Sparks flew in Brighton v Chelsea FA Cup clashes

BRIGHTON v Chelsea in the FA Cup sparks memories for supporters of my generation stretching back several decades.

Many began as Albion followers the day the then First Division side from Stamford Bridge visited the Goldstone Ground in February 1967 when a dubious refereeing decision denied Third Division Brighton a shock win.

Others, me included, recall a fiery encounter in Hove six years later when Second Division strugglers Brighton were beaten 2-0 courtesy of two Peter Osgood goals in a game marred by violence on and off the pitch.

That third-round tie in January 1973 was dubbed “a day of shame” in the newspapers after two players were sent off, five were booked and crowd trouble erupted.

The chance for lower ranked teams to pitch their lesser talents against the big boys has always been at the heart of the FA Cup’s appeal.

That was certainly the case when Archie Macaulay’s mid-table Albion hosted Tommy Docherty’s top 10 Chelsea on 18 February 1967. To give it musical context, Georgy Girl by The Seekers had just taken over from The Monkees’ I’m A Believer at no.1 in the pop charts!

At a time when home crowds were normally 12,000 – 13,000, a sell-out gate of 35,000 packed into the Goldstone.

Cup fever had certainly captured the imagination of the Sussex public. In the previous round, 29,208 watched Albion beat Aldershot 3-1 in a third-round replay for the chance to take on the top division Pensioners (as Chelsea were called back then).

The two clubs hadn’t met in any other competition for 34 years – back in January 1933 Brighton beat the London side 2-1 in a third round FA Cup tie.

After such a long gap, maybe it was understandable that Albion’s young captain, Dave Turner, at 22, fell off the settee at home in excitement when he saw the cup draw made on the television.

Canny Brighton decided to sell tickets for the game at a reserve home fixture against Notts County, meaning a stunning 22,229 paid to watch the second string win 1-0 in order to secure their entry to the big game.

The matchday programme revealed how Docherty and several of his players had watched the Aldershot match to check out what would be in store for them.

Docherty meanwhile was very complimentary in his programme notes, declaring: “Chelsea know that we have a hard and difficult task today, and are not facing it in a complacent manner.”

He added: “We know that there is great potential for the Albion club. They have a First Division set-up at the Goldstone Ground, and First Division ideas, as well as a first-class pitch.

“The day cannot be very far away when they become one of our top clubs, and I am just one of many people in the game who will welcome their promotion to a higher class.”

However, the game was only five minutes old when Bobby Tambling gave Chelsea the lead. But before half-time, Chelsea’s John Boyle (who would several years later joined Albion on loan) was sent off for kicking Wally Gould. And just four minutes into the second half, Turner gave Albion parity.

Goalkeeper Tony Burns, who had top flight experience with Arsenal, made several decent saves in the game and, with the clock ticking down, a cracking strike by winger Brian Tawse in the closing minutes of the game looked to have won it for the Third Division side.

“I smashed a volley past Peter Bonetti from 20 yards out with the score at 1-1 and thought I’d got the winner,” Tawse told Brian Fowlie of the Sunday Post in 2015. “It was a goal that could have made my career – but the referee chalked it off.”

Unfortunately, the official had spotted an infringement by Kit Napier and the ‘goal’ was disallowed.

As Brighton would discover again only too painfully in the 1983 final, these winning chances rarely happen twice, and, sure enough, in the replay at Stamford Bridge Chelsea ran out 4-0 winners in front of a massive crowd of 54,852.

Chelsea went on to reach that season’s final at Wembley only to lose 2-1 to a Spurs side that had Joe Kinnear at right-back and Alan Mullery in midfield.

Hardman Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, their captain in 1967, was still leading the side by the time of the 13 January 1973 game and John Hollins and Tommy Baldwin also played in both. The dismissed Boyle was on the Chelsea bench in 1973. Only John Templeman (right) played in both games for Brighton.

The UK had just joined the European Economic Community (as it was then called) and You’re So Vain by Carly Simon was no.1 in the charts. Albion had moved up a division under Pat Saward having won promotion the previous May, but the side was struggling at the foot of the Second Division, unable to cope at the higher level.

Nevertheless, there were two players looking forward to the cup tie: Bert Murray and £28,000 signing Barry Bridges had both won silverware at Chelsea in the 1960s.

Barry Bridges slots home for Chelsea in a FA Cup tie v Peterborough and, pictured by the Daily Mirror’s Monte Fresco, ahead of the 1973 match against his old club.

“It’s a tremendous draw for the club and a dream draw for Bert Murray and myself who both started our careers at Chelsea,” Bridges told Goal magazine. “Personally, it will be nice to see most of the Chelsea lads again. I grew up with Peter Bonetti, Ron Harris and Ossie (Peter Osgood).”

Unfortunately the Albion game was one of several former Worthing schoolboy Bonetti missed through injury and illness in the 1972-73 season, John Phillips deputising in goal at the Goldstone.

How this young supporter recorded the team info in his scrapbook

Dave Sexton, a promotion winner with Brighton in 1958, saw his Chelsea side put the ball in Albion’s net within the first 10 seconds of the game but Bill Garner’s effort was ruled out for offside, to the bemusement of the football writers watching. As the game unfolded, not only did it end in defeat for the Albion but it attracted ugly headlines for all the wrong reasons as Harris and Brighton left back George Ley were sent off.

Ley was dismissed in the 85th minute for bringing down Baldwin from behind and then getting involved in a punch-up with England international Osgood, the scorer of Chelsea’s goals in the 17th and 60th minutes, who himself was booked for his part in the altercation.

Albion’s Eddie Spearritt had been the first to go in the book on 23 minutes (for a foul on Alan Hudson) and on 73 minutes was involved in the incident which led to Harris being sent off for the first time in his career.

Esteemed football writer Norman Giller recorded it like this: “Harris got involved in a tussle with Spearritt, and, as he pushed him, Spearritt went down holding his face as if he had been punched. The referee directed Ron to an early bath. All the bones he had kicked, and here was Harris being sent off for a playground push.”

1970 Cup winner Dave Webb went in the book for wiping out Spearritt, joining colleague Steve Kember who was cautioned for fouling Steve Piper. Albion’s Graham Howell also went into referee Peter Reeves’ notebook for taking down Baldwin.

The kicking and aggression on the pitch led to fighting on the terraces with 25 people arrested. And Leicester referee Reeves had to be given a police escort off the pitch.

Former Spurs captain-turned-journalist Danny Blanchflower, writing in the Sunday Express: declared: “This FA Cup third-round tie was as disgraceful as any match I’ve ever seen.”

In the opinion of Albion scribe John Vinicombe in the Evening Argus: “Football anarchy gripped the Goldstone during the last 20 minutes of Albion’s FA Cup tie with Chelsea.

“In the frenzy, players fought one another, hacked and kicked, and the violence tiggered an all-too-predictable chain reaction on the terraces where rival factions became one mass of writhing, mindless hooligans.”

Interestingly, Harris’ dismissal was subsequently overturned, Giller recording: “A Brighton-supporting vicar, with a pitchside view, wrote to the Football Association telling them what he had witnessed, and ‘Chopper’ was vindicated.”

Chelsea made it through to the quarter-finals of that season’s tournament before losing 2-1 to Arsenal in a replay. Arsenal lost in the semis to Sunderland, the Second Division side who stunned the football world at the time by beating Leeds United in the final.

Forest hopes felled for injury-stricken Matt Thornhill

TRANSFER makeweight Matt Thornhill fell foul of managerial changes and debilitating injury which together brought a promising professional playing career to an early end.

Brighton’s former assistant manager Colin Calderwood believed in the midfielder but his successor as Nottingham Forest manager, Billy Davies, didn’t.

Surplus to requirements at the City Ground, Thornhill was Russell Slade’s seventh signing of the summer in 2009, heading to Sussex as part of the deal that saw Albion academy graduate Joel Lynch move to Forest for £200,000 (having spent the previous season on loan there).

Thornhill initially joined on a six-month loan and he was full of optimism, telling the Argus: “They (Brighton) are looking to go for it this season and hopefully I can be a part of that team and help them strive for the top five of the table and the play-offs.

“My target is to play as many games as I can for Brighton and see what happens. If everything goes well then I could extend it to a year, but we’ll just see.”

Although he started the first game of the season at home to Walsall, he was subbed off at half-time as the Seagulls lost 1-0. Three days later, he was in the side beaten 3-0 by Swansea City in the League Cup (Andrea Orlandi was playing for the Swans and Stephen Dobbie scored his first two goals for City in the Liberty Stadium clash).

But it was another two months before he started another game. Other new arrivals at Withdean (like big money signing Elliott Bennett) at the start of that 2009-10 season and niggling injuries limited Thornhill’s involvement, and, at the end of October, Slade was sacked and replaced by Gus Poyet.

Thornhill, who turned 21 during his time with the Seagulls, only started five games, made four appearances off the bench, and was an unused sub for eight matches.

Poyet had his own ideas about the squad he wanted and swiftly Thornhill and fellow Forest loanee midfielder Arron Davies, who’d played under Slade at Yeovil, were sent back to the City Ground.

Born in Nottingham on 11 October 1988, Thornhill was only eight when he was first offered the chance to sign for Forest, but his father said he was too young.

They went back in for him when he was 14, and, despite other interest from Derby County and Notts County, as a Forest fan it was an easy decision to make.

He was initially coached by former Forest defender Chris Fairclough. When he left school at 16, he became a scholar under John Pemberton, and signed a pro contract a year later.

Calderwood gave him his first team debut at Chester City in the Carling Cup in August 2007, a game Forest won on penalties.

Thornhill made five starts and 11 sub appearances across that 2007-08 season as Forest went up from League One and he scored his first goal for the club in a 4-0 win over Leyton Orient. He featured in 28 league and cup games (16 starts, 12 from the bench) on their return to the Championship.

“Calderwood was really good,” said Thornhill in an extended interview with the Nottingham Evening Post in 2018. “He came and watched the young lads and gave us confidence,” he told reporter Matt Davies.

“He said that if you were good enough, he’d give you a chance with the first team. Some managers don’t go with the academy players.

“They bring players they know in. I saw Lewis McGugan get his chance though and that spurred me on.

“When I got in the team I never thought far ahead. I took every week as it came. I knew the manager believed in me.

“I tried to make the most of it. Playing for Forest meant a lot to me and my family.

“It was massive. I knew growing up how big the club was.”

Thornhill was still only 19 when he played in the biggest game of his career, a 3-0 FA Cup third round win at Manchester City in January 2009.

Forest were floundering at the wrong end of the Championship and had just sacked Calderwood. Pemberton took caretaker charge and it was the biggest cup upset of the round when Forest beat the newly-enriched City so convincingly.

“City were spending loads of money,” said Thornhill. “We had nothing to lose, but wanted to impress the new manager (Billy Davies was watching from the stands).

“I should have scored. I shanked it to Robert Earnshaw and he scored in the end.”

Two days later, Davies took over as manager and Thornhill said he made it quite clear he was going to send out on loan all the young lads who did well under Calderwood.

After his foreshortened Albion loan spell came to an end, he then joined League Two Cheltenham Town on a similar basis, helping them to narrowly avoid dropping out of the league.

Back at Forest for the new season, Thornhill thought he had changed Davies’ opinion, telling the Nottingham Evening Post: “I had a really good pre-season. He told me I’d done well and that I’d be in his plans for the season.

“I was buzzing. The first league game he named me on the bench.”

In the second game of the season, he was a starter in a 2-1 Carling Cup defeat at Bradford City

“I scored and felt I did really well,” said Thornhill. It turned out to be his last game for the club.

“I’d have loved to have got the opportunities Billy said he would give me but there was nothing I could do about it,” he said.

“It annoyed me that he told me I was in his plans and never got the chance when I was at my fittest.”

By Christmas 2010, he was told he had no future at Forest. And he never played in the Football League again.

Former boss Calderwood took him to Scottish Premier League Hibernian in January 2011, but after only nine matches for the Edinburgh side he damaged medial knee ligaments and missed the rest of the season.

Thornhill told Davies of the Post: “I believed in myself still when Forest let me go and Colin Calderwood gave me another chance at Hibs.”

As well as the knee issue, Thornhill contracted a stomach condition which kept him out for eight months. By the time he was fit again, Calderwood had been sacked.

New boss Pat Fenlon did not see a role for him; he was sent to train with the youth team, and was eventually released after making only 15 appearances for Hibs.

Still only 23, he joined Northern Premier League side Buxton (‘The Bucks’) while hoping he would get the chance to resurrect his league career. It never came and instead, after two years at Buxton, he moved on (left) to Barnsley-based Shaw Lane Aquaforce ‘The Ducks’), whose head coach Craig Elliott said: “It is a massive coup for the club.”

Elliott told Non League Yorkshire: “He’s one I didn’t think we would get as a couple of other clubs were after him, but I convinced him to be part of our project.
“He has a fantastic CV and he did well at Buxton last season. Everyone at the club is pleased to have him.”

He helped the club to win promotion to the Northern Premier League Division One South in 2014-15 and was club captain the following season when they reached the divisional play-off final, only to lose 3-1 to Coalville Town.

He then moved up two levels in the football pyramid and spent a season with National League North side Gainsborough Trinity, where he was appointed captain.

The player told Non League Yorkshire: “I am really pleased to be a part of what (Gainsborough manager) Dominic (Roma) is building at Trinity this season and am glad to be signed early, so I can get a good pre-season under my belt. I really feel I can help the team and channel my experience in a positive way.”

In 2017, Thornhill switched to his local club Basford United and he is still playing for the Northern Premier League Premier Division outfit.

A key figure for Basford United

When he signed a new two-year deal with Basford in 2021, then manager Steve Chettle (himself a former Forest player) told the Hucknall Dispatch: “It is vitally important that we set out to continue where we have been for the last two [incomplete] seasons and Matt has been a massive part of that, and he has a been a key figure in the success of this club in the last five years.

“His attitude to all parts of the games and training is an example to all and his contribution in assists and goals over the years has been fantastic. He is a fans favourite and for the captain to re-sign really shows our intentions.”

Chairman Chris Munroe added: “Matt has shown the club, Steve and myself a great deal of loyalty over the years and my dream is that he finishes his playing career with us at Basford, which is now a real possibility.

“There is nothing better for our fans than to see Matt scoring goals or contributing numerous assists and we hope that continues in good supply moving forward as we enter an exciting phase for the football club.”

In that 2018 interview with the Nottingham Evening Post, Thornhill said: “I never really got back where I wanted. I started so well and since Billy let me go I’ve been hampered by injuries.

“I do think I’d have kicked on but for injuries. I might still have been a pro now. It’s football though. It’s what can happen.”

The article said Thornhill was working for a company supplying paint to the car repairs industry and he said philosophically: “My job now is different to football obviously. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to get by in life.

“Anyone that knows me knows I get on with things. I see it that I was lucky to play for Forest.

“I was lucky to play for a club that big. There’s no point having regrets and always looking back.”

‘Marmite’ Maupay always ‘ready to do whatever it takes to win’

A FIERY LATINO temperament acquired from his Argentinian mother led Neal Maupay to become one of football’s love-hate characters.

His audacity and impudence – some call it ‘shithousery’– brought smiles to the faces of plenty and fury to others.

From an early age, the diminutive French centre forward thought nothing of tangling with strapping centre backs who towered over him.

And verbal exchanges in the heat of the battle were all part of the game as far as he was concerned.

Few would forget the lockdown clash when Maupay’s nudge on Arsenal ‘keeper Bernd Leno led to a knee injury for the irate Arsenal goalkeeper, nor his running battle with midfielder Matteo Guendouzi, who grabbed Maupay by the throat after the final whistle, the 5’7” striker having scored a late winner against the Gunners to seal the Seagulls’ first win of 2020.

Maupay on the ball v Liverpool

“I have always been like this. I’m a winner, that’s it,” he told The Athletic’s Andy Naylor. “I’m ready to fight, I’m ready to compete, I’m ready to do whatever it takes to win and to help my team to win.”

Referring to the origins of that competitive streak, he said: “With my mum (Liliana) we’ve always had this kind of relationship. She has that fire in her and so do I. Sometimes it just clashes, like mother and son. I’m so happy she gave me that part from her.”

There were other key goals along the way too, of course: memorable late strikes against Crystal Palace Southampton, West Ham and West Brom which raised his popularity amongst Brighton fans.

Celebrating his late equaliser at Selhurst Park

But there were plenty of misses too, incurring the wrath of certain sections of supporters, particularly during his season at Everton.

It’s not easy to define Maupay or to decide where he fits in the popularity stakes at his various clubs. Well, perhaps, it is easier to say that at Everton he was never seen in a good light.

But at Brighton he had several highs and also plenty of frustrating lows.

“He is a good presser and holder up of the ball,” wrote Ryan Adsett in The Argus in May 2022, in a piece debating why ‘Marmite’ Maupay divided opinion so much.

“Maupay uses his body very well in and out of possession, and is a decent ball carrier too,” said Adsett, suggesting he struggled to adapt to often playing as a lone striker for the Seagulls having scored a lot more for Brentford, the club who brought him to England and partnered him with Ollie Watkins, and who welcomed him back into the fold on loan when it went wrong at Goodison Park.

Scoring 41 goals in 95 games for the west London side in the Championship unsurprisingly endeared him to the Brentford faithful. Interestingly, the Bees love-in may never have happened had Albion acted more decisively when weighing him up as a prospect.

Brentford had wooed him when he was playing Ligue Two football in France, on loan to Brest from Saint Etienne. He scored 12 times in 31 appearances for Brest.

After Brentford first approached him, Maupay also had a conversation at Brighton, who were newly-promoted to the Premier League, and the Bees feared they were going to be gazumped by the Seagulls.

“Luckily, they didn’t quite grasp the fact that all Neal wanted to do was play football,” said Brentford’s head of recruitment, Andy Scott. “They said to him come in pre-season and if you don’t get in the side we’ll send you out on loan.

“It was quite ironic that he ended up going to Brighton from Brentford,” Scott told The Athletic.

Scott was behind Watkins’ £1.8m move from Exeter three days after Brentford bought 20-year-old Maupay for £1.6m in July 2017 to pair them in the Bees attack.

“Neal was just a proper nuisance of a No 9,” he said. “At Brest, he was continually getting into fights and arguments with 6ft 5in centre-halves, smashing goalkeepers, but getting in really good goal scoring positions without getting the ball. He still had a really good work ethic and showed a real desire to want to score goals.”

Scott continued: “I always believed Neal would score goals if you gave him the chances. There is footage of him missing a clear chance, but you listen to all the outstanding goalscorers throughout the years – Tony Cottee, Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer – they didn’t care about missing, they just wanted chances and he is very much like that.”

Referring to that fiery personality, Scott pointed out: “He’s a winner, hates losing, moans like anything about decisions that are made and stomps off, but he’s got a heart of gold.”

Scoring for the Seagulls

Maupay joined Brighton for £16m – ten times what Brentford paid for him! – in August 2019 and he couldn’t have got off to a better start when he scored in the opening day 3-0 win at Watford.

His strike rate for the Seagulls totalled 27 in 109 games and although he could count a number of vital finishes amongst that number, many will remember him for some glaring misses too.

In his first season with Brighton, he told The Athletic’s Andy Naylor: “I feel like I’m still learning and with the work I am putting in every day and a bit more confidence I will only get better.

“I don’t think I’m playing at my best level. Last season I was more clinical. This season I’ve been missing chances that were not easy but doable. Defenders are better, keepers are better and there is more pressure in the Premier League.”

When Maupay netted in another win at Watford – 2-0 on 12 February 2022 – he equalled Glenn Murray’s record of 26 Premier League goals for Brighton and promised to go on to beat it. But he missed a golden chance to do so from the penalty spot in a 0-0 home draw with Norwich City, also hitting the side-netting from close range and steering another effort wide late on.

Striking in black for the Albion

Subbed off by Graham Potter after the third miss, the striker nonetheless was given a round of applause by the Amex crowd as he trudged round the pitch back to the dugout, a reaction the manager described as “fantastic”.

“A huge thank you to them for that because he gave everything in the game but it just wasn’t his day. That happens but it will be his day another day.”

However, he was dropped for the following two matches when his friend and Belgian international Leandro Trossard stepped up to score in both the 2-1 win at Arsenal and the 1-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur.

Instead of beating Murray’s record, Maupay’s final chance came and went in a 3-1 last game home win over West Ham when all he picked up was a yellow card after going on for the second half in place of Yves Bissouma.

With the arrival of Julio Enciso, Deniz Undav and Kaoru Mitoma for the start of the 2022-23 season, competition for places was hotting up, and Maupay only had a year left on his contract.

A move was inevitable and, having been an unused sub for two of the opening league games of the season, he made a £15m deadline day move to Everton.

“Neal is a player who has proven himself in the Premier League over the past three seasons and he is hungry to hit the ground running with Everton,” said the club’s director of football, Kevin Thelwell.

“We believe he will add an extra dimension to our attack and complements the existing players we have at the top end of the pitch.”

A point to prove at Everton

Frank Lampard was in the Everton hotseat at the time and he spoke of Maupay’s blend of dynamic attributes and his tireless work ethic.

“We wanted to strengthen our attacking options and Neal provides a goalscoring threat, as well as bags of energy and a fighting spirit that are vital to what we’re building at the club,” he said.

An enthused Maupay told evertontv: “Everton is a great club with unbelievable fans and I am so, so happy to be here.

“It feels amazing. It was an easy choice for me when I started to talk with the club. I knew straight away I wanted to play for Everton and help the club to succeed.

“I’m excited and it’s a new challenge for me.

“I will do everything I can for Everton. That’s what the fans want – they want players that are ready to give their best, and ready to fight

“When I step on the pitch, I will run, I will tackle, I will try to make assists and score goals. Whatever the team needs, I will do it, because I want to be successful and I want my team to win.”

Born in the Paris suburb of Versailles on 14 August 1996, Maupay was only five when the family moved to the Cote D’Azur in the south of France because of his father’s work.

Within a year, Maupay started playing football at weekends for a small local club, Valbonne Sophia-Antipolis, where he stayed until he was 11.

Ligue 1 side OGC Nice signed him up to their youth academy and he progressed so well that he was given his professional debut against Brest on 15 September 2012, only a month after his 16th birthday, making him the third youngest player in Ligue 1 history.

Three months later, he became the second youngest ever goalscorer in Ligue 1, netting in the final seconds of a game against struggling Evian.

His promise was also spotted by the international selectors and he gained French caps at under 16, 17, 19 and 21 levels.

Early career in France had its ups and downs

But a torn cruciate knee ligament injury aged 16, sustained in a reserve match, held up his progress at Nice and when opportunities under Claude Puel (later Southampton and Leicester manager) were limited, he moved 300 miles to Saint Etienne.

The move was meant to get his career back on track but he was often left out of squads by the coach Christophe Galtier and he told The Athletic’s Naylor: “When you are 19 or 20 it is hard to deal with. I just wanted to play. At that time, I had lost my happiness, my desire to play football. Football is supposed to be fun.”

Fortunately, another manager’s belief in him proved to be a turning point. Jean-Marc Furlan was in charge of Ligue 2 Brest and took the young striker on loan.

“When I arrived there, I was like his son,” he told Naylor. “I was in his office every single day. He was talking to me, calling me, made me realise a lot of things and made me progress on the pitch, off the pitch.”

Bees happy for the Frenchman

Goals followed and led to the move to Brentford where fans quickly took to him. For example, Nemone Sariman writing on fan website Beesotted, described the player’s reaction as he walked along a road near their ground after a game.

“He was mobbed by fans as if he were one of the Kardashians, yet his smile was unwavering and he posed for photos with every single one of us who asked.”

Noting Maupay’s restrained celebration after scoring for Brighton in the Boxing Day 2021 2-0 win over Brentford, Sariman added: “However one might feel about Neal as a player, his passion for Brentford is palpable; despite being fearsome on the pitch, he has always treated us with respect, even since leaving us.”

Within less than three weeks of joining Everton, Maupay scored the only goal of the game as the Toffees beat West Ham on 18 September 2022. Alas, it was the only goal he scored for them in 11 starts and 17 appearances off the bench, in particular suffering when Lampard was replaced by Sean Dyche who generally preferred Dominic Calvert-Lewin on his own up front.

After Maupay had secured a loan back to Brentford, he said in an interview with The Times: “It was a really hard year team-wise. People don’t see that. They just go online, check the stats and say ‘You’re rubbish. You’re not worth the shirt’.”

He continued: “We were losing every week, which affects the mood in training, we changed managers and playing styles which wasn’t easy, and the fans were upset because they love the club.

“I can understand that but it’s not like I am trying to miss chances on purpose. I would be on a day off with my kids and people in the park would swear at me like I owe them something because I’m a footballer.

“After the games, fans would smash on the window of the car when my kids were in the back saying, ‘Leave our club’. I understand if you don’t think a player is good, fair enough, but there’s a way to do it.”

When a previously winless-for-seven-games Everton pulled off a remarkable 5-1 win at Brighton on 8 May 2023, Maupay only got on for Calvert-Lewin as an 87th minute sub.

Back at his spiritual home in west London on loan for the 2023-24 season, Maupay scored eight times as he made 13 starts and 16 appearances as a sub.

At the end of the season, he posted a video on his X account in which he said: “I’m going to miss the club, I can’t lie. It’s a long story for me with Brentford. I came here when I was 20, seven years ago. I was a kid then – I didn’t know too much about the club or English football.

“But here I am, seven years later, in the Premier League. I’ve played a few teams but I’ve never received love like I have here. From day one, people loved and appreciated me. They saw that I was a fighter on the pitch and that I would give everything for the shirt.

“I think that straight away, we had that connection. Honestly, I’m going to miss them.

“The good moments I’ve had during my time here have been absolutely amazing. I wish everyone could experience that because it’s very special.

“I’m not scared about the future. I know whatever comes next, I’ll be ready for it. So, stay tuned and we’ll see…”

As it turned out, Maupay, still officially an Everton player, joined Albion’s Europa League opponents Olympique de Marseille on a season-long loan, playing under the Seagulls’ former boss Roberto De Zerbi.

The player’s antipathy towards his parent club couldn’t have been more stark when, after a recent home defeat for the Toffees to Nottingham Forest, Maupay posted on his X account: “Whenever I’m having a bad day, I just check the Everton score and smile.”

Collyer breaks through at United after spurning Albion

DEFENSIVE midfielder Toby Collyer can genuinely be placed in the ‘one that got away’ category as far as Brighton are concerned.

Worthing-born Collyer excelled as a teenager in Albion’s youth set-up but chose to move on to Manchester United when he was 18.

He has since made it through to United’s first team, getting on as a sub in the last two matches under Ruben Amorim having been blooded by former boss Erik Ten Hag.

After involvement with the first team squad from February 2024 as a non-playing sub, he impressed in pre-season games and played in the Community Shield match at Wembley against Manchester City.

He made his Premier League debut as a half-time substitute for Casemiro when United lost 3-0 to Liverpool at Old Trafford and his first competitive start was in the 7-0 beating of Barnsley in the Carabao Cup, when he played at left-back.

Born in Worthing on 3 January 2004, Collyer’s talent began to be honed when he was only 11 playing for Albion’s under-12s squad.

He attended Angmering School and Ian Gooding, his former teacher, told the BBC: “Toby was the epitome of dedication. Even as a young student, he had an undeniable mentality and drive to succeed in top-level sport.

“His commitment to his studies and football was evident in everything he did.” Gooding said, “It was clear from the beginning that Toby wasn’t just a talented athlete; he was someone who truly wanted to excel and make a mark in the world of sports.”

Collyer made his debut for Brighton’s under-18s just a few weeks after turning 15 and never looked back.

“Even though he didn’t play a great deal at under-16 he still trained,” former Albion under-18s coach Mark Beard told Sussex Live. “You could see he was going to be a top-class player.

“He is a pleasure to coach. He is so low maintenance, what I mean by that is you don’t know he is there. He gets on with his job. He regularly put in displays of 8/10 at the least.

“You want 11 of these type of players in the team. You know what you’re going to get in training, he works hard, he wants to improve, he’s intelligent. He’s a good all-round kid.”

A defensive midfielder happy to tackle and control play from deep, he also showed his versatility by filling in at centre-back with Albion’s under-18s. He also captained England at under-16 and under-17 level, highlighting his leadership qualities and tendency to lead by example.

In an extended interview with the Manchester Evening News, Beard said: “I was made aware of Toby probably from around the age of under-14s. I was the u18 manager and he used to come up and train with us, despite being much younger and I gave him his debut toward the end of his under-15 year. He was always a little bit smaller back then and he seemed to shoot up in height suddenly when he became a scholar.

“Everyone would say he was the best player in the age group every year, but he was just one of them that you hardly noticed. He just got on with his job, there was no trouble and he worked hard.

“He took everything on board like a sponge. There were obviously a few things as he got older that we needed to work on and as he shot up a bit and he needed to redevelop.

“Toby sort of changed the way he played, so different types of passing, defending and he became a real good all-round midfielder once he’d learnt those two of three key areas.”

The coach admired the youngster’s ability to cover left and right from a central position, closing players down and winning the ball. “His ball retention was different class,” said Beard.

“I had such a good team at Brighton, with Evan Ferguson and players like that, and everyone would say Evan was unbelievable, but he’d touch the ball 10 times, score a goal and run about 8km.

“Toby would run around 13km every single game, he’d have 200 touches of the ball and have the best defensive duel win-rate. His stats would be astronomical, honestly, absolutely ridiculous.

“You really don’t get that with many players. He’d be under the radar, but those are the players you want in your team more than anyone else.”

Collyer captained England at under-16 and under-17 level and played 25 games for Albion’s under-18s and under-21s in the 2020-21 season. But he couldn’t agree terms on a new deal at Brighton, after which he was frozen out and given only one game in the 2021-22 season.

The teenager had a successful trial period with United, appearing in a friendly game for the club’s under-23s against Huddersfield Town, and impressed the coaching staff sufficiently to be offered a three-year contract.

There had been no shortage of suitors eager to take him on and Beard encouraged him to join United over the likes of Chelsea and Spurs.  As things transpired, he was the first (and only) signing of the Ralf Rangnick era and became a regular in United’s under-18s and under-21s.

Originally given a three-year contract, in July 2024 he had it extended to 2027 with an option to extend to 2028.

Injuries hampered his early days at United but under-21s manager Travis Binnion told the Manchester Evening News: “We’re talking about a really good young player with high potential. “When you have a spell out of the game and have a couple of injuries that stop you playing, it takes a while to get going, but when we signed him, we had no doubts about what he was capable of – he’s a fantastic athlete and effective without the ball.

“Toby is also making great strides with the ball, so we’re talking there about someone who can be really effective in all moments of the game.”

It was in pre-season ahead of the 2024-25 season that Collyer saw action for the first team for the first time, being handed the captain’s armband when part of a complete half-time team change in a 1-0 defeat to Rosenborg in Norway.

He then started the 2-0 win over Rangers before getting another 45 minutes against Arsenal in Los Angeles.

Interviewed by United media’s Sam Carney about his first experience of an overseas tour with the first team, he said: “It’s really, really, really valuable. Everyone wants to be able to play in the first team. So I think getting experiences like this in a stadium like this as well, it’s the top level, and obviously the opposition [was top level] as well today. 

“I’m taking everything step by step and hopefully I’ll get many more opportunities to show what I can do.”

Although United lost 2-1 to the Gunners, Collyer said: “I thought I had an okay game. I thought there was a lot of things I could have done better, but it’s great to experience a game like today and I can take it into the next game, and even into training tomorrow.”

United writer for The Athletic, Carl Anka, liked what he saw, observing: “Collyer is a calm operator on the ball, favouring safe, short passes either sideways or backwards, while showing himself capable of occasional long switch passes.

“He is also skilled at receiving the ball on the half turn, letting passes come across his body before swinging his hips around to protect the ball from opponents looking to pressure him.

“Tall, strong and with a good sense of how to delay opposition counter-attacks, there are moments where his play can resemble Declan Rice when he broke into West Ham United’s first-team squad.”

The reporter added: “Athletically gifted, Collyer can cover 20-30 yards quickly — but rather than sprint around with wild abandon in search of the ball, Collyer works to disrupt easy passes inside the opposition half. Collyer’s defensive work centres on blocking off the more obvious passes opponents can make before looking to intercept the ball for his team.”

Interviewed for United’s matchday programme, United Review, Collyer talked about sharing the field with the likes of Casemiro, Christian Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes.

“Without them, I wouldn’t be able to reach the level I’ve got to at the minute. I think as much as I’ve done hard work, they’ve worked hard with me as well to help me and give me tips. It’s massive for me.”

Collyer earned a call up to the England under-20 squad in October 2024, and United’s Binnion said: “He’s a fantastic lad. He’s got a superb attitude and he’s getting what he deserves.”

He was on the bench for United’s 3-3 Europa League draw with FC Porto at the beginning of October but, later that month, was ruled out by injury; reports reckoning he would be sidelined for a month.

Shortly after Ruud Van Nistelrooy took over as manager at Leicester, The Sun reported the former United assistant manager was keen to take Collyer on loan. The newspaper also reported that former Albion midfielder Steve Sidwell had tipped Collyer to be a “shining star just like Kobbie Mainoo.”

Collyer was plunged into the heat of battle as a substitute in United’s dramatic FA Cup third round win at Arsenal on 12 January 2025, and Steven Railston, Manchester United writer for the Manchester Evening News, liked what he saw.

“Toby Collyer made his first appearance under Ruben Amorim against Arsenal and took his chance with both hands,” wrote Railston.

“The youngster was introduced to the game with nine minutes of normal time remaining and deserves praise for the maturity he demonstrated under immense pressure.”

The reporter noted that Amorim chose to introduce Collyer over the more experienced Casemiro, who was available on the bench and wrote: “The 21-year-old embraced the occasion when it was possible to be overawed, seemed to cover every blade of grass and proved to United’s new head coach that he can provide value to the squad.”

Seething Knight dumped O’Callaghan for telling him how to run the Albion

CORK-BORN George O’Callaghan had something of a yo-yo footballing career after bursting onto the professional scene as a talented teenager.

Eyed by Arsenal and Spurs when he was in his formative years at Port Vale (then in the Championship), he turned to drink when ex-Albion captain and manager Brian Horton dropped him from the Vale first team.

Although the tall midfielder worked his way back into contention, he returned home to Ireland to rebuild his career before making several other attempts to succeed in the English game.

Over the course of five years, he was an influential cog in Cork’s League of Ireland side, the highlight coming with a championship win in 2005 when he scored eleven goals from midfield and was voted League Player of the Season.

He survived meningitis in 2006 just a handful of months before another Championship side, Ipswich Town, gave him another opportunity to make it in England but he struggled to hold down a place at Portman Road.

After only 13 appearances, the Tractor Boys were prepared to offload him to third tier Brighton. A deal was agreed in August 2007 but he made the move on loan rather than permanently because he still thought he could make it in Suffolk.

By then 28, the player brought experience and creativity to Dean Wilkins’ largely young side, slotting in effectively in the centre of Albion’s midfield alongside Dean Hammond, making 16 starts and one appearance off the bench.

But his Irish gift of the gab brought it all to a messy end. He publicly criticised chairman Dick Knight’s handling of contract negotiations in an explosive article in The Argus and didn’t play for the Seagulls again.

The Irishman told reporter Andy Naylor he thought the team was in danger of falling apart because chairman Knight had been too slow to sort out contracts and loans.

Knight countered: “We have given him the chance to shine and show his talents. It’s not George O’Callaghan’s business to tell the club what we should be doing.”

The midfielder spoke out after Albion capitulated 3-0 at Millwall on Boxing Day. He told Naylor: “There are a lot of lads who are very important to this team that don’t know if they are coming or going and I think it’s about time the club got a grip on it and sorted it out, because it has dragged on for too long and I feel it is starting to affect the players.

“I just don’t think it is right and it’s something the club needs to look at. It used to happen at Cork City when I was there and we lost a lot of good players. We lost Kevin Doyle and Shane Long for peanuts over contracts not being sorted out early and quickly.

“It makes you angry as a player. I can cope with it, because I am a lot older than the other lads, but the young lads are really upset and it’s not right.”

O’Callaghan’s version of events the club would have wanted to keep to themselves plainly differed from Knight’s while Wilkins was stuck in the middle.

“I know the manager tries his best behind the scenes,” said O’Callaghan. “He is fantastic. I think he works with a very small budget. It must be more frustrating for him, because he has built a team and it could easily fall apart now.

No holding back where O’Callaghan was concerned

“Things should have been sorted out a lot quicker. It has been a big thing in the squad in the last few weeks. I’ve mentioned it and the club need to sort it out now.”

The Irishman said he had encountered something similar at Ipswich the previous season, pointing out players just needed to know where they stood.

“I don’t want to stay and then see our best lads go, like Hammo,” he reasoned. “If we want to make that push for the play-offs and get back into the Championship it needs to be sorted.”

Knight was in no mood to take that sort of broadside from a loan player and told the reporter: “The team’s performance was absolutely woeful. I think certain players should be looking at themselves before trying to deflect criticism elsewhere. I thought it was a disgrace.

“George O’Callaghan is totally out of order. I would suggest he is trying to deflect attention away from his own performance, which was frankly poor, and he wasn’t the only one.

“Young players within the club are dealt with contract wise as and when the time is right.”

Knight maintained that he’d already agreed with Ipswich that both O’Callaghan and fellow Town loanee Matt Richards could extend their loans until the end of the season but neither player wanted to commit to it until they’d explored other options.

Unsurprisingly, O’Callaghan’s stay with the Seagulls came to an abrupt end and he returned to Portman Road.

Sidestepping the spat with Knight, O’Callaghan reckoned his return to Ipswich was his decision, telling The Argus: “I enjoyed playing regularly at Brighton but I spoke with the gaffer and decided it is right to try again at Ipswich and try to get first team action.

“They are a good bunch of lads at Brighton and I enjoyed playing with them so I hope things work out for them.”

When a month later there was no look-in happening with the Tractor Boys, he returned to Ireland once again to play for his old club, Cork City. It was part of a familiar pattern.

Deadline day signings David Martot and George O’Callaghan

O’Callaghan had joined the Albion on loan (the same day David Martot signed a similar arrangement from Le Havre) on August transfer deadline day having rejected a permanent move earlier that month (the clubs had agreed a £60,000 deal plus £15,000 based on appearances).

The player said at the time: “It would be a shame to leave Ipswich because the supporters have been brilliant to me, even though they never saw enough of me, and all the lads are fantastic, but I need to be playing regular football.”

Town manager Jim Magilton praised O’Callaghan’s ability and attitude and empathised with his frustration at not getting a run in the side. He said: “I don’t want to lose George but I wouldn’t stand in his way. He has been great since he has been here. He is very popular in the dressing room and he has done very well.

Tractor Boy O’Callaghan

“But he is 28 years of age and needs to be playing games. I have been there, so totally understand how frustrating it can be. We will do anything we can to help him.

“I have absolutely no problems with George. He has been top class since he came here. His attitude is first-class in training and in games.”

O’Callaghan had impressed Knight in a reserves match when Ipswich beat the Seagulls’ second string.

When O’Callaghan finally agreed the temporary move, Albion also wanted his Town teammate Richards on loan, but he too prevaricated, only to change his mind the following month. It was the first of three loan spells with the Albion. Brighton also wanted a third Ipswich player, injury-prone Dean Bowditch, who had briefly been on loan the previous season, and he eventually returned for a month in 2008.

Born in Cork on 5 September 1979, O’Callaghan left Ireland as a teenager to pursue his football dream and in a March 2020 podcast with the Irish Examiner, he talked about his early days at Port Vale when he was regarded as one of the hottest properties in football.

“Arsenal came in for me when I was 18,” he said. “I was waiting outside the manager John Rudge’s office and Pat Rice, who was Arsene Wenge’s assistant at the time, came out and said: ‘George, we can’t get you this time, we’ll get you next time,’.”

When the youngster protested to Rudge, he was told Arsenal had only offered £1m for him and Vale wanted £2m. O’Callaghan continued to progress in Vale’s Championship team but when Rudge was replaced by Horton, he was demoted back to the youth team.

In another podcast, A Footballer’s Life, O’Callaghan admitted to Graham Cummins that he turned to drink as his promising career stalled. “You’re responsible for your own actions so it’s ultimately your own fault. But nobody looked out for me or had my back at the club. Nobody caught me and said, ‘George, what’s going on, you’re not yourself’.

“Those days, the clubs didn’t care, it was old school, you were put out to do the job and if you didn’t you were replaced.

“You never asked anyone for help in those days. I kind of went into meltdown. Everything unravelled, I didn’t know what I was doing.”

When he eventually got back in the first team picture, he said Arsenal’s north London rivals Spurs then showed an interest in him. “David Pleat tried to sign me for Tottenham. But Brian Horton said: ‘You’re doing really well,’ and offered me a two-year deal and doubled my money.”

He asked Rudge’s opinion about the situation and when told he should stay at Vale because he’d struggle to get games for Spurs, he stayed put. “I took his advice and signed the contract. Within about 14 months I was finished, sent home.

“It was a massive mistake, a big, big mistake. I was too comfortable in the situation I was in. I probably didn’t have the guts to go ahead with it. I loved playing for Port Vale but I should have pushed for Arsenal and Tottenham. And then you can always go out on loan if it doesn’t work out.”

One of O’Callaghan’s early matches for Albion was against his old club and unsurprisingly he was a natural interviewee before the game. “It is a very special club to me because I started off my career there when I was only 15,” he told The Argus.

The Irishman scored four goals in 22 league starts plus 12 sub appearances for Vale and felt he probably had a point to prove coming up against them (Albion won 1-0 with a goal from Alex Revell).

“I never showed Port Vale fans what I can do,” he said. “I took a few wrong roads when I was a kid and it has taken me a while to get back to where I am now.

“It will be nice to put on a good performance and show them what they have missed; the player I have turned into. I never fulfilled my potential there.

“I started off doing well there as a kid but I didn’t really have the right guidance and it all went pear-shaped. As soon as John Rudge left as manager and Brian Horton came in, my chances were limited. I think that is where it all went wrong.

“Obviously, I wasn’t his type of footballer. People said he was a good footballer, but he wanted physical lads.

“Maybe at the time I wasn’t physical enough and he didn’t fancy me. I don’t blame him in any way because at the end of the day it is all down to yourself and how you look after yourself.”

He added: “I had so many knocks there that it took the fire out of me. I had to go back to Cork to get that fire back into me and build my career again.

“It was a big learning curve in my life. I lost my career in English football for a while and had to battle hard to get back.”

The player’s topsy-turvy career continued back at Cork City before he had another go in England, spending eight months at Tranmere Rovers. Once again he returned to Ireland, this time to play for Dundalk, but the lure of the English game beckoned again.

O’Callaghan linked up with Yeovil Town in the summer of 2009 and played in three pre-season friendlies. In the opening months of the season, he made 15 appearances (including six from the bench) but found it difficult to break into the team past the partnership of Jean-Paul Kalala and Shaun MacDonald.

Next stop, in December that year, was Waterford but before long he was back at Cork City once again. Brentford took him on a two-week trial but nothing came of it and instead he went to then Conference side Cambridge United but didn’t feature.

The wandering Irishman at one point tied his luck with Brunei side Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota but he got into trouble for failing to bow to the Crown Prince.

His old Brighton and Ipswich teammate Nicky Forster took him on at Dover Athletic but he only played once for the Conference South team, and he announced his retirement on Christmas Eve 2012.

He briefly managed Sabah in the Malaysia Premier League in 2014 but he struggled to deal with El Hadji Diouf and was sacked in January 2015 when he started missing training sessions.

Four years after playing what he thought was his last game, he turned out for junior Cork club Rockmount.

After packing up playing, O’Callaghan became an agent and spent a year as a business development manager for William Hill. He was a general manager for gym chain Anytime Fitness for two years and later co-founded agency TEN Sports Management.

High-flying Canary Culverhouse flew with lowly Seagulls too

ONE-TIME Norwich City hero Ian Culverhouse flew high in the Premier League and Europe with the Canaries and ended his playing days at basement Brighton where he began a lengthy coaching and managing career.

It was only at the end of November 2024 that Culverhouse began a new managerial post, taking charge of sixth tier (National League South) side St Albans City.

A few weeks previously he had parted company from Boston United because they were struggling to come to terms with life in the tier above.

Culverhouse was brought to Brighton by Brian Horton in 1998, shortly after he’d been picked up by non-league Kingstonian having been given a free transfer earlier in the year by Swindon Town. He’d spent three and a half years at the County Ground, including being a key player in their Second Division Championship-winning squad of 1995-96, but left the Robins after falling-out with manager Steve McMahon.

He’d only played twice for Kingstonian before he joined Brighton, who were playing in exile at Gillingham at the time.

Signed on a monthly contract initially, his presence as a sweeper helped plug holes at the back and saw Torquay United, Scarborough and Swansea City all beaten. But after two months, Horton decided to dispense with a sweeper and play a flat back four, so Culverhouse was let go.

But when Albion promptly lost 3-1 to Mansfield Town without him, Horton had a change of heart. He re-signed Culverhouse before a week was up, gave him a contract until the end of the season and even made him captain (in the absence of injured Gary Hobson). Quite some turnaround.

“He was one of the best readers of the game the Albion have had,” reckoned wearebrighton.com. “Culverhouse would always be in the right place at the right time, on the scene to stop danger before anybody realised that there was danger coming.”

The musically-minded wags amongst the Albion die-hards also found the perfect terrace song for him – sung to the tune of Our House by Madness, ‘Culverhouse, in the middle of defence’ became a popular ditty.

He completed 38 appearances for the Seagulls that season and took his first steps towards a coaching and managing career under Horton’s successor, Jeff Wood, when he began coaching the reserve side. Wood said: “Ian has shown on the field that he is a player of immense ability. In his new coaching role, he will now have the opportunity to pass his knowledge on to the younger players at the club.”

A grateful Culverhouse added: “This is a good opportunity for me and I am looking forward to it.

“It’s the first chance I’ve had to coach and it’s something I wanted to do anyway when my career finished. It has just come at a nice time.”

Albion’s then chairman, Dick Knight, told the Argus: “Ian has impressed me greatly with not only his experience but his attitude.

“He has been a real leader in the dressing room as well as on the field and we are giving him a chance to bring that know-how to bear on the coaching side.”

Culverhouse was retained as reserve team coach after Micky Adams took over from Wood towards the end of the season, and the new boss told the Argus: “Ian reminds me a bit of myself. You have got to get on the ladder somewhere. He is enthusiastic, has had a good career and sets himself high standards.

“He has a lot to learn in terms of coaching, but I hope he will become fully qualified along with the rest of my staff.

“He will still be registered as a player as well in case we need him in emergencies, but I don’t envisage him playing too many games.”

In fact, there was just the one final first team appearance for him, when Adams tried to bring a halt to a six-game winless run at the start of 2000. But it didn’t go well and he was subbed off in a 2-0 defeat at Hull.

“It is fair to say we have possibly seen the last of Culvs in a first team shirt,” Adams admitted later. “He is still registered as a player, but his career is probably over. It was me that persuaded him to play at Hull. He wasn’t sure he would be up to it in terms of fitness.”

Born in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, on 22 September 1964, Culverhouse was in the England Youth squad for an international junior tournament in Norway in the summer of 1982, starting in a 4-1 defeat to the home nation and gaining a second cap as a sub in a 3-2 win over Poland.

In the same year, he began as an apprentice at Tottenham. He impressed in Spurs’ youth and reserve sides and spent three years at the Lane. “I was playing alongside players like Ricky Villa, Ossie Ardiles and Glenn Hoddle, which was tremendous experience,” he said.

He even collected a UEFA Cup winners’ medal in 1984 as an unused substitute in the first leg of Spurs’ win (on penalties) over Anderlecht; future Albion boss Chris Hughton was left-back and recent signing from Albion, Gary Stevens, was in midfield, and scored one of the decisive penalties.

But Culverhouse only made one full appearance for the first team, plus one as a substitute, and in October 1985 moved to Norwich under Ken Brown for a £50,000 fee. He was part of the Norfolk club’s Second Division title-winning side of 1985-86 in his first season and became an established defender, usually as a right-back but also as a sweeper.

Culverhouse for the Canaries

He was part of the successful Canaries side that finished third in the inaugural Premier League season of 1992-93 after enjoying three top five finishes in the old First Division, reaching two FA Cup semi-finals (1989 and 1992) and playing in Europe (1993-94). He won the club’s player-of the-year award in 1990-91.

The excellent Norwich fans website Flown From The Nest blamed the Robert Chase regime for Culverhouse’s eventual departure from Carrow Road after nine years.

“From being an integral part of the City team that finished third in the Premiership and enjoyed UEFA Cup success, Ian Culverhouse found himself at the start of the 1994-95 season out of contract and out of favour with Robert Chase and manager John Deehan,” it said. “Similar problems had occurred the previous season with Dave Phillips.”

Culverhouse with the Robins

Together with the contract issues, Culverhouse went public to criticise Deehan’s decision to drop him, which ended any chance he had of regaining his place. Eventually, he was transferred to Swindon for the bargain sum of £150,000 in December 1994, the fee being fixed by a tribunal.

After he left Brighton in 2000, Culverhouse became youth coach at Barnet and two years later joined Leyton Orient in a similar role before being elevated to assistant manager. He left the Os in August 2005 – replaced by future Villa boss Dean Smith – but was then appointed coach at Wycombe Wanderers by former Swindon boss John Gorman.

When Paul Lambert succeeded Gorman, he and Culverhouse developed a strong bond. He followed Lambert to Colchester United to become assistant manager, then returned to Norwich in the same role, where he didn’t forget Wood’s role in setting him on the coaching ladder, being instrumental in the former Albion manager’s appointment as Norwich’s goalkeeping coach.

At the end of their first season, Lambert and Culverhouse steered Norwich to the League One title. The following season, they won promotion to the Premier League and finished 12th in their inaugural season back at the elite level. When Lambert quit Norwich to take charge at Aston Villa in July 2012, Culverhouse and fellow ‘lieutenant’ Gary Karsa followed him.

Coach at Villa under Paul Lambert

In June 2013, Lambert told the Birmingham Mail how much trust he placed in his right-hand man. “My assistant boss Ian Culverhouse has a real eye for a player,” he said. “If he reckons we should go for someone I will back his judgement 100 per cent.”

But in April 2014 Culverhouse and Karsa were suspended by the club after being accused of bullying and aggressiveness by players and other staff members, and they were sacked the following month.

Between January 2016 and February 2017, Culverhouse was assistant manager to veteran boss John Still at Dagenham & Redbridge. He left the Daggers to become manager of Southern League Premier Division side King’s Lynn Town. In May 2018, he moved on to Grantham Town but left after only five months and returned to King’s Lynn.

He led them to a second place finish in the Southern League, and. in the subsequent play-offs against Northern Premier League Warrington, saw the Linnets win 3-2 in extra time to earn a place in the National League (North) for 2019-20.

This was the Covid-affected season in which the fixtures weren’t completed. Lynn finished the games played two points behind York City with two games in hand. The National League board ultimately decided, using an “unweighted points per game” formula that Lynn would have won the title and they therefore gained promotion to the National League.

However, on 29 November 2021 he was sacked by Lynn on the back of a run of eight league defeats in a row which left the club second from bottom of the National League and struggling for survival. 

Two months later, he was back in management at National League North Kettering Town, together with assistant Paul Bastock, although that tenure only lasted four months.

Next stop was Boston United in September of the same year, a club all too familiar to Bastock, who played 679 games for the Pilgrims (and broke Peter Shilton’s record in competitive club football when he made his 1,250th appearance in the game in 2017).

The pair helped to preserve Boston’s league status in their first season and then guided them to promotion via the play-offs in May 2024. United’s struggle in higher company – only two wins in 16 matches – led to Culverhouse and Bastock leaving the Jakemans Community Stadium in October 2024.

Dislodged ‘keeper Ryan offered curious reprieve with Gunners

FEW FOOTBALL observers would have imagined an out of favour Brighton goalkeeper would get a move to Arsenal but that’s exactly what happened to Mat Ryan.

The Aussie no.1, Albion’s first choice goalkeeper for their first three seasons in the Premier League, surprisingly joined the Gunners having lost his Seagulls place to young Spaniard Robert Sanchez.

“We know Mat very well through his performances with Brighton in recent seasons and he brings additional quality to our squad,” Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta told the club’s website. “Mat has very good Premier League experience and has played over 100 times in the league, which is something that will benefit us greatly on and off the pitch.”

Technical director Edu added: “Mat is an experienced goalkeeper, a proven talent in the Premier League and has also played many internationals for Australia.

“Mat will further strengthen our squad with his experience and knowledge of playing at the highest level.”

The goalkeeper himself, a self-confessed boyhood Arsenal fan, relished the opportunity but found himself under fire from Brighton fans when he told Optus Sport: “I had in my mind a little bit of a plan that I wanted to play a couple of seasons at Brighton and try and do well and hopefully be bought by a bigger club and keep progressing in my career.

In action for the Gunners

“Perhaps it didn’t work out in the way of playing two, three seasons and then being bought for a fee as no.1 and going and playing.

“But one way or another I’ve obviously ended up in a massive step up from Brighton and to another level of football.”

For someone who had always previously endeared himself to the Albion faithful, memorably running the length of the pitch to join teammates in goal celebrations and after games handing out bits of his kit to supporters, it struck a discordant note.

When Ryan learned how his comments had angered some Brighton supporters, he took to Instagram to address them.

“I want to apologise to anyone who has felt I’ve been disrespectful towards the club. This was not and never will be my intention.

“I recognise how people could have interpreted that through those comments and, moving forward, I’ll be sure to pay extra attention as to how I refer to the club to not have the same outcome.

Albion’s no.1

“The club will always have a special place in my heart. I’ve got nothing but fond memories and wish all the best to you all for the remainder of the season and I’ll always continue to support the club because of our experiences together.”

Those experiences began ahead of Albion’s first season (2017-18) playing in the Premier League. Previous no.1 David Stockdale had chosen to move to Birmingham City, who were offering him a longer-term deal than Brighton, so the coast was clear for Ryan, already an established Australian international, to become Chris Hughton’s first choice goalkeeper.

Hughton himself admitted in an interview with the Argus that Ryan’s arrival had more to do with goalkeeping coach Ben Roberts. “He is the one who went to see him play, watched hours and hours of video.

“I didn’t see him live. Ben just thought he was a player at the right age, really enthusiastic. He’s different, not as big as some of the other keepers, but very athletic and really hungry to do well.

“I certainly watched a lot of him on video. We also, of course, have recommendations from our scouts but Ben is the one who looked at him and recommended him. You have to have faith in your staff.”

For his part, Ryan appreciated the work Roberts put in on the training ground. “Ben has a real knack of getting his goalkeepers in the best physical and mental shape in order to be best prepared for the opposition that we’re facing,” he told the matchday programme.

Signed from La Liga’s Valencia for a then club record transfer fee of £5 million, he played all 38 league games in his first season under Hughton, only missed four because of international commitments in 2018-19 and all league games in Graham Potter’s first season in charge.

In an early matchday programme interview, he spoke about how he had learned about life in the Premier League from fellow Aussie ‘keeper Mark Schwarzer (“a big hero of mine”) and, when on international duty, from former Aston Villa and Man Utd ‘keeper Mark Bosnich.

Ryan more often than not proved a reliable stopper for the Albion and he twice won Australia’s PFA Player of the Year award.

“At this level, you’ve got to be consistent,” he said. “Every day you’ve got to work hard on every aspect of your game and I’ve tried to do that.

“I try to contribute to the team as much as possible and it’s that constant challenge that you’ve got to try and live up to and, I guess, is what separates good players from great players – remaining consistent and sustaining those very high levels.”

And according to wearebrighton.com: “At his best throughout the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, he was one of the most dependable number ones in the Premier League whose performances did more than most to keep Brighton in the top flight.”

He was sorry to see Hughton sacked – “Brought the club success it could only dream of and will always be someone I have the highest respect for” – but was happy to adapt to Potter’s more possession-based style in which the goalkeeper needed to be comfortable with the ball at his feet.

“It’s important we adapt to the new style so the system works as effectively as possible,” he said. “In the modern game you have to be able to adapt anyway, so each day I’m working hard and doing what’s being asked of me.”

The beginning of the end of his time at the Albion came when, out of the blue, young Sanchez was chosen to keep goal in a 2-1 defeat at Spurs after the Seagulls had managed only one win in the first six matches of the 2020-21 season.

Although restored to the starting line-up for the following five matches, following a 3-0 defeat at Leicester, Ryan was summoned by Potter and told Sanchez would be given an extended run in the side and that, assuming he wanted a no.1 berth, he would be better looking for a new club.

The conversation staggered Ryan and, ever a willing interviewee, told The World Game he was surprised and shocked but added: “Knowing where I stand now, from what was communicated to me, perhaps it might be better that we do go our separate ways.

“However, until that opportunity comes – and it’s a good project – then, as far as I’m concerned, I’m a Brighton player and I’m here to fight for my spot.”

Taking the opposite stance to the one Sanchez subsequently took when Jason Steele ousted him as no.1, Ryan vowed to continue to work hard.

“I still feel like I’ve got a lot to contribute and I’ll be trying to convince the manager I’m the best man for the job,” he said.

“I feel the experience I’ve picked up over the last three years in England shows I’ve got plenty to give to any club that wants to acquire my services.

“I think I’ve proved that through my performances.”

It was never particularly clear why Ryan eventually fell out of favour, although he ventured some ideas in an exclusive interview with Andy Naylor for The Athletic in March 2022.

He remembered at the start of the 2020-21 season noting there had been rumours around Albion being interested in signing Emiliano Martinez (who eventually went from Arsenal to Aston Villa) and when his (Ryan’s) agent tried to ask the club about it no one answered his call.

He was also heading into his fourth season of a five-year contract, but his agent wasn’t getting any response as to whether there would be a renewal.

“Thinking back, after all that has happened, maybe that was a sign,” Ryan told Naylor. “At the time, I wasn’t thinking anything of it, but when I think back now, maybe these were little signs.”

The loan move to Arsenal might have been brief – he had a won one, drew one, lost one record in three games – but his commitment to the cause was appreciated.

In a game against Fulham, a minute before the final whistle, Ryan went up for a corner and got his head on the ball to keep it live in the Fulham box before Eddie Nketiah equalised a few seconds later.

“I picked him because he totally deserves to play, he trains like a beast, he’s got the right attitude and he needed a game,” Arteta told Arsenal.com. “It was a great header.”

It led to him being chosen ahead of Bernd Leno for the 2 May trip to Newcastle which Arsenal won 2-0.

Although Arteta made all the right noises about signing him on a permanent basis, it turned out they wanted an English goalkeeper and they signed Aaron Ramsdale instead.

While awaiting news of where his next move would be, Ryan told Fox Sports Australia: “I’ve learnt so much in my experiences (at Arsenal) so far, all that’s being with a club like that, the resources, the personnel, the quality on the pitch, the enormity of the club on a global aspect… it was so cool to be a part of.

“It was a great experience and I was really proud of how I did and really content with how I did, and I showed that I have the capability to play at a level like that. I look forward to seeing what that little period now means for me moving forward.”

It was clear there would be no return to the Albion no.1 spot but warm words were issued when his summer departure to Real Sociedad was announced.

Potter declared: “He’s a great guy, top professional and as someone who wants to be playing regularly at senior level he goes to Real Sociedad with our very best wishes. 

“He’s been a pleasure to work with, he will be fondly remembered by everyone and always welcome back at the club.”

Unfortunately for Ryan, a knee cartilage injury suffered in pre-season put a hold on him mounting a challenge to Sociedad’s well-established Alex Remiro, and he had limited chances to shine back in Spain.

Nonetheless, his confidence remained high and he told Naylor in The Athletic article: “I’m a very good goalkeeper – a world-class goalkeeper. Since I left Brighton, I feel the level I’ve played at in the games I’ve played in has been quite high.

“Don’t get me wrong, every time the team list goes up and I see I’m not playing, it’s a blow – a kick in the guts – but I try using it as motivation to keep pushing on. I won’t stop until I see my name there more regularly.”

Born on 8 April 1992 in Plumpton, New South Wales, as a teenager Ryan played for semi-professional sides Marconi Stallions and Blacktown City before turning pro with Central Coast Mariners in 2010, where he was given his pro debut by Graham Arnold, later his head coach at international level.

In the course of his three years with the Mariners, he picked up various league accolades for his performances and earned his first international recognition when selected for Australia’s under 23s in 2011. He stepped up as a full international the following year making his debut in a 1-1 draw with North Korea and played all three matches in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil before winning the AFC Asian Cup with the Socceroos in 2015. He went on to play for his country at the 2018 and 2022 World Cup final tournaments and, at the time of writing, had 95 caps to his name.

Aussie international stopper

It was in 2013 that he moved to Europe and was signed by Belgian Pro League side Club Brugge, where he made more than 100 appearances over two years and was in the side that won the Belgian Cup in 2015 when Anderlecht were beaten 2-1 in Brussels. Ryan was the league’s goalkeeper of the year in 2014 and 2015.

An unhappy spell at Valencia followed where he managed only 21 appearances in two years, as the club got through five different managers. He spent the second half of the 2016-17 season back in Belgium, on loan to Genk, where he played 24 matches.

It would be fair to say Ryan has endured mixed fortunes since leaving Brighton. He managed only nine games for Sociedad before switching to FC Copenhagen but he only made six Danish Superliga starts and appeared in five cup matches while in Denmark.

AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands were able to offer him a return to being a regular no.1, though, and in 18 months he played 64 matches for the Eredivisie side, including 15 Europa Conference League games.

At the end of the 2023-24 season, he failed to agree a new deal with the club and the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that he ‘lost his game of poker’ with AZ’s sporting director Max Huberts, the club walking away from negotiations due to his wage demands.

As a free agent, Ryan joined Albion’s 2023-24 Europa League opponents AS Roma on a one-year contract as back-up to Serbian first choice ‘keeper, Belgian-born Serbian international Mile Svilar.

“If they get the Brighton version of Mathew Ryan, Roma will have a very safe pair of hands waiting in the wings,” reckoned Eliot Ben-Ner, writing for The Football Hub.

However, Ryan’s reign in Rome lasted only six months and in January 2025 he moved for a reported fee of £676,000 to French Ligue 1 side Lens on a six-month deal.

Villa’s Tommy Hughes helped stop rock-bottom Brighton rot

BRIGHTON were in a sorry state floundering at the bottom of the old Second Division when manager Pat Saward turned to a former Aston Villa teammate to borrow his back-up goalkeeper.

Albion had gone on a horrendous run of 14 consecutive defeats between November and February in the 1972-73 season and Saward decided to take regular custodian Brian Powney out of the firing line.

Inexperienced reserve goalkeeper Alan Dovey had twice conceded four goals (in defeats at Preston and Sunderland) during that awful run and between him and Powney they’d conceded 37 goals.

After seeing Albion succumb 3-1 at home to Villa and 5-1 at Fulham, Saward had a word with Vic Crowe, a former Villa teammate who by then was in the manager’s chair at Villa Park, and got him to agree a loan move for Tommy Hughes.

Hughes, who had spent years in Peter Bonetti’s shadow at Chelsea, arrived on the south coast to try to stem the tide and help Brighton get back on the winning trail.

His first run-out for the Albion came in a home friendly against then First Division Stoke City – both sides had been knocked out of the previous round of the FA Cup. Saward also gave a debut to 17-year-old Tony Towner although, unfortunately, Albion were once again on the losing side, 2-0. Nevertheless, the Albion matchday programme said Hughes “had a storming game”.

The losing streak finally came to an end the following Saturday when Hughes made his league debut at home to Luton Town. As well as the change in goal, Saward stuck with Towner on the wing and put another teenager, Pat Hilton, up front alongside Ken Beamish who scored both Albion goals in a 2-0 win.

Unsurprisingly, Hughes kept the shirt for two more league matches, a 3-1 defeat at Bristol City and a 2-0 reverse at Hull City.

Sandwiched between those games, he appeared in a Friday night friendly against visiting Moscow Spartak on 23 February which Albion won 1-0; captain Ian Goodwin scoring the only goal of the game.

Saward wanted to sign Hughes permanently but the powers-that-be couldn’t come up with the required fee and Powney resumed his place. Although Albion put up a bit of a fight, only losing two of the remaining 11 games, winning five and drawing four, the damage had already been done over the winter and they were relegated along with Huddersfield Town.

Hughes at Hereford

Hughes, meanwhile, returned to Villa Park but was soon on the move to a permanent home, where he stayed for many years.

Transferred to Hereford United in August 1973 for £15,000, he became something of a club legend and stayed in the area apart from one brief return to Scotland.

As the official club website noted: “He was an immediate success at Hereford and won the Player of the Year award in his first season and repeated the feat five seasons later.”

Manager Colin Addison brought him in when David Icke, the conspiracy theorist and former BBC sports broadcaster, was forced to retire through injury and regular no.1 Fred Potter was also sidelined.

Hughes made 240 appearances over nine seasons with The Bulls, and was in their Third Division championship-winning side of 1975-76. He later became Hereford’s caretaker manager during the 1982-83 season.

In 2006, he demonstrated his prowess at golf when he became the Herefordshire County Senior Champion. Posting a gross score of 72 at the Sapey course, the local newspaper said he had “produced a championship winning round in tricky conditions”. It added: “The course was beautifully manicured but many competitiors struggled to cope with the extra run and bounce off fairways baked hard after weeks of relentless sunshine.”

Born in Dalmuir, West Dunbartonshire, on 11 July 1947, Hughes started out with Scottish Second Division side Clydebank before Tommy Docherty signed him for Chelsea in 1966.

Only ever an understudy to Bonetti, he played two league games in each of 1966-67 and 1967-68, once in 1968-69 and six times in 1969-70.

His competitive debut came on 19 November 1966, when he was only 19, in a 1-1 Stamford Bridge draw against Sheffield United.

The following month he shipped six as Chelsea were thumped 6-1 at Sheffield Wednesday on New Year’s Eve.

In 1968, he was in the Chelsea side that won 5-3 at Southampton and 2-1 at Sheffield United.

In the six games he played between January and April 1970, he conceded 15 goals which included five goals in front of 57,221 at home to Leeds and five to Everton (who went on to win the First Division title) when 57,828 packed in to Goodison Park. Everton were 2-0 up (through Howard Kendall and Alan Ball) within five minutes of the start!

During his time at Chelsea, he was twice selected to play for the Scotland under 23 side. He made his debut on 3 December 1969 in a 4-0 win over France.

The following March he was between the sticks when the England under 23s beat the Scots 3-1 at Roker Park (his Chelsea teammate Peter Osgood scored twice, Brian Kidd the other) but the game was abandoned on 62 minutes when a snowstorm made it impossible to play the full 90 minutes.

His last game for Chelsea came the following month, on 15 April 1970, when Burnley beat the London side 3–1 at Turf Moor.

After Hughes broke his leg in a pre-season friendly in Holland, manager Dave Sexton brought in John Phillips from Villa to understudy Bonetti and, the following May, the displaced Hughes moved in the opposite direction, for £12,500. Phillips would later spend the 1980-81 season as Albion’s back-up goalkeeper under Alan Mullery.

Hughes might have thought he had finally claimed a no.1 spot of his own in a Villa side that had just been relegated to the third tier. He made his Third Division debut at home to Plymouth Argyle on 14 August.

But he only played 16 games under Vic Crowe before losing his place to Jim Cumbes, who had signed from West Brom. Cumbes was one of those rare breeds of sportsmen who also played county cricket for Lancashire, Surrey, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

Hughes’ 23rd and last game for Villa saw him make a horrible blunder in a first round FA Cup match at Fourth Division Southend United in November 1971. He dropped a free kick at the feet of Bill Garner (who later moved to Chelsea) who set up Billy Best to score the only goal of the game for the Shrimpers.

The ‘keeper’s long run as Hereford’s first choice came to an end in the 1977-78 season, when new signing Peter Mellor, once of Burnley and Fulham, took over the gloves.

Hughes decided to return to Scotland and signed a one-month contract with Dundee United. He contemplated moving his family back up north permanently, but they wanted to return to Hereford, which they did.

“The club and the fans welcomed him back with open arms and Tommy remained at Edgar Street until he finally hung up his boots in 1982,” said the club website. “Tommy never lost his love for Hereford and jumped at the chance of having spells as commercial manager and even as caretaker manager when the financial situation at Edgar Street was fraught.”

As it turned out, he was to make one final appearance at Edgar Street in the 1983-84 Radio Wyvern Cup Final. He had attended as a spectator but turned out for Worcester City after their ‘keeper Paul Hayward dislocated a finger in the pre-match warm up.

Hughes had a spell as manager of Trowbridge Town but his home remained in Hereford where he ran his own successful carpet-cleaning business for many years.

Football’s Ansah to making the game look dramatic

FICTIONAL football gained an unlikely champion in Andy Ansah.

The journeyman striker eventually mixed it with the game’s elite players as he built a new career in the world of football make-believe for TV and film.

His own exploits on the field were in less esteemed company, including stints playing in the lower leagues for Brighton, Brentford and Southend United.

Not too many Brighton fans will remember him, though, because his 25 appearances in the blue and white stripes coincided with the two seasons when home matches were played 90 miles from home in Gillingham.

With crowd numbers low and finances tight as a consequence, Albion were in no position to splash the cash in the autumn of 1997; indeed John Humphrey, Craig Maskell, Paul McDonald, Denny Mundee and Ian Baird, five of the squad who had kept the Seagulls in the league by the skin of their teeth only six months earlier, were let go in an effort to trim the wage bill.

It was in that climate that Ansah, who had dropped out of league football at the time, was picked up by Steve Gritt.

It only transpired in an interview Ansah gave to the Express in December 2011 that he came clean to the Albion about a kidney condition (nephrotic syndrome) he had suffered from since teenage years but had kept hidden at previous clubs.

It could at times make his body swell so much he could hardly walk and he would need hospital treatment to bring it under control.

He told the newspaper he had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide the illness from managers, coaches and fellow players for fear that it would mean the end of his career. When he felt poorly, he would wear tracksuit bottoms on the training ground to hide the swelling, and then feign illness.

At Brighton, however, the condition did not stop him being involved, although the majority of his appearances were as a substitute.

Apart from a start in a 5-0 mauling at the hands of Walsall in the Auto Windscreens Shield on 6 January 1998, he had made three Third Division appearances going on as a sub and was unused on seven occasions before his fortunes changed.

Although he missed a decent chance after going on as a sub in a 2-0 defeat at Rochdale, he made amends when Gritt gave him his first League start away to Exeter City, curving the ball beyond Ashley Bayes from Stuart Storer’s flick-on.

Sadly, a rogue refereeing decision helped the home side to a 2-1 win, and, with Albion floundering in second-to-bottom spot in the division, Gritt was sacked the following day.

Andy Ansah on the ball for the Albion

Ansah retained his place for new manager Brian Horton’s first match – and he was on the scoresheet again. This time, his goal and a brace from Kerry Mayo gave the Seagulls a 3-2 win over Chester – the side’s first taste of victory in 10 matches!

“The emergency partnership of Stuart Storer and Andy Ansah has provided fresh movement and impetus up front, while wingers John Westcott and Steve Barnes saw far more of the ball on Saturday than they have been accustomed to,” reported The Argus.

Albion finished the season 23rd of 24 teams but thankfully 15 points ahead of Doncaster Rovers in last place.

Ansah scored again in the last ‘home’ game of the season – a 2-2 draw with Horton’s old side Hull City (who finished 22nd) – but, like a lot of players, he was out of contract at the end of the season.

Horton wanted to bring in his own players but, as it turned out, Ansah was offered a new one-year deal, with The Argus saying “Horton hasn’t been able to find a better replacement at the right price, so Ansah has been given a second chance”.

The manager explained: “He did well, but I was bringing new faces in. I’ve had a good look around and Andy is as good as what we could get. He can score goals and he can play in different positions.”

Ansah lines up for the Seagulls in exile

For his part, Ansah told the newspaper:“Technically I was given a free, but I knew I would be speaking to the gaffer again before pre-season.

“There was still a chance that I was going to get a contract and I’m very pleased that I have. I think Brighton are going to do things this season.”

Although Albion avoided flirting with relegation for the first time in three seasons, their 17th finishing spot was hardly cause to put the flags out, and Ansah made only two starts. He went on as a sub on nine occasions and was an unused sub on nine others.

Horton left mid-season to return to the north, assistant Jeff Wood struggled in a brief spell as no.1, and Micky Adams only arrived to take charge towards the very end. Ansah was one of nine players out of contract and released at the end of the season (the others were Derek Allan, Michael Bennett, Tony Browne, Lee Doherty, Danny Mills, Darragh Ryan, Peter Smith, Storer, Terry Streeter and Paul Sturgess).

While the Albion prepared to return to Brighton to play at the Withdean athletics stadium, Ansah embarked on a career that attracted a hell of a lot more viewers than had seen him perform at the Priestfield Stadium.

Brentford fan Nick Bruzon has told Andy’s remarkable story on a few occasions and his ‘last word’ blog goes into plenty of detail about it.

In summary, though, after leaving Brighton, Ansah worked as an actor for six seasons on the Sky TV football soap Dream Team, appearing for fictional Harchester United.

He recruited two other former Albion players for Harchester: Peter Smith and Junior McDougald. As one of the older players, early on he was asked the best way to shoot certain scenes and within a year he was the producer.

His ability to choreograph football scenes then led him to Hollywood as a consultant on Goal!, a US film trilogy about a Mexican immigrant who gets to play in the English Premiership.

He even got to spend a day working with his all-time hero Pele in Brazil. “He was an unbelievable guy, a real gentleman,” Ansah told the Southend Echo in a 2008 interview with John Geoghegan.

“Because of my footballing background, I can talk to the players and the crew and translate between the two.

“It’s my job to make sure the footballers feel relaxed and do what they do normally in front of a camera.

“Film has always been a big love of mine, ever since school. And with football, to a degree, you are on stage entertaining. So, there are a lot of similarities between the two.”

He choreographed the whole of the Mike Bassett: England Manager film (starring Ricky Tomlinson) and worked on three series of Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.

As co-presenter of the Sky 1 programme, Ansah scouted the UK for talent, and took to Rooney 100 talented young footballers who he had to whittle down to win the Street Striker crown.

It was with encouragement from contacts in Hollywood that he put his work on a more commercial footing. He set up his own consultancy, Soccer on Screen, and among many football-based advertisements helped Guy Ritchie direct a Nike commercial for the 2010 World Cup. He has also advised EA Sports, makers of the Fifa video games.

Born in Lewisham, south east London, on 19 March 1969, Ansah was a promising winger during his school days and was playing at county level when he started to attract the attention of clubs.

Way before the days of organised academies, he was picked up by Charlton Athletic aged 11 and stayed with them until he was 16. When he turned 17, he signed as a professional at Crystal Palace.

Ansah told Bruzon: “Because I had been in the system from such a young age, I kind of got a bit complacent and a little bit fed up of football.

“When I left Palace, Steve Coppell said to me: ‘I’m not sure if you really want to play football so I’m going to release you.’

After a six-month break from the game, he joined non-league Dorking stayed out of the game for about six months and then joined Dorking, where Dave Goodwin, who had originally scouted him for Charlton, was working.

When he scored 14 goals in three months for Dorking, Brentford, Fulham and Reading all offered him a contract but he chose the Bees because assistant manager Phil Holder promised to pick him up and take him to play for the reserve team, which he was managing.

Ansah scored twice on his first start for Brentford in a 3-2 defeat at Bolton but only made eight appearances after falling out with manager Steve Perryman.

In a reserves match between Brentford and Southend, Ansah scored and caught the attention of Shrimpers boss David Webb, who eventually took him to Roots Hall.

Over the course of six years, he scored 38 goals in 180 appearances for Southend and, as well as Holder, reckoned Webb had been the biggest influence on his career.

“David gave me a licence to express myself,” Ansah told Bruzon. “He would say, ‘I don’t care what the outcome is, just go out there and express yourself.’ It really did work!”

Ansah was part of the United side that earned promotion to Division One (now the Championship) and was later named Southend’s 13th most popular player of all time.

“That in itself is a massive achievement,” he said. “It’s good to know that the fans enjoyed what I was doing when I was there. It’s always nice, to get that sort of feedback.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when Webb took charge at Brentford, Ansah ended up following him, albeit on loan, scoring just the once (ironically against Brighton in a 2-1 Bees win on 26 November 1994) in four games and again the following season, when he scored once in six appearances.

But Ansah told Bruzon that he didn’t do himself justice because he wasn’t properly fit at that time and, if he had taken medical advice, he probably should have retired because of a knee injury.

“I was fighting to get myself back fit again,” he said. “My first game back I got a cut on my head within 15 minutes and then got it stitched up. I got man of the match but never could regain full fitness. At that stage, the surgeon told me I’d never be fully fit again with my knee.”

He played a couple of games at each of Peterborough, Gillingham and Leyton Orient before dropping out of the league with Hayes, Bromley and Heybridge Swifts.

Ansah’s son Zac spent 10 years with Arsenal’s academy. He moved on to Charlton Athletic when they were in the Championship but didn’t break through and had loan spells with League Two sides Plymouth Argyle and Newport County (playing a total of 26 matches) before moving into non-league football.

Albion promotion winner with a place in West Ham history

BERTIE LUTTON has a place in the West Ham history books even though he only made 13 appearances.

He was the first Hammer ever to play for Northern Ireland, winning four caps in 1973 (more on these later).

Lutton, frozen out at second tier Brighton less than a year after signing from Wolverhampton Wanderers, stepped back up a level to join Ron Greenwood’s side.

Although he had played at the elite level for Wolves, having been unable to hold down a regular first team spot at Molineux, he joined Pat Saward’s promotion-chasing Brighton in the 1971-72 season.

Lutton played his part in helping Albion go up from the old Third Division as runners up behind Aston Villa in the spring of 1972, as described in my 2016 blog post about his contribution.

But, when Brighton struggled to cope with the higher grade football, Saward questioned the commitment and attitude of certain players and Lutton was put on the transfer list.

It was certainly something of a surprise when, unable to get a start in a second tier side, he went on loan to First Division West Ham.

Lutton did well enough to secure a full-time switch to Upton Park. Almost a year to the day of his arrival at the Goldstone, he was London-bound and the shrewd Saward turned a £10,000 profit on the player.

The enigmatic Irishman made his Hammers First Division debut in a 1-0 away win against Norwich City on 10 February 1973, alongside the likes of Bobby Moore, Billy Bonds and Trevor Brooking, in front of a crowd of 32,597.

Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson scored the only goal of the game and finished the season as the club and League top goalscorer with 28 goals from 46 games. Lutton didn’t reappear until April when he went on as a sub in a 1-1 draw at home to Leeds and a 4-3 Good Friday win over Southampton at the Boleyn Ground (when George Herrington captured the action picture below of him).

Reviving his scoring feat for Brighton at Bournemouth a year previously, given a start on Easter Saturday, Lutton scored his only goal for the Hammers in a 1-1 draw away to Derby County. He then played in the last two games of the season, a 0-0 draw at Birmingham City, and a 2-1 defeat at home to Arsenal. West Ham finished the season in sixth place, though, which was the highest league position they’d achieved under Greenwood.

Lutton’s crucial equaliser for Brighton at Bournemouth on Easter Saturday 1972

Those league appearances earned Lutton a recall to the Northern Ireland squad and manager Terry Neill sent him on as a second half sub for Bryan Hamilton in a World Cup qualifier against Cyprus on 8 May 1973.

The game was played in front of a paltry 6,090 at Fulham’s Craven Cottage because of the troubles in Northern Ireland at the time. The Irish were already 3-0 up at half time and that’s how it finished: Sammy Morgan (later to play for Brighton) scored one and Man Utd’s Trevor Anderson hit two.

Eight days later, Lutton went on for goalscorer Anderson in Glasgow as the Irish succumbed to a 2-1 defeat to Scotland in the Home International tournament.

Three days after that, he saw action again when he once again replaced Ipswich Town’s Hamilton, who’d scored the only goal of the game as the Irish beat Wales 1-0 at Everton’s Goodison Park. Only 4,946 watched that one.

Back with West Ham at the start of the 1973-74 season and Lutton was in the starting line-up for home defeats to Newcastle United (2-1) and QPR (3-2) and was a sub in a 3-1 defeat away to Manchester United.

He started a 1-0 home defeat to Burnley, but was subbed off, as the Hammers’ torrid first half of the season continued. Previously imperious captain Bobby Moore was dropped and the side were bottom of the table at Christmas.

Lutton only re-appeared in the starting line-up in January when, in a FA Cup third round replay away to Third Division Hereford United, West Ham embarrassingly lost 2-1.

He retained his place three days later when, although the Hammers were missing Moore, Brooking, Kevin Lock, John McDowell and Robson, they made amends by beating Man Utd 2-1 at Upton Park. Billy Bonds and Pat Holland scored for the home side, Sammy McIlroy for United.

A week later, Lutton played his last Hammers match when appearing as a sub in a 1-1 draw at Newcastle United.

It came two months after he had made his last appearance for his country. That was in another World Cup qualifier, on 14 November 1973, when the Irish earned a 1-1 draw against Portugal in Lisbon. He played in midfield alongside Tommy Jackson and captain Dave Clements behind George Best, Anderson and Morgan up front.

Lutton had made his Northern Ireland debut three years earlier when his Wolves teammate Derek Dougan led the line in a 1-0 Home International defeat against Scotland in Belfast.

N Ireland training with George Best

Three days later, on 21 April 1970, he played the first half against England at Wembley when Best scored but the hosts won 3-1 (Lutton was replaced by sub John Cowan for the second half).

That was the game in which Bobby Charlton won his 100th England cap (and was made captain for the occasion) and his Man Utd teammate Brian Kidd made his debut. Ralph Coates also won his first England cap. Charlton, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst scored the English goals.

Born in Banbridge, County Down, on 13 July 1950, Lutton’s brief footballing career began with his hometown club, Banbridge Town, and it’s reported just £50 exchanged hands to take him to Wolves in 1967.

At a time when Wolves were blessed with some outstanding players like Dougan, Hugh Curran, Dave Wagstaffe, Jim McCalliog and Mike Bailey, the young Irishman managed just 25 matches for Wolves between 1967 and 1971.

Although he may have only had a brief spell in the limelight, he seems to have had a penchant for earning a place in footballing history.

His one and only First Division goal for Wolves was also the club’s 2000th goal in that league to be scored at Molineux.

Goal v Arsenal in frront of the Match of the Day cameras

Arsenal were the visitors on 15 November 1969 and Lutton seized on a fortunate deflection off the aforementioned Terry Neill to net in the 47th minute past the Gunners’ back-up ‘keeper Geoff Barnett. The home side won 2-0 with Scottish international Curran scoring the second just two minutes after Lutton’s opener.

Not listed in the matchday programme line-up, Lutton played instead of the injured Mike O’Grady in the no.8 shirt (players didn’t wear a squad number shirt in those days).

The game was featured on Match of the Day with the legendary Kenneth Wolstenholme commentating and the rather grainy black and white coverage of the game can still be found on the internet wolvescompletehistory.co.uk/arsenal-h-1969-70/.

Lutton only made one start and one sub appearance in the 1970-71 season but was a regular in the Wolves reserve side in which the emerging John Richards was banging in the goals.

The pair were room-mates as teenagers with Wolves and were reunited after 37 years by the wolvesheroes.com website.

They hadn’t seen each other since 12 May 1973 at Goodison Park when Lutton was an unused sub for Northern Ireland in a Home International against England and Richards was playing up front for the English alongside two-goal Martin Chivers. (England won the game 2-1).

Lutton has popped up on the Wolves history site on several occasions over the years, often when he has returned from his home in Australia to the Black Country to see his son, Lee, who still lives in the area.

Brighton fans had first seen Lutton back in September 1969 when he played for them in a memorable third round League Cup match in front of a packed Goldstone Ground.

Two years later Saward, quite the specialist at using the loan market, acquired Bertie’s services on a temporary basis between September and November, 1971.

He made his debut in a 2-0 defeat at Aston Villa and scored twice in seven games (in a 2-2 draw at Torquay United and a 3-1 home win over Bristol Rovers) before returning to his parent club.

Celebrating a goal at the Goldstone for Brighton

Then, on 9 March 1972, with the clock ticking down to what in those days was the 5pm transfer deadline, Saward completed a double transfer swoop, securing Lutton’s permanent signing for £5,000 together with Ken Beamish from Tranmere for £25,000 (plus the surplus-to-requirements Alan Duffy).

A delighted Saward declared to Argus reporter John Vinicombe: “Bertie can do a job for us anywhere. This can’t be bad for us. At 21 and with two caps for Ireland he has a future and played very well for us while on loan.

“He can play right or left, up the middle, or midfield and Beamish can fit into a number of positions.”

It’s likely that versatility counted against him and, in the days of only one substitute, he was more often than not a sub, being able to go on in a variety of positions.

He was on the bench when Brighton began the 1972-73 season in the second tier and went on in three games. He then got four successive starts before going back to the bench.

Albion were finding life tough at the higher level and although Saward switched things around and brought in new faces, results went from bad to worse.

Lutton started three games in December which all ended in defeat and the 3-0 Boxing Day reverse at Oxford United turned out to be his last appearance for the Albion.

It fell in the middle of a spell of 12 successive defeats during which only five goals were scored. Saward couldn’t put his finger on the reason for the slump but Lutton found himself one of three put on the transfer list.

The West Ham move must have seemed ideal but sadly it was all over after just 13 games. Injury forced him to quit the professional game and he had a brief spell playing non-league for Horsham before emigrating to Australia.

There he played semi-professional football in the Australian Soccer League for a number of years before settling in Melbourne where he worked for the paint giant Dulux.