Petchey was born in
Whitechapel, London. He joined West Ham in 1948 and transferred to QPR in 1953. He made his Rangers debut against Brighton in August 1953 and over the next seven seasons, played 255 league games for Rangers scoring 22 goals. Petchey signed for
Crystal Palace in May 1960. He went on to play 143 league games for Palace scoring 12 goals. In season 1960–61, he was ever present as Palace achieved promotion. Subsequently, he suffered a serious eye injury which ultimately hastened his retirement. He retired to become coach at Crystal Palace Following these stints as manager he then became first team coach at Brighton, moving on to manager whilst at the Goldstone ground in Hove. Petchey was well known for being an excellent coach of young players (he was the first English coach to get all the Uefa coaching badges), demonstrated when bringing through the ranks,
Laurie Cunningham at Leyton Orient, who went on to play for Real Madrid. His passion for bringing through young talent took him to become chief scout at
Newcastle United in the late 1990s under
Ruud Gullit, bringing in players such as
Kieron Dyer from
Ipswich Town. Following this, he became one of the first team coaches under
Sir Bobby Robson in the successful early 2000s before retirement. ==Personal life==