TWO former Chelsea teammates were instrumental in enabling fledgling Kiwi international striker Chris Wood to develop his goalscoring craft with the Seagulls.
Roberto di Matteo allowed Wood to leave West Brom on loan in the 2010-11 season to add attacking options to Gus Poyet’s promotion-seeking Seagulls.
It was a temporary move that not only bolstered Division 1 Brighton’s goalscoring threat that season but also sowed the seeds of a partnership with Ashley Barnes that Burnley have profited from in the Premier League.
The pair dovetailed well with Glenn Murray (during his first spell at the Albion) and it is testimony to just how good the third-tier trio were that they all went on to score goals at the highest level.
Wood, who only scored three times in 27 games for the Baggies, scored nine in 24 matches (plus seven as sub) for the Albion, who he joined after an expected 93-day loan stint with Barnsley had been cut short.
Described by The Argus as “a fresh-faced teenager in a man’s body”, towards the end of the season, Wood told Andy Naylor: “It has been a big experience. I have been playing week in and week out. That is something I needed to do at my age.
“You don’t know if you really want to drop down that many levels, but I thought I could start scoring some goals, kick on my season and hopefully push my career up. It’s worked out very well.”
He somewhat presciently added: “I want to play in the Premier League one day, hopefully consistently.”
While that time would still be a little way off, Wood’s role in Brighton’s promotion squad earned him a League One winners’ medal and Poyet reckoned he left the south coast a much better player than the one who arrived six months previously.
“We helped him a lot,” Poyet told TheArgus. “When he was here, he was one type of player and, when he went back, he was in shape, he was quicker, more mature, he scored ten (sic) goals, he did well.”
Wood went on to become something of a nemesis for Brighton, often scoring against the club for various other sides he played for on loan or on a permanent basis.
After he scored twice against the Seagulls in December 2012 while on loan at Millwall, Poyet sang his praises to the media, declaring: “He is the kind of player we would like to bring in. He’s only 21 and I feel he will be a top, top player.
“When he was with us on loan, he was a baby but now he is maturing. He’s a man now.
“He’s clinical and brave and we have played a part in helping him on his way.”
Di Matteo’s successor at West Brom, Roy Hodgson, had also sent the young striker out on loan, the shorter distance to Midlands neighbours Birmingham City, during Chris Hughton’s tenure as manager. He scored 11 in 15 games (+ 14 as a sub) for the Blues before spending the second half of the 2011-12 season at Bristol City.
Next up was Millwall for the first half of the 2012-13 season but WBA curtailed that stay because they wanted to sell him, and he joined Leicester in a permanent deal.
At Leicester, Wood was mainly involved off the substitutes’ bench as Nigel Pearson’s Foxes won the Championship in 2014, but one of his most memorable goals was a stunning long-range volley against his future employers, Burnley, in a 2-0 win at Turf Moor. “That was a nice one,” he said. “It kind of clinched Leicester’s championship. It was a ‘make or break’ game for who was going to win the league that year.”
Wood found his chances of Premier League football stymied by the arrival of Leonardo Ulloa from Brighton and after only seven substitute appearances ended the season on loan at Ipswich Town. Before Leicester’s famous title-winning season was under way, Wood had moved on to Leeds for £3m.
Wood felt he wasn’t given a fair crack of the whip at the King Power Stadium, telling the Leicester Mercury: “I was disappointed that I didn’t get more of a chance.
“I did well and felt I deserved at least an opportunity with the way I had played. That’s football at the end of the day, managers make the decisions, you have to live by them and move on.
“I think that experience has made me into a better player. It helped me to adapt and do things in a different way. It helps you prepare mentally, to understand and control.
“Not everything is going to be rosy along the way in your career. You’ll always have your ups and downs and it’s about how you deal with the downs which helps you become so much better.
“I don’t like sitting in the stands. I just wanted to get out, play football and progress my career.”
Wood scored 27 goals in Leeds’ 2016-17 Championship season under Garry Monk but, after beating Brighton 2-0 on 18 March, they fluffed their lines in the run-in, winning only one of the remaining eight matches and missing out on the top six as Brighton went up with Newcastle. To rub salt in the Yorkshire wounds, Huddersfield were promoted via the play-offs.
Wood, though, had the chance finally to make it to the elite when Burnley dangled a £15m fee to take him to Turf Moor, where he was to be reunited with Barnes.
Explaining his decision to make the move, Wood told The Times: “It had been my dream since I was a kid to play in the Premier League.
“I had spent seven years in the Championship waiting to get that break and I couldn’t guarantee that I would get another chance.”
The success of the Wood-Barnes partnership was analysed in a 2019 article by Benedict O’Neill for planetfootball.com in which Murray harked back to the 2010-11 season.
“I was the older head when they came in as two young lads,” he said. “We forged quite a formidable trio. It was good because they were just young and learning their trade – they got valuable game time and scored plenty of goals in that season.
“They’ve both gone on to have fantastic careers.”
Wood ended the 2020-21 season as Burnley’s top goalscorer with 12 goals (his fourth consecutive season in double figures) and he also collected their Player of the Season and Players’ Player of the Season accolades.
After netting a hat-trick against Wolves in April 2021, Andy Jones, for The Athletic, purred: “Unstoppable, unplayable. This was Wood at his best.
“Burnley’s big No 9 epitomised all the key components of the display, setting the tempo, pressing with energy, intensity and importantly, intent. No ball was a lost cause, no pass was going to be easy for Wolves.”
Burnley boss Sean Dyche told the Burnley Express: “His hold up play is improving all the time, his physicality is improving – he can be a real handful as well as being a talented player.
“I’ve been very impressed with him over the season for sure.”
In January 2022, Wood made a £25m move to Newcastle United but after finding his first team starts limited moved on to Nottingham Forest a year later, initially on loan until the end of the season. The move was made permanent in the summer of 2023.
He was Forest’s top scorer with 15 goals in 35 appearances in the 2023-24 season and when he scored the winner in Forest’s 3-2 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford in December 2024, his header meant he became Forest’s record Premier League scorer, overtaking Bryan Roy, by moving to 25 in the competition.
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, on 7 December 1991, Wood swiftly showed great promise in his homeland before his coach over there, Roger Wilkinson, switched to West Brom and recommended the youngster be taken on at Albion’s academy.
Wood’s English mother, Julie, had been instrumental in him taking up football rather than the oval-shaped ball game Kiwis are more accustomed to.
“I came over and they liked what they saw and offered me a scholarship,” he told the Birmingham Mail.
After he proved successful at youth team and reserve level, Wood made his West Brom first-team debut in 2009 away to Portsmouth.
In the same year, he made his international debut and, aged just 18, was in the New Zealand squad at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He has gone on to play nearly 60 times for his country. He also became the youngest captain of New Zealand when he led the side for the first time in November 2014.
A goal by over-age Wood against South Korea helped New Zealand secure their first ever men’s football win at an Olympic Games in Tokyo but the host nation beat them in a penalty shoot-out to deny the striker the chance of a medal.
CONTACTS made as a youngster at Arsenal stood versatile Mike Everitt in good stead for the rest of his career.
He went on to play under his former Gunners teammate Dave Bowen at Northampton Town as part of one of football’s most remarkable stories and earned a place in the Cobblers’ ‘team of the century’.
Later, he joined a small enclave of former Arsenal players at Brighton. Everitt swapped Devon for Sussex in March 1968 when he moved from Plymouth Argyle for a £2,500 fee.
The man who signed him, Archie Macaulay, was a former Arsenal man himself who’d already brought three other ex-Gunners to Hove in goalkeeper Tony Burns, Irish international full-back Jimmy Magill and winger Brian Tawse.
Everitt started the new season as first choice left-back in Macaulay’s side and an uninterrupted 14-game run in the team as autumn turned to winter straddled Macaulay’s departure and the arrival of new boss Freddie Goodwin.
Everitt slotted home a penalty as Albion drew 1-1 away to Bristol Rovers on 18 January 1969 but the 3-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra the following Saturday was his last outing of the season.
Everitt, Howard Wilkinson and Dave Turner from this Albion line-up all went on to become coaches
He picked up an injury and, with Goodwin having signed his former Leeds teammate Barrie Wright from New York Generals, local lad John Templeman able to fill either full-back slot, not to mention the addition of Eddie Spearritt from Ipswich Town, Everitt couldn’t win back his place in the starting line-up.
Competition for a starting place only intensified in the summer of 1969 when Goodwin’s former Leeds teammate, Willie Bell, arrived from Leicester and was installed as the regular choice at left-back, while Stewart Henderson cemented the right-back slot to the extent he was named Player of the Season.
While Everitt deputised for Bell on a couple of occasions and filled Bobby Smith’s midfield spot for four matches, his only other involvement was as sub on a handful of occasions. He was a non-playing sub in the final game of the season (a 2-1 home defeat to Mansfield Town) and then left the club during the close season.
Born in Clacton on 16 January 1941, Everitt represented Essex Schoolboys and London Schoolboys before being taken on as an apprentice by Arsenal in 1956. He turned professional in February 1958 and, thanks to the excellent records of thearsenalhistory.com, we know that he first played in the first team in the Harry Bamford Memorial match at Eastville against a Bristol XI on 8 May 1959.
He then went on Arsenal’s end-of-season tour to Italy and Switzerland. He was an unused sub for friendlies against Juventus and Fiorentina but came on as a substitute in a 4-1 win over Lugano of Switzerland on 24 May 1959.
Everitt (circled back row) lines up for Arsenal – with (left to right trio in centre of front row), David Herd, Tommy Docherty and Jimmy Bloomfield
It wasn’t until Easter 1960 that he made his competitive first team breakthrough, but when he did it was a baptism of fire in George Swindin’s side.
He made his first team debut in front of 37,873 fans packed into Highbury on Good Friday (15 April 1960) as the Gunners beat a Johnny Haynes-led Fulham side 2-0.
Modern day players might not be able to comprehend it but Everitt also played the following day when Arsenal travelled to Birmingham City, and lost 3-0. Two days later, away to Fulham this time, Everitt was again in the starting line-up as Arsenal lost 3-0.
He kept his place for the following Saturday’s match – at home to Manchester United – and in front of 41,057 he was part of the side that beat United 5-2. Future Albion teammate Alex Dawson led the line for a United team that included Bobby Charlton and Johnny Giles.
That was the penultimate game of the season and Everitt retained his place for the final game, which ended in a 1-0 defeat to West Brom at The Hawthorns.
The 1960-61 season got off to a good start for him too as he played in the opening four matches and, into the bargain, scored Arsenal’s only goal as they beat Preston North End at home on 23 August. Unfortunately for him, a tigerish Scot called Tommy Docherty edged him out of the first team picture and in February 1961 he moved to Fourth Division Northampton Town (for a fee of £4,000) who were managed by the aforementioned Bowen.
His stay with the Cobblers spanned one of the most remarkable stories in football history as they were promoted season on season from the Fourth to the First….and then relegated all the way back down again (although Everitt had left for pastures new before they reached the basement again).
What he was part of, though, was achieving three promotions in five years. Glenn Billingham recalled that heady era in a 2017 article for thesefootballtimes.co.
In 1961-62, Everitt was a regular at wing-half and scored five goals in 41 appearances. He switched to left-back the following season and played 30 matches as Town went up as champions.
A season of consolidation in 1963-64 saw Town finish 11th in Division Two, when Everitt played 45 matches. He played in 43 games in the 1964-65 season which culminated in the historic promotion to the top-flight courtesy of finishing in runners up spot, a point behind champions Newcastle United.
Necessary investment in improving the squad was slow to materialise and Bowen initially had to rely on the same squad of players who’d got them up. Everitt was one of only five Town players who had previously played at that level.
A 5-2 defeat away to Everton in the opening fixture was perhaps a portent of what was to follow for the rest of the season. They didn’t record a win until their 14th game, at home to West Ham (when they won 2-1), but the underdogs performed heroics in their first two home matches. It must have been quite an occasion when in only the second game of the season Everitt lined up in the Northampton side to face Arsenal.
The game finished 1-1, although Everitt had to be replaced at half-time. However, he also played in the return fixture at Highbury which also finished in a 1-1 draw.
Town also drew 1-1 at home to Manchester United, stifling the attacking threat of Best, Law and Charlton, although United exacted revenge at Old Trafford where they dished out a 6-2 thrashing. Charlton got a hat-trick, Law scored a couple and John Connelly was also on the scoresheet.
Everitt made 34 appearances (plus one as sub) that season and scored two goals, one in a rare win, in the penultimate game, when the Cobblers beat Sunderland 2-1 (the Wearsiders scorer was Neil Martin, who later played for the Albion). Graham Carr (father of comedian Alan Carr) played 30 times for the Cobblers that season.
Back in the second tier, Everitt featured in 17 games but as Town plummeted straight through the division, he moved on to Plymouth Argyle in March 1967, where his former Arsenal teammate Jimmy Bloomfield had moved to from West Ham. Everitt was still only 26 when he made his debut in a 1-0 home defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers. After 31 games for Argyle, he made the move to Brighton.
Everitt had already gained his preliminary coaching badge when still a player and after leaving Brighton in 1970 he initially moved to Plymouth City as player-manager. Within months, he seized the opportunity to move up a level when he landed the player-manager role at then Southern League Wimbledon.
In a January 2010 interview in The Guardian, it was revealed the two candidates he beat to land the position were David Pleat, who went on to manage Luton, Leicester and Spurs, and his former Albion teammate Howard Wilkinson, who won the league title with Leeds United.
Pleat recalled: “The director, Stanley Reed, went for Mike and Howard ended up at Boston United while I was eventually appointed by Nuneaton Borough in the Southern League.”
A few eyebrows were raised in 1973 when Everitt was appointed manager of newly-relegated Brentford just seven days before the start of the 1973-74 season, taking over from Frank Blunstone, who’d left to become youth team manager at Manchester United.
Greville Waterman, on a Bees fan blog, said Everitt polarised opinion, declaring: “He was undoubtedly a cheap option and received little support from the directors (now where have we heard that before) and did his best with a wafer thin squad.”
A classic example saw defender Stewart Houston sold to Manchester United for a club record £55,000 in December 1973, but the money wasn’t immediately reinvested in the squad.
Nevertheless, Waterman pointed out: “His approach did not go down well with some of his players and he brought in a number of tough bruisers. Under his management, Brentford declined rapidly, fell to the bottom of the Football League and barely escaped the need to apply for re-election.”
Legendary Brentford defender Alan Nelmes was particularly disparaging about Everitt. “He didn’t have the technical expertise that Frank had and you felt as if the club wasn’t going anywhere with him. Frank was very advanced in his thinking, ahead of his time, really, and it was a step backwards to have Mike.”
Everitt finally got some backing from the boardroom on transfer deadline day. Experienced forward Dave Simmons was brought in from Cambridge United and former Everton and Southampton defender Jimmy Gabriel from Bournemouth and a 10-match unbeaten run from mid-February to early April did enough to assure the Bees avoided bottom spot even though their finishing position of 19th was their lowest position for nearly 50 years. Crowds were hovering around only 5,000 too.
It didn’t get much better the following season and in spite of getting a vote of confidence in November 1974 from new chairman Dan Tana, Everitt only lasted a few more weeks in the hotseat.
Ironically, after a poor start to the campaign, he’d begun to turn results round and lifted the side to a mid-table position on the back of four wins and a draw in a seven-game spell between late November to mid-January, but he was sacked on 16 January and replaced with John Docherty, who’d only packed up playing for the Bees the previous summer.
Everitt’s next role came as a coach (pictured above) under his old Arsenal pal Bloomfield at Leicester City, and former winger Len Glover came up with an amusing reminiscence on lcfc.com.
Glover recalled when he was 17 playing against Everitt for Charlton Athletic against Northampton.
“He had massive thighs, and had his sleeves rolled up. In the first five minutes he had kicked me when the ball was nowhere near, and now he was our coach!
“He was just the same when he was our coach. When he started, he gathered us round at the training ground. His opening gambit was, ‘You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but we will soon change that!’
“Then he noticed Frank Worthington who was not with the group but was with the apprentices who were crossing the ball for him to volley like they did every morning. He went, ‘Oi, get over here!’ Frank went, ‘Yeah, in a minute’. Instead of saying, ‘Over here, now!’ Everitt just went, ‘Well, hurry up then’.
“Before Everitt left we went to Leeds and we got stuffed 3-0. After the game Birch (Alan Birchenall) was doing his hair with his hair dryer. Win or lose he would always do his hair. Mike Everitt came in and said, ‘It’s a pity you’re not as good with the ball as you are with that hair dryer!’ Birch replied, ‘If I was as good with the ball as I am with the hair dryer, I wouldn’t be playing for Leicester!’”
After leaving Leicester, Everitt managed Kuwaiti side Al-Shabab when another former Arsenal teammate, George Armstrong, was manager of the Kuwaiti national side (Armstrong’s daughter, Jill, posted a picture of them in Kuwait on Twitter in 2019).
Jill Armstrong posted this picture on Twitter of her with dad George and Everitt in Kuwait
After Kuwait, Everitt managed Cairo-based Egyptian teams Al Mokawloon and Al Ahly, the club Percy Tau joined in the summer of 2021.
According to Wikipedia, Everitt had particular success at Al Mokawloon, winning the 1982-83 Egyptian Premier League title and two African Cup Winners Cups.
• Pictures from matchday programmes and online sources.
FULL-BACK Graham Howell spent two and a half years as a professional at Manchester City but was released without making the first team.
Eighteen months after leaving Maine Road, he was one of several new signings made by manager Pat Saward in an effort to strengthen his newly-promoted Brighton side.
Recent players-of-the-season Stewart Henderson (1969-70) and Bert Murray (1971-72) had previously occupied the right-back berth but Saward believed a change was needed at the higher level.
At only 21, Howell was certainly a younger model who’d been trying to make his way at City when they won the league in 1968 and the FA Cup in 1969. After his release, he had played 43 games for Bradford City in the Third Division, which Albion had triumphantly left in runners-up spot in the spring of 1972.
Howell unveiled to the press by Pat Saward
A fee of £18,000 – the equivalent of just over £200,000 in today’s money – prised him from Valley Parade.
“Only 18 months ago, I was released by Manchester City. I thought the bottom had fallen out of my world,” Howell told the matchday programme shortly after signing that August. “I had no hesitation in deciding to join Brighton. It meant Second Division football and was just the chance I wanted.”
He said he’d thought Brighton were “a very useful outfit” in the two games he’d played against them for Bradford (he made his debut for the Bantams in the opening day fixture at the Goldstone when Albion won 3-1 and played in the Valley Parade match on 18 March 1972 when Bradford won 2-1) and said he was determined to prove City had been wrong to let him go.
“I am looking forward to helping Brighton move forward to the First Division. It has always been my ambition to play First Division football.
“I had hoped to achieve this with Manchester City, but it was not to be.”
He pointed out: “I could see that my way forward was limited because of Tony Book, Arthur Mann and several other youngsters like Willie Donachie.
“It was a tremendous blow when I had to leave Manchester City. But I can look back on that all now believing that it was all a blessing in disguise.
“I know that it made me try much harder at Bradford City. And I intend to go on playing it hard for Brighton.
“I am very ambitious, and I want to do really well in football.”
Unfortunately for Howell, Saward struggled to find the right formula for success in the higher division, chopping and changing the line-up and bringing in too many players on short-term loans.
Howell made his debut in a 2-2 home draw against Sunderland on 26 August but, after 15 games at right-back, Saward moved him into midfield and, according to my scrapbook of the time, he became “a destroyer in the Peter Storey mould”.
John Templeman, who’d started the season in the no.2 shirt, reverted to that position as Saward shuffled his pack trying to end a losing streak that eventually extended to 13 matches.
Howell was dropped to the subs bench for the home game against Luton Town on 10 February – and Albion promptly won 2-0, their first win since 14 October the previous year!
He continued as no.12 in the following two matches (both defeats) and was restored to the side at home to Huddersfield, a game which ended in a 2-1 win for the Albion.
In the final game of the season, by which time relegation was confirmed, Howell was once again selected at right-back as Brighton drew 2-2 with Nottingham Forest.
Stern-faced Howell in the pre-season line-up photo
He retained the shirt at the start of the following season back in the third tier but as Saward’s tenure of the hotseat moved into its final days, so did Howell’s game time.
He was out of the side when Brian Clough and Peter Taylor arrived at the Goldstone at the start of November although he has a somewhat unwitting claim to fame by appearing in an oft-used photo of Clough sitting on a park bench at the Stompond Lane ground of non-league Walton & Hersham.
Howell looks rather awkward next to the centre of attention!
Albion had been drawn away to them in the FA Cup first round and the park bench was the somewhat primitive and squashed pitchside seating arrangement for the visiting manager, trainer and substitute – who that day was Howell.
In the picture, he looks rather awkward to be sharing the perch next to the man who only a few months earlier had led Derby County to the top division title. The park bench image was ideal ‘fodder’ for the newspapers, depicting as it did how far from previous glory Clough had descended.
Howell didn’t get on in that game (Albion drew it 0-0 and ignominiously lost the replay at the Goldstone 4-0) and his first action under the dynamic duo came in the infamous 8-2 defeat to Bristol Rovers.
He was sent on as a substitute for left-back George Ley and got his first start under the pair when he took over from John Templeman at right-back in the following game, a 4-1 defeat at Tranmere Rovers.
That match proved to be Ley’s last game in an Albion shirt – and when Howell replaced the former Portsmouth player away to Watford (a 1-0 defeat), it would be his own last outing for Brighton.
By Boxing Day, Clough and Taylor had brought in young midfielder Ronnie Welch and left-back Harry Wilson from Burnley, and they both made their debuts against Aldershot. Howell was an unused sub that day and he didn’t feature for the first team again.
More new faces arrived at the Goldstone as Clough and Taylor brandished chairman Mike Bamber’s chequebook with abandon: the likes of Paul Fuschillo and Billy McEwan increasing the competition for places.
Come the end of the season, Clough made no apologies for clearing out a number of players signed by his predecessor along with long-servers like Brian Powney and Norman Gall. Howell was one of twelve players released.
Howell had made 40 appearances (plus four as sub) for Brighton and he moved on to Cambridge United where he played 71 matches between 1974 and 1976.
Born in Salford on 18 February 1951, Howell grew up a fan of Manchester United and hoped to play for them. “But when City showed interest in me while I was playing for Altrincham and Sale Boys I was happy enough to go on the Maine Road apprentice staff,” he said.
After signing as a professional, Howell spent two and a half seasons playing in City’s Central League side
There were certainly plenty of positive signs for Howell to think he might make it at City.
In January 1969, their matchday programme reported how he’d been for trials for the England Youth side with Tony Towers and Ian Bowyer but was unluckily left out when the squad was selected.
Elsewhere in the programme, a mid-season report on the progress of Dave Ewing’s reserve side declared: “Players like Graham Howell, Tony Towers and Derek Jeffries made great strides.”
It explained that because of injuries to more experienced reserves, several youth team players had been promoted to turn out for the Central League side.
Although they lost eight of their opening 11 matches, they’d turned things round and the report said: “By the end of September, the policy of putting faith and responsibility on the younger players began to pay off.”
While they were bolstered by the return of experienced goalkeeper Ken Mulhearn and George Heslop, youngsters like Bowyer and Stan Bowles were contributing to a turnround in fortunes.
There’s a photo to be found on the internet (above, left) of a young Howell with Paul Hince who played a handful of games for City in 1967-68 and later reported on the side for the Manchester Evening News.
After leaving Cambridge, Howell quit the UK and continued his career in Sweden. He spent six seasons with Swedish club Västerås SK and also played for Irsta IF. He remained in Sweden after his playing career finished.
A YOUNG ATTACKING midfielder who Alan Pardew believed could make it played half a dozen games for Brighton but didn’t deliver on his early promise at West Ham.
It probably didn’t help Tony Stokes’ cause that Mark McGhee, the Albion manager who signed him, was sacked so early in the season. The youngster also dislocated a shoulder which subsequently put him out of action for eight months.
“He’s a good young player and they have high hopes for him,” McGhee had told the club website. “He’ll get on the ball and make things happen.”
The temporary move to League One Albion was Stokes’ second spell out on loan having played 19 games in League Two basement side Rushden and Diamonds’ unsuccessful battle against relegation from the league earlier in 2006.
“West Ham have very high hopes for him and the reviews that have come out of Rushden have been excellent,” said McGhee.
On North Stand Chat, a West Ham fan posted: “Stokes is one of three players that Pardew really thinks can make it in the big league, the other two being Kyle Reid and Hogan Ephraim. The boy’s been a star from under 15s onwards and likes to get on the scoresheet even though he plays in midfield.”
The Albion matchday programme declared Stokes had arrived at the Withdean with a glowing endorsement from Bobby Zamora, who was playing up front for the Hammers at the time.
“Bobby is a top lad. I get on really well with him, and he said to me what a good club this is and how he enjoyed his time here,” Stokes said. “I’m looking forward to my stay because being at a Premiership team makes it hard to get a chance. Hopefully I can play for the first team here at Brighton and show the fans and the manager – who has shown faith in me – what I can do.”
Stokes started on the left of Albion’s midfield trio (alongside Richard Carpenter and Dean Hammond) in each of the opening six matches and came on as a sub for Doug Loft in what turned out to be McGhee’s last game in charge, a 1-0 defeat at Bristol City on 2 September 2006. It was Stokes’ last appearance for Albion.
McGhee had revealed a week earlier that they had been delving into a stamina issue with the youngster, as he explained to the Argus. “We’ve felt in games that he has tired a little bit and we’ve actually discovered there’s a little bit of something going on in his system that West Ham have also discovered.
“It’s not medication but minerals and vitamins and certain things missing that have caused him to tire, so we expect more out of him as the weeks go on and as his fitness improves.
“He’s a footballer and we are playing football. He keeps the game ticking over, but I think he’s got a lot more to come.”
McGhee’s successor Dean Wilkins was keener to blood Albion’s own young talent but Stokes’ injury issue meant him returning early to West Ham anyway.
“I went up for a header and fell back on my arm. At first, I just carried on playing without too much discomfort, but then started to get a dead arm after coming off the pitch so I got it looked at again and it was decided an operation was needed to sort it out,” Stokes said in the West Ham matchday programme for the Hammers v Seagulls third round FA Cup tie in early January 2007.
“It’s not too bad and I am now waiting for it to heal properly so I can get back into training again.”
The youngster reflected positively on his time with the Albion, adding: “It was good for me to get a few matches under my belt, playing regular football. I played around eight or nine games while I was there and when I left to come back to West Ham, Brighton were in the top half, seventh place I think.
“I enjoyed it there, they wanted to try and go for the play-offs and promotion, so you always felt there was something to play for, and that’s good.
“I would go back to Brighton on loan. I liked it there.”
Born in Essex on 7 January 1987, Stokes first linked up with West Ham at the tender age of nine and the club website described him as “a combative but creative midfielder with an eye for goal who has impressed in coming through West Ham United’s youth ranks”.
His one and only competitive first team match for the Hammers came when he was 18, going on as a substitute for Tomas Repka in a 4-2 Carling Cup win away to Sheffield Wednesday in which Zamora scored twice for the Londoners.
“I will never ever forget my debut,” said Stokes. “It was a dream come true.”
In a 2015 interview, Stokes reflected on his eight months out injured saying: “In that time, Alan Pardew got the sack. I was always training with the first team, and in their matchday squads against the likes of Man Utd and Arsenal, but never did end up getting that final chance.”
Stokes was involved in non-competitive games, such as in July 2007 when he was a sub for Reid in Martin Ling’s testimonial at Leyton Orient, and the following day a sub for Freddie Ljungberg in a 3-2 friendly defeat away to MK Dons. Three days later, he was in Sussex playing for a West Ham XI in a 2-0 defeat to Lewes at the Dripping Pan and he also started for a West Ham XI that won 3-1 at Thurrock on 7 August.
Stokes produced some solid displays for the Hammers reserve team early in the 2007-08 season, raising hopes he could force his way into Alan Curbishley’s first-team reckoning – not least when he came off the bench and produced a stunning volley to force a 2-2 draw against Arsenal.
However, his next loan move was to Conference side Stevenage Borough in November 2007, where he played three matches under former Albion boss Peter Taylor.
In May 2008, Stokes was captain of academy coach Tony Carr’s young squad that took part in the Hong Kong Sevens tournament and was sent off in the Plate final which Hammers lost 3-2.
More involvement with the first-team group continued in the 2008 pre-season, Stokes twice appearing as a substitute during West Ham’s tour of North America. He went on as a sub in a 3-1 win over MLS side Columbus Crew and a 3-2 defeat to a MLS All Stars side featuring David Beckham in Toronto.
Back in the UK, he started a friendly away to Cambridge United which finished goalless and came on as a sub in a 2-2 friendly draw away to Southampton.
After Jack Collison was called up to the first team squad, Stokes took over as West Ham’s reserve team captain for the 2008-09 season. However, his career took an unexpected turn in February 2009 after a director of Hungarian side Újpest FC liked what he saw at a Hammers reserve match.
Stokes found himself heading out to Budapest on loan, and he told whufc.com: “I went on loan to the Hungarian team and it went really well. Then, when it came to the end of the season, my contract had run out at West Ham and Újpest wanted to keep me.
“They were playing in the Europa League, so that attracted me. I ended up playing in both legs of the second qualifying round defeat by Romanian giants Steaua Bucharest in the Europa League.
“We usually got crowds of between seven and eight thousand, but against Steaua, we got 15,000 at home and then played in front of 25,000 in the return leg in Romania. That was a great atmosphere to play in.
“For our home games, the supporters were just fantastic and the atmosphere was amazing. They would do absolutely everything to get a win.”
“I loved it out in Hungary. The people were so polite and made me feel so welcome,” Stokes told Tomasz Mortimer of hungarianfootball.com.
Stokes signed a three-year deal and made 24 appearances for Újpest, but, although he enjoyed Budapest, he was homesick and came to an arrangement to end his contract after only 11 months.
Stokes played as a defensive midfielder although he said later his preferred position was “up top or just behind the front two”.
Although he couldn’t speak Hungarian, it helped that the manager and his assistant – Joe McBride – were English speakers along with three other players at the club at the same time: Gary Martin, Scott Malone and Mark Millar. “It did really help me because I didn’t feel alone and they were going through the same feelings I was about missing home,” he said.
“It takes a lot of bottle to just up and move to another country, especially if you don’t speak the language,” Stokes told hungarianfootball.com. “I would definitely go back abroad if it was worth it.”
In a statement on the club’s website, explaining his decision to return to the UK, he said: “I took a long time thinking about what to do before I arrived at the decision, that I would like to leave, subject to the club allowing this, and put my contract on hold.
“I am missing my family a lot. I found it hard to live alone in Hungary during the 14 months I was here.
“I really enjoyed playing for Újpest. I made many friends and also played with many good players. I will take with me many good memories of the club.”
Stokes felt the whole experience improved him as a person, and told football.london in 2017: “Because you are out there all alone, you have to man up and sort out all situations yourself.
“Based on my own experiences I would definitely say players should try moving abroad for a year when they are younger to try and fend for themselves. It made me grow up so much and I wouldn’t change that for the world.”
Although Stokes maintained his decision to leave Hungary was because he was homesick, it might also have had something to do with McStay quitting as head coach in April 2010 and returning to Celtic “amid reports of financial problems” and being replaced by Hungarian coach Geza Meszoly.
Back in the UK, his ambition was to find a professional club and Stokes told whufc.com: “I think I’ve got a lot to offer, so I just want to show what I can do at any level and take it from there.” He ended up at Isthmian Premier League side Concord Rangers, where he scored goals for fun.
Before that, though, he was able to turn out for Tony Carr’s Academy All-Stars in the well-respected academy director’s May 2010 testimonial which featured a gallery of Hammers stars.
He went on to score 78 goals in 124 appearances for Concord and captained them to the Ryman League Cup and promotion to the Conference South via play-offs.
In November 2013, Stokes joined Canvey Island and he later played for Bowers & Pitsea, Brentwood Town and Grays Athletic.
• Pictures from matchday programmes and online sources.
SEVENTEEN GOALS in 100 appearances don’t tell the whole story of Elliott Bennett’s two seasons as a Brighton player.
Russell Sladesigned him in August 2009 from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £200,000, but it was under the guidance of Gus Poyet that he flourished and was a stand-out performer when Albion won promotion from League One in 2011.
Not only was he chosen by his fellow professionals in the PFA League One team of the year (along with teammates Gordon Greer and Inigo Calderon), he was Four Four Two magazine’s League One Player of the Year.
Always diplomatic in interviews about personal achievements, typically he said: “If you win awards, it’s nice personally but you have to remember you can’t win them without your teammates. If I’m setting up goals, then it means our strikers are on their game as well as they’re getting on the end of my crosses.”
In a matchday programme feature, he added: “These individual awards really are not possible unless you have a good team around you, so this award is really on behalf of the whole squad and coaching staff.”
Bennett acknowledged the impact Poyet made on improving him as a player. “Gus has given me different roles to play throughout the season. I’m a lot more aware as a player as a result and I’m better with the ball now. There’s still lots for me to work on, but the gaffer has really brought my game on. I definitely owe him a lot.”
In another matchday programme article, he once again paid tribute to Poyet, his assistant Mauricio Taricco and coach Charlie Oatway. “I feel like I’m improving all the time and I owe so much to the coaching staff: the gaffer and Tano, while Charlie has got my head right. I used to beat myself up if I gave the ball away but Charlie has stamped that out of me. Technically, all three have helped me and I’ve also been playing in the middle a bit more, which has added another string to my bow.”
Bennett continued: “While I’m known for being a winger, my link-up play has also improved this season, which has really pleased me. I’m now more involved and it’s important that I keep on learning. The gaffer will always pull me to one side if he sees something that can help improve me – which he does with everyone – and then it’s a case of trying to replicate that on a match day.
“When you’ve got a gaffer who’s played the game at the highest level, you can only learn from him – and if you didn’t listen you’d be pretty stupid.
“I’ll play anywhere for the good of the team – I’ve even played right-back this season, but I must admit that I do prefer playing in a more advanced role where I can create things for the team. Whether that’s right wing, the left wing or even behind the strikers I don’t mind. I just love being involved.”
Bennett’s impact wasn’t confined to games, either. He and Liam Bridcutt used to visit Westdean Primary School, near Withdean, where they listened to youngsters reading. His wife, Kelly, worked for the club too.
Aware they had a hit property on their books, Albion awarded Bennett a new three-and-a-half-year deal in November 2010, when Poyet told the club website: “Elliott has been a good pro and has earned this new contract.
“He has shown he is capable of playing in a number of positions, he enjoys playing our style of football and I think he will continue to get better as a player.”
For his part, Bennett said: “Gus is a big factor for me. I will always be grateful to Russell Slade for signing me, but the current gaffer has brought his own style of play.
“I have really taken to the club ever since I arrived from Wolves last summer. I feel I have grown up as a person and developed as a player.”
Unfortunately for Brighton, Bennett’s superb contribution drew plenty of admirers and, when Norwich City offered £1.9million to give him the chance of Premier League football, the lure was too great to resist for player and club.
While his promoted teammates looked forward to Championship football in the brand new Amex Stadium, Bennett joined Paul Lambert’s Canaries to test his talent at the highest level.
Bennett told HITC Sport’sAlfie Potts Harmer: “Brighton was a fantastic part of my life and a fantastic chapter of my career, I loved every minute of it.
“When we won the title there, League One was full of teams who are now flying, you look at Southampton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield, it was a strong League One that year, and we played some fantastic stuff.
“The stadium coincided with promotion and I’d just signed a new contract. I think I would have stayed there for many years had it not been a Premier League move, but I don’t regret moving to Norwich. When an opportunity like that comes you have to take it as a player. You don’t know if it will come again.”
Lambert was delighted to land the youngster having previously had a bid to sign him in January that year rejected. “He is a young and exciting player with plenty of pace,” Lambert told the Norwich website. “He can play in a wide position or in behind the forwards, he’s a quick lad and he’s got a winning mentality.
“He played his full part in what Brighton achieved last season and that desire to succeed will stand him in good stead here.”
Bennett declared: “It’s an unbelievable opportunity for me to fight for a place in a team which will be playing in the Premier League.
“I like the mentality at Norwich City that has seen them get back-to-back promotions and I’m grateful to Paul Lambert for giving me the chance to be part of what’s happening at the club.
“I didn’t make it through at Wolves, which was my home-town club, and Brighton gave me the opportunity and I’m grateful for that.
“Now I’m just really excited about the chance to try to help Norwich in the Premier League.”
Bennett certainly seized the opportunity and in his first season was delighted to score the winning goal in Norwich’s 2-1 win over Spurs at White Hart Lane. He’d played 57 games in the Premier League when his career suffered a major hiatus. In the first home game of the 2013-14 season, against Everton, he sustained a cruciate injury which ruled him out of all but the last game of that campaign, as City were relegated.
Frustrated by the lack of starts at Norwich as they began life back in the Championship, Bennett was happy to return to the Seagulls on loan as Sami Hyypia tried various permutations to get some wins on the board.
Bennett received a warm reception from the Seagulls supporters as he stepped out at the Amex for a home game against Wigan Athletic on 4 November and helped the side to their first win in eight matches.
Unfortunately, the upturn in fortunes was all too brief and, although Bennett’s loan was extended by a second month, six winless games saw Hyypia exit the hotseat. “I had nothing but respect for him,” Bennett later told The Athletic. “He gave me an opportunity, after a big injury, to get out and play some football. He didn’t have to bring me back. I was thankful for that. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.”
Bennett’s final appearance came in the memorable 2-0 win over Fulham under caretaker manager Nathan Jones.
He returned to Norwich just as Alex Neil was taking over from Neil Adams as manager and was part of the squad who won promotion back to the Premier League via a play-off win over Middlesbrough.
But back in the elite, first team opportunities were limited and during the first part of the 2015-16 season Bennett went out on loan again, this time to Bristol City, where Steve Cotterill was the manager.
Bennett made 14 appearances for the Robins but soon after his deal expired in January 2016, a £250,000 fee saw him move permanently to Blackburn Rovers, where, from the start of the 2019-20 season, he became club captain, and he continued to be a well-respected part of Tony Mowbray’s set-up.
Bennett has certainly endeared himself to the Rovers supporters and has even been hailed as a modern-day ‘Mr Blackburn’ by website roverschat.com, who lauded his contribution to the club.
“Elliott Bennett’s evergreen positivity, fan interactions, and trademark fist pump were key in improving the culture at Rovers, as the dark, grey clouds over Ewood Park that had called it home since 2011 ever so slowly began to dissipate.
“His leadership has been a key contribution, as even when he is not playing for Rovers, he still is managing to inspire others to become the best version of themselves.”
One of those times spent out of the side came when Bennett tested positive for Covid-19 in May 2020 although the player said he didn’t feel unwell, and typically was thinking of others when interviewed about it.
“There seems to have been a lot of hysteria about footballers returning to training, but it’s not a big deal at all,” he said. “It’s the people who are seriously ill in hospital that we need to worry about, not footballers who are fit and healthy, and who aren’t showing any signs of being unwell.”
The popular Bennett is an active participant on social media and has 76,000 followers on Twitter.
In the summer of 2021, he moved to League One Shrewsbury Town, just 15 miles from Telford where he was born on 18 December 1988,
Bennett first showed his talent playing for local Telford team Hadley Juniors. Wolves scouts Les Green and Tony Lacey spotted him and invited him to train with the club’s under sevens and under eights. Remarkable as it sounds, he was offered a contract at the age of nine! “From then I just worked my way up through the age groups,” he told wolves.co.uk in a January 2019 article.
“The coaching was fantastic, the level of care we got was outstanding and we had the chance to travel the world. We got to go to Holland, we went to Japan, and it was a fantastic experience for me. Going to Japan and winning the under-12 World Cup was probably one of my favourite memories I have from the playing side of the academy.”
At Thomas Telford School, Bennett captained the school team as they won the county cup five years in a row. He was also a talented 200m runner who represented Shropshire at sprinting.
After leaving school to go on a scholarship at Wolves, he signed professional in 2007.
“The biggest moment for me was being given my professional contract,” he said. “I always dreamt of one day being able to pull on that gold and black shirt and play at Molineux, and thankfully I did.”
He got a taste of first team action in pre-season matches, scoring after only five minutes in a 3-2 win at Hereford United, and in 2007-2008 he made two appearances for the first team in the League Cup.
Mick McCarthy gave him his first competitive start in a 2-1 win over Bradford City on 15 August 2007 but he was replaced by Stephen Ward at half-time, and on 28 August was in the Wolves side humbled 3-1 after extra time by lowly Morecambe.
Although he was involved with the first team squad for some league matches, he didn’t get any game time, but gained experience going out on loan, initially playing 11 games at League One Crewe Alexandra, and later featuring in 19 League Two games for Bury.
He spent the whole of 2008-09 on loan with Bury, scoring three goals in 52 matches.
It must have been quite a wrench for Bennett to contemplate moving away from the club he’d been associated with for 14 years, but it was a former Brighton striker, the then Wolves assistant manager Terry Connor, who persuaded him to spread his wings and move to the Albion, as he revealed in a Football the Albion and Me interview.
He explained that he’d still got two years left on his contract at Wolves and being very much “a home person” he’d not considered leaving home in Telford, 20 minutes away from Wolverhampton.
“I remember Terry pulling me into his office and saying ‘Look, I went to Brighton in a similar position to yourself, you’ve got to go out and forge your own career. Become a man, become a person, don’t be Elliott Bennett from the academy at Wolves. You’re Elliott Bennett the professional footballer, create your own path.’
“And from that conversation I thought ‘You have to take the shackles off and go and try something different’ and you can’t really get a much better place to live than Brighton, as I later found out. It turned out to be the best decision I have made since I started playing.”
The week before he signed, he went to watch Albion away at Huddersfield…..and saw his new employer thrashed 7-1. Luckily, he’d made up his mind to join before the game!
“I was a guest of Tony Bloom,” he said. “I had a good chat with him before the game and he told me the vision. He told me where he wanted to take the club. I was blown away to be honest. I couldn’t wait to get started.”
Pictures from Albion matchday programmes and various online sources.
DANISH goalkeeper Casper Ankergren earned the League One player of the month award four times – twice with Leeds United and twice with Brighton.
When the Yorkshire club dumped him after he’d played 143 games for them, Gus Poyet, his former assistant manager at Elland Road, gave him the chance to revive his English football career. He spent seven years as a player at Brighton and between 2017 and 2021 assisted Ben Roberts with coaching Albion’s goalkeepers.
The Dane was only truly Albion no.1 for a season and a half, and fans were often divided about his capabilities. But his ability with the ball at his feet suited the way Poyet wanted the Albion to play, and as a coach chimes perfectly with the expectations placed on today’s Albion goalkeepers.
“He really is key to the way we pass it out from the back,” observed ‘Murraymint’ on North Stand Chat, noting his ball playing and vision for a pass as “excellent”.
Ankergren himself explained in a podcast on the club website in 2020: “I was always quite comfortable with the ball at my feet, probably because I played outfield as a kid.
“At Leeds I wasn’t supposed to play it to the centre backs but under Gus you had to play it short; he would go mental if you didn’t. That was his philosophy. I’ve always been a big fan of possession-based football.”
On the eve of the 2010-11 season, Poyet’s goalkeeping options were narrowed when first-choice Peter Brezovan was nursing a wrist injury and he wasn’t happy to start the campaign with either of the inexperienced understudies, Michael Poke or Mitch Walker.
Poyet told the club’s official website: “Goalkeeper is a key position in the team, and with Brezovan injured, we wanted to bring some experience to that position.
“Casper brings that experience and has played at this level and higher. I have worked with him at Leeds United, and know exactly what he is capable of, he also knows what it takes to get promoted from League One.”
Ankergren hadn’t even had time to get to know his new teammates when he made his Albion debut in a 2-1 win in the season-opener away to Swindon Town the day after signing.
Unfortunately, he didn’t cover himself in glory on his home debut when a mistimed punch helped Rochdale to get a last-gasp equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Withdean.
The ’keeper admitted he later hid himself away in his Jury’s Inn hotel feeling dreadful about the mistake. “I was devastated, but that’s football. As a keeper you can do well for 90 minutes but if you cock up in the 91st minute that’s all people remember you for,” he said in a matchday programme article. “It’s part of the game as a goalkeeper and you have to accept it.”
He certainly made up for it to the extent that he won the first of two nPower League One Player of the Month awards that season for his displays the following month, when he only conceded once in five matches as Albion secured 13 out of 15 points.
Ankergren won the award again in March 2011 when the Seagulls won eight matches out of eight – with six clean sheets for Ankergren – to consolidate their gallop towards the League One title.
In April 2011, Ankergren, speaking at the PFA awards in London, said: “He [Gus] was asking us to be perfect and although there’s no such thing in football, we were close, the way we did it, the way we played – he’s very, very pleased. He couldn’t ask for much more, I think.
“At the beginning of the season I had a chat with him and he said he thought a top six finish would be possible. But no, we finished first – an amazing season.”
The promotion with Brighton was more personally satisfying for Ankergren because he was involved from the beginning to the end of the season.
“I played a lot of games for Leeds last season when we went up but I didn’t play the last eight or nine games and that was a big blow for me,” he said. “I’ve played every game in the league this season and obviously it’s great, that’s what you want to do as a footballer; you want to play every game and win and achieve something.”
He was in goal for the memorable first Amex league fixture against Doncaster and kept the shirt for the first 15 games of the 2011-12 Championship season. But after a seven-game winless run, Steve Harper came in on loan from Newcastle United.
When Harper returned to the North East, he got back in the side for seven more matches, but after four successive defeats in December, Poyet rang the changes for the New Year’s Day match at home to Southampton. Brezovan started in Albion’s surprise 3-0 win and stayed in goal through to the end of the season.
Fan Bradley Stratton later observed: “Brighton’s return to the Championship at the Amex highlighted the need for another change in goal. Ankergren and Brezovan, whilst competent in League One, were regularly found out at the higher level.
“They inspired little confidence in fans, and there was no doubt Poyet would use the summer window in 2012 to bring in a new man who could galvanise the Albion back line and restore confidence to a defence that had conceded six goals at both West Ham and Liverpool that year.”
After Tomasz Kuszczak arrived to become the senior goalkeeper, Ankergren’s first team action in 2012-13 was limited to four starts plus one as a sub.
Two of those were in the FA Cup against Premier League opposition. The third round FA Cup win over Newcastle United was his first appearance in the first team for 13 months and he said: “Although I have not been playing for the first team, I’ve always trained as hard as ever because you never know what’s round the corner and you want to push the other keepers hard, so I was ready. It’s still hard to be thrown straight back into action because you need to play regularly to get into the rhythm of things, but I was pretty happy with my performance against Newcastle.”
And there was nothing he could do to prevent Theo Walcott’s late deflected winner as Arsenal won the fourth round tie 3-2 at the Amex, when Leo Ulloa scored on his debut.
As if to emphasise his point about memorable howlers, one of his two league games that season was at Nottingham Forest, when he fumbled a last-minute equaliser at the City Ground, allowing Henri Lansbury’s long-range effort to earn the home side a point in a 2-2 draw.
Poyet was quick to sympathise with the goalkeeper and said: “To begin with I thought the shot must have taken a deflection but when I’ve seen it again I nearly killed myself!
“When you are a keeper you pay the price and Casper has done that today. He was having a very, very good game, making two or three good saves, coming for crosses and kicking very well. And in training he will save 1,000 shots like that, but we wanted him to save it today.
“Goalkeeper is a terrible position to play but we lose together and we win together – at least we got a point.”
In Oscar Garcia’s only season in charge, Ankergren played only two first team matches but he was kept on under Sami Hyypia and, with the arrival of David Stockdale and the emergence of youngster Christian Walton limiting his likely involvement even further, he made just the one appearance in the 2014-15 season, in Albion’s 4-2 League Cup win away to Swindon Town.
He confessed on the podcast that he struggled to get his head round the situation and contemplated quitting the game but was talked out of it by goalkeeping coach Andy Beasley.
With the arrival of Niki Maenpaa as back-up to Stockdale, Ankergren could have been forgiven for thinking his chances of ever playing first team football again had gone, but in a bizarre set of circumstances during a FA Cup tie at Lincoln City on 28 January 2017, Ankergren had to come off the bench in the 56th minute when Maenpaa went off injured.
The Finn had injured his shoulder in the melee that resulted after Glenn Murray had committed a foul in the penalty area and the first thing Ankergren had to do was to face the resultant penalty, which was scored.
Five minutes later he was picking the ball out of the back of the net again after inexperienced Chelsea loanee Fikayo Tomori had skewed a shot past the beleaguered ‘keeper. To rub salt in the wound, Albion lost 3-1, enabling City to reach the last 16 of the competition for the first time in their 115-year history. The consolation for Albion, of course, was that they were able to concentrate on the league, and they went on finally to win promotion to the elite level they’d left in 1983.
That promotion signalled the end of Ankergren’s playing days but the start of a career as a goalkeeping coach which he admitted in the podcast he’s enjoying immensely.
Born in the Danish coastal seaport of Køge on 9 November 1979, Ankergren played football with his mates from an early age on a pitch close to his home. He also played handball in the winter – it’s a big sport in Denmark – and it got to the point where he had to decide which one to pursue seriously because his parents said he couldn’t do both. He chose football because he enjoyed it a bit more, although he reckoned the hand-eye coordination involved in handball was an asset as he pursued his career as a goalkeeper.
When he started out playing organised football with Solrød FC, he switched from centre half to midfielder to striker and only went in goal when their keeper got injured.
He was only 12 when he was signed by his hometown’s local professional club, HB Køge. Before he became a full professional, he worked for a pizzeria delivering pizzas and at an after-school club. After leaving school, he continued his education at college for a further two years because he wanted to be a policeman if football didn’t work out.
But having broken into the Køge first team, he caught the attention of Brondby, who were probably the biggest club in Denmark at the time.
He joined them in May 2000 and started full-time the following January. “It was a big, big step for me,” he told the podcast. “I didn’t really enjoy it at first. It was a bigger step than I expected it to be.”
Their first-choice keeper, Morgens Krogh, had won Euro ‘92 with the national team so it was tough to compete with him. But the youngster made his debut when Krogh was injured and eventually took the no.1 spot. As well as winning one championship, he topped it by winning the league and cup double in 2005-06.
Ankergren also gained experience playing in the Europa League against teams like Locomotiv Moscow, Espanol and Palermo.
Shortly after he signed a new three-year contract with Brondby, unbeknown to him they signed Stephan Andersen from Charlton Athletic, and Ankergren wasn’t assured he’d still be first choice. “I’d had enough and wanted to try something different so while I was away with the national team (the B side) in Asia, I got a call from my agent saying Leeds were interested.”
Ankergren just missed out on a full international cap, although he was on the bench for games against Luxembourg and the Czech Repubic. He did win a handful of under 21 caps, and he said: “I’ve represented my country at various junior levels and remember making my under 16 debut against England. On the other side that days was Wes Brown and Michael Owen – you could tell both would have successful careers. Owen looked something special and he scored against me in a 4-1 defeat. I didn’t have my best game.”
Ankergren joined Leeds on loan initially, making his debut aged 27 in a 2-1 home win over Crystal Palace on 19 February 2007. Although it panned out to be one of the most turbulent times in the club’s history, Ankergren found life at Leeds more relaxed under Dennis Wise and Poyet than he had in Denmark.
His 14 games at the bottom of the Championship couldn’t halt the slide towards relegation which was confirmed emphatically with a points deduction when the club went into administration.
“I saved a couple of penalties early on, which won over the fans, including an important one against fellow strugglers Luton,” he said. He denied Dean Morgan from 12 yards with only four minutes left of a tense afternoon, and he told a supporter’s blog: “There were a few minutes, plus stoppage time to go against Luton so I had to stay focused as they were down there with us, so the win was vital.
“I had also saved a penalty away at Cardiff City but unfortunately we still lost the game.”
After signing on permanently, Ankergren was first choice as Leeds acclimatised to third tier football in 2007-08. He made 54 appearances in all competitions and, having conceded only one goal in five league games in September 2007, won his first League One Player of the Month award.
It wasn’t always plain sailing at Elland Road, though, and he was sad to see Poyet depart to become assistant manager to Juande Ramos at Spurs in November 2007, followed early in the new year by Wise, who became director of football at Newcastle.
“Gus was really, really respected up in Leeds. It was a big loss when he went to Tottenham – we really missed him, but I kept in touch after he left,” said Ankergren.
“I liked his style. If you do well, he’ll let you know – but if you don’t do well, he’ll also let you know. There’s none of this going behind your back; he’ll say it to your face, which is what I like.”
He also felt a sense of loss with Wise’s departure. “It was a massive disappointment for me personally,” he said. “Wisey is a good man, he had given me the chance to play in England and I will always be grateful to him.”
In March 2008, the goalkeeper faced an “improper conduct” charge brought by the FA for allegedly throwing a missile into the crowd at the County Ground, Swindon. He was fined £750 but not banned.
Gary McAllister was installed as manager and steered the club to the end of season play-offs against Doncaster Rovers and, despite some important saves by Ankergren, they lost. “I don’t know why but we never turned up at Wembley,” said Ankergren. “It was a strange feeling which let me flat, and it took a long time to get over that. We came so near, yet so far.”
Ankergren admitted to sheridan-dictates.com that he did not particularly enjoy the 2008-09 season. “It appeared that McAllister didn’t know his best team. I was in the side one week then the next he would pick Dave Lucas. Goalkeepers need games to stay sharp and focused and the thought of being dropped played on me and I did not perform to the standards I expected from myself.
“McAllister had been an outstanding midfielder but he was a League One manager with a League One squad. I think he expected too much from a group who didn’t have the ability that he had been blessed with as a player.
“The atmosphere was not great around the club and I thought that McAllister made some very strange decisions.
“Although I did not have any real issues with the manager, I have to be honest and say that I was not too disappointed when he was sacked and Simon Grayson was brought in.”
Grayson’s reign started on Boxing Day 2008 and he put Ankergren back into his team to play Leicester City. Leeds had fallen into mid-table but turned things around to earn a place in the play offs against Millwall who won the two-legged semi-final.
“Looking back, could we handle the favourites tag?” Ankergren asked. “It was another horrible feeling, but we were all determined to come back for pre-season training and go one better.”
However, although Lucas had left the club, Ankergren faced new competition in Shane Higgs and Grayson went with him at the start of the 2009-10 season.
But when Higgs was injured at MK Dons on 26 September 2009, Ankergren appeared as a substitute and eventually won his place back, even though United brought in Frank Fielding and David Martin as loan goalkeepers, and he had the feeling Grayson didn’t really rate him.
Ankergren re-established himself with a string of impressive performances and clean sheets andwas the last line of defence in a memorable 1-0 FA Cup third round win for Leeds at Old Trafford in January 2010, including pulling off a terrific save to deny Danny Welbeck.
He was also in goal against Spurs in the next round when it took a replay at Elland Road before the north London club finally won through.
However, the beginning of the end of his time at Elland Road came when he made a mistake in a 2-0 home defeat against Millwall on 22 March 2010, and he didn’t return to the side for the remaining nine games as they went on to win promotion to the Championship as runners up behind Norwich City.
“I remember sitting with Paul Dickov in the dressing room having a beer and reflecting on what we had achieved,” Ankergren told sheridan-dictates.com. “We went over to the Centenary Pavilion for the end of season dinner and on to a nightclub, It was a great night but deep down I knew that I had played my last game for the club as my contract was up.”
Ironically, his replacement at Leeds was fellow Dane, Kasper Schmeichel, son of Ankergren’s goalkeeping idol, Peter, who also played for Brondby before going on to achieve fame at Manchester United.
Ankergren’s 11-year association with the Seagulls came to an end in September 2021 when he returned to his home country as head goalkeeping coach at Brondby.
Pictures from various online sources, matchday programmes and the Argus
A JOURNEYMAN striker who fired blanks for Brighton and Sheffield United only found very occasional purple patches of goalscoring in a 12-club, 17-year career.
Billy Paynter didn’t manage a single goal in 10 games on loan for Gus Poyet’s Seagulls and carried with him from parent club Leeds United the somewhat unkind epithet ‘Barn door Billy’ for his proverbial inability to hit one with a banjo.
A subsequent half-season loan spell at Sheffield United under Nigel Clough yielded a similar zero in the goals scored column.
A journey around the message boards on supporter websites uncovers some brutal and unflattering comments about Paynter’s contribution for their team and yet it was a career that yielded 131 goals in 529 games – one in four.
And it all began promisingly under the guidance of former Albion captain and manager, Brian Horton.
Born in the Norris Green area of Liverpool on 13 July 1984, Paynter joined Port Vale’s academy at the tender age of 10 and turned professional soon after his 16th birthday.
Horton gave Paynter his first team debut when he was only 16 years and 294 days old on 3 May 2001 as a 61st-minute substitute at home to Walsall.
It was 10 months before he made a start, although he got a few more sub appearances, and Vale supporters had to wait until the start of the 2002-03 season for his first goal, after he’d replaced injured crowd favourite Steve McPhee in a home game against Wrexham.
Eventually, Paynter got into his stride and his popularity with the fans saw him voted Player of the Year in 2004-05.
His 34 goals in 158 games for Vale caught the eye of another former Albion manager, Peter Taylor, at then-Championship side Hull City.
Signed initially on loan, a fee of £150,000 took him on a permanent two-and-a-half-year contract to the KC Stadium in January 2006.
The following month Paynter turned out as a right-sided midfield player for a Football League Under-21 team (selected and managed by Taylor) in a game against an Italian Serie B side at the KC Stadium.
Taylor also experimented with him in the same position for Hull but, having scored only three times in 23 matches, Paynter was on the move again after only eight months.
He switched to Southend United, also in the Championship, for £200,000 in August 2006 and somewhat ironically, his only goal for the Shrimpers was scored against Brighton in a 3-2 League Cup win at Roots Hall in September 2006.
A lack of goals and a hamstring injury meant his stay in Essex was cut short and for the second half of the 2006-07 season he went on loan to League One Bradford City, where he managed four goals in 15 matches, including one on his debut.
On August deadline day in 2007, Paynter’s next move saw Paul Sturrock sign him for Swindon Town. Within a month he had netted a hat-trick against Bournemouth and added two more in a 5-0 win over Gillingham the following month.
It wasn’t all plain sailing for him, though, and after a two-month goal drought which had seen him lose his place, he told BBC Radio Swindon: “You can try and do too much and get caught up with it, but if you relax and get on with your game, I think it will come naturally.”
Paired with Simon Cox initially, Paynter got amongst the goals in support of the main man. But he stepped up a gear after Cox was sold to West Brom in the summer of 2009. His new strike partner was a young Charlie Austin and the pair enjoyed a rich seam of goalscoring form in the 2009-10 season under former Albion captain Danny Wilson.
Paynter had a spell where he scored 15 goals in 17 games and ended the season with 29 goals in 52 matches, his best goals-to-games ratio in a season. Swindon’s captain that season was none other than Gordon Greer, who remains a close friend of Paynter.
Four of Paynter’s goals had been scored against Leeds and, in the summer of 2010, he moved to Elland Road on a Bosman free transfer, with Wilson admitting to BBC Radio Wiltshire: “Anybody who scores nearly 30 goals in a season will be wanted by bigger clubs than us.”
Leeds boss Simon Grayson said: “He has matured as a player over the last couple of years and he had a fantastic season last season. He works ever so hard, holds the ball up well and he has proved he knows where the back of the net is.
“When we knew he was available we were desperate to get him. We feel he will be a good acquisition for the club, and I am delighted to have got him.”
Unfortunately, his time at Leeds didn’t start well when he picked up a shin stress fracture in a pre-season match in Slovakia, leading to him missing the start of the season.
It wasn’t until the second week of October that he was able to make his Leeds debut and starts were rare as Luciano Becchio and Davide Somma were Grayson’s preferred selection up front. Paynter didn’t register his first goal for Leeds until the following March, in a 2-1 win at Preston. It was his only goal in 23 matches that season.
As the 2011-12 season got under way, Grayson had added Mikael Forssell to his striking options and the manager encouraged Paynter to talk to other clubs, with Sheffield United and Brighton discussed as possible destinations.
Paynter preferred to stay and try to stake a claim for a place but, having only played once as a sub in the opening game of the season, he decided to make a three-month loan switch to Brighton at the end of October 2011.
On 29th October 2011, he made his Brighton debut as a 67th-minute substitute for Matt Sparrow in a 0-0 draw away to Birmingham City.
The first of his six starts came on 1 November in a 0-1 defeat at Watford. He came off the bench a further three times and, without troubling the scorers, returned to Elland Road in January.
Back at Leeds he had to wait until April before he was selected by new manager Neil Warnock for a home game against Peterborough United. Paynter scored twice in a 4-1 win and, when replaced by substitute Becchio in the final minute, left the field to a standing ovation. But he picked up an Achilles injury in the following game away to Blackpool and was made available for transfer at the end of the season.
Paynter earned a place in a planetfootball.com poll listing 13 of Leeds’ “worst and weirdest signings under Ken Bates” although he was good-humoured enough to acknowledge it in a 2018 Under the Cosh podcast.
“I’ve always said there’s some players that will be remembered for being good, there’s some players that will be remembered for being sh*te,” he said. “No one remembers the OK players. Take the positives out of a bad situation, in that way I will be remembered!”
It was former Brighton striker Dean Saunders who was responsible for Paynter’s next move, picking him up on a free transfer for League One Doncaster Rovers on 13 August 2012.
While Saunders left the Keep Moat Stadium in January 2013 to join Wolves, Paynter played his part in Rovers winning promotion back to the Championship under Brian Flynn, top-scoring with 15 goals as Rovers returned to the second tier as champions.
An anonymous Donny fan recalled: “He had some good games for us and made the pass from the missed penalty at Brentford that enabled (James) Coppinger to score and win us promotion. He is best played in the box. He causes all sorts of problems. He is a tough guy and takes no prisoners. I liked him but I would say League One is his limit.”
A familiar face in the shape of Brian Horton arrived as assistant manager to new Donny manager Paul Dickov (Flynn had been promoted to director of football) in the summer of 2013.
It must have given Paynter some satisfaction on 27 August 2013 when he scored in a League Cup tie at home to Leeds, although the visitors ran out 3-1 winners. However, that was his only goal and, after managing only one start and 11 appearances off the bench, up to Christmas, he was sent on loan to League One Sheffield United for the second half of the 2013-14 season.
An exiled Blades fan living in Leeds, ‘Blader’ said: “I am uninspired and don’t see this is a great signing. I’ve seen him play many a time and never seen him perform notably and he is a laughing stock in Leeds for how badly he performed.”
A blunt Blade
He made his debut as a sub against Notts County on 11 January 2014 but spent much of the time on the sub’s bench as manager Nigel Clough preferred to play with ‘a false 9’. Paynter made just six starts and came off the bench seven times but no goals were forthcoming. United finished seventh, one place off the play-off places, seven points adrift of sixth-placed Peterborough United.
Paynter was only a spectator as United remarkably reached the semi-final of the FA Cup, losing 5-3 at Wembley to Hull City, Jamie Murphy, later to play for Brighton, among the Blades scorers. A young Harry Maguire at the back for the Blades was named the League One player of the year.
The last three seasons of his playing career saw Paynter drop into League Two and he joined Carlisle United on the same day as former Albion midfielder Gary Dicker.
However, the season wasn’t even a month old when Graham Kavanagh lost his job as manager. His successor Keith Curle steered them to a fifth from bottom finish.
Paynter’s involvement was limited to 12 starts plus eight appearances off the bench and he and Dicker clashed with Curle when they sought PFA guidance after they were fined for allegedly failing to attend training sessions.
In the close season, Paynter headed 90 miles east to Hartlepool United, who’d just avoided dropping out of the league after finishing four points above Cheltenham Town.
The goal touch returned as Paynter top scored with 15 goals in 35 appearances as Hartlepool finished in 16th place courtesy of a decent run of wins in the spring under new boss Craig Hignett.
The managerial door revolved once more at Victoria Park the following season but Hignett’s successor Dave Jones (the former Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday boss) couldn’t prevent Hartlepool from heading out of the league, controversially parting company with the club with two games to go following an on-screen rant by United’s best known fan, Jeff Stelling.
Club captain Paynter, who had openly questioned Jones’ tactics in the local press, joined forces with fitness coach Stuart Parnaby to assist caretaker Matthew Bates for the final two fixtures.
It was one of those footballing fates moments that they needed a miracle against Paynter’s old club Doncaster in the final match and it was given a big build-up in the Mirror.
“Although we lost at Cheltenham last weekend, the lads had a lot more fight in them. I can understand it when players lose confidence or belief, but you can’t drop out of the Football League after 100 years without a fight,” he said.
“It’s one of those strange coincidences that we need to beat my old club to stand a chance of survival. I really enjoyed my time at Doncaster, and I’ll never forget that day we were promoted to the Championship, but I hope the supporters understand my loyalty is with Hartlepool now.”
Hartlepool hitman
Although Hartlepool won 2-1, they had been relying on other results going their way and Newport’s 2-1 win over Notts County 2-1 meant they stayed up and the North East side lost their league status. Having contributed just four goals in 26 matches, Paynter left the club.
While he attempted a brief extension to his playing career, training at non-league AFC Fylde, Southport and Warrington Town, he retired from playing in November 2017 and turned to coaching. He joined Everton’s academy in February 2018 before returning to his first club, Port Vale as professional development phase lead coach in October 2020.
On rejoining, he said: “It’s a joy to be back where it all started. Coming through PVFC’s Centre of Excellence from the age of 10, I know what the DNA of Port Vale is and what sort of players we should be producing.”
Pictures from various online sources and the Albion matchday programme.
A PROMISING young midfielder edging towards first team football at Chelsea had his dreams extinguished when Roman Abramovich arrived with lorry loads of cash.
Manager Claudio Ranieri had let Alexis Nicolas know that he was heading in the right direction after he’d broken through to the fringes of the first team.
But when Abramovich took over at Stamford Bridge, big name signings started to arrive and Nicolas was left way down the pecking order behind the likes of Juan Sebastián Verón, Claude Makélélé, Geremi and Scott Parker.
New boss Jose Mourinho informed the youngster he should look elsewhere to make progress, and Brighton, newly promoted to the Championship, offered a refuge for the talented London-born Cypriot under-21 international.
Albion’s midfield options were depleted at the beginning of the 2004-05 season with Simon Rodger a long-term absentee, stalwart Richard Carpenter recovering from close-season knee surgery, and Charlie Oatway also sidelined through injury.
It meant Nicolas had a chance to show what he was made of and he played 15 games on loan from the start of the season through to October.
Enthusiastic Albion boss Mark McGhee said: “He has brought energy and he has got quality. He is a certain type of player, similar in many ways to Charlie Oatway.
“He is not a box-to-box goalscoring midfielder but what he does brilliantly is that he is always in the area around the ball where you need him.
“He breaks things up quickly and, when we win possession, we go more quickly from defence into attack with Alexis in there than we did previously.”
Nicolas clearly relished the opportunity he’d been given and, as the prospects of a permanent move grew stronger, he told the Argus: “It’s flattering that Brighton want to keep me. I like it here. I am happy with the club and the manager and I don’t see why it can’t be permanent.
“If everything can come together, and I think it will be a good move, then I don’t see why it won’t go ahead.”
He added: “There is a lot of stuff to be sorted out with a lot of different people.
“All I can say is I am happy here and I like the club. They are good people and the fans are great. Anyone with an offer to come here has got to be chuffed with that, because it is a great set-up.”
McGhee made no secret of his admiration for the 21-year-old, saying: “He’s been a fixture in the team and that says it all. He is improving week in and week out and I think he has got a good future.
“He has a terrific little engine and attitude. He quietly goes about his job and he has been really important for us so far this season.
“The boy himself is modest and unassuming. He loves Chelsea, he loved being there and I am sure he will be very disappointed to leave, but he wants to be a footballer more than he wants to be a Chelsea player. That is the important thing for us.”
McGhee explained the difference Nicolas made to the side. “He has that knack of being in the right place at the right time; he seems to cover such a big area. For a physically small lad, he is everywhere.
“He anticipates where the next ball is going and gets there early, puts people under pressure, wins the ball back and activates us going forward. He wins it and, before you know it, we’re going forward.”
When he signed permanently, Nicolas said: “It feels great. You are always sad to leave a club and I have been at Chelsea for a while, but I am excited and glad that I have signed for Brighton.
“The role I play is similar to Claude Makélélé’s and I used to speak to Claude regularly. He used to give me a lot of good advice. I’ve learned from all of the players at Chelsea, but now it’s time for me to open another chapter in my life and learn some other stuff.”
Nicolas said breaking into the Chelsea first team had whetted his appetite to return to that level and he told the Albion matchday programme: “Having played in the Premiership, I would like to achieve it here at Brighton and I don’t see why one day Brighton can’t be a club in the Premiership.”
Unfortunately, he joined an injury and suspension hit squad that couldn’t compete with better-resourced clubs in the second tier because of crowd-restricted home gates at the Withdean Stadium.
While Nicolas impressed in his first season, playing in a further 19 games, McGhee was forced to sell star players Danny Cullip and Darren Currie to bolster the club’s perilous finances, and the side only just managed to avoid the drop.
The following season, with Dean Hammond and Carpenter the mainstays in central midfield, Nicolas too often watched on from the bench and missed several weeks because of ankle and knee injuries.
Asked about his watching brief from the sidelines, he said in a matchday programme article: “It’s been very frustrating for me this season and I’m upset about it. I’d like to think that a lot of the fans would like to see me out there. The manager can only pick eleven players and he’s the boss – what he says goes and I respect that.”
His frustration was barely disguised in an interview with the Argus on 23 Feb 2006, after a reserve match he was due to play in was called off.
“It seems impossible for me to get 90 minutes at the moment,” he said. “I was out for six weeks injured and have only managed 60 minutes football against Millwall in a reserve match since because of postponements.
“Before that I was mostly on the bench. I have hardly played this season.
“Even though I am not fully match fit, I have been training hard and have enough about me to be able to cope. I am not thinking of myself when I say this. I have put personal goals to one side.
“After all, I pulled out of international squads with Cyprus earlier in the season even if it meant I could just be on the bench for Brighton. I feel I have a lot to offer.”
The midfielder added: “What matters is Albion. I love the club, the lads and the fans and want to do my best for them.”
Unfortunately, after playing only 12 matches in 2005-06, he wasn’t kept on after the Seagulls were relegated on 30 April 2006, and he never played league football again.
Born in Westminster on 13 February 1983, Nicolas went to Trent CE Primary School in Cockfosters, where he first showed a talent with a football. He also enjoyed long distance running and tennis.
He played football for a decent Sunday League side in Colliers Wood alongside two other future professionals, Steve Sidwell and Leon Britton, and eventually became part of Arsenal’s youth set-up. But he ended up as an apprentice at Aston Villa, and got taken on as a professional. He was in the same under-19s squad as future Albion goalkeeper Wayne Henderson and defender Liam Ridgewell.
But in December 2001, he joined Chelsea on a free transfer, and with 24 starts plus one as a sub, he missed only one of the reserves side’s 26 matches in the 2002-03 season.
He was handed the no.27 shirt for the 2003-04 season and made his Chelsea first team debut in their 1-0 FA Cup win away to Scarborough on 24 January 2004.
John Terry scored the only goal of the game and Nicolas played in midfield alongside Frank Lampard and Emmanuel Pettit in a side also featuring Joe Cole and Wayne Bridge.
Guardian football reporter, Paul Wilson, noted: “Alexis Nicolas made an encouraging debut, but time and again Cole, in particular, would attempt something complicated when a simpler option was available.”
Nicolas made his Premiership debut a week later in a 1–0 win over Charlton Athletic. His only other appearance was as a 90th minute substitute for Lampard as the Blues rounded off the season with a 1-0 home win over Leeds United.
“Ranieri called me into his office at the end of 2002-2003 and told me the club didn’t have a lot of money to invest and that he didn’t have too many midfielders at his disposal, so I would be in his plans for the following season,” Nicolas said.
Even as the oligarch’s takeover was going through in the summer of 2003, the youngster was part of Ranieri’s team which beat Newcastle United 5-4 on penalties in the final of the FA Premier League Asia Cup in front of a crowd of 41,500 in Kuala Lumpur’s national Bukit Jalil stadium. It was the first piece of silverware of the Abramovich era.
“It maybe wasn’t the most glamorous of trophies, but it was still the first of many under the new owner,” Nicolas said.
It wasn’t long before a flurry of big-name signings soon changed the picture for Nicolas; the arrival of five midfielders in particular being somewhat ominous.
“I had planned to go out on loan because I had fallen so far down the pecking order,” Nicolas added. “But some of the midfielders, like Makélélé and Petit, were picking up injuries, so I stuck around.
“Looking back, it was easy to think, ‘He’s signed, so that is why I am not playing,’ but it was really a turning point in Chelsea’s history, and it was nice to have been part of it.
“I was pleased for the club when Abramovich took over but also a little bit disappointed for myself.”
After relegated Brighton released him, Nicolas tried to continue his league career and had a trial with Bradford City, but after an unremarkable game for their reserves side, manager Colin Todd told the Bradford Telegraph & Argus: “At the moment I can’t guarantee him anything. His fitness levels aren’t the best but if he wants to continue to train with us and try to improve on that then it’s up to him.”
In fact, he decided to join St Albans City on 26 September 2006 and made his Nationwide Conference debut in a 2-1 defeat at Weymouth four days later.
On 12 November, the St Albans City website noted: “A knee injury restricted Alexis to just six appearances for St Albans City but, with a number of League One and League Two sides showing an interest, the player has decided to move on.”
Nicolas said he was grateful to manager Colin Lippiatt for giving him the opportunity and added: “I was not in the best of states when I joined the club but everyone has been a great help and when fully fit I hope to join one of the League One or League Two sides who are showing an interest in me.”
But it was a career in property investment that opened up for him instead and in 2012 he set up his own business in partnership with Ryan Springer.
He wasn’t completely done with football, though, and, also in 2012, Nicolas had a spell as player-manager of Hadley FC, a Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division side, and in 2014-15 he was part of the club’s management team under former Spurs and Chelsea player Micky Hazard.
Pictures as featured in the Albion matchday programme and from various online sources.
STUART Storer cemented his place in Brighton’s history when he scrambled home a last-gasp winner in the final ever home game at the Goldstone Ground.
When a seemingly goal-bound header from Mark Morris bounced off the south stand end’s crossbar, fortunately it fell into the path of the onrushing Storer who managed to scramble it over the line among a sea of flailing Doncaster Rovers legs.
That moment on 26 April 1997 is often brought up with Storer via media interviews or simply when bumping into Brighton fans while on his travels. The goal is featured in the pre-match video montage shown on the TV screens at the Amex, so it has been seen by various generations of fans.
“I’m proud that people hold me in so much esteem and I’m very fortunate to be part of the club’s history,” Storer told Brighton & Hove Independent in an April 2017 interview. “Younger people that I teach watch the video and take the Mickey but they’ll never kill my pride. I’m very proud of that moment.”
Storer provided the photographers with plenty of action shots
The goal ensured a vital three points were secured in the fight to avoid relegation from the lowest tier in the Football League. In the one remaining game the following week, Albion managed to get the point needed to stay up while simultaneously relegating Hereford United.
Those crucial matches were just two of more than 150 games Storer played for the Albion under six different managers during an extraordinarily turbulent time for the club.
It was, though, a rather curious playing career all round that saw some of the game’s biggest names – Liam Brady, Alan Ball, Howard Kendall and Ron Saunders – sign him for their clubs. And he carried on playing until he was 42.
In 2006 and 2007, he was part of Everton’s Masters’ six-a-side team in the televised tournament featuring veteran players. Storer’s teammates included the likes of Neville Southall, Adrian Heath and Alan Harper.
Storer had been at Goodison Park the last time the Toffees were the English league champions. However, he didn’t make a first team appearance, invariably being the 13th man in the days when there was only one substitute.
He’d arrived on Merseyside as a transfer makeweight in a £300,000 deal Kendall struck with Birmingham City to sign Wolverhampton-born striker Wayne Clarke – the youngest of five brothers who played league football.
Clarke’s former club, Wolves, were convinced Storer had been included in the deal simply to lower the sell-on amount they were due as part of a previous agreement.
Clarke scored five goals in 10 games – including a hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Newcastle United on Easter Monday – to help Everton win the League Championship. Storer had made only 12 appearances for City in three years so his chances of making an impact with the title-chasers were slim.
Although Storer was on Everton’s books for nine months, he never crossed the white line for the first team and went on loan to Wigan Athletic, making his debut on the opening day of the 1987-88 season in a 4-4 draw away to Notts County (Garry Birtles scored two of County’s goals).
Storer was no stranger to a 4-4 draw. He played in two for Albion in 1997 – on 8 March at home to Orient and on Boxing Day later the same year when they drew at Priestfield against Colchester United (Paul Emblen got a hat-trick for the Seagulls).
Storer started nine games for the Latics and came on as a sub three times under Ray Matthias but they didn’t have the funds for a permanent transfer. Instead, the loan was cut short and, on Christmas Eve 1987, Everton sold him to then Fourth Division Bolton Wanderers for £25,000. He scored his first goal for the Trotters four days later in a 2-1 home win over Stockport County.
He enjoyed seven seasons at Burnden Park as they progressed from the basement division to the third tier under former Liverpool and England full-back Phil Neal.
His time with the Trotters included two trips to Wembley. He was a late substitute in the Wanderers side captained by Phil Brown who beat Torquay United 4-1 in to win the Sherpa van Trophy in 1989. And he was a starter in the Wanderers side who lost the 1991 Third Division play-off final to Tranmere Rovers.
Having broken an ankle and seen Neal switch to become Steve Coppell’s assistant manager at Manchester City, Storer was sold to Exeter City in March 1993 by Neal’s successor Bruce Rioch. Storer made 177 appearances for Bolton, but Rioch’s signing of David Lee had signalled the beginning of the end of his time there.
It was former World Cup winner Ball, then boss of Exeter City, who paid £25,000 for Storer’s services. He made 75 appearances (plus two as a sub) for the Grecians, initially under Ball and then his successor, former Leeds and England left-back Terry Cooper in the 1994-95 season.
Financial problems at the Devon club led to his departure. Early negotiations with a view to a transfer to Brighton initially broke down but Brady finally managed to secure his services for £15,000 in March 1995.
Ironically, he then suffered an injury during his first day’s training with the Seagulls, delaying his first appearance until 29 April. But it was memorable as he scored in a 3-3 draw away to his former club, Birmingham.
He recalled in a March 2019 interview with Michael Walker for the Daily Mail: “I was in an untenable situation at Exeter because they were going into administration. I had to get out. It was from the frying pan into the fire.”
However, Storer said, at the time he signed, he was unaware of the tensions going on around the Albion, although he knew he was the first player signed after a transfer embargo had been lifted. Not for the first time in the club’s history, fans dipped into their pockets to help buy the player.
“I think the fans just wanted to buy a player, any player, and they chipped in,” said Storer.
Born in the village of Harborough Magna, just north of Rugby, on 16 January 1967, he was raised in the village of Dunchurch, just south of Rugby, attending its local junior school before moving on to Bilton High School, where his footballing ability was recognised with selection in the Rugby Boys and Warwickshire Boys representative sides.
Wolverhampton Wanderers scout John Jarman spotted him and he went along to Molineux during the Ian Greaves managerial reign. When a takeover at Wolves saw Jarman and Greaves depart for Mansfield Town, they took the young Storer on as a trainee at Field Mill.
He began playing for their youth side but he was given his Mansfield first team debut aged only 16 in a 4-0 win over Hartlepool.
Storer and Julian Dicks at Birmingham City
Released after only a year with the Stags, he was offered another chance to build a league career by Birmingham who he joined in July 1984, initially signing as a trainee and then becoming a professional. But after limited first team opportunities at St Andrews, Saunders’ successor, John Bond, sold him to Everton as part of the Clarke transfer.
After Storer’s crucial part in keeping Albion in the League, he remained at the club until 1999, playing a total of 152 games and being part of the side who had to spend two years playing home games at Gillingham.
He moved back to Warwickshire on the day the Seagulls played their first friendly at Withdean on 24 July 1999,signing for Southern League Premier Division side Atherstone United, but he was only there for two months before moving to Kettering Town, who were playing in the Football Conference, the tier just below the Football League.
In May 2000, Storer signed for Isthmian League Premier Division side Chesham United and spent a season with them, before moving nearer to his Midlands base and signing for Hinckley United in March 2001.
Storer was made club captain, and as he approached his late 30s, he got more involved with coaching. At the age of 40, Storer was a member of the Hinckley team that achieved their highest ever league position of fourth in the Conference North, losing in the play-off final to deny them promotion.
After eight seasons, he had made more than 300 appearances for the part-timers of Hinckley while working as a PE teacher at various colleges in Coventry.
Storer continued to play until he was 42 and since 2013 has managed Bedworth United, where he is still in charge and also runs academies for boys and girls and A Level courses. He said: “I played until I was 42 at Hinckley in the Conference and then my legs gave way and I had to do something else in football.”
There’s a Michael Portillo style to Storer’s attire here and he admitted in a matchday programme article to having a penchant for “having a bizarre choice in clothing” as well as being an avid collector of hats.
IT LOOKED LIKE the so-near-and-yet-so-far story of Oliver Norwood’s flirtation with the Premier League would end in disappointment.
Twice the former Manchester United reserve helped teams to win promotion from the second tier, only then to remain in that division when the sides he played for didn’t see him as a Premiership player.
It happened first of all with Brighton in their 2016-17 promotion under Chris Hughton.
The following campaign Norwood went on a season-long loan to Fulham and was at the heart of their midfield as they won promotion.
Fulham didn’t look to retain him, though, and for 2018-19 he was once again loaned out by Brighton; this time to Sheffield United.
Halfway through the season, they turned the loan into a permanent transfer and, after helping the Blades to win promotion, Norwood finally got his chance to show his skills in what amounted to an impressive return to the top-flight of English football.
How BBC’s Match of the Day Tweeted Norwood’s record
Born in Burnley on 12 April 1991, Norwood was only six when he first came to the attention of Manchester United, spotted playing for Fulledge Colts in his home town.
“My earliest football memory is being on trial at the Manchester United academy aged six and being totally overawed by it,” he told the Albion matchday programme. “I remember standing there at The Cliff, biting my fingernails, and the coach, Paul McGuinness, saying ‘Are you going to join in?’ After that, I was fine and it was really exciting to be part of the club’s academy.” He joined the Red Devils on schoolboy terms at seven and spent 15 years on their books, playing in the same youth teams as Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard.
During the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons, Norwood made appearances for United’s under-18 team and, ultimately, he signed on as a trainee in July 2007.
He became an under-18 regular in 2007-08 and also made his debut for the United reserve side. After netting nine goals in 28 appearances for the under-18s in 2008-09, Norwood was signed as a professional.
He was a reserve team regular in 2009-10 and said he owed a lot to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who was in charge of United reserves at that time.
“I owe a lot to Manchester United for the experiences and education I had there,” Norwood told the matchday programme, United Review. “The club taught me not just about football but life. I was taught how to be a good person.
“Ole played a huge role in terms of my development as a footballer and a person. The lessons he taught me in the reserves have stayed with me throughout my career.
“I’ll always be grateful to Manchester United, to Ole, to (former reserves manager) Warren Joyce, for the upbringing they gave me in the game.”
Norwood got a sniff of the first team when Sir Alex Ferguson called him up to the first team squad for a Champions League match away to Wolfsburg. He travelled with the squad to Germany but didn’t get selected in the final matchday 18.
In search of a first team breakthrough, Norwood decided to gain experience on loan with lower league clubs and his first port of call was Carlisle United in September 2010. Ironically, his first match was against Brighton – a 0-0 draw at Brunton Park. Unfortunately, after just five starts and two sub appearances, he tore a thigh muscle and had to cut short his loan and return to Old Trafford for treatment.
The following season, he went out on loan again, this time to League One Scunthorpe United where Alan Knill, Chris Wilder’s no.2 at Sheffield United, was the manager.
In an interview with the aforementioned Joyce, the former reserves manager explained how it was only a change in Norwood’s diet that started to bring about the required improvements to his game.
“I got him to write down everything he ate. And I meant everything. I said, ‘We have to look at your diet and get you absolutely super fit’. I told him we couldn’t allow the ability he had to be wasted.”
Joyce told The Athletic’s Richard Sutcliffe in a 23 June 2020 article: “Once we’d sat him down (after returning from Scunthorpe) and analysed everything, he got himself really ripped. He started eating the right things and worked so hard to get into shape. He is getting the rewards from that now.”
Norwood spent the second half of the 2011-12 season in Coventry City’s unsuccessful effort to beat the drop from the Championship but, having acquired a taste for football at that level, declined the offer of a contract extension on his return to Old Trafford.
He told Talksport at the time: “I want to play every week like I was this season in the Championship. It’s been the hardest decision in my life for me to make but there comes a time when you have to be realistic.”
He opted to join newly promoted Huddersfield Town in the Championship on a three-year contract, and Sutcliffe’s article reveals Norwood was so determined to make the move that he drove down to Heathrow Airport to apprehend holiday-bound Town manager Simon Grayson to persuade him to sign him.
Nevertheless, United boss Sir Alex Ferguson had some encouraging parting words that the midfielder never forgot. “You’re not going to make it at Manchester United, but I believe one day you will play in the Premier League.”
Norwood was a permanent fixture in the Terriers’ midfield for two seasons before switching to fellow Championship outfit Reading at the beginning of the 2014-15 season.
Signed by Nigel Adkins on 21 August, 11 days later he was joined at the Madejski by Glenn Murray, on loan from Crystal Palace.
When the Royals were hammered 6-1 by Birmingham City in mid-December, Adkins was sacked and replaced by Steve Clarke. His second game in charge, on Boxing Day, saw Reading visit the Amex, with Brighton under caretaker manager Nathan Jones. Murray scored twice for the visitors, but Albion rescued a point with a 90th minute equaliser from Inigo Calderon.
Norwood completed the season having made 35 appearances plus seven as a sub and although he made the second highest number of appearances – 50 – the following season, when the Royals visited the Amex on 15 March 2016, under Brian McDermott, their third manager of that campaign, Norwood was a non-playing sub as the Royals lost 1-0 to a James Wilson goal.
The next time the two sides met (a 2-2 draw at the Madejski on 20 August), Norwood was part of Chris Hughton’s squad, having signed for the Seagulls at the start of the 2016-17 season, along with Murray and Steve Sidwell. Norwood was a 68th-minute sub for Sam Baldock.
Manager Hughton said of Norwood: “Oliver is another excellent addition to our squad.
“He has a good grounding coming from Manchester United, and has a wealth of experience playing in the Championship and at international level.
“He’s a box-to-box midfielder and an excellent passer of the ball, so he gives us extra options in midfield and adds further depth to our squad.”
Although he played for England at youth level, he also qualified for Northern Ireland, and chose that country to enable him to experience more opportunities at international level.
Norwood made his full international debut during Nigel Worthington’s time as manager, coming on as a substitute in a 2-0 friendly defeat by Montenegro in Podgorica in August 2010.
He was a regular in Worthington’s successor Michael O’Neill’s midfield when the side qualified for Euro 2016 and played in all four of the team’s matches in the finals in France.
However, having made 57 appearances for his country, he decided in August 2019 to retire from international football when only 28.
Although Norwood made 20 starts for the Albion, he was almost as often used as a substitute, making 17 appearances off the bench, as the Seagulls soared to promotion.
Norwood had a starting berth when Beram Kayal was injured and he told the matchday programme: “This has been a big opportunity for me. The gaffer brought me to the football club and obviously I’ve been desperate to get into the team and play games.
Norwood had plenty to say
“Obviously I understand how football works. When the team’s winning and doing really well you have to bide your time, but an opportunity has come my way and it’s been important for me to grab it with both hands and do all I can to stay in the team.”
It has since transpired that the midfielder was most likely distracted by off-field issues during his season with the Seagulls, as thestar.co.uk reported.
“I went to Brighton after the 2016 Euros, and it was a difficult period in my life,” said Norwood. “My wife, Abigail, was pregnant and really ill, so we were living apart. My head wasn’t fully there.”
He told The Star he only fell in love with football again when he went on loan to Fulham, and subsequently was at loggerheads with Brighton when they didn’t accede to his request for a permanent move. “They said I could leave, but then turned down bids when they came in and started asking for silly things. I don’t think clubs realise sometimes that they’re messing with people’s lives. I had plenty of arguments, saying: ‘You don’t want me here, so let me go’.”
With Dale Stephens and Kayal the preferred central midfield pairing, plus the arrival of Davy Propper for Albion’s first season back amongst the elite, Hughton had been happy to let Norwood join Fulham on a season-long loan.
Norwood made 47 appearances for Fulham in 2017-18, particularly when filling in for the injured Tom Cairney until the Scot’s return from injury towards the end of the season.
His passing accuracy and all-round contribution were favourable, as this footballwhispers.com article assessed, and he proved a vital cog in their promotion via the play-offs when they beat Aston Villa 1-0 in the play-off final.
The website football.london was surprised Fulham didn’t opt to sign him permanently. “Norwood was a key figure under Slavisa Jokanovic, seamlessly plugging the gap left by Tom Cairney as a result of his injury and can be credited with a huge role in getting the club promoted in the first place, with his tackle on Conor Hourihane in the play-off final one that will forever be remembered by Fulham fans,” wrote Phil Spencer. “His vision and incisive passing was key to Fulham’s free-flowing style of play – meaning it was a little surprising that his loan switch to west London was never made permanent.”
Fans have contrasting views about his contribution, as this collection of quotes demonstrates. Some appreciated his ‘Hollywood’ long passes, others are perhaps summed up by this Fulham fan who said: “100% effort every time he played. Honest player. Not stellar but above average.”
Fulham’s loss was Sheffield United’s gain and in wishing Norwood well in his pursuit of more playing time with the Blades, Hughton told Albion’s website: “Ollie was one of our promotion-winning team in 2016-17 and will rightly be remembered as part of that historic team which took the club to the Premier League.”
Critics of Fulham’s strategy of splashing the cash on so-called name players for what proved to be an unsuccessful bid to retain their newly-won status in the Premier League couldn’t help pointing out the irony of Norwood’s situation.
“Fulham could only wave to Norwood on their way back down after ditching him for Jean Michel Seri,” said footyanalyst.com.
The Blades were promoted as runners up behind Norwich City in a season in which Norwood played 43 league games. He told The Observer’s Paul Doyle: “Last season was a big season for me. It was the most I’ve played. I’m definitely a better player now. At everything really. My understanding of the game. Tactically, technically, what needs to be done.”
He told Doyle: “It’s taken a bit longer than I would have liked but it was a dream come true to finally make the level that everybody across the world wants to play at.”
Norwood certainly seized the opportunity to shine at the top level, playing 40 games plus one as sub in all competitions as the Blades confounded the critics by finishing in ninth place, and taking on the captain’s armband in Billy Sharp’s absence.
Pictures from various online sourcesand the Albion matchday programme.
In parallel lines 