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[Albion] Albion's best ever header of a ball



Papa Lazarou

Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
Jul 7, 2003
18,822
Worthing
Agree for defensive headers,

Ulloa may be for attacking headers.

No contender for glancing headers for goals.

Bobby Z was good at glancing headers... but a lot of that was down to Paul Watson's delivery.
 

Exile

Objective but passionate
Aug 10, 2014
2,367
My Albion 'lifetime' only dates to 1982, but for me it is definitely Shane Duffy, with Steve Foster a close second. Duffy is incredible.

Forwards, probably Murray or Ulloa.
 

Seagull58

In the Algarve
Jan 31, 2012
7,116
Vilamoura, Portugal
I stood in the North Stand as a kid watching Alex Dawson wind up keepers before corners were taken. Then, as siad prreviously,if the ball was in the right place either the ball, the keeper or both ended up in the net. I wouldn't want to choose between Foster and Duffy for defensive headed excellence.
 

Peter Grummit

Well-known member
Oct 13, 2004
6,769
Lewes
We used to call Butters 'magnet head' due to the way he got his head to most things. Fozzie was similar.

But Duffy beats them all. One of my favourite moments currently is when the opposition clear the ball and you KNOW Duffy's going to return it with interest. 'SHANE'S UP'.



Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 

drofnud

New member
Jun 30, 2014
16
Another vote for Alex Dawson. Broke his nose so many times it was squashed onto his face. Massive neck muscles. Bullet headers from standing starts. Harder than most shots. And with the old leather footballs which, when wet, weighed like a medicine ball. No wonder old time players are going down with dimentia. 26 goals in 57 appearances.
 


wallyback

Well-known member
Jun 22, 2011
1,406
Brighton
Agreed on Alex!

Duffy literally head and shoulders better than Foster.
 

Kalimantan Gull

Well-known member
Aug 13, 2003
12,897
Central Borneo / the Lizard
Duffy is astonishing right now. Was he this good last year? I really thought he would struggle in the premier league, as teams dribbled and passed their way round him - but he has been a revelation (to me at least) starting right from game 1. I couldn't believe how dominant he was in that first half against Man City and he's just carried it on. Part of it I suppose is that the premier league is far more aerial than I expected.
 

Gritt23

New member
Jul 7, 2003
14,902
Meopham, Kent.
I thought Tommy Elphick was a very dominant aerial presence.
 


Spiros

Well-known member
Jul 9, 2003
2,357
Too far from the sun
Although not necessarily best ever headers, two big header related memories for me are (1) a bullet headed goal from outside the box by Steve Piper. I think it was against Millwall when we cam from 2-0 at half time to win 3-2, and (2) playing Stockport on a freezing day at the Goldstone when 5'11" Paul McCarthy won every header against the 6'7" Kevin Francis
 


The-Libertine

Active member
May 2, 2006
254
I'm too young to have seen Alex Dawson play, but I have really enjoyed reading all the comments about him. For so many people to have such great memories about a player who last played for the club over 45 years ago makes me realise that he must have been absolutely AWESOME!
 

el punal

Well-known member
Alex Dawson - the one man demolition derby of opposing goal keepers. Try to stop one of his headers and not only does the ball end up in the back of the net, so does the goalie who then continues his backward journey finishing somewhere close to the top of the Goldstone's North Stand. :bowdown:
 


WATFORD zero

Well-known member
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 10, 2003
25,549
Shane Duffy and my first ever Albion hero Alex Dawson. As a kid on the wall at the front of the north stand, when he attacked he was the most frightening human being I had ever seen.
 


Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,320
Uffern
I'm too young to have seen Alex Dawson play, but I have really enjoyed reading all the comments about him. For so many people to have such great memories about a player who last played for the club over 45 years ago makes me realise that he must have been absolutely AWESOME!

Watford Zeros' description of him as the most frightening human he'd seen sounds about right. He must have been terrifying to defenders: he wasn't that tall - by CF standards - but he seemed to be made entirely of muscle, with a forehead of concrete.

Just looked at his record and he played nearly 400 league games, scoring better than a goal every two games - that's a decent record, particularly as nearly all were in the top two divisions. It's staggering that a player with that sort of scoring record didn't play for Scotland - imagine if they had a striker like that now, they'd build the side around him.

EDIT: Just been reading about him on the PNE fans page. There's one anecdote there about Gary Sprake having to use smelling salts as he was so terrified of facing him. It sounds far-fetched to me, but given the way that he treated goalies, not that unlikely
 
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Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Oct 8, 2003
49,051
Faversham
I have a feling that Alex Dawson lived adjacent to Easthill Park in Portslade, and that occasionally we accidentally booted our ball over into his garden. I don't recall our ever going round to get it back.
 

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