Tag: Wolverhampton Wanderers

Goalscorer Ray Crawford took on Brighton backroom role

RAY CRAWFORD, one of the foremost goalscorers of the 1960s, came close to a swansong with the Albion and ended up coaching the club’s youngsters.

Crawford had been a key player in Alf Ramsey’s First Division title-winning Ipswich Town side having begun at hometown club Portsmouth and later netted 41 goals in 61 appearances for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

He joined Brighton in the autumn of 1971 after he had read they were struggling to score goals. Earlier the same year, he’d hit the headlines at the age of 35 when he scored twice for Fourth Division Colchester United as they sensationally beat Don Revie’s First Division Leeds United 3-2 in the FA Cup.

After a subsequent short stint playing in South Africa, homesickness brought him and his family back to the UK and the search began for a way to continue his celebrated career in the game.

He got in touch with his former Ipswich teammate, Eddie Spearritt, a key member of Albion’s squad, and the utility player persuaded manager Pat Saward to offer Crawford a trial.

“I did well enough in my trial week for Pat to ask me to stay for another month and to see how things went,” Crawford recalled in his eminently readable autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing, 2007).

Crawford found the net for the reserves, but a contractual issue with his last club, Durban City (who wanted a fee the Albion weren’t prepared to pay) prevented him joining as a player.

Meanwhile, the previous goalscoring slump that had first drawn him to the club was remedied by a decent run of goals from Peter O’Sullivan to supplement a revival in the form of strikers Kit Napier and Willie Irvine.

It meant Crawford, at 36, hung up his boots (although he still managed a cameo 15 minutes for the reserves in October 1973) to concentrate on coaching.

In the days before large teams of scouts and analysis tools, he would also run an eye over Albion’s future first team opponents to highlight their strengths and weaknesses.

“His dossiers on opposing styles and individual players have proved of great value in the team talks,” reported John Vinicombe in an Evening Argus supplement celebrating Albion’s promotion from the Third Division.

“When I returned to England after a spell with Durban City my only thoughts were of playing,” Crawford recalled. “Before I went to South Africa, I had a good season with Colchester United scoring 32 goals, and, of course, there were the two goals that I scored against the great Leeds United, knocking them out of the FA Cup, which still made me believe that my career was in playing.

Crawford scores v Leeds in the FA Cup

“But when my month’s loan from Durban City expired, and Pat Saward asked me if I would like to join the staff, I jumped at the chance.”

It didn’t stop Saward continuing to search for someone to supplement the strikeforce as the Albion went neck and neck with Aston Villa and Bournemouth for promotion.

Saward even brought in on trial another former England striker, the ex- Everton, Birmingham and Blackpool striker Fred Pickering from Blackburn Rovers. Like Crawford, he scored for the reserves but he wasn’t deemed fit enough for the first team.

Eventually, in March 1972, Saward found the missing piece of his jigsaw in Ken Beamish, a record transfer deadline day signing from Tranmere Rovers.

Beamish chipped in with some vital late goals to help Albion edge out the Cherries to secure Albion’s promotion as runners up to Villa.

The new man’s contribution earned Crawford’s approval in Brighton & Hove Albion Supporters’ Club’s official souvenir handbook, produced to celebrate the promotion.

Crawford as coach

He said: “I don’t like to single out players because football is a team game, but I must on this occasion. Ken Beamish added the final bite up front, and those vital goals that he scored helped us into Division II. What a player this boy is – he never gives up!”

It emerged in Crawford’s autobiography that he also had a friend in Albion chairman Mike Bamber, having got to know him when the Colchester team stayed at Bamber’s Ringmer hotel before a FA Cup tie.

Ever one for rubbing shoulders with stars, Bamber had subsequently invited Crawford back to Sussex to open a local fete in exchange for a weekend stay at the hotel with his family.

“Since that time, I had regarded Mike as a friend and a man I could trust,” said Crawford.

The former striker’s work with the club’s youngsters was evidently appreciated; for instance by Steve Barrett (below left) who said in 2011: “Ray was my coach when I was an apprentice and a young pro. Always had a great enthusiasm for the game and, even in training at the age of about 40, had a good touch and great eye for goal.

“Was great fun on our annual youth trips to tournaments to Holland or Germany. Was very modest in general but loved to remind everyone of his two goals for Colchester against the then mighty Leeds in the FA Cup. A really nice man.”

When Saward was sacked in the autumn of 1973, Crawford assisted caretaker manager Glen Wilson for the home fixture against Southport, which Albion won 4-0.

As for his relationship with Bamber, it counted for nothing as soon as the chairman astonished the football world by appointing Brian Clough and Peter Taylor to succeed Saward.

Crawford was angered by Clough’s “abrasive and stubborn” shenanigans, for instance being bought a pint in a Lewes hotel bar and then left waiting with Wilson as the former Derby duo disappeared for two hours.

“I wasn’t prepared to be treated like that and I soon found out that the way he spoke to people was as I’d expected,” Crawford recalled. “One day he left the players sitting in the dressing room for two hours before training. I don’t know why. It left a sort of threatening pressure on the players that I didn’t agree with.”

It probably didn’t help matters that Crawford’s outspoken wife Eileen also took issue with Clough when he tried to stop the players’ wives having a smoke while socialising before a match. “I don’t smoke, but if I did, it wouldn’t be anything to do with you!” she told him.

Crawford had heard that his first club, Portsmouth, were looking to revive a youth set-up that had been abandoned under a previous manager, so he applied to take on the role of setting it up and running it and headed back to Fratton Park in December 1973.

Born just a mile away from Portsmouth’s famous home ground, the eldest of four children, on 13 July 1936, Crawford initially looked unlikely to follow the sporting prowess of his dad, who had been a professional boxer, because of asthma.

Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for football was sparked by a display of skill from Pompey player Bert Barlow when he did a coaching session at his school, and he joined a local football club called Sultan Boys.

Then he was taken to see Portsmouth play at Fratton Park and he set his heart on stepping out onto that turf himself.

At 14 he started to fill out in height and weight. “I changed quickly from a skinny, shy, asthmatic youth into a strong, young athlete, representing Hilsea Modern School and Portsmouth Schools in cross country running and in the 440 yards,” he said.

He also excelled at cricket and was offered the chance to have a trial with Hampshire County Cricket Club. But his heart was set on football.

Eventually a break came courtesy of a friend who was already in Portsmouth’s youth team. Crawford was invited to twice-weekly training and, after impressing, was taken on as a junior.

In the meantime, he worked by day for the Portsmouth Trading Company making concrete and breeze blocks, which involved spending around eight hours every day lifting 500 heavy blocks onto pallets to dry. It certainly got him fit.

The football club eventually offered him a contract after two years of training with them, but then (as was the case with all young men at the time) he had to do two years’ National Service in the army.

That’s where the title of his book comes in because he was posted to Malaya where word of his footballing ability had already spread. He was invited to play for Selangor Rangers, the biggest club in Kuala Lumpur, and the army also gave him permission to play for the Malayan Federation on a tour of Cambodia and Vietnam.

“Whilst I took part in many more football matches in Malaya than military exercises, I did go out into the jungle on a few occasions with the battalion,” he recalled.

Back at Portsmouth in the autumn of 1956, Crawford resumed his football career, initially in Pompey’s reserve team. After scoring 33 goals in 39 reserve team games, he finally got a first team call-up, making his debut in a 0-0 draw against Burnley at Fratton Park on 24 August 1957.

In the following game, he scored two in two minutes as Spurs were beaten 5-1 at home, but the following month he suffered a broken ankle that sidelined him for two months.

The beginning of the end of his fledgling Pompey playing career came in December that year when he lost it with the club chairman, Jack Sparshatt, who puzzlingly decided to enter the dressing room at half-time during a game, voicing his disapproval at the performance. Crawford told him to f*** off!

Perhaps not surprisingly he was left out of the side for a month.

He did get selected again in the new year, playing up front with Irishman Derek Dougan, but, that summer, Eddie Lever, the manager who’d given him his debut, was sacked and it wasn’t long before his replacement, Freddie Cox, sold Crawford to Ipswich.

Although he hadn’t wanted to move, future England boss Ramsey was persuasive and Crawford admitted: “I had no idea at the time that this would eventually turn out as one of the best decisions I ever made in life.”

The Hampshire lad adapted well to Suffolk and by the end of his first season at Town had scored 25 goals in 30 league games. Not a bad return but even better was to come and with Crawford and strike partner Ted Phillips rattling in the goals, Ipswich won back-to-back titles, winning the second tier championship in 1960-61 and the elite title in 1961-62.

Crawford scored 40 and Phillips 30 as Ipswich won promotion in 1961 and, at the higher level the following season, Crawford bagged another 37 goals.

Such prolific scoring inevitably brought him to the attention of the international selectors and, at the age of 25, he won two England caps. The mystery was why he didn’t win more.

Crawford made his England debut in a Home International against Northern Ireland at Wembley on 22 November 1961. He was credited with setting up England’s goal, scored by Bobby Charlton in the 20th minute, and the game ended in a disappointing 1-1 draw.

The 30,000 crowd for the Wednesday afternoon match was a record low for Wembley at that time. The prolific Ipswich striker only won one more cap, and then only because of a fractured cheekbone injury to first choice Alan Peacock of Middlesbrough.

Nonetheless, Crawford seized his chance and got on the scoresheet after only seven minutes against Austria in a friendly at Wembley on 4 April 1962.

He turned and buried a shot to give England an early lead which Ron Flowers increased with a penalty before half-time. Roger Hunt scored a third for England in the second half. Hans Buzek pulled one back for the visitors in the 76th minute.

As well as Hunt, future World Cup winners Ray Wilson and Bobby Charlton were also in the England line-up, together with 1966 squad members Jimmy Armfield and John Connelly. The team was captained by Fulham’s Johnny Haynes. Jimmy Melia was part of the squad but didn’t play.

Jimmy Magill, who later joined Brighton from Arsenal, was in the Irish side whose equaliser was scored by Burnley’s Jimmy McIlroy. Spurs’ Danny Blanchflower won his 50th cap for his country that day.

Having scored 33 goals in the First Division, Crawford was gutted not to be selected in the England squad for the 1962 World Cup in Chile and future England boss Ramsey was mystified too. “I just don’t understand it and I will go as far as saying it is downright unfair,” he said.

Crawford reckoned it was because England coach Harold Shepherdson, who also held a similar role at Middlesbrough, always advanced the claims of Boro’s aforementioned Peacock, who was chosen ahead of him despite scoring fewer goals, and in the Second Division.

Although Crawford was selected three times for the Football League representative side, he didn’t win any more full international caps.

Probably more surprising was that his old club boss Ramsey, who had seen him at close quarters for Town, didn’t turn to him after he’d taken charge of England in October 1962. But Ramsey had an embarrassment of riches at his disposal, not least in the shape of Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Smith along with Liverpool’s Hunt and later Geoff Hurst.

Crawford’s first meeting with Jackie Milburn, who took over from Ramsey as Ipswich boss, simply involved the former Newcastle and England centre-forward saying: “Nice to meet you Ray, you won’t be here long.”

Sure enough, he wasn’t. Despite his past successes, Ipswich cashed in and sold him to Wolves for £55,000 in September 1963.

His debut was somewhat ignominious as Wolves succumbed 6-0 at Liverpool (their ‘keeper Malcolm Finlayson was forced off injured) but Crawford scored twice in his second game as Wanderers won 2-1 at Blackpool (for whom Alan Ball scored).

Crawford went on to finish that first season with 26 League goals to his name in 34 games and was named Player of the Year, although Wolves finished in a disappointing 16th place.

Crawford, who is remembered fondly on the website wolvesheroes.com, had been joined at Molineux by Liverpool’s Melia (“a fine passer of the ball”) but when Stan Cullis, the manager who signed them both, was sacked, neither of them saw eye to eye with his successor, Andy Beattie.

Melia was sold to Southampton and the rift with the new boss saw Crawford switch to Black Country rivals West Brom in February 1965 for a £35,000 fee. He later reflected it was a case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire because he didn’t enjoy a good relationship with Baggies boss Jimmy Hagan.

The striker played only 16 matches for Albion, scoring eight goals, before asking for a transfer in March 1966 and being granted his wish. “I did my best but never had a decent run of games in the first team,” he said. “It never quite worked out but I enjoyed most of my time there and the fans could not have been better.”

It was former club Ipswich, battling at the wrong end of the Second Division, who rescued him and, even though it meant dropping down a division, he was happy to return to Portman Road under Bill McGarry.

Crawford struck up a useful striking partnership with prolific American-born Gerry Baker. By the end of the season, he’d scored eight goals in 13 appearances and Town managed to avoid relegation.

He was part of the Ipswich side that won the Second Division championship the following season, netting 25 goals in 48 appearances, and by then was approaching his 32nd birthday.

The goals continued to flow with Ipswich back amongst the elite, Crawford scoring 21 in 42 games in the 1967-68 season. But more managerial upheaval was around the corner, when McGarry left to become manager of Wolves.

“When McGarry left for Wolves, I had lost my master and mentor, leaving a psychological gap for me that wasn’t going to be filled by anyone else however qualified or good they were as a manager,” said Crawford.

Even before Bobby Robson succeeded McGarry, Crawford started to weigh up his options and he decided he fancied a move to South Africa, where his old Ipswich teammate Roy Bailey had settled.

Although Town chairman John Cobbold initially agreed to give him a free transfer, the Board later changed their mind and decided they wanted some compensation for his services. Instead of going to South Africa, he ended up moving to Charlton Athletic for £12,000.

The move to The Valley turned sour after he refused to join a training camp organised by manager Eddie Firmani because his family were ill and he needed to be at home to look after them. He was sacked after playing just 22 games for the Valiants, during which time he scored seven goals.

Southern League Kettering provided a short-term means of getting back into playing but it was Fourth Division Colchester United who took him on and he repaid their faith by scoring 31 goals in 55 matches under Dick Graham, the most memorable being that pair against Leeds.

Crawford eventually got his move to South Africa in August 1971, joining Durban City, but his family couldn’t settle and they returned to the UK three months’ later.

During his time as youth coach at Portsmouth, he was responsible for signing Steve Foster and, in his autobiography, recalls how a tip-off from Harry Bourne, a local schoolteacher set him on the path of the future Albion and England centre-back.

Foster had been released by Southampton and Crawford went to the family home in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, to invite him to train with Pompey. Foster’s mother was at a works disco at Allders and Crawford went to find her there and had to shout above the sound of the music that Portsmouth were interested in signing her son.

The youngster, 18 at the time, got in touch the next day and, before long, was switched from a centre-forward to a centre-back, after Crawford’s former Ipswich teammate Reg Tyrrell told him: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward, but he’d be a good number 5.”

After he left Portsmouth in 1978, Crawford took over as manager at Hampshire league side Fareham Town and later managed Winchester City before finally retiring from the game in 1984 to become a merchandising rep.

Lowe and behold, the centre back who couldn’t get a game

KEITH LOWE is one of those curious cases of a player who joined the Albion on loan but didn’t kick a ball in anger!

He played one game for the reserves and sat on the first team bench for five matches without getting on.

Lowe was just 20 and well down the centre half pecking order at Wolves when Mick McCarthy had just taken charge.

At the beginning of the 2006-07 season, Albion’s first choice centre backs, Adam Hinshelwood and Guy Butters, were both out injured, and Joel Lynch was a doubt after picking up a niggle in a pre-season game. So, manager Mark McGhee took the opportunity to get Lowe on loan for a month.

Candid former Wolves manager McGhee told the Albion matchday programme how the club had done its homework on the youngster, who he described as a “no frills central defender who gets in where it hurts to head it and boot it. Obviously, that’s something we need – a big lad in our box to head it away. With the absence of Guy Butters, we’ve missed that sort of height in pre-season so I hope he will do well for us.

“Obviously I know people well at Wolves, so we don’t think for a minute that we are signing Rio Ferdinand, but we’ve signed a steady young player who’s determined to make a career for himself and wants to do well.”

For his part, Lowe told the Argus: “I’ve found out that there are a few injuries in the defence here so hopefully I’ll get into the team as soon as possible and play as much football as I can.”

Born in Wolverhampton on 13 September 1985, Lowe had progressed through the Wolves academy and was given a first team debut by Dave Jones in the League Cup at the beginning of the 2004-05 season, three weeks before his 19th birthday. Two months later Lowe was awarded a three-and-a-half-year contract and he said:“My family are all Wolves supporters so it’s a bit of a dream come true.”

Although he made 13 appearances at either right-back or centre-back that season, he only played three matches for them under Glenn Hoddle the following season although he gained experience out on loan, at Burnley (under Steve Cotterill), and QPR in the Championship, and Swansea in League One.

“A lot of people have left Wolves but the one thing they have got is a lot of defenders and they have scrapped their reserve team now so it was best to go and play somewhere else,” Lowe told Andy Naylor of the Argus. “I’m looking to play as many games as I can. I wasn’t getting the opportunity I would have liked at Wolves so I jumped at the chance to come and play some football.”

Lowe said that even though McCarthy had not long been in charge, he had already got his starting eleven in mind. “I hadn’t asked to go out on loan yet, but from what I can gather the manager here ‘phoned up our manager and it seemed like the ideal place to come,” he said. “I’ve not been down to Brighton before but my first impressions, even from the drive in, were it seems really nice and I’m really looking forward to it.”

He added: “My aim is to get noticed at Wolves but I’m open to anything that happens. If it’s not going to happen for me at Wolves then I’ll stay here as long as the management staff want me.”

Unfortunately for Lowe, Lynch recovered from a pre-season thigh injury in time to make the starting line-up for the season opener at Rotherham, and he never did manage to force his way into the side.

By mid-August, he confessed in another Argus interview: “I’m very disappointed. I came down here to play football but it hasn’t happened. You’ve got to be professional about it, keep working hard and hopefully it will come.

“We kept clean sheets in our first two games and, when things like that happen, you can’t really go knocking on the gaffer’s door and say: ‘Why am I not in the team?’ The lads have done really well but I’ll just keep working hard in training and hopefully he’ll take note.”

Lowe pressed his claims for a place by scoring on his debut for the Reserves, heading an equaliser from a Tommy Fraser corner on 54 minutes, in front of McGhee, in a 2-1 win away to QPR. He said: “It was nice to get 90 minutes under my belt and it was a good performance and result, so I was pretty pleased.

“Hopefully I’ve caught the gaffer’s attention. I thought I did well enough and I’m just trying to push to get into the team.”

It didn’t happen, though, and McGhee was at pains to point out the circumstances. “We brought him here to play but then Joel got fit and suddenly looked absolutely fine.

“By the time we got Keith down here we weren’t sure he had trained with us enough and done enough work with us. Joel was there and we decided not to gamble with Keith but to play Joel, who has then played so well, so things have conspired against him a wee bit.”

McGhee added: “He did fine at QPR. In the second half, particularly, when we pushed them up the park and asked them to defend in behind, he did it well.”

Lowe might have got a chance in the Carling Cup against Boston United but Wolves were only prepared to allow him to be cup-tied if Albion intended keeping him longer – and McGhee had decided to add to his defensive options by signing veteran Georges Santos.

Lowe headed back to the Black Country, but the following month he went on loan to Cheltenham Town, where he finally saw some league action, playing in 18 matches. It sowed the seed for a later period in his career: he played 133 games for League Two Cheltenham between 2010 and 2014 in a career that ultimately embraced 617 appearances for 13 different clubs.

Lowe spent the final season of his Wolves contract on loan at League One Port Vale. Signed by Martin Foyle, Lowe also featured under his successors Dean Glover and Lee Sinnott, playing in 31 matches. But Vale were relegated in 23rd spot and the defender finally bade farewell to his boyhood club in May 2008.

He dropped out of the league for the 2008-09 season, appearing in 52 games for Conference Premier League side Kidderminster Harriers.

Budget issues meant he was released at the end of the season and the following campaign he was back in the league with Hereford United, playing 26 games for the League Two Bulls under John Trewick and former Wolves boss Graham Turner. That spell at Cheltenham came next.

During two years at York City, Lowe collected no fewer than four Player of the Year awards in 2014-15 – three from supporters’ groups and one from local newspaper The Press.“Keith deserves the awards for his consistency,” City boss Russ Wilcox told the newspaper. “To play every league game is always an achievement. It shows you are doing things right on and off the pitch. It means you look after yourself, train properly and are a good professional.”

Released by new York boss Jackie McNamara, Lowe returned to Kidderminster, by then in the National League, where he spent another 18 months, much of it as club captain.

National League Macclesfield Town was his next port of call and he played in all of their matches as they won promotion back into the league in 2017. However, it ended on a sour note in 2019 when he was one of six players to issue the club with a winding up order for unpaid wages.

The 2019-20 season saw him turn out for three different clubs: Southern League Nuneaton Borough, National League North side Bradford Park Avenue and latterly (until the Covid pandemic called a halt to the league) Kidderminster for a third spell.

At the end of the 2021-22 season, he announced his intention to concentrate on developing a career as a teaching assistant. He told the Kidderminster club website: “I’m not ready to stop yet and am very much planning to play part-time next year, but it feels like now is the time to move away from the full-time game and think about the future and the career I’ve been building in schools.”

Fans warmed to ‘indestructible’ Goldson after own goal start

CONNOR GOLDSON’S dad Winston must have had mixed emotions when his son scored the only goal of the game at the Amex on New Year’s Day 2016.

The avid Wolverhampton Wanderers fan in him would have been delighted to see his side leave the south coast with three valuable Championship points.

Unfortunately, Wolverhampton-born Connor was playing for Brighton that day – just his second game in the blue and white stripes.

What made it worse was that the defender had been on Wanderers’ books for five years as a young boy but was released when he was only 13.

Goldson must have been mortified when, in the 32nd-minute of that first game of 2016, he inadvertently diverted Jordan Graham’s cross past David Stockdale in the home goal.

Sure, injury-hit Albion had chances to restore parity or even win, but 11th-placed Wolves hung on to the lead and Chris Hughton’s luckless Seagulls saw a winless run extend to six games.

Albion also lost the next two matches but got back on track with a 1-0 win at Blackburn on 16 January and then pushed hard for an automatic promotion slot.

For Goldson, that fixture marked the start of a run of games alongside Lewis Dunk, and his first goal for the club came in a 2-1 away win at Birmingham City on 5 April, when he glanced in a Jiri Skalak set-piece delivery.

Goldson celebrates his goal at Birmingham with Beram Kayal and Lewis Dunk

He found the net again a fortnight later with a towering header from a corner as the Seagulls crushed QPR 4-0 at the Amex to edge closer to the top two (Burnley and Middlesbrough) with three games to go.

The centre-back partnership was only broken up when Dunk was shown a red card in the penultimate game, a 1-1 draw at Derby, and suspended for the final game of the ordinary league season.

Goldson was alongside returning skipper Gordon Greer for the crucial away game at Middlesbrough on 7 May when the 1-1 draw meant Boro, equal on 89 points, pipped the Albion to automatic promotion by virtue of having scored two more goals.

With Albion forced to endure the play-offs, Goldson’s involvement in the Seagulls’ bid to overcome Sheffield Wednesday cruelly came to a premature end when the centre-back was forced off injured before half-time in the first leg at Hillsborough, and Albion eventually succumbed 2-0.

The injury prevented Goldson being involved in the second leg when Dunk scored but Wednesday somehow managed a 1-1 draw to thwart Albion’s progress.

If that was a blow, it was the least of the troubles the defender would have to overcome the following season.

Frustrating though it was that Brighton brought in Shane Duffy to partner Dunk in the centre of defence, Goldson’s brief spell back in the side in early 2017 came to a juddering halt when a routine scan discovered a heart defect that required surgery.

Then it wasn’t just his football career that was under threat, but his life was in danger if urgent action wasn’t taken to operate on the swollen aorta the tests uncovered.

It has since emerged that Winston suffered a heart attack aged only 35 and Goldson’s grandfather had died of a heart problem.

The required “preventative surgery” took place at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Chelsea, leaving him with a scar down the middle of his chest. His best friend in football and former Shrewsbury teammate, Jon Taylor, told The Athletic: “He thought the worst about not playing again. He was struggling. When I saw him in the hospital it was horrible.”

Taylor was among several former Shrews people Scottish football writer Jordan Campbell spoke to for an extended article about Goldson published by The Athletic in March 2021.

“I made a T-shirt for him before a game which said ‘Stay Strong Con’. That gave him a little bit of a boost but he’s got a great family around him,” said Taylor, who is now at Doncaster. “When he had the op, and he knew he could play again, his mentality was, ‘How quickly can I get back?’. Even as young lads at Wolves we knew his mindset was second to none.”

Campbell reported how once Goldson had come to terms with the situation, he was determined to get back playing regularly, and just 15 weeks after the operation he took part in a pre-season friendly match in Austria. In a changed second half team, he lined up alongside Uwe Hünemeier against Fortuna Dusseldorf.

Physio Chris Skitt, who’d nurtured Goldson through physical issues when he was developing at Shrewsbury, said: “If I talk to kids and they say, ‘What does it take to be a professional footballer?’, I use Connor as the example.”

With a surname that lent itself so readily to the Spandau Ballet classic Gold, the “indestructible” line in the lyrics was a natural for Albion’s singing fans to pick up on.

But at the end of August 2017, on transfer deadline day, it looked certain Goldson would continue his rehabilitation into league football with a season-long loan move to Ipswich Town.

He was manager Mick McCarthy’s main target, but Albion pulled the plug on the deal at the last minute because of the collapse of a separate deal for centre-back cover they’d hoped to complete.

Goldson played in League Cup matches against Barnet and AFC Bournemouth but it wasn’t until December that he finally got his chance to feature in Albion’s debut Premier League season – and he turned in a Man of the Match performance as the Seagulls beat Watford 1-0 at the Amex.

He played in three games in January: FA Cup matches against Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough (2-1 and 1-0 wins), and the 4-0 home defeat to a rampant Chelsea.

Goldson and Duffy in action v Chelsea

As Albion progressed to the fifth round of the FA Cup, Goldson once again got a start, alongside Hünemeier, as Albion beat Coventry City 3-1 at the Amex.

His last league game in an Albion shirt was as a 71st-minute substitute for Duffy in a 4-0 reverse away to Liverpool on the final day of the season.

During the close season, Goldson seized on the chance to play for his boyhood hero Steven Gerrard, who had just been appointed manager of Glasgow Rangers. Gerrard drove all the way to Brighton for face-to-face talks with Goldson and explained how he saw him as a cornerstone of the rebuilding job at Rangers.

The often magnanimous Hughton was not going to stand in his way and said on the club website: “Connor has done extremely well for the club in the three years he has been here, but he wants to play regular senior football, and at this stage we cannot give him that guarantee.

“He has been a great professional and a pleasure to work with – and he has shown a great mental strength to come through a very tough time after he underwent crucial heart surgery just over a year ago.”

Determined to seize the opportunity presented to him in Glasgow, Goldson remarkably played in 151 of 159 games Rangers took part in over the next three years; when he made his 150th appearance, it was the quickest any player had reached that landmark in the club’s history.

After Gerrard departed Rangers to take on the manager’s job at Aston Villa, Goldson indicated he wanted to make a move himself, although, at the time of writing, he remains in Glasgow.

Born on 18 December 1992, Goldson grew up on the same Wolverhampton estate as future Wanderers players Leon Clarke and Carl Ikeme.

As the son of a Wolves-mad dad, it was probably not surprising that his early footballing promise was nurtured with Wanderers. The family lived only a 10-minute car ride from Molineux.

“I was with Wolves from the age of eight until I was 13,” Goldson recalled in an Albion matchday programme article, explaining that he was in the same group as Jack Price and Ethan Ebanks-Landell, who both made it through to the first team.

“I was a striker until I was about 10 or 11, simply because I was the biggest and the quickest, but I was then converted into a centre-half,” he said. “When I got to under 14 level, the manager stopped playing me and so my dad and I made the decision to leave for Shrewsbury – and it was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

Shrewsbury fast-tracked Goldson through the groups and he was training with the first team by the time he was 16. He signed professional forms at 17 and made his first team debut the following year.

“I owe Shrewsbury a lot, both the first-team management and the coaches who brought me through,” he said.

In The Athletic feature, Skitt described in detail how Goldson went through a difficult physical development phase which in effect involved “putting him back together”.

The physio was responsible for resetting his body and created a specific programme comprised of core work, gym sessions and remedial work to counter the loss of power growth spurts were causing.

“We even tried to get him boxing to improve his footwork because of his canal boat shoes. He is a size 14 and they are absolutely honking,” said Skitt.

After successfully rebuilding his body, Goldson played 18 games at the start of the 2013-14 season under Graham Turner but only 11 were as a starter, so he went on a two-month loan to Cheltenham.

His loan was extended but he was recalled after first team coach and reserve team manager Mike Jackson (the chap who has taken over as caretaker Burnley manager following Sean Dyche’s sacking) was put in charge at Shrewsbury until the end of the season following Turner’s resignation. Goldson played every minute of the last 21 league games.

Shrews were relegated but the following season, under Micky Mellon, with Jackson as coach, Goldson was a key player as they bounced straight back: he won the club’s Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year awards and was named in the PFA Team of the Year.

Such recognition led to Brighton signing him, doubtless with half an eye on his replacing Greer, who was edging towards the end of his playing days with the Seagulls.

It was a while before Goldson got his chance and Greer admitted in The Athletic feature that the new boy’s frustration spilled over into a set-to with the skipper in training.

“Training finished and we went into the dressing room to find that the lads had laid out two sets of boxing gloves for a laugh with the Rocky music playing,” said Greer. “As soon it was over, though, it was done, as I liked Connor.”

And to show the hatchet had been well and truly buried, Goldson revealed that after he’d taken the captain’s place in the side, behind the scenes Greer had offered him encouragement and advice. “He’s been very helpful and supportive at the same time,” he said. “There are plenty of people who wouldn’t be like that, so I can’t speak highly enough of him.”

Goldson had to wait until 15 December 2015 to make his Albion debut, when he went on as a substitute for the injured Hünemeier against Middlesbrough. Unfortunately, the visitors emphatically ended Albion’s 21-game unbeaten run, winning 3-0.

That game was watched from the stands by Jose Mourinho, who’d just been deposed as Chelsea boss, catching up on the progress of his former Real Madrid colleague and Boro manager Aitor Karanka.

For the new young centre-back, the rise to playing in the Championship was all a learning experience, and he said: “I’ve been working with Colin Calderwood a lot, even after training, and as a former centre-back himself, he has put on a lot of good drills.”

Little did he know at the time there would be far greater challenges ahead.

Oh brother: Seagulls spell revives van La Parra

ON-LOAN Dutchman Rajiv van La Parra scored twice in six games for Brighton, spurring parent club Wolverhampton Wanderers to recall him.

Georginio Wijnaldum’s half-brother was only on the winning side once during his time with the Seagulls, but Wolves boss Kenny Jackett was happy to give him another chance at Molyneux after he’d mysteriously been frozen out.

But the thaw didn’t last long. While Albion had moved on by signing Anthony Knockaert on a three-year deal from Standard Liege, van La Parra was soon on the move again, this time to Huddersfield.

It was in November 2015 that Chris Hughton seized on an opportunity to shake up Albion’s attacking options in the last few hours of the loan transfer window by offering the unsettled van La Parra a chance to replicate the form he’d shown the previous season for Wolves.

“Rajiv will give us pace and creativity in the forward areas, and supplements our existing wide options,” Hughton said. “He is something different to the players we already have here, and I am delighted to have him on board.

“With Sam Baldock currently injured and Kazenga LuaLua having missed the amount of games he has, we have been very keen to bring in offensive options.

“In Rajiv we have a player who regularly featured in Wolves’ promotion chase last season.”

Albion were top of the table at the time and, having watched from the bench as Albion saw off Birmingham 2-1 at the Amex, van La Parra went on in the 27th minute of the away game at Derby County after Solly March was clattered by a challenge that ultimately ruled him out for the rest of the season.

The substitute certainly made a positive impact, edging Albion 2-1 ahead with a goal in the 75th minute before Chris Martin equalised for County with a last-ditch penalty after Gordon Greer was harshly adjudged to have fouled Johnny Russell.

Van La Parra was also on target at Loftus Road on 15 December when he beat former England goalkeeper Rob Green with a 30-yard shot in the 55th minute to put Albion 2-0 up. QPR hit back with two Charlie Austin goals to share the points.

It emerged when he signed that van La Parra had been a Brighton target for some while, with the Wolverhampton Express and Star reporting he’d spoken to the club about a possible permanent move before that August’s transfer deadline day.

Leeds United were also keen, and he might later have ended up at rock bottom Bolton Wanderers, but he stayed on at Molyneux, where he found James Henry and Nathan Byrne ahead of him in the pecking order.

Ironically, his one and only league goal for Wolves was scored against the Seagulls at the Amex in a 1-1 draw the previous season.

The winger admitted in an interview with Andy Naylor for The Argus that he was baffled why he’d fallen out of favour at the Black Country club.

“It’s a mystery,” he said. “I didn’t understand what happened but sometimes these things happen in football.

“The manager maybe wanted to try some different players but I cannot explain what happened. It’s unreal. I played last season and I then went onto the bench not playing as many games.

“I’m the type of person who goes to the manager and asked for an explanation why I wasn’t playing. He (Jackett) couldn’t really give a reason but he motivated me by saying that I was close to the team and training well.

“That was keeping me positive about the manager and his opinion of me. At the end of the day, they were just words and not actions and I can just focus on playing now.”

His arrival at the Amex was somewhat overshadowed by the signing at the same time of striker James Wilson on loan from Manchester United but he discovered a couple of familiar faces in the Albion dressing room: Elvis Manu – a fellow product of Feyenoord – and Danny Holla.

“It’s nice to have them,” he said. “They can help me. I know Manu very well because we played at Feyenoord. He was in a younger team than me. I’ve played against Danny a few times and we’ve had a number of conversations.”

Although van La Parra made a mark with the Seagulls, it was apparent in December that a permanent move to the south coast looked unlikely. Wolves boss Jackett had noted his form and said: “He’s been keen to get the opportunity and so far at Brighton he’s taken it. He’s still a Wolves player and we’ll assess the situation. He’s got a couple of goals and assists which is very good.”

Van La Parra hoped an impressive performance in his last game on loan might persuade Hughton to view him as a long term prospect but Albion went down 1-0 at home to Ipswich Town, their fifth winless game on the trot, and he returned to Molineux.

Born in Rotterdam on 4 June 1991, of parents from Suriname, he was named by his mum after Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi, the former Indian prime minister who was assassinated in 1984.

Van La Parra went through the youth ranks at Dutch giants Feyenoord between 1999 and 2008 and earned selection for the national side’s under 17s and under 19s.

It was only while playing in Dutch youth football that former Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum, then playing for Sparta Rotterdam, met his half-brother van la Parra.

“I knew I had another brother, but I never saw him until that moment,” Gini explained. “I never saw pictures because at that time you didn’t have the internet or social media. There was no Instagram or Facebook or anything.

“I went to play a game, but I found my brother.”

Wijnaldum eventually moved to Feyenoord, and van La Parra said: “When he came to play for Feyenoord, we saw each other more often and we were closer.”

In 2008, van La Parra had moved to French Ligue 1 club Caen where he thought he stood a better chance of first team football. He was there for three years and, although he managed 16 outings in their first team, he mainly played for the B side.

At the end of his contract, he returned to the Netherlands and joined Eredivisie outfit SC Heerenveen where in three years he scored 16 goals in 94 appearances and got to play Europa League football. In the 2012-13 season, he also played six times for the Dutch under 21s, when he got the chance to play alongside Wijnaldum.

“I played on the wing and Gini in midfield. He didn’t give me the ball. He always passed to the other side,” joked van La Parra. 

In the summer of 2014, the winger moved to then Championship side Wolves and quickly established himself as a regular.

La Parra’s form for Brighton only revived his Wolves career temporarily, Jackett recalling him to their side in an FA Cup tie against West Ham and a 3-2 win over Fulham, in which he provided an assist and combined well with Michal Zyro.

Jackett said: “I felt that we’ve lost some pace along our front line and Rajiv has that and it’s a reason for bringing him back in to the group.

“He did well at Brighton, and I knew that against Fulham, tactically, I could play either system – 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 – with Rajiv on the pitch and be able to switch from one to the other. That was the advantage.

“He showed how much he wanted to play for Wolves. And the crowd responded to him, and if he keeps showing that work rate and desire, everyone will follow up on him.”

However, two months later he joined fellow Championship side Huddersfield on loan until the end of the season, and the move was made permanent that summer. He was a regular in the Town side that won promotion to the Premier League in 2017.

He made 38 appearances during the 2017-18 season amongst the elite, but incurred Sean Dyche’s wrath when he went to ground rather too easily in the penalty area during a Premier League game against Burnley. The referee didn’t buy it and the player was booked and subsequently fined by his own manager, David Wagner. “It’s unacceptable in my book. I can’t abide it,” said Dyche.

The following season, van La Parra struggled for game time and went on loan to Middlesbrough.

He eventually left the Terriers in 2020 having made a total of 102 appearances and signed for Serbian club Red Star Belgrade. He only played 11 games for them and then moved to Spanish second division club Logroñés for the 2020-21 season but, after only four appearances for them, he was released from his contract in January.

He then switched to Germany and signed for Bundesliga second division club Würzburger Kickers but, after they were relegated, he was on the move again.

Next stop was in Greece, for Apollon Smyrnis, but footballleagueworld.co.uk reported in November 2021: “It’s been a tough start for the player, who is featuring regularly, as he has failed to score or register an assist as his new side are third from bottom.”

Benno’s quick route to the top after ‘fantastic’ Albion chapter

SEVENTEEN GOALS in 100 appearances don’t tell the whole story of Elliott Bennett’s two seasons as a Brighton player.

Russell Slade signed him in August 2009 from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £200,000, but it was under the guidance of Gus Poyet that he flourished and was a stand-out performer when Albion won promotion from League One in 2011.

Not only was he chosen by his fellow professionals in the PFA League One team of the year (along with teammates Gordon Greer and Inigo Calderon), he was Four Four Two magazine’s League One Player of the Year.

Always diplomatic in interviews about personal achievements, typically he said: “If you win awards, it’s nice personally but you have to remember you can’t win them without your teammates. If I’m setting up goals, then it means our strikers are on their game as well as they’re getting on the end of my crosses.”

In a matchday programme feature, he added: “These individual awards really are not possible unless you have a good team around you, so this award is really on behalf of the whole squad and coaching staff.”

Bennett acknowledged the impact Poyet made on improving him as a player. “Gus has given me different roles to play throughout the season. I’m a lot more aware as a player as a result and I’m better with the ball now. There’s still lots for me to work on, but the gaffer has really brought my game on. I definitely owe him a lot.”

In another matchday programme article, he once again paid tribute to Poyet, his assistant Mauricio Taricco and coach Charlie Oatway. “I feel like I’m improving all the time and I owe so much to the coaching staff: the gaffer and Tano, while Charlie has got my head right. I used to beat myself up if I gave the ball away but Charlie has stamped that out of me. Technically, all three have helped me and I’ve also been playing in the middle a bit more, which has added another string to my bow.”

Bennett continued: “While I’m known for being a winger, my link-up play has also improved this season, which has really pleased me. I’m now more involved and it’s important that I keep on learning. The gaffer will always pull me to one side if he sees something that can help improve me – which he does with everyone – and then it’s a case of trying to replicate that on a match day.

“When you’ve got a gaffer who’s played the game at the highest level, you can only learn from him – and if you didn’t listen you’d be pretty stupid.

“I’ll play anywhere for the good of the team – I’ve even played right-back this season, but I must admit that I do prefer playing in a more advanced role where I can create things for the team. Whether that’s right wing, the left wing or even behind the strikers I don’t mind. I just love being involved.”

Bennett’s impact wasn’t confined to games, either. He and Liam Bridcutt used to visit Westdean Primary School, near Withdean, where they listened to youngsters reading. His wife, Kelly, worked for the club too.

Aware they had a hit property on their books, Albion awarded Bennett a new three-and-a-half-year deal in November 2010, when Poyet told the club website: “Elliott has been a good pro and has earned this new contract.

“He has shown he is capable of playing in a number of positions, he enjoys playing our style of football and I think he will continue to get better as a player.”

For his part, Bennett said: “Gus is a big factor for me. I will always be grateful to Russell Slade for signing me, but the current gaffer has brought his own style of play.

“I have really taken to the club ever since I arrived from Wolves last summer. I feel I have grown up as a person and developed as a player.”

Unfortunately for Brighton, Bennett’s superb contribution drew plenty of admirers and, when Norwich City offered £1.9million to give him the chance of Premier League football, the lure was too great to resist for player and club.

While his promoted teammates looked forward to Championship football in the brand new Amex Stadium, Bennett joined Paul Lambert’s Canaries to test his talent at the highest level.

Bennett told HITC Sport’s Alfie Potts Harmer: “Brighton was a fantastic part of my life and a fantastic chapter of my career, I loved every minute of it.

“When we won the title there, League One was full of teams who are now flying, you look at Southampton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield, it was a strong League One that year, and we played some fantastic stuff.

“The stadium coincided with promotion and I’d just signed a new contract. I think I would have stayed there for many years had it not been a Premier League move, but I don’t regret moving to Norwich. When an opportunity like that comes you have to take it as a player. You don’t know if it will come again.”

Lambert was delighted to land the youngster having previously had a bid to sign him in January that year rejected. “He is a young and exciting player with plenty of pace,” Lambert told the Norwich website. “He can play in a wide position or in behind the forwards, he’s a quick lad and he’s got a winning mentality.

“He played his full part in what Brighton achieved last season and that desire to succeed will stand him in good stead here.”

Bennett declared: “It’s an unbelievable opportunity for me to fight for a place in a team which will be playing in the Premier League.

“I like the mentality at Norwich City that has seen them get back-to-back promotions and I’m grateful to Paul Lambert for giving me the chance to be part of what’s happening at the club.

“I didn’t make it through at Wolves, which was my home-town club, and Brighton gave me the opportunity and I’m grateful for that.

“Now I’m just really excited about the chance to try to help Norwich in the Premier League.”

Bennett certainly seized the opportunity and in his first season was delighted to score the winning goal in Norwich’s 2-1 win over Spurs at White Hart Lane. He’d played 57 games in the Premier League when his career suffered a major hiatus. In the first home game of the 2013-14 season, against Everton, he sustained a cruciate injury which ruled him out of all but the last game of that campaign, as City were relegated.

Frustrated by the lack of starts at Norwich as they began life back in the Championship, Bennett was happy to return to the Seagulls on loan as Sami Hyypia tried various permutations to get some wins on the board.

Bennett received a warm reception from the Seagulls supporters as he stepped out at the Amex for a home game against Wigan Athletic on 4 November and helped the side to their first win in eight matches.

Unfortunately, the upturn in fortunes was all too brief and, although Bennett’s loan was extended by a second month, six winless games saw Hyypia exit the hotseat. “I had nothing but respect for him,” Bennett later told The Athletic. “He gave me an opportunity, after a big injury, to get out and play some football. He didn’t have to bring me back. I was thankful for that. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.”

Bennett’s final appearance came in the memorable 2-0 win over Fulham under caretaker manager Nathan Jones.

He returned to Norwich just as Alex Neil was taking over from Neil Adams as manager and was part of the squad who won promotion back to the Premier League via a play-off win over Middlesbrough.

But back in the elite, first team opportunities were limited and during the first part of the 2015-16 season Bennett went out on loan again, this time to Bristol City, where Steve Cotterill was the manager.

Bennett made 14 appearances for the Robins but soon after his deal expired in January 2016, a £250,000 fee saw him move permanently to Blackburn Rovers, where, from the start of the 2019-20 season, he became club captain, and he continued to be a well-respected part of Tony Mowbray’s set-up.

Bennett has certainly endeared himself to the Rovers supporters and has even been hailed as a modern-day ‘Mr Blackburn’ by website roverschat.com, who lauded his contribution to the club.

“Elliott Bennett’s evergreen positivity, fan interactions, and trademark fist pump were key in improving the culture at Rovers, as the dark, grey clouds over Ewood Park that had called it home since 2011 ever so slowly began to dissipate.

“His leadership has been a key contribution, as even when he is not playing for Rovers, he still is managing to inspire others to become the best version of themselves.”

One of those times spent out of the side came when Bennett tested positive for Covid-19 in May 2020 although the player said he didn’t feel unwell, and typically was thinking of others when interviewed about it.

“There seems to have been a lot of hysteria about footballers returning to training, but it’s not a big deal at all,” he said. “It’s the people who are seriously ill in hospital that we need to worry about, not footballers who are fit and healthy, and who aren’t showing any signs of being unwell.”

The popular Bennett is an active participant on social media and has 76,000 followers on Twitter.

In the summer of 2021, he moved to League One Shrewsbury Town, just 15 miles from Telford where he was born on 18 December 1988,

Bennett first showed his talent playing for local Telford team Hadley Juniors. Wolves scouts Les Green and Tony Lacey spotted him and invited him to train with the club’s under sevens and under eights. Remarkable as it sounds, he was offered a contract at the age of nine! “From then I just worked my way up through the age groups,” he told wolves.co.uk in a January 2019 article.

“The coaching was fantastic, the level of care we got was outstanding and we had the chance to travel the world. We got to go to Holland, we went to Japan, and it was a fantastic experience for me. Going to Japan and winning the under-12 World Cup was probably one of my favourite memories I have from the playing side of the academy.”

At Thomas Telford School, Bennett captained the school team as they won the county cup five years in a row. He was also a talented 200m runner who represented Shropshire at sprinting.

After leaving school to go on a scholarship at Wolves, he signed professional in 2007.

“The biggest moment for me was being given my professional contract,” he said. “I always dreamt of one day being able to pull on that gold and black shirt and play at Molineux, and thankfully I did.”

He got a taste of first team action in pre-season matches, scoring after only five minutes in a 3-2 win at Hereford United, and in 2007-2008 he made two appearances for the first team in the League Cup.

Mick McCarthy gave him his first competitive start in a 2-1 win over Bradford City on 15 August 2007 but he was replaced by Stephen Ward at half-time, and on 28 August was in the Wolves side humbled 3-1 after extra time by lowly Morecambe.

Although he was involved with the first team squad for some league matches, he didn’t get any game time, but gained experience going out on loan, initially playing 11 games at League One Crewe Alexandra, and later featuring in 19 League Two games for Bury.

He spent the whole of 2008-09 on loan with Bury, scoring three goals in 52 matches.

It must have been quite a wrench for Bennett to contemplate moving away from the club he’d been associated with for 14 years, but it was a former Brighton striker, the then Wolves assistant manager Terry Connor, who persuaded him to spread his wings and move to the Albion, as he revealed in a Football the Albion and Me interview.

He explained that he’d still got two years left on his contract at Wolves and being very much “a home person” he’d not considered leaving home in Telford, 20 minutes away from Wolverhampton.

“I remember Terry pulling me into his office and saying ‘Look, I went to Brighton in a similar position to yourself, you’ve got to go out and forge your own career. Become a man, become a person, don’t be Elliott Bennett from the academy at Wolves. You’re Elliott Bennett the professional footballer, create your own path.’

“And from that conversation I thought ‘You have to take the shackles off and go and try something different’ and you can’t really get a much better place to live than Brighton, as I later found out. It turned out to be the best decision I have made since I started playing.”

The week before he signed, he went to watch Albion away at Huddersfield…..and saw his new employer thrashed 7-1. Luckily, he’d made up his mind to join before the game!

“I was a guest of Tony Bloom,” he said. “I had a good chat with him before the game and he told me the vision. He told me where he wanted to take the club. I was blown away to be honest. I couldn’t wait to get started.”

Pictures from Albion matchday programmes and various online sources.

Transfer makeweight Storer became all-time Seagulls hero

STUART Storer cemented his place in Brighton’s history when he scrambled home a last-gasp winner in the final ever home game at the Goldstone Ground.

When a seemingly goal-bound header from Mark Morris bounced off the south stand end’s crossbar, fortunately it fell into the path of the onrushing Storer who managed to scramble it over the line among a sea of flailing Doncaster Rovers legs.

That moment on 26 April 1997 is often brought up with Storer via media interviews or simply when bumping into Brighton fans while on his travels. The goal is featured in the pre-match video montage shown on the TV screens at the Amex, so it has been seen by various generations of fans.

“I’m proud that people hold me in so much esteem and I’m very fortunate to be part of the club’s history,” Storer told Brighton & Hove Independent in an April 2017 interview. “Younger people that I teach watch the video and take the Mickey but they’ll never kill my pride. I’m very proud of that moment.”

Storer provided the photographers with plenty of action shots

The goal ensured a vital three points were secured in the fight to avoid relegation from the lowest tier in the Football League. In the one remaining game the following week, Albion managed to get the point needed to stay up while simultaneously relegating Hereford United.

Those crucial matches were just two of more than 150 games Storer played for the Albion under six different managers during an extraordinarily turbulent time for the club.

It was, though, a rather curious playing career all round that saw some of the game’s biggest names – Liam Brady, Alan Ball, Howard Kendall and Ron Saunders – sign him for their clubs. And he carried on playing until he was 42.

In 2006 and 2007, he was part of Everton’s Masters’ six-a-side team in the televised tournament featuring veteran players. Storer’s teammates included the likes of Neville Southall, Adrian Heath and Alan Harper.

Storer had been at Goodison Park the last time the Toffees were the English league champions. However, he didn’t make a first team appearance, invariably being the 13th man in the days when there was only one substitute.

He’d arrived on Merseyside as a transfer makeweight in a £300,000 deal Kendall struck with Birmingham City to sign Wolverhampton-born striker Wayne Clarke – the youngest of five brothers who played league football.

Clarke’s former club, Wolves, were convinced Storer had been included in the deal simply to lower the sell-on amount they were due as part of a previous agreement.

Clarke scored five goals in 10 games – including a hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Newcastle United on Easter Monday – to help Everton win the League Championship. Storer had made only 12 appearances for City in three years so his chances of making an impact with the title-chasers were slim.

Although Storer was on Everton’s books for nine months, he never crossed the white line for the first team and went on loan to Wigan Athletic, making his debut on the opening day of the 1987-88 season in a 4-4 draw away to Notts County (Garry Birtles scored two of County’s goals).

Storer was no stranger to a 4-4 draw. He played in two for Albion in 1997 – on 8 March at home to Orient and on Boxing Day later the same year when they drew at Priestfield against Colchester United (Paul Emblen got a hat-trick for the Seagulls).

Storer started nine games for the Latics and came on as a sub three times under Ray Matthias but they didn’t have the funds for a permanent transfer. Instead, the loan was cut short and, on Christmas Eve 1987, Everton sold him to then Fourth Division Bolton Wanderers for £25,000. He scored his first goal for the Trotters four days later in a 2-1 home win over Stockport County.

He enjoyed seven seasons at Burnden Park as they progressed from the basement division to the third tier under former Liverpool and England full-back Phil Neal.

His time with the Trotters included two trips to Wembley. He was a late substitute in the Wanderers side captained by Phil Brown who beat Torquay United 4-1 in to win the Sherpa van Trophy in 1989. And he was a starter in the Wanderers side who lost the 1991 Third Division play-off final to Tranmere Rovers.

Having broken an ankle and seen Neal switch to become Steve Coppell’s assistant manager at Manchester City, Storer was sold to Exeter City in March 1993 by Neal’s successor Bruce Rioch. Storer made 177 appearances for Bolton, but Rioch’s signing of David Lee had signalled the beginning of the end of his time there.

It was former World Cup winner Ball, then boss of Exeter City, who paid £25,000 for Storer’s services. He made 75 appearances (plus two as a sub) for the Grecians, initially under Ball and then his successor, former Leeds and England left-back Terry Cooper in the 1994-95 season.

Financial problems at the Devon club led to his departure. Early negotiations with a view to a transfer to Brighton initially broke down but Brady finally managed to secure his services for £15,000 in March 1995.

Ironically, he then suffered an injury during his first day’s training with the Seagulls, delaying his first appearance until 29 April. But it was memorable as he scored in a 3-3 draw away to his former club, Birmingham.

He recalled in a March 2019 interview with Michael Walker for the Daily Mail: “I was in an untenable situation at Exeter because they were going into administration. I had to get out. It was from the frying pan into the fire.”

However, Storer said, at the time he signed, he was unaware of the tensions going on around the Albion, although he knew he was the first player signed after a transfer embargo had been lifted. Not for the first time in the club’s history, fans dipped into their pockets to help buy the player.

“I think the fans just wanted to buy a player, any player, and they chipped in,” said Storer.

Born in the village of Harborough Magna, just north of Rugby, on 16 January 1967, he was raised in the village of Dunchurch, just south of Rugby, attending its local junior school before moving on to Bilton High School, where his footballing ability was recognised with selection in the Rugby Boys and Warwickshire Boys representative sides.

Wolverhampton Wanderers scout John Jarman spotted him and he went along to Molineux during the Ian Greaves managerial reign. When a takeover at Wolves saw Jarman and Greaves depart for Mansfield Town, they took the young Storer on as a trainee at Field Mill.

He began playing for their youth side but he was given his Mansfield first team debut aged only 16 in a 4-0 win over Hartlepool.

Storer and Julian Dicks at Birmingham City

Released after only a year with the Stags, he was offered another chance to build a league career by Birmingham who he joined in July 1984, initially signing as a trainee and then becoming a professional. But after limited first team opportunities at St Andrews, Saunders’ successor, John Bond, sold him to Everton as part of the Clarke transfer.

After Storer’s crucial part in keeping Albion in the League, he remained at the club until 1999, playing a total of 152 games and being part of the side who had to spend two years playing home games at Gillingham.

He moved back to Warwickshire on the day the Seagulls played their first friendly at Withdean on 24 July 1999,signing for Southern League Premier Division side Atherstone United, but he was only there for two months before moving to Kettering Town, who were playing in the Football Conference, the tier just below the Football League.

In May 2000, Storer signed for Isthmian League Premier Division side Chesham United and spent a season with them, before moving nearer to his Midlands base and signing for Hinckley United in March 2001.

Storer was made club captain, and as he approached his late 30s, he got more involved with coaching. At the age of 40, Storer was a member of the Hinckley team that achieved their highest ever league position of fourth in the Conference North, losing in the play-off final to deny them promotion.

After eight seasons, he had made more than 300 appearances for the part-timers of Hinckley while working as a PE teacher at various colleges in Coventry.

Storer continued to play until he was 42 and since 2013 has managed Bedworth United, where he is still in charge and also runs academies for boys and girls and A Level courses. He said: “I played until I was 42 at Hinckley in the Conference and then my legs gave way and I had to do something else in football.”

There’s a Michael Portillo style to Storer’s attire here and he admitted in a matchday programme article to having a penchant for “having a bizarre choice in clothing” as well as being an avid collector of hats.

Dean Saunders raised cash for Brighton and Liverpool

IT’S NOT often Brighton and Liverpool have had something in common but, when it came to striker Dean Saunders, they both sold him to raise money. And they weren’t alone.

In the Albion’s case, it happened in 1987 when manager Barry Lloyd was forced to cash in on the free transfer signing to raise £60,000 to go towards players’ wages.

For their part, five years later, Liverpool let the Welsh international depart Anfield for £2.3m because boss Graeme Souness wanted the money to buy a central defender.

When Saunders was remarkably transferred for £1m from the Maxwell-owned Oxford United to the Maxwell-owned Derby County, it prompted former Brighton and Liverpool defender Mark Lawrenson to quit as boss at the Manor Ground after he’d been promised there would be no transfers likely to weaken his squad.

Saunders’ long and much-travelled career began in Swansea, the place where he was born on 21 June 1964, the son of former Swansea and Liverpool wing-half Roy Saunders.

He attended GwrossydJunior School and was soon appearing in the school football team on Saturday mornings and playing minor football in the afternoons. He went on to Penlan Comprehensive in Swansea and his career began to blossom, playing in the school team at all levels under sports master Lee Jones, a former British gymanstics champion. Saunders played for the Swansea Schools representative sides at under 11, 13 and 15 levels.

“I can remember enjoying watching the Swansea players train when I was a lad,” he told Tony Norman in an Albion matchday programme article. “I was lucky because my dad was the assistant manager, so I could go to pre-season training and things like that.

“I used to kick a ball around on the sidelines and dream of playing for Swansea.” That dream turned to reality after he joined the Swans in 1980 as an apprentice (when John Toshack was the manager), turned professional in 1982, and made his debut in the 1983-84 season. He scored 12 times in 49 appearances but in his final year had a goalless four-game loan at Cardiff City.

Manager John Bond released him on a free transfer after a turbulent season in which the Swans only narrowly avoided relegation to the basement division and Chris Cattlin, who’d been impressed when he saw Saunders playing for Swansea Reserves at the Goldstone Ground, snapped him up for Brighton.

“I was amazed when the Welsh club let him go for financial reasons,” Cattlin wrote in his matchday programme notes for the opening game of the season. “He is young, quick and, if he works hard, he has a great chance.”

By the end of that season, Saunders had scored 19 goals in 48 league and cup games and was voted player of the season. His performances in the second tier for the Albion caught the eye of the Welsh national team manager, Mike England, and on 26 March 1986 Saunders made his full international debut for Wales as a substitute in a 1-0 win away to the Republic of Ireland. It was the first of 75 caps.

Saunders scored his first international goals when he netted twice in a 3-0 friendly win over Canada in Vancouver on 19 May 1986, after which England said: “He goes past defenders with his tremendous pace and his finishing against Canada was a revelation.

“The experience he gained at Brighton has done him the world of good. To finish top scorer in his first full season of Second Division football tells its own story.”

Saunders, who shared a house with Albion’s young Republic of Ireland international Kieran O’Regan, said being happy at home had helped him to settle down quickly.

“I liked Brighton from the day I arrived,” he said in a matchday programme article. “It reminds me of my home town of Swansea and I like living by the sea.”

A lover of all sports, Saunders revealed how he liked to play cricket in the summer, when he turned out for Haywards Heath, and he played snooker with O’Regan and Steve Penney.

That summer, Saunders told Shoot! magazine: “I had both cartilages out of my left knee at 18 and had both Swansea and Cardiff turn me down. I’ve had my share of the downs. From the moment I joined Brighton, my career has turned for the better.”

The young striker continued: “Swansea just gave me away – despite the fact that I was top scorer in a team coming apart. Cardiff City gave me a few games but always seemed to have reasons for not playing me consistently when I was on loan there.

“So, I had every incentive to make the break from Welsh football and I joined Brighton. Brighton can go places.

“I was disappointed that we didn’t make the First Division first time around. But all the lads are convinced that we will get there next season. I’ve been given a three-year contract so there are tremendous incentives to do better.”

It didn’t work out that way, though. After only a mid-table finish, Cattlin was sacked and there were rumblings of financial issues beginning to reverberate around the corridors of the Goldstone. Alan Mullery returned as manager but had limited funds to invest in the team, and, with echoes of the Pat Saward era back in the early ‘70s, the club turned to fans for financial help to bring in players.

After Mullery’s unseemly swift departure halfway through the season, former Worthing boss Lloyd took over and fans were completely mystified as to how he could leave out Saunders in favour of Richard Tiltman, who Lloyd had plucked from local football. Since then, it has been suggested his omission was more to do with money than football ability.

There was great consternation that Albion collected only £60,000 when Lloyd sold Saunders to Oxford in early March 1987, especially as the Seagulls were fast hurtling back to a level of football they’d manage to avoid for ten years.

That was no longer a concern for Saunders who recovered the goalscoring touch he’d shown during his first season at the Goldstone Ground, scoring 33 goals in 73 games for Oxford before being sold to Derby for £1m against Lawrenson’s wishes 19 months after arriving at the Manor Ground.

A popular goalscorer for Derby

Meanwhile, the goals kept flowing for Saunders as he netted 57 in 131 games for Derby. The side finished fifth in the old First Division by the end of Saunders’ first season with the Rams, and he’d contributed 14 goals. The Derby Telegraph noted: “From the moment ‘Deano’ arrived, the players were inspired and the crowd enthused. The signing also suited the post-war tradition of 5ft 8in goalscoring heroes at the Baseball Ground – Raich Carter, Bill Curry, Kevin Hector and Bobby Davison.

“Derby fans were too wise to comment on height. What mattered was Saunders’ speed, eel-like turn and persistence. He scored six in his first five games, starting with two against Wimbledon when he captured supporters’ hearts with the immediacy of a Kevin Hector. A close-in header and long-range right-footer were beautiful appetisers.”

Despite Saunders scoring 24 goals for Derby in 1990-91, the side was relegated and Saunders and teammate Mark Wright were snapped up by Liverpool. Reds paid £2.9m to take Saunders to Anfield, boss Souness believing he’d be an ideal strike partner for their established Welsh international striker, Ian Rush.

Saunders made his Liverpool debut on 17 August 1991 in a 2-1 win over Oldham Athletic (Mark Walters and defender Wright also played their first league games for Liverpool); Ray Houghton and John Barnes scored Liverpool’s goals.

Saunders scored his first goal for the Reds 10 days’ later in a 1-0 win over QPR at Anfield but a Liverpool history website reckons he struggled to adapt to Liverpool’s passing game. “He was used to Derby’s counter-attacking style, scoring many of his goals by using his exceptional pace,” it said. “Saunders wasn’t very prolific in the league with about one goal every four games but flourished in the UEFA Cup with nine goals in five matches that included a quadruple against Kuusysi Lahti.”

Saunders scored twice in Liverpool’s successful FA Cup campaign, which culminated in them lifting the trophy at Wembley after beating Sunderland.

Although he scored twice in seven games at the start of his second season at Anfield, a cashflow issue meant Souness was forced to sell him to raise funds to dip into the transfer market.

Saunders explained: “Graeme called me in one day and told me he needed a centre-half [Torben Piechnik], and that he could raise the money by selling me to Aston Villa.

“I couldn’t believe he was prepared to let me go, but he said he didn’t think my partnership with Ian Rush had worked out, and Rushy wouldn’t be the one going anywhere. That was it.” 

Saunders had scored 25 goals in 61 appearances for Liverpool, the last coming in a 2-1 home win over Chelsea (Jamie Redknapp scoring the other Liverpool goal) on 5 September 1992.

Among the goals again at Aston Villa

The Welshman had the last laugh, though, because only nine days after his departure from Liverpool he scored twice in Villa’s 4-2 victory over the Reds.

“Obviously I had a big incentive to do well today and I’m thrilled to have scored,” said Saunders. “Both my goals went through the goalkeeper’s legs.”

Signed by Ron Atkinson, Saunders spent three seasons at Villa, initially developing a formidable strike partnership with Dalian Atkinson, and then pairing up with Dwight Yorke. Saunders’ brace in the 1994 League Cup final helped beat Manchester United 3-1.

Villa history site lerwill-life.org.uk remembers him as “a spring-heeled attacker and very popular with the supporters” and adds: “Not big in size, he was very speedy and scored some spectacular goals including a 35-yard spectacular against Ipswich.”

His time at Villa Park came to an end when Brian Little took over as manager, and Saunders was reunited with his old Liverpool boss Souness in Turkey. A £2.35million fee took him to Galatasaray for the 1995-96 season and he netted 15 goals in 27 Turkish League matches.

Next stop for Saunders was back in the UK at Nottingham Forest, but the 1996-97 was an unhappy one as the manager who signed him, Frank Clark, was sacked in December after a bad run of defeats and Forest’s slide towards relegation continued under Stuart Pearce and Dave Bassett.

Sharpshooter for the Blades

By the time Forest had bounced straight back up, Saunders had left the club, moving in December 1997 to second-tier Sheffield United for a year under Nigel Spackman and caretaker managers Russell Slade and Steve Thompson. United made the play-offs but lost out to Sunderland in the semi-finals. In December 1998, Saunders moved abroad again to link up with Souness a third time, at Benfica in Portugal.

Up front for the Bantams

The following summer, he returned to England and joined Bradford City, where his former Brighton teammate Chris Hutchings was assistant manager, then briefly manager. Saunders was a regular in his first season at Valley Parade, when the Bantams managed to narrowly avoid relegation from the Premier League, but he played only a handful of games in 2000-01, when they were relegated. Saunders retired as a player shortly before his 37th birthday and became a coach at Bradford before linking up with Souness again, this time as a coach.

He joined him at Blackburn Rovers and then Newcastle United, but when Newcastle sacked Souness early in 2006, Saunders lost his job as well.

In the following year he began taking the Certificate in Football Management course run by the University of Warwick; and this led to him being granted his UEFA Pro Licence coaching badge, a qualification that allowed him to be appointed as assistant to John Toshack with the Welsh national team. 

In October 2008, Saunders replaced Brian Little as manager of Wrexham, newly relegated to the Conference. He eventually managed to steer the north Wales outfit into the play-offs in the 2010-11 season, but they were knocked out by Luton Town and, in September 2011, Saunders was appointed manager of then Championship club Doncaster Rovers.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t save Rovers from relegation and they went back down to League One with only 36 points from their 46 League fixtures.

Having guided Rovers to second place in League One, Saunders was appointed manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers in January 2013, but he couldn’t prevent them being relegated from the Championship and he was sacked three days after relegation was confirmed courtesy of a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Gus Poyet’s Albion.

Suffering relegation with Wolves

Saunders told the media after the game: “We have to get some players in who think like I’m thinking, who want to win, fresh minds, no damage done to them, no confidence issues, no ‘been here too long’ issues, no ‘I don’t know if the manager likes me’ issues. Once I get my own team on the pitch, imagine what the supporters will be like.”

Saunders, with only five wins from his 20 games in charge, didn’t get that chance and rather ruefully said of his opponents that day: “A few years ago they were bankrupt and without a stadium, but they’ve shown what is possible and, with the momentum, they have could well get into the Premier League.”

Just after Christmas 2014, Saunders was named as the interim manager of Crawley Town after the previous incumbent John Gregory stood down for health reasons.

Saunders then became manager of League One side Chesterfield on 13 May 2015 but his stay there lasted only five months.

In June 2016, Saunders was part of the BBC pundit team for their coverage of the Welsh national team’s games at Euro 2016 and made the headlines during the tournament when it was revealed that he had incurred parking charges of over £1,000 from Birmingham Airport’s short stay car park as he wasn’t expecting Wales to progress as far as they did. The charge was eventually waived by the airport who asked him to make a donation to charity instead.

His subsequent involvement in football has been as a pundit on BT Sport’s Saturday afternoon Score programme as well as on the radio with talkSPORT. He hit the headlines in 2019 when he was jailed for failing to comply with a roadside breath test but the initial punishment was quashed and changed to a suspended sentence. Via the League Managers’ Association, Saunders issued a statement in which he said: “I made a terrible error of judgment for which I have been rightly punished, and I wholeheartedly regret that it happened.”

Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and various online sources.

John Humphrey – unsung hero of 1997 great escape

John Humphrey in Wolves colours

ONE OF the unsung heroes of Albion’s last-gasp survival feat in 1997 knew a thing or two about playing for clubs in precarious circumstances.

John Humphrey’s first club was Wolverhampton Wanderers during a bleak period in their history: they dropped into the basement division under the controversial ownership of the Bhatti brothers.

The right-back later played ‘home’ games for Charlton Athletic at Selhurst Park and Upton Park when the football authorities deemed The Valley unfit to stage matches.

And he ended his professional playing days turning out for Brighton in ‘home’ games at Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium (as pictured above).

Humphrey came to Brighton’s rescue in the autumn of his career.

With Albion’s very existence under threat as 1996 turned to 1997, Albion handed the managerial reins to Steve Gritt, and former Charlton teammate Humphrey was his first signing: a free transfer from Gillingham, who were playing in the division above.

Humphrey was 36 at the time with nearly 650 professional matches behind him, including a good many in the top-flight with Wolves, Charlton and Crystal Palace. Indeed, he was Charlton’s player of the year in 1988, 1989 and 1990.

After four matches on the bench, Humphrey replaced Peter Smith at right back and played in Albion’s last 11 games of that 1996-97 season, only ending up on the losing side three times. wearebrighton.com said his impact made him “a seriously underrated piece of the Great Escape jigsaw”.

“Steve wanted me because I was experienced, could get the players organised and was able to talk them through matches,” Humphrey told the Argus. “He knew I was steady, reliable and dependable, that nine games out of ten I’d play pretty well and that I would give 100 per cent.

“It was a lot of pressure but I’d been through a few promotions (three) and relegations (six) with Wolves, Charlton and Crystal Palace.” He continued: “The stressful situations I had gone through with those other clubs had given me experience of how to try and keep a season alive.

“I could do a job for Brighton and I felt I did that and the team turned out to be good enough to hang on. It was one of the biggest achievements of my career.”

Humphrey remembered the pressure going into the Hereford match was “horrible” because of the media focus but he added: “It might have been going out of the frying pan of Gillingham into the fire at Albion but I’m glad I made the jump.”

Unfortunately, then chief executive David Bellotti tried to renege on a deal Gritt had agreed verbally with Humphrey that he’d get a new one-year contract if Albion stayed up.

“When I was told I was being released, I thought it was a pretty poor show. But Steve, to his credit, then fought my corner and I stayed on.”

With the Goldstone sold, and Albion forced to play ‘home’ games at Gillingham,  Humphrey retained his place in the side and played in 13 matches but, along with other senior players, such as Craig Maskell, Paul McDonald, Denny Mundee and Ian Baird, he was let go to save money on wages.

Humphrey accepted the package he was offered, called time on his long professional career, and dropped into the non-league scene, playing initially for Chesham, then Carshalton, Dulwich Hamlet and Walton and Hersham.

He got a break into a new career as a teacher at Whitgift School in Croydon courtesy of former Albion defender, Colin Pates, who’d played with Humphrey at Charlton.

“I knew Colin from Charlton when we roomed together,” Humphrey told the Argus. “I was aware he was at the school and he said he needed help for after-school sessions and asked me to come along. So I did and the football took off at the school and I got involved in other sports like rugby and basketball and got a full-time job there.”

After leaving Whitgift School, Humphrey became head of football at Highgate School in north London.

Born in Paddington, west London on 31 January 1961, Humphrey was picked up by Wolves after he played against their junior team for a North London club called Bourne Hall.

He recounted how events unfolded in an interview with wolvesheroes.com: initially signing schoolboy forms, then progressing to coaching in school holidays, before earning an apprenticeship.

He signed as a professional in 1979 and made his first-team debut in the old top- flight in a 3-0 Easter Monday win at Southampton in 1980. His second game ended in a 3-0 defeat to Brighton.

They came under John Barnwell and, by the time Humphrey left the club in 1985, he’d served under three other managers; the last being former Manchester United boss Tommy Docherty.

Although the side was relegated in 1981-82, Humphrey embarked on what was a 78-game unbroken spell in the side. He was ever-present when they were promoted in 1982-83.

“I loved my time at Wolves,” he told wolvesheroes.com. “I only left because we went down again in 1984-85 and I didn’t fancy playing in the Third Division. Charlton came in for me and they took John Pender from Wolves a few weeks later as well.”

Wolves under the Bhatti brothers were in freefall and a lack of investment in the side saw them suffer three consecutive relegations – in 1984, 1985 and 1986 – ending up in the old Fourth Division for the first time in the club’s history.

Humphrey joined an Addicks side newly-promoted to the elite and, although Lennie Lawrence’s side often struggled to retain their status, they remained in the top-flight until 1990, and many supporters thought the right-back was good enough for international selection.

On charltonlife.com in September 2012, Queensland Addick recalled his impressive level of fitness, and said: “The number of times he ran the right wing at great pace during a game was quite incredible.”

By the time he left Charlton in August 1990, he’d played 231 games and it was said his £400,000 transfer to top-flight Crystal Palace was linked to the fact that at the time Charlton were playing home matches at Selhurst Park.

In a five-year stay at Selhurst, Humphrey played 192 games (plus 10 as sub). Known principally for his defending, Humphrey was delighted to mark his 150th appearance for Palace with a 35-yard equaliser for the Eagles against his old club, Wolves, in a 1993 1-1 home draw.

Between December 1993 and May 1994, while Palace were winning promotion from the second tier under Alan Smith, Humphrey was out on a six-month loan at Reading, playing nine games for Mark McGhee’s Second Division side.

He then returned to second-tier Charlton on a free transfer for the 1995-96 season, playing in 36 matches, after Alan Curbishley had taken sole charge.

Next stop was Gillingham, for the first part of the 1996-97 season, but he confessed he didn’t see eye to eye with manager Tony Pulis, so he was happy to answer the call from Gritt to aid basement Brighton’s cause.

Ups and downs of medal-laden Mark McGhee’s career

MARK McGHEE saw highs and lows as Brighton & Hove Albion manager after a medal-laden playing career that took him from his native Scotland to England and also to Germany.

McGhee was in charge when the Seagulls memorably won the 2004 play-off final to gain promotion from the third tier, beating Bristol City at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff.

Play off final boss

Keeping the Seagulls up the following season was arguably an even greater achievement considering at the time playing home games at the crowd-restricted Withdean Stadium meant the club was at a huge disadvantage compared to most clubs in the division.

With the Amex still a distant dream, relegation came at the end of the 2005-06 season, and it wasn’t long into the following season that Dick Knight wielded the axe on the Glaswegian’s time in charge.

“It was hard to sack Mark, but we had to have a change,” Knight wrote in his autobiography, Mad Man: From the Gutter to the Stars. “Everyone recognised what he had done in taking up and keeping up a team that was not that great, to be honest. Hats off to him, he had done a terrific job. And he is a very intelligent, personable guy.”

Knight took decisive action when part of the crowd became vociferous in wanting McGhee out, and the chairman also felt some of the young players drafted into the team weren’t responding to him.

He was finally toppled over lunch at Topolino’s, and Knight admitted: “It was a difficult decision. There was strong vocal opposition to McGhee, but also a large, less noisy element who were behind him.”

McGhee liked Brighton so much he made it his home despite subsequently taking on a series of other roles the length and breadth of the country.

It’s probably fair to say the Scot has never been afraid to speak his mind, which his former Newcastle boss Bill McGarry mentioned to him. McGhee recounted in an interview with theleaguepaper.com: “I was managing Wolves at the time. He said ‘Mark, you talk too much. Tone it down a bit’. I tried to take his advice, give nothing away in media briefings. Then, somebody would say something interesting and I wasn’t able to stop myself.”

It’s probably what helped him gain a place on the Sky Sports Soccer Saturday panel when he was in between management jobs.

McGhee would most likely look back on some jobs he’d perhaps have been wiser to stay away from, for example taking temporary charge of Eastbourne Borough in 2018, although his enthusiasm was undimmed as he revealed in an interview with thenonleaguefootballpaper.com.

Born in Glasgow on 20 May 1957, his father was an electrical engineer and his mother a fertility consultant at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. McGhee was on the books of Bristol City at the start of his long career but he returned to Scotland and became a part-timer with Greenock Morton while also training to be an architect.

Aforementioned manager McGarry signed him for Newcastle for a £150,000 fee on 30 December 1977 and he made his debut on 2 January 1978.

His face didn’t fit after Arthur Cox took over as boss, but Alex Ferguson took a punt on him in March 1979 and signed him for Aberdeen, and it proved to be one of many shrewd decisions the esteemed Scot would make in his career.

McGhee was named Scottish PFA Players’ Player of the Year in 1982, and the following year was part of the Aberdeen side who beat Real Madrid 2–1 to lift the 1983 European Cup Winners’ Cup in Gothenburg.

mcg cup

He also scored the second goal as Aberdeen defeated Hamburg 2-0 to win the UEFA Super Cup in the same year.

Asked about the best goal he scored, he said: “Probably the winning goal in my last game for Aberdeen.”

McGhee reckoned his best moment in football came on 26 May 1984 when he scored against England at Hampden Park. He headed in a cross (as pictured) from his great pal Gordon Strachan past Peter Shilton.

McG v Eng

“It put us 1-0 up but Tony Woodcock equalised to make the final score 1-1.”

It was one of four caps he won for his country. Nearly two decades later, in January 2013, Strachan appointed him as his no.2 with the Scottish national side.

M McGhee Old Football PhotosBut back to those playing days, and with two Scottish league titles and three Cup wins behind him, McGhee tried his hand at European football and spent 16 months at Hamburg. The spell was probably more of an education than a success, with injuries limiting his game time.

A £170,000 fee took him back to Scotland, to Celtic, where he had mixed fortunes during four years with the Glasgow giants. He was, though, part of the squad that won a League and Cup double in their centenary season.

After winning another Scottish Cup winners’ medal in 1989, he was on the move again, back to Newcastle.

Now with Jim Smith in charge, Newcastle paid £200,000 to take McGhee back to St James’ Park, where he formed an impressive strike partnership with the legendary Micky Quinn as Toon finished third in the old Division Two.

“We were good friends, but we didn’t blend on the pitch like Toshack and Keegan, Quinn told theleaguepaper.com. “Mark was a free spirit. He’d get the ball and drift left or right and drop deep.

“He’d turn defenders and drag them out of position. He would hold the ball up well for me to get into the box and score goals. He went where he wanted, but it worked.”

football back then McGhee

This Football Back Then picture shows McGhee in action for Newcastle against Albion’s Nicky Bissett.

His farewell performance came on 6 April 1991, not long after Ossie Ardiles had taken over as manager, and McGhee departed having scored a total of 36 goals in 115 appearances for the Magpies.

Next stop was Sweden, where he played briefly for IK Brage, but he seized the opportunity to try his hand at management by taking up the role of player-manager at Reading in the summer of 1991.

He’d been recommended for the role by his old boss Ferguson, and, after quitting playing through injury in 1993, he led the Royals to promotion from the third tier the following year.

A struggling Leicester City gave him a chance to manage in the Premier League but he was unable to keep them up and, less than a year after joining, decided to switch to Wolverhampton Wanderers, to succeed Graham Taylor.

Wolves just failed to gain promotion in 1996-97 (they lost in the play-off semi-finals) and were ninth the following campaign. Four months into the 1998-99 season, following a string of poor results, McGhee was fired.

It would be 20 months before he gained his next opportunity, this time at Millwall where he enjoyed initial success, leading them to promotion from the third tier, and then narrowly missing out on another promotion when they lost in the play-off semi-finals to Birmingham City.

McGhee apptWhen he parted company from Millwall in October 2003, he wasn’t out of work long because Brighton needed a replacement for Steve Coppell, who’d been wooed to take over at Reading (pictured above, with chairman Dick Knight, at his unveiling as Albion manager).

Those Albion fans who stuck by the team in the humble surroundings of the Withdean Stadium enjoyed some good moments during McGhee’s time as manager, in particular promotion via the play-off final in 2004.

He certainly found a formula to get the best out of certain players, as Adam Virgo, converted from defender to goalscorer, observed in that theleaguepaper.com article. “Mark is a very good communicator and very experienced,” he said. “He can make you feel ten feet tall. He’s very good at being honest, at analysing your game and telling you what you’re good at.”

After his departure from the Albion, McGhee was out of the game for nine months but got back in at Motherwell, turning them from near relegation candidates to qualifiers for European competition.

The lure of his old club, Aberdeen, proved too strong in the summer of 2009, but his tenure proved to be disastrous – and brief.

He spent the majority of 2012 as manager of Bristol Rovers, where one of the squad he inherited was former Brighton defender-turned-striker, Virgo. The following year, his old pal, Strachan, appointed him as assistant coach to the Scottish national side.

Motherwell manager Mark McGhee before the Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership match at Fir Park, Motherwell.

He later combined the role part-time when he returned to Motherwell but there were mixed fortunes second time round, and he left them again in early 2017. Towards the end of that year, he popped up at League Two Barnet, but the arrangement lasted only two months before he was moved to a ‘head of technical’ role, and then dismissed in March 2018.

McGhee was ‘slaughtered’ on Twitter when he took over as interim manager of National South side Eastbourne Borough in the spring of 2019, after being beaten 3-0 by Wealdstone in his first match in charge, his new side reduced to nine men after two players were sent off. Borough won just once in 11 matches.

When Albion under 23s coach Simon Rusk was appointed manager of Vanarama National League side Stockport County in January 2021, McGhee was appointed as one of his assistants.

His final managerial post was at Dundee in February 2022 when he took temporary charge of the Scottish Premiership side until the end of the season (with Rusk as his assistant), but they couldn’t avoid them being relegated, overseeing just one win in 13 matches.

McGhee finally announced his retirement from the game in September 2022 at the age of 65, telling the Sunday Post: “I won’t be pursuing any other managerial vacancies, and nor would I want to be a director of football or a head of recruitment. That’s not what I am – I’m a manager.

“I feel that players now deserve a young manager who can give them the energy I was able to when I started out. They don’t need a 65-year-old with a dodgy ankle.”

Irish defender Stephen Ward surprised Albion supporters

SWARDWHEN Wolverhampton Wanderers slipped into the third tier, they urgently needed to loan out some of their higher-paid players – hence, in August 2013, the arrival at Brighton of left-back Stephen Ward.

Most Seagulls supporters were not sure of his attributes having had the pleasure the previous season of watching the imperious Wayne Bridge shine in that position while on loan from Manchester City.

However, Albion fans were delighted to be proved wrong after Ward helped to shore up a defence that had leaked seven goals in the first eight days of the season. The Irish international defender went on to make a total of 47 appearances and was runner-up to Matt Upson as Albion’s 2013-14 player of the year.

Ward also chipped in with four goals, including the tide-turning equaliser at Nottingham Forest on the final day of the season.

Forest equaliser

Although injury-hit Albion failed to get past Derby County in the play-off semi-finals, it was thought Ward would sign permanently for the Seagulls that summer. But Burnley stepped in, offering Wolves and the defender more money, not to mention the more immediate chance of Premier League football.

Ward’s agent, Scott Fisher, later told the Argus that dithering or perhaps a bit of brinkmanship by then head of recruitment David Burke had scuppered the deal.

“We really tried our best to make Stephen Ward a permanent Brighton player. Had they done their business earlier this wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

Ward spoke more about the circumstances in an interview with the Argus in April 2016.

Previously, as the season drew to a close, Ward told the Argus: “If I’m going to move on, I don’t see why this wouldn’t be one of the better options for me. I’ve been here for a year; I’ve really enjoyed it.

SW Argus

“I couldn’t say one bad thing about the club. The crowd we get, the stadium we have is phenomenal, probably the best in the Championship, and with the new training ground the club is on a real up and a real high.

“If I was to move on from Wolves, Brighton would definitely be high on the list. It’s not in my hands, it’s going to be in other people’s hands to discuss the future, but it has been a great move for me. I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s a really good club and one people should be privileged to play for.”

Ward went on to spend five years at Turf Moor, making 110 appearances, but only featured 11 times in the 2018-19 season, and manager Sean Dyche told punditarena.com: “He (Ward) has been brilliant for us, absolutely brilliant, he’s done a fantastic job.”

SW BurnPerhaps it was no surprise that former Albion coach Nathan Jones stepped in to sign the experienced defender for Stoke City, where he’d taken on an often-perilous managerial hotseat.

Jones said: “He’s had a fantastic career, the only downside for him is his age, because he isn’t what we normally go for.

“But I feel we need to add certain things to the changing room and the environment and Stephen brings those.

“He’s a wonderful player, a great character, very experienced. He’s been promoted – won the Championship twice. He’s an Irish international, I worked with him, he’s technically very, very good so he ticks every box. It’s just the aging process is the only drawback.

“With Stephen, he’s a specialist in what we need and he will provide vital competition and good strength in that area.”

Unfortunately Ward couldn’t claim a regular starting place and in December 2019 picked up a calf injury which sidelined him for four months. Having made only 17 appearances for City, in August 2020 he switched to League One Ipswich Town on a free transfer.

After playing 29 games for them in the 2020-21 season, the club announced on 5 May 2021 he would be released at the end of the season (one more appearance would have triggered a 12-month extension to his contract).

Born in Dublin on 20 August 1985, Ward grew up in Portmarnock and, as a schoolboy, played football for Home Farm and Portmarnock before joining League of Ireland side Bohemians.

He attributed his eventual success in making it as a player to staying in Ireland when he was younger and continuing to live at home rather than going to play at a UK club’s academy.

In an excellent lengthy interview with the Irish Independent, he said: “I had a few trials – Leicester a couple of times, I went to Aston Villa a lot and Hibs for some reason – nothing worked out and I signed for Bohs. And the most important thing for me then was living at home and having my family around me.

“It does depend on the academy, but you are in a bubble from a young age. You train in a certain way, everything is done for you; I know you get your jobs, but not that many now, and sometimes there is a mentality that once you are in an academy, you’ve made it. I was 17 and played in a league where players were playing for their mortgages and to put food on the table.”

Originally a forward, he scored 26 goals in 93 appearances, and, having been looked at by Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy and deemed not quite ready, McCarthy kept tabs on him when he took over at Wolves.

“I signed for Wolves as a striker,” Ward told the Irish Independent. “I was not a typical number nine, scoring 20 or 30 a season, but an old-fashioned centre-forward running round, closing down.

“We signed a couple of strikers – Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Chris Iwelumo – and I knew if I was going to play consistently it was probably not as a centre-forward. So, I went to left-wing for a bit.

“I played at left-back at Norwich for 30 minutes or so when we went down to nine men. We scraped a draw and afterwards Mick said, ‘You could make a career playing there.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, whatever’. Next season, three games in, and new left-back George Elokobi suffers an awful injury, the window was shut and Mick had no one else . . .”

On the international stage, Ward played through the age levels for the Republic of Ireland and had a dream full international debut in May 2011 as he scored in a 5-0 win over Northern Ireland.

He went on to play 50 times for his country before announcing his retirement from international football in March 2019.