Rollings, one of the most popular and wholehearted players to wear an Albion shirt, is still in Brighton, running the Chalet café in Preston Park and hosting in HB’s Restaurant at the Amex on match days. And he is looking forward to this weekend’s visit of Norwich, the club where he began his professional career.
Some might think that his accent betrays traces of a Norfolk upbringing, but they would be wrong. Andy is a Bristolian who ended up at the other side of the country through football. “I went to a state school that played rugby and played rugby on Saturday mornings and football in the afternoon after a friend asked me to play for his team,” he says. “But then I got injured and realised I missed football more than rugby so went and told the games master that I wasn’t going to play rugby any more, which didn’t go down too well.
“Three of us were invited to play for the Bristol Federation of Boys’ Clubs, and while I was playing for them a Bristol-based scout for Norwich watched us. He invited all three of us for trials. One was Paul Cheesley, a good friend of mine, who was a hell of a player and ended up at Bristol City until he suffered a career-ending injury. I was about 14-15 and I asked the headmaster if I could leave school without taking any exams and my dad was brilliant. He said I should go because I might not get another chance.
“Ron Saunders was Norwich manager, a disciplinarian with an incredible mentality. He thought that the fitter you were, the better the chance you had of winning a game. You think you’re fit when you come out of school, but that was the fittest I ever was in my career. A pre-season under Ron – wow. I couldn’t even get down stairs in the mornings because my legs were so sore. Anyone who thinks footballers stroll through life should experience that.
“But I liked Ron. He was a real football man. He called a spade a spade and if you didn’t put a shift in you were never going to play. And those were the sort of players he had in his first team, men like Dave Stringer and Duncan Forbes.”
Forbes died recently and was remembered at Carrow Road before their game against Manchester United last week. Andy also recalls his former clubmate.“Talk about taking no prisoners! He was from Musselburgh in Scotland and even his accent was tough. We played a practice game against Bristol City and he was marking my old mate Paul Cheesley. Paul tried to chest a ball down and Duncan went straight through the back of him, saying to the ref, ‘I went for the ball.’ I think he honestly meant it, but Paul happened to be in the way.
“I played in the A team and signed my first contract at 18. I’d actually played a few first-team games by the time Cloughie came in for me. Ron had blooded me and Steve Govier, who came to Brighton at the same time. I played a couple of Texaco Cup games against Dundee and St Johnstone, and I played against West Ham and QPR. In the West ham game I was up against Clyde Best, me at 18 and him built like a brick wall. But it was a great initiation, being on the same pitch as Bobby Moore, bless him, and trying to prove I was good enough. At the time you’re just trying to stay focused but looking back now it’s an amazing feeling to think that I made my league debut against him.”
But Andy’s development was to continue at The Goldstone rather than Carrow Road, as told in Spencer Vignes’ excellent book, Bloody Southerners. “Ron had left and John Bond had come in and it was brilliant, adding a lot more football to all the discipline and running. But there are always questions under a new manager. It’s a wll-known story that I was in a snooker hall when I got a phone call telling me to meet Brian Clough at the ground, he wanted to speak to me – ‘Sign this, son, it’ll be the best thing you’ve ever done, you’re going to be my new Roy McFarland.’
“I talked to John Bond and he said: ‘Look, I don’t want you to go, but I have to tell you that am going to be bringing some other players in.’ One of them was Tony Powell, who had played for him at Bournemouth and was another centre half. I wanted to be playing first-team football, and it was Brian Clough telling me his plans, and Peter Taylor. So I decided I was going to do it and I came down along with Steve Govier and Ian Mellor. Part of me now wonders ‘What were you doing?’ but Cloughie was right, coming to Brighton was the best thing I ever did, the best six years of my career.”
Clough, of course, left for Leeds United before Andy had a chance to play for him and the first year under Taylor’s sole management was a bumpy ride, but Andy was learning all the time. “We had some incredibly experienced pros, Joe Kinnear, Phil Beal, Neil Martin, Graham Cross, Ernie Machin, players who had played at the top level. I didn’t play that much at the beginning because I didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with Peter and he stayed in his office most of the time.
“But the moment we found out that Alan Mullery was taking over was light at the end of the tunnel. He was a man who had played for England, won almost everything and was such a great motivator. I loved playing under him and of course I still see him now because he’s an Albion ambassador and I work in the lounges on match days.
“They were an amazing four years, we played some fantastic football and had some great cup runs too, beating Ipswich and West Brom and holding Derby. I played alongside Graham Winstanley, Mark Lawrenson, Graham Cross – what a player he was. We got crowds of about 14,000 under Taylor but under Mullers all of a sudden it was 30,000 and the Goldstone was rocking.”
Andy was concerned that he might miss the 1979 promotion run-in through injury, but returned with a goal in the final home game, a 2-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers. “That meant we knew that if we got a result at Newcastle we’d be promoted and we went up to the north-East a few days before. We watched them play Bristol Rovers, and Peter Withe, the lad I was going to mark, scored three, I think!
“But we enjoyed being together, and we went out at St James’ Park with a great attitude that we were going to win that game. Our first-half performance was incredible and we came in 3-0 up. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen Mullers lost for words at half-time. It finished 3-1. We were never going to let them get three back, we had so many good players and we weren’t going to let anybody down.”
The journey back to Sussex has passed into Albion legend. “The club, Mike Bamber and the directors, had the Seagulls Special trains, just as they had the helicopter to Wembley in 1983, always forward-looking – exactly the same as it is now. And on the train back from Newcastle, we had a meal in our carriage and then Alan said ‘Right, you’re going to go back down the train and thank every one of those supporters for supporting you, not just today but all through the season,’ and I think we had a drink with most of them. And there were another 3-4,000 waiting back at Brighton station when the train got in. It still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck to think about it.”
Increased competition for places restricted Andy’s chances in the first division to just seven appearances, with one goal, against Coventry City at Highfield Road. His last game was at Highbury, but his farewell appearance at The Goldstone in his previous game ended on a strange sort of triumph in a 4-2 home defeat by, of all teams, Norwich. City striker Justin Fashanu, later to play for Albion, broke Andy’s nose with a swinging elbow and Andy later took a swing at him and ended up seeing a red card.
“I got a standing ovation as I walked off so that wasn’t the worst way to go out, on a high. Later when I was at Portsmouth we had won promotion and went away to Marbella for an end-of-season jaunt and I saw Fash and Tony Powell and went over to shake hands and say ‘No hard feelings.’
“I never wanted to leave the club but it was going to be difficult to keep playing with the calibre of players we had. I just wanted to play and they had Mark Lawrenson and Steve Foster, and Gary Stevens was coming through. Nowadays there is more of a squad system and I would probably have been one of the seven on the bench but there was only one substitute in those days. Alan has told me that he didn’t want to let me go but I knew I wouldn’t be happy just playing in the reserves.”
Andy went to Swindon Town in the deal that brought Ray McHale to the Goldstone and later appeared for Portsmouth before returning to the Albion. “I got a bad injury at Portsmouth and again, a change of managers meant I cancelled my contract and I went to Maidstone before the Achilles injury went again. While I was recovering, Alan Mullery came back to the Albion for his second spell and I rang him up and asked if I could train with the team while I was trying to get fit again.
“So I went down and did pre-season and he asked me to play in the reserves and help the kids along, like Ian Chapman, an incredible player. But then Mullers was sacked and Barry Lloyd said ‘I don’t want you to leave, but we can’t pay you.’ I had just taken over a business, so that was the time to walk away from the club and play in local football – Newhaven, Peacehaven. I was 40, 41 but I just didn’t want to stop playing. I loved it. But eventually Mike Yaxley told me I should call it a day or I’d pay the price later. So after that it was just the odd charity match.”
Andy, though, is involved with the Albion again and is enjoying what he sees this season. “Every match we win I love, of course. I knew a little bit about Graham Potter when he arrived but he has done an incredible job. You sense that the players are really loving playing and when you talk to fans, it’s not just about the results, it’s the performances too, whether we have won or not. And I like the way he is giving the young players an opportunity. Aaron Connolly has been a revelation and Steven Alzate is going to be some player. And that gives an example to the other youngsters.
However, he agrees that those canary-yellow Norwich shirts that he once knew so well have the look of a potential banana skin. “Teemu Pukki has scored a few decent goals and when any opponent has a player like that you have to be careful. I still believe that any team outside the top four can beat any other on the day so you have to be at your best.
“We weren’t quite there against Everton, who set themselves up well to stop us. We won, which is fantastic and over the season we were due some good fortune, but yes, the Norwich game could be tricky. Home games are our best chance of winning points though, so we have to believe we can win.”