IT’S THE SEASON of giving and with the days coming in twelves this In Parallel Lines ‘special’ gives you a dozen players who’ve played for the Albion and post-Christmas opponents Arsenal.
A bit like an advent calendar, and with the slightest hint of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, you’ll need to click on the link to see if the player has featured in a blog post of the past or is a blog post still to come!
Across several decades, there have been numerous connections between the clubs but with my own Brighton-watching journey beginning in 1969, I’m not looking at the likes of Irish international defender Jimmy Magill or manager Archie Macaulay because they were before my time.
Let’s start with goalkeepers. Over the years, there have been several who’ve worn the gloves at both clubs – Tony Burns, Nicky Rust or Mat Ryan for example. Younger readers will be more familiar with Ryan and, as an Australian international, he gets the nod as no.1.
If international status gives a player the edge, it would be tempting to suggest Ben White at right-back but ahead of him I’d have to pick Martin Keown. More familiar to today’s football watchers as a TV pundit, those of us with a few more miles on the clock will remember him as a youngster spending two spells on loan with the Seagulls before he got his break with the Gunners, Aston Villa and Everton and won 43 caps for England.
Another TV and radio pundit who wore Albion’s stripes with aplomb having once been a £2m signing by Arsenal is Matthew Upson. He was Brighton’s player of the season in 2013-14.
The late Willie Young, one of that rare breed who played for Arsenal and north London rivals Spurs, comes into contention alongside him but he didn’t cover himself in glory at Brighton so I am plumping for Colin Pates. Pates first made a name for himself as Chelsea’s youngest-ever captain before becoming a reliable back-up defender during George Graham’s reign at Arsenal.
Brighton manager Barry Lloyd had been a teammate of Graham’s at Chelsea in the mid-1960s and the connection served Albion well when he agreed for Pates to join the Seagulls on loan to become part of the side that reached the 1991 play-off final at Wembley. He later rejoined the club on a permanent basis before injury forced him to retire.
Mike Everitt might have merited inclusion at left-back but there’s really only one candidate for that position and that’s the seasoned Northern Irish international Sammy Nelson. He took over that spot at Arsenal from Bob McNab and made 339 league and cup appearances for the Gunners before losing his place to Kenny Sansom. He stayed in the top-flight, though, by joining Brighton under Mike Bailey. He had a spell as coach under Chris Cattlin before pursuing a career in the City.
Although he played most of his career in defence, for the purposes of this piece I’m selecting Steve Gatting in midfield – a position he was equally adept at filling. Another Bailey signing from Arsenal, Gatting remained at Brighton for 10 years and after his playing days were over returned to his first club as an academy and under-23s coach.
It is tempting to bend my own rules and select Liam Brady alongside him but, of course, while the mercurial Irishman was such a fine player for Arsenal, it was only from the dugout that Brighton enjoyed his influence.
Instead, I’ll plump for Steve Sidwell who, although never making a senior appearance for Arsenal, grew up in their academy and bookended his career playing for Brighton.
Barrett? Not even close!
It’s out wide and in the middle of attack that the choices overwhelm although, to be honest, it is difficult to make a case for the lesser talents of Chuba Akpom, Graham Barrett or Raphael Meade over two of Mikel Arteta’s current picks – Viktor Gyökeres and Leandro Trossard (although Paul Dickov was in my thoughts).
Centre forward could have been Frank Stapleton who did his old Arsenal teammate Brady a favour by turning out twice for the Seagulls in 1994, but I’d have to settle for Danny Welbeck to lead the line. Let’s give Stapleton the no.12 shirt.
One old school indulgence would be out wide where, although Mark Flatts briefly impressed, and one day we might come to admire the talents of Amario Cozier-Duberry, perhaps there’s room for nippy winger Brian Tawse, who’d have had a field day supplying players of the quality of Gyökeres and Welbeck.
So, there you have it, the In Parallel Lines Arsenal-Brighton line-up is
Mat Ryan
Martin Keown Colin Pates Matt Upson Sammy Nelson
Steve Sidwell Steve Gatting
Brian Tawse Leandro Trossard Viktor Gyökeres
Danny Welbeck
Sub: Frank Stapleton
Thanks for reading. Enjoy the festive season and all the best for the new year. UTA!
ONES that got away always make for fascinating stories and a striker who went on to become a goalscoring legend slipped through the net at both Brighton and Burnley.
Ian Muir is hailed an all-time hero by fans of Tranmere Rovers for whom he scored 180 goals in all competitions during what many regard as the best period in Rovers’ history. If it hadn’t been for injury, he could have played in the Premier League and Europe for Leeds United.
But he’s barely remembered for the struggles he had to get games at Brighton, let alone in a month with the Clarets.
Success could have eluded himf it hadn’t been for the time he spent at Brighton alongside the legendary Frank Worthington. He was considering a move to non-league Maidstone United, but, when Worthington quit Brighton in the summer of 1985 to take his first step into management on the Wirral, he made Muir his first signing.
“Ian Muir was a fantastic forward with great touch,” Worthington told Spencer Vignes in an Albion matchday programme interview. “He did things in training you just wouldn’t believe, yet he wasn’t even making the side at Brighton under Chris (Cattlin).”
Cattlin had taken the youngster on after he had been given a free transfer by Birmingham City where he’d made just one League Cup appearance in the 1983-84 season under Ron Saunders. But competition for forward places was intense with the likes of initially Alan Young and Terry Connor, then Worthington, Mick Ferguson and later Alan Biley.
Muir’s first involvement with the Albion first team was as a non-playing substitute for the home 3-0 win over Leeds on 24 March 1984. He made his debut the following Saturday at Fratton Park in place of the injured Young and was brought down in the penalty area only 20 minutes into the game to earn Brighton a spot kick, which Danny Wilson successfully buried to put the Seagulls ahead.
Muir in his Brighton days
Connor had a chance to put Albion further ahead and, as the matchday programme reported, “Muir sliced wide as Connor made the opening” before Pompey began a devastating fight back.
Albion had been hoping to complete a fourth win in a row for the first time in six years, but it wasn’t to be, and, into the bargain, Muir couldn’t cap his debut with a goal, instead firing wide when set up by winger Steve Penney.
Unfortunately, this was the game when former Spurs and Arsenal centre back Willie Young, on loan from Norwich City, was given the runaround by Pompey centre forward Mark Hateley, and, courtesy of a second half blitz, the home side ran out 5-1 winners.
Alan Young was restored to the no.9 shirt in the next match and scored twice as Albion beat Grimsby Town 2-0 at the Goldstone, but Muir was drafted in to take Connor’s place in the away game at Shrewsbury Town.
That match ended in a 2-1 defeat, but the News of the World angled its report on an unlucky afternoon for the young forward.
“It just wasn’t Ian Muir’s day,” wrote reporter Brian Russell. “The Brighton teenager (actually he was 20) playing only his second league game could so easily have taken the limelight from Shrewsbury two-goal hero, 17-year-old Gerry Nardiello.
“Young Muir headed the ball home in the eighth minute from Jimmy Case’s corner, but it was ruled out (for a foul by centre-half Eric Young).”
Alan Young produced a powerful header from a Muir cross that Steve Ogrizovic (later of Liverpool and Coventry City fame, of course) saved brilliantly.
Russell continued: “With Brighton battling to cancel out Nardiello’s 23rd-minute opportunist goal, striker Muir suffered. His delicate chip left the ‘keeper clutching thin air, but Shrewsbury skipper Ross McLaren headed out.
“Brighton levelled it with 15 minutes to go (through Eric Young). But, five minutes later, Nardiello pounced on Chick Bates’s chested pass to beat Joe Corrigan.”
Muir was on the scoresheet when Albion’s reserve side began the 1984-85 season with a 1-0 win over reserve team boss George Petchey’s old club, Millwall. It was a very experienced team featuring Corrigan in goal, full-backs Chris Ramsey and Graham Pearce – who had both played for the Seagulls in the FA Cup Final the year before – along with Steve Gatting and Neil Smillie. Giles Stille and Alan Young were also in the line-up.
Muir had to wait until 13 October for his next first team opportunity when he was a non-playing sub as Albion went down 2-1 at Oxford United. He then got on as a sub for Connor in a 0-0 home draw with Barnsley, but the game was so dire that Cattlin very publicly forfeited a week’s wages.
After three goalless games straddling October and November 1984, Cattlin paired Muir with Worthington away to Blackburn on 10 November but still the drought couldn’t be breached, and Albion went down 2-0. The next game, Cattlin tried Ferguson and Connor as his front pair – same outcome: a 1-0 defeat at Leeds.
Muir didn’t get another chance with the Albion but in the spring of 1985 was sent out on loan to Lou Macari’s Swindon Town, where he played in three matches (and his teammates included Ramsey, who’d been released by Cattlin, and Garry Nelson, who would later become a promotion winner with the Seagulls).
Somewhat curiously, when commenting on Muir’s departure from the club that summer, Cattlin said in the matchday programme: “I am sure Ian will get goals at whatever level he plays.”
Sure enough, Prenton Park eventually became his spiritual home and, although Tranmere struggled to stay in the fourth tier initially, Muir’s goalscoring exploits were synonymous with four years in which Rovers were promoted twice and appeared at Wembley five times. Highlights saw Muir score in the FA’s centenary celebrations in 1988 and an acrobatic and precise volley in Tranmere’s Leyland DAF Trophy victory over Bristol Rovers in 1990.
Muir and strike partner Jim Steel
He particularly began to prosper after Worthington’s successor, Johnny King, brought in tall target man Jim Steel alongside him in 1987.
Steel, who later became a police officer on Merseyside, said King, a Bill Shankly devotee, would compare him and Muir to John Toshack and Kevin Keegan. “That’s the way football was at the time,” he told the Liverpool Echo. “You looked for a little mobile player to feed off a tall striker.
“Muiry was one of the best finishers in the game at the time. If I’m honest, the intelligence of the partnership was down to Muiry, who was very good at reacting to things off me,” he said.
“I wasn’t the most technically gifted of players compared to the likes of Johnny Morrissey and Jim Harvey. But things happened around me and Muiry was very good at picking up the crumbs.”
Muir was Tranmere’s leading scorer from 1986 to 1990 and, in the 1989-90 season, he scored 35 goals in 65 games.
Born in Coventry on 5 May 1963, Muir played for the City’s schools side and Bedworth Juniors and won four England Schoolboy caps (against Wales, Scotland and two v West Germany) featuring alongside the likes of Tommy Caton, Ian Dawes, Terry Gibson and Kevin Brock.
He joined QPR as an apprentice aged 17 in 1980 and was a Hoops player for four years in total during Terry Venables’ reign as manager. In October 1982, he went on a one-month loan to Burnley. The respected all-things-Burnley writer, Tony Scholes, takes up the story.
“When Burnley played on QPR’s plastic pitch at Loftus Road in 1982 we came home with more than we’d bargained for. Two Trevor Steven goals in front at half time, we’d suffered a 3-2 defeat in the end although we managed to acquire a striker.”
Scholes pointed out how Muir had progressed into the first team squad at Loftus Road, but after a goalscoring start had fallen out of favour.
“He made a dramatic start to his first team career, scoring twice on his debut in a 5-0 thrashing of Cambridge United in April 1981,” said Scholes. “He kept his place for the one remaining game of the 1980-81 season but by the time he arrived at Turf Moor, well over a year later, he was still looking for his third game.”
It eventually came with Burnley, when he went on as a substitute in a 2-1 defeat at Charlton, replacing skipper Martin Dobson. He then started and scored Burnley’s goal in a 3-1 defeat at Leeds.
“He impressed, but the home fans never saw him and. at the end of the month, he was dispatched back to West London, his Burnley career over,” said Scholes.
Ian Muir alongside Terry Fenwick when Terry Venables managed QPR
Unable to get back into Terry Venables’ side at Loftus Road, Muir joined Birmingham and subsequently Brighton.
Finally given a platform to shine, the striker scored the majority of his 180 Tranmere goals between 1985 and 1991 and spearheaded the side that vaulted two divisions in three seasons between 1988 and 1991, before eventually being edged out by the arrival of John Aldridge.
The Liverpool Echo remembered: “It was inevitable his subtle skills and clinical finishing would make him a target for a larger club. Muir knew of Leeds’s interest as Tranmere campaigned to secure a place in the Third Division playoffs in 1990-91.
Muir told the newspaper: “Howard Wilkinson was sending scouts to watch me and coming along himself. When I went along to the ticket office before games, the Leeds scout was sometimes at the kiosk and I’d chat to him. He told me what was happening.
“Mark Proctor, who joined us from Middlesbrough the following season and worked under Wilkinson, knew about the deal and told me.”
Muir was arguably in his prime at the age of 27, but he suffered what would be a fateful knee ligament injury in a game against Chester City on 23 March 1991.
When Tranmere visited Leeds in a League Cup tie early in the following season, Muir hobbled into Elland Road on crutches. Muir recalled: “Before the game Gordon Strachan asked our midfielder, Neil McNab, where I was. Neil pointed to me standing there on crutches.
“Then Strachan said: ‘Ian is the unluckiest man in the world because we were going to sign him’. Leeds went on to win the league that season and I could have been with them, playing at the highest level playing in Europe the following season.
“I was gutted. I was so close and the injury changed everything. But that’s football. You get your ups and downs.
“I could never complain about the fantastic career I had at Tranmere and I wouldn’t swap my memories of the years at Prenton Park for anything.”
He wasn’t granted a testimonial after a decade with Rovers, but in 2020 there were moves afoot amongst their supporters to help him publish his autobiography.
Adulation has not waned and a young writer who didn’t even get to see him play wrote warmly about the striker’s achievements in this tribute.
In 1995, Muir returned to Birmingham City for a £125,000 feebut he played only twice before he suffered a groin injury. In an effort to get fit, he spent a month on loan at Darlington, and scored a goal, but his league career was over.
He went to play in Hong Kong, scoring a hat-trick on his debut for Sing Tao, and later played for Happy Valley. In June 2011, he recalled in an interview with the Liverpool Post: “The warm climate was a big help. Then the medical people found the cause of the groin problem was my spine. The pelvis wasn’t lined up properly. It could get out of joint just by lying in bed.
“One of the lads on the medical side was able to click me back into place. I have to say I have not had many problems with it since.”
Muir returned to the UK, and his native West Midlands and joined Nuneaton Borough.
“We won the league by 20 points and got into the Conference,” Muir told the Post. “We were top of the league after three months of the following season then it all went pear-shaped.”
The newspaper reported that Muir stepped down a level to Stratford Town, where his football days finished.
He did some voluntary coaching in schools and took a job in a factory for a year, and subsequently joined a friend in a business fitting out pubs and shops.
A TOWERING Scottish defender who played in three consecutive FA Cup finals for Arsenal was a temporary centre-back stand-in for Brighton in 1984.
Willie Young had moved on from the marble halls of Highbury by the time Albion boss Chris Cattlin borrowed him to plug a gap.
Young was nearing the end of a 14-year career and had switched to Norwich City but was made available to help the Seagulls out of a hole.
Another former Gunner, Steve Gatting, was suspended for three matches in March 1984 and former club captain Steve Foster had just been sold to Aston Villa to raise some much-needed funds.
So Cattlin brought in flame-haired Scot Young to play alongside inexperienced namesake Eric Young. His first game, at home to Manchester City on 10 March, finished in a 1-1 draw.
A week later, Albion triumphed 3-0 away to Derby County and won by a similar margin at home to Leeds United on 24 March.
So far, so good, but in what turned out to be Young’s final game, the wheels came off big time and Albion succumbed 5-1 away to Portsmouth, despite taking the lead.
The line-up saw Eric Young unable to play through suspension and Willie partnered by the returning Gatting. They were no match for Pompey’s prolific centre forward Mark Hateley.
Young found himself in the book with 15 minutes of the first half still to play following a foul on Hateley. Evening Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe said: “Young was lucky not to be sent off when he bowled Hateley over from behind. Hateley was in a goalscoring position, and, at the time, Albion were still in front.”
The club’s official report added: “On 65 minutes, Hateley outpaced Young and moved smoothly in to net his 22nd goal of the season for Portsmouth.”
Vinicombe gave a brutal assessment: “Out of the shambles may come some good. If Cattlin had been undecided about taking Willie Young on contract, this performance may well have made up his mind.
“Hitherto, Young had not let the side down in his previous three loan appearances, but Mark Hateley, ten years his junior, gave him a terrible runaround.”
So, an ignominious end to his short spell and he was subsequently sacked by Norwich for misconduct.
After a short spell with lowly Darlington, Young called time on his playing career later that year and ran a pub and restaurant, Bramcote Manor, in Nottingham, before it was demolished to be replaced by a religious meeting place.
He subsequently took over the running of the Belvoir kennels and cattery in Bottesford, Leicestershire, while also being a part-time pundit for Scottish television.
Born in the Midlothian village of Heriot on 25 November 1951, Young went to school at Ross High in Tranent and was more noted for rugby than football – he was a talented hooker who had a trial for the South of Scotland Schools’ team.
However, he was playing football for amateur side Sefton Athletic when Hearts offered him a trial – but as a Hibernian supporter he turned them down! Falkirk then gave him a trial but a change of management meant it wasn’t followed up and eventually Aberdeen stepped in to sign him in 1969.
After making 187 appearances for the Dons in five years, initially under Eddie Turnbull and then Jimmy Bonthrone, Tottenham Hotspur boss Terry Neill signed the defender after he’d impressed in a UEFA Cup tie between Aberdeen and Spurs. He played 64 times for the Lilywhites in two seasons.
Neill’s successor Keith Burkinshaw dispensed with his services and he joined Neill at Arsenal when the Northern Irishman switched to manage the side he used to play for. According to The Scotsman, Neill described Young as “a big awkward bastard who liked a drink”.
Before the move, he’d been sent off in a Spurs v Arsenal clash following what was described as a kung fu style kick on Frank Stapleton.
Young (pictured above launching into a tackle on Albion’s Gerry Ryan) became something of a Gunners cult hero for making the controversial switch from the north London rivals and fans inevitably enjoyed the chant: “We’ve got the biggest Willie in the land.” In four years, he made a total of 236 appearances, chipping in with 19 goals as well.
His three FA Cup Final appearances came in 1978, 1979 and 1980, only collecting a winners’ medal in 1979 when the Gunners beat Manchester United 3-2.
The consensus view was that Young did well in that game, suppressing the threat of fellow Scot Joe Jordan, who led the line for United. In 1980, Young famously committed a professional foul on Paul Allen as he looked like he would score as the youngest player in a FA Cup Final.
Young said in that piece in The Scotsman: “I was the last man and only got booked. After that the rules were changed and the ‘professional foul’, as it started to be called, became a red card offence. Paul was going to score so I had to take him down. Afterwards he said: ‘Don’t worry, big man, I’d have done the same.’ But everyone else was appalled. He was only 17, the youngest to play in an FA Cup final, and I’d ruined the fairytale. Big, bad Willie had done it again.”
Hammers won the game 1-0 with a rare Trevor Brooking header.
After Young lost his first team place at Arsenal to Chris Whyte, he moved on to Nottingham Forest (pictured above), where he spent a couple of seasons, playing 59 games.
He then joined Norwich in 1983 but, dogged by injuries, he failed to command a regular place in their side.
Young won five Scotland under 23 caps but his involvement in some over-exuberant revelry in Copenhagen in 1975 brought about a life ban from the international set-up, which he spoke about in the 2015 interview with The Scotsman.
Post-playing, Youngr settled in the Nottingham area with his wife Lynda, and ran a pub for many years. His death at the age of 73 was announced on 31 October 2025.
GARY LINEKER’S former strike partner at Leicester City had a good goals to appearances ratio for Brighton & Hove Albion.
Sadly, Scotsman Alan Young only managed 26 appearances in his one season (1983-84) with the Albion, although his 12 goals meant he finished second top goalscorer behind Terry Connor.
His brief Brighton career got off to a great start with a memorable debut goal, an overhead kick to net against Chelsea at the Goldstone. Young twice scored braces for the Seagulls but his season was injury-hit and, with manager Chris Cattlin bringing in his old pal Frank Worthington for the 1984-85 season, Young was sold to Notts County.
In more recent times, Young courted controversy as a radio pundit sharing his opinions about Leicester, and in 2014 BBC Radio Leicester dropped him from his role supporting commentator Ian Stringer.
Back in September 2013, Young was berated online for his criticism of winger Anthony Knockaert. Foxello, on ja606.co.uk, wrote: “If there’s one thing that annoys me more than just about anything else at this football club, it is that grumpy, nasty egotist Alan Young and his never-ending agenda against certain members of the football club.”
The correspondent bemoaned: “Knocky is now the butt of every joke, and the object of every jibe Young throws out…. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want us to have skilful players who occasionally misplace a pass due to their advanced vision, and just have hoofers and cloggers like in his day.”
So let’s take a look back at ‘his day’. Born in Kirkcaldy on 26 October 1955, Young was football-daft and showed sufficient promise to earn Scottish schoolboy international honours.
His boyhood favourite team was Raith Rovers, whose star player at the time was Ian Porterfield, who famously scored the winning goal when Second Division Sunderland beat Leeds in the 1973 FA Cup Final.
Surprisingly overlooked by Scottish professional clubs, Young also experienced early disappointment in England when Nottingham Forest rejected him. “Nottingham Forert didn’t want me and I left there thinking I was no good,” he told Shoot! magazine.
Nonetheless, when he was playing as an unattached player for Scotland Schoolboys against England at Old Trafford, Oldham Athletic scout Colin McDonald, a former Burnley and England international goalkeeper, noted his promise and persuaded the young forward to head south of the border to begin his professional career.
In five years at Boundary Park he scored 30 goals in 122 games, and, to a large extent, learned his trade from old pro Andy Lochhead, a prolific goalscorer in his day for Burnley, Leicester and Aston Villa.
In the 1978-79 season, Young netted a hat-trick against Leicester which caught the eye of fellow Scot and former Rangers boss, Jock Wallace, who had taken over at Filbert Street and was building a team with his fellow countrymen at its core.
When Young joined Leicester, and played alongside his boyhood pal Martin Henderson, it began a love affair with Leicester that endures to this day.
In three years at Leicester, Young scored 26 times in 104 games, eventually forming a partnership with the emerging Lineker. TV’s favourite football frontman was generous enough to pen the foreword to Young’s 2013 autobiography, Youn9y (written in conjunction with Simon Kimber and published by the historypress.co.uk) and said of him: “He was an old-fashioned, aggressive centre forward. He possessed, though, a delicate touch and finesse that belied his big target man status – the perfect partner for a nippy little goalhanger trying to make a name for himself.”
Leicester strike partner for Gary Lineker
Young scored on his full debut for City in a league cup game v Rotherham and followed it up with two on his league debut at home to Watford.
The only time Young was sent off while playing for Leicester was, ironically, at the Goldstone Ground in 1981, at Easter, which was the second of four games at the end of the season that Albion won to stay in the top division.
Young was dismissed for two bookable offences, the first for clattering into goalkeeper Graham Moseley and the other a clash with Steve Foster, although, in his autobiography, he says Foster play-acted a knee injury, which the referee bought. Foster even teased him about it when he joined the Seagulls two years later. In that Easter 1981 fixture, Young’s teammate Kevin McDonald was also sent off, Brighton won 2-1 – and Leicester ended up being relegated together with Norwich and bottom-placed Crystal Palace.
Back in the old Second Division, Young did his cartilage in a game on QPR’s plastic pitch which he says was the beginning of the end of his career, because his knee was never the same afterwards (years later he had a knee replacement).
He also had the disappointment of losing to Spurs in the 1982 FA Cup semi final, although he maintains if a certain Chris Hughton had been sent off for two fouls on Lineker, it might all have been a different story.
Before the next season kicked off, Jock Wallace, the manager he idolised, decided to move back to Scotland to manage Motherwell and his successor at Filbert Street, Gordon Milne, swiftly chose to pair the emerging Alan Smith up front with Lineker, signalling the exit for Young.
Managerial upheaval was to become a familiar cause of Young’s departures in the years that followed, too. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Ian Porterfield, his footballing hero from yesteryear, had taken over as manager at Fourth Division Sheffield United and, although he didn’t really want to drop down the leagues, the Blades were a big club so Young moved to Bramall Lane.
A year later, though, after Brighton’s relegation from the elite in 1983, striker Michael Robinson was sold to Liverpool so there was a centre forward vacancy – and manager Jimmy Melia chose Young to fill it.
The fee was either £140,000 or £150,000 depending on which account you believe, but Young was happy because he pocketed a £20,000 signing on fee (four times what he had received only a year earlier when moving to Sheffield).
While Young had a lot of time for Melia, when Cattlin took over it was a different story and, in his book, there are plenty of colourful expletives used to describe exactly what he thought! He also castigates physio Mike Yaxley – “the most useless physio I have ever worked with” – although he says the team spirit was very good…seemingly fuelled by long post-training ‘sessions’ in Woody’s wine bar.
He said: “The football was very enjoyable there and never more so than when Jimmy Case and I were playing together; I loved playing with Jimmy.”
For a short time in that 1983-84 season, Albion had three Youngs in their squad, none of whom were related. Along with Young the forward, there were centre backs Eric Young and on-loan Willie Young.
When Cattlin decided to bring in his old Huddersfield teammate Worthington the following season, Young was on his way, this time to Notts County. The manager who signed him was the former Liverpool and Nottingham Forest defender Larry Lloyd, but his tenure in the managerial chair was very short so, once again, Young found himself playing for a manager who hadn’t chosen him.
In two years at Meadow Lane, Young scored 12 in 43 games for County. He moved on to Rochdale where the Leeds legend Eddie Gray was in charge, but injury took its toll and he only scored twice in 28 games in the 1986-87 season before retiring at 31. He had scored a career total of 89 goals in 349 appearances.
While there were a few non-league appearances, he eventually landed a job back at Notts County in the early days of community football schemes. He made a success of the job, obtained his coaching qualifications and eventually they combined the community scheme with the centre of excellence.
Brighton fans will be interested to know that among the young lads who emerged during Young’s time there were Will Hoskins and Leon Best. The star player, though, was Jermaine Pennant.
Young has fond memories of Neil Warnock’s time as County manager, because of his interest in the work being done at grassroots level. However, the mood changed when Sam Allardyce took over.
Allardyce initially cut Young’s salary and then showed him the door. “I can’t and I never will forgive Sam Allardyce,” he said.
Away from football, Young has had a tempestuous love life – read the book to gather the detail – and has three sons and a daughter. While he also had spells working for Chesterfield and Leeds, he dropped out of the game and then had a very dark period dominated by heavy drinking in isolation, including a time living alone in a caravan on the banks of Loch Lomond.
Eventually a return to England and his break into radio punditry brought him back from the brink.
In 2013, his autobiography Youn9y was published, the sleeve notes describing the story of “a talented, brave striker who played at the highest level of the domestic game but also experienced human misery at its lowest once his playing career was over”.
The notes add: “Youngy doesn’t just recount the good times of his playing career; he also offers valuable insight and moments of perception and understanding of some of the darkest days of his life.”
After four years as match summariser, in 2014 BBC Radio Leicester dispensed with his services and replaced him with another former Fox, Gerry Taggart.
However, Young still gives his opinions about Leicester on the community radio station Hermitage FM.
Pictures show a shot of Alan on Brighton seafront from an Albion matchday programme; the front cover of his autobiography; other matchday programme action shots, and in the Hermitage FM radio studio from Twitter.
A TOWERING Scottish defender who played in three consecutive FA Cup finals for Arsenal was a temporary centre-back stand-in for Brighton in 1984.
Young (pictured above launching into a tackle on Albion’s Gerry Ryan) became something of a Gunners cult hero for making the controversial switch from the north London rivals and fans inevitably enjoyed the chant: “We’ve got the biggest Willie in the land.” In four years, he made a total of 236 appearances, chipping in with 19 goals as well.
After Young lost his first team place at Arsenal to Chris Whyte, he moved on to Nottingham Forest (pictured above), where he spent a couple of seasons, playing 59 games.
He said: “The football was very enjoyable there and never more so than when 
In parallel lines 