Wythenshawe – In parallel lines

JOHN BYRNE, who had three different spells as a Brighton player, is viewed as an all-time-great by QPR fans where he scored 36 goals in 149 appearances.

Through his Irish father Jim, Wythenshawe-born Byrne qualified to play for the Republic of Ireland and he won 13 of his 23 Republic of Ireland caps while a QPR player playing in the old First Division.

His place in the annals of QPR’s history was etched courtesy of following two other greats (Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles) into the no. 10 shirt.

“I was always conscious of the traditions at Rangers and so I was dead proud to wear the Number 10,” he told qprreport in 2008. “I think I did the shirt justice most of the time.”

In the same way Brighton fans remember his highly effective striking partnership with Mike Small in the 1990-91 season, so QPR supporters recall his combination up front with Gary Bannister.

“I enjoyed playing up front with ‘Banna’,” he said. “He was a great centre-forward, right out of the top drawer. I don’t know how our partnership worked but we just seemed to have a good understanding.

“He was more of a prolific goalscorer than I was. He also had superb quality and awareness for bringing people into the game.”

Byrne, who later became a familiar voice as an expert summariser for BBC Radio Sussex coverage of Albion matches, has always been happy to indulge requests from Rs writers to look back on his four years at Loftus Road.

As would become something of a pattern in his career, it was an impressive performance playing against QPR that led them to sign him. He featured in a two-legged League Cup game for York City against Rangers, and he recalled the game at Loftus Road when talking to qprnet.com in 2013:

“It was so brilliant to play in that stadium under the floodlights and coming from York to run out at QPR was something to remember.

“Afterwards I said to our assistant manager Viv Busby that I would love to play here every week. Lo and behold a couple of weeks later I was!”

The man who took him to west London was none other than Alan Mullery, the former Brighton manager, during his unhappy six months as QPR manager.

It’s now generally recognised that some of the senior pros at the club were none too pleased with Mullery taking over from Terry Venables, who had moved to Spain to manage Barcelona. Byrne admitted: “It was difficult for me to fully understand having been signed by Mullery but you could feel it with some of the senior pros.

“The likes of Terry Fenwick, John Gregory and Steve Wicks were big Venables men and, understandably, as he was obviously a great coach. You got a feeling that a few of them weren’t overly impressed with Mullers at the time.”

As it turned out, Mullery’s time in charge came to an abrupt end and Byrne remembered playing under caretaker manager Frank Sibley before Jim Smith got the job permanently.

“Frank was lovely; he was a really nice man and probably too nice for football management,” said Byrne. “He really helped me a lot, he would always welcome a chat with you and put his arm round you to talk about your game. I had a lot of time for Frank.”

And of the former Birmingham and Oxford boss Smith, who went on to manage Newcastle and Portsmouth, among others, he said: “Smithy was brilliant. I loved playing for Jim. He loved you, he hated you but he would never ignore you or freeze you out.”

It was in 1986 when Byrne suffered the first of three losing experiences in Wembley finals. QPR went down 3-0 to Smith’s former club Oxford United

“Unfortunately we never turned up for the final,” Byrne told QPRnet. “I just remember that after we were introduced to the dignitaries I went off for the warm up and I had nothing in the tank. I had heavy legs before the game and I think a lot of the players felt like that.

“At the end of the day we didn’t perform and Oxford were better than us but there should be no excuses we were a better side on paper and we should have won.”

A far happier memory from that spring of 1986 happened three weeks previously when the Rs thrashed Chelsea 6-0 and Byrne scored twice (Bannister netted a hat-trick and Michael Robinson the other).

“I’ll never forget that day,” said Byrne. “It was just one of those occasions when everything went right for us.

“I remember one of my goals where I picked up possession on the halfway line. It was funny on that plastic pitch, because bodies would fall all around you if you got into your stride. So eventually I wriggled free and slotted a shot into the bottom corner.”

Another of his favourite QPR memories was scoring in two home games against Manchester United, the team he had supported as a boy. Recalling a 1-0 win in March 1986, he said: “I remember lobbing the ball over two defenders’ heads in the box. Then I flicked it back before shooting past Chris Turner in goal at the Loft End. It was great for me – especially being a Manchester lad as well.”

In much the same way as his move to QPR came about, it was in a couple of friendly matches against Le Havre that the French side liked what they saw of him and QPR were happy to accept their bid for the player.

“It was disappointing to leave QPR but I think it was probably the right time to go,” he recalled. Unfortunately, he broke a leg only three weeks into his stay with Le Havre. But when he was fit again, a few English clubs started watching his recovery with interest.

And it was following a friendly Brighton played against Le Havre that prompted Albion boss Barry Lloyd to bring Byrne back to England to play in early September 1990. He made his Seagulls debut for the reserves in a 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic and then went on as a sub for the first team in Albion’s 3-2 home win over the same opponent 10 days later.

He scored on his first start, in a 2-1 win away to Blackburn Rovers, and on his first start at home he netted in a 3-3 draw with Swindon Town, who were managed by Ossie Ardiles.

*Crocked in the last game of the league season against Ipswich*

How the rest of that season panned out was covered in my previous post about Byrne, as were his subsequent moves, the most successful of which saw him play for Sunderland in the 1992 FA Cup final when Liverpool beat the Wearsiders 2-0.

“I scored in every round except the final then missed a sitter on roughly thirteen minutes twenty seconds; I see that one every day!” he told QPRnet.

Byrne’s future work as a podiatrist came about largely through the network provided by the Professional Footballers’ Association.

“When I finished playing football in the late 1990s, I was hoping to become a physio but couldn’t get a place at university to study it,” he explained. “Then the ex-Manchester United star Norman Whiteside advised me to look at the PFA’s course for podiatry, because he was a podiatrist himself. The PFA said they would help me with finance and backing.”

He went on to graduate from university in 2001 – gaining his BSC Honours degree was the hardest thing he’d done in his life, he said.

“My brain had been dormant for twenty years playing football, but I’ve been qualified now for nearly 10 years,” he said in a 2010 interview with Sussex Life. “I love my NHS career and also the private work I do and I get a lot of job satisfaction improving patients’ foot problems.”

And in his interview with QPRnet, he added: “I was lucky, I look back now and I had a good career, I played for some great clubs and whilst I might have had disappointments with finals I have got plenty of great memories.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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