Hudson was a great player. But Chamberlain was often unplayable. Obviously saw him for Stoke, but was at the England Luxembourg game at Wembley when it looked as though he had the world at his feet. I genuinely thought he'd go on to be a great. I have rarely see anyone with such pace who could beat others for fun. What happened to his career? He seemed to go down after Stoke, whereas he should have been a star and had 50+ caps.
I have vague recollections of Chambos injuries ( mainly hamstring ) starting after he was fouled by Devonshire of West Ham in a league cup game , and sold him when we were desperate for cash as our bank overdraft had maxed out at 2m
Heres a piece about him ( from parallel lines , 50 years of watching Brighton )
Liverpool and England starās dad, Mark Chamberlain, played for Stoke and Brighton
CURRENT Liverpool and England international Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain can look to his dad for his footballing genes.
Mark Chamberlain represented England himself ā and also played for Stoke City and Brighton in a 20-year career that saw him play more than 600 games.
Mark and brother Neville (also a professional footballer) were born in Burslem of British Jamaican parents, Banny and Anastasia, who had moved to England in the early 1960s.
The brothers both started out with Port Vale and in August 2013 onevalefan.co.uk looked back on their involvement with the Valiants.
āThe younger of the two brothers, Mark progressed through the junior ranks to make his debut as a substitute aged just 16 years and 274 days,ā the site recalled. āIt soon became clear that the winger was a special talent and he made his full debut later that season. Two days later he scored his first senior goal. His breakthrough as a first-team regular came in the 1980-1981 season when he managed ten goals in 36 games.ā
Apparently, in their early Vale career, the brothers used to swap shirts at half-time to confuse the opposition. Neville, a striker, had a less illustrious career than Mark but was the clubās top scorer in the 1979-80 season.
Robbie Earle, one of Valeās favourite sons, wrote of Mark: āHe could do it all: Run, pass, shoot, make goals and score them.ā
Valeās boss during Chamberlainās introduction to league football was former Southampton and Newcastle defender John McGrath, who had a brief loan spell with Brighton when they were struggling in the old Division 2 after the 1972 promotion.
Anyway, Chamberlain was beginning to get noticed in the fourth tier and in 1981-82 he was chosen in the PFA Fourth Division team of the year.
Chamberlain told the Daily Mailās Matt Barlow in a 2011 interview how he ended up switching Potteries clubs and joining Stoke.
āJohn McGrath sent me in to speak to Stoke manager Richie Barker and told me to ask for a Ā£15,000 signing-on fee and Ā£200 a week,ā said Chamberlain. āSo in I went and Richie shakes my hand and says, āIām going to offer you Ā£200 a week and a Ā£15,000 signing on feeā.
āI said, āNo, you two have been talking.ā They started laughing, and said: āWhat do you want?ā I said: āWell, weāre fourth division. Youāre first division. Iām on Ā£90 a week, so letās multiply it by four.ā It was quite basic in those days.ā
Stoke paid Ā£180,000 for Chamberlain (and goalkeeper Mark Harrison) in 1982. When his son joined Arsenal from Southampton the fee was Ā£12million and on transfer deadline day this year, Liverpool paid Arsenal Ā£35million for his services.
But back to 1982 and, in December that year, Chamberlain senior made his debut for England. Manager Bobby Robson sent him on as a substitute for Steve Coppell and he scored in a 9-0 rout of Luxembourg. Luther Blissett got a hat-trick and Coppell, Glenn Hoddle, Tony Woodcock and Phil Neal were also on the scoresheet, the other being an own goal.
His next outing for the national side didnāt come until September the following year, when he was again a substitute, this time replacing John Barnes in a 1-0 Wembley defeat to Denmark.
In the summer of 1984, he got five successive starts on a South American tour ā one of which was the famous occasion when England beat Brazil 2-0 in the Maracana Stadium.
Barnes grabbed the headlines with that famous mazy dribble and goal, but the guy playing on the other wing for England was Chamberlain!
āāI didnāt do bad,ā said Mark, interviewed many years later. āThe pitch was poor and the Maracana was only half full, but thatās still about 80,000. Junior was at left back and Leandro was right back. They bombed forward but werenāt the best defenders and we both had good games.
āOn the pitch, after the game, the Brazilian press were asking me and Barnsey if we wanted to come and play in Brazil. āYou play like Brazilians,ā they kept saying.ā
On a more sober note, in John Barnesā 1999 autobiography, he describes how he, Chamberlain and Viv Anderson were racially abused on that tour by four National Front members who had booked the same flight as the England squad.
In the independent.co.uk, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain said of his dad: āHe used to tell me that heād walk home from school with his sisters, they used to get stones thrown at them. They had to fight and protect themselves, but you have to get on with it.
āThatās what he did. He used to go to England trials on his own, not knowing anyone. The other boys were at Aston Villa, Arsenal and Everton. He was at Port Vale. He had to overcome loads of stuff like that. Thatās the sort of character he is. He just gets on with what heās got to do and doesnāt worry too much about what everyone thinks.ā
Chamberlain senior was interviewed about the Brazil game in June 2013, 29 years after heād played there, because Alex was playing for England against Brazil to mark the official opening of the refurbished Maracana.
And he went one better than dad and got on the scoresheet in a 1-1 draw after coming on as a second half substitute. Not that dad saw it: he admitted to the press that he had dozed off in his chair in front of the telly and missed it!
āPlaying for England and beating the mighty Brazil was a fantastic experience,ā Mark told sponsor Vauxhall. āIād have liked to have played a lot more for my country but I didnāt, but I enjoyed every moment of it.ā
His eighth and final cap came as a sub for Bryan Robson in a 5-0 win over Finland at Wembley in October 1984.
The emergence of Chris Waddle and Trevor Steven brought his international career to an end and itās interesting to observe from an interview he gave to mirror.co.uk, that he actively urged his son to leave Southampton for Arsenal because he didnāt want him to miss out on the opportunities he felt eluded him by not moving to a big club.
There was talk of him going to Arsenal himself, but it never happened and, he told reporter Darren Lewis, he blamed being with a club like Stoke for his only winning eight caps. He felt he was overlooked for players at bigger clubs.
He was certainly a fansā favourite at Stoke. On the Stoke fansā website, oatcakefanzine, one with the handle March said: āChambo was probably the second most talented player in our clubās history after Sir Stan (Matthews). His skill, pace and crossing were all top notch.
āI organised a football tournament for young players in 1980. Chambo was a part of one of the teams taking part. He was so good it was unbelievable. I remember a game away at West Ham where he ran straight past the whole West Ham defence and the home crowd went silent in awe. I donāt remember that reaction to any other player from any club.ā
However, in the 1984-85 season, Stoke finished bottom of the top division, 23 points off safety. Manager Barker went and new manager Mick Mills wanted to rebuild the side, so Mark was sold to Sheffield Wednesday for Ā£350,000.
āThere had been talk about Everton, Arsenal and Chelsea but that never happened,ā said Chamberlain. āWhen I left Stoke, I went to Sheffield Wednesday and met Howard Wilkinson, and we never got on. I donāt know why he bought me.
āI was the best right winger in the country and he told me I couldnāt play. If Iām honest, I fell out of love with football after that.ā
He scored eight times in 66 games for the Owls but he was to enjoy much greater success when he headed south in 1988, to join Jim Smithās Portsmouth. Former Albion defender Guy Butters, who was also at Portsmouth at the time, speaks highly about the contribution āChamboā made to the side.
In six years at Pompey, Chamberlain played 198 games and scored 22 goals.
When Second Division Portsmouth got to the FA Cup semi finals in 1991-92, Chamberlain played in the 1-1 draw against Liverpool at Highbury but not in the replay at Villa Park.
His last year at Portsmouth was dogged by injuries and, having been out injured for six months, Smith released him. In August 1994, Liam Brady took him along the coast to Brighton.
In his programme notes, Brady said: āWe have signed Mark Chamberlain because I think we needed a wide player with pace. Although Mark is the wrong side of 30, I think he has shown that he doesnāt lack pace.
āHe has had his problems with injuries at Portsmouth over the last year but I think he has already demonstrated that he is still a very good player.
āWe are looking at how he gets on over the next two or three weeks with a view to taking him on for the remainder of the season.ā
The season was barely a couple of months old before he was sidelined for a month with injury, but he earned a contract and, over the course of that campaign, Chamberlain played 19 league games and five cup games. He scored twice, but it transpired it was not the happiest time in his career.
In a Stoke matchday programme article in March 2003, Chamberlain told Dave Coxon: āIn truth I never enjoyed my time there. I didnāt seem to fit in, either on or off the field. After games I would sit there in the bar and nobody would come over to me. I think it was probably because I was not in the clique.ā
After the unhappy spell at Brighton, Chamberlain moved the other direction from his Port Solent home and had two seasons with Exeter City, playing 67 games and scoring four times.
He went non-league and spent a season as player-manager of Fareham Town before taking up coaching at Southampton, and at a special needs school.
It was while he was a part-time academy coach at Southampton that he first introduced Alex to the Saints. He later became a coach at Portsmouth.
The younger of his two sons, Christian, 19, is on Portsmouthās books, although heās currently out on loan. Last season he played for Eastbourne Borough and this season heās had spells with Poole Town and Oxford City.
If, like me, you wondered why the boys are Oxlade-Chamberlain, itās because they use their motherās maiden name at her request.
āShe had a brother who died in a car accident and there were no more Oxlades so she was very keen to keep the name going and that was fine by me,ā said Mark. āThe boys have always been Oxlade-Chamberlains. I think they came from Norway, the Oxlades.ā
