mark chamberlain | The Goldstone Wrap

They played for Brighton & Portsmouth

Recently, I’ve discovered a rather curious collection of coloured drawings of players who played for the Albion and Portsmouth. Leant to me by Nick from Fishersgate, they are neither stickers nor cards. These Victory Blend illustrations are simply printed on small sheets of paper.

Maybe the rest of the collection includes the players of Fratton who have fraternised with Southampton… or Crystal Palace… or Millwall – I just don’t know! If anyone has any details about this series, please comment. For now, I will concern myself with these ten collectables. Give or take a Warren Aspinall, I wonder if it’s possible to construct a decent, well balanced football team out of these players:

Goalkeeper: Doug Flack.
Fulham’s goalkeeper who joined the club in 1935 and made one war-time appearance for the Albion in January 1940, losing 1-0 at Reading. Also guested for Portsmouth in the war years before being a regular in Fulham’s 1948/49 Second Division championship side.

Centre-back: Gary Stevens.
Outstanding, classy defender during Albion’s glory years in the top flight. He joined Tottenham and played for England before injury problems wrecked his career. Joined Portsmouth on loan in January 1990, which became a permanent deal.

Centre-back: Steve Foster.
Beginning with Portsmouth as a centre-forward, he turned into a central defender and transferred to Brighton after the club had gained its First Division status in 1979. After spells with Aston Villa, Luton and Oxford, Fozzie rejoined the Albion in the 1992/93 season.

Midfielder: John Ruggiero.
Joined Brighton in June 1977, scoring on his League debut against Southampton. Loaned to Portsmouth for a month in December 1977 before making his final Albion appearance in the famous match with Blackpool in April 1978.

Inside forward: Bert Barlow.
Portsmouth’s Bert Barlow scored in the 1939 FA Cup Final, but I could find not record of him playing for Brighton. Perhaps there was confusion with K Barlow, a Southampton born lad leant to the Albion for a game against his own club in 1944/45.

Inside-forward / Centre-forward: Albert Mundy.
With his 87 goals in 165 League appearances for the Albion from 1953 to 1958, mainly as an inside forward, Mundy is the second highest scorer in Albion history. He joined the club from Portsmouth where he established a growing reputation.

Centre-forward: Jackie ‘Jock’ Anderson.
A Portsmouth player for thirteen seasons, he scored against Wolves in the 1939 FA Cup Final victory. Played three times for Albion during the war as a guest, beginning with a home match with West Ham in 1943.

Inside forward: Bill Pointon.
A Port Vale player who made a single appearance guesting for Brighton at home to Portsmouth in April 1944. I’m unsure when he played for Portsmouth, but it was probably as a wartime guest player as well.

Inside forward: J. Lewis.
Looking rather like a member of Frankie Goes To Hollywood! He played for Portsmouth in between two spells with Bristol Rovers. The second time at Eastville led to a call up to Wales’ team, where he figured in a 1-0 win over England in March 1906. Two months later, he left for Brighton where he played 43 times before joining Southampton.

Winger: Mark Chamberlain.
Explosive winger who made his name with Stoke and England early in his career. An unsuccessful move to Sheffield Wednesday marred his career before returning to form with Portsmouth. He had a so-so spell with Brighton in the 1990s before being released. You can read more about him here.

As you can see, even though with only ten in the side, this team is refreshingly attack-minded. If only Oscar Garcia could choose an Albert Mundy or a ‘Jock’ Anderson (in their prime, of course!) to solve Brighton’s very current striker crisis!

Howard’s way stifles Chamberlain

Howard Wilkinson is the only ex-Brighton & Hove Albion player to manage the England national football team, which he fulfilled on a caretaker basis in two spells, in 1999 and 2000.

In his playing career, he was an ex-England youth international who joined Sheffield Wednesday in June 1962, making his First Division debut in the 1964/65 season. After 22 League games and three goals, he arrived at the Goldstone Ground in July 1966.

Posing with Bob Fuller, an Albion reserve

At Brighton, he is remembered as a smart and direct outside-right who could skin a full-back for pace and put in a good cross. Even so, in his book ‘Managing to Succceed’ in 1992, Howard Wilkinson described how he was ‘gaining no sense of fulfilment from being a Third Division footballer with Brighton.’ Perhaps this was because after an injury in December 1966, he never fully re-established himself and was often substitute.

He went on to say that:

‘When I was a player at Brighton, under manager Archie Macaulay’s guidance, we had some remarkable preparations for important matches and cup-ties. There were liberal doses of sherry and raw eggs, calves foot jelly, fillet steak, and plenty of walks on the seafront where we were taken to fill our lungs with the ozone.’

After featuring sporadically in 1969/70, Wilkinson found first-team chances limited by the emergence and form of Peter O’Sullivan. As a result, he was given a free transfer in May 1971.

With his propensity for hugging the line, Wilkinson was rarely a goal threat himself in his time at Brighton, getting on the scoresheet just twice in his final two seasons. When he entered management, Wilkinson’s idea of the role of a wide man did not bring out the best of a future Albion player:

The highly skilful Mark Chamberlain was an England international winger. Graham Barnett, his coach at Port Vale, described him as ‘like a bloody gazelle… a black jewel… he’s got the bloody lot… he’s class… so much better than John Barnes.’

This explosive goal for Stoke City against Brighton in 1982/83 is an example of what he was capable of:

Although he had slipped down the England order by then, a disastrous move to Wilkinson’s Sheffield Wednesday in 1986 for £700,000 put paid to any hopes of further caps. As Chamberlain told 90 Minutes magazine (24 July 1993):

It was a nightmare. I just didn’t fit in with his scheme of things. Like all of his teams, Wednesday played to a very strict pattern and anybody who slipped out of that pattern was seen as a liability. In the end I couldn’t really get away quick enough.

He joined Portsmouth in 1988 but endured injury problems and loss of form. When Jim Smith arrived as Pompey boss, it led to a renaissance in his career:

‘He told me that I wasn’t just a winger who should sit out wide and wait for things to happen, that I should get myself involved throughout the game. Last season, things really clicked. I felt a lot happier with my consistency and I think I played the best football of my career since I left Stoke.’

After a hernia operation in summer 1994, Chamberlain arrived at the Goldstone for a trial. He scored on his debut against Plymouth in August with this splendid drive:

Thereafter, though, he struggled for form having lost a lot of his pace, and 24 years after Wilkinson received the same fate from Brighton, Chamberlain was released at the end of 1994/95. Perhaps Archie Macaulay’s methodology, described above, involving sherry and raw eggs, calves foot jelly, fillet steak, and plenty of walks on the seafront, might have done wonders for Chamberlain’s twilight years. As it was, when he joined Exeter, he took a more conventional step for an ageing winger seeking to extend his career, by shifting to right-back position.

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They played for Brighton & Portsmouth

Howard’s way stifles Chamberlain