 1976. The injury sidelined him for months.

*Morgan shares a training ground joke with Peter Ward*

By the time he was fit to resume towards the end of November, young Ward and midfielder-turned-striker Ian Mellor had formed such an effective goalscoring partnership that Morgan could only look on from the substitute’s bench where he sat on no fewer than 29 occasions.

He got on in 18 matches but only scored once, in a 2-1 home win over Chesterfield. Of his two starts that season, one was a New Year’s Day game at Swindon in which Albion were trailing 4-0 when it got abandoned on 67 minutes because of a waterlogged pitch (and he was back to the bench for the rescheduled game at the end of the season).

Nonetheless, Taylor’s promotion premonition was duly achieved at the completion of Mullery’s first season, and Ward had scored a record-setting 36 goals.

Morgan wasn’t involved in Albion’s first two games of the new season – consecutive 0-0 draws against Third Division Cambridge United, in home and away legs of the League Cup – and, by the time of the replay, he had signed for the opponents, who were managed by Ron Atkinson.

So, in a strange quirk of fate, £15,000 signing Morgan’s first match for the Us saw him relishing a bruising encounter up against former teammate Andy Rollings, although Albion prevailed 3-1.

Morgan spoke about the encounter and his long career in the game in a fascinating 2015 televised interview for 100 Years of Coconuts, a Cambridge United fans website.

Morgan’s easing out at Brighton followed a similar pattern to his experience at Aston Villa who replaced him with 19-year-old Andy Gray, a £110,000 signing from Dundee United. Morgan only made three top flight performances for Villa after a pelvic injury had restricted his involvement in Villa’s second tier promotion in 1975 to just 12 games (although he did score four goals – three in the same match, a 6-0 win over Hull City early in the season). He was injured during a 1-1 draw at Fulham in November and subsequently lost his place in the team to Keith Leonard.

Morgan had been 26 when Vic Crowe signed him from Port Vale as a replacement for the legendary Andy Lochhead. The fee was an initial £22,222 in August 1973 with the promise of further instalments of £10,000 for every 10 goals up to 20. Vale’s chairman panicked when the goals tally dried up with the total on nine but Morgan eventually came good and Villa ended up paying the extra.

He made his Villa debut on 8 September 1973 as a sub for Trevor Hockey on the hour in a 2-0 home win over Oxford United, the first of five sub appearances and 25 starts that season, when he scored nine goals.

Villa writer Eric Woodward said of him: “Sammy was never a purist but he was a brave, lively, enterprising sort who put fear into opposing defences.”

He carved his name into Villa legend during a fourth round FA Cup tie against Arsenal at Highbury in January 1974 when he was both hero and villain.

Morgan put the Second Division visitors ahead with a diving header in the 11^th minute but in the second half was booked and sent off for challenges on goalkeeper Bob Wilson. After his dismissal, Arsenal equalised through Ray Kennedy.

Esteemed football writer Brian Glanville reckoned: “Morgan had scored Villa’s goal and had played with fiery initiative but, alas, he crossed the line dividing virility from violence.

“He should have taken heed earlier, when booked for fouling Wilson. But a few minutes later, going in unreasonably hard and fractionally late as Wilson dived, he knocked the goalkeeper out and off he went.”

An incensed Morgan saw it differently, though, telling Ian Willars of the Birmingham Post: “Neither my booking nor the sending-off were justified. I never touched Wilson the first time and the second time I was going for the ball, not the man. It was a 50-50.

“I actually connected with the ball not Wilson. I went over to check if he was hurt and, in my opinion, he was play-acting.”

Morgan had sweet revenge four days later. No automatic ban meant he was able to play and score in the replay at Villa Park which Villa won 2-0 in front of a bumper crowd of 47,821.

Randall Northam of the Birmingham Mail wrote: “Providing the sort of material from which story books are written, the Northern Ireland international Sammy Morgan, who was sent off on Saturday, scored in the 12th minute.

“He had scored in the opening game in the 11th minute and to increase the feeling of déjà vu it was another diving header.” Fellow striker Alun Evans scored Villa’s second.

Northam added: “It was never a great match but the crowd’s enthusiasm lifted it to a level which often made it exciting and they had their reward for ignoring the torrential rain in a driving Villa performance which outclassed their First Division opponents.”

For his part, an unrepentant Morgan said: “It was obvious that we had to put Wilson under pressure as anyone would have done in the circumstances. My goal could not have happened at a better time.”

How heartening to hear in that 100 Years of Coconuts interview that when Morgan was struck down with cancer 40 years later, one of several well-wishing calls he received came from Bob Wilson.

*Best and Morgan (back row, left) in the same Belfast school photo*

Born in East Belfast on 3 December 1946, Morgan went to the same Nettlefield Primary School as George Best and the first year at Grosvenor High. But Morgan left Belfast as an 11-year-old with his family, settling in Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth (his mother’s birthplace).

His Irish father, a professional musician, took over the running of the Suspension Bridge tavern in Yarmouth and Morgan’s footballing ability continued to develop under the watchful eye of his teacher, the Rev Arthur Bowles, and he went on to represent Gorleston and Norfolk Schools.

Morgan went to the same technical high school in Gorleston that also spawned his great friend Dave Stringer (a former Norwich player and manager), former Arsenal centre back Peter Simpson and ex-Wolves skipper Mike Bailey, who managed Brighton in the top flight in 1981 and 1982.

Morgan’s early hopes of a professional career were dented when he had an unsuccessful trial at Ipswich Town. Alf Ramsey was manager at the time and the future England World Cup winning boss considered him too small. He also had an unsuccessful trial with Arsenal.

Morgan continued to play as an amateur with Gorleston FC and although on leaving school he initially began working as an accountant he decided to study to become a maths and PE teacher at Nottingham University. It was Gorleston manager Roger Carter who recommended him to the then Port Vale manager Gordon Lee, who was a former Aston Villa colleague.

“I loved my time under Roger and my playing days under him were the most enjoyable years of my footballing career even though I went on to play at a higher level,” said Morgan.

He was the relatively late age of 23 when, in January 1970, he had a successful trial with Vale and signed amateur forms. But by July that year he was forced to make a decision between full-time professional football or teaching. He chose football and made a scoring Football League debut against Swansea in August 1970.

However, that summer he was spotted as a future talent by Brian Clough and Peter Taylor when he played against their Derby County side in a pre-season friendly. Clough inquired about taking him on loan but he cemented his place in the Vale side and it didn’t go any further.

nifootball.blogspot.com wrote of him: “The burly centre-forward, he weighed in at up to thirteen and a half stone during his career, proved highly effective in an unadventurous Vale side.”

His strength and aggression in Third Division football caught the attention of Northern Ireland boss Terry Neill and he scored on his debut for his country in a February 1972 1-1 draw with Spain, played at Hull because of the troubles in the province, when he teamed up with old school chum Best.

Morgan remembered turning up at the team hotel, the Grand in Scarborough, and encountering a press camera posse awaiting Best’s arrival – and he didn’t show! The mercurial talent did make it in time for the game though, when another debutant was Best’s 17-year-old Manchester United teammate Sammy McIlroy, who earned the first of 88 caps.

In the home international tournament that followed, Morgan was overlooked in favour of Derek Dougan and Albion’s Willie Irvine who, having helped Brighton win promotion from Division Three (and scored what was selected as Match of the Day’s third best goal of the season against Aston Villa) earned a recall three years after his previous appearance.

In October of 1972, though, Morgan was selected again and took his cap total to seven while at Vale Park, for many years a club record.

While at Brighton, he earned two caps during the 1976 home international tournament, starting in the 3-0 defeat to Scotland and going on as a sub in a 1-0 defeat to Wales.

He earned his 18^th and final cap two years later during his time at Sparta Rotterdam in a 2-1 win over Denmark in Belfast. The legendary Danny Blanchflower was briefly the Irish manager and he selected Morgan up front alongside Gerry Armstrong but he reflected that he didn’t play well, was struggling with a hamstring injury at the time, and was deservedly subbed off on the hour mark.

Morgan’s knack for helping sides win promotion had worked at Cambridge too, where he partnered Alan Biley and Tom Finney (no, not that one!) in attack, but after Atkinson left to manage West Brom, he fell out with his successor, John Docherty, and in August 1978 made the switch to Rotterdam.

After one season there, he moved on to Groningen in the Eeste Divisie (level two) and although he helped them win the title, he suffered a knee injury and called time on his professional playing days.

He returned to Norfolk to teach maths and PE in Gorleston, at Cliff Park High School and then Lynn Grove High School, and carried on playing with his first club, Gorleston, where, in 1981, he was appointed manager.

As well as coaching Great Yarmouth schoolboys, he also got involved in coaching Norwich City’s schoolboys in 1990 and in January 1998 he left teaching to work full-time as the club’s youth development manager. As the holder of a UEFA Class A licence, he went on to become the club’s first football academy director, a position he held until May 2004.

In October that year, Morgan was unveiled as Ipswich Town’s education officer, a role that involved ensuring Town’s young players received tuition on more than just football as they went through the academy system. In 2009, he became academy manager and during his three years notable youngsters who made it as professionals included strikers Connor Wickham and Jordan Rhodes.

He admitted in an interview with independent fan website TWTD: “If I’ve contributed to anybody in particular it probably would be the big number nine [Wickham] and Jordan because I was a number nine, and I kick the ball through them – I play the game through the number nines.”

He went on: “I’m very proud to have played a part in the development of a lot of young players. I’m equally proud of those lads who haven’t quite got there in the professional ranks but have maybe gone on to university and have forged other careers and are still playing football at non-league level, still enjoying their football. That means a lot to me as well.”

Morgan continued: “I finished playing in 1980 and I’ve been in youth development since then. I did the Norfolk schools, Great Yarmouth schools, representative sides and the Bobby Robson Soccer Schools. That’s 32 years, I’ve given it a fair crack and I love my football as much now as I ever did.

“I’ve been privileged to work with young people, very privileged. It’s kept me young, kept my passion and kept my enthusiasm going. One thing you could never accuse me of is not having any enthusiasm or passion for the game, and that will remain.”

In 2014, Morgan was diagnosed with stomach cancer and underwent chemo to tackle it. Through that association, in September 2017 he gave his backing to Norfolk and Suffolk Youth Football League’s choice of the oesophago-gastric cancer department at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) as its charity of the year.

Even when he could have had his feet up, he was helping to coach youngsters at independent Langley School in Norwich.

*Morgan was on good form in this interview for 100 Years of Coconuts TV*

Villa’s Tommy Hughes helped stop rock-bottom Brighton rot

BRIGHTON were in a sorry state floundering at the bottom of the old Second Division when manager Pat Saward turned to a former Aston Villa teammate to borrow his back-up goalkeeper.

Albion had gone on a horrendous run of 14 consecutive defeats between November and February in the 1972-73 season and Saward decided to take regular custodian Brian Powney out of the firing line.

Inexperienced reserve goalkeeper Alan Dovey had twice conceded four goals (in defeats at Preston and Sunderland) during that awful run and between him and Powney they’d conceded 37 goals.

After seeing Albion succumb 3-1 at home to Villa and 5-1 at Fulham, Saward had a word with Vic Crowe, a former Villa teammate who by then was in the manager’s chair at Villa Park, and got him to agree a loan move for Tommy Hughes.

Hughes, who had spent years in Peter Bonetti’s shadow at Chelsea, arrived on the south coast to try to stem the tide and help Brighton get back on the winning trail.

His first run-out for the Albion came in a home friendly against then First Division Stoke City – both sides had been knocked out of the previous round of the FA Cup. Saward also gave a debut to 17-year-old Tony Towner although, unfortunately, Albion were once again on the losing side, 2-0. Nevertheless, the Albion matchday programme said Hughes “had a storming game”.

The losing streak finally came to an end the following Saturday when Hughes made his league debut at home to Luton Town. As well as the change in goal, Saward stuck with Towner on the wing and put another teenager, Pat Hilton, up front alongside Ken Beamish who scored both Albion goals in a 2-0 win.

Unsurprisingly, Hughes kept the shirt for two more league matches, a 3-1 defeat at Bristol City and a 2-0 reverse at Hull City.

Sandwiched between those games, he appeared in a Friday night friendly against visiting Moscow Spartak on 23 February which Albion won 1-0; captain Ian Goodwin scoring the only goal of the game.

Saward wanted to sign Hughes permanently but the powers-that-be couldn’t come up with the required fee and Powney resumed his place. Although Albion put up a bit of a fight, only losing two of the remaining 11 games, winning five and drawing four, the damage had already been done over the winter and they were relegated along with Huddersfield Town.

Hughes, meanwhile, returned to Villa Park but was soon on the move to a permanent home, where he stayed for many years.

Transferred to Hereford United in August 1973 for £15,000, he became something of a club legend and stayed in the area apart from one brief return to Scotland.

As the official club website noted: “He was an immediate success at Hereford and won the Player of the Year award in his first season and repeated the feat five seasons later.”

Manager Colin Addison brought him in when David Icke, the conspiracy theorist and former BBC sports broadcaster, was forced to retire through injury and regular no.1 Fred Potter was also sidelined.

Hughes made 240 appearances over nine seasons with The Bulls, and was in their Third Division championship-winning side of 1975-76. He later became Hereford’s caretaker manager during the 1982-83 season.

In 2006, he demonstrated his prowess at golf when he became the Herefordshire County Senior Champion. Posting a gross score of 72 at the Sapey course, the local newspaper said he had “produced a championship winning round in tricky conditions”. It added: “The course was beautifully manicured but many competitiors struggled to cope with the extra run and bounce off fairways baked hard after weeks of relentless sunshine.”

Born in Dalmuir, West Dunbartonshire, on 11 July 1947, Hughes started out with Scottish Second Division side Clydebank before Tommy Docherty signed him for Chelsea in 1966.

Only ever an understudy to Bonetti, he played two league games in each of 1966-67 and 1967-68, once in 1968-69 and six times in 1969-70.

His competitive debut came on 19 November 1966, when he was only 19, in a 1-1 Stamford Bridge draw against Sheffield United.

The following month he shipped six as Chelsea were thumped 6-1 at Sheffield Wednesday on New Year’s Eve.

In 1968, he was in the Chelsea side that won 5-3 at Southampton and 2-1 at Sheffield United.

In the six games he played between January and April 1970, he conceded 15 goals which included five goals in front of 57,221 at home to Leeds and five to Everton (who went on to win the First Division title) when 57,828 packed in to Goodison Park. Everton were 2-0 up (through Howard Kendall and Alan Ball) within five minutes of the start!

During his time at Chelsea, he was twice selected to play for the Scotland under 23 side. He made his debut on 3 December 1969 in a 4-0 win over France.

The following March he was between the sticks when the England under 23s beat the Scots 3-1 at Roker Park (his Chelsea teammate Peter Osgood scored twice, Brian Kidd the other) but the game was abandoned on 62 minutes when a snowstorm made it impossible to play the full 90 minutes.

His last game for Chelsea came the following month, on 15 April 1970, when Burnley beat the London side 3–1 at Turf Moor.

After Hughes broke his leg in a pre-season friendly in Holland, manager Dave Sexton brought in John Phillips from Villa to understudy Bonetti and, the following May, the displaced Hughes moved in the opposite direction, for £12,500. Phillips would later spend the 1980-81 season as Albion’s back-up goalkeeper under Alan Mullery.

Hughes might have thought he had finally claimed a no.1 spot of his own in a Villa side that had just been relegated to the third tier. He made his Third Division debut at home to Plymouth Argyle on 14 August.

But he only played 16 games under Vic Crowe before losing his place to Jim Cumbes, who had signed from West Brom. Cumbes was one of those rare breeds of sportsmen who also played county cricket for Lancashire, Surrey, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

Hughes’ 23^rd and last game for Villa saw him make a horrible blunder in a first round FA Cup match at Fourth Division Southend United in November 1971. He dropped a free kick at the feet of Bill Garner (who later moved to Chelsea) who set up Billy Best to score the only goal of the game for the Shrimpers.

The ‘keeper’s long run as Hereford’s first choice came to an end in the 1977-78 season, when new signing Peter Mellor, once of Burnley and Fulham, took over the gloves.

Hughes decided to return to Scotland and signed a one-month contract with Dundee United. He contemplated moving his family back up north permanently, but they wanted to return to Hereford, which they did.

“The club and the fans welcomed him back with open arms and Tommy remained at Edgar Street until he finally hung up his boots in 1982,” said the club website. “Tommy never lost his love for Hereford and jumped at the chance of having spells as commercial manager and even as caretaker manager when the financial situation at Edgar Street was fraught.”

As it turned out, he was to make one final appearance at Edgar Street in the 1983-84 Radio Wyvern Cup Final. He had attended as a spectator but turned out for Worcester City after their ‘keeper Paul Hayward dislocated a finger in the pre-match warm up.

Hughes had a spell as manager of Trowbridge Town but his home remained in Hereford where he ran his own successful carpet-cleaning business for many years.

Villa cup winner and captain Pat Saward led Albion to promotion

A FORMER Aston Villa captain and 1957 FA Cup winner steered Brighton to the first promotion I witnessed on my Albion journey.

Genial Irishman Pat Saward, who lived in my hometown of Shoreham during his time as Albion boss, galvanised a squad not expected to be promoted from the third tier and took them up as runners up behind his former club in 1972.

As the champagne flowed in the Goldstone Ground home dressing room, Saward took centre stage surrounded by his blue and white stripe-shirted heroes.

When the promotion tilt had looked like faltering, he’d been bold enough to make drastic changes to the side before a top of the table clash with Villa in front of the Match of the Day cameras. After a memorable 2-1 win in which Willie Irvine scored a goal later judged as the third best in the programme’s Goal of the Season competition, Saward added to his squad on transfer deadline day, bringing in Northern Ireland international Bertie Lutton from Wolves and Ken Beamish from Tranmere Rovers, described in the Official Football League Book as “stocky and packed full of explosive sprinting power, a terrific shot and great appetite for the game”.

Saward told the publication: “They were both last ditch signings and Ken made an astonishing difference. I spent only £41,000 in getting my promotion side together so we were very much Villa’s poor relations in that sense.”

The manager put the success down to: “Dogged determination to succeed from all the players. We stamped out inconsistency. I got rid of ten of the players I inherited and got together a team built on character. That’s the key quality, apart from skill of course.”

However, hindsight reveals the club wasn’t really ready for the higher division and some have suggested Saward broke up the promotion-winning squad rather too hastily. Players he brought in who were used to the level now known as the Championship struggled to gel, and the manager turned to rather too many loan signings.

A mid-season run of 13 consecutive defeats was Albion’s undoing and a glamour FA Cup tie at home to First Division Chelsea in early January 1973 gave a welcome respite from the gloom.

Ahead of the match, Saward opened his heart to Daily Mirror reporter Nigel Clarke, revealing that he couldn’t understand why the side had struggled so much.

“I wish I knew. But I’ve learned more about football these last few weeks than at any other time in my career.

“We are five points behind the next club but I must be the luckiest man in the league. There are no pressures on me,” he said, explaining that supporters were still writing to him, backing him and the team.

“When we came up from the Third Division, I was so big-headed, so confident. I thought with the right results we could go straight through to the First Division. I really did.

“There was spirit and ambition here – and there still is….that’s how this club gets you. My heart is in the place.”

Saward revealed that he had turned down two better paid jobs in the First Division to stay at Brighton after the promotion win, telling Clarke: “What I want is importance, appreciation, understanding and love…not being kicked up the backside and put under the lash.

“Adulation is false. I’ve found my oasis at Brighton and I’m wealthy the way I want to be – in feeling.”

Although the Chelsea game ended in another defeat, fortunes eventually changed the following month – but the damage had been done and Brighton went straight back down.

A defiant Saward promised to blood more youngsters like Steve Piper and Tony Towner, who’d done well when drafted in and Piper, in a matchday programme article, said of him: “Saward was more of a coach than a man-manager, very suave and sophisticated. He knew his football from his days at Coventry.”

However, when results didn’t improve on the return to third tier level, and with a new, ambitious chairman – Mike Bamber – at the helm, Saward was sacked and replaced with the legendary Brian Clough.

Albion’s hierarchy had turned to the untried Saward in the World Cup summer of 1970 after Birmingham City poached Freddie Goodwin from Brighton to replace Stan Cullis as their manager. It was second time lucky for Saward, who’d applied to succeed Archie Macaulay two years previously when Goodwin pipped him to the post.

“Give me ten years and I’ll have Brighton in the First Division,” Saward declared when appointed. Prescient words considering they made it within nine – although it came six years after he’d parted ways with the club.

There’s little doubt Saward was an innovative football man and a popular figure during the first two years of his reign.

Apart from success on the pitch in the 1971-72 season, the way he involved fans in helping him to improve the side also proved a winner.

His buy-a-player appeal was a direct attempt to involve the supporters in the affairs of their club and Saward led a sponsored walk on Brighton seafront as one of the initial events geared towards generating funds to help him compete in the transfer market.

“Too many people spend too much time shouting about how hard up their club is, and too little time fighting to improve the situation,” Saward said in an article for the April 1971 edition of Football League Review. “You never get success if you sit around. You must have courage, even audacity, and work hard for survival.”

The first funds generated provided Saward with the money to bring in experienced Bert Murray from Birmingham City, initially on loan, and then permanently. Murray would go on to be voted Player of the Year in 1971-72.

Another player who signed on loan at the same time as Murray was Preston’s Irvine, who recalled in his autobiography, Together Again, how Saward wooed him.

“Pat sold me the place with his charm and persuasive ways,” he said, describing the former male model as “extrovert, infectious and bubbly”.

He added: “Pat Saward was a gem of a manager and a pleasure to play for. He said what he thought, but never offensively; in a matter-of-fact, plain-speaking kind of way, rather than aggressively.”

Irvine continued: “Saward had the knack of making people feel important. He instilled pride and a sense of identity…..Pat loved attacking, entertaining football and worked tirelessly for the club. I would have run through that proverbial brick wall for him.”

As Brighton neared promotion, Irvine said: “Saward, with a joke or a smile, an arm around the shoulder or a bit of geeing up, knew just how to keep a dressing room happy or dispel any tension or nerves.”

Sadly, Irvine’s opinion of Saward shifted dramatically when, during the summer, the manager told him he intended to bring in a replacement – although it was three months before he eventually signed Barry Bridges from Millwall.

*Saward and new signings Barry Bridges (left) and Graham Howell*

Irvine was in the starting line-up at the beginning of the season and scored six times in 13 league and cup games, but, once Bridges arrived in October, his days were numbered, and, before the year was out, he was sold to Halifax Town in part exchange for Lammie Robertson.

Saward had already dispensed with the services of Albion’s other main promotion season scorer, Kit Napier, along with his former captain, John Napier.

Irvine said that once Albion were promoted, Saward changed. “He seemed to become unapproachable, or at least he did to me, and where once I could see him whenever I wanted, now I seemed to have to book an appointment two or three days in advance. We all had to.”

Teammate Peter O’Sullivan, who had repaired his relationship with Saward after some difficult early exchanges which saw the Welshman transfer-listed, also witnessed a change in the manager.

“We had one or two players who were over the hill and Pat just lost the plot. It was grim,” he told Spencer Vignes in A Few Good Men.

Albion’s tier two fortunes were picked over in some detail in a feature reporter Nick Harling compiled for Goal magazine.

“I didn’t foresee the snags and the type of league the Second Division was,” Saward told him. “It’s the hardest division of the four. Everyone is fighting either to stay in or get out.

“It’s a hell of a hard division. It’s a mixture of the First and Third. It’s good and very hard football. They don’t give you an awful lot of time to play.

“It’s a division governed by fear because to drop out of it is not good, while to get out at the top is fantastic. I didn’t believe the gap would be so different.

“Teams are so well organised and supplement their lack of ability with tremendous defensive play. It’s very hard to get results.”

While open and honest, they didn’t sound like the words of a manager very confident of finding a solution, and Saward sought to explain part of the problem when he said: “To me the most important thing is the attitude of mind. Players should have an arrogant attitude, an attitude that they’re going to do well even when the chips are down. But some types are destroyed. These are the ones who succumb and want to rely on other people.

“Here we’ve got some great boys, but I wish to God some of them had more determination.”

Bamber was resigned to relegation but nonetheless confident of where the club was heading. “There’s no doubting it – First Division here we come,” he told the magazine.

Saward added: “I haven’t lost any enthusiasm. I’ve had my hopes dampened slightly, but one overcomes that.

“This club has got to be built for the future. I want to put Brighton on the map.”

Sadly, when Albion’s poor form at the start of the 1973-74 season continued, Saward publicly admitted: “I haven’t any more answers. I am in a fog.”

Unsurprisingly, the Albion’s directors interpreted it as a loss of confidence and sacked him.

*It’s front page news on the Evening Argus as Saward is sacked*

Saward never managed in the English game again, although he coached in Saudi Arabia for a while.

Born in Cobh, County Cork, on 17 August 1928, Saward lived in Singapore and Malta during his childhood, before the family moved to south London.

His first club was Beckenham FC before he turned professional with Millwall in 1951. He made 118 appearances for the Lions in the next four years.

Saward was 26 when Eric Houghton signed him for Villa for £7,000 in August 1955. The legendary Joe Mercer took over as Villa manager in 1958.

Pat enjoyed a goalscoring debut with his new club, hitting the final equalising goal in a 4-4 draw with Manchester United at Villa Park on 15 October 1955. But he struggled to oust left half Vic Crowe and made only six appearances that season.

In Crowe’s absence through injury the following season, Saward became a regular, making 50 appearances.

*Saward (right) descends the steps at Wembley as a FA Cup winner with Aston Villa*

In total, Saward played 170 games for Villa between 1955 and 1960, most notably featuring in their FA Cup winning team in 1957. Villa beat Manchester United 2-1 in the final at Wembley Stadium in front of a crowd of 99,225, Peter McParland scoring twice to win Villa the Cup for a seventh time.

Saward made only 14 appearances as Villa were relegated from the top-flight in 1959 but he was back in harness as captain when they made a swift return as Second Division champions in the 1959-60 season.

In his final season, he made just 12 appearances, his last coming on 22 October 1960 in a second city derby, Villa beating Birmingham 6-2. The following March, he was given a free transfer and moved on to Huddersfield Town.

*Saward in the stripes of Huddersfield Town*

He had first been selected for the Republic of Ireland on 7 March 1954 in a World Cup qualifier in which Luxembourg were beaten 1-0, and he went on to make 18 appearances for his country, the last, on 2 September 1962, coming when he was 34: a 1-1 draw away to Iceland in Reykjavík.

He played twice against England in World Cup qualifiers in 1957, a 1-1 draw and a 5-1 defeat, when he was up against the likes of Duncan Edwards, Johnny Haynes and Stanley Matthews, and in the same competition against Scotland, in 1961, when the Irish lost 4-1, and his teammates included Johnny Giles.

After 59 appearances for the Terriers, he dropped out of the league but acquainted himself with Sussex when moving to Crawley Town.

Jimmy Hill signed him for Coventry as a player-coach in October 1963 and although he made numerous reserve team appearances, he really made his mark as a coach and was responsible for the rapid development of City’s youth team in the 1960s.

*Saward (left) with assistant manager Alan Dicks and Jimmy Hill at Coventry City*

Willie Carr and Dennis Mortimer were just two of several first teamers who made it under his guidance. He stepped up to first team assistant manager when his former Eire teammate, Noel Cantwell, was appointed boss in 1967.

Not long after his switch to the Goldstone, Saward picked up one of his former Sky Blues proteges, Ian Goodwin, initially on loan, and then permanently, and eventually made him Albion captain. The rugged defender’s arrival was remembered in an Argus article.

When Saward died on 20 September 2002 following a period when he’d suffered with Alzheimer’s, an excellent Villa website pieced together a detailed obituary. His career is also recorded on the avfchistory.co.uk site.

Saward was laid to rest in the same Cambridge cemetery as his brother Len, a forward who played a total of 170 games for Cambridge United between 1952 and 1958, scoring 43 times. He went on to serve the club behind the scenes in their commercial department.

Pictures from my schoolboy Albion scrapbook and various online sources.

Two goals that etched Sammy Morgan’s place in Albion history

HAVING A cheekbone broken in four places during a pre-season friendly summed up the bad luck of never-say-die Northern Irish international striker Sammy Morgan.

His cause wasn’t helped when the manager who signed him six months earlier quit. And, to top it off, while he was recovering from that horrific injury, an Albion footballing legend in the shape of Peter Ward burst onto the scene.

When a £30,000 fee brought him to Brighton from Aston Villa just before Christmas 1975, it looked like the side had found the perfect strike partner for Fred Binney as they pushed for promotion from the third tier.

Unfortunately, the man with the swashbuckling, fearless approach went eight games without registering a goal. However, in his ninth game he made amends in memorable fashion.

Morgan scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace in front of an all-ticket Goldstone Ground crowd of 33,300 – with another 4,000 locked out.

It was 24 February 1976 and the Daily Mail’s Brian Scovell reported the goals thus: “In the 12^th minute, Ernie Machin struck an early ball into the middle from the right and Ian Mellor headed on intelligently behind the defence for Morgan to steer the ball into the corner of the net.

“The second goal, in the 55^th minute, came when Tony Towner took the ball off Jeffries and set off on a 40-yard run which ended with his shot rebounding off goalkeeper Paul Hammond. Morgan tapped in the rebound.”

Gritty, angular and awkward, Morgan scored five more before the end of the season, including another brace at home to Swindon.

However, Albion narrowly missed out on promotion and Peter Taylor, the manager who bought Morgan, quit the club in the close season. The new season under Alan Mullery hadn’t even begun when, in a pre-season friendly against Luton Town, Morgan fractured his cheekbone in four places.

“I know I’m probably more prone to injuries than other players because of my style of play, but there’s no way I can change it, even if I wanted to,” Morgan told Shoot! magazine. “I made up my mind as soon as I got back in the team that I’d have a real go and that’s what I’ve done. People say I’m a brave player but I don’t really know if that’s true. I just like to give 100 per cent and that way no-one can ever come back at you.”

In the season before he joined Brighton, a groin injury had restricted him to just three top-flight appearances for Villa and, when he was fit to return, Villa had signed Andy Gray, whose form kept him out of the side.

Initially reluctant to move on, he admitted in that Shoot! interview: “I was sad at the time because I had a lot of happy times at Villa but now I think they may have done me a favour. Brighton are a very good ambitious club and I’ve just bought a house in Peacehaven. Really, I couldn’t be happier.”

Born in Belfast on 3 December 1946, Morgan’s family moved to England to settle in Great Yarmouth and, with an eye to a teaching career, he combined studies with playing part-time football for non-league Gorleston Town.

“Deep down I knew I could make the grade, but the opportunity just wasn’t there,” he told Goal magazine in a 1974 interview. “The local league club was Norwich City and in those days they didn’t seem that keen on local talent.”

Morgan enrolled at teacher training college in Nottingham and just when he thought a professional football career might elude him, Port Vale made an approach.

“I jumped at the chance,” he said. “They let me stay at Nottingham to complete my studies and I would travel up to train and play with them. Deep down I thought that the Third Division was as high as I could get, unless, of course, Vale were promoted.”

In his three years with Vale, where his teammates included Albion legend Brian Horton, he scored 24 goals in 113 appearances, and he caught the eye of the Northern Ireland international selectors. He scored on his debut in a European Championship qualifier with Spain on 16 February 1972 when he took over at centre-forward from the legendary Derek Dougan.

Amongst his illustrious teammates that day were Pat Jennings in goal and the mercurial George Best. Future Brighton left-back, Sammy Nelson (then with Arsenal) was also in the side. The game was played at Boothferry Park, Hull, because of the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland at that time and it finished 1-1.

Morgan won 18 caps in total over the next six years, scoring twice more, in 3-0 home wins over Cyprus on 8 May 1973 and Norway on 29 October 1975.

The Goal article noted Morgan “earned a reputation of being a hard, no-nonsense striker who could unsettle defences and goalkeepers with his aggression”.

Aston Villa boss Vic Crowe liked what he saw and reckoned he’d be an ideal replacement for that tough Scottish centre-forward Andy Lochhead, who was coming to the end of his career.

Morgan was by now 27 but, in the summer of 1973, Villa paid a £20,000 fee for his services.

“The offer came right out of the blue and I had no second thoughts about the move at all,” he said. “Being part of such a famous club naturally brings pressures, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There was a famous incident in a televised game between Arsenal and Aston Villa when the normally calm, cool and collected Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson went ballistic because of the way Morgan tried to stop him clearing his lines.

Swindon goal celeb “The bigger the atmosphere, the more I like it. For instance, my best two games this season were against Arsenal, and in the replay there was a crowd of 47,000.”

At Brighton, new manager Mullery quickly decided he preferred Ward to Binney and, with Morgan sidelined by that pre-season injury, opted to put former midfielder Ian Mellor up front to partner him.

Wardy Morg Between them, they literally couldn’t stop scoring goals, and the success of their striking partnership restricted Morgan to only two starts in 1976-77. He was on the sub’s bench throughout that first promotion season under Alan Mullery, and he scored just once in 16 appearances as the no.12.

He subsequently moved on to Cambridge United before a spell in Holland, where he played for Sparta Rotterdam and FC Groningen.

When his playing days were over, he became a teacher back in Gorleston. He also became involved in the Norwich youth team in 1990, signing full time as the youth development officer in 1998 and becoming the club’s first football academy director (he holds a UEFA Class A coaching licence). He resigned in 2004 and moved to Ipswich as education officer.

Even when he could have had his feet up, he was helping to coach youngsters at independent Langley School in Norwich.