LUCA BARRINGTON lifted a trophy as a winning Albion captain in May 2024 before beginning to make his mark in senior football.
Brighton’s £500,000 signing from Manchester City skippered the Seagulls to a 2-0 win over Aston Villa in the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens and was voted player of the tournament too.
Just a few months later, having temporarily swapped Albion’s blue and white stripes with Grimsby Town’s black and white, Barrington started earning plaudits for his contribution to the League Two outfit.
In October he scored twice to give the Mariners their fourth win in five games with a 2-1 win at Salford.
Barrington, who was just 17 when Albion bought him from City in 2022,can play on either wing or in a central attacking midfield role. And at the beginning of his season-long loan with the Mariners, that versatility was being appreciated.
His new temporary boss, head coach David Artell, said of the Brighton youngster: “Luca is going to have a good career. Is he still finding his feet in men’s football? Of course he is, but he has got the ability.”
Barrington was twice a non-playing substitute for Albion’s first team during December 2023 after impressing playing for the under 21 side. Now on the loan path that has served other Albion youngsters well, Town were delighted to capture his signature for the 2024-25 season.
“He’s an excellent, technical player who’s going to provide us with something a bit different,” purred Artell.
“He’s a versatile forward who can play off both flanks and likes to get in behind the opposition. We wanted to strength ourselves in that area of the pitch and, technically, he is very good.”
The coach told Grimsby football writer Sam Allen: “He’s a young boy, but he has got an unbelievable amount of belief.
“You don’t get bought for half a million pounds at17 if you haven’t got something about you.”
The youngster has also caught the eye of Football League World writer Chris Kelly, who noted his growing involvement after going on as a substitute in Grimsby’s opening day defeat at Fleetwood Town.
An injury to winger Charles Vernam opened the door for Barrington to get more game time and he seized the opportunity after going on for the injured player in a 1-0 win over Bromley.
Given a start in the next match, when he also scored in a 3-2 win over Carlisle, Kelly observed:
“The youngster’s composure on the ball helped his side gain second-half control.”
In an early October 2024 article, Kelly wrote: “Barrington is proving his quality and versatility, while having the potential to improve further.
“While Barrington is at the beginning of his professional career, and has a great deal to learn and develop within his game, both with and without the ball, there are signs that his natural talent could see him play at a high level.
“Good with both feet and comfortable carrying the ball and beating his opponent, the youngster is tough to deal with for opponents who find him difficult to anticipate and predict.”
The writer added: “Able to operate in multiple roles, Barrington is equally capable of using his pace to get to the byline and deliver crosses into the box, or cut inside and link-up with the strikers around the edge of the penalty area.
“Also showing signs of defensive awareness and real footballing intelligence, parent club Brighton will be delighted by the quick progress their young attacker is making in his time with Grimsby.”
In a quite different environment, Barrington captained an Albion side in Hong Kong in May 2024 for what was the 25th running of the Hong Kong Sevens tournament.
In the final, a goal in each half from Louis Flower and Benicio Baker-Boaitey earned Albion the win and, in doing so, stopped Aston Villa from winning a record-extending eighth title in the competition.
Barrington had scored a golden goal to edge Albion past Japan’s Yokohama F Marinos in the group phase before the Seagulls saw off Leicester City in the quarter-finals and Fulham in the semis. By way of a footnote, in the Masters Tournament former Albion loanee Leroy Lita scored both goals when the PFA All Stars beat the Singapore FC Masters 2-1.
Born in Manchester on 12 December 2004, Barrington was snapped up by City when he was just six years old.
By 2021, he was named by The Guardian as one of the top 20 first year scholars of Premier League clubs, and writer Jamie Jackson said: “Barrington loves to drift in from either flank to score, as he did for a close range finish in the under-18s’ season-opening 3-0 win over Manchester United, his debut for Ben Wilkinson’s side.” Jackson observed the youngster to be “two-footed, rangy and with a penchant for dribbling”.
As a matter of interest, that same 2021 selection featured Albion’s Jack Hinshelwood and also Kamari Doyle, who Albion signed from Southampton in January 2024 and who is now on loan at Exeter City.
Having scored ten goals in 22 appearances for City to help them win the Under-18 Premier League in 2022, Barrington was offered a professional contract but then chose to switch to Brighton.
At the time Albion secured his signature, then under 21s coachAndrew Croftsdeclared:“Luca had an outstanding campaign at under-18 level with City last season and we’re delighted to welcome him to Brighton. He’s got a lot of ability, a great attitude and we’re really excited to start working with him.”
IT WAS SOMETHING of a coup when multiple trophy winner and England international Adam Lallana joined Brighton from Liverpool in 2020.
His best years might have been behind him, but Lallana’s football intelligence and astute movement were a joy to watch and were, perhaps, a sign that once-humble Albion were getting serious about challenging for the top spots in the Premier League. The club twice achieved top 10 finishes during his four years at the Amex.
As much as anything, Lallana observed in an early interview that his new side would improve with a bit more belief. “That comes with time, with the development of players and with confidence,” he explained. “The more times we play well, the more we’ll get that belief and with that we’ll score more goals and get more wins, but we need to be a little bit patient. Empires aren’t built in a day.”
One of Lallana’s trademarks, as observed in an early profile on Liverpool’s website, was “turning markers inside-out with impulsive twists or burrowing through swathes of players with fine close-control”.
The player said: “Pace isn’t a huge part of my game, but playing the percentages, mathematically, if you can add an extra yard of pace or a couple of percentage points to your game, then that’s massive nowadays.
“I still do a lot of work in the gym to improve my pace, power and strength to try to get that little bit more explosive power to my game. I’m always working to improve.”
Players used to performing at the highest level week in week out don’t suffer fools gladly and it was no surprise to learn that Lallana had a few fallings out in his early days at Brighton, for example with Neal Maupay.
Younger players certainly enjoyed the experience of learning from someone who had played at the very top, for example, Columbian international Steven Alzate, who said: “On and off the pitch he is a leader and when he’s got the ball at his feet he can really show people what he can do. Training with him is an honour; he’s a great guy.”
Those leadership qualities were drawn on by both Graham Potter and Roberto De Zerbi, even though the ageing player’s minutes on the pitch had to be managed carefully.
Lallana even stepped up to support coach Andrew Crofts with first team training in between the reigns of the two managers.
Towards the end of his time at Brighton, Lallana went off in international breaks to work with Lee Carsley preparing the England under 21s ahead of matches.
Born in St Albans on 10 May 1988, Lallana’s family moved to the Ilford area of Bournemouth when he was five and he went to the local Corpus Christi School and St Peter’s Catholic School.
If the surname doesn’t sound Anglo Saxon, that’s because he has Spanish roots: his grandad was from Madrid.
From kicking a ball around with his young pals, Lallana began to harness his footballing talent at the AFC Bournemouth centre of excellence. Southampton paid a £3,000 fee to take him into their own junior ranks when he was just 12 years old. They made subsequent payments totalling £15,000 as he progressed to scholarship and full professional levels.
Lallana was grateful for the quality of the Southampton academy set-up and in particular referenced George Prost, his under-17 coach, as someone who instilled a lot of the attributes that helped to develop his career.
Lallana was in the same Saints youth team as Theo Walcott and Leon Best (Gareth Bale was only on the bench!) that lost the 2005 FA Youth Cup final to Ipswich Town. He was also in the side that lost in the semi-final to Liverpool the following year.
The same year, he made his first team debut in a 5-2 League Cup win over Yeovil Town. Saints loaned him back to Bournemouth in 2007, when he played three games, but he returned to Southampton, then in League One, and was part of their back-to-back promotion-winning side that went from League One to the Premier League.
Having helped Southampton under captain Dean Hammond to the League One runners up spot – behind Brighton – in the 2010-11 season, he was a key member of the side that gained promotion from the Championship in second spot behind Reading (Brighton finished 10th). Over the course of eight years with Southampton, he made 235 appearances, scoring 48 goals.
In the Premier League, Lallana was made Saints captain and he admitted he struggled at first. But the arrival of Mauricio Pochettini had a positive influence on him, as he explained in a matchday programme interview. “He had a big part in moulding me into the player I am today – he took me to that next level.
“When he came to the club he could see that I had pressure on my shoulders, that I wasn’t playing freely – and we just spoke about it and he talked it out of me. By the end of the season and the next season, I was playing the best football of my life I think and a big credit goes to him for that.
“He could see I was a talented player and probably wasn’t playing to my best, but he knew it was because I wasn’t playing freely. We had lots of conversations and him knowing that and speaking to me about it was amazing because instantly it was like a balloon that just popped – immediately it took the pressures off. That was one of many things he did for me at Southampton.”
Lallana said Pochettino also helped him to become fitter and introduced him to the art of pressing. “My love of winning the ball back – that came under Mauricio.”
It was Brendan Rodgers who signed Lallana for Liverpool for £25m after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil where he had been a member of the England squad that finished bottom of its group. Lallana had made his England debut the previous November in a 2-0 friendly defeat v Chile.
In the red of Liverpool
Ten of his 34 caps for England were won in 2016 when he was voted by supporters as the country’s player of the year. By then 28, he scored his first international goal in a last-gasp win over Slovakia in September and two months later netted again against Scotland and Spain at Wembley.
Taking instructions from England boss Gareth Southgate
“This award is a huge honour,” Lallana told The FA.com. “The last three winners were Rooney (2015), Rooney (2014) and Steven Gerrard (2012) so that just goes to show what a great achievement this is.”
By then, Rodgers had been replaced by Jurgen Klopp under whom Lallana blossomed and developed (they were also close neighbours in Formby) as together they went on to win the Premier League title and the Champions League.
In a 2022 documentary about Klopp, made by The Anfield Wrap, Lallana said: “He has the X factor doesn’t he? It’s as simple as that. The amazing ability he has to motivate players. If he’s left you out for 10, 11, 12 games you’re a bit down but somehow with him, you’ve still got so much respect for him even though you aren’t happy.
“I don’t know how he does it but he just has the ability to get you motivated because of who he is, so you’re fighting for the team and for him and that’s the art. It just shows how good he is at being a manager.”
According to thisisanfield.com: “2015-16 was arguably Lallana’s best, as he started 38 games and helped push Liverpool on to the League Cup and Europa League finals.
“One of his finest performances in red came in the Europa League semi-final against Villarreal. With Liverpool trailing 1-0 from the first leg in Spain, an emotionally charged Anfield were put at ease when an early own goal drew them level.
“From then on, Lallana was brilliant for Liverpool in an attacking line-up also featuring Roberto Firmino, Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge. The latter got the second goal after 63 minutes, but it was Lallana who sealed the game and sent the Reds through to the final, with a composed flick into the net.”
Summing up the Liverpool mindset, Lallana said in a matchday programme interview: “At Liverpool, where the expectations are so high, it was all about just dealing with those pressures.
“We had to forget about what the supporters want, the trophies that are expected, and just believe in what we as a team believed in – and that was playing high-intensity football and being motivated in every game to fight for each other.”
In another interview, this time with the Liverpool Echo, he said: “Playing six years with the intensity of that club takes over your life.”
Nonetheless, when he finally left Anfield for the Albion, he said: “I’m desperate for a new challenge and I’m desperate to play a bit more.
“I still feel like I’ve got plenty more football ahead of me and I’m thoroughly excited by this next challenge and what that will bring.”
A sign of the respect Liverpool fans still had for Lallana was demonstrated at the end of Albion’s 2-2 draw at Anfield in October 2022. As fans sang his name, Lallana tapped his chest and clapped every stand before walking down the tunnel.
Lallana helped lift Brighton to a new level
Reds supporter Aaron Cutler wrote on social media: “Pleased Lallana got a deserved (and delayed) ovation. Easy to forget how integral he was at the start of Klopp’s reign. While injuries limited his game time towards the end he clearly remained an influential presence within the squad. Could have done with him today!”
Of course, during his time with Brighton, Lallana was able to see at close quarters the emergence of Alexis Mac Allister, and he was full of praise in an interview with Graham Hunter:
“What a special player and special person,” he said. “He’s a player that is so pure with how he plays. The way he lends the football, uses others, there’s no selfishness in the way he plays.
“It was so special watching him during the World Cup, not playing to begin with then getting used and proving himself. Then playing so well that there’s no way he doesn’t play, by the end Messi is looking for him.”
Speaking of Mac Allister’s “footballing intelligence” Lallana said: “OK he’s not the quickest or strongest, but so smart. Knows that the football is faster than anyone, Alexis is of that ilk.
“He had to battle tough moments here at the beginning. He’s a very introverted, shy guy.”
With an eye to a likely future in the game as a coach, Lallana enjoyed a great relationship with De Zerbi and told BBC Radio Sussex: “I feel like we’ve helped each other an awful lot in the two years and I’m extremely grateful for how he’s managed me.
“At times I can’t train every day and my body probably lets me down, but he’s been so supportive of me and he’s managed me differently to most other players, probably because of the history I’ve had with injuries and the age I’m at. I know as a footballer that doesn’t often happen.
“Our relationship goes beyond player and coach, he’s like an older brother to me.”
When Lallana decided to leave Brighton at the end of the 2023-24 season and return to Southampton, he had made 64 starts for the Seagulls plus 40 appearances off the bench.
Albion had finished 16th and ninth under Potter then sixth and eleventh under De Zerbi.
In an extended interview with The Athletic, Lallana said: “What has happened is everything I thought was possible. I wouldn’t have said in my first interview we are going to be in Europe in three years, but that is the genius of Tony Bloom (owner-chairman) and Dan Ashworth (former technical director).”
MENTION Mark McGhee to supporters of Wolverhampton Wanderers and most are less than complimentary about the Scot who won third tier promotion with Brighton in 2004.
Steering the Seagulls to that 1-0 play-off final win over Bristol City at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, (as I covered in my previous blog post about McGhee) emulated his feat of taking Millwall out of the same division three years previously, and certainly helped to repair a reputation sullied by his experience at Wolves.
A play-off winners’ medal at last for Mark McGhee
It also delivered much relief for a manager who’d previously only experienced play-off heartache, seeing Wolves’ hopes of returning to the Premier League dashed by a play-off semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace in 1997 and losing to Birmingham with the Lions at the same stage in 2002.
After cutting his managerial teeth at Reading and Leicester, McGhee succeeded former England boss Graham Taylor at Wolves, appointed by chairman Jonathan Hayward, the son of owner Sir Jack Hayward (the pair subsequently had a big falling out and McGhee was caught in the crossfire).
McGhee’s three years at Molineux weren’t all bad – many supporters said he certainly rated higher than the hated Glenn Hoddle – and he couldn’t be faulted for spotting genuine talent having given Irish striker Robbie Keane his Wolves debut as a 17-year-old away to Norwich. “I always believed he could be special,” he said. “Even at that age he was sensational.”
Young Mark McGhee on his arrival at Molineux
But fans of the boys in old gold disliked his managerial style of winding up forthcoming opponents with disparaging remarks. They also felt some of his signings weren’t up to it – a feeling echoed in the spat that emerged between Sir Jack and Jonathan.
“Nice man, Mark, and he had done well enough at Reading and Leicester. But he didn’t buy very well, did he? You have to ask questions about the quality of the players he brought to this club,” Sir Jack told reporter Paul Weaver in January 1999.
“We should never have let Graham Taylor go. Graham is an outstanding football manager. I’m afraid we bowed to pressure from the fans. We didn’t give him enough time. Then we gave McGhee plenty.”
For many, the final straw in the McGhee reign was when he left club legend Steve Bull on the subs bench in favour of much-derided Steve Claridge when Wolves lost the 1998 FA Cup semi-final to Arsenal.
“No turning back after that really, he’d lost it,” said ‘Bend It Like Dennison’ on molineuxmix.co.uk. “A very negative manager, prone to making stupid comments which wound opposition teams up and made us one of the most hated teams in the division,” opined ‘Nashie’ on the same platform.
“I had high hopes for McGhee and sometimes I quite liked the way he wound up the opposition with his arrogance, however, while he could talk the talk, he couldn’t quite walk the walk!” said ‘Bill McCai’.
The Scot was never afraid to speak his mind and even his former Newcastle boss, Bill McGarry (a figure well known to Wolves fans from his days as manager between 1968 and 1976) told him: ‘Mark, you talk too much. Tone it down a bit.’
“I tried to take his advice, give nothing away in media briefings. Then, somebody would say something interesting and I wasn’t able to stop myself,” McGhee admitted in an interview with theleaguepaper.com.
On molineuxmix.co.uk, ‘stuj4z’ reckoned: “McGhee started to believe his own hype and became a parody of himself. Stupid signings were his downfall because overall I thought his tactics were ok. McGhee wasn’t the devil incarnate and did do some good things for the club.”
‘Florida Wolfey’ maintained: “McGhee was a decent manager and he certainly cared about this football club. He was unfortunate not to get us up in his first season and we never really recovered from that failure. Like all managers he made some good decisions and some decisions he’d rather have made again.”
When the axe fell, McGhee admitted to Nick Townsend of The Independent: “For that first month after I was sacked by Wolves, until I got over the initial shock, I never really opened the door. I became a recluse. I was feeling angry and frustrated.”
Townsend observed that having previously walked out on Reading and Leicester to take the Wolves’ job, “many supporters among his former clubs relished the spectacle of the assured and articulate McGhee being thrown from the steed of his own galloping ambition, his features ground in the dirt”.
“I was 100 per cent justified in leaving Reading after John Madejski gave me permission to talk to Leicester” McGhee told Townsend. “Leaving Filbert Street, a year later, was different. I knew when I walked out of there that it was, in a sense, wrong.
“I knew I’d let their chairman, Martin George, down badly, and the players I’d brought in. People thought, when Wolves dangled the bait, that was me, off and out, no hesitation, no qualms, and that’s where I got my reputation. But it wasn’t like that. It was torture.
“Two minutes before I made the decision to go, I was staying. There was pressure from all kinds of people I respected to go. Against my own conscience, I took the job.”
He added: “I read the papers and I don’t recognise myself. But, obviously, people are thinking that a guy who can up and leave Leicester after a year like that must be one kind of arrogant, callous bastard. All I can do to fix that impression is to go on from here and prove to people that’s not the way I am.”
As it turned out, he feared the football community had turned its back on him when no further managerial opportunity surfaced for nearly two years. It was only a regular punditry slot on Sky Sports that reminded people he was still around.
When he eventually got back in the game as manager of Millwall in September 2000, McGhee garnered a sympathetic ear from The Guardian football writer Roy Collins.
“I don’t think I got a bad deal,” McGhee told Collins. “I think I got exactly what I deserved. The biggest mistake I made was in underestimating the reaction of people when I walked out on Leicester. That is not to say that I regret leaving Leicester but it tarnished my reputation in such a way that Wolves’ fans never really accepted me.
“I was only fulfilling my ambition but I’ve learned that sometimes you have to think twice and maybe it would have been right for me to have said, no matter how much I want to take what I see as a bigger job, I can’t have it.”
McGhee admitted to the reporter he’d had sleepless nights and restless days wondering whether any club would forgive him, so he was grateful for the chance Millwall gave him, admitting: “This is a second chance for me and if I mess it up, I won’t get a third.”
A relieved McGhee told the Evening Standard: “To say I am very pleased to get back into the game is an understatement. I am absolutely ecstatic, but I would not have come back for any job.
“I haven’t been applying for everything that has been going because I felt the opportunity had to be one I was motivated by.
“It did not have to be the biggest club, or in the top league, but I had to really want to do it. I got a gut feeling about some jobs and I had that for Millwall.
“You get a feel for the place and I had an idea what they were about because I am a good pal of their old manager Mick McCarthy.
“In my playing career I was at Newcastle and Celtic. They have demanding, but passionate fans and I know that is the same at Millwall. It is very exciting.”
Millwall chairman Theo Paphitis admitted: “Mark was not always the front runner for the job, but got himself into the position at the interview.
“He said the right things. I believe he was sincere and I am very pleased we have him on board. He is the right person for the job.”
When there was a mutual parting of the ways in October 2003, Paphitis said: “He took over in September 2000 with the brief to get the club into the First Division that season which he duly achieved.
“We then enjoyed a very successful first season at this level, reaching the play-offs the following year. Last season was a frustrating one for the club and whilst expectations were high at the start of the current campaign, we have struggled to live up to them.”
Interestingly, when he was shown the door at Brighton, likewise there was appreciation rather than dismay at what he had brought to the club.
Powering up
“No matter where you stand on the club’s decision to part company with the former Scottish international, you can’t say he didn’t leave us without one or two golden memories, especially during his first season in charge,” the matchday programme reminded readers.
“There are more than a few supporters out there who rate what happened inside the Millennium Stadium that May day in 2004 as their top Albion moment, above Wembley 1991 and – whisper it – even 1983. Why? Well, for once, we actually won on a big stage. But there was more to it than that: thirty thousand fans invading Wales and laying siege to what is generally regarded as one of the finest stadiums in the world.”
The piece reminded supporters that in the higher division, against clubs with hugely superior resources, Albion beat the likes of Leeds United and Sunderland at humble Withdean as well as nicking unlikely wins at Leicester City, West Ham and Sheffield United.
Even in the season (2005-06) when they weren’t able to retain that hard-earned status, they managed a first win in 22 years at Selhurst Park, toppling the old rivals on their own patch with the only goal of the game scored by loanee Paul McShane.
After a fascinating 3-3 draw at Elland Road, home boss Kevin Blackwell observed that McGhee had “the hardest job in football”.
The programme pondered: “One can’t help but wonder what McGhee’s record would have been had the club been playing inside a stadium worthy of the upper echelons of the English game, with some finance to burn and facilities good enough to tempt Championship and Premier League calibre players to Sussex.” Indeed.
CHRIS HUGHTON is well respected for his achievements at Brighton but he never forgot that it was Newcastle United who gave him his first job as a manager.
Steering both clubs to promotion from the Championship earned him the League Managers Association’s manager of the season accolade on each occasion (2010 and 2017).
The fact Brighton hadn’t reached the top tier for 34 years and had been close to the bottom of the Championship when Hughton took over meant he saw it as an even greater achievement than his Toon success.
“A lot of people ask me about the difference between that promotion and the one I had with Newcastle,” he said. “In all honesty, if I look at where the team was when I took over, I think it was a harder job to do it with Brighton.
“I’ll always remember Newcastle’s promotion as my first achievement as a manager, but this one was probably the most emotional.”
Albion were one place above the Championship relegation zone when Hughton took over at Brighton on New Year’s Eve 2014.
Club chairman Tony Bloom said: “Chris has an excellent record in coaching and management. He’s hugely respected, both nationally and internationally, and he has great contacts within the game.
“He is someone who has a real wealth of experience in the top two divisions, from nearly 15 years at Spurs as a coach, assistant and interim manager, through to his more recent work in the Premier League and Championship.
“Chris is also a manager who has a track record for developing talent at all levels from academy upwards and will embrace the work we’ve been doing at the club in this area in recent seasons.
“Importantly, we also felt Chris is someone who can improve our immediate situation, while also having the management credentials and skills to plan our long-term future and help us to get back to progressing in the way we have in previous seasons.”
Former Spurs and Fulham captain and ex-Brighton manager Alan Mullery, by then an Albion ambassador, declared: “I think they have pulled off a real coup by bringing in Chris. He’s a very experienced manager, both at this level and in the Premier League, and he is a good man as well.
“We obviously go back a long way with our Tottenham connections; I know him well and his lovely family.
“He’ll be keen to see his players keep possession of the ball, but I also think he’ll make the side harder to beat. He knows exactly what is needed to be a success at this level and I’m sure we’ll see his own stamp on the team as the weeks pass.”
Indeed, in an interview with Tony Hodson for coachesvoice.com, Hughton spoke about how he set about the task of restoring Albion’s fortunes.
“When you join at that stage of the season, it’s about instilling the system that you want to play in as short a period of time as you can and getting the players to buy into that system.
“You hope that the reaction to a new manager coming in is a help and not a hindrance to that. And in most cases it is a help, because everybody wants to do well. But I was aware that the team had been through a difficult period, and that I was changing their way of playing quite dramatically.
“Everything rested on how they’d respond to it, and fortunately they did that well (Albion just avoided the drop, finishing third from bottom). But even then, I knew it was going to take a summer of working with them throughout the pre-season period, and recruiting well, to take the club where they really wanted to go.”
Hughton continued: “In my first full season at Brighton, we came within touching distance of automatic promotion to the Premier League, missing out on goal difference. We then had less than a week to prepare for the first leg of our playoff semi final against Sheffield Wednesday.
“We lost it 2-0. And, despite playing some of the best football we’d played all season for 30 minutes of the second leg at the Amex, we drew that game – meaning that, despite losing just six league games all season, our hopes of playing Premier League football the following year were over.
“The question then was, having got so close to promotion and put so much into achieving that aim, what would the reaction be like from the players next season?
“Would they be as determined to go through it all again? The honest answer is that, at that moment, you just don’t know.
“All you can hope is that the disappointment will drive them on, and that you’ve instilled enough into them to give you the best possible chance of success. As soon as pre-season started, though, I could feel we had a group of players who were desperate to go again. We were playing in a division that had a lot of strong teams, but thankfully we started the season well – we lost just twice before the turn of the year.”
Hughton recalled: “With four games of the season to go, we were top of the league. By that stage, I was quietly confident that we were going to achieve promotion.
“Going into our game against Wigan Athletic – at home, where we had a strong record – I was equally confident of getting a result. But that belief doesn’t take anything away from the emotion of what you feel inside once the job is done, and promotion is secured.
“At that stage, it becomes not so much about yourself but what it means to the club, the fans, to the people who employ you, and to a group of players who were desperate to be Premier League footballers.”
While Brighton’s ownership and structure suited Hughton down to the ground, his time at Newcastle was largely against a backdrop of turmoil off the pitch.
Nonetheless, the ever reasonable Hughton said: “Newcastle are a club and a fanbase that I have the utmost respect for and I will always want them to do well.”
Hughton spent three years on Tyneside, initially as first-team coach under Kevin Keegan. Toon finished that first season 12th in the league – but the following year it all went wrong.
“By the end of the season, there had been three different managers in charge – and defeat to Aston Villa on the final day meant that, after 16 years in the top flight, Newcastle were relegated,” he recalled in an interview with coachesvoice.com.
During the close season of 2009, Hughton was appointed caretaker manager before the position was made permanent in November of that year.
So, after all those years of coaching, the likeable Londoner finally had his opportunity to be a manager in his own right, although he admitted: “However much preparation you have as a coach, when you cross that line into management it is completely different.
“Newcastle was far from the stable, calm environment you would want when starting out. The team had just been relegated, we’d lost a lot of players and the club was up for sale. I had to dig deep and draw on the wealth of experience I’d gained as a coach.
“I knew I still had a good squad, so the challenge was making sure each and every one pushed in the right direction to get us back into the Barclays Premier League.
“Central to that was creating the right environment at the training ground, because the training pitch can provide great solace for players. I knew that if I could get everyone on board, we could be a strong force in the Championship.”
As he told coachesvoice.com: “Everybody was aware that the owner was trying to sell the club – and we had players who wanted to leave for Premier League clubs or moves abroad. We had to quickly determine the ones who wanted to stay and fight – the ones who wanted to get the club back up into the Premier League.
“There was so much uncertainty around the club. But, even in those situations, there are some things that will always remain. Firstly, the team have to train. Irrespective of what’s going on around them, that’s what players want to do. They enjoy training.
“By the time we’d got past the transfer window and it was determined which players were going to stay, I knew we had a group who were determined to go straight back up again.”
As it turned out, it couldn’t have gone better for him. The side were unbeaten at home and earned promotion back to the Premier League as the 2010 Championship title winners. Hughton won the LMA Championship Manager of the Year title too.
This was a side in which Andy Carroll netted 19 goals and Kevin Nolan 17 blending successfully with the likes of Jose Enrique, Fabricio Coloccini and Jonas Gutierrez.
In December the following season, amazingly, with Newcastle sitting 11th in the Premier League table, Hughton was sacked – and his players weren’t happy about it.
Joey Barton, Nolan, Steve Harper and Alan Smith complained to managing director Derek Llambias over the hasty manner of his departure.
The League Managers Association also took a dim view. Its chief executive Richard Bevan said: “The LMA is extremely disappointed that Newcastle have parted company with Chris given the success the club has experienced since his appointment.
“Throughout his time at Newcastle, Chris has conducted himself with tremendous integrity and dignity, the team’s current position of 11th demonstrating the stabilising effect Chris has had in his role as manager during his period at Newcastle.”
Hughton, meanwhile, with characteristic understatement, told leadersinperfomance.com: “I was disappointed, but I didn’t let it knock my confidence and self belief.
“It helped to know that many managers and others in football thought I’d done a good job at Newcastle. The reaction was terrifically supportive. My coping mechanism was to keep busy and prepare for the next job.”
In an exclusive interview with Lee Ryder for chroniclelive.co.uk, Hughton reflected warmly on his time at the club, saying: “I don’t look back on my time at Newcastle – because it’s always there with me, once you’ve been part of the club it never goes away.
“For me, there were so many firsts. It was the first time I’d worked away from London, Newcastle was my first stint away from the capital.
“It was my first role as a manager and first foray into management. And it was my first time in the Championship.
“So, for me, Newcastle is always with me, always there, it was an incredible time.”
Hughton told the reporter: “The one thing I have been very grateful for was the opportunity to do it. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity because it set me on the way to a management career.
“That was an unbelievable start for me and that’s what I will never forget – even without pictures and reminders. It’s always etched into my head.”
In the circumstances of his departure from Newcastle, it was probably not a surprise that he didn’t have to wait long for another job, although it was back in the Championship at Birmingham City, after they’d been relegated from the Premier League under Alex McLeish at the end of the 2010-11 season.
Having won the League Cup, Blues competed in the Europa League in 2011-12, competing in eight qualifying and group matches. In spite of that burden, they finished fourth in the league. Unfortunately, they lost to Blackpool in the play-off semi-finals.
Their penultimate game of the season had been at the Amex against Gus Poyet’s Seagulls, a game which finished in a 1-1 draw, the point enough to guarantee their play-off place. The matchday programme gave plenty of coverage to the visitors and their manager.
talkSPORT presenter and Blues fan Ian Danter spoke about how the side had benefited from Hughton’s “calm approach” and his “sharp and focused manner” after an astonishing churn of 27 players in or out of the club over the summer.
And he said the fans had really taken to Hughton, adding: “He has been the one aspect that has pulled everyone together and he has certainly done well with the players. He has got his theories and ideas across to them. He also understands his constraints from board level regarding money.”
When Paul Lambert decided to jump ship and leave Norwich City to take over at Birmingham’s city rivals Aston Villa, the vacancy at Carrow Road proved ideal to enable Hughton to step back up to the elite level in English football.
He signed a three-year deal with Norwich, taking assistant manager Colin Calderwood and first team coach Paul Trollope with him.
“My decision to leave was based on what Norwich City had to offer,” he said. “The chance to return to managing at Premier League level at a club that had made great strides in the preceding seasons. It very much whetted my appetite.”
He admitted to the Birmingham Mail that it had been a tough decision but added: “As a manager or coach you want to manage or coach at the highest level. The draw of going to the Premier League was one that was too big an opportunity to turn down.
“In some ways Norwich is, possibly, a very similar club to Birmingham. They have a very loyal and local support.
“This was an opportunity to return to the Premier League and that is what excited me.”
Hughton led Norwich to an 11th-place finish in the top flight during the 2012-13 season but patience hasn’t always been in plentiful supply at City and with relegation on the cards the following season, he was sacked with five games still to play.
A 1-0 home defeat to West Brom on 5 April 2014 had been the final straw and in angry post-match scenes the Carrow Road faithful called for Hughton’s dismissal. Only one point was gained from the remaining four matches and they were relegated anyway in 18th position, three points short of the Baggies in 17th.
It would be eight months before Hughton rode to Brighton’s rescue, picking up the reins of what had been a challenging first half of the 2014-15 season under the relatively inexperienced coach Sami Hyypia.
Having reached the Premier League within a season and a half of taking charge at Brighton, Hughton reflected: “My ultimate responsibility was to make sure that we stayed there. That means making the right decisions when it comes to putting together a team you feel is going to be good enough to do that.
“At that point, you have to take the emotion out of it. Hard choices have to be made in terms of areas you feel need to be strengthened. But it’s also about finding the right balance between keeping the consistency of players who have been playing together for a period of time, and deciding whether they are good enough to make that step up.
“At the time, I thought that we had the makings of a team, and a mentality, that didn’t need too much work. And, for the next two seasons, we remained a Premier League team.”
Hughton received an honorary degree from the University of Sussex to mark his achievements in the game and admitted: “It’s a huge honour and something I certainly didn’t expect.
“To do what we have done over the past four years with Brighton and to be honoured for that is something that is hugely humbling.”
It was the second half of 2018-19 that changed the wave of goodwill, though. Although Albion reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, league form was poor.
Even so, when Hughton was summoned to meet chairman Bloom at the training ground the day after Manchester City eclipsed Brighton 4-1 to win the league title, he had no idea the fate that awaited him.
“It came as a shock to lose my job in the way that I did,” he said. And in a subsequent interview with Alyson Rudd of The Times, he said: “The biggest disappointment is that I never saw it coming.
“As a manager you get a feel when things are not right or relationships have broken down, but there was never anything there for me to feel what was coming. I thought the chairman was in there for club stuff or if he was there to see me it was about the pre-season, so it was a big shock. For a moment, I couldn’t say anything. I absolutely wasn’t expecting it. I was stunned; there was a silence.”
Hughton felt getting Albion into the Premier League and never being in the bottom three once was “achieving” although he admitted: “I am very conscious that the second half of the season was not as good as the first and it was not a rosy situation.”
But he pointed out: “I spent four and a half years there and never had an argument with the chairman, never had an argument with (chief executive) Paul Barber, never had an argument with (technical director) Dan Ashworth. I’m certainly not bitter. If you end up bitter, you’re the only one who loses out. It was the club’s prerogative.”
Hughton’s way back into the game post-Brighton came at the City Ground, Nottingham, in October 2020 when he succeeded Sabri Lamouchi who’d had a winless start to the Championship season.
Even though he was able to turn to three of his former Brighton promotion-winners in Glenn Murray, Gaetan Bong and Anthony Knockaert, Forest had an indifferent campaign and finished in a disappointing 17th place. The new season was only into its second month when Hughton was shown the door having secured just one point from the first seven games. His successor, Steve Cooper, led Forest to promotion.
Hughton’s next job in football came with his appointment in February 2022 as the technical advisor to Ghana’s national football team.
He then replaced coach Otto Addo as head coach after Ghana finished bottom of their group at the World Cup in Qatar. But he won just two of his nine matches in charge (three draws and four defeats) and was relieved of his duties in January 2024 after Ghana exited the Africa Cup of Nations at the group stage.
Amongst many different articles and interviews about Hughton, perhaps this leadersinperformance.com piece best sums him up: “Modest and measured in his approach, Chris Hughton is a rare find in the world of senior management.
“Confident in his own personality and abilities, Hughton has no reservations about drawing inspiration from a host of managers, past and present.
“While Chris Hughton remains true wherever possible to his calm and thoughtful style of leadership, underneath is a steel and determination that enables him to deal with the tough scenarios that inevitably arise in football, albeit in a respectful manner.
“It is perhaps because of this considered, well-balanced and open style of leadership that he has become one of the most employable and universally liked managers around.”
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR was a key part of Chris Hughton’s life for more years than any of the other clubs he went on to serve.
While Brighton fans will always appreciate his four-year tenure taking the Seagulls from the Championship into the Premier League, he spent the first 19 years of his playing career at Spurs as well as 14 and a half years as a coach (and occasional caretaker manager) at White Hart Lane.
Hughton joined Tottenham’s youth set-up at the tender age of 13 in 1971, as he recounted in an In The Spotlight feature in the Spurs matchday programme for their September 2024 game v Brentford. It was the year the club won the League Cup captained by Alan Mullery with a side that included Phil Beal, Joe Kinnear and Martin Chivers, who scored both goals in the 2-0 victory over Aston Villa.
Hughton attended inner city school St Bonaventure’s in Newham, many years later attended by loanee striker Chuba Akpom who told Andy Naylor in an exclusive for the Argus: “When I was in school there used to be pictures of the gaffer there. The kids used him like an inspiration and motivation. I did as well: seeing someone come from the same area and the same school as me to become such a big and successful person.”
Other footballing St Bon’s alumni included Hughton’s brother Henry, John Chiedozie, Jermaine Defoe and Martin Ling (briefly an Albion player under Micky Adams).
Hughton’s progress as a youngster took a slightly unconventional turn when, at 16, Spurs told him he hadn’t done quite enough to be taken on as an apprentice.
“There was still that chance, though – a small window of opportunity,” he recounted to coachesvoice.com. “So, while I started a four-year apprenticeship as a lift engineer, I stayed on at Tottenham as an amateur.
“That meant working all day, then on two nights a week getting the bus or train to the training ground – apart from those days when I ended up working late and just couldn’t get there in time. Then, on Saturdays, I’d play for the youth team. I lived that life for two years.”
Football-wise, by the age of 18 Hughton had done enough to persuade Spurs to offer him a professional contract – but he didn’t want to cut short his lift engineer apprenticeship, so he turned them down but continued playing for the club as an amateur.
“I was fortunate,” he said. “My window of opportunity stayed open, and at 20 I finally became a professional footballer for Tottenham… as well as a qualified lift engineer.”
It was during Keith Burkinshaw’s eight-year reign as manager that Hughton enjoyed most of his success as a Spurs player, usually filling the left-back spot of a side that won the FA Cup in 1981 and 1982 and the 1984 UEFA Cup.
“It was a period that had a big impact on me, and on who I became,” said Hughton, who played alongside the likes of World Cup winners Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, the gifted Glenn Hoddle and goalkeeper Ray Clemence, and Steve Perryman, “the best captain I played under”.
Born in Forest Gate, east London, on 11 December 1958, it might have been West Ham territory but it was Spurs that took on trial a group of five lads who had been playing in the district of Newham side.
“I ended up staying there,” he told the Argus in a November 2017 interview. “My upbringing was different. I was always playing. Although my dad is very much now a football fan, I didn’t have a family background of football.
“I think I went to West Ham once, a family friend took me. I was a football fanatic but always playing. I never really had an allegiance to any team. But I’m very much a West Ham lad.”
Hughton qualified to play for the Republic of Ireland – home of his mother Christine. His father Willie was Ghanaian (Hughton later became that country’s coach).
He made his debut for Eire in 1979 and won 53 caps over the next 12 years, including playing in three matches at the 1988 Euros. Although he was in the 1990 World Cup squad, he didn’t play any matches. He was the Republic’s assistant manager to Brian Kerr between 2003 and 2005.
Being of mixed race, Hughton suffered plenty of racial abuse both from the terraces and from opposition players, as he revealed in an interview with broadcaster Ian ‘Moose’ Abrahams for whufc.com in November 2023.
“You suffered it by yourself because you were the only one who was receiving that type of abuse, you were the only one that almost understood it, and being the only black player in the team you took all of that on your own shoulders,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to think back now and comprehend how you coped with that, and the coping mechanism is because firstly you are used to it, and secondly your mentality had to be that you’re better than that. You generally suffered by yourself.”
Hughton continued: “There were numerous times over that period, especially in the reserve team, and yes, even in the first team that I suffered racial abuse [from opposing players].
“I reacted to it, but I knew the boundaries, because you knew if you went too far you were going to get sent off.”
A knee injury at the age of 28 was a signal for Hughton to begin to consider what he might do once his playing days were over, and he did some coaching sessions at soccer schools. “I started to think this was what I wanted to do,” he said.
When he was no longer guaranteed a starting berth at Spurs, Hughton moved across London to the club closest to where he grew up: West Ham. Hughton signed for the Hammers initially on loan in November 1990 to cover for the injured Julian Dicks, and then permanently on a free transfer.
“My parents still live in Upton Park, so I was born and brought up very close to the stadium,” Hughton recalled in a November 2017 Argus interview.
Signed by Billy Bonds, he was with the Hammers for just over a year, helped them win promotion from the old Division Two in 1990-91and played a total of 43 matches (plus one as a sub).
“It was a really enjoyable period of time,” he said. “Billy Bonds was the manager. He was not only a great manager but a great individual.”
In February 1992, he moved on a free transfer to then Third Division Brentford, whose squad included Neil Smillie and Bob Booker. Graham Pearce was a coach. They won the divisional title but the following season Hughton’s troublesome knee forced him to retire at the age of 34.
“By the time I signed for Brentford at the age of 33 I was certain that I wanted to coach,” Hughton told coachesvoice.com. “I was taking far more interest in things like tactics and the thinking behind training sessions. Brentford’s manager at the time, Phil Holder, even allowed me to take a few sessions.” Hughton added: “It actually set me up for my coaching career as I learned a lot in that time.”
After he’d called time on his playing days, he didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity to open up for him as a coach because his former teammate Ardiles, who’d not long since taken over as Spurs manager, invited him to help out back at White Hart Lane.
“We’d been good friends since our days playing for the club, so he knew all about my coaching aspirations and brought me in as the under-21s’ and reserve team coach,” Hughton explained. “I’ve always been very grateful to him for giving me that first opportunity.”
For the first year or so, he worked alongside the former West Ham player Pat Holland, who he described as “an excellent tactical and technical coach”.
Hughton explained it was a period in which he discovered how to transition from being a player to a coach. “As much as you’ve been part of a changing room thousands of times as a player, taken part in countless training sessions and listened to more team talks than you can remember, none of those things have ever been your responsibility before.
“In that respect, football is no different to any other aspect of life. If someone has spent years working on a shop floor, then moves up to management and has to govern a group of people, they have to make that same transition. It’s not easy.”
As managers came and went, Hughton remained on the coaching staff. After Ardiles came Gerry Francis and Christian Gross. Hughton was in caretaker charge for six matches before George Graham took over from Gross. Next in the hot seat was Glenn Hoddle, followed by Jacques Santini and then Martin Jol.
“Such a long apprenticeship might not be for everyone and some can go straight from player to manager at a young age, but I wouldn’t have been ready,” said Hughton.
“There was always something new to learn and experience. It was exciting to see what each new manager would be like, how he would involve me and what I would learn.
“The club could easily have said, ‘Now that the manager has left we won’t be keeping you on’, but they showed faith in my abilities and, in return, I provided some continuity.”
Hughton was assistant manager to Jol and said: “We had three years together, and in terms of league positions they were successful ones.”
By the time he was shown the door at Spurs, along with Jol, after a difficult start to the 2007-08 season, he felt ready to become a manager in his own right.
But before that happened, a different proposition emerged when Kevin Keegan asked him to become first team coach at Newcastle United.
“I’d spent my entire playing and coaching career in London, but any apprehension I felt at relocating to another part of the country was outweighed by the excitement,” he told leadersinperformance.com.
“I was going to a legendary club with an incredible tradition, rich history and great fan base and I was going to assist Kevin Keegan. I learned a lot from him during our time together, especially from his strengths in man-management.”
• What happened next in Hughton’s career is the subject of my next blog post. Thanks for reading!
MARC CUCURELLA has got used to going from hero to zero in the eyes of fickle football fans.
A revelation in his one and only season playing for Brighton, he scored a stunning goal in a 4-0 thrashing of Manchester United and was crowned both Players’ Player and Player of the Season.
But he pushed for a transfer only one year into a five-year contract and, although he didn’t get his hoped-for move to Manchester City, joined Chelsea for £62m.
While his first few months at Stamford Bridge were tough on and off the pitch, he finished the season as a regular in Mauricio Pochettino’s side and then went on to bigger and better things for his country.
He became a cult hero for his impressive performances at left-back during Spain’s winning run to claim the European Championship in July.
Euro winners: Cucurella with Nico Williams
Capping an excellent tournament by supplying the inch-perfect pass for Mikel Oyarzabal’s late winner, Cucurella was justified in having a dig at pundit Gary Neville who’d previously said the defender was “probably one of the reasons why Spain could not go all the way” in the tournament.
“We went all the way, Gary. Thanks for your support,” was Cucurella’s social media retort after the 2-1 win over England rounded off a tournament that he might not have been involved in if Valencia’s Jose Gaya and Barcelona’s Alejandro Balde hadn’t been injured.
The left-back with the “massive” hair also let his feet do the talking in response to German fans who booed his every touch of the ball in the semi-final and final because they reckoned he was guilty of a handball in the penalty area against the host nation but a penalty wasn’t given.
“I did not care too much, but at the same time, it felt a bit sad that some people came to that game just to boo a single player,” Cucurella told The Athletic. “Some people wasted tickets that could have gone to fans who would have really enjoyed the match.”
But, he pointed out, it wasn’t a new experience because Brighton fans, angered by the manner of his big money departure from the club after only one season, reacted similarly when he returned to the Amex playing for Chelsea.
“It was another night when the boos were really loud every time I touched the ball, so I got used to it,” he said. “The first time I went through this… I won’t say it’s an unbearable feeling but it’s unpleasant. Now I’m more used to it.”
Some players move on stylishly, others go about it in what is perceived to be the wrong way – thus incurring the opprobrium of supporters who remain loyal to the club.
A sizeable enough contingent of Albion fans were aggrieved by the manner of Cucurella’s departure from the club to vent spleen whenever he touched the ball as a Chelsea player back at the Amex.
It was a toss-up between Cucurella and Graham Potter as to who was the bigger pantomime villain when Chelsea were thumped 4-1 at Falmer in October 2022. “The Spaniard was booed and jeered relentlessly for over an hour on his first game at Brighton since his transfer,” The Athletic noted.
The online sports news outlet continued: “According to Whoscored, Cucurella’s defensive output included no tackles, no interceptions and just one clearance.”
They noted it was the fourth time in five starts that Cucurella had been taken off early, and said: “This change would have hurt the most. The taunts grew louder as he made his way off the pitch and the look on his face spoke volumes.”
Things might not have been going well for him at the time, but Potter was not unduly concerned and said: “He’s a resilient character, he’s a really good person. Sometimes when you move clubs it goes really well, and sometimes it can be a little bit of an up-and-down period. Marc’s a little bit up and down but he’s a top player and he will show his quality.”
Cucurella was an unused sub when Albion clinched the double over the Londoners that season with a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge. But the next time he faced his old teammates, he demonstrated a level of commitment that in some quarters earned him the man of the match accolade.
When Potter’s successor Mauricio Pochettino selected him at right-back in the Carabao Cup against Brighton in September 2023, previously critical Chelsea supporters couldn’t believe what they saw as the home side edged the match 1-0. One said: “Pocketed Mitoma and Joao Pedro . What a shift for him.”
Agreeing he was ‘man of the match’, another said: “Cucurella was absolutely brilliant in that second half, playing that well at right-back was not something that I expected, fair play to him, maybe he should be given more opportunities.”
Arguably, he answered Brighton supporters’ criticism even more effectively – in a similar style to what he did in the Euros final v England – on 15 May 2024 at the Amex when his pinpoint cross in the 34th minute was comprehensively buried in the back of Albion’s net by Cole Palmer’s head.
But let’s remember a much happier time, when the Spaniard was the toast of the Albion faithful with a quite magnificent contribution to that 4-0 thumping of Manchester United.
Muhammad Butt on squawka.com positively purred about Cucurella’s performance declaring his man of the match accolade as “a richly deserved reward for a player who could truly ascend to any height in the world game”.
The writer’s colourful report observed:“What Cucurella did to poor Diogo Dalot all afternoon recalled The Avengers when Hulk whipped Loki around like a caveman trying to dry a wet sock on some rocks.
“Cucurella has the instantly iconic look of a comic book hero, a wiry frame with a face that is all prominent eyebrows and colossal curly hair giving him an instantly iconic silhouette.
“And he plays with the kind of ceaseless energy that one would attribute to those spandex-adorned heroes for whom stamina never seems to be an issue.”
Warming to his theme, Butt continued: “Cucurella grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and was the dominant force on the pitch. Even when he played no part in the goals, the overall pressure that was weighing on United and keeping them pinned back in their own half was born of the Catalan’s drive and determination.
‘Such was Cucurella’s power against United that when he scored Brighton’s second goal, arriving late in the box like some left-sided Frank Lampard to lash the ball home violently at the near-post leaving David de Gea in the early stages of a Bee Gees tribute dance, it wasn’t even surprising. It made perfect sense, as though he had been doing it all season when, in fact, it was his first goal of the campaign.”
Sadly for Brighton fans, that showing seemed to be like an audition for a bigger and better stage and he had only two more matches in Albion’s colours.
Born in the Catalan village of Allela on 22 July 1998, he played futsal with his local club before linking up with the junior sides of Espanyol, where he was made captain. From there, at the age of 14, he joined Catalan giants Barcelona in 201
A rare appearance for Barcelona
“Barcelona were always my team,” he told the Albion matchday programme. “I liked the style of play and the big players the club always attracted.”
He went on: “For me to join such a special club, at such a special time in its history, was a proud moment for my family.”
He made his debut for the club’s B team at the age of 18 but also had the chance to train with the stars of the first team.
“While I was still in the academy, I would sometimes train with Messi or Neymar, which was really exciting,” he said. “I’d train with Busquets, Jordi Alba, sometimes Suarez, and it was scary the first time I stepped up.
“I was very nervous, training alongside players I’d only seen on TV or on the PlayStation, but these are the moments you remember for the rest of your life.”
He only made one brief substitute appearance for the Barcelona first team, going on for Lucas Digne in a 3-0 Copa del Rey win at Real Murcia in October 2017, and he said: “It was a very nice moment for me but it was a shame I never got to play for the team at Camp Nou.”
Cucurella got to play in La Liga on loan at Eibar (in 2018-19) and Getafe (in 2019-2020) before moving permanently to Getafe for the 2020-21 season.
When Albion signed him, fellow former Barca B graduate and ex-Albion midfielder Andrea Orlandi, now a TV pundit, told the Albion matchday programme: “Marc is a super-energetic player whose main assets are his energy, attitude and intensity.
“He was in the top three in every physical study in La Liga for the last three seasons and can’t play without giving it 100 per cent. He has the perfect attributes to be a success in the Premier League.”
Perhaps it should be no surprise that he shone for Spain at the 2024 Euros because he had been selected by his country at almost every age group level and won a silver medal as part of the under-23 side at the 2020 Olympic Games.
His first senior appearance was in a friendly against Lithuania in June 2021 when he captained the side to a 4-0 win. A second cap followed in a 3-3 draw with Brazil at the Bernabeu in Madrid in March 2024. The run through to the final took his caps tally to 10.
In an in-depth interview with Pol Ballus for The Athletic in July 2024, Cucurella opened up on the turbulence he had suffered after making the move to Chelsea. “Until the summer of 2022, my football career had been great: a constant progression, always upwards with no setbacks. Then I arrived at a club where the expectations were so, so high.
“Until then, I had played at clubs where every victory felt really special, where every point is celebrated. Then you go to Chelsea, where you win a game because that’s what you have to do. There is no time to chill or enjoy.”
Not only was managerial change disruptive, things didn’t go well for him off the field. “I spent the first two months living in a hotel with my family, then soon after we found a place to live we had thieves breaking into our home. After this, I spent two days hospitalised for a virus. I lost a lot of weight and had to start from scratch to get in shape again. It wasn’t easy to come back. The team couldn’t find their way on the pitch, either.”
Cucurella said fans had expectations of him because of the size of the fee Chelsea played Brighton but he pointed out: “People expect that, with certain price tags, you need to be a machine. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand that we are normal people who have our own problems off the pitch. We have worse and better phases in our lives.”
He worked with a psychologist to try to help him through his struggles, admitting: “Confidence is the most important thing. You miss it when you struggle, but it flows when you thrive. I’ve worked a lot on this, to stabilise those moments.”
Certain he could improve, he knuckled down in training and eventually seized his chance when it was given.
Towards the end of the 2023-24 season, Pochettino tinkered with Chelsea’s formation and successfully deployed Cucurella in a midfield role, drawing praise from observers such as Nick Purewal in The Standard, who said: “Cucurella’s ability in possession, to act as an auxiliary pivot and progress the ball has transformed Chelsea.”
The player himself had some fun on social media in the summer (right) when, with a nod to the chant Brighton fans conjured up during his time at the Amex, he filmed himself with a bottle of Estrella and sang the song… “he drinks Estrella, eats paella…” but his normally “massive” hair was neatly matted down!
IT WAS WHILE I was adding the DW Stadium, Wigan, to my list of grounds visited that I first noticed Gaetan Bong.
On the afternoon of 18 April 2015, Bong was playing AGAINST Brighton in one of 14 appearances for Wigan Athletic having moved to the UK on a short term contract from Greek side Olympiakos three months earlier.
Bong up against Inigo Calderon while playing for Wigan
Within three months, he was playing FOR Brighton, joining Chris Hughton’s side as a free agent.
The Cameroon international, who had played top flight football in France and Greece, became a regular in the left-back berth for four seasons, including being a Championship promotion winner in 2017, playing 102 times for Brighton, including 51 games in the Premier League.
Bong was the first permanent left-back Albion had signed since the days of Marcos Painter, having had three successive seasons of season-long loan players in that position: Wayne Bridge, Stephen Ward and Joe Bennett.
“Gaetan is a player that we were aware of while he was at Olympiakos,” said Hughton, on signing the player. “He is very athletic, he is a natural left-sided player and it is important to have that balance in the squad.”
Back to that bottom-of-the-table battle in April, though, and Bong was on the left of a back four that also included a certain Harry Maguire (on loan from Hull City).
It was former player Gary Caldwell’s first match in charge after the sacking of Malky Mackay and both sides were struggling to avoid the drop from the Championship.
I probably decided to go to that game anticipating a win for Brighton because Wigan hadn’t won at home since the previous August! But, as sure as eggs is eggs when watching the Albion, Athletic finally registered another win in front of their own supporters: 2-1. It’s always the hope that kills you!
Albion played Player of the Season full-back Inigo Calderon as a makeshift right-winger that day and he got so little change out of his attempts to get past Athletic’s left-back that he was eventually subbed off.
In spite of the result that day, Albion managed to stay up while Wigan went down with Blackpool and Millwall.
Bong made his Brighton debut in the season-opener at home to Nottingham Forest (a 1-0 win courtesy of a Kazenga LuaLua goal), the club he would join four and a half years later, after he’d lost his regular place at the Albion.
Introduced to Brighton fans in the programme for that match, Bong said: “Once I had spoken to the manager and learned of the plans for the club, then I wanted to be part of this adventure.
“I could have gone elsewhere, I had offers, but I was excited by coming to Brighton. Now I just want to get playing and show the fans what I am about.”
Hughton had problems at left-back in the 2015-16 season when Bong was out for four months with a thigh injury, and back-up Liam Rosenior was also sidelined. Inigo Calderon filled in on occasion and Liam Ridgewell was signed on a short-term deal from Portland Timbers. Although Bong returned to the squad in March, the rest of the season was mainly a watching brief from the bench as Rosenior played out the season in that position.
Back as first choice the following season, a knee injury robbed him of his place for several weeks – loan signing Sebastien Pocognoli filled in – but he still played in 28 matches as the Albion finally won promotion to the Premier League.
Born on 25 April 1988 in Sackbayeme, a suburb of Cameroon’s capital Yaounde, he moved to France as a teenager to join Metz, where he rose through their youth ranks before making his professional debut at 17.
Injuries meant his progress wasn’t as rapid as it might have been but he had a successful loan spell with French second tier side Tours, and then moved to Valenciennes in 2009.
Bong won an under-21 cap for France but went on to win 16 caps for Cameroon. He was in their 2010 World Cup squad but only played in their final group game against Holland. Not entirely happy with the country’s set-up, he briefly retired from international football but returned when renowned former Dutch international Clarence Seedorf was appointed head coach in 2018. Bong even captained his country in a 1-0 friendly defeat against Brazil played at MK Dons in November 2018.
Cameroon international Bong
Bong played for Valenciennes for four years (for the first two playing under former Forest boss Philippe Montanier) and made 117 appearances.
Greek club Olympiakos took him to Athens in August 2013 and he went on to establish himself as a first-team regular, including playing in four Champions League matches and featuring in their league title winning side of 2013-14, before falling out with a new head coach.
Asked by The Athletic to sum up Bong’s attributes, his former Brighton teammate, David Stockdale said: “He comes to win a game. Nothing else. He is strong, he is athletic, he is enthusiastic.
“He is a good person to have around a squad, because he is very professional, he always does his homework before games and generally just looks after himself. He is just strong — that is the word. He is strong, reliable and does what it says on the tin.”
Stockdale added: “He had that drive; that inner drive. He was always going off to do his own work in the gym, to make sure he was properly fit all the time.
“He is one who will say what he wants to say when he feels he needs to. He does know a lot about football, he certainly knows a lot about his position and what he needs to get out of the players around him.”
The goalkeeper pointed out that Bong always had a desire to do well for the team, pointing out: “He was very much a mainstay of the side when I was at Brighton. He is a player you can rely on.”
Unfortunately, a small part of Bong’s time playing in Albion’s colours will also be remembered for an unsavoury incident when he alleged he was racially abused by West Brom’s former Burnley striker Jay Rodriguez.
Rodriguez appeared to pinch his nose after the players clashed during WBA’s 2-0 win over the Seagulls in January 2018, and Bong spoke to the referee about what he said he heard.
A subsequent FA investigation into the matter said the allegation was “not proven” and added there was “no suggestion by any party involved in this case that this was a malicious or fabricated complaint”.
Nevertheless, Bong insisted he heard Rodriguez say: “You’re black and you stink.” The striker denied what he described as a “false allegation” – he claimed he had instead said “breath fucking stinks”.
The dispute led Bong to issue a statement in which he said: “Please let me be clear: I know what I heard and I did not mishear. My conscience in raising the complaint is therefore entirely clear.
“This was my first such experience in more than three years in this country and I would never seek to bring a false charge against a fellow professional. Those who have accused me of doing that do not know me.
“Equally those who have expressed an opinion were not there on the pitch at the time and only Mr Rodriguez and I know exactly what was said and I stand by my original complaint.”
If everyone involved thought that was the end of the matter, Burnley fans had other ideas and I was at Turf Moor in April that year when the home ‘support’ disgracefully booed Bong every time he got the ball.
Albion manager Chris Hughton described their reaction as “shameful” and said of the player: “He’s an incredibly disciplined and straight individual – as honest a person as you will meet. It’s something that happened, it’s not nice at all and of course he’s big enough and strong enough to cope with it. As showed by his performance (the game finished 0-0).”
The respect Albion held for the player was best demonstrated as his time at the club was coming to an end. Bong was going to be a free agent after four years with the club but was handed a one-year extension shortly before Hughton was replaced by Graham Potter.
Chief executive Paul Barber explained to The Argus: “We all felt Gaetan had earned another contract. It is a position we felt we had an opportunity with a player we know, who is a fantastic character.
“The supporters will see what Gaetan does on the pitch — solid, consistent, strong, difficult to get around — but what they won’t know is off the pitch he is a very high-quality person, someone who is very respected and liked throughout the club. Just a decent man, supportive of the young players.
“Those sort of attributes and qualities are so valuable in a club of our size and for the coaching staff and the players. You know whether he plays 10 games, 20 games or 38 games, he is going to be fit, reliable, positive, focused, enthusiastic, consistent and decent.
“All of those things, if you were going out to recruit a left-back, you would be looking for.”
Ultimately, Potter preferred Dan Burn or Bernardo in that position and Bong moved on having made 91 starts and 11 substitute appearances, but only four appearances from the bench in the Premier League under Potter.
His final appearance for Brighton came in the disappointing 1-0 FA Cup third round home defeat to Championship side Sheffield Wednesday. Sadly, when he was subbed off in the 71st minute, there was a chorus of ironic cheers from the home crowd.
Nevertheless, Potter said of the player: “I have only worked with Gaetan for six months or so, but I do know all about the part he played in helping the club get to the Premier League and then establish itself at this level. I’m sure his contribution over the last four years will not be forgotten by our supporters.”
Somewhat bizarrely, it appears that Bong’s move to Nottingham Forest (in the Championship) wasn’t exactly welcomed by head coach Sabri Lamouchi and Nick Miller for The Athletic was brutal in his description of the player’s debut.
“Bong lasted 59 minutes against Charlton, a harrowing hour in which he lost his man for the only goal in the first half, and his eventual removal felt more like an act of mercy than a substitution.”
He didn’t even make the bench for the rest of the season and it was only when his old boss Hughton arrived at the City Ground that he got back into the Forest first team. He played 11 matches under Hughton but only seven in 2021-22 when Hughton’s successor Steve Cooper got them promotion via a play-off final win over Huddersfield Town.
Even so, Cooper was appreciative of the defender’s contributions off the pitch. “We have a good mix of old players – good role models, like Gaetan Bong,” he told The Athletic.
“He doesn’t play much but is a positive influence and I’m sure has conversations with the younger players, which I encourage. The learning players do with each other is a powerful thing.”
After hanging up his boots, Bong set up Ballers & Family Consulting Ltd, a consulting agency which, according to his LinkedIn profile, helps aspiring players to optimise their potential, families to understand the demands of professional football and football clubs to manage/avoid issues concerning certain players.
BRIGHTON being drawn at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the third round of the League Cup takes me right back to the very first floodlit match I saw at the Goldstone Ground.
The date was 24 September 1969 and although I had started following the Albion earlier that year, I hadn’t seen an evening game before.
At the time, I also hadn’t experienced such a huge crowd, either. Average attendances tended to be around 12,000 but for the visit of First Division Wolves to humble Third Division Brighton, 32,539 crammed into the stadium.
I hadn’t been to the games in the previous two rounds of the competition, when Albion had beaten Portsmouth and Birmingham City, who were both in the division above.
Hopes were high that Brighton, managed by Freddie Goodwin, might be able to deliver a remarkable giant-killing hat-trick, although Wolves were clearly going to be a tougher nut to crack than their fellow Midlanders and Albion’s south coast rivals.
All the pre-match talk was about the star names in the Wolves line-up: formidable Irish centre-forward Derek Dougan and captain Mike Bailey (who 12 years later became Brighton’s manager). In the event, neither played, and Dougan’s place up front was taken by young Bertie Lutton (who would help Brighton to promotion three years later).
Wolves had given Sidebottom his break into professional football after plucking him from schoolboy football in Barnsley. He went on to play in the European Cup for Wolves and also appeared in the second leg of the very first League Cup Final (in 1961) when Aston Villa beat Rotherham United 3-2 on aggregate.
“It is always nice to play against your old club and I know what this draw means to our supporters,” Sidebottom told John Vinicombe, in an Argus preview of the big game. “They don’t come much bigger than the Wolves – wherever they play the crowds flock to see them.”
The size of the Goldstone crowd certainly wouldn’t have fazed Sidebottom: he had made his Wolves debut 11 years earlier in a Black Country derby against West Brom in front of 48,898 at The Hawthorns.
Albion captain Nobby Lawton (no.8) gets a foot in as goalkeeper Phil Parkes pounces
The occasion wouldn’t have bothered Albion captain Nobby Lawton or centre-forward Alex Dawson either, both having played at Wembley in the FA Cup Final in 1964 when Preston North End lost narrowly to West Ham. Left-back Willie Bell had also played in the FA Cup Final at Wembley, in the Leeds United line-up that lost to Liverpool in 1965.
For Spearritt, it was a chance to show his old Ipswich manager Bill McGarry, who’d given him his debut at Portman Road before switching to Wolves, that he still had something about him. And he took that chance when he buried a header from Kit Napier’s free kick to put Albion 2-1 ahead just before half-time (aftermath picturedabove)..
Allan Gilliver had given Brighton a shock lead in the 19th minute, squeezing the ball in at the far post after bustling Dawson had distracted Phil Parkes in the Wolves goal.
Albion’s Alex Dawson puts Phil Parkes under pressure
The visitors got back on terms 12 minutes later when winger Dave Wagstaffe intercepted Lawton’s pass and went on a lengthy run before slipping the ball to David Woodfield to equalise.
An upset might have looked on the cards, but Wolves had the canny Scot Hugh Curran up front and he raced on to a huge defence-spliting goal kick from Parkes to notch an equaliser on 70 minutes.
Curran struck again just eight minutes later, seizing on a mix-up between Sidebottom and Dave Turner to dispatch Wagstaffe’s cross.
Argus reporter Vinicombe perhaps over-egged his account in the following day’s paper when he reckoned “Albion should have beaten Wolves out of sight” maintaining: “The 3-2 skin-of-the-teeth success was highly flattering to a side standing fourth in the First Division.”
He did concede though: “In the final analysis, they displayed their class by twice coming back to steal a place in the last 16. They owed it all to Curran whose stealth stamped him as a superb turner of half-chances into goals.”
Wolves were knocked out of the competition in the following round (3-1) away to 1967 League Cup winners QPR while their Black Country neighbours West Brom went all the way to the final only to lose 2-1 to Manchester City.
While some observers of Albion’s cup exploits thought it augured well for a tilt at promotion, come the end of the season they disappointingly missed out on promotion when finishing fifth, five points adrift of runners up Luton Town, who were promoted behind champions Orient.
And before the new season got under way, manager Goodwin was lured away to manage Birmingham.
ONE TIME Albion captain and utility player Eddie Spearritt played in the top flight for Ipswich Town and Carlisle United.
He made five starts and five appearances off the bench for second tier champions Ipswich at the beginning of the 1968-69 season before joining third tier Brighton for £20,000 in January 1969.
Play anywhere Spearritt was then a permanent fixture in the Albion line-up for almost five years, making 225 appearances, before Brian Clough turfed him out at the end of the 1973-74 season.
But he found himself back amongst the elite when newly promoted Carlisle United snapped him up for their one and only season (1974-75) amongst the big boys.
Spearritt made 17 starts and six appearances as a sub for the Cumbrians but, in spite of a superb winning start when they briefly topped the division, United finished the season in bottom spot.
Spearritt shapes to challenge Aston Villa’s Ray Graydon
Equally comfortable playing in midfield, at full back or sweeper, Spearritt had on-off spells as Albion’s chosen penalty-taker as well as chipping in with goals from open play. He even turned his hand to goalkeeping when necessary.
Another key attribute to his game was an ability to send in long throw-ins which could sometimes be as effective as a free kick or corner. It was a skill which earned him a place in a Longest Throw competition staged by BBC’s sport show Grandstand in 1970-71, although he didn’t win it.
Born in Lowestoft on 31 January 1947, Spearritt went to Lowestoft Grammar School and on leaving school was picked up by Arsenal. But when the Gunners didn’t keep him on, he returned to East Anglia and joined Ipswich as an apprentice in August 1963.
He signed a professional contract with Town in February 1965 and, as Tim Hodge details on prideofanglia.com, he made his league debut in the 1965-66 season in a 1-0 win away to Preston in the old Division Two.
That was the season when substitutes were first introduced into the English game and the record books show that Spearritt was the first Ipswich sub to score a goal.
He went on for Irish international Danny Hegan in a match away to Derby County on 15 January 1966 and scored Ipswich’s second goal. The game finished 2-2; Gerry Baker having scored Town’s first.
Over the next three years, Spearritt made a total of 69 appearances (plus 10 as sub) for Bill McGarry’s side, scoring 14 goals along the way. Twenty of those games came in the 1967-68 season when Ipswich won the old Second Division.
A 1-0 home defeat to Spurs in October 1968 was his last for the Suffolk club and he parted company with Town shortly after McGarry left Portman Road to take over at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
A debut v Crewe (left) and slaloming through the Plymouth Argyle defence (right)
Spearritt was one of Freddie Goodwin’s first signings for Brighton – just a few weeks before my first ever Albion game. He made his debut in a 3-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra and kept the number 10 shirt to the end of the season, by which time he had scored five times, including both Albion’s goals in a 2-2 draw at home to Tranmere Rovers.
In the 1969-70 season, not only was he part of the Third Division Albion side who pushed his old manager McGarry’s First Division Wolves side all the way in a memorable third round League Cup tie, it was his header from Kit Napier’s free kick that put the Albion 2-1 ahead just before half-time.
Scottish international Hugh Curran scored twice in eight second half minutes to clinch the win for Wolves but a bumper Goldstone Ground crowd of 32,539 witnessed a terrific effort by their side.
A few weeks’ later, in a marathon FA Cup second round tie with Walsall that required three replays before the Saddlers finally prevailed 2-1, Spearritt took over in goal during the second replay when a concussed Geoff Sidebottom was stretchered off on 65 minutes. Albion hung on for a 1-1 draw.
Spearritt was a midfield regular in his first two seasons but Goodwin’s successor, Pat Saward, switched him to left back halfway through the 1970-71 season and that’s where he stayed throughout 1971-72 when Albion won promotion from the old Third Division as runners up behind Saward’s old club, Aston Villa.
It was in the first half of that season that Spearritt took a call from ex-Ipswich teammate Ray Crawford, the former England international centre forward, who had returned homesick from a short stint playing in South Africa.
He persuaded Saward to offer Crawford a trial and although he didn’t make the league side he scouted upcoming opponents, played for the reserves and subsequently ran the youth team.
Meanwhile, Spearritt was a key part of the promotion side and player-of-the-season Bert Murray generously declared the award could have gone to Eddie for his consistency that season. As it happened, Spearritt did get the award the following season, although somewhat more ignominiously considering Albion were relegated.
All smiles as Pat Saward’s side toast promotion in 1972
In the close season after promotion, Spearritt tied the knot with Penelope Biddulph, “an accomplished professional dancer,” the matchday programme told us, and they moved into a new home in Kingston-by-Sea.
Spearritt started out at left back in Division Two but after ten games was ousted by the arrival of George Ley from Portsmouth. He then switched back into midfield, but by the end of that relegation season was playing sweeper alongside Norman Gall (for nine games) and Steve Piper (for two).
He scored (pictured above), along with Barry Bridges, in a 2-0 win at Huddersfield on 14 October but the team went on a disastrous run of 16 games without a win, although Spearritt did get on the scoresheet three times, including notching two penalties.
When Albion went to that footballing outpost Carlisle on 16 December, they had lost five in a row without managing a single goal. Carlisle were 5-0 up, goalkeeper Brian Powney was carried off with a broken nose, replaced between the sticks by Murray, then Albion won a penalty.
Spearritt took up the story in a subsequent matchday programme. “I used to be the club’s penalty taker but, after I had missed an important one at Mansfield in 1970, I lost the job. Penalty-taking is really all about confidence,” he said. “After I had missed that one at Mansfield, which cost us a point, the players lost confidence in me and the job went first to John Napier and was then taken over by Murray.
“Bert would have taken the penalty at Carlisle. He has already scored two this season. But he had gone in goal and it was decided it was too risky to fetch Bert out of goal to take the penalty.
“Nobody else seemed to want to take it so I just picked the ball up and put it on the spot. We were 5-0 down by then but I thought from a morale point of view that it was extremely important that I scored. You can understand my relief when I saw the ball hit the back of the net.
“Everybody was beginning to wonder when we would score again. I suppose with the run of bad luck we have been having it was almost inevitable that we should break our goal famine from the penalty spot.”
Towards the end of the dismal run, Albion drew First Division Chelsea at home in the third round of the FA Cup. The game was won 2-0 by Chelsea but it was an ugly, violent affair – The Argus labelled it ‘Goldstone day of shame’ – in which five players were booked and each side had a player sent off.
Spearritt, the first to be booked, found himself caught up in a huge controversy which resulted in Chelsea hard man Ron Harris being sent off by Leicester referee Peter Reeves; remarkably the only time in his career he was dismissed.
The Brighton man insisted he’d been hit by the defender and Saward said in diplomatic terms after the game: “Spearritt said he was struck on the mouth and that it was not an involuntary action but a blow. From what I saw, I couldn’t understand it.”
Esteemed football writer Norman Giller subsequently 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.
“A Brighton-supporting vicar, with a pitchside view, wrote to the Football Association telling them what he had witnessed, and ‘Chopper’ was vindicated.”
Whatever the truth of the matter, Spearritt told Argus Albion reporter John Vinicombe that he’d been threatened by a Chelsea player after the incident. “He spoke to me several times and made it quite clear what he had in mind.”
Albion’s Ley was sent off for bringing down Tommy Baldwin and then getting involved in an altercation with Peter Osgood, who scored both Chelsea goals. Two minutes later David Webb went into the book for a ‘blatant foul’ on Spearritt.
Albion finally returned to winning ways the following month with a 2-0 win over Luton (on 10 February), and then beat Huddersfield, Carlisle and Swindon, prompting Saward to refer to “some outstanding individual performances” and adding: “I have been particularly pleased with the way Eddie Spearritt has been playing in recent weeks.
“He has maintained a high level of consistency this season and his work in defence and in midfield has been invaluable as the side has plugged away trying to turn the tide of results.”
Saward made Spearritt Albion’s captain at the start of the 1973-74 season back in Division Three and with the return of central defender Ian Goodwin and then the emergence of Piper in the sweeping role, he was soon back in midfield.
But when Saward was sacked in October and sensationally replaced by former Derby County League title winning management duo Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, Spearritt was one of the first to have his nose put out of joint by the new arrivals.
Journalist Spencer Vignes described what happened in Bloody Southerners (Biteback Publishing, 2018), his excellent book about that era.
Clough sought out long-serving centre back Norman Gall and, because he hailed from the same part of the country (ie the north east), told him he was making him the captain. Gall told Vignes: “Suddenly I’m captain, which I was really happy about. Eddie Spearritt didn’t like it though. He’d been captain up until then. In fact, he didn’t talk to me after that. That was the beginning of the end for Eddie.”
Spearritt was part of the side who capitulated 4-0, 8-2 and 4-1 in successive games against Walton & Hersham, Bristol Rovers and Tranmere Rovers, and he was dropped for six games, along with Ley (who never played for Albion again). Clough went into the transfer market and brought in midfielder Ronnie Welch and left back Harry Wilson from Burnley.
Although Spearritt was restored to the team in mid January, and had a run of seven games — including his 200th league game for Albion — when he was subbed off in a home win over Hereford United on 10 March 1974, it was to be his last appearance in an Albion shirt.
In five years he’d played 225 games (plus seven as sub) and scored 25 goals.
Come the end of the season, Spearritt was one of 12 players released by the club in what became known as the great Clough clear-out.
Perhaps surprisingly, though, his next step was UP two divisions to play in the First Division with then newly promoted Carlisle United.
One of his teammates there was defender Graham Winstanley, who later joined the Albion. The side was captained by Chris Balderstone, who was also a top cricketer. Journeyman striker Hugh McIlmoyle played up front while John Gorman, who later played for Spurs and became Glenn Hoddle’s managerial sidekick, was also in the team.
They memorably topped the division after three games…but predictably finished bottom of the pile by the end. In his two-year stay with the Cumbrians, Spearritt played 29 times, was sub twice and scored a single goal.
He moved back south in August 1976, signed by Gerry Summers at Gillingham, and made his debut in a League Cup first round second leg tie against Aldershot, then made his league debut against Reading.
In total, he made 22 appearances in his one season at the club — one of them at the Goldstone Ground on December 29 1976, when the Albion won 2-0 on a slippery, snow-covered pitch. Spearritt scored just the once for the Gills, from the penalty spot against Rotherham United at Priestfield.
He emigrated to Australia the following summer and settled in Brisbane where he played 56 games for the Brisbane Lions between 1977 and 1980 and was their head coach in 1979. He subsequently coached Rochedale Rovers in the Brisbane Intermediate League, steering them to promotion to the Premier League in 1983.
Outside of football, he became estates manager for L’Oréal and in later years was better known as the uncle of Hannah Spearritt, once of the pop group S Club 7, who became an actress in the ITV drama Primevil.
TEENAGE Arsenal defender Joe O’Cearuill certainly had a baptism of fire when he moved to the Albion on loan in early 2007.
The youngster was played out of position at right-back in a third round FA Cup tie away to West Ham.
The match at the old Boleyn Ground on 6 January 2007 pitched the Premier League Hammers under Alan Curbishley up against his old Seagulls teammate Dean Wilkins, who had taken over the reigns at League One Brighton just four months previously.
West Ham, FA Cup finalists the previous season, were just too good for the mainly young lower league side on the day and, with big-money Argentine striker Carlos Tevez up front, comfortably won the tie 3-0 (Mark Noble, Carlton Cole and Haydn Mullins the scorers).
Albion put up a reasonable fight in a goalless first half although O’Cearuill was fortunate not to concede a penalty when he put in a clumsy challenge on debutant Luis Boa Morte which referee Mark Halsey chose not to penalise.
The second half was only four minutes old when Noble scored his first ever West Ham goal, Cole added a second nine minutes later before being replaced by former Albion favourite Bobby Zamora, and Mullins struck in injury time to round off the win.
Wilkins had turned to the Arsenal youngster when Jack Hinshelwood’s dad Adam suffered a cruciate ligament injury in a Boxing Day match against Yeovil that ruled him out for nine months.
O’Cearuill’s stay on the south coast lasted three months during which he made seven starts and three sub appearances. His final Seagulls match came in a 1-1 home draw against Scunthorpe United.
The Argus reckoned his form was “patchy” and at one point he was dropped to the bench “after a below-par performance” in defeat at Brentford.
Only on a couple of occasions did he get the chance to play in his favoured centre back position; those positions were occupied most of the time by Joel Lynch and Guy Butters.
But after he’d gone on for the injured Lynch in the centre away to Gillingham, he helped the visitors to a 1-0 win and Wilkins said: “I thought he fitted in well. He went into the game at a difficult period. There were a lot of high balls to deal with, which he coped with well.”
That first half of 2007 was pretty much the highlight of his career because on an end of season tour of America he won two full caps for the Republic of Ireland.
Although born in Edmonton on 9 February 1987, he elected to represent the Republic of Ireland and having played for them at under-17, under-19 and under-21 level,
A senior cap for the Republic of Ireland
His first senior cap came when he was one of six substitutes made by manager Steve Staunton in a 1-1 draw against Ecuador at the Giants Stadium, New Jersey, on 23 May 2007.
He replaced Stephen O’Halloran in the 73rd minute and managed to pick up a yellow card in his short time on the pitch. Kevin Doyle headed the Irish equaliser a minute before half time.
O’Cearuill then started at right-back three days later in the Republic’s 1-1 draw with Bolivia in Boston. Shane Long scored his first goal for his country and in the second half former Albion goalkeeper Wayne Henderson took over in goal from Barnsley’s Nick Colgan. The side was captained by Kevin Kilbane.
Curiously, O’Cearuill had been let go by both Leyton Orient and Watford before he was given a chance by Arsenal. He played 27 youth team games for the Os in 2004-05 but was released in August 2005.
Watford picked him up and he played for their youth and reserve teams for a season, but again found himself released. Then, in the summer of 2006, after impressing Arsenal’s reserve team coach Neil Banfield in a trial game against Watford, he joined the Gunners.
He made his debut in a goalless pre-season friendly at Barnet on 15 July and a week later played in half of Dennis Bergkamp’s testimonial against Ajax of Amsterdam.
On a tour of Austria, he played another half as Arsenal beat Mattersburg 2-1 and got 30 minutes as a sub when the Gunners trounced Schwadorf 8-1.
The closest he came to competitive first team action was when he was on the bench for Arsenal’s Carling Cup match away to West Bromwich Albion on October 24, 2006, although he did not get on in the 2-0 win in which Jeremie Aliadiere scored both the goals.
Released by Arsenal, O’Cearuill’s career then drifted from one non-league club to another: Barnet, St Patrick’s Athletic (Dublin), Harlow Town, Borehamwood, Forest Green Rovers (pictured left), Bishop’s Stortford, Tooting & Mitcham United, Haringey Borough, Enfield and Heybridge Swifts.
When he sought to resurrect his career with Conference Premier side Dover Athletic in 2015, he was suitably phlegmatic in an interview with Kent Online.
“It’s certainly been a journey,” he said. “From getting everything on a plate at Arsenal and then for Ireland, to then be washing your own kit and boots.
“I took being a professional for granted and I wasn’t really ready for it – I was too young to take it all in.
“When Arsenal released me, I discovered there was a lot more to life than playing football and I lost the motivation to play at a decent level. I even gave the game up for a while.
“I was then happy to play wherever and go with the flow. I had a couple of great years playing with my mates at Haringey Borough. But that’s all in the past now. The days for playing for fun are behind me.
“I am ready for the next chapter in my life because I’ve got the hunger and desire back to play the game at a level I know I am capable of.”
Released by Dover at the end of the season, former Albion striker Nicky Forster, by then manager of Staines Town, took him on for the Isthmian League Premier Division team.
“We are delighted to have secured the services of Joe this season, he has a great attitude for success and will sit well alongside Darren Purse at the back,” he told the club website.
His last port of call was back at Haringey in the summer of 2016 and he retired from playing in October that year.
In his LinkedIn profile, O’Cearuill describes himself as a senior manager for The Elms Sport in Schools programme.
In parallel lines 