The player of the season and top scorer was Andy Ritchie, who joined Albion from United in October 1980 for £500,000. That remained the club’s record fee until the sale of Bobby Zamora to Tottenham Hotspur, when the 30% sell-on fee paid to Bristol Rovers brought the club’s total outlay on Bobby Z to £520,000.
Ritchie’s 14 goals in all competitions that season included the equaliser in a memorable 3-3 draw against Liverpool at the Goldstone and the winner against the same opponents at Anfield. Yet arguably his most significant goal won a match against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux on the evening of 22nd September 1981 that sent the Seagulls temporarily into fifth place in the old first division, their highest-ever league placing.
So, Andy – can you talk us through the moment that took us as high up the football pyramid as we have ever managed to climb? “I’ve tried but I just can’t remember that goal,” he says. “I don’t remember scoring a lot of goals against Wolves and I thought I would, but I just can’t bring it back to mind. You’ve stumped me!
“But in that 81-82 season we played well and Mike got everyone playing together. Everybody liked Mike and John Collins, his coach, who was brilliant. When a group of players like the management, as you see at Liverpool now, where the players love Jurgen Klopp, it takes you a long way. You don’t have to be great friends with them, but when you are having things explained to you and training is good and it’s a bit of fun, you get a lot more out of it. That has certainly been my ethos when I have been a manager, to keep everyone as happy as you can. You get better results in my opinion.”
The fun continued away from training. “We always had a good team spirit and we all used to go out together. Everyone played golf and we’d be out in the nightclubs, Bonsoir and others where you had to wipe your feet on the way out. Great times, absolutely fantastic. And the spirit transferred itself onto the pitch. I used to joke at Q&As that we had so many great individuals but put us together and we were crap because the social life got in the way of our football. But no, it was a fantastic club to be involved in.”
One sign of that togetherness was the away form, with standout wins at White Hart Lane and Anfield and creditable draws at Goodison and Highbury. “We were a bit of a mirror image of Graham Potter’s team, who seem to be strongest at home,” he says. “But we certainly had a good season away from home, which helps. If you get away points it really pushes you up the league.
“When I look back now, I think that Jimmy Case had a lot to do with that. Coming from Liverpool he had that steel inside him. They had a fantastic side that was full of determination that everyone fed off. He gave us something, a little more grit and self-belief. That was what we needed because we had been quite a young side. Players like Jimmy would help you get over the line in a game, grind out a result.
“So we enjoyed that season. We were top eight for quite a while but dropped away towards the end of the season. It was the best one I had at Brighton. The others were pretty hairy, being towards the bottom of the table and trying to stay away from the relegation zone. The season I left, they went to the FA Cup final and ultimately went down.”
Andy played his part in those other seasons too. His 80th-minute goal at home to Leeds United on the last day of the 1980-81 campaign clinched a 2-0 win that kept Albion safe, and his goal against Newcastle United at the Goldstone in a 1-1 draw was the first of the 1983 FA Cup run.
Before his move to Brighton, he had been a rising star at United and had scored two hat-tricks for the first team, so some were surprised when he became part of an unusual transfer triangle. Peter Ward moved from Albion to Nottingham Forest, Garry Birtles from Forest to Manchester United and Andy to the Goldstone. “I believe if I had said no, the other two would have stayed where they were. I couldn’t understand the Birtles move because he was scoring goals for fun at Forest. I don’t know the story about Wardy.
“Considering that we more or less replaced one another, we were all very different players. Garry was a front man who could hold the ball, I preferred to play off the front man, more of a number ten in today’s terminology, Wardy was a will o’ the wisp and not a number nine at all. So it was a strange triangle for me. But when Wardy came back to Brighton, me and him got on famously. He was such a funny fella, he had the same sense of humour as me, we’d always be chatting.
“But leaving United wasn’t a shock to me. I had already spoken to Aston Villa, Chelsea and Newcastle, so by the time Brighton came along I took the hint. The other three I didn’t fancy, it just didn’t feel right. And when I came down to Brighton, it did. I liked Alan Mullery, he made an instant impact on me. The club was homely, which had a big effect. Within three or four hours of being down there I knew virtually everybody in the place. The offices weren’t massive, you knew the staff.
“It made a good impression and I just thought: ‘Yes, this is the place I want to further my career,’ because I needed to be in the first team, not being in the reserves, which is no disrespect to the old Central League, where you were playing against first-team players who didn’t happen to be in the team at the time, seasoned professionals rather than under-23s.
“I got a bit brassed off at United, where I scored a hat-trick against Spurs then got dropped for the next game. I thought then that the writing is on the wall a little bit. And when you looked at the other players coming up, the likes of Mark Hughes and Norman Whiteside, would I have played anyway? You had to be realistic about that.”
The prospect of stepping into the shoes of a club legend such as Ward might have seemed daunting to some, and it took Andy a while to win some fans over, but he had not been concerned. “I didn’t really think about that, or being the record signing, which I still was until only a few years ago. I was quietly confident in my own ability although I wasn’t one to shout about it.
“I enjoyed playing up front with Robbo, who was the muscle and the brawn while I got on with what I wanted to do. Robbo and I complemented each other very well, because you could play off him as a strong front man.” Robinson, oddly, always referred to Ritchie in interviews as ‘Andrew’ rather than Andy. “Yes, and he didn’t like being called Mike, he’d say: ‘My name’s Michael,’ so I called him Robbo and he was okay with that. He had other names that I can’t repeat!
“But yes, it was a bit difficult coming into a struggling team, and with all the adulation that Wardy had had, but scoring goals will always help. My goals saw me over that period. If you’re a striker and you score goals, everyone is happy. Generally, the crowd were great with me and I think I’ve been very lucky with all the fans wherever I’ve played. And I would like to think I put a shift in.”
One of Andy’s qualities was a powerful shot that even Jimmy Case recognised. “There was a free kick against West Ham,” he recalls. “I used to take them and I also scored one in a 2-0 win at Southampton against the Kevin Keegan team. I was a bit surprised with Jimmy being there because of course he was a free kick expert. He took his fair share but then sometimes he would say, No, you take this one Andy."
After 26 goals in 102 Albion appearances, and an England under-21 cap, he eventually left for Leeds United in a player swap with Terry Connor arranged by Bailey’s successor Jimmy Melia, a manager with whom Andy did not see eye-to-eye.
“I thought Jimmy Melia took the micky sometimes,” he says. “I would find out I wasn’t playing when the Argus rang me to ask what I thought. I’d say: ‘I don’t know that I’m not [playing] because I’ve not been told.’ I wouldn’t get to know for sure until an hour before the game.
“We’d just played the FA Cup quarter-final against Norwich and I’d been involved in the goal [he nodded the ball on for Case to score], and I’d played well in the next game, a 1-1 draw at Man United. We were training at Peacehaven football club’s ground at the time and my house was about five minutes’ walk away and after the training session on the Thursday he said he wanted to see me afterwards.
“I thought he was going to say he was dropping me again. Then he said it was at the Goldstone, which meant going all the way into Hove. That riled me as well and as I walked into his office he said ‘I’ve got Eddie Gray on the phone for you, do you want to have a word with him?’ So I said yes and agreed with Eddie to go up and have a chat with him.
“When I came out and said I’d be going up to Leeds to talk to Eddie, Jimmy said: ‘Right, are you taking your boots with you?’ so I thought, ‘Well, he doesn’t want me here so I’ll move back up north,’ and it was a good move for me. Again I was impressed with what I saw at Leeds and with Eddie, who was player-manager at the time.
“In terms of the traditions and histories of the two clubs it was a step up, although down a division, and to a very, very young side – players like John Sheridan, Tommy Wright, Scott Sellars, with a smattering of veterans like Peter Lorimer and David Harvey, and Eddie of course. He was awesome, still always one of the best players on the pitch although he’d obviously lost a bit of speed.
“As it was, it worked out for both me and Terry Connor. He was like another Mike Robinson – great determination, he’d run all day, put his head in where the boots were flying. And a great lad, a really nice bloke.”
After 159 games for Leeds, Andy moved on to Oldham Athletic, helping the Latics to the top flight, where they became founder members of the Premier League, League Cup finalists and FA Cup semi-finalists. He later returned to Boundary Park as manager, also managing Barnsley and Huddersfield Town.
Nowadays he is back at Old Trafford on matchdays and will watch the clash of his former clubs with great interest on Sunday. “I’m what they call a ‘Match Day Legend’ at United. I work in the ambassadors suite’ at every home game with Dennis Irwin who is also a club ambassador. I’ve known him for 20-odd years from playing with him at Oldham and Leeds. I also work with Albert Morgan who used to be Sir Alex’s kit man. And I do quite a bit for MUTV, or Radio Manchester whenever that’s required.”
However, he has yet to visit the Amex. “I’d love to and maybe I’ll ask MUTV if I can do United’s game there later this season.” He will be sure of a great welcome if he does.