Eric & Dave – a feelgood Brighton story about a lifelong friendship

The reason that Spencer Vignes is one of the foremost writers about Brighton & Hove Albion is because he finds and brings to life tales beyond the obvious.

Call it the human side of football. His books rarely focus fully on glorious triumphs on-the-pitch; instead, they are about fascinating individuals and their stories away from the 90 minutes of football seen by supporters once or twice a week.

Spencer’s latest subject – subjects actually – are two goalkeepers who vied for the number one shirt at the Goldstone Ground between 1956 and 1960.

One of those goalkeepers is Eric Gill, who maintains a place in the Brighton history books having made 247 consecutive appearances for the club between 1953 and 1958.

In the modern day of squad rotation and naming weakened teams in the FA Cup and League Cup, it is a record unlikely to ever be surpassed.

The other goalkeeper is Dave Hollins. Signed from non-league Merrow based just outside of Guildford in 1955, Hollins arrived at the Albion as a teenage apprentice.

He cleaned the boots of first team players and swept the terraces of the Goldstone. At the same time, Brighton boss Billy Lane viewed him as an 18-year-old with the potential to become Albion number one in the not-too-distant future.

To do so, Hollins would have to displace Gill whilst Gill was in the middle of his history-making run of games. Easier said than done.

Hollins eventually got his chance at the age of 20 when Gill was taken ill before an away game at Coventry City in March 1958, the first match Gill had missed in five years.

Brighton went unbeaten in the three games Hollins played before Gill returned. The Albion lifted the Division Three South championship at the end of that 1957-58 season.

It was Hollins who kept goal on the opening say of the 1958-59 campaign when Brighton made their debut in the second tier of English football, shipping nine goals in a club-record 9-0 defeat to Middlesbrough.

Future Albion boss Brian Clough scored five of them. Gill missed the game with flu. He tells Vignes in the book that his reaction upon hearing the score line from Ayresome Park was: “Thank God it wasn’t me in goal. I dodged a bullet there.”

When asked to recall that afternoon away at Middlesbrough, Hollins’ reply is even more amusing than Gill’s. A simple: “Oh my good God.”

But as Gill rightly points out, Hollins went onto have a wonderful career despite making headlines for all the wrong reasons in what had been only his fourth game as a professional. The heartwarming camaraderie between the two shines throughout the book.

A lesser goalkeeper might have been finished by such an experience. Not Hollins though, who eventually succeeded Gill as Lane’s first choice on a full-time basis in September 1959.

By that point, Gill and Hollins were firm friends. And that is what Eric & Dave is ultimately about. It tells the story of how a rivalry over the Brighton number one shirt grew into a lifelong friendship still going strong over 70 years later.

Back in the 1950s, Hollins and Gill bonded over trips to the cinema and coffee. Growing up, they had both experienced World War II and national service.

They shared a loathing of facing Clough; in the return match at the Goldstone four months after the 9-0 defeat on Teeside, Clough put a hat-trick past Gill in a 6-4 Middlesbrough win.

Post-Brighton and Vignes tells stories of how Hollins became a Welsh international, what they did in retirement, the hotel business, the Brighton bombing of 1984 and how Covid-19 separated the pair for two years.

There is a poignant and timely discussion of dementia, Alzheimer’s and the danger of heading a football – something Gill and Hollins luckily escaped doing for the most part as goalkeepers. A lot of the men they played with throughout their careers were not so fortunate.

Finally, Eric & Dave takes us up to 2022. Gill and Hollins are still sporting teammates but rather than playing for Brighton & Hove Albion at the Goldstone, they represent Denton Island Bowls Club.

The pair have come a long way since they first met when Hollins joined Brighton in 1956. Vignes captures it all and more in a feelgood book which offers a much-needed reminder of what football used to be before money took over the sport.

There are highs, lows and the emotions of a friendship the likes of which rarely exist in the beautiful game.

Hollins sums it up best: “You don’t make many friends in football. At least not close ones. But I’ve come to realise over the years that Eric and I are different. We’ve been through so much, both together and as individuals. And we’re still here. After all this time, getting on for 70 years from when we first met, we’re still here.”

And that is why Eric & Dave is such a fantastic story which needs to be told. Vignes does it brilliantly.

You can find out how to buy Eric & Dave: A Lifetime of Football and Friendship here.