Month: January 2022

The geography was all wrong for O’Grady’s Seagulls excursion

SHEFFIELD UNITED and Brighton once went head to head for the services of journeyman striker Chris O’Grady.

It might be said many Albion followers were somewhat disappointed that the Seagulls pipped the Blades to signing the player from Barnsley in the summer of 2014!

It wasn’t long, however, before United, then in League One, landed their man when he failed to score in 11 appearances and struggled to settle in Sussex.

On taking O’Grady on loan, United manager Nigel Clough said: “There aren’t too many strikers of Chris’s calibre around at the moment.

“We liked him last season at Barnsley and he has got good Championship experience. Chris was a target for us in the summer but Brighton came in with a deal we simply couldn’t match in terms of wages and what they could have been potentially offering him as a playing challenge.”

The 28-year-old impressed in four Blades starts, scoring once in a draw with Walsall at Bramall Lane, and Clough remained hopeful of eventually doing a permanent deal for the player.

But Albion head coach Sami Hyypia left the club shortly before Christmas and O’Grady was recalled to cover a mini injury crisis amongst the available forwards.

Under caretaker manager Nathan Jones, O’Grady was introduced off the bench at Fulham and set up a goal for Solly March in a 2-0 win.

Then, in Chris Hughton’s first match in charge, a third round FA Cup tie at Brentford, O’Grady bagged his first Seagulls goal in another 2-0 win. On as a 67th minute substitute for Mackail-Smith, O’Grady hit a post, saw an effort trickle wide and then scored a decisive stoppage time second goal against the Bees to secure Albion’s passage through to the fourth round.

It was in the third minute of added on time when, put clear through by Adam Chicksen, he doubled the lead gained when Lewis Dunk headed in an 88th-minute opener at Griffin Park, thus helping Hughton’s reign get off to a winning start against Mark Warburton’s side.

After the match, O’Grady opened up about his struggles in an interview with BBC Sussex. “It’s been extremely tough,” he said. “It has tested a lot of relationships in my life. Thankfully the strongest one, my family, is still together which is the most important thing.”

O’Grady had spent all of his career playing in the Midlands, Yorkshire or the North West and said settling on the south coast with his partner and three children had proved difficult.

“We’ve been trying to settle in the area and it’s not quite happened on the pitch,” he said.

“We’ve got a home we’ve had for quite a few years back up north and we’ve been half in that and half down here as we don’t know what’s going on.

“I’ve been doing my best but it was not working out. I got a chance to go back up north and find myself and get some fitness.

“My whole career I have performed for people who believe in me. I felt I wasn’t sure why I was here.”

O’Grady was fighting an uphill battle at the Albion from the moment he was signed by head of football, David Burke. The Seagulls had banked £8m from the sale of Leonardo Ulloa to Leicester and obtaining O’Grady’s services from relegated Barnsley (he’d scored 15 goals as they went down) was seen by fans as inadequate recompense, even though the club tried to insist it wasn’t a like-for-like transaction.

Hyypia said at the time: “This is an area we want to strengthen, and Chris is a good start. He is a strong, physical presence and gives us something different to the other strikers we already have here at the club.

“You need that option in the squad of a forward with power and strength, and Chris can give us that – as well as scoring goals.

“We still want some extra attacking additions, and in other areas of the team, but I’m pleased we have another one of our targets.”

Those “extra attacking additions” turned out to be Adrian Colunga and Sam Baldock the following month and both largely put paid to O’Grady’s hopes of gaining a regular starting spot.

Not that O’Grady felt overawed by the challenge. “For the past two seasons I’ve hit double figures and that has been a reflection of the desire and hunger that I have to succeed at this level,” he said.

“Having played for Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday in the past, I know what it’s like to play for a big club – and Brighton certainly fall into that category.

“Earlier in my career playing for those clubs might have been a bit daunting for me, but at my age I know how to deal with the expectation and to win the fans over. It’s fantastic to be joining a club with such big ambitions and to be joining in the peak years of my career.”

O’Grady started the first three games of the season, but the presence of incumbent Craig Mackail-Smith plus the late August signings of Colunga and Baldock soon indicated competition for forward places was going to get a lot tougher.

Injuries to Baldock and Mackail-Smith gave him some limited game time but Hyypia told the Argus he expected more from the bustling big man.

“He is training well, he’s doing his work and he can be a tricky player for the centre-backs because he is so strong.

“I know that he can be dangerous. Sometimes I wish he would go forward a little bit more.

“He’s not slow so he could give the centre-backs more problems if he didn’t always come to the ball.”

Nigel Clough’s Sheffield United were keen to sign O’Grady permanently

It seemed the FA Cup suited O’Grady because he also pulled a goal back for the Seagulls in the 50th minute of the glamour fourth round tie against holders Arsenal, in front of a 30,278 crowd, although they eventually lost 3-2.

Although Clough was keen to take O’Grady back to south Yorkshire, Hughton made it plain he wanted him to stay and fight for his place

“This is a player that came here and had a difficult time, went away on loan and has been excellent for us since he came back,” Hughton told the Argus. “I must admit I’m still getting to know him. I knew him from his time at Barnsley, I don’t know him as much from his time here.

“He certainly couldn’t have done any more than he has in the last two games. He is no different to any other player, you want to be playing and involved, and if you are you are generally happier. At the moment, I think he’s in a nice place.”

O’Grady admitted: “I’m just getting a chance to play. I’m taking it and doing my very best for however long I am wanted here.

“I am being professional and doing my very best. Since I’ve been back, there is a freshness and a chance to get involved and contribute. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”

Buoyed by the change in management, and with his family settled, O’Grady told the Argus in early February: “I’ve succeeded at all the clubs I’ve been at in the past five years, which has led me to be here.

“I started in League Two and if you do fail at any club at any time then you are only going to go down. Failure is not really an option. You have to work as hard as possible to succeed.

“Even though the first half of the season didn’t go well, it would have been too easy to give up and just write it off as ‘this one didn’t really work out’.

“That’s a lesson that if you persevere with a situation it will eventually come good if you deserve it.”

Unfortunately, Hughton thought Leon Best on loan from Blackburn Rovers might be a better option, and Baldock or Mackail-Smith invariably were ahead of him as the manager shuffled his pack in a battle to stay in the division.

It wasn’t until 10 March 2015 when O’Grady, making a rare start away to Reading, scored his first – and only – league goal for the Seagulls, netting from the penalty spot as the Albion went down 2-1.

Come the start of the 2015-16 season, Tomer Hemed and the returning Bobby Zamora made O’Grady’s future involvement a lot less likely.

His only action came in two League Cup matches, away to Southend and Walsall, and he missed a penalty as the Saddlers dumped out the Albion 2-1.

So, it was no surprise he was sent out on a season-long loan to Nottingham Forest, the club who’d let him go as a young boy. During that temporary return to Forest in 2015-16, he scored twice in 21 games.

In the last year of his Albion contract, 2016-17, he was reunited with Nigel Clough, this time at Burton Albion, (pictured in action below) where he scored once in 26 games. While he was a regular in the first half of the season, he made only five appearances after the turn of the year following the arrivals of Cauley Woodrow, Luke Varney and Marvin Sordell.

Born in Nottingham on 25 January 1986, O’Grady was at Forest from the age of 10 to 13. “I dropped out of football for a while but then got back into it at 15,” he told Albion’s matchday programme. “I wrote to the clubs local to me: Leicester and Derby. Leicester were doing open trials at the time, and I progressed through that, then on to proper trials at the training ground, and I eventually got signed up.”

A young Chris O’Grady in his Leicester days

It was during his time at Leicester that he took up yoga, inspired by the knowledge Ryan Giggs was an advocate of it. “It definitely helps,” said O’Grady. “I was a young lad in the youth team at Leicester and quite big physically but not very flexible with it.

“I was also picking up injuries at the time so I just knew I needed to do something. Once I started with the yoga all the injuries kind of went away and I’ve never really had a muscle injury since.”

After he’d got on the scoresheet regularly at under 18 and reserve level, former Albion boss Micky Adams gave him his first team chance with the Foxes.

He also won an England Youth cap in a 3-0 defeat away to France in Limoges on 13 November 2002. When he couldn’t pin down a regular place at City, he had loan stints with Notts County and Rushden and Diamonds and, although he returned to Leicester and played a handful of games in the Championship, in January 2007 he was sold to Rotherham United, where he spent 18 months.

Next up was Oldham but, in two years on their books, he had loan spells at Bury, Bradford City, Stockport County and Rochdale.

O’Grady in action for Barnsley against Albion’s Stephen Ward

His 31 goals in 95 matches for Dale earned him a move to Sheffield Wednesday on a three-year deal in the summer of 2011 but on transfer deadline day in January 2013 he made the short journey to Barnsley and then made the move permanent that summer.

At the end of his three-year Brighton deal, O’Grady moved to League Two Chesterfield for a season, but when they lost their league status he moved on in 2018-19 to his former club, Oldham Athletic, by then in League Two, where he scored eight goals in 47 matches.

The following season he moved up a division and played for League One Bolton Wanderers but their relegation to League Two brought down the curtain on O’Grady’s league playing days.

After he was released, he spent a year out of football. But in May 2022 he signed for Southern League Premier Division Central side Ilkeston Town, where he scored seven goals in 19 games. The side’s manager Martin Carruthers declared on signing him: “Chris is an excellent addition to our squad and brings with him a wealth of experience.

“He is a big, powerful unit and super fit, he will certainly be of huge benefit to our current strikers who will all be able to learn and develop from Chris this season.

“He will give us different attacking options and I’m sure will bring plenty of goals to the team.This is a real coup for the club.”

In February 2023, at the age of 37, O’Grady joined ‘The Gingerbreads’ – Northern Premier League Division One East side Grantham Town – where he played alongside former Nottingham Forest and Derby County forward Nathan Tyson. He scored just the once in eight matches, in a 3-0 win over Brighouse Town (Tyson scored the other two).

Isaac’s long, long wait for an Albion win

IT seems extraordinary to think Robert Isaac had to wait FOURTEEN MONTHS to experience a win as a Brighton player after joining the club from Chelsea.

The young defender who had realised every schoolboy’s dream by playing for the team he’d always supported left a disgruntled dressing room at Stamford Bridge only to join a side sliding inexorably toward the relegation trapdoor of what is now the Championship.

“I must admit it was a bit depressing at first because we just couldn’t do anything right,” Isaac told Dave Beckett in an Albion matchday programme article. “We just had no luck at all; if we had I think we might well have survived in Division Two.”

Isaac also appears to have gone out of the frying pan into the fire. Telling thegoldstonewrap.com how he’d left Chelsea because the management was losing support of the players and he wanted regular first team football, he added: “When I joined Brighton in February 1987 they were in freefall. The dressing room was even more at odds with the manager than at Chelsea.

“Barry Lloyd dropped Dean Saunders, our only hope of surviving the drop. I found Barry rather rude. He’d blank me in the corridor and make me train on my own.”

The young defender made his Seagulls debut on 21 February 1987 in a 2-1 defeat at home to Oldham Athletic and featured in four draws and five defeats by the season’s dismal end.

Back at what was for so long Albion’s normal level of third tier football, Lloyd’s side did begin to pick up points – but Isaac wasn’t involved because of a groin strain and a troublesome hernia injury that sidelined him for months.

“I had stomach trouble quite a lot but no-one could put their finger on the problem until I saw a specialist in Harley Street,” he explained.

“After the operation, I was out of action for the best part of six months and at times I didn’t think I would get back to full fitness. I had around 40 internal stitches and even when I began playing again they would stretch and pull and I felt sick after games.”

It wasn’t until March 1988, with Albion in sixth spot, that Lloyd shook things up, initially drafting Isaac in at right-back in place of Kevan Brown, and then selecting him to replace suspended captain – and Isaac’s former Chelsea teammate – Doug Rougvie at centre back alongside Steve Gatting.

Isaac also stepped in when Rougvie missed a couple of games with a ‘flu virus and, although a win in Seagulls’ colours continued to elude him in his first three games back in the side (a defeat and two draws), he kept the no.5 shirt ahead of the rugged Scot. That elusive win finally came in a 2-1 away win at Notts County on 4 April.

Five wins and a draw followed and the successful run-in saw promotion gained as divisional runners-up behind Sunderland. Isaac was one of three former Chelsea players in that back four, with Gary Chivers (who’d arrived from Watford) at right-back and Keith Dublin at left-back.

Dublin had played for England under 19s with Isaac three years earlier. They both played four games in Dave Sexton’s side at the Toulon Tournament in the south of France in 1985 (England beat Cameroon 1-0 and Mexico 2-0, lost 2-0 to the USSR and succumbed 3-1 to France in the final at the Stade Mayol in Toulon).

Sadly, the subsequent fortunes of the two players went in opposite directions: Dublin went on to become such a success with the Seagulls that he was the 1989-90 Player of the Year and was sold to Watford for £275,000; the injury-beset Isaac had to quit the game after only 33 matches in a Brighton shirt.

After Albion bounced back to the second tier, the defender played in the first 11 matches of the 1988-89 season – eight of which were defeats – but his appearance in a 1-0 defeat away to Leicester turned out to be his last as an Albion player.

“I got injured at Leicester,” he recalled. “I didn’t feel it until the next day and then it really hit me. My knee just blew up. Come Monday morning I couldn’t even walk.”

He required an operation to repair the patella tendon in his left knee and, as he sought to regain fitness, spent a fortnight at the National Rehabilitation Centre at Lilleshall.

Meanwhile, Lloyd signed experienced central defender Larry May (whose own playing career would be ended by injury later that season) and, subsequently, Nicky Bissett.

A programme item in the 1989-90 season reminded supporters that Isaac was still around, although he hadn’t played at all throughout 1989.

Looking ahead to 1990, Isaac said: “I just hope I have a better year. I’d like to think that I deserve it after all the frustrations of the last few years with two major operations.”

Sadly, it didn’t happen and in August 1990, he was forced to quit football. After retiring, he worked as a chauffeur for the Maktoums, the ruling family in Dubai, before running his own vehicle business.

Born in Hackney on 30 November 1965, Isaac was Chelsea through and through from an early age.

“We lived in Chelsea and my great grandfather went to the first ever match at Stamford Bridge,” he told thegoldstonewrap.com. “My family have been going to matches home and away since. I went to see Chelsea play Stoke in the (1972) League Cup Final aged six.”

Isaac went on to join the club as a junior, made his reserve team debut at the tender age of 15 and was named Chelsea’s young player of the year in 1984.

It was on 9 October 1984 that his promising career could have been snuffed out before it had even begun: it’s a horrifying tale, told the following day on the front page of The Sun, and covered in detail by that1980sportsblog.

Three knife-wielding Millwall thugs slashed his back from his shoulder to the base of his spine in a dark alley near the south London club’s notorious old stadium, The Den.

Isaac needed 55 stitches to repair the damage and only the thickness of a leather coat he was wearing prevented the wound being potentially life-threatening.

Remarkably, later the same season, in March, he had recovered well enough to make his Chelsea first team debut in a 3-1 win at Watford, although Eddie Niedzwiecki, a Chelsea coach who later worked with Mark Hughes for Wales and at several clubs, told Kelvin Barker’s Celery! Representing Chelsea in the 1980s: “He was a young, up-and-coming apprentice at the time and luckily he managed to pull through, although he never really recovered from it.”

In the 1985-86 season, Isaac played two league cup games for Chelsea and three times in the league. The following season saw him get a mini-run in the side, playing four consecutive league games in November, but his fifth match – a 4-0 home defeat by Wimbledon in which Rougvie was sent off in the first 10 minutes for headbutting John Fashanu – proved to be his last.

The website sporting-heroes.net said of him: “A steady, reliable centre-half and occasional full-back, Robert did little wrong during his time in the Chelsea first-team, but was unfortunate to play for the club at a time when Colin Pates, Joe McLaughlin and, a little later, Steve Wicks, were all demonstrating their considerable talents at the heart of the defence.”

Isaac asked for a transfer after a disagreement with manager John Hollins and his assistant Ernie Walley, and that led to his transfer to Brighton for a £50,000 fee.

Things didn’t click for wanderer Stephen Dobbie

A 93RD-MINUTE winning goal in a Championship match against Peterborough United was as good as it got in Stephen Dobbie’s brief stay with Brighton.

Dobbie left the Albion for Crystal Palace just five months into a three-year contract after failing to live up to the hope that he would be the answer to Albion’s shortage of a genuine goalscorer.

“He has great quality which will unlock defences and I have no doubt he will also score plenty of goals,” Poyet said on capturing a player who had a goalscoring pedigree at Championship level with Swansea City and Blackpool, as well as in Scotland.

“He has played and proven himself at this level and in the Premier League. His goals helped Blackpool win promotion in 2010 and he returned on loan to help them reach the play-off final last season,” he said.

Dobbie was one of four players who joined Brighton on 31 August 2012; fellow Swansea player Andrea Orlandi also arrived, along with Dean Hammond, on loan from Southampton, and Athletic Bilbao’s David Lopez.

Seldom a starter, Dobbie’s first Albion goal came after he’d gone on as a 64th minute substitute for Andrew Crofts at home to Peterborough. Despite relentless Albion pressure, the game looked to be heading for a goalless draw when Dobbie produced a composed finish from an Ashley Barnes pass in the third minute of added on time.

A delighted Poyet said: “We needed quality and Dobbie showed us what he is capable of and that won us the game. It was real quality and that’s what we needed to score tonight.

“On another day, another player would have smashed that and it would not have gone in. The touch was magnificent and we are all delighted.”

Dobbie added: “Before I came on the gaffer told me to keep doing what I have been doing in training. I was confident that my time would come. Hopefully I can kick on and show the sort of form I have showed before in the Championship.”

As it happened, Dobbie did score in the next match too although an astonishing game at Molineux possibly summed up his time with the Albion. He had a great chance when through on goal that Carl Ikeme saved; he then put Albion 3-2 up with an 89th minute penalty – but 10-man Wolves hit back with a 90th-minute equaliser.

“We are all a bit gutted because the three points were there to be taken and on another day we probably would have scored four or five,” said Dobbie afterwards.

Dobbie didn’t score again and after just five starts plus 10 appearances off the bench Poyet decided to cut his losses and ship the player out on loan to Palace.

He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why it hadn’t worked out and was open in his assessment when talking to the Argus about it.

“I don’t think there is one reason, one person responsible,” said Poyet. “I think it didn’t click, that’s all. I am more than happy to take the blame but it’s a mix of things, the way we play, the player, the results, the team.

“The moment it was a possibility to get him I was convinced he was the perfect player for us, to play between the lines, arrive late, get goals, play in different positions in a front three or even behind the striker.”

Earlier in the season, Dobbie said matters off the pitch had made it difficult for him to settle. He had been living in a hotel with his wife and young son for a month during which time his wife gave birth to their second child.

“It was quite hard living in the hotel with my wife and little boy but thankfully we’re now settled in a house and another little boy has since come along, so I can concentrate fully on my football,” he told the matchday programme. “It’s not easy when you’ve got so much going on, it takes a period of adjustment, but now I’m able to just focus on what I’m doing on the training ground.”

At least the move to Palace reunited Dobbie with a familiar face: he had played under Palace boss Ian Holloway during two loan spells at Blackpool. Dobbie scored three times in 15 matches for Palace as they won promotion via the play-offs (thankfully he didn’t play in the semi-finals v Brighton).

Albion and Palace had to make the transfer a loan initially to comply with FIFA regulations regarding the number of clubs a player can play for on a permanent basis in one season, but the loan became permanent in the summer.

Although he signed a two-year deal at Selhurst Park, he only played in one Premier League game and one League Cup tie before returning to Bloomfield Road on loan to Blackpool for a third time.

It was perhaps inevitable that Dobbie should score an equaliser for relegation-threatened Blackpool when they salvaged a point in a disappointing 1-1 draw at the Amex on 21 April 2014.

Blackpool player-manager Barry Ferguson said: “It was a great strike. [Dobbie] has quality and it’s up to him to produce it more often.

“I let him play where he wants to. I’ve known him a long time and, apart from what he does on the ball, his work-rate off the ball is excellent.”

Although still under contract with Palace, Dobbie spent the 2014-15 season on loan at newly promoted League One side Fleetwood Town.

Released by Palace at the end of that season, he spent pre-season on a trial basis at Championship side Bolton Wanderers and when boss Neil Lennon liked what he saw he was given a one-year contract with the Trotters.

In 2016, Dobbie returned to the club where he’d previously been most prolific as a goalscorer:  Queen of the South. In his first spell (2006-09), he scored 55 goals in 105 games for the Scottish First Division outfit.

That level of goalscoring prowess returned second time around, as he netted 111 goals in 178 games over five seasons in the Scottish Championship. He topped the Championship scoring charts in 2017 and 2018 and his 43 goals in 2018-19 was the best ever total for a Queens player in a single season.

Born in Glasgow on 5 December 1982, Dobbie grew up in the tough Barlanark district of the city, and in an interview with the Daily Record he described his experience playing street football in the area.

He was a Rangers fan and, although it was Hearts who first showed interest in him, he spent two years as a youth player at Ibrox Park.

“I signed for the club when I was about 10 or 11,” he recalled. “I was quite lively as a kid but I was soon brought back down to earth whenever I got to meet my heroes. It was intimidating walking into a room and there’s Gazza, Brian Laudrup and Ally McCoist sitting there.”

He added: “They were world class and although I never got to follow them into the first team, it was a brilliant club and I loved my time there.”

While he scored goals for Rangers reserves, he didn’t break through to the first team with his boyhood heroes. The first of many loan moves in his career saw him go to Sydney in Australia and score three times in three games for Northern Spirit.

In the summer of 2003, he was transferred to Hibernian and made a total of 33 Scottish Premier League and cup games during his first season at Easter Road. But a regular starting berth eluded him and he went on loan to Scottish First Division St Johnstone.

That move was turned into a permanent switch but in 2006-07, when once again he couldn’t nail down a regular starting spot, he was loaned to Third Division Dumbarton, where he hit a purple patch, scoring 11 goals in 18 matches.

Such form attracted Queen of the South; he joined them on 5 January 2007 and enjoyed a successful two-and-a-half-year spell.

After he’d finished the 2008-09 season as the Scottish First Division’s top goalscorer with 24 goals, Swansea City, then in the Championship, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“Dobbie has reinvented himself in the last two seasons and is at the best stage of his career,” said Swansea manager Roberto Martinez.

Aged 26 at the time, Dobbie was reunited with Swans top scorer Jason Scotland who he’d played with at St Johnstone in 2005-06.

“He has been through many different moments since his Rangers days, but I firmly believe he is now ready for a new challenge,” said Martinez. “He is a typical Swansea player – very gifted and strong technically.

“He’s also a natural goalscorer, has high standards and is hungry to show off his talent in the Championship.”

Dobbie’s first goals for Swansea somewhat ironically came against Brighton when the Welsh side dumped Russell Slade’s side out of the Carling Cup with a 3-0 victory at the Liberty Stadium.

He scored again in the next round but injury then kept him out of the side and by the following February he was on his way to Blackpool on loan for the first time.

Ironically, Dobbie went on to play for Blackpool in their 3-2 Championship play-off win over the Swans bitter rivals Cardiff City, which saw him branded “Secret Agent Dobbie” by a certain section of the Swansea faithful.

Back at Swansea, Dobbie finally got his place back after Brendan Rodgers had taken over from Paulo Sousa in the manager’s chair.

Dobbie score four times for the Swans but he eventually found himself back on the bench playing second fiddle to loan signing Marvin Emnes and Craig Beattie.

Nevertheless, he chipped in with some important goals from the bench and once again found himself playing in the Championship play-off final, this time getting on the scoresheet as Reading were beaten 4-2.

Remarkably, he featured in a third successive Championship play-off final, again with Blackpool, having failed to hold down a place in Swansea’s Premier League side. He made eight appearances at the elite level but didn’t get on the scoresheet.

Dobbie joined Holloway’s Blackpool in March 2012 but they missed out on another promotion when West Ham beat them 2-1 at Wembley.

In April 2021, Dobbie announced his departure from Queen of the South, with the Daily Record declaring: “The 36-year-old has scored 166 times in 282 games over two spells with the club and is regarded as one of their best players of all time.”

Having put down roots in the North West (even when he was playing for Queen of the South he would commute from his home on the Fylde coast), it was little surprise to see him start the 2021-22 season with AFC Fylde of the Vanarama National League North.

Dobbie became part of Steve Bruce’s coaching team at Blackpool

Binned off by Baggies, Mattock welcomed Seagulls chance

FOR A FEW seasons, it seemed Brighton’s left back spot would always be occupied by a player on loan.

In the second half of the 2011-12 season, it was Joe Mattock who slotted in there, having been edged out by a change of management at West Bromwich Albion.

“I am delighted to come and play where I am wanted and for a manager who feels I can do a job for him,” Mattock declared in a matchday programme.

Mattock made his debut as a substitute in Brighton’s 4 February 1-0 home win over his former club, Leicester City, and he subsequently made 14 starts after Gus Poyet borrowed him from the Baggies.

Mattock’s signing was largely to cover a long term hamstring injury to Marcos Painter after Romain Vincelot and Gus Poyet’s assistant, Mauricio Taricco, had been temporary stand-ins.

Mattock made his debut in Albion’s 2-1 win away to Leeds United on 11 February with fellow West Brom loanee Gonzalo Jara Reyes occupying the right-back spot.

Unfortunately, Albion only registered three more wins through to the end of the season, so it wasn’t a particularly successful period.

Mattock was on the scoresheet once, netting Albion’s only goal in a 3-1 defeat away to Blackpool, and the side finished 10th in the Championship.

Mattock was given a free transfer by the Baggies at the end of the season and, while Poyet viewed signing him permanently as an option, the defender went instead to Sheffield Wednesday, putting pen to paper on a three-year deal.

It would be something of an understatement to say he wasn’t missed, bearing in mind the next loanee left back through the door was Wayne Bridge!

Born in Leicester on 15 May 1990, Mattock was a successful graduate of his hometown club’s academy system, initially as a forward, then as a midfield player before settling as a left-back from the age of 16. He was named Leicester’s academy player of the year in 2006-07.

Leicester caretaker boss Nigel Worthington gave him his first team debut as a substitute in his first game in charge, a 2-1 Championship defeat to Norwich City.

He was chosen at left-back for three more matches at the end of that season, a 2-1 defeat at home to Birmingham and 1-0 wins away to Preston and Barnsley.

Current day BBC pundit Dion Dublin was something of a guiding light to him as he was progressing. “He was a good bloke who spoke to all the young players,” Mattock told the matchday programme. “He was playing centre-back at the time, so taught me a few things about how to defend and how to be a professional footballer.”

While the 2007-08 season saw a veritable merry-go-round of managers as the side eventually lost their Championship status, Mattock’s performances attracted attention and it was said West Ham and Aston Villa had bids to buy him rejected.

After gaining England under 17 and under 19 caps, Mattock went on to win five England under 21 caps, making his debut in a 2-0 home win over Bulgaria in November 2007 alongside the likes of Joe Hart, James Milner and Theo Walcott.

He also played in a 1-1 draw away to Portugal, a 3-0 win over Republic of Ireland, he went on as a sub in a 0-0 draw at home to Poland and his last international action saw him start in the 3-2 defeat away to Ecuador in February 2009.

Although he was selected for the squad, Kieran Gibbs and Ryan Bertrand subsequently got the nod ahead of him.

In August 2009, unsettled Mattock finally got to follow former teammate Richard Stearman away from the Foxes when West Brom, newly relegated from the Premiership, paid a £1m fee to take him to The Hawthorns.

The manner of his exit didn’t go down well with Leicester boss Nigel Pearson, who said: “I like to deal with people straight up. I don’t like it when the player rings the chairman when we are playing a pre-season game to ask to leave when he is out of the country on international duty.

“That gives you a taste of the situation and we’ll wait and see what happens.”

Mattock made 29 starts plus five substitute appearances in Roberto di Matteo’s side as the Baggies were promoted back to the Premier League in runners up spot.

But he didn’t feature in West Brom’s elite side and instead was sent out on loan to Sheffield United where he met up with another loanee from the Black Country, Sam Vokes, who was later on loan with him at the Albion.

Di Matteo’s eventual successor, Roy Hodgson, didn’t fancy the defender either and, before he moved to Brighton, he spent time on loan at Portsmouth who were managed by his former West Brom coach, Michael Appleton.

After choosing to join Wednesday, Mattock barely got a look-in during his first season, when Dave Jones was Owls boss, and supporters were convinced he would be shipped out.

But he was selected for around half of the 2013-14 season’s fixtures under Stuart Gray, and played in 25 games, plus three as a sub, the following season.

“I didn’t have a great start at Wednesday,” Mattock told the Rotherham Advertiser. “I didn’t get on with the manager.

“Then Stuart Gray came in and played me all the time. I was told they thought they were going to offer me a new deal, but I got injured six weeks before the end of my third year and it didn’t happen.”

In the summer of 2015, he was one of 11 Owls players released and the left-back made the short South Yorkshire journey to Rotherham United.

Being settled in the area, he was keen not to have to up sticks and he was persuaded to join by then boss Steve Evans.

Evans was soon on his way from the AESSEAL New York Stadium but Mattock remained and has subsequently played under Neil Warnock, Alan Stubbs, Kenny Jackett and Paul Warne.

He is now in his seventh season with the Millers and has played more than 200 games for them in the Championship and League One.

“I was promoted from League One with Leicester when I was 19. The year after, I was promoted to the Premier League with West Brom,” he told the Rotherham Advertiser.

“When you’re young you don’t realise how much it should mean to you. You do when you’re older, so when we went to Wembley last season (2017-18) and won in the play-off final (they beat Shrewsbury Town 2-1), in front of all the family, in front of all the fans, it was a perfect day, one of the big highlights of my entire career.”