Brian Clough signed me for Brighton – but he left for Leeds and I was soon training for The Egg Man

“One minute I was playing snooker in Norwich snooker hall, there was phone call telling me to get back to Carrow Road to meet Brain Clough who wanted to sign me for Brighton, I promptly got the bus back to the ground and there was Cloughie sitting there,” he recalled.

“There wasn’t really any negotiation, he wanted to sign me, Ian Mellor and Steve Govier, for a combined fee of £25,000, he basically told us it was the best thing we’d ever do and that was that.

“What seemed like the next minute we were at Eastville, Bristol, in the directors’ box watching Albion’s last game of the season against Bristol Rovers. At the end I said to Cloughie ‘shall we go down to the dressing room and meet the lads?’, to which he replied, don’t bother most of them won’t be here next season.”

A few days after the last game in the West Country, the Albion departed to Majorca for an end of season trip.

“We played a couple of games against the local sides, and this was when I really saw another side of Cloughie, in the first game I was a sub, but warmed up over the other side of the pitch from the dugout which was in the sun, in the next game when I started he hooked me off at half-time despite me scoring, the trainer Glen Wilson later told me that was to teach me not to sunbathe!”

But by the time Albion reported back to pre-season training in July, Clough had gone to Leeds, albeit only for 44 days, but significantly his assistant Peter Taylor had elected to stay on at the Goldstone as manager.

“So, from sitting at Carrow Road less than 3 months before being sold a dream on the South Coast, Taylor was now the manager – bearing in mind Cloughie had been very critical of Don Revie’s Leeds team, it not only shocked us but the rest of football.”

Having previously experienced all his pre-season training under Ron Saunders at Norwich, the differences at Brighton were huge.

“It’s a football cliché I know but Ron Saunders truly was ahead of his time with his training methods, whilst fitness was obviously key, he also embraced ball work almost immediately, everything was meticulously set up. Taylor’s regime was totally different, it was basically running up and down hills for the first couple of weeks, and to be honest at 19, away from home after being sold Brighton by Cloughie I initially became a little disillusioned.

“Taylor very rarely came to the training ground, with Clough gone, his assistant was a bloke called Brian Daykin, he’d got him from a non-league, his full-time job before the Albion was delivering eggs, so he quickly got the nickname ‘The Egg Man’.

Thankfully Andy’s initial disappointment and disillusion didn’t last long, “I soon found myself playing along side the likes of Joe Kinnear, Phil Beal and Ernie Machin which did so much for the long-term development of my career.

“Brighton is not only a great football club but it’s a lovely place to live, and that helped, although my homing instincts once cost me dear. I’d fallen out with Taylor, not hard to be honest, and he’d dropped me – back then the reserves played in the midweek league, so not being in the first team I went home to Norwich to see my Mum and Dad.

"The Albion had a stinker on the Saturday and Taylor had them in all in on the Sunday for a practice game. I come in on the Monday and he says, ‘Where were you yesterday?’, when I told him I’d gone home he promptly fined me a week’s wages. Just then the Egg Man came in, promptly dropped his trousers to show me stud marks all up his leg, he’d had to play instead of me, both Taylor and I really found it hard not to laugh.”

Post Clough, Taylor had two years at the Albion, the second season flirting with promotion but significantly building firm foundations and a healthy fan base.

“When he left to link up with Clough at Forest in the summer of 76, it was almost a relief for us all and the arrival of new boss Alan Mullery was the light at the end of the tunnel,” Rollings said.

“We were all in awe of Mullers, just 6 years before he’d played in, the England team at the Mexico World Cup, even though he was in his mid 30s he still could do it on the training ground. He was doing a dead ball drill one day, various players were trying but it wasn’t going well, Mullers steps up and pings the perfect dead ball from 18 yards out.”

It was at Mullery’s first ever Albion training session that he gave Andy some specific instructions.

“On the first day Alan played the existing first team against the reserves, playing for the stiffs was a young striker on the fringes of the first team, Peter Ward, Mullers said to me when he comes past you take him out, I want to see how he reacts.

"As it turned out, I couldn’t get near him, he was a sensation, the full package, his balance, his pace, how he could turn players, beat them. In that first game at Waterhall he famously scored twice for the reserves, before Mullers swapped him into the first team, and the rest was Albion history.”

Within three years, Mullery, backed by legendary chairman Mike Bamber, took the Albion to the First Division for the first time in the club’s history.

“After promotion at Newcastle, there was a real buzz at the club that summer, with Division One came talk of top-flight wages, but Mullers showed his management pedigree, talk of wage revolts in the local press were funnily enough grossly exaggerated, he kept everyone’s feet on the ground.

“I went to see him about a new contract now that we were in the First Division, and he replied, ‘But you haven’t played yet’. It was a huge step and real wake-up call when the season actually started.

"We played Arsenal at the Goldstone, packed to the rafters, Gerry Ryan hits the cross bar in the first minute, it’s nip and tuck in the first half, but Arsenal get three chances, and guess what the score was at half-time? Welcome to the big league!

“Alan Mullery was the consummate professional when it came to management, I think he was complimented by Mike Bamber, and for a time they had the perfect partnership. Bamber was not only the Chairman he was a fan, but he was also a very kind man, he had his office at the club and made it clear from day one of anyone at the club had a problem his door was always open.”

After six years and 192 games Andy departed the club in 1980, but his affection for the Seagulls continues to this day and he is now an important member of the club’s matchday hospitality team.

A footnote to the story ...some six-and-a-half years after his meeting with a certain Mr Clough at Carrow Road, the aforementioned Peter Ward got the chance to sign for Clough at reigning European Champions Nottingham Forest.

“On the face of it, it was a great move for Wardy, but I believe Cloughie never wanted to sign him, it was all Taylor, he signed Wardy from Burton Albion for Brighton and drove the whole deal through,” Rollings said.

Ward’s torrid time at the City Ground saw him placed in a trio of Clough’s worst ever buys, Scot Ian Wallace and the enigmatic Justin Fashanu, “ Peter was better but unfortunately once you fell foul of Clough that was it, I still believe to this day whilst we saw the real Peter Ward at Brighton, English football never got to see the finished article.”