[Albion] Willie Bell RIP

[Perfidious Albion]

RIP Willie , indeed. That photo above takes me back to the the time when I fell in love with The Albion. They were just as much heroes as our Premier stars today.
Willie played left back to Stuart Henderson on the right with John Napier and Norman Gall in the middle. Until now I never Kew that Willie had played at such a high level and had such a career . His Wikipedia page is a good read . RIP

 

[sully]

RIP Willie , indeed. That photo above takes me back to the the time when I fell in love with The Albion. They were just as much heroes as our Premier stars today.
Willie played left back to Stuart Henderson on the right with John Napier and Norman Gall in the middle. Until now I never Kew that Willie had played at such a high level and had such a career . His Wikipedia page is a good read . RIP

Likewise. That photo is basically the squad when I first started watching the Albion in 1970.
What a team that was!

RIP Willie

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

Nicknamed Ding Dong on the East terrace.

R I P

Highly original.

R. I. P. Willie.

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

View attachment 158660

Nice to see the Goldstaone as a backdrop, in all it's glory on a sunny summer's day. When the pic was taken it was in it's prime, most of the more recent shots of it were when it was in a terribly sorry state.

 

[Seagull58]

Left back as I recall, with Henderson at right back. RIP Willie.

Bell and Henderson were very good for us in 69/70. Henderson had thighs like a rhino! I vaguely remember Bell galloping forward and overlapping down the wing.

 

[bobby baxter]

Highly original.

R. I. P. Willie.

You have to remember...we were very young then

 

[Brovion]

Nice to see the Goldstaone as a backdrop, in all it's glory on a sunny summer's day. When the pic was taken it was in it's prime, most of the more recent shots of it were when it was in a terribly sorry state.

And proper Brighton shirts! Not a stripe in sight!

BTW for anyone wondering the 'Bobby' Smith' in the photo isn't the Bobby Smith, the former Spurs and England star who shocked the football world by turning up at fourth division Brighton, it's just a namesake. I believe, slightly topically given the FA Cup QF, that we signed him from Grimsby (or sold him to Grimsby, can't remember).

 

[BLOCK F]

RIP Willie,
Well remembered from all those years ago

 

[Robinjakarta]

Good player as others have said. We got him if I remember correctly because he had been displaced in the Leeds side by Terry Cooper (who would have displaced pretty well anyone) and of his connections with our then manager Freddie Goodwin: a good turn of events for us.

 

[Nobby]

Really good player as part of a wonderful defence

Loved watching that team - and had the shirt!! I was 7 when I first went to the Goldstone

Never even knew we played in stripes....

Can still name 90% of them now without reading it

Isn't it funny how you remember the first players you supported, but can't remember a lot of the other eras.

 

[Brovion]

Good player as others have said. We got him if I remember correctly because he had been displaced in the Leeds side by Terry Cooper (who would have displaced pretty well anyone) and of his connections with our then manager Freddie Goodwin: a good turn of events for us.

Without googling it I think we got him from Leicester. But I agree with @Nobby, there's tons of players from other eras that I can't remember, and yet I remember players like the 'other' Bobby Smith, who I know we signed from, not sold to, Grimsby. (I put the 'can't remember' bit in because I didn't want to sound like a complete anorak!)

I wonder if it's because players didn't change clubs so much in those days? (And squads were smaller). As there weren't as many transfers it was probably easier to keep a track of, and subsequently remember, a lot of the comings and goings.

 

[Nobby]

Without googling it I think we got him from Leicester. But I agree with @Nobby, there's tons of players from other eras that I can't remember, and yet I remember players like the 'other' Bobby Smith, who I know we signed from, not sold to, Grimsby. (I put the 'can't remember' bit in because I didn't want to sound like a complete anorak!)

I wonder if it's because players didn't change clubs so much in those days? (And squads were smaller). As there weren't as many transfers it was probably easier to keep a track of, and subsequently remember, a lot of the comings and goings.

That's probably it -15 or 16 players - rather than the 25 main squad, 20 U21's and 30 on loan!!

Loved that era, sitting in the South stand with Dad and Grandparents, lapping up every bit of Albion info I could get!!

RIP Willie Bell

 

[zefarelly]

View attachment 158660

Marvelous scene.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Lovely obituary in The Telegraph today.

 

[PeterT]

Lovely obituary in The Telegraph today.

I was able to open these without a subscription:

Willie Bell, combative Leeds United footballer who became a Baptist minister – obituary (msn.com)

Willie Bell obituary (thetimes.co.uk)

 

[GT49er]

That's probably it -15 or 16 players - rather than the 25 main squad, 20 U21's and 30 on loan!!

Loved that era, sitting in the South stand with Dad and Grandparents, lapping up every bit of Albion info I could get!!

RIP Willie Bell

More than 15 or 16 players, I think - we still had a reserve team in the Football Combination! Not sure when we stopped playing in that, or what the reason was at the time.
Didn't we run any sort of youth team back then?

 

[AZ Gull]

More than 15 or 16 players, I think - we still had a reserve team in the Football Combination! Not sure when we stopped playing in that, or what the reason was at the time.
Didn't we run any sort of youth team back then?

We competed in the Football Combination until the 2011-12 season (which was its final season).

It was still a healthy league until the Premier League created its own reserve league in 1999. In 2003 the competition split into two regional divisions and two years later it became three regional divisions.

By the 2011-12 campaign Albion reserves were competing in the Southern Section which contained only SIX teams (meaning they had only 10 league games all season; including the Sussex Senior Cup and a play-off from the season before, Albion reserves played only 15 competitive fixtures that campaign).

In 2012-13 the new Professional Development League (with competitions for both U-21 and U-18 sides) replaced the Football Combination.

 

[Fungus]

Marvelous scene.

Proper shirts

 

[GT49er]

We competed in the Football Combination until the 2011-12 season (which was its final season).

It was still a healthy league until the Premier League created its own reserve league in 1999. In 2003 the competition split into two regional divisions and two years later it became three regional divisions.

By the 2011-12 campaign Albion reserves were competing in the Southern Section which contained only SIX teams (meaning they had only 10 league games all season; including the Sussex Senior Cup and a play-off from the season before, Albion reserves played only 15 competitive fixtures that campaign).

In 2012-13 the new Professional Development League (with competitions for both U-21 and U-18 sides) replaced the Football Combination.

Cheers - I knew the league continued until 2012 (well, I did after I googled it! - was surprised it lasted that long). I didn't know we'd been in it to the bitter end though. Time was when the Combination results and League table would be routinely published in the national press, on Sundays anyway, but that seemed to disappear long before 2012 as the league gradually lost whatever status it once had.

 

[PeterT]

Proper shirts

Can you get that shirt anywhere with the badge? I know Toffs do it without but as a result it doesn’t look authentic.