Back-up ‘keeper Alan Dovey’s limited chances to shine

THE LIFE of a back-up ‘keeper can be pretty soul destroying, with first team opportunities often few and far between.

Such was the lot of former Chelsea youngster Alan Dovey, who was deputy to longstanding no.1 Brian Powney at the start of the 1970s, and only played eight first team matches for Brighton in two years.

Dovey initially joined on loan in March 1971. Powney’s rival for the no.1 shirt at the start of the season had been the experienced Geoff Sidebottom but he had been forced to retire because of a head injury.

Saward subsequently brought in Ian Seymour from Fulham on a temporary basis when Powney was out for three games, but Chelsea boss Dave Sexton, who’d previously played for the Albion, did his old side a favour by lending them youth team goalie Dovey until the end of the season.

He had to wait until the last two games before getting his chance to shine, making his debut in a 3-1 win away to Bristol Rovers and then appearing in the season’s finale at Wrexham, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

The loan became a permanent transfer that summer, Albion securing the young ‘keeper’s services for £1,000.

He played three times in Albion’s 1971-72 promotion season, and manager Pat Saward appeared content with the youngster, telling Goal magazine “It’s hard having to leave him out again, but what can you do. Chelsea manager Dave Sexton did us a great favour when he let Alan go for £1,000.”

His first game of the season was at Carrow Road, Norwich, when Albion were knocked out in the second round of the League Cup 2-0.

However, under the headline ‘Dovey’s daring display’ the matchday programme declared: “Despite the 2-0 defeat, the former Chelsea goalkeeper had a fine game and thrilled spectators with some daring saves. He had been nursing an injury and this was an in-at-the-deep-end experience but he came through it with great credit.”

It was more than three months before he got his next first team outing, but he once again earned rave notices for his performance in a 2-1 win away to York City, earning Albion’s Man of the Match accolade from Evening Argus reporter John Vinicombe.

The following matchday programme reported: “It was ‘all go’ for Alan. He had to race out of his goal in one York raid and was booked for an infringement, and also had numerous adventures in keeping out shots, centres and breaking up penalty box scrambles.”

Dovey was only ever back-up to Brian Powney

Saward didn’t next call on Dovey until 15 March, a 1-0 home defeat to Oldham Athletic which temporarily put the brakes on Albion’s bid for automatic promotion. Remarkably, that game against Oldham (which also saw a debut as substitute from new signing Ken Beamish) was the first time Dovey had played in front of the Goldstone faithful.

When Albion entertained Exeter City in the first round of the League Cup on 16 August 1972, the crowd may have been 6,500 down on the attendance for the season opener against Bristol City four days earlier but the game presented Dovey with another chance to show what he could do. (The game also saw the return of former captain John Napier to the centre of defence, although he was most likely being ‘shop windowed’ with a view to a transfer).

It is interesting to read an Exeter-angled summary of the game, which declared: “There was no denying that the first half belonged to City, and they deservedly led after 22 minutes with Fred Binney’s goal. There were a few moments early on when the back four and reserve goalkeeper Alan Dovey were little more than strangers in the night. 

“Eventually the pattern knitted together and Dovey gained confidence to make two fine saves in the last 20 minutes from Binney (who two years later joined the Albion in exchange for John Templeman and Lammie Robertson) and Dick Plumb – shots that could so easily have caused a shock defeat.”

Albion eventually prevailed thanks to goals from Willie Irvine and Beamish.

The two league matches Dovey featured in that season were not games he’d look back on fondly. Away to Preston North End on 25 November, Albion’s rookie ‘keeper conceded four when he deputised for ‘flu-hit Powney.

It was the same scoreline at Sunderland, who hadn’t won in 11 games, but who went on to reach that season’s FA Cup Final in which they famously beat Leeds United 1-0.

The Wearsiders hadn’t won at home since September but Brighton went to Roker Park having lost their previous nine matches and, according to the Sunderland Echo, “The winning margin could well have been doubled…. they applied themselves to the task of mastering Brighton’s strong-arm tactics and taking them apart.”

Sunderland took the lead in the ninth minute. Joe Bolton’s hammered left-foot shot struck Dovey in the face, knocking him over, and Billy Hughes pounced on the rebound to drive home a low shot.

Dennis Tueart added a second in the 45th minute and Brighton found the going tougher still in the second half.

After surviving a goalmouth scramble, Sunderland got their third goal in the 58th minute. A free-kick against George Ley for pushing Tueart was taken by Bobby Kerr, whose well-placed drive to the near post was brilliantly headed into goal by Hughes.

Hughes twice came close to completing a hat-trick but it was Bolton who hit what the Echo described as the goal of the game: “a right-foot drive, of such power that Dovey had no chance”.

Struggling to come up with a solution to the disastrous run, Saward went public and started to point the finger at players who he reckoned weren’t cutting it.

Dovey was transfer-listed along with veteran defender Norman Gall and Bertie Lutton. Lutton got a surprise move to West Ham but Gall stayed put and Dovey was released at the end of the season without playing another game.

Born in Stepney on 18 July 1952, Dovey grew up in Chadwell St Mary in Essex and played for Thurrock Boys before joining Chelsea straight from school in 1968 after writing to them to ask for a trial.

He became a youth team regular as well as playing a handful of games for the reserves. On 18 January 1969, he was in goal for a Chelsea side (which also included future first teamer and England international Alan Hudson) when they beat Brighton 5-2 in a South East Counties League youth team fixture.

It was always going to be difficult for Dovey to progress at Stamford Bridge because Worthing-born Peter Bonetti was an almost permanent fixture in Chelsea’s first team and he was understudied initially by Scotland under-23 international Tommy Hughes (who later played three games for the Albion on loan from Aston Villa in 1973) and then future Welsh international John Phillips, who was briefly Graham Moseley’s back-up during Albion’s second season (1980-81) in the First Division.

However, Dovey made national newspaper headlines when he came close to making a first team appearance on 10 January 1970.

Both Bonetti and Hughes went down with ‘flu ahead of a key match between third-placed Chelsea and Leeds United, who were in second place. Chelsea tried to get the game postponed but the Football League wouldn’t hear of it.

The Daily Mirror reported: “Chelsea failed to convince the Football League last night that it would be unfair to put 17-year-old Alan Dovey in goal against Leeds today.

“Dovey, untried beyond an occasional game in the reserves, stands by to face the League Champions.”

Veteran football reporter Ken Jones wrote: “Bonetti has no chance of playing. Unless Hughes has improved by this morning, Dovey will be drafted into the team.”

Chelsea boss Sexton told Jones: “We are hoping Hughes will recover. But if he doesn’t, we shall just have to put Alan in.

“It’s not the sort of thing we like doing with a youngster, but he won’t let us down if he has to play.”

Jones noted that although Dovey had only been a professional for six months, he didn’t display any nerves when interviewed.

“The things that happen in League football happen in youth football,” Dovey told him, “so it will only be the pace and the skill which will be different.

“When Dave Sexton told me I might have to play, that itself was a great thrill. It will be an even greater thrill if I do play against such a great side as Leeds.”

As it turned out, Hughes was adjudged fit after all, although he might have regretted it. In what was only his fifth senior game in five years at the club, he shipped five goals as United won 5-2 in front of a Stamford Bridge crowd of 57,221.

In August that year, Dovey was once again on standby to step up to the first team squad when Hughes suffered a broken leg. But Sexton went into the transfer market instead and bought Phillips from Aston Villa.

The Goldstone Wrap in 2014 noted Dovey stepped away from full-time football after the Albion let him go to pursue a career in insurance. Nevertheless, he played part-time for various Sussex clubs.

Notably he was at Southwick, along with former Albion teammate Paul Flood, at the same time as Ralf Rangnick, later to take temporary charge of Manchester United, was on their books.

Dovey also played for Worthing for three seasons, in their double promotion-winning squad of the early ‘80s, until, in April 1984, manager Barry Lloyd publicly criticised him, telling the Argus: “Alan has done exceptionally well for us over the past three years, but he’s not really aggressive enough in this premier division.”

Albion offered temporary refuge to winger Scott Thomas

A PLAYER seen by only a few hundred loyal Albion supporters played under Brian Horton for Manchester City and Brighton.

Scott Thomas was spotted by City as an 11-year-old, joined them straight from school and was on the club’s staff for six years.

But he only ever featured for the first team on two occasions, in successive matches during Horton’s Maine Road reign.

Thomas in City’s sky blue

A serious injury while playing on loan in America dealt a devastating blow to his hopes of a top flight career, and when City overlooked Thomas during the club’s slide towards the third tier, Horton threw him a brief lifeline.

Albion’s former captain, back at the club as manager when they played home games in exile at Gillingham, inherited a side in turmoil when he took over from Steve Gritt in February 1998.

Albion were second from bottom of the basement division and had endured a 12-game winless home run under Gritt. A Valentine’s Day nightmare 0-0 draw at home to bottom club Doncaster Rovers followed by successive away defeats against Rochdale and Exeter saw chairman Dick Knight wield the axe on a man who had delivered the miracle escape from relegation less than a year earlier.

Horton wheeled and dealed as best he could with limited resources and, after one of many loanees, Steve Barnes, returned to parent club Birmingham City, he remembered the youngster who he’d given a couple of outings to at the end of the 1994-95 season.

Paul Dickov and Scott Thomas

It seems extraordinary to say it now, but Manchester City were in a pretty desperate plight themselves between 1996 and 1998. Five different managers took charge over the course of the 1996-97 season. Alan Ball was in charge at the beginning, he was followed by Asa Hartford. Then Steve Coppell took the reins, before deciding after six matches that it wasn’t for him. Former Liverpool full-back Phil Neal succeeded his former England teammate. Eventually, former Nottingham Forest player and boss Frank Clark took over.

Clark was still in charge at the start of the following season, but a run of poor results saw him off, replaced by former Everton and City centre-forward Joe Royle. He couldn’t stop the rot and City were relegated to the third tier for the first time in their history.

Although a total of 38 players saw action in that desperate but ultimately fruitless attempt to avoid relegation, Thomas wasn’t one of them.

There had been a succession of players not wanted at other clubs who pulled on Albion’s stripes that season and Horton turned to blond-haired winger Thomas on the eve of the March transfer deadline day as he shuffled his pack trying to steer the side away from the bottom of the fourth tier.

“He can play on either wing or down the middle,” said Horton, by way of introduction in his Albion matchday programme notes.

Scott Thomas (front row, second from right) in a pre-match Albion line-up

After making his debut in a 0-0 draw at Cardiff City on 28 March 1998, skipper Gary Hobson declared: “Scott Thomas did well on the right of midfield.” And Horton said: “I was pleased with the first game for Scott Thomas, he looked lively and he came off with a bit of cramp late on.”

It was the first of seven games Thomas played for the Seagulls as the season drew to a close, and in his second game Albion earned their first win in six matches, beating Scunthorpe United 2-1 in front of a Priestfield crowd of 2,141.

Thomas took over the no.9 shirt v Scunthorpe

He switched wings and played on the left in that match and Horton made a point of mentioning in his programme notes how the youngster had been unlucky to have been denied by a fantastic save by Iron ‘keeper Tim Clarke.

Unfortunately, that was the only game in which he was on the winning side: Albion drew three and lost two in the remaining matches. And Thomas was sent back to City at the season’s end.

It has since emerged that a serious injury the winger sustained two years earlier ultimately put paid to him continuing to play professionally.

He had been sent on loan to the United States to play for Richmond Kickers in Virginia. He told the Bolton News: “It was a brilliant opportunity being in the States but I shattered my left leg in four places and had to come back. I was gutted.”

As part of his recovery, he was sent to his local gym, Phoenix Health and Fitness in Bolton, and, four years after the injury forced him to retire, he bought it.

Gym owner

“Football will always be my main love,” he told the newspaper. “Keeping fit has played such a big part of my life — I’ve done various marathons and two Ironman triathlons too — so owning a gym was a natural choice.”

Born in Fairfield, Bury, on 30 October 1974, Thomas told the newspaper his father reckoned he started kicking a football against a wall or fence as soon as he could walk.

He was playing for Radcliffe Juniors when he was seven and, at 11, was scouted by City while he was playing in the Bury League.

“I thought it was brilliant at the time – it was a really big deal,” he said. “I did trials in the school holidays and then trained after school, so I’d get a bus from Bolton, through Bury and into Manchester to meet my dad before going to the grounds.”

Thomas’ son, Luca, has followed in his father’s footsteps. He worked his way through City’s academy sides but when he turned 16 switched to Leeds United’s scholarship scheme.

In the 2021-22 season, he scored 15 goals in 17 matches in the Under-18s Premier League North, and in August 2022 signed a two-year professional contract with Leeds.

“It has changed from when I was younger,” Thomas Snr told the Bolton News. “They have to grow up a lot quicker these days. It’s such a cut-throat industry: you can be flavour of the month one minute, winning Young Player of the Year like me, then out with an injury the next.”

Both of Scott’s City first team appearances were as a substitute. The first was on 6 May 1995 when he went on for Maurizio Gaudino on the hour mark at the City Ground, Nottingham. Forest won by a single goal, scored by Stan Collymore in the first half.

Matchday programme

Eight days later, Thomas only got on in the 83rd minute when he replaced Paul Walsh as City went down 3-2 at Maine Road to QPR, for whom Les Ferdinand scored twice.

The winger also played in America for Richmond Kickers founder Bobby Lennon’s other club, Palm Beach Pumas, and he is quoted on the US Soccer Academy website as saying: “The level of football was excellent. Even though my career was cut short due to an injury, I will always have great soccer memories of my time in Florida.”

Barry Butlin’s belter at Selhurst helped revive Forest career

BARRY BUTLIN is one of that pantheon of players who’ve scored winning goals for the Albion against Crystal Palace.

He may sound like the alliterative title of a south Wales holiday camp, but this was a moustachioed striker who’d joined Third Division Brighton on loan from Second Division Nottingham Forest.

When former Albion boss Brian Clough couldn’t find a place for him in his Forest line-up in September 1975, previous managerial partner, Peter Taylor, going it alone at the Albion, was more than happy to add Butlin to his forward line options.

Butlin had started his career at Derby County on the periphery of Clough and Taylor’s squad at the Baseball Ground.

During his five years as a Rams player, he’d twice been out on loan to Notts County, scoring eight in 20 games in 1968-69 and another five in 10 appearances in the 1969-70 season.

While Derby won the First Division title in 1972, Butlin was sold for £50,000 to Luton Town, where he made his mark with an impressive 24 goals in 57 matches.

One of them came in a 1-1 draw at Elland Road during Clough’s ill-fated 44-day spell as Leeds manager, and, in a typically odd Clough way, in the post-match press conference he put his arm around Butlin and told the journalists: “This is who you want to write about after that wonderful goal. He deserves it.”

The following month, Butlin’s goalscoring exploits for the Hatters saw Forest boss Allan Brown take him to the City Ground for a fee of £120,000.

Imagine how he must have felt when his old Derby boss Clough arrived to take over at Forest in January 1975!

Nevertheless, the striker said all the right things publicly ahead of the manager’s first game, a third round FA Cup replay against Spurs, as recorded in Jonathan Wilson’s excellent book Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You The Biography (Orion Books 2011).

“The lads all know that everybody is starting from scratch with everything to prove,” said Butlin. “Brian Clough has the ability to make an average player good and a good player great.”

Such a show of loyalty might have been understandable in the circumstances but Wilson also recalls Clough’s eccentric attitude towards players when they were injured. Butlin fractured his cheek in a training ground incident when at Derby.

“As he lay on the ground, Clough screamed at him to get up, insisting there was nothing wrong with him,” wrote Wilson. “Even after he’d been taken to hospital, Clough refused to believe anything was the matter.

“When Butlin’s wife turned up looking for her husband and mentioned an ‘accident’ to Clough, he snapped: ‘I’ll tell you when there’s been an accident’.”

Although Butlin feared the worst when Clough arrived at Forest, he wasn’t instantly discarded, finishing that season with seven goals in 33 games (plus one as a sub), while fellow forward Neil Martin netted 12 in 30 matches (plus two as a sub).

Butlin had a front row seat in this Forest line-up

But Clough clearly had other ideas about who he wanted in attack and brought in John O’Hare, who had done well for him at Derby, but less well during the ill-fated spell at Leeds, and introduced a young Tony Woodcock.

Intriguingly, that summer Martin was reunited with Taylor at Brighton and, within a matter of weeks, Butlin was also heading to the Albion, although his move was only temporary.

As it happened, Martin got off to a decent start alongside Fred Binney up front, scoring three times in the opening matches. But Taylor obviously considered Butlin offered a more potent threat; and it wasn’t long before fans saw why.

Butlin lets fly and scores the winner at Selhurst Park in 1975

In only his second game, in the third minute of Albion’s clash with Palace at Selhurst Park on 23 September 1975, Butlin got on the end of a Gerry Fell cross and hit an unstoppable shot that turned out to be the only goal of a pulsating game played in front of a crowd of 25,606 – a quite remarkable number for a third tier fixture.

“It still sticks with me, that one,” Butlin told Spencer Vignes, in his book Bloody Southerners (Biteback Publishing), which details the Clough-Taylor period at the Goldstone.

“It was the start of a cracking time down at Brighton,” said Butlin. “I only wish I could have gone on a little longer.”

Butlin soars to connect with this header

Butlin followed up that midweek winner at Palace with another goal on his home debut four days later when Chesterfield were beaten 3-0 (Peter O’Sullivan and Binney the other scorers).

Although not on the scoresheet, he also featured in two more wins (2-1 at Shrewsbury Town and 1-0 at home to Preston). However, in his absence Forest had gone through a mini slump, losing four out of five matches.

Butlin had taken his wife and children to Sussex with him, staying in the Courtlands Hotel in Hove. They all really liked the area, and the player had hopes of making the move a permanent one. Clough had other ideas.

“Brighton made me so welcome, but Forest weren’t doing very well at all,” Butlin told Vignes. “When I came to the end of my loan period, Brian got me straight back up to Forest and I had a real purple patch during which I played really well.”

In fact, he finished the season with eight goals from 38 games played as Forest finished eighth in the old Second Division.

Collector’s item

“We had this team meeting before one game and Brian said: ‘If sending you down to Brighton gives you that impetus, then I’d better start sending some more players down there!’

“I’d seen the seafront and the wonderful countryside and thought it was the prelude to us staying there as a family, but it wasn’t to be. I was disappointed to say the least.”

Born in the south Derbyshire village of Rosliston, on 9 November 1949, Butlin attended Granville County Secondary School in Woodville from 1961 to 1966, and proudly records on his LinkedIn profile that he obtained six GCEs. He was also the school football captain.

He signed on for Derby in July 1967 but the likes of Richie Barker and Frank Wignall initially, then O’Hare and Kevin Hector, were ahead of him as the Rams progressed from the old Second Division into the First, before winning the title in 1972.

Chances for Butlin were few and far between. He made just four first team appearances in five years but those loan spells at Notts County at least demonstrated there was a player in the making, able to find the back of the net.

A knee injury prevented him making an immediate impact at Luton, after Harry Haslam had signed him, but he was the top scorer as Town gained promotion to the elite in second place in 1973-74.

The Hatters assured promotion by securing a 1-1 draw at West Brom in the penultimate game of the season, and midfield player Alan West relived the moment in an interview with theleaguepaper.com.

“I remember Barry Butlin, who was magnificent in the old centre forward’s role that season, got the vital goal,” he said. “I played in midfield with Peter Anderson and Jimmy Ryan. Peter was a great player and finished that season as our second highest scorer behind Barry.”

Just before Christmas in 2014, Butlin and West were among several former players who got together for a 40th anniversary celebration dinner. Also there were John Faulkner, Gordon Hindson, Alan Garner, Jimmy Husband, John Ryan, Jimmy Ryan, Don Shanks and Ken Goodeve.

Luton history website hattersheritage.co.uk remembers Butlin as “brilliant in the air and no slouch on the ground” and mentions the shock fans felt when he was sold to Forest, particularly as Town were desperate for goals at the time.

In the 1976-77 season, Butlin once more went out on loan, this time to Reading, and the heave-ho from Forest he had long expected finally came when Peter Withe was brought in.

Butlin was sold to Peterborough United and in two seasons with the Posh he scored 14 goals in 77 matches. His teammates at London Road included former Forest colleagues Jim Barron and Peter Hindley as well as former Albion midfielder Billy McEwan.

United just missed out on promotion from the Third Division, finishing fourth in 1977-78. It was a disastrously different second season, by which time another former Albion player, Lammie Robertson had joined them – when Posh were relegated to Division Four.

Butlin’s final club was Sheffield United, as they faced their first season outside the top two divisions. Signed by his former Luton boss Harry Haslam, Butlin scored 12 times in 53 matches for the Blades, but by the end of 1980-81 season, after Martin Peters had taken over, United were relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in their history.

Butlin retired and spent three decades working as a financial adviser and mortgage manager in Sherwood, Nottingham.

He lived in Derby and between July 2000 and October 2010 was secretary and treasurer of the Derby County Former Players’ Association.

The strange tale of Lorenzo Pinamonte, a gentleman of Verona

IF CASH-STRAPPED Brighton hadn’t been outbid by Brentford for a little-known Italian striker in the opening months of the 21st century, a teenage forward who went on to earn a place in the club’s history might never have appeared in an Albion shirt.

‘If only’, ‘but’ and ‘maybe’ preface many a football fan’s dashed hopes but in the case of Lorenzo Pinamonte, it seems the Gods were smiling on the Seagulls.

The imposing Italian scored only three goals in 26 appearances for the Bees after their £75,000 gazumped Albion’s bid to take him permanently from Bristol City.

Thankfully Brighton’s fortunes were vastly improved by the chap they signed instead: a raw reserve at City’s neighbours Rovers called Bobby Zamora!

Let’s go back to the last month of the 20th century. After a spectacular start to life back in Brighton following the two-year exile playing home games at Gillingham – including an opening day 6-0 crushing of Mansfield Town – mid-table Albion were struggling to find the back of the net with any consistency.

Twice-red-carded striker Darren Freeman missed multiple games through suspension, former soldier David Cameron struggled to cut it at leading the line, and former England Youth international Aidan Newhouse didn’t live up to Micky Adams’ expectations either.

That’s when Adams turned to the first Italian to represent the Albion, 22-year-old 6’3” Pinamonte, who was struggling to get a game under Tony Pulis, then boss of the relegated Robins (they’d dropped down to the third tier the season before).

He made his debut for ‘flu-hit Albion away to Swansea City on a rainy night at the Vetch Field, only meeting his teammates for the first time when being picked up en route to Wales for the game.

“Pinamonte led the line as a lone striker,” recalled wearebrighton.com. “A thankless task was made even harder when the Albion were reduced to 10 men following a red card for Jamie Campbell with only 25 minutes played.”

While makeshift Albion lost 2-0 to the Swans, their run of defeats was halted courtesy of a 1-1 Boxing Day draw at home to Barnet and a last game of the century 3-1 win at Rotherham. The 3 January match at home to Exeter City not only famously saw Freeman score the first football league goal of the 21st century, it also featured a brace from the lanky loan signing as Albion won 4-2.

It seems Adams had seen enough to want to make Pinamonte’s move permanent, but matters became complicated when Pulis decided to quit the Robins and take over at Portsmouth.

Because the departing manager’s successor may have had a different view of the striker, he signed on loan for a second month, rather than permanently, Adams telling the Argus: “We are pleased to keep Lorenzo for another month. The situation at Bristol won’t be resolved for a few weeks, so a permanent deal is up in the air.”

The same article declared that Pinamonte wanted to join Albion permanently but the bid put in by chairman Dick Knight was below the asking price, and Brentford, a division above Albion at the time, had also made an offer.

Pinamonte unsurprisingly felt in limbo and confessed to being distracted when he played in a 1-0 defeat against Leyton Orient.

“In your mind you wonder what is happening, whether you are going to stay or go, so there was a little bit of confusion.

“That probably affected me. I was thinking about it, and perhaps not concentrating,” he said. “I think I have done well so far, but not in that game.”

Cover boy Lorenzo

The turn round in form took the Seagulls to within five points of a play-off place but Pinamonte’s head was turned by the chance to play at a higher level and Brentford eventually got their man.

Offered a lucrative three-and-a-half-year contract at Griffin Park, Pinamonte admitted to the Argus: “I am a little bit upset to be leaving and I would love to come back in the future. I wanted to stay but for my future it is better to leave. Money talks and I will be playing in a higher division.”

A disappointed Adams admitted he would have to look elsewhere for a big, hold-up striker. “We thought Dave Cameron would come in and be that big centre forward and Aidan Newhouse also. Unfortunately Dave prefers the ball into his body and feet so he can jink and turn.

“Big Lorenzo came in and gave us that other option. Gary Hart and Darren Freeman gambled off him. Now that he has gone, to get the best out of them and the other forwards at the club, we may need to bring another big man in.”

Adams later told Greville Waterman, one of the voices of authority on all things Brentford: “We were going through an indifferent spell and struggling for a big centre forward. David Cameron wasn’t up to it and we had been outbid by Brentford for Lorenzo Pinamonte, so I called Ian Holloway at Bristol Rovers who told me: ‘I have got a young lad who’s been on loan at Bath City. He’s only 19 and as raw as anything, but he has scored a few goals for them.’

“I was not totally convinced but we were desperate and the clincher was when Ian told me he was only earning £140 per week, so I said ‘send him down,’ and the rest is history!”

For his part, Pinamonte reflected some years later that his time at Brighton probably just came too early in his life. “Maybe if I had gone when I was 25 or 26 it would have been different for me,” he told Brian Owen of the Argus in 2016. “I enjoyed England but it probably came too early for me. I was there alone and I was very young.”

Pinamonte’s time at Brentford certainly divided opinion. ‘Smilely’ on griffinpark.org described him as “Lorenzo Pinthetailonthedonkey” but ‘Saffrey’ on the same platform said: “I think he’s been unlucky with (Ron) Noades as he was never really given a chance, as Uncle Ron brought in that donkey Steve ‘Murray’ Jones, when he should have given Pinamonte, who had recently joined the club, a decent run out.”

The Bees lured Pinamonte from Albion’s grasp – thankfully

‘Chalfont Bees’ reckoned: “All I’ve seen of Lorenzo is him getting booked or worse. He just doesn’t seem to be good enough at the moment and I can’t see him improving. I say cut our losses and get rid of him so as to give other strikers a chance.”

And ‘Holysmith’ opined: “Although Pinamonte hasn’t done much, he has a good strike rate for the amount of time he has played for Brentford. The problem is he doesn’t move about much.”

In the 2000-01 season, Pinamonte went out on a mid-season loan to Leyton Orient and at the season’s end he was released by Steve Coppell.

As he explained in that 2016 interview with Brian Owen, he then returned to Italy and spent eight years playing in the Italian third division until retiring as a pro at the age of 31.

Born on 9 May 1978, a gentleman of Verona (Caprino Veronese to be precise), the young Pinamonte was with southern Italy side Foggia before trying his luck in England. He joined Bristol City on a free transfer in the 1997-98 season.

In City’s disastrous 1998-99 season, when they were relegated from Division One (now the Championship) in bottom place, Pinamonte celebrated his 21st birthday by scoring the only goal of the game on his debut as Norwich City were beaten at Ashton Gate in the last fixture of the campaign.

With their fate already sealed and with an eye to the following season, Swedish manager Benny Lennartsson, who had won only five of the 30 games he’d taken charge of, chose to blood a few youngsters and handed Pinamonte his debut up front alongside £1.2m signing Ade Akinbiyi.

Five minutes before half time, the City faithful finally had a moment to cheer, as Bristol Evening Post reporter Richard Latham recorded. “Akinbiyi, made captain for the day against the club who launched his career, headed down a Micky Bell corner and Pinamonte stuck out a long right leg to find the top corner of the net from close range.”

Lennartsson was relieved of his duties at the end of the season and two months later he was replaced by former Gillingham boss Pulis, who sent the young Italian striker on a fruitless loan at Carlisle United (he didn’t play a game) before answering Brighton’s call for reinforcements.

Off the field, Albion’s matchday programme informed us how Pinamonte was staying at the Courtlands Hotel in Hove during his temporary stay where the manager was Italian Jo Guiseppe-Messina, and he had also enjoyed the hospitality of Angelo Cavalli, the owner of Topolino Duo restaurant in Hove.

Apart from scrapbook memories of his time with the Albion, Pinamonte continued his friendship with Cavalli; the restaurateur had been to visit him at the hotel at Lake Garda that he ran after his professional playing days were over.

Grant Hall owed second chance to mentor Danny Cullip

TALENTED defender Grant Hall has suffered plenty of slings and arrows in a career that might not have got off the ground but for the influence and encouragement of former Albion captain Danny Cullip.

When he got a second chance at Brighton, he seized it, made it to the first team, was signed by Tottenham Hotspur and is still playing tier two football more than 10 years later.

In one of those strange quirks of football, Neil Warnock, the manager who signed Cullip for Sheffield United, made Hall his first signing when he took charge at Middlesbrough.

Warnock infamously dumped Cullip within three months of signing him for the Blades but he was a lot more complimentary about Hall, who had faced his demons at one of Cullip’s old clubs, QPR.

“Grant is a smashing lad and I’m sure the fans will really take to him,” Warnock told Boro fans after signing him in July 2020.

Born in Brighton on 29 October 1991, Hall was with the Albion as a schoolboy but was released when he was 16. That’s when he went to play for non-league Lewes where Albion’s former captain was seeing out the remaining days of his career.

“He (Cullip) was a massive influence on me,” the young defender told Albion’s matchday programme. “Danny talked to me every time I played. He gave me advice on what to do and he never had a go at me, which might not have helped me as a youngster. He was always positive and encouraging me.

“He was a great pro when he was playing so was a great person to be mentored by.”

Together with input from another former pro, Anthony Barness, and manager Kevin Keehan, Hall said: “I felt their belief and that gave me confidence and I became a better player. They helped me so much; I owe a massive thanks to them.”

The changed Hall brought Albion’s director of football Martin Hinshelwood back to his door with an invitation to return to the club two years after he’d left.

Hall was part of a hugely successful development squad under youth team coach Luke Williams, and eventually made it to the first team, joining Gus Poyet’s squad for training over Christmas 2011.

Although a centre back by preference, his debut was at left-back as a second-half substitute for assistant manager Mauricio Taricco in a memorable New Year’s 3-0 win over 10-man Southampton at the Amex. Saints’ Rickie Lambert was shown a red card and Matt Sparrow scored two belting goals for the Albion.

“I’ve waited a long time but it’s a great feeling to have finally made my debut,” said Hall. “Obviously there were a few nerves as I was getting my shirt on but once you step onto the pitch you just block everything out.

“You are just so focused on your game that you can’t even hear the crowd but I really enjoyed the experience.”

Hall did well enough to be given his full debut the following Saturday in the FA Cup against Wrexham, although Poyet couched his words of praise carefully after the youngster put in a composed display, suggesting certain representations on Hall’s behalf were not welcome.

“I would stay calm if I was anyone connected to Grant,” he said. “He played for half-an-hour against Southampton when we were eleven v ten, and then 90 minutes against Wrexham, with all respect to Wrexham, so we’ll see.”

Albion fans liked what they saw though, with correspondent ‘4everaseagull’ saying on the Argus discussion forum: “Hall’s performance was very assured against Wrexham and he looked very comfortable. For me he was MoM. He didn’t miss a header all game, and his positional play and passing were excellent. It really showed how important it is for all the respective teams at the club to play the same way. Feet on the ground for Hall but what a great prospect.”

Hall played alongside versatile Frenchman Romain Vincelot against the Welsh Conference side but there was plenty of competition at centre back with captain Gordon Greer usually featuring alongside Adam El-Abd, and a rookie Lewis Dunk beginning to emerge. Steve Cook, also 20, had returned from a loan spell at Bournemouth to help out during an injury crisis but he soon departed to Dean Court on a permanent basis, joining Tommy Elphick whose own Albion progress had been blighted by a serious injury.

Whatever had narked Poyet in January resurfaced when Hall rejected a three-year deal offered by Albion before his contract expired at the end of June. Hall chose to join Spurs instead, although Poyet was baffled and, in a convoluted but contorted way, went public with his criticism of the youngster’s move.

“The only disappointing side with Grant Hall is that what he told us was the reason for not signing a contract was not true,” Poyet told the Argus. “He didn’t accept our contract for a reason but that reason is not happening.

“There was a clear reason he gave us as to why he did not want to stay here. I know what he said and it’s not happening, so it’s disappointing, no doubt.”

Albion clearly felt Hall had a future, and with the seven substitutes rule coming in it was felt his chances of being involved in the first team squad were pretty good.

Nevertheless, Poyet added: “Sometimes we try to advise players knowing the game, but my point of view is probably not the same as the player’s point of view. I just wish him well. I hope he can make it and can be playing at the highest level.

“I am not against him. He made a decision, nothing else, but I think it’s important to know the reason.”

While Hall went straight into Tottenham’s academy team and made his debut in a 2-1 friendly victory over Kingstonian, Albion began a drawn out wrangle over compensation, which was due because Hall was still under 24.

It wasn’t until the following January that Albion finally reached an undisclosed settlement with Spurs to prevent it going to a tribunal.

Hall featured in Spurs’ under 21 side from the start of the 2012-13 season but in three years on their books, he didn’t make a first team appearance. He had three loan spells away from White Hart Lane – at League One Swindon Town under the aforementioned Luke Williams – and at Birmingham City and Blackpool, both in the Championship.

In 2015 he made a permanent move to Queens Park Rangers, signed by former Albion full-back Chris Ramsey who had coached him at Tottenham.

“He’s an old-fashioned defender who can head the ball, tackle and he doesn’t mind putting his foot in when he needs to,” said Ramsey. “But he can play as well from the back, and that’s what we’ll be looking to do when the opportunities present themselves this season.

“He’s still a young boy and centre-half is a very responsible position, but he’s got experience in the Championship and that’s vitally important for us.”

Hall won the supporters’ Player of the Year award in his first season but suffered a serious knee injury towards the end of the 2016-17 season.

He started drinking heavily because he couldn’t cope with the pain of tendonitis in his knee, and two years later spoke out about the mental health issues he went through.

Hall encouraged others to talk about such problems in the way he did after he broke down in a meeting with QPR director of football Les Ferdinand and then manager Steve McLaren.

Ferdinand put him in touch with the Professional Footballers’ Association and he was able to understand that it was OK to speak about his issues.

“I had a really good conversation with them and they helped me understand that it’s okay to speak about your mental health. No-one is going to judge you for it and opening up about your mental well-being is a strength and not a weakness,” he told qpr.co.uk. “It was exactly what I needed. It felt like a huge release, a weight off of my shoulders and it allowed me to re-focus and start to look after myself again.”

Explaining how things unravelled, Hall said: “I went from a place where life was perfect, I had a great relationship with the QPR supporters and everything was going right on and off the pitch. Then all of a sudden everything seemed to come crashing down. It was a huge reality check for me and I now realise that you can never anticipate what is around the corner in life.”

Hall managed to turn that corner and worked hard to restore his fitness to the extent that he featured in 30 matches during the 2019-20 season. “Deep down it’s just a relief for me to be playing football again,” he said.

But after 128 appearances across five years at Loftus Road, where he had become club captain, he was unable to agree a new contract with QPR in the summer of 2020 and upped sticks at the age of 28 to become Warnock’s first signing at Middlesbrough.

“I’ve known Grant for a few years now,” said Warnock. “Everyone knows I’m looking at the spine of the team, and he’s the right fit for what we need.”

Unfortunately, not for the first time in his career, injury sidelined him for several of those early months on Teesside but on his return he proved a bright spot in a disappointing second half of the season.

“It’s been a massive plus because I didn’t personally think he’d be able to come back like he has, if I’m totally honest,” Warnock told Craig Johns, of gazettelive.co.uk. “I was worried he’d put a bit of weight on and I couldn’t see enough mobility.

“And yet he’s proven me entirely wrong. He’s come back fitness-wise better than I’ve ever seen him and he’s using his experience at the back for us to the point where he’s been a breath of fresh air for us.”

Warnock also told the reporter: “The thing I’ve been most impressed with, more than his heading or his contribution in that respect, has been his reading of the game against quick players. You would probably question how he would get on against a quick player, but he’s just revelled in it really.

“His quickness of thought has put him a long way ahead of some of these quick strikers that he’s been playing against. That’s what I’ve been pleased with more than anything.

“I always know he’ll chip in with an odd goal here and there, but his reading of the game has been outstanding.”

After Warnock’s departure, Hall was on the outside looking in under Chris Wilder although the new manager sought to give him public encouragement by saying he could still have a role to play. “He’s had a couple of little issues but he is back involved now and back part of the group,” he told gazettelive.co.uk. “Grant has an important role to play between now and the end of the season,” he said. “I think they all know they have to be ready when called upon.”

In July 2022, it was announced Hall was joining newly-promoted Championship side Rotherham United on a season-long loan.

Brighton trial turned sour for Gerrard’s pal Tom Culshaw

A LOYAL MEMBER of Steven Gerrard’s backroom staff once tried to revive his playing career with Brighton after he’d been let go by Liverpool.

Tom Culshaw goes way back to schoolboy days with Gerrard and was a former youth team player alongside him at Liverpool.

He is now technical coach at Aston Villa, a role he held previously at Rangers after the pair also worked together with the Reds under 18s.

Back in September 1999, the central defender linked up with the fourth-tier Seagulls a few months into Micky Adams’ first reign as manager. Culshaw played for Ian Culverhouse’s reserve side on a trial basis on a drizzly night at Woodside Road, Worthing, and didn’t make the most of the opportunity.

Albion went down 3-2 to visitors Cambridge and a subsequent matchday programme didn’t hold back in apportioning blame.

With the score level at 1-1 it reported: “Albion fell further behind two minutes before the break when Culshaw made a mess of an attempted header back to (Mark) Ormerod, and (Nathan) Lamey picked up the loose ball and took his opportunity well, lobbing the Albion ‘keeper.”

Although Albion restored parity through Scott Ramsay, Daniel Chillingworth added a third for the visitors. Culshaw was subbed off in favour of Chris Beech, and wasn’t seen in an Albion shirt again.

The Brighton trial came as Culshaw desperately tried to get a foothold in the game after the disappointment of being let go after four years as a professional with Liverpool.

A few months earlier, he played for Norwich’s under 21 side against Bristol City in a friendly; he later linked up with Conference side Nuneaton Borough and went on to Northern League teams Leigh RMI and Witton Albion.

“When I left, I found it tough going on trials for lower league clubs,” Culshaw told liverpoolfc.com. “I got offered a couple of contracts at League Two clubs and I decided to knock them back thinking I could do a bit better.

“But when I started to go for trials it was taking longer and longer, and then eventually I just fell out of love with the game.”

He walked away from football for a while, joining up with a friend who had a tarmacking firm. He admitted: “It was hard, it was a tough few years for me. Especially when I saw my mates, the likes of Steven, Carra (Jamie Carragher), Michael Owen – lads who I’d come through the youth team with – progressing.

“I probably had my first bump in the road at 21 and I just really didn’t know how to handle it.”

Until that point, it had all been going so well. Born in Liverpool on 10 October 1978, Culshaw played street football with Gerrard in Ironside Road, on Huyton’s Bluebell Estate, where Culshaw’s grandparents lived. A friendship that included a mutual love of football began when they were pupils at Cardinal Heenan High School.

Culshaw became technical coach under Steve Gerrard at Rangers

“Steven is a year younger than Tom but they both played for me in the under 14 Liverpool Schoolboys FA team in 1992-93,” their former coach Dave Singleton told the Daily Record.

“Stevie was very small and didn’t start growing until he was 16 so I used to put him on the wing because schoolboys football was based on size and a lot of teams just picked the biggest lads who could plough their way through anything.

“So I put Stevie on the wing where he wouldn’t get hurt and could use his skill. Tom was a centre half and the captain of the team.

“He was a commanding centre half but exceptionally skilful too. He could play the ball out from the back.

“We had one game where he picked the ball up on the edge of our penalty area, dribbled the full length of the pitch and scored from the opposite penalty area.”

Singleton added: “He had a physical presence and was good in the air so he was great for set-pieces and comfortable with either foot but stronger on his right.

“They were exceptionally nice lads, a credit to their school, parents and city. It’s so great to see people like that go on and do well.”

An England Schoolboys international, Culshaw spent two years at the FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall at the same time as Owen and Carragher. Culshaw joined Everton at the time Gerrard signed for Liverpool but he was let go and moved to Tranmere Rovers, where his talents flourished.

He was named as captain of the Liverpool City Schoolboys team and Liverpool snapped him up. He joined Gerrard at the club’s Vernon Sangster Centre of Excellence, near Anfield, and he progressed through the under 18s under the guidance of Steve Heighway, Dave Shannon and Hughie McAuley, signing professional aged 17.

On stepping up to the reserves, who were managed by Sammy Lee, he was handed the captain’s armband. “I was around Ronnie Moran, Roy Evans, and all the old-school Boot Room staff,” he said. “I’d progressed and everything went well for me. The national school, playing for England, joining Liverpool, signing professional at 17, progressing to the reserves, captaining the reserves.

“I was a pro for four years. It was a great time at Melwood because everyone was on the same site. I was training with Jamie Redknapp, Robbie Fowler, and Steve McManaman and learned an awful lot from them.”

However, after those four years, and having seen his contemporaries make the step up to the first team that eluded him, Culshaw was forced to look elsewhere after manager Gerard Houillier overlooked him.

Disillusioned by his prospects in the UK, Culshaw moved abroad and started coaching youngsters in Spain. Having decided to pursue that career path, he returned to the UK in 2011 in a part-time role at Liverpool’s academy while studying for his badges.

In 2017, it was his boyhood pal Gerrard who turned his job into a full-time position by promoting him to become his under 18s assistant.

Gerrard said at the time: “When I started out full-time as an apprentice, Tommy was a year above me so I know everything about him and he knows everything about me. I thought he was the perfect partner to go into it.”

Receiving a coaching certificate from former England manager Steve McLaren

Culshaw has remained a key part of the close-knit group around Gerrard ever since, following him to Glasgow Rangers and then to Aston Villa. His particular focus is on set pieces as former Albion centre back Connor Goldson once explained in an interview for Rangers TV.

“Tom Culshaw the coach works on us before every game, different set pieces, defending and attacking, and how we’re going to set up,” he said. “We always know what we’re doing. We always know the routines or what’s happening.”

Captain James Tavernier added: “We work extremely hard on set-pieces in training. TC has us working hard with them all week and it shows in the games as they can effectively give you three points.”

In that interview with the Record, Singleton added: “Whenever I watch games on TV now and see them in the dugout together I feel immense pride.

“Steven’s career achievements speak for themselves and it’s great when the person who isn’t the figurehead gets some credit and there is nobody more deserving than Tom.

“When they were younger you’d have thought both of them would have gone on to make it but there’s a lot of luck in football, being in the right place at the right time.”

A lifetime in football for Mike Trusson the enforcer

MIKE TRUSSON has spent a lifetime in football since Plymouth Argyle spotted his raw teenage talent, took him on as an apprentice and gave him his professional debut at 17.

After playing more than 400 matches over 15 years, he became prominent in football marketing, coaching and scouting, often in association with his good friend Tony Pulis, who he played alongside at Gillingham after leaving the Albion.

As recently as late 2020 he was assistant manager to Pulis for an ill-fated brief spell at Sheffield Wednesday.

Much fonder memories of his time in the steel city were forged when he was twice Player of the Year at Sheffield United.

In an exclusive interview with the In Parallel Lines blog, Trusson told Nick Turrell about his time with the Seagulls, his first coaching job at AFC Bournemouth and the formative years of his career.

A goalscoring home debut for Mike Trusson

A MOVE TO SUSSEX in the summer of 1987 ticked all the right boxes for Mike Trusson.

An experienced midfielder with more than 300 games under his belt already, he welcomed the opportunity to be part of the rebuilding job Barry Lloyd was undertaking at the Goldstone following the club’s relegation back to the third tier. He was one of seven new signings.

The move also brought him a whole lot closer to his family in Somerset than south Yorkshire, where he’d lived and played for seven years.

And it gave him the chance to earn more money.

The only problem was he had a dodgy left knee – it was an injury that prevented him making his first team debut for the Seagulls for four months, and it troubled him throughout his first season.

Frequent leaping to head the ball had resulted in a torn patella knee tendon that had needed surgery during the latter days of the player’s time at Rotherham United, where for two years his manager had been the legendary former Leeds and England defender Norman Hunter.

Prior to the injury, Blackburn Rovers had bid £200,000 to sign him, but nothing came of it and a contractual dispute with the Millers (who were not keen to give him what he said he was entitled to because of the injury) led to him being given a free transfer (Hunter subsequently signed former Albion midfielder Tony Grealish).

Trusson fancied a move south to be nearer his folks and had written to several clubs, Albion included, who he thought might be interested in his services (these were the days before agents).

Although Millwall and Gillingham had shown an interest, it was a call from Martin Hinshelwood, Lloyd’s no.2, that saw Trusson head to Sussex for an interview where he met the management pair, chairman Dudley Sizen and director Greg Stanley.

Trusson looks back on the encounter with amusement because not only did they agree to take him on but they offered him more money than he was asking for because they said he’d need it in view of the North-South disparity in property prices.

“Brighton was a big club. Only four years earlier they’d been in the Cup Final and some of those players from that time were still at the club,” he said. “From my point of view, it was a big career move. It ticked all the boxes.”

Initially Trusson shared a club house in East Preston with fellow new signings Kevin Bremner, Garry Nelson and Doug Rougvie before moving his wife and daughter down and settling in Angmering, close to the training ground (Albion trained at Worthing Rugby Club’s ground at the time).

Before he could think about playing, though, he had to get fit. Scar tissue after the operation on his knee had left him in a lot of pain, and although he passed his medical, the pain persisted.

New physio Mark Leather told him straight that he wouldn’t be able to train, let alone play, with the leg in the condition it was. It had shrunk in size due to muscle wastage so his first two months at the Albion were spent building it back up and regaining match fitness in the reserves.

In the meantime, former full-back Chris Hutchings was keeping the no.8 shirt warm until he finally got a move to Huddersfield that autumn.

Trusson recalled: “I was aware there was a rebuilding process going on. It was a very different group to ones I’d experienced at other clubs. A lot of the lads travelled down from London so there was not much socialising.”

There was certainly lots of competition for places during his time at the club. Sometimes Dale Jasper would get the nod over him and he could see Lloyd preferred the ball-playing types like Alan Curbishley and Dean Wilkins, and later Robert Codner and Adrian Owers.

“I thought if I was going to play, I had to change,” Trusson reflected. “I became more of a midfield enforcer and left it to the better players to play.”

As such, he was surprised yet delighted to score on his home debut, albeit, more than 30 years on, he doesn’t remember much about it.

For the record, it was on 12 December 1987, in front of a rather paltry 6,995 Goldstone Ground crowd, that Trusson scored the only goal of the game against Chester City as Albion extended an unbeaten run to 15 matches. (Chester’s side included former Albion Cup Final midfielder Gary Howlett, who was on loan from Bournemouth).

In that injury-affected first season, he played 18 games plus seven as sub. He had been on the subs bench for three games as the season drew to an exciting climax, but he was not involved in the deciding game when Bristol Rovers were beaten 2-1 at the Goldstone.

Teaming up with Garry Nelson against Arsenal in the FA Cup

When the 1988-89 season got under way, Trusson was on the bench for the first two league games and he got a start in a 1-0 defeat away to Southend in the League Cup. After the side suffered eight defeats on the trot, Trusson was back in the starting line-up for the home game v Leeds on 1 October and Albion chalked up their first win of the season (1-0).

Unsurprisingly, Trusson kept his place for the next clutch of games, although Curbishley returned and kept the shirt for an extended run.

It wasn’t until the new year that he won back a starting place but then he had his best run of games, keeping the shirt through to the middle of April.

The previous month he was sent off (above) in the extraordinary match at Selhurst Park which saw referee Kelvin Morton award five penalties in the space of 27 minutes, as well as wielding five yellow cards and Trusson’s red. Four of the penalties went to Palace – they missed three – but they went on to win 2-1 against the ten men. Manager Lloyd said: “I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in such a crazy game – we could have lost 6-1 but were unfortunate not to gain a point.”

Looking back, Trusson reckoned: “I was always conscious I wasn’t Barry’s type of player.” With a gentle but respectful sense of understatement, he said: “He was not the most communicative person I have met in my life!”

In essence, perhaps not surprisingly, Trusson would seek an explanation as to why he wasn’t playing when he thought he deserved to, but it wasn’t always forthcoming. He recalled that defender Gary Chivers, who he was reunited with at Bournemouth and who he stays in touch with, used to call Lloyd ‘Harold’ after the silent movie star!

Nevertheless, he said: “Tactically Barry was a good manager. When he did talk, he talked a lot of sense.”

It was during his time at Brighton that Trusson started running end-of-season soccer schools for youngsters. He was honest enough to admit they gave him an opportunity to earn a bit of extra money to put towards a holiday rather than laying the foundations for his future career as a coach.

That was still a little way off when, at 29, he left the Albion in September 1989 having played 37 games. By then, Curbishley, Codner and Wilkins were firmly ensconced as the preferred midfield trio, and he wanted to get some regular football. Cardiff wanted him but his family were settled in West Sussex so he opted for Gillingham, which was driveable, although he stayed in a clubhouse the night before matches.

It was at Priestfield where he began to establish a close friendship with Tony Pulis, who was winding down his playing career and was similarly commuting to north Kent (from Bournemouth).

“We had always kicked each other to bits when we played against each other but often ended up having a drink and a chat afterwards, and got on,” said Trusson. “We were also keen golfers, and both talkers; we had our views (even if we didn’t always agree) and the friendship developed.”

This is a good point to go back to the beginning because it was his early appreciation of the art of coaching that would ultimately become the foundation for what followed later.

Born in Northolt on 26 May 1959, Trusson had trials with Chelsea as a schoolboy but a bout of ‘flu put the kibosh on any progress. It also wasn’t helped by the family relocating to Somerset, not a renowned hotbed for nurturing football talent.

The young Trusson went to Wadham Comprehensive School in Crewkerne and his hopes for another crack at professional football were given a huge boost when a Plymouth Argyle vice-president, who was involved with the local youth football side he played for, organised for him to have a trial at Home Park.

Argyle liked what they saw and offered him an apprenticeship, and the excellent greensonscreen.co.uk website details his career in the West Country.

It was Trusson’s good fortune that former England goalkeeper Tony Waiters – a coach ahead of his time – was Argyle boss and he gave him a first team debut aged just 17 in October 1976.

Waiters was a great believer in giving youngsters their chance to shine at an early age; he’d already worked for the FA as a regional coach, for Liverpool’s youth development programme, and been manager of the England Youth team, before being appointed Argyle manager. He later went on to manage the Canadian national team at the 1986 World Cup.

Waiters and his assistant Keith Blunt, who later took charge of the Spurs youth team in the 1980s (and was technical director at the English National Football School at Lilleshall between 1991 and 1998) together with Bobby Howe, the former West Ham and Bournemouth defender, completely opened Trusson’s eyes to what could be achieved through good coaching.

“They were in the vanguard of English coaching in the mid to late ‘70s,” he said. “I joined Plymouth as a kid having never been coached. Growing up in Somerset, we just used to play games.

“From when I was 15 to 17, they taught me so much, talking me through so many aspects of the game, and coaching me to understand why I was doing certain things on the pitch, giving advice about things like timing and angled runs.”

In an Albion matchday programme interview, Trusson told reporter Dave Beckett: “They kept us in a youth hostel and looked after us really well, even providing us with carefully planned individual weight and fitness programmes.

“Certainly you couldn’t fault them on their ideas. Out of the 20 apprentices I knew brought on by the scheme, 17 made the grade as pros. That’s an astonishingly high return by anybody’s standards.”

Although Argyle were relegated in his first season, Trusson kept his place under Waiters’ successors in the hotseat: Mike Kelly, Lennie Lawrence and Malcolm Allison. Bobby Saxton was in charge by the time he left Plymouth in the summer of 1980 to join then Third Division Sheffield United.

He was signed by Harry Haslam but, halfway through a season which it was hoped would see Blades among the promotion contenders, things went horribly wrong when Haslam moved ‘upstairs’ and former World Cup winner Martin Peters took over the running of the team. United were relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in their history.

Peters and Haslam quit the club and former Sunderland FA Cup Final matchwinner Ian Porterfield, who had just won the Division Three title with Rotherham, took charge.

Player of the Year at Sheffield United

Blades bounced straight back as champions, losing only four games all season, and Trusson was their Player of the Year. He earned the accolade the following season as well, when they finished 11th in Division Three.

The side’s prolific goalscorer at that time, Keith Edwards, a former teammate who now works as a co-commentator covering Blades matches for Radio Sheffield recently told the city’s daily paper The Star: “He was such a likeable character in the dressing room.

“I had a great understanding with him. He was a great team man, good for the dressing room and could play in a lot of positions. Every now and then he got himself up front with me and he worked his heart out.

“He looked after you as a player, he could be a tough lad. We played Altrincham one week and he got sent off for whacking someone that had done me a previous week. He was handy.

“And he was such a good character to have in the team.”

After three years at Bramall Lane, and 126 appearances, (not to mention scoring 31 goals), he was then swapped for Paul Stanicliffe and, instead of involvement in a promotion bid, found himself in a relegation fight at Rotherham United.

Trusson enjoyed his time with the Millers under George Kerr and over four years he played 124 games and chipped in with 19 goals. It was a regime change, and the aforementioned injury, that saw life at Millmoor turn sour.

A brief spell playing for Sing Tao in Hong Kong followed the end of his time with Gillingham and on his return to the UK his pal Pulis, who had taken over as Bournemouth manager from Harry Redknapp, invited him to become youth team coach at Dean Court.

Linking up with former Gillingham teammate Tony Pulis at Bournemouth

“I loved it and, when David Kemp moved on, I got the opportunity to coach the first team,” he said.

“We were very young and we were struggling to avoid relegation,” he recalled. “We kept them up and it was great experience. We both learned so much and we spent a lot of time together.”

When Pulis was sacked, Trusson was staggered to be offered the job as his replacement but turned it down out of loyalty to his friend.

The pair have since worked together at various clubs. For example, he was a senior scout at Stoke City and head of recruitment at West Brom.

“I’ve worked for him as a scout at pretty much every club he’s been at,” said Trusson, who cites trust, respect and judgement as the attributes Pulis saw in him.

Trusson was also once marketing manager for football-themed restaurant Football, Football in London – he managed to woo Sean Bean, the actor who is a well-known Blades fanatic, to the opening – and he had a marketing job for the PFA.

He runs his own online soccer coaching scheme and was working as a European scout for Celtic when, in an unexpected return to football’s frontline in November 2020, he was appointed assistant manager of Sheffield Wednesday.

Assistant manager at Wednesday

Pulis replaced Garry Monk at Hillsborough and turned to Trusson as his no.2. In that interview with The Star, Edwards said: “He’s a great lad. I was slightly surprised to see him get the job at Wednesday, but it was completely understandable.

“He’s a clever bloke, knows his football and has stayed in the game all this time, which is to his credit. His experience of scouting, coaching and having played in several different positions makes him a massive asset to any football club, I’d say.”

Edwards recalled how his former teammate had an eye for coaching from a young age. “He was always keen to get into that, he always wanted to lend a hand to the coaches,” he said.

“Some players would get off as quickly as they could to their families or whatever they were doing with their time. He wasn’t like that, he bought into the club thing. Some players were always around the place and he was like that, very understanding and willing to help out.

“I had massive fall-outs with the odd person, you know how it is, but I never saw Truss like that. He was always so calm and understanding of other people’s opinion. That’s how and why he’s stayed in the game throughout all this time. That either comes naturally to you or it doesn’t.

“I remember he always had a way of talking to people, whether that’s players or fans or board members or coaches. That’s stuck with him today.”

Big money signing Peake hit a trough at the Albion

EXPENSIVE FLOP Jason Peake was a victim of the problems clouding Brighton’s very existence in the mid-1990s.

The blond-haired midfielder heralded elsewhere for his “excellent left foot” and “one of the best passers of the ball in the lower leagues” failed to live up to expectations at the Goldstone and was dubbed Jimmy Case’s “biggest blunder”.

Leicester-born Peake had played alongside Case for Halifax Town, where he’d moved after making only a handful of appearances with his hometown club.

Former Albion loanee centre half John McGrath, assisted by Frank Worthington, failed to halt the Shaymen dropping out of the league in 1993, and Peake spent a season in the Conference before reviving his league career with Rochdale. Nine goals in 103 appearances attracted suitors and it was Albion who bought him for a fee set by tribunal of £80,000 – a huge sum for a cash-strapped club.

A further £15,000 was to be paid after 20 games and another £25,000 if he got to 40 appearances. He made 35 appearances before being frozen out by Case’s successor, Steve Gritt. It was to be a familiar pattern: changes of manager often led to him moving on.

Apart from the bigger picture shenanigans going on at the Albion under the hated Archer-Bellotti regime, Peake’s personal issues centred around relocation expenses he said he was entitled to – but Bellotti refused to pay up.

According to fansnetwork.co.uk: “Peake was being forced to commute from Leicester following several broken promises by the Brighton board. Peake’s dream move turned into nothing short of a nightmare for him.”

The midfielder had trials at Northampton and Cambridge before he finally managed to get away, in October 1997, signing for First Division Bury. He rather diplomatically said: “The situation at Brighton has been well documented over the past year and just let’s say when I got there the situation was not as I’d been led to believe it would be.

“I have not been happy there for some time and the new consortium have been great in letting me get away.”

The official version in the matchday programme said: “Jason had problems in settling in the South after his move from Rochdale and the move has suited him and his family. Should Bury sell him for a fee at any time, Albion are assured of a share in any such deal.”

As ever, the season had begun with great expectations and in his matchday programme notes welcoming new signings Peake and Ian Baird, Case said: “They are both quality players and I am sure that they will be great acquisitions for the club this coming season.

“I firmly believe we now have a skilful blend of experienced and young players that can mount a serious challenge for promotion at the first attempt and I believe we will surprise many teams this season.”

Peake went straight into the side in the no.8 shirt but after he’d played 19 games on the trot Albion were anchored at the foot of the table.

After Case was sacked, Peake found himself on the bench more than in the starting line-up; local lad Kerry Mayo taking over from him.

Supporters were certainly not impressed by Peake, perhaps summed up by ‘Lenny Rider’ on North Stand Chat who said: “Huge outlay for where the club was at the time. His kinder critics would say he was disappointing, the more cynical amongst us would argue he was actually nicking a living at the Goldstone.”

New Albion chairman Dick Knight cut Albion’s losses by giving Peake a free transfer to Bury in exchange for the relocation cash dispute being dropped.

Bury boss Stan Ternent was lauded for pulling off something of a coup, and Peake told the Lancashire Telegraph: “It is a fantastic chance for me to prove myself. It has taken me a long time to get into the First Division and I don’t want to blow the opportunity.”

Sadly, those words came back to haunt him because he ended up playing just six times for the Shakers, three as a left-back and three as a sub.

To quote fansnetwork.co.uk again: “Peake’s silky skills didn’t really fit in with the kick and rush tactics of Ternent’s Bury team, and Peake found himself stranded back in the reserves.”

The following summer, a return to Rochdale, where he had first made a name for himself, looked like an ideal solution but things didn’t go well under the management team of Graham Barrow and Joe Hinnigan, who left the club at the end of the 1998-99 season.

In something of a twist of Peake’s usual fortunes when there had been a managerial change, his career began to blossom again under new boss Steve Parkin.

“The free flowing style of football on offer was much more suited to Peake’s natural style,” according to fansnetwork.co.uk. “Peake was awesome in the opening months of the 1999-2000 season and was at the heart of a side which led the table early on.”

He got amongst the goals including “a superb overhead kick from the edge of the area against old team Halifax Town, which saw him win the club’s goal of the season competition and awarded ‘Better than Pele’ status on Sky’s Soccer AM”.

Nevertheless, the season ended on a sour note, as the clarkechroniclersfootballers blog explained: “We lost two re-arranged home games against Peterborough and Northampton in April which would have secured us a play-off place. Jason featured in both games and Steve Parkin singled him out as the scapegoat accusing him of ‘going missing’. It’s always easier for a manager to castigate a player he didn’t sign but we knew there was some truth in it.”

With his contract up at the end of the season, Peake chose to move on, this time to Plymouth Argyle, at the time managed by Argyle legend Kevin Hodges.

Argyle move didn’t work out

It began well enough for him personally and, of Argyle’s 2-0 home win over Carlisle on 16 September, BBC Sport said: “Plymouth doubled their lead in the 17th minute when man of the match Jason Peake scored a superb opportunist goal.

“Peake’s initial attempt came back off visiting central defender Julian Darby and the Plymouth midfielder reacted with a brilliant dipping volley which gave keeper Luke Weaver no chance.

“Weaver denied Peake a second goal in the 80th minute, making a tremendous backward save to keep out the home player’s far post header.”

It followed him scoring four days earlier in a 4-1 defeat at Shrewsbury and was only the second win out of eight. When the next three games were lost, Hodges was replaced by Paul Sturrock, who didn’t take long to decide Peake’s future.

Before Christmas, the midfielder was dispatched to Nuneaton Borough on loan and the move was made permanent in February 2001. Although his league career was over, Peake played 54 games for Borough but was sidelined for periods with a troublesome Achilles tendon injury and he eventually retired in 2003 and became a full-time chiropodist in Leicester.

Born in Leicester on 29 September 1971, Peake played for England schoolboys and was taken on as a trainee by the Foxes.

Manager David Pleat gave him his first team debut in a 2-1 defeat at Charlton Athletic in a Full Members Cup game on 14 November 1989.

It was another year before he made his league debut in the old Division Two, as a sub in a 2-2 draw away to Oxford United.

The same month he also went on as a sub in a 1-0 home defeat to Wolves in the Full Members Cup, played in front of a paltry 4,705 crowd. Four days later he started but was subbed off against Newcastle in a game that remarkably finished 5-4 to the Foxes.

His involvement straddled the end of the Pleat regime and the caretaker manager spell of former Everton boss Gordon Lee, who, in the season Albion reached the play-off final v Notts County, managed to keep Leicester up by only two points while West Brom were relegated along with bottom club Hull City. (Lee died aged 87 in March 2022).

Across three months, Peake had three more starts (and was subbed off in two of them) plus three more games off the bench. Three days after City lost 3-0 at Brighton (goals from Mike Small, Dean Wilkins and Bryan Wade), Peake made a rare start and scored his only goal for the club in a 2-1 home win over Barnsley on 23 February 1991.

Earlier that month (on 6 February 1991), he earned an England under-19 cap when he was sent on as a sub for Aidan Newhouse as England lost 5-1 to Denmark at the Manor Ground, Oxford.

Peake’s last game for Leicester was against Newcastle United on 2 March 1991. He didn’t get a look-in under Pleat’s successor Brian Little and, in February 1992, he joined Hartlepool on loan, playing six matches and scoring once.

Teenage prodigy Newhouse quit game to teach maths

AIDAN NEWHOUSE scored twice on his Albion debut but only started two games for the Seagulls!

The former Fulham striker netted two of Brighton’s six goals in the 1999-2000 season opening match at the Withdean Stadium.

He replaced hat-trick man Darren Freeman with the Albion 4-0 up on 7 August 1999 and promptly added two more goals to complete a 6-0 rout of Mansfield Town (pictures below).

Newhouse, wearing the no.25 later worn iconically by Bobby Zamora, was given a start in a 2-0 league cup defeat away to Torquay United. Although he regularly went on as a substitute, often for Freeman, he only began one other game: a 1-0 home league win over Cheltenham Town.

Newhouse had limited opportunities in Albion colours

Newhouse had previously played under manager Micky Adams at Fulham in 1997, and, unluckily for him, Freeman and Gary Hart were the first choice forward choices in those opening months.

Competition for places intensified in the autumn with the arrival of Warren Aspinall and Lorenzo Pinamonte. Newhouse was swiftly on his way to Conference club Sutton United.

When they were relegated at the end of the season, he switched to Northwich Victoria in 2001, but only played one match before quitting and becoming a schoolteacher.

Born in the Wirral town of Wallasey on 23 May 1972, Newhouse showed so much early promise that he made his debut for Chester City before his 16th birthday.

He was just 15 years and 350 days old when he was sent on as a substitute by manager Harry McNally on the final day of the 1987–88 season as Chester won away at Bury 1–0 in the Third Division.

The talented teenager was in David Burnside’s 1988-89 England side for the UEFA Under-18 Championship preliminary matches against Greece (home and away), France and Czechoslovakia, scoring in the 3-0 win away to Greece on 8 March 1989. He played up front with Andrew Cole, later of Manchester United and Newcastle United fame.

The following season he went on as a sub for Cole in a 0-0 draw with Denmark at Wembley; a game which was played at Wembley before the England-Brazil full international. Three weeks later he scored England’s third when he started in a 3-0 win over Poland, another game played before a full international (England v Denmark).

In July the same year, he started all three of England’s matches (a draw and two defeats) when they finished fourth in the UEFA Under-18 Championship in Hungary.

Chester cashed in on their young prodigy, selling him to then First Division Wimbledon for £100,000 in February 1990.

First team opportunities for Wimbledon were few and far between for Newhouse and he is in the same exalted company as former Albion loanee Gary Bull in being one of only four players to have scored on their single Premier League appearance.

Wimbledon scorer

Ironically, it came in a match in 1992-93 against Aston Villa best remembered for Dalian Atkinson’s individual goal that won the BBC’s Goal of the Season award. “It was deflected past the goalkeeper,” Newhouse told premierleague.com. “It was a bit of a low-life goal compared to Dalian Atkinson’s.”

It was Bobby Gould who gave him his Wimbledon debut but a stomach injury halted his progress under Gould’s successor Ray Harford, as well as the form of John Fashanu and Terry Gibson.

In a 1990-91 season matchday programme article, Newhouse said: “I was really looking forward to this season. Bobby Gould had given me a taste of first team action and I felt I was ready to really stake a claim for a place.

“Then I picked up the injury and it took me months even to get back into full training let alone playing well.”

Although he was a Wimbledon player for seven years, he went out on loan on four occasions: to Tranmere Rovers, Port Vale, Portsmouth and Torquay United. He eventually left permanently for Fulham in 1997.

He scored four goals in only 12 league and cup matches for Fulham: three in a two-legged League Cup match against Wycombe Wanderers and one in the league in a 2-0 win away to Bristol City on 2 September 1997 (Richard Carpenter scored the other). But, only a few weeks’ later, Adams was controversially replaced by Ray Wilkins and Kevin Keegan under the new Mohammed Al-Fayed regime.

Scoring for Fulham

Before long, Newhouse was on his way too. A £30,000 fee took him to Swansea City although, by the time he had arrived, Adams’ short tenure as boss was already over, his role filled by his former no.2 Alan Cork.

It’s probably an understatement to say things didn’t work out for Newhouse in South Wales. Indeed, in a FourFourTwo magazine poll inviting supporters to name their club’s worst player, Newhouse earned the tag from Swansea fans.

He failed to score in 17 appearances across two seasons and Steven Carroll, of the SOS Fanzine, cited a particular game in February 1999, when Carlisle visited the Vetch Field, to back up the claim.

“Due to injuries and suspensions, Newhouse was awarded a rare start. Early on, he was put through on goal and fouled by the ‘keeper inside the box – but while the referee looked set to award a penalty, with said goalkeeper on the floor and both Newhouse/the ball free, our hapless striker shot from close range and missed an open goal. No penalty.

“In the second half, Stuart Roberts received the ball on the edge on the box and was about to shoot, only for Newhouse to kick him in the back of the leg. He never played again after that.”

After retiring from the game in 2001, Newhouse became a maths teacher and he told premierleague.com: “Not all of us are Stevie G and the likes of Neymar,” he said. “I played 13 years, made about £250 a week on average.

“It shows you that, you know, we can do all sorts of things and eventually, to do a job that you enjoy, you will need some education. You will need that to give you an option and a choice.

“Teaching…it’s one of those things. It’s like football, there’s a camaraderie between you and the class.

“Once the guys realise they’re part of a team, there are some similarities. You can have a laugh with the lads and they realise you are there to try and help them succeed.”

Bradley Johnson always liked a pop from long range

Bradley Johnson scores on his debut v Leicester (photo Simon Dack)

THE COCA-COLA Kid’s cousin was an instant hit when he joined seventh-from-bottom Brighton on loan from second-placed League One rivals Leeds United in October 2008.

Bradley Johnson, who’d heard about the Seagulls from his relative Colin Kazim-Richards, scored twice on his debut as the Seagulls turned round a 2-0 half-time deficit to beat Leicester City 3-2.

“I hadn’t played for two months and Micky (Adams) asked if I was fit and I admitted I wasn’t match fit, but he said he would throw me in anyway,” Johnson recounted.

“The two goals I scored gave me great confidence as a player, but the win helped everyone,” he said. “On the night, the fans were immense and the result gave us all a good boost.”

In an Argus interview in March 2021, Johnson recalled: “I was a young boy from Leeds coming into a struggling team against a team who were flying so it was a bit daunting for me.

“I didn’t know what to expect but, as debuts go, I don’t think it could have gone any better.

“Anyone who knows me knows I like a shot and I’ve always had that since a young age. Some don’t go where planned but thankfully on that night they did.”

Albion had failed to score in their three previous games, against Hereford, Peterborough and Hartlepool, and soon found themselves 2-0 down to City courtesy of two Matty Fryatt goals.

Adams hauled off a somewhat better known loanee – the ineffective Robbie Savage – at half-time, along with wideman Kevin McLeod, and the changes galvanised the Albion in the second half.

Right-back Andrew Whing reckoned the withdrawal of Savage might have helped Johnson to shine. “Maybe he’d felt a bit in Robbie’s shadow up until that point,” he told Spencer Vignes. “But he really stepped up in the second half and scored twice, one of them an unbelievable strike. We needed a spark and that was it.

“Bradley deserved a lot of credit that night. He’d come to us from Leeds and he just took responsibility, scored twice and got us back into it. He really made an impression.”

After Johnson’s pair of long range strikes past David Martin in the Leicester goal, City defender Jack Hobbs sealed a memorable comeback for the Seagulls when he diverted Joe Anyinsah’s cross past his own ‘keeper.

It was a tad ironic that Johnson should have scored against Leicester too because at the start of that year he came very close to signing for them but couldn’t agree terms and ended up at Leeds instead.

Five days after his impressive Albion debut, Johnson was on the scoresheet again as Adams’ side beat Millwall 4-1 at the Withdean Stadium (Glenn Murray, two, and Dean Cox, the other scorers).

Kazim-Richards, whose £250,000 transfer from Bury to Brighton had been paid for via fan Aaron Berry winning a competition organised by the soft drink giant, had already moved on to Fenerbahçe in Turkey via Sheffield United by the time Johnson arrived in Sussex.

But he said: “My cousin Colin had played there so I knew Brighton and I knew a few lads, and that it was a good place to be. But it was Micky that really sold the place to me and I just wanted to play. That is all I wanted to do; I didn’t look at the side’s league position. I just wanted to be a part of what Micky spoke about and help the club beat relegation.”

Unfortunately, the mini revival in the autumn of 2008 didn’t continue although Johnson was on the winning side again when, in his 10th and last game for the Albion, two Nicky Forster goals earned a 2-0 win at Swindon Town, spoiling Danny Wilson’s first game in charge of the Robins (Peter Brezovan was in goal for Town).

By then, Johnson, who’d lost his place at Leeds following an injury, had scored four times for the Albion (some records show he scored twice in a 4-2 home defeat to MK Dons, others that the second Brighton goal was netted by Stuart Fleetwood).

Somewhat gallingly, Johnson was next seen at Withdean less than three weeks into the new year – back in the fold with Leeds as they took all three points in a 2-0 win on 17 January 2009.

“When I was out on loan, Leeds were struggling and when I went back Gary McAllister got the sack. Simon Grayson came in and I didn’t know where my future lay, but Grayson told me I had a part to play and it was down to me to train hard and prove myself,” he said.

“He was true to his word, and I kept my head down, then I ended up coming back to Brighton and played against them for Leeds. It was a bit surreal to be in the away dressing room, but that is football.”

Johnson became a regular at Elland Road for the next two years and was part of the Leeds side who won promotion to the Championship in 2010, as well as earning headlines in memorable FA Cup ties against Premier League opposition.

In particular, in a third round replay against Arsenal at Elland Road in January 2011, Johnson scored a spectacular goal for the home side although they lost the tie 3-1.

Having spent five years on Arsenal’s books as a promising youngster, it was a bittersweet moment for Johnson who said afterwards: “It was a goal I’m not going to forget. I’m an Arsenal fan myself and so are all my family.”

On the transfer list at the time because he couldn’t agree a new deal with Leeds, he eventually got the chance he craved to play in the Premier League that summer when he moved to newly promoted Norwich City, where his teammates included Elliott Bennett and Andrew Crofts.

It was Canaries boss Paul Lambert who sold the club to him at the time but he also sang the praises of his successor, Chris Hughton.

Johnson joined the Canaries

“Hughton did come in with a different style of play,” he told pinkun.com. “He was very tactical. He was mindful that we were playing in the Premier League against good players whereas Paul Lambert wouldn’t care, if we were playing Manchester United, he’d say ‘if they score two, we’ll score three’.

“Different approaches, different ideas and different philosophies. People weren’t happy with the way he played but we finished 11th. I can only speak for myself, but I really enjoyed my time there and Chris is a great manager.”

He added: “Credit to him when he got the sack because he stuck by his morals and got Brighton promoted.”

After three seasons in the Premier League, the 2014–15 Championship season was one of Johnson’s most successful seasons with the Canaries: he became vice-captain to Russell Martin, appeared in 44 of the 46 league matches (including one appearance as a sub) and scored 15 goals.

He was voted fans’ Player of the Year and was part of the side that won the play-off final 2-0 against Middlesbrough to ensure City won back their Premier League place.

However, unable to get a place in Alex Neil’s side back among the elite, he switched to Derby County for £6m in September 2015.

That was the start of seven more seasons in the Championship: after 140 appearances over four years with the Rams, he moved on a free transfer to Blackburn Rovers, where he made 86 appearances over three seasons.

He eventually left Ewood Park at the end of the 2021-22 season and in the summer of 2022 joined MK Dons on a free transfer.

Johnson scored both goals as MK Dons turned round a disappointing start to the season by beating Port Vale 2-1 in their fourth match.

Johnson interviewed after scoring twice for MK Dons

Born in Hackney on 28 April 1987, Johnson was on Arsenal’s books from 1997 to 2002 but was released aged 15.

“Like any kid, being released from a club was horrible and I didn’t really feel like going back on a round of trials with other professional clubs, so instead I just played locally in Leyton.

He went to Ryman Premier side Waltham Forest but when he was 17 was invited for a trial at Cambridge United. He signed on a non-contract basis for eight months and was then offered a professional contract.

Johnson attracted suitors when playing for Northampton Town

But Northampton Town had been tracking him. “They made me a counter-offer which I accepted and that is where my career began,” he said.

That was in May 2005, and after he had been out on loan to gain experience at Gravesend & Northfleet and Stevenage Borough, he became a regular starter under Stuart Gray and his performances attracted scouts from clubs further up the league.

When that aforementioned move to Leicester fell through in January 2008, a few days later Leeds stepped in and paid a £250,000 fee for him.

He played in the same Leeds side as Casper Ankergren that lost the 2008 League One play-off final 1-0 to Doncaster, but picked up a back injury in pre season that led to him being sidelined. Although he returned to fitness, the side was doing well in his absence which meant he was unable to force his way back in. And then the chance to play competitive football was presented by the Albion.