Month: August 2025

‘Spider’ Mellor’s first Albion goal was painful for his old boss

IAN MELLOR became a hero strike partner to the mercurial Peter Ward at Brighton after beginning his professional career at Manchester City.

Mellor, who I first featured in this blog in 2016, died in 2024 aged 74 from amyloidosis, a rare disease which also afflicted City legend Colin Bell.

Affectionately known as Spider because of his thin, long legs, it was a nickname given to him by City goalkeeper Ken Mulhearn who playfully likened him to the Spiderman character players would watch on TV if away in a hotel on a Saturday morning before a game.

Signed for Brighton by Brian Clough for what at the time was a record £40,000 fee for the club (fellow Norwich youngsters Andy Rollings and Steve Govier joined at the same time), the opinionated manager had quit for Leeds before Mellor had kicked a ball in anger for the Albion.

Clough’s sidekick Peter Taylor stuck around for two seasons and Mellor made a goalscoring start for him, netting against his old boss Malcolm Allison’s newly-relegated Crystal Palace side in the season’s opening game.

Mellor’s left-foot volley (above) in the 69th minute proved to be the only goal of the game in front of a 26,123 Goldstone Ground crowd. It was the first time in ten seasons that Albion had started with a win.

Mellor later admitted: “Palace were running all over us. It was remarkable that they weren’t about three goals up. Then in the second-half I got the ball some 35 yards out, went on a run, beat a couple of players and scored probably the most memorable goal of my life.”

A frustrated Allison said: “I remember Spider when I was at Manchester City.

“I didn’t want to see him leave for Norwich. Directors force you to do that sort of thing, then they sack you. Spider was a late developer, but his timing is so good now.”

Allison had played a big part in Mellor’s early development and when City chairman Peter Swales’ sold the youngster for £65,000 to Norwich City to bring in some money, he did it behind the manager’s back (he was ill in hospital at the time) and Allison quit Maine Road in protest.

Interviewed in Goal! magazine in June 1973, Mellor said: “It was a wrench leaving the Manchester area. After all, I’d lived all my life within a few miles of City’s ground, and I would never have left Maine Road if things had been left to me, even though I hadn’t nailed down a regular first team place.

“But when I was asked if I would have a chat with Ron Saunders about moving to Norwich, I was ready to go anywhere. After all, if someone tells you that they are prepared to let you go, you know that you are expendable.”

Thirty years later, in an interview with football writer Gary James, Mellor admitted: “I should never have gone to Norwich.  I went from a top five side to a bottom five side overnight and it was such an alien environment. 

In action for Norwich City

“Norwich is a nice place, and a good club, but at that time the move was totally the wrong move to make.  Because they were struggling there was no confidence.  The contrast with City was unbelievable.”

And he said of Allison: “He was the best as a coach and motivator and I learnt so much from him. He could be tough, but you listened because he had already delivered so much by the time I got into the first team.”

Before Allison, Mellor had come under the wing of a trio of notable coaches in City’s backroom: Johnny Hart, Ken Barnes and Dave Ewing. “They were very knowledgeable and men of real quality,” he told James. “They knew what they were talking about and they also cared passionately about the game and the club.  They’d all had great careers and as a young player you listened and learned.”

Mellor was certainly dedicated to the cause having been given a second chance by City after being shown the door following a trial when he was 15. City’s chief scout Harry Godwin told Goal! magazine: “You could see something there, a useful left peg for instance, and other things, but there wasn’t much of him and, frankly we felt it best to leave it a while.

“We suggested he went away, found himself a local club but kept in touch with us. He did, with a letter asking for another trial. We open all letters we receive, of course, but you could say this is one we are particularly glad about looking into.”

Mellor explained to the magazine: “After that first City trial I had about four games with the Blackpool B side and about a season with Bury as an amateur. Nothing came of it, though I was playing in a local Manchester Sunday league.

“Then I had a particularly good game and got a few good write-ups in a local paper near Manchester. So, I cut them out and sent them to City asking ‘What about another trial?’ They gave me one.”

He first signed as an amateur (in July 1968) and shortly before signing on as a professional at the relatively late age of 19 in December 1969, City loaned him (and goalkeeper Ron Healey) to Altrincham and he played in a 2-1 win at Buxton in the North West Floodlit League on 15 October 1969.

Back at City, he made his reserve team debut in October 1970 away at Aston Villa and six months later stepped up to the first team. It was 20 March 1971 when a nervous Mellor made his City first team debut in a 1-1 draw at home to Coventry City. Ironically, Wilf Smith, the full-back he was up against in the first half of that match, was temporarily a teammate during his first season at Brighton – he had five games on loan to the Albion.

Three years earlier, though, Mellor admitted: “I became a nervous wreck, and in the first half I think that was obvious.  I just wasn’t right.  Malcolm Allison had a real go at me at half time and warned: ‘If you don’t pull your finger out, you’ll be off!’  So that got me playing!  The second half I really worked hard and played my normal game.”

Incidentally, that Coventry side also had Mellor’s future Albion teammate Ernie Machin in midfield alongside Dennis Mortimer, who spent the 1985-86 season with the Seagulls.

Four days after Mellor’s debut, he scored in a European Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final against Gornik Zabrze, as City won 2-0 (Mike Doyle the other scorer). He was also on target in an end-of-season Manchester derby match when City lost 4-3 to United. “As a City fan, the derby meant an awful lot and scoring your first league goal in a derby is something special, especially for a local lad,” Mellor told Gary James.

It was in the 1971-72 season that Mellor got more of a look-in at first team level, the majority of his 23 starts (plus one as a sub) coming in the first part of the season, before Tony Towers got the nod ahead of him.

In a departure from the pre-season Charity Shield (now Community Shield) norm of League champions playing FA Cup winners at Wembley – Derby and Leeds chose not to be involved – fourth-placed City played Third Division champions Aston Villa 1-0 at Villa Park in August 1972. Mellor might have missed out on a chance to play at Wembley but he was part of history as two subs were allowed for the first time and he went on for Wyn Davies (other sub Derek Jeffries replaced Willie Donachie).

In the season that followed, cut short by his March 1973 sale to the Canaries, he started 13 games and went on as a sub six times. In both seasons he scored four goals.

In all competitions, Mellor made 42 starts for City, plus eight appearances as a sub and scored a total of 10 goals.

In spite of his goalscoring start at Brighton, Mellor was one of several players who didn’t hit it off with Taylor and he was suspended for a fortnight after missing training and returning to Manchester without the manager’s permission.

Photo call ahead of his debut for the Albion

Perhaps the almost wholesale change in the make-up of the squad was the cause of an indifferent season which saw the side finish uncomfortably close to the relegation places.

Mellor scored six more goals but between the second week of January and the end of the season he only made one start and two sub appearances.

In his end of season summary, John Vinicombe, the Albion reporter for the Evening Argus, said: “Most puzzling aspect of the season was Ian Mellor’s decline.”

The scribe maintained: “There is no satisfactory explanation for what went wrong with Mellor, and his role passed to Gerry Fell, who turned out quite a find considering that he cost only £250 from Long Eaton and had not kicked a ball in the League until the age of 23.”

It wasn’t until the end of November of the 1975-76 season that Mellor resumed a regular starting spot in the side but from then on he was almost ever present and notched nine goals in 33 games playing wide on the left as Albion just missed out on promotion.

The story of what happened next has been told many times: Alan Mullery saw Mellor as a central striker to play in tandem with the nippy newcomer, Peter Ward, and they swiftly developed a partnership which saw Albion win promotion from the Third Division as runners up behind Mansfield Town.

Prolific goalscoing partnership with Peter Ward

The aforementioned Vinicombe gave Mellor man-of-the-match as Albion beat Mellor’s future employer Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 to clinch promotion on 3 May 1977 in front of 30,756 fans at the Goldstone.

“The Goldstone fans were so good to us,’ Mellor remembered, “and that year was the happiest in my playing career.”

In a similar vein to his retrospective view of regretting leaving City, Mellor also said in hindsight he should have stayed longer with the Seagulls, where he had lost his place to big money signing Teddy Maybank.

“I knew I was better than him, but they had to justify his price and that’s why I got dropped,” Mellor told Spencer Vignes in an Albion matchday programme. “In hindsight, of course, I should have stayed. I was still good enough. I was 29, with two good seasons left in me.”

He moved back to his native north west in February 1978 to play for Chester for two years. Their player-manager was former City legend Alan Oakes and his teammates included the aforementioned fellow Charity Shield sub Derek Jeffries and former Albion teammate Jim Walker. Chester FC Memories said of him on Facebook: “His time at the club included scoring in the memorable derby win at Wrexham (2-1) and in the League Cup victory over First Division side Coventry (2-1) early the following season.”

Leading the line for Chester

His last Chester goal came in a 2-2 home draw with Sheffield Wednesday who he went on to join under Jack Charlton the following season. Mellor spent three years and scored 11 goals in 79 matches for Wednesday. One of the most memorable was recalled by The Yorkshire Post who reported in 2021: “Mellor made himself a lifelong hero with Wednesdayites midway through his debut season at Hillsborough, when he opened the scoring in the 1979 ‘Boxing Day massacre’ 4-0 home win over neighbours United with a goal from 25 yards. He also hit the woodwork in that game.

Boxing Day glory in Sheffield

“Despite being played in Division Three, the match was watched by over 49,000 fans – a record for third-tier football. The goal is still occasionally sung about to this day.”

Mellor himself told The Sheffield Star: “It’s stange to me, considering it’s 40-plus years ago but it remains such a strong feeling among Wednesday supporters. It’s flattering but crazy!

“You’re only remembered so many years on if you’re a good player and luckily for me I scored a good goal in such an important game.”

Mellor’s final two seasons in league football were spent at Bradford City, managed by former Leeds and England defender Trevor Cherry, and he ended his playing days with Hong Kong club Tsun Wan, Worksop Town, Matlock Town and Gainsborough.

After he had stopped playing, he worked for Puma and Gola, encouraging players to wear their brands of football boots, and he was also a commercial executive for the Professional Footballers Association.

Following his death at St Anne’s Hospice in May 2024, it was announced that his family were to donate proceeds from his autobiography Spider to get a bedroom named in his honour at the charity’s new hospice in Heald Green, Stockport.

His widow Sue said: “It was Ian’s wish that we raise funds for St Ann’s Hospice as a thank you for the wonderful care he received. Ian was proud of his football career and all proceeds from his book will go to charity.”

Andy Crosby enjoyed the taste of success with Brighton

ROCK-solid centre-half Andy Crosby won a Division 3 Championship medal with the Albion in 2001 before experiencing two frustrating near-miss seasons as captain of Oxford United.

Brighton’s achievement provided him with his first-ever promotion, but it didn’t turn out to be his last: he climbed out of the same division with Scunthorpe United and then, against all the odds, reached the Championship with the Iron – twice.

Micky Adams, who was a player at Leeds when Crosby was in their youth ranks, had been unsuccessful in trying to sign the defender when he was in charge of Brentford.

But as Adams set about building his first squad at the Albion, he managed to secure Crosby’s services for a £10,000 fee in the summer of 1999.

“I didn’t need any convincing at all to sign,” said Crosby. “It was good timing for me and it worked out fantastically well,” he told Richard Walker. “Sometimes it’s hard to see where you’re going when you’re just keeping your head down and working hard at a struggling club so the Albion did wonders for my career.”

In a matchday programme interview with Spencer Vignes, he added: “I couldn’t wait to sign. Even at that level, I still thought of them as a big club.

“My only reservations were that I’d never lived down south and that we’d just bought a house. We also had a one-year-old daughter. But in the end the pros outweighed the cons.”

The family moved into a house at Stone Cross, near Eastbourne, and Crosby made his debut (albeit with a broken toe!) in the 6-0 Withdean win over Mansfield (as featured in my recent blog post about Darren Freeman).

He developed an effective central defensive partnership with Danny Cullip, and he said: “Although we were very different characters away from the 90 minutes, something really clicked between us and everyone knows how vital it is to have a good centre-half pairing, just as much as a good front two working for each other.

“Our paths have crossed since, and the talk’s always of great memories from Brighton days.”

Hired as a stopper rather than a scorer, Crosby helpfully weighed in with five goals as Albion found their feet back in Sussex.

Then in the following season, Crosby was at the heart of the defence when Albion won the league. “That win down at Plymouth and the home game against Chesterfield where we sealed the Championship will stay with me forever,” he said. “It was just an amazing ride.”

Crosby continued: “We had this great spirit, a team desperate to do really well.

Pouncing to score and celebrate against future employer Hull City

“I’ve got nothing but good memories of the place. It was the first time I’d ever been involved in a promotion campaign as a player. For the first time in my life, I was seeing on a day-to-day basis what it takes to be successful.

“We played some great football and the fans were fantastic. I’ve said it before but if you can’t play for them you can’t play for anyone.”

He added: “Withdean was a funny place but somehow we were able to use it to our advantage. Other clubs didn’t like playing there.”

Getting to grips with Paul Watson

Once elevated to the higher level, Crosby lost his starting place to Simon Morgan and Adams’ successor Peter Taylor continued with Cullip and Morgan as his preferred centre-back pairing.

By then 28, Crosby didn’t fancy a watching brief and in December 2001 he moved on a free transfer to Oxford, the first United signing made by Ian Atkins. He said: “I didn’t want to go, and Peter said he wanted me to stay, but I wanted to play. Going to Oxford meant first team football.”

Although Crosby’s first half season with Oxford saw them struggle near the foot of the division, the 2002-03 campaign ended with them only a point off the play-off places and the central defender scored winning goals in four of the 53 matches he played.

It got better for him on a personal level the next season when his fellow pros named him in the 2003-04 PFA team of the year, but United missed out on the play-offs by three points.

Another string to Crosby’s bow at Oxford was being an accomplished penalty taker. He never missed a spot kick in normal play and, in 2003-04, one of the five he buried was at Scunthorpe’s Glanford Park.

In the summer of 2004, he declined a new contract believed to have been on worse terms than the previous one and chose to move back to the north to join Scunny.

Nonetheless, the Oxford Mail said of him: “The 31-year-old centre back has been a model of consistency in his time at the Kassam Stadium.

“Ideally suited to the Third Division with his uncompromising, no-nonsense style, the hard-tackling defender, who is also good in the air, was also greatly respected by his teammates for his cool professionalism.”

He may have started out in the basement division with Scunthorpe, but what followed was the stuff of dreams. Crosby himself later admitted: “When I joined, if someone had told me I’d be playing for Scunthorpe in the Championship, I would have called them a doctor.

“But it reaffirms your belief in football a little bit, especially when you’re involved first-hand, to see a club of Scunthorpe’s size still being able to pull off what was nothing short of a minor miracle.”

In an interview with the Scunny website, Crosby pointed out: “I was 31 when I arrived at Scunthorpe and I had to use my knowledge and experience in whatever capacity I could, and set standards on and off the pitch. It was something I enjoyed doing and I think it’s something that’s either in you or it’s not.

“My whole time at Scunthorpe was great and I never thought when I signed that we’d get to the Championship twice. It was fantastic and the highlight of my career without a shadow of a doubt.

“I was captain of a promotion-winning team from League One to the Championship, playing at some massive stadiums.”

Although knee injury issues limited him to nine appearances in the 2008-09 season, he was restored to the side for the play-offs and led Scunny to a 3-2 League One play-off final win over Millwall at Wembley in May 2009 (Matt Sparrow scored twice for Scunny).

“It was a great way to end playing,” he admitted. “I have some fantastic memories and look back at my time at the club with nothing but fondness.”

By then he had already been working as assistant manager to Nigel Adkins, the former Iron physio and after playing a total of 715 games for six league clubs he was also Adkins’ assistant manager at Southampton, Reading, Sheffield United, Hull City and Tranmere Rovers.

Crosby, who took over from Adkins as manager of League Two Tranmere in February 2025, said “I’ve got a fantastic relationship with Nigel. He’s been fantastic for me, changed me as a person and polished off a few of the rough edges. I’ve got nothing but great words to say about him.”

Into the manager’s chair

In an interview with tribalfootball.com, he said: “My coaching journey has been full of learning experiences, and I’m a much better coach now than when I started. I was fortunate to work with some fantastic players.

“My best experience was at Southampton, where we achieved back-to-back promotions from League One to the Premier League, working with incredible players like Lallana, Lambert, and Schneiderlin. Even the difficult moments teach you a lot, though. Results didn’t always go our way, but even then, those experiences helped me grow as a coach.”

Crosby also saw the development of the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Ward-Prowse and Luke Shaw during nearly two and a half years at Southampton. While at Bramall Lane, he also worked with future England internationals Aaron Ramsdale and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Even at Hull, he had the fortune to work with Fikayo Tomori, on loan from Chelsea, and Jarrod Bowen.

Born in Rotherham on 3 March 1973, miner’s son Crosby was raised in the village of Maltby. He supported the Millers as a youngster but was rejected by them as a player when he was 11. At 14, though, he was taken on at Leeds.

When he didn’t progress beyond the youth team at Elland Road, former Leeds captain and manager Billy Bremner took him on at Doncaster Rovers and gave him his league debut aged 18.

He played 60 times for Donny over a couple of seasons (and spent a month on loan at Conference side Halifax) before moving to the north east and spending five years at Darlington, notching up a total of 211 appearances.

He was captain of the losing side in the 1996 Third Division play-off final at Wembley when Jim Platt’s Darlo lost by a single goal to Neil Warnock’s Plymouth Argyle.

Off-field financial issues marred his time at Chester City in the 1998-99 season, so his move to Brighton was a welcome change.

Reflecting on that time with the Seagulls, he said: “In any walk of life, if you get a really good group together, recruit well and get good characters in who complement each other well, then you should succeed. A lot of that was down to Micky.

“It was the fittest I’ve ever been – that was down to him – but that work and organisation brought its reward which is something I’ve taken with me into my own coaching career.”

Before his current (August 2025) position at Prenton Park, he also coached the Northern Ireland under 21 international side and spent three years coaching and managing at Port Vale.

Champion medal surprise for man on the mic Aspinall

THE starry-eyed teenager who made half a dozen top level appearances for eventual league champions Everton had to wait a long time for his share of that distant glory.

But Warren Aspinall was nonetheless delighted when his contribution to the Toffees achievement in 1986-87 was finally recognised with a medal more than 30 years later.

That’s happened since I last featured Aspinall in this blog, which recalled his early days at hometown club Wigan Athletic and darker days after he had ended his playing days in the blue and white stripes of the Albion (three goals in 24 starts plus 13 as sub) in the 1999-2000 season.

Aspinall is now more often heard rather than seen by Brighton supporters who listen to match commentaries on Radio Sussex, and it was commentator Johnny Cantor, who the summariser sits alongside for the regional BBC radio station’s coverage of all Albion’s games, who instigated a presentation of the belated honour.

“It was JC who pushed it forward and he kept it to himself before surprising me with the news that Everton would be making a presentation,” Aspinall told the matchday programme. “I was shocked but absolutely over the moon.”

The number of games to qualify for a winners’ medal used to be 14, or a third of the season, but the EFL in 2021 decided retrospectively to fall in line with the Premier League which awards medals to players who’ve made a minimum of five appearances.

Aspinall had been unaware of the rule change but Cantor had words in the right places and when Albion played at Goodison Park on 3 January 2023, the former player was finally presented with his medal by Graeme Sharp, one of his fellow Everton forwards back in the day who subsequently became an Everton director.

It’s probably a good job the presentation was made before the game because Albion romped to a 4-1 win that day with goals from Karou Mitoma, full debut-making Evan Ferguson, Solly March and Pascal Gross.

“The medal means the world to me and my family and it now sits proudly on my mantelpiece along with my England under 20 caps,” said Aspinall.

He earned the first of those two caps in the same month that Everton paid £125,000 to sign the 18-year-old from Wigan Athletic, although he saw out the season on loan with the Latics.

He featured in Young England’s 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland at Elland Road, Leeds, and the following month was in the side that suffered a 4-1 defeat to Scotland at Aberdeen’s Pittodrie ground. Tottenham’s David Howells and Neil Ruddock, then of Millwall, also played in both matches, as did Millwall goalkeeper Brian Horne.

Teenager Aspinall signs for Everton’s Howard Kendall watched by Wigan boss Bryan Hamilton

On his return to Goodison Park at the end of the 1985-86 season, Aspinall was on the bench for the last league game (Kendall rested several players because it was five days before the FA Cup Final, which Everton lost 3-1 to Liverpool) and he made his debut in the 3-1 home win over West Ham when going on for two-goal Gary Lineker, who was playing his last league game for Everton before joining Barcelona.

Everton finished as league runners up that season but they went one better the following season, when competition for forward places saw manager Howard Kendall able to pick Sharp and Adrian Heath as his preferred pair, with Paul Wilkinson and Ian Marshall as alternatives. It meant Aspinall’s playing contributions came in the form of nine league and cup appearances as a substitute (he was also a non-playing sub on four occasions). Although first team chances were limited, he bagged plenty of goals for the club’s reserve side, netting 21 in 23 games.

That was enough to convince former Celtic stalwart Billy McNeill, in charge of relegation-bound Aston Villa, to splash £300,000 to take him to Villa Park – where competition for a starting spot was again daunting, with Andy Gray, Gary Shaw, Simon Stainrod and Garry Thompson all striker options.

Aspinall made his Villa debut on 21 February 1987 in a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool and by the season’s end, while his former Everton teammates were lifting the league trophy, he was part of a Villa side that was bottom of the pile.

McNeill was duly sacked and the picture changed the following season when Aspinall was joint top-scorer as Graham Taylor’s Villa bounced straight back to the top tier as runners up behind Millwall.

“Garry Thompson and I hit it off up front and we had such a good understanding that we kept Alan McInally out of the team for a long time,” he told Villa supporter Colin Abbott. “Garry was good to play alongside because he was like a battering ram and I fed off him.”

Aspinall made his 50th and final appearance for Villa on 7 May 1988 in a 0-0 draw away to Swindon (playing left back for Villa was Bernie Gallacher and in the opposition line-up was Colin Calderwood and Kieran O’Regan).

Already warned by Taylor that he needed to improve ill discipline that had resulted in too many cautions, Aspinall got himself sent off for stamping in a pre-season friendly against St Mirren and Taylor transfer-listed him.

Happy at Pompey

England World Cup winner Alan Ball, in charge at recently relegated Portsmouth, seized the moment and took him to Fratton Park for a fee of £315,000 in August 1988, where his teammates included Mark Chamberlain and Terry Connor. In six years with Pompey, Aspinall also played under John Gregory, Frank Burrows, caretaker Tony Barton and Jim Smith.

Briefer stays followed along the coast at Bournemouth (loan and permanent), Swansea City (loan) and two seasons at Carlisle United.

Aspinall at Colchester

Keen to return to the south, Micky Adams first signed him when he had taken over as manager at Brentford and he made 48 appearances (plus three as sub) for the Bees but Aspinall then went on loan and then permanently to Colchester United for nine months before Adams brought him on loan and then permanently to the Albion in the autumn of 1999. It was a part exchange for midfielder Andy Arnott.

In only his third game, Aspinall was a delighted scorer of the only goal on his old stomping ground of Brunton Park as Albion returned to Sussex with all the points. The News of the World said: “Former Carlisle favourite Warren Aspinall seized on Billy Barr’s poor back pass to chip keeper Andy Dibble.”

In the Argus, Andy Naylor wrote: “The colourful midfielder then dashed towards the Albion supporters huddled in the seats on a drizzly day in Cumbria before sliding full-length on the greasy turf.”

Aspinall continued his celebration with a finger-on-lip gesture and an ear cupped towards the home support. He told the matchday programme: “I heard the keeper shout for the ball and anticipated the defender’s pass. I think I showed a great turn of pace for a veteran.”

In fact, Aspinall was 32 when he joined the Seagulls and he added experience to a side that went on to finish its first season back in Brighton in 11th place in the fourth tier

At the start of the following season, when he went on as a sub for Gary Hart in Brighton’s home 2-1 win over Rochdale (Bobby Zamora scored both Albion goals), it was to be his last ever appearance.

Suffering from the niggle of a piece of floating bone in his right ankle, he followed physio advice to have it removed in what was expected to be a routine operation. But while in hospital, he caught the MSRA superbug which ate away tendons and ligaments in his ankle.

“They eventually said I would never play football again as a result. I was finished,” he told The News, Portsmouth, in a graphic account of the trauma. “Yet now I needed an operation to get rid of this infection, which involved me scheduled to stay on a hospital ward for 14 days, attached to an intravenous drip while antibiotics were fed into my body.

“After 13 days, my body broke out in a rash from head to toe. It had rejected the drug. So, I had the operation once more – and it happened again. After 13 days, my body rejected it.

“For 28 days I’d been on that hospital ward, so I was then offered the chance to return home if I underwent an operation to insert two tubes into my heart, one for the intravenous drip to enter and the other to take blood out.

“That sounded good to me – apart from my heart subsequently stopping during the procedure. I died. I’m told it was for a few seconds, but I died on that operating table,’ Aspinall told The News. “But they brought me back, and I was allowed to go home to Hedge End, with a district nurse checking on me every day, even Christmas Day.

“There were two six-inch tubes hanging out of my chest, with the nurse taking blood out of one and putting the drugs into the other.

“I lived. The antibiotics killed the superbug, but my career ended there and then. I was aged 33, with nothing planned, no coaching badges. I had to go into the real world.”

The story of what happened in his post-playing days – battles against gambling and alcohol addictions – have been well documented in various media interviews, including a detailed one with the Birmingham Mail in October 2012, when he spoke openly about a near-miss suicide attempt.

He has been Cantor’s co-commentator on Albion matches for Radio Sussex since 2015.

Season-opening hat-trick a dream come true for Freeman

THE NEW season opening game 26 years ago saw Darren Freeman score a hat-trick as the back-in-Brighton Seagulls hammered Mansfield Town 6-0.

For Freeman, who’d previously played under Micky Adams at Fulham and Brentford, it really couldn’t have been a better debut for his hometown club as the 1999-2000 season got under way at the Withdean Stadium.

Freeman hit the headlines again when he scored the first league goal of the millennium, crashing home a volley after only two minutes in a noon kick-off 4-2 Withdean win over Exeter City on 3 January 2000. It also earned him a magnum of champagne from league sponsor Nationwide.

Headline-maker

“It was a dream come true to play for my hometown club,” Freeman later admitted. After he’d scored that hat-trick at Withdean, he managed to pick out his dad’s face in the 5,582 crowd and fondly recalled his ‘That’s my boy!’ look of pride.

If the start of the season was spectacular, trouble was lurking round the corner with Freeman ending up suspended for seven matches – all in the first half of the season. He incurred a three-game ban after being dismissed for a stamping incident at Cheltenham and worse was to follow after he spat in Plymouth defender Jon Beswetherick’s face.

Beswetherick said: “He caught me in the face with his fist just inside the 18-yard box. I ran after him to have a word in his ear and on the way back up the pitch he just spat in my face.

“He had to go. Footballers all say that is the lowest thing you can do. It was probably in the heat of the moment, but I am sure he regrets it now.”

Not only did he receive a four-game suspension, manager Adams fined him a week’s wages and said: “He let himself down, the club down, his family down and everybody connected with Brighton. He knows that and he is full of remorse. He has been left in no doubt at all that it’s not good enough.”

Freeman was top scorer with 13 goals by the end of the season but a new goalscoring hero had begun to emerge in the shape of raw teenager Bobby Zamora!

That’s not to say Freeman’s days in the stripes were over, but his second season was dogged by injuries. Two hernia operations ruled him out from the start of September to the middle of December, then, after he had worked his way back into the starting line-up, in February 2001 he put in a transfer request after being left out of the side for a home game against Blackpool, sparking an angry reaction from Adams.

“I picked a side against Blackpool which I thought would win us the game and he wasn’t in it,” he said. “He is entitled not to agree, but there is a wrong way and a right way of knocking on my door and he chose the wrong way.

“I’ve never had one player ask to leave a club where I have been a manager. This is somebody as well who I had the utmost time and respect for, having taken him to two of my previous clubs.”

Freeman had a change of heart the following month after Adams restored him to the bench.

“I want to be a part of things,” he explained. “Obviously I’ve had a bad season with injuries and a lot of it was frustration.

“When me and Micky had a chat and I asked for a transfer we both said a few things. We didn’t have a massive fall-out. We are both adults and we have got to get on with it.”

The Argus revealed Freeman’s mentor, and former Albion forward and Northern Ireland international Gerry Armstrong played a part in the decision.

“I speak to Gerry a couple of times a week,” Freeman said. “A man of his experience can only give you good advice. I’ve had a number of conversations with him. It was my own choice to come off the transfer list, but Gerry has talked some great sense into me.”

Albion finished the season as division champions but by then Freeman was having a third hernia operation having made just six starts plus 12 appearances off the bench.

“I admit that as much as I was pleased for the lads, I felt gutted I wasn’t really part of it,” Freeman admitted. He went to Lilleshall and worked through the summer in an effort to regain fitness and earn a new contract.

But it was an uphill battle and although he struggled through pre-season and played in Albion’s opening friendly at his old club Worthing, he told the Argus: “I could hardly walk after the game. I was up all night in absolute agony.”

He was sent to see Harley Street specialist Jerry Gilmore who delivered devastating news: “There is no way you can carry on playing professional football. You are in a right mess, but hopefully we can do something to give you a better quality of life.”

A fourth hernia operation followed but not being able to resume his career hit him hard.

“The club have played an absolutely massive part in helping me through and all of my family and friends, because it has really been a rough time,” he told the Argus.

“It has been great working with him (Adams). He gave me the opportunity to experience promotions, the freedom to express my way of playing and the opportunity to fulfil my ambition.”

In a matchday programme interview several years later, Freeman told Spencer Vignes: “On reflection, I was lucky. Some people play their entire career and don’t win anything, and yet every club I played for got promoted.”

Born in Brighton on 22 August 1973, Freeman went to Varndean School, started playing football with Hollingbury Hawks and then joined Whitehawk as a teenager before playing at Isthmian League level for Worthing and Horsham.

“I came through the non-league system and was given the opportunity to fulfil my dreams,” he told Vignes. “I wasn’t the greatest player but what I can say is I gave everything for every club I played for.”

Freeman turned professional with Gillingham under Tony Pulis in August 1994, where he played alongside future Fulham and Albion teammates Richard Carpenter and Paul Watson. He recalled how it was while he was playing for the Gills against Fulham that Adams’ no.2 Alan Cork got in his ear and told him not to sign a new contract at Priestfield because Fulham wanted to sign him.

Sure enough, as Freeman admitted to Vignes: “Once I knew Fulham were interested, then I was interested. They were, and are, a massive club and it was nice that a team like that wanted me.”

Impressed by Adams’ man-management skills, he said: “He made me feel wanted and that I was a big part of his plans for the 1996-97 season. He sold Fulham to me, saying we were going to do well. And we did, because we won promotion.”

In full flow for Fulham

Fulham fans website HammyEnd.com recalled: “The £15,000 Micky Adams paid to Gillingham for the services of shaggy-haired Darren Freeman proved to be a bargain.

“The popular forward quickly became a firm favourite with the Fulham faithful on account of his ability to terrorise defenders, either out wide or through the middle as a conventional centre forward.

“Injuries robbed Freeman of the chance to make good on his undoubted talented, but he still scored nine goals as the Whites went up from Division Three in 1997.”

In an interview with fulhamfc.com, Freeman said: “Micky brought in a great bunch of lads and the togetherness was fantastic. The team morale was really, really good.

“He was quite a young manager, I think he’d actually played that season, but he’d got a great bunch of lads together and we really kicked on.

“When you consider that it was Micky’s first full season as a manager, it’s incredible what he achieved. He went about his business and did his job fantastically.”

He added: “Micky had a lot of faith in me and I feel very privileged to have achieved my goals and my ambitions from when I was a kid, and to be a part of Fulham was the icing on the cake.

“We were paid to do a job but, when I look back at it, it was a dream come true and I don’t think you realise until later on in life how important it was. Fulham, to me, the fans and the whole club, it was just a special time for me.”

As with many others at Craven Cottage, Freeman’s fortunes changed when Kevin Keegan and Ray Wilkins were installed as managers by Mohamed Al Fayed and he joined something of an exodus across London to Brentford.

Coincidentally, Freeman scored on his league debut for Brentford in a 3-0 win over Mansfield (the Stags must have loved him!) and his teammates in that 1998-99 season included Watson, Lloyd Uwusu, Warren Aspinall and Charlie Oatway. Owusu ended the season as top scorer with 25 goals (Freeman scored nine) as the Bees won the Third Division championship.

After his playing days were brought to a premature end, Freeman spent five years as manager of his first club, Whitehawk, leading them to three promotions (from the Sussex County League to the Conference South) and in 2012 to winning the Sussex Senior Cup.

He briefly managed Peacehaven and Telscombe before occupying the manager’s chair at Lewes for nearly three years.

He subsequently became a football agent, initially spending 18 months with Sports Total, one of Europe’s leading football agencies, before joining forces with his former Brentford team at Dirk Hebel Sports Consulting (Hebel named one of his sons Darren after his teammate!).

Freeman told Vignes he relishes the opportunity to pass on his knowledge of the game to current players. “They say nothing compares to playing, but I find it very rewarding. It’s the next best thing to being out there, definitely.”