07-08-2015, 15:21
(This post was last modified: 07-08-2015, 15:26 by BaggyBomber.)
Sad to hear of the passing of two Albion characters of the 60's, Tony Millington and Danny Hegan who, ironically, were born within days of each other in 1943. Both were characters of different sorts.
Tony Millington was a very acrobatic goalkeeper who joined us as a lad in 1959. He would sometimes perform a handstand if we scored and had a great rapport with the crowd, often swapping sweets during the match. He played a number of times for Wales and shared the Albion goalkeeping with Ray Potter. Unfortuneatly he had a run of letting in quite a number of goals around the time Jimmy Hagan became manager. Jim was never likely to be an admirer of, somewhat, a clown prince as Tone was.
Danny Hegan came to us from Ipswich for about £90,000 in 1969, having played over 200 games for them. He was quite an inside forward (is that today's no 10 position LOL?) subjected to sometimes brutal attention by the opposition when the red mist would descend. I remember him scoring this tremendous goal against Liverpool wherby, as my mind has it, moving forward with the ball towards the Smethwick end in the centre of the pitch, about 10 yards inside Liverpool's half, Danny launched this screamer which rose to about 10 feet and flew horizontally till it dipped under the bar! That's the way I see it in my mind's eye, at least. He liked a drink or three apparently and sometimes went walkabout. He was sold to the Dingles after a year.
Either way each were great characters, the type of which we don't seem to see these days, remembered fondly by their team-mates, it seems and certainly by me and other supporters of the time, I hope.
Thank you, Tony and Danny, for being part of my many happy Albion memories.
Tony Millington was a very acrobatic goalkeeper who joined us as a lad in 1959. He would sometimes perform a handstand if we scored and had a great rapport with the crowd, often swapping sweets during the match. He played a number of times for Wales and shared the Albion goalkeeping with Ray Potter. Unfortuneatly he had a run of letting in quite a number of goals around the time Jimmy Hagan became manager. Jim was never likely to be an admirer of, somewhat, a clown prince as Tone was.
Danny Hegan came to us from Ipswich for about £90,000 in 1969, having played over 200 games for them. He was quite an inside forward (is that today's no 10 position LOL?) subjected to sometimes brutal attention by the opposition when the red mist would descend. I remember him scoring this tremendous goal against Liverpool wherby, as my mind has it, moving forward with the ball towards the Smethwick end in the centre of the pitch, about 10 yards inside Liverpool's half, Danny launched this screamer which rose to about 10 feet and flew horizontally till it dipped under the bar! That's the way I see it in my mind's eye, at least. He liked a drink or three apparently and sometimes went walkabout. He was sold to the Dingles after a year.
Either way each were great characters, the type of which we don't seem to see these days, remembered fondly by their team-mates, it seems and certainly by me and other supporters of the time, I hope.
Thank you, Tony and Danny, for being part of my many happy Albion memories.
![[Image: CL0_APb_Wo_AAJC6b.jpg]](http://s17.postimg.org/7915kewpr/CL0_APb_Wo_AAJC6b.jpg)
![[Image: danny_hegan.jpg]](http://s9.postimg.org/5anxgcvbj/danny_hegan.jpg)