Every promotion winning team needs a Doug Rougvie

The first thing to say when discussing Brighton & Hove Albion’s 1987-88 promotion winning captain Doug Rougvie is that he had a bloody cool name. Doug Rougvie. He sounds like he should be a Roy of the Rovers character rather than a real person.

Rougvie has also had a couple of pretty impressive nickname to go with his real name. First there was ‘Rambo’ which may or may not have a complement of his sometimes haphazard approach.

He also earned the moniker ‘Doug the Thug’ for what could best be described as an uncompromising style of play; see for example the time he was sent off whilst a Chelsea player after just 10 minutes of a game against Wimbledon for headbutting John Fashanu, an act described by Blues supporters reminiscing on The Shed End forum as Rougvie, “completely losing the plot”.

Chelsea in the 1980s were far removed from the trophy winning machine backed by questionably gained roubles that they are today. As such, Blues fans loved a trier and Rougvie was certainly that. He would run through several brick walls for the cause.

The Stamford Bridge faithful also had a deep-rooted appreciation for the way that Rougvie could be a complete calamity, in much the same was as Brighton fans look back in awe at the efforts of Colin Hawkins.

In three seasons at Chelsea, Rougvie racked up some impressive achievements to go alongside the Wimbledon red card. There was the time the Blues recovered from 3-0 down at half time against Sheffield Wednesday to lead 4-3, only for Doug to decide that the 90th minute would be a good moment to commit a common assault in the box. Wednesday duly despatched the penalty to deny Chelsea the mother of all comebacks.

Then there was the Full Members Cup Final of 1986. Chelsea were cruising to victory as they led Manchester City 5-1 with just six minutes to play at Wembley.

The full time score? Chelsea 5-4 City, with Rougvie scoring a wonderful own goal to help turn what should have been a comfortable win into a nerve shredding finale.

Despite such moments of disaster, Rougvie still played 100 times for Chelsea between 1984 and 1987 having moved south from Aberdeen for £150,000.

At Pittodrie, he was part of Sir Alex Ferguson’s side who beat Real Madrid to lift the 1983 European Cup Winner’s Cup alongside future Brighton manager Mark McGhee.

Rougvie won two Scottish League titles, three Scottish Cups and represented his country whilst with Aberdeen. You do not do all that if you are a bad player.

The reason that Rougvie struggled at times during his Chelsea spell was a chronic lack of pace rather than ability. He made an Eddie Stobart Lorry going up a hill with the handbrake left on look like Usain Bolt. Incredibly given how slow he was, most of his Chelsea career was played at left back.

There was a marked difference between the speed at which top flight football was played and the pace of the game in the old Division Three, a level Brighton found themselves competing at in the 1987-88 season for the first time in over a decade.

Rougvie would be caught out far less and what’s more, Albion boss Barry Lloyd had no intention of using him as a full back. Brighton were paying £50,000 for the services of Doug Rougvie to install him at the heart of their defence, a direct replacement for Eric Young who was sold to Wimbledon.

When Danny Wilson departed to Luton Town for £150,000, Rougvie was handed the Brighton captaincy before kicking a ball for the club. It proved to be an inspired decision.

There must be something about the Albion signing hard man Scottish defenders, giving them the armband instantly and then winning promotion out of the third tier. 23 years later, the same thing happened with Gordon Greer.

Greer is probably a better comparison for Rougvie than Hawkins. Like Greer, Rougvie was an extremely capable defender in a Brighton shirt. He hardly put a foot wrong throughout the 1987-88 season, becoming a favourite of the Goldstone Ground crowd with a series of colossus performances as the Albion set about making an instant return to Division Two.

What are the most important components for winning promotion out of the lower leagues? A striker who can score goals and a quality defence featuring an experienced leader who will set the standards gets you a long way.

Think Bruno and Glenn Murray in 2016-17. Greer and Murray in 2010-11. Danny Cullip and Bobby Zamora between 2000 and 2002. You need other components too but it is fairly obvious that scoring at one end and keeping goals out at the other is the bedrock of success.

For Brighton in 1987-88, Garry Nelson and Kevin Bremner were a forward pairing who plundered 45 goals between them. Rougvie was the defensive psychopath who terrified any opponents who went near him. He also frightendedhis own teammates into never putting a foot wrong, a very Cullip-esque quality.

With the unflappable Steve Gatting alongside him and the outstanding John Keeley in goal, Brighton had a strong spine running through the team.

They conceded just 16 goals at the Goldstone all season, part of a total of 47 which was the best in the division. Rougvie was a virtual ever-present in that mean Albion defence up until the middle of March, missing just two matches out of 45 in all competitions.

Even when he broke a nose away at Bristol City on Monday 28th December 1987 and blood was pouring out like Niagara Falls, he stayed on the pitch to lead the Brighton cause.

It took a serious bout of flu to side line Rougvie for the first time following a 2-1 home win over Walsall on Saturday 12th March 1988. Doug’s place was taken by his former Chelsea teammate Bob Isaac, who Lloyd had paid £50,000 for a month earlier.

Isaac was a very promising young player who two years earlier was a regular in England’s Under 19s. As a footballer, Isaac was considered an upgrade on Doug and once the new man was in the team, Rougvie could not get him out.

Doug Rougvie did make one more Brighton appearance in a 2-0 win against Gillingham over the Easter Weekend, but Isaac was instantly restored.

Isaac played in the last seven games of the campaign which yielded six wins and one draw, culminating in a 2-1 victory over Bristol Rovers on the final day of the season and promotion back to Division Two.

At 32-years-old, Rougvie could not afford to spend the final years of his career sitting in the stands at the Goldstone with Isaac and Gatting firmly established as Lloyd’s favoured centre back pairing.

He therefore handed in a transfer request, moving to Shrewsbury Town for £50,000 before going onto play for Fulham and Dunfermline Athletic and then to manage Montrose.

After leaving football, Rougvie had a quite unbelievable career change. If we were to tell you that he went onto work for Dubai Engineering in the oil industry, you would probably assume that it was as a minder for a rich Sheikh. Nobody would risk messing with Doug the Thug, even to get their hands on billions of petrodollars.

Rougvie though was using his brain rather than his brawn, having gone back to college to gain a HNC in mechanical engineering in his mid-forties. That took him to the United Arab Emirates as a designer and mechanical engineer rather than a bouncer.

His involvement in football these days extends as far as watching Aberdeen. He is still a popular figure at Pittodrie for his part in the Dons’ trophy-laden golden era of the 1980s.

If he ever decided to pop back to Brighton, he would be given a similar reception as a player deserving of having his Tennent’s bought for him all night. Just hope you don’t meet him down a dark alley afterwards.

Only eight men have captained the Albion to promotion in the club’s 100 years in the Football League. Doug Rougvie is one of them and as Brighton fans who watched him play will tell you, every promotion winning team needs a player like Doug the Thug.