Author Archives: Goldstone Rapper

Hostess tackles Lawro and Nobby

This is from an edition of ‘Roy of the Rovers’ magazine. A spot of foul play by Nobby, I suspect:

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From the Brighton v Bristol City programme of April 1980:

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Last Wednesday we held a very successful buffet lunch for the firms that have helped the club during the year with sponsorship and advertising.

With us for the first time were our new sponsors British Caledonian and we have reproduced here a novel action picture that shows Brian Horton and Mark Lawrenson in the new Albion kit that will be worn next August.

The Caledonian hostess seemed to enjoy the action in front of the North Stand and we hope that supporters will equally enjoy seeing the team play in its new strip next August.

It was certainly a radical change. Nothing quite screams top flight Albion football as that all-blue Adidas kit with the British Caledonian sponsor, making Brighton the first side in the south to be involved in shirt advertising. The Brighton v Nottingham Forest programme from March 1980 says that:

the colour change was decided upon after consultation with the players and they were virtually unanimous about the new strip. To many the stripes associate the club with the Third Division days and we are determined to be a First Division club in every way.

The Albion vs Forest matchday programme also includes this image:

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Here you can see Albion chairman Mike Bamber shaking hands with Adam Thomson, the Chairman of British Caledonian Airways, as a helicopter waits to whisk Mr Thomson back to Gatwick. Yes, the 1980s had certainly arrived!

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Evening Argus previews the season

I’m sure the Argus has been previewing the football season since time immemorial. And covered every one since the start of the 1990s. However, I don’t think they’ve ever done a job as good as this fondly remembered free magazine-sized publication from the start of the 1989/90 campaign, ditching the usual newspaper-sized format. Mine came with an ‘Evening Argus – Seagulls’ cardboard banner. If only I’d still kept it!

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A forty-page special is graced with interviews with cover star Steve Gatting, comeback kid Martin Lambert, Robert Codner and Perry Digweed, a colour team photo centre-spread, pen pictures and photo opportunities with the players in pre-season training, including in that horrid red and white patterned away kit that looked more like a dull pink from a distance.

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A full page advert for embarrassing club sponsors NOBO promised the company would be ‘top of the 1st division for display and training aids.’ However, the British Gas ad below with 1970s-style comic is splendidly retro, even for back then.

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The only downside is that the magazine is rather heavy on adverts. Even so, they help give an evocative sense of what life was like in the late 1980s, when the local dialling code was still 0273, Garry Nelson had his car sponsored by FIAT, and ASICS were a popular sportswear manufacturer proud to have Barry Lloyd (awkward, insincere smile and all) advertising its football boots.

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Kevin Bremner – The Seagull Has Landed

By 1989, Brighton were no longer regulars in the weekly national magazines, so any coverage was like gold dust.

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In Shoot! Magazine, he said:

“It’s all very relaxed down here and even when I was sent-off pre-season nothing much was said about it. Manager Barry Lloyd loves to play entertaining, attacking football so wherever we go and whatever the score, it’s tally-ho, forward we go.”

After being in his strike-partner’s shadow for a couple of seasons, Kevin Bremner certainly did turn the tables on Garry Nelson in 1989/90, getting twelve League goals compared to his striking counterpart’s five. Nelson was hampered by injury from February onwards, which opened the way to Sergei Gotsmanov’s arrival.

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Topps bubblegum cards

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We knew we had made it as a football club when Topps issued cards of eight first-teamers in 1978/79. Enclosed in a daring pink border, Topps cards perfectly captured the vibe of the 1970s with its use of bright garish colours and popular typefaces of that time.

So enjoy Peter Sayer’s quite magnificent perm, the rare sight of Graham Moseley with a beard and Sully proving himself to be the Welsh answer to Tom Selleck, never mind Rivelino. But, wait, no Brian Horton?

The backs of the cards featured all the vital career stats up to the end of the 1977/78 season plus some bullet points:

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Introducing Brighton’s Tortoise, the King of the League

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North Stand Chat participant Jackcgull, creator of the Eye On The Seagulls website, has alerted me to this magnificent tortoise. He writes:

I kept terrapins as a youngster (back in 1978) and my mum saw this beast in the Seagull Shop and bought it for me. I used it as a Godzilla-like enemy of my action men characters (i was 10/11 at the time). When i left home it must have hidden away at my mum’s – and there it was, under her stairs – 35 years later!!!

No idea why they would produce a cuddly ‘King of the League’ tortoise – would love to know more.

I remember offering it to someone who was starting an Albion museum – not sure why, but he didn’t want it!

Anyway – is there anyone else who has or has ever had one of these? A true relic of the Albion’s days in the top division and the Fa Cup Final!

Marvellous. If anyone else has any quite insane Albion memorabilia, please get in touch at seagulls@me followed by .comor leave a comment to this post.

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Shoot Cover: Neil Smillie (25 February 1984)

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Unlike his other photos, winger Neil Smillie doesn’t quite look like the doppelgänger for Just Good Friends‘ actor Paul Nicholas in this front cover.

Inside this edition, there is a preview of the Watford v Brighton FA Cup tie. John Barnes says:

‘I watched Brighton beat Liverpool in the Fourth Round and I was very impressed. They’ve lost none of the snap and sparkle that carried them to Wembley last season. But I for one am delighted we’ve drawn them. Brighton are an attacking team and an attractive team.’

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Horton hears a …who?

Taken from the Official Handbook 1977/78:

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It’s bad pun-a-go-go in this advert for Tony Back and Ric Carr’s Music Centre on 156 Lewes Road, Brighton. It describes Tony, Brian and Ric as ‘the most organised team in Division One’ while introducing ‘the Elka X705 Potable anyone can play!’

Towards the bottom of the advert is a football pitch with the names of various instruments in an experimental 2-3-2-3 formation.

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Horton must have been short of a few bob the week he agreed to put his name to this. Turn your nose up at the increasing commercialisation of the game… or join yours truly in a celebration of the cheese factor of this marvellous advertisement for both music and sport!

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Brighton’s teddy bear

Alan Mullery is holding Albion’s one-time mascot…

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Mark Lawrenson and teddy bear

…and so is Mark Lawrenson.

Why, you may ask, is Mark Lawrenson sitting holding a giant, cuddly teddy bear?

“After all the injuries I’ve had lately, any mascot is welcome,” explains the Brighton star. “I was out for ten weeks at the start of the season with severed ankle ligaments.”

Mullery is one of Mark’s greatest admirers, and Alan’s sure the kid from Preston can go to the very top.

“When I signed him I knew the lad had tremendous potential. Now people can see what I was talking about. I said he could be another Beckenbauer… and I stand by that.”

At 22, Mark is one of Britain’s rising young stars. To reach his full potential, he needs to steer clear of more serious injuries, And that’s why you’ll find him holding that teddy bear mascot down at the Goldstone!”

To read the full article of ‘Mark Lawrenson – Brighton’s Beckenbauer’ from the 1979/80 campaign, just click on the photo.

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Spotlight on Brighton

1985-86 spotlight

Full of optimism here. However, a wretched run of one win in the last ten Division Two games puts paid to the promotion push in 1985/86 and cost Chris Cattlin his job.

Note how much Dennis Mortimer resembles Gordon Greer!

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FKS Soccer-81 gets messy

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FKS, a dominant force in UK sticker publication in the 1970s, began to lose its leading position towards the end of the decade and here it’s easy to see why. This sticker abomination is so wrong on many counts. That Brighton and Hove Albion had to share its double page with Coventry is a despicable crime, made worse by the inclusion of Gordon Smith in a – gulp! – Rangers shirt.

Even the players in Albion kit are in the wrong Albion kit as, of course, we had already ditched the stripes for the all-blue polyester Adidas affair for the 1980/81 season.

Whoever was in charge of the artwork was clearly trying to pull wool over our eyes. Don’t let him/her be tricking you. A closer look suggests Peter Suddaby and Neil McNab have had images of their heads unconvincingly superimposed on other Brighton players’ bodies in a Frankenstein experiment while Ray Clarke has had blue stripes added to what may originally have been a Spurs top.

I’ll forgive FKS suggesting the Albion as being founded in 1900 as that was what was widely thought of at the time. But having a non-foil crest that is a mere photo of a replica shirt badge, with some clumsy cropping applied? Really?! It was hardly going to help FKS in the fight with Panini to win the loyalty and the pocket money of school kids.

Still, some quality shots of Steve Foster, John Gregory, Brian Horton, Mark Lawrenson, Graham Moseley, Peter Ward and Gary Williams are very welcome, not to mention the surprising inclusion of rookie midfielder Giles Stille, looking rather studious.

Click the image for a close-up.

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