He won four England caps as a Palace player in the mid-1970s and later took Albion to the 2001/02 second division title as manager in an eventful career that has spanned almost every level of British and international football.
He retains an affection for both clubs. “I love the fact that they are both in the Premier League and doing things the way that they are,” he says. “They don’t go crazy with money, although I know that Brighton have a very good owner in Tony Bloom and Palace have the Americans behind them.
“And both fanbases are getting stronger. The Palace fans were good when I was there and they are even noisier now, while I look at Brighton and everything about the club is right. I am delighted for both of them.”
He had already managed Leicester City in the Premier League and been England caretaker boss and under-21 head coach when he arrived at Withdean Stadium on October 17th 2001 to take over an Albion team lying third in the second division.
Micky Adams had led the team to the third division title the previous season before departing to assist Dave Bassett, Peter’s replacement at Filbert Street. Albion chairman Dick Knight correctly guessed that Peter would not be put off by dropping down two divisions from his previous job, or by the basic facilities at Withdean Stadium, where he was unveiled in one of the hospitality cabins.
“I’m not only delighted that 95 percent of my working life has been in football but also that I have worked at so many different levels and in so many different sorts of surroundings,” Peter says.
“It is up to the coach, up to me, to adjust if I haven’t got the best facilities or the best footballs or even the best players. And I looked at Withdean and thought: ‘We can use this to our advantage.’
“There were a lot of teams that didn’t want to play there or get changed in those Portakabins. I know they improved them a bit later but the ones we had were not inviting, especially for the away team.
“We made it a horrible place to come. We were not only a good team, but we had long throws and we were strong at set pieces and nobody who played us there went home thinking they’d had a nice day out at the seaside.”
One thing he did not have to worry about was turning around the fortunes of a losing team. “Over my career I have taken over from good managers and from others who are not so popular, but I followed Tony Pulis at Gillingham, Micky at Brighton and Martin O’Neill at Leicester, where he was an absolute god. What I always tried to do in those situations was keep the squad happy, not complicate things and certainly not have a go at the previous manager.
“Micky had done the hard work because he signed all the squad before I got there, and they had done well so the last thing I was going to do was to change too much. He had built a team with a great spirit, so I had a happy ten months there.
“You could see why we went on to win the division because the squad was full of incredible characters - not just experienced professionals but good professionals who were desperate to do well for the club.
“One of the hardest things I had to do was leave out Charlie Oatway or Paul Rogers in midfield and they were two of the biggest personalities. If they had not been phenomenal professionals, I might have struggled. But they took it on the chin and got on with it.
“The whole squad, Danny Cullip and the rest, had great experience and ability and of course the greatest asset we had was Bobby Zamora. Having him meant that we could play a front two at home and away from home we could play him on his own and he would still get us a goal out of nothing. He was an incredible player and miles too good for that level.
“Simon Morgan was another one. What a great defender – and yet he could hardly train because he had two bad knees. Whenever he played, he was such a good organiser at the back that we were always solid.”
One of the few players Peter added during the season was Junior Lewis, who played for him at five different clubs: Dover, Gillingham, Leicester, Brighton and Hull. He arrived on loan from Leicester and made his first start in a memorable 3-1 home win over Reading. “I remember Alan Pardew and myself shook hands afterwards and agreed it had been a good game.
“Junior did exactly what he had done for me at Gillingham, which is make the team play more football. He wasn’t easy on the eye, but he was always available to get the ball from defenders and got it to the strikers and was very useful.”
As well as a good squad, Peter inherited Bob Booker and Dean White from Micky Adams’ staff. “They were terrific. It must be difficult when the manager leaves and someone different comes in who doesn’t know you but Bob was perfect, very organised, a good coach and very funny – but he could give the players a bit of a rollicking if he had to. He made sure he wasn’t just their friend, which is a dangerous trap some coaches can fall into. Martin Hinshelwood, my old Palace teammate, was there too, so the whole spirit of the camp was first-class.
“I suppose people will think I was stupid to leave the club after we won the league but I think everyone understands the reasons, which were because of the budget I thought I’d need to keep them up and the new stadium not being as close as Dick promised in my interview.
“Some people assumed I must have a new job lined up, maybe at Palace, but no, I didn’t. My plans had been to win promotion at Brighton, move into the new stadium with a big budget and then try eventually get them to the Premier League.
“So I felt a little bit let down and stuck to my guns at the end of the season. But Dick and I parted on good terms, and even now when I see him he says, ‘I told you the ground would be ready.’ What he doesn’t mention is that it took another nine years!”
As it turned out, Peter did end up moving into a new stadium, but one a lot further north. “I hoped I would get another club quite quickly but nothing came along until the October when Adam Pearson at Hull City called.
“It was a good move because we got a couple of promotions and that was a great experience. They were ready to do well, moving into the new stadium, and the supporters were hungry so we would get crowds of 20,000.”
He would eventually go on to manage Palace, returning in June 2006 to a club where he had been an extremely popular player. A goal-scoring winger, he first arrived at Selhurst in October 1973 when Malcolm Allison signed him from Southend United for £110,000, at a time when the British record was only £225,000.
“Malcolm was a TV personality, a regular on The Big Match with Brian Moore as well as a top manager, so you can imagine I was a bit nervous going to meet him, being a young lad coming from Southend.
“All of a sudden he said: ‘This is the sixth time I’ve tried to sign you, four times with Man City and this is the second since I’ve been at Palace.’ He made me feel like a million dollars and I couldn’t thank anyone more than I would thank Malcolm for the career that I have had. He knew his stuff and he was an exciting coach, far ahead of his time, but the most important thing for me was that he made me feel that I was the best player in the world.”
Big things had been expected of Allison’s newly-renamed Eagles in their first full season under him following their relegation from the top flight at the end of the 1972/73 season. But instead they went straight down to the third division.
Peter, though, was a star turn and won four England caps before a big-money move to Tottenham Hotspur. “I was lucky because I was called up for an under-23 game that was being played at Selhurst Park and eventually won four full caps from the third division.” He was only the fourth post-war player from the third tier to represent the Three Lions.
His most memorable performance for Palace was probably in their 3-2 victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge during their run to the 1976 FA Cup semi-final, with two goals and an assist when his shot rebounded from the crossbar for Nicky Chatterton to score.
“A couple of Sundays ago one of my grandchildren asked me: ‘Are you famous?’ I replied that I used to play football and I looked on YouTube and found that game. ‘Look, that’s me,” I said.
“It was nice to be able to show them. We were drawn away in every round, at Scarborough, Leeds and Sunderland, so it was nice to play in London for our fans. It was a great atmosphere.”
He scored the winner with a well-flighted free kick after David Swindlehurst had run over the ball. “Dave had nearly scored at Leeds with a shot from a free kick from the same position. I thought Peter Bonetti knew that and would be expecting a hard shot and so I told Dave to run over it because I thought it would give me a chance to score.”
His goals were both taken with his left foot, but his assist came from his right. “I was a left-footed right winger,” he explains. “But to get the maximum out of my trick, which was making out I was going to cross with my left and then going down the line, I had to be able to cross with my right. So, I worked hard at being a good crosser of the ball with my ‘wrong’ foot. I tell players now that it’s no use slaughtering the full back and then crossing it into the crowd.”
Peter scored 31 goals in 123 league games for Tottenham over four seasons. “And I missed a year with a pelvic injury. Tottenham was the club I supported so I was delighted to go there and play with some great players: Ardiles and Villa, Glenn Hoddle and Steve Perryman, the best captain you could imagine.
“I got relegated there as well in my first season, but we came straight back up although I remember we got thumped once at the Goldstone. Paul Clark, who I knew from Southend, was playing. The atmosphere at the Goldstone was amazing.”
After retiring as a player, Peter managed at Dartford and Dover before former Tottenham teammate Hoddle, then the England manager, asked him to look after the national under-21 side.
He lost only one of 15 competitive matches and had a 100 percent record in qualifiers for the 2000 European Championships when he was controversially replaced by Howard Wilkinson.
“If I’m ever speaking somewhere, I always say that being sacked is something that happens in football and you accept it and get on with it,” he says. “But that was something I will never, ever understand.
“Howard was FA technical director and wanted to manage the under-21s as well, but the timing of it? Played six, won six, no goals conceded and already qualified for the next year’s finals and you get the sack? I can’t work that one out.”
Peter returned to club management, taking Gillingham to promotion from Division Two via the play-offs. He moved on to Leicester City and also took charge of the full England side as caretaker for one game, handing a certain David Beckham the captain’s armband.
“That was a good decision because David was a good player who always wanted to play for his country and whatever he does he will work hard to improve at it. So, I knew that if I made him captain he would improve at that too. It was only for one game, but it was unbelievable for a kid from Southend to be managing the national side.”
After Brighton, Hull and Palace –and another spell of England under-21 duty – he went on to Stevenage and then another promotion season, at Wycombe Wanderers in 2008/09, with Junior Lewis now as first-team coach.
After a period with Bradford City he led the Bahrain national side to the gold medal in the 2011 Arab Games in Doha, before further spells with the England under-20s, Gillingham again, Kerala Blasters of the Indian Super League, New Zealand and, most recently, Dagenham and Redbridge.
To call that a varied career would be an understatement. “Unlike some people, I don’t think of myself as a Championship manager or an international manager or anything like that,” he says. “When the phone rings and it’s a football club and I can get out on a training ground, I’m interested. I’m 67 now but I am fit enough to take sessions if anybody wants me.
“Of course, you’d like to know that you have a chance of success, but levels have never worried me. Bahrain had probably the oldest squad in world football when I went there so I replaced them with the Olympics squad, and we won two tournaments. I’ve always tried to give youngsters a chance and loved it.”
As for Saturday’s game, his prediction is diplomatic. “I’ve got a connection with both managers, because I know Roy and I had Graham as an under-21 player. So, I’m going for a draw.”