Tag: Alan Navarro

Albion’s lifeline for the boy from Baghdad who turned down Spurs

BAGHDAD-BORN Yaser Kasim went through the youth ranks at Tottenham Hotspur but rejected a professional contract at White Hart Lane and tried to build a career at Brighton instead.

Although it didn’t work out at the Albion, he subsequently thrived at Swindon Town where his former Seagulls’ development squad coach Luke Williams had become assistant manager.

“He is one of the best coaches I have worked with. This guy is at another level,” he said.

Kasim joined the Spurs academy at the age of 11 in June 2003 and progressed to become a full-time scholar at 16. He was in the club’s youth team in the 2009 FA Youth Cup (they lost 3-1 to north London neighbours Arsenal in the quarter-finals) alongside Andros Townsend, Steven Caulker and Jonathan Obika.

“When the time came to sign pro forms at Tottenham, I decided to go on my own and turned it down,” Kasim told Tom Hopkinson of the Sunday People.

“From that decision it was ­difficult to get another club ­because everyone knows how ­powerful Spurs are and I couldn’t sort the compensation out for all those years I’d trained with them.”

Kasim in action for Albion Reserves v Eastbourne Borough. Pic: Simon Dack

A contractual impasse left Kasim in limbo and he was forced to train on his own until former Spurs teammates Gus Poyet and Mauricio Taricco, having taken over as manager and no.2 at Brighton, stepped in.

The pair managed to resolve the dispute between player and club and in October 2010 offered him a short-term deal with the Seagulls. Kasim later told the Argus: “They sorted something out for me and I love the football here, because they play good football, and the players are great, so everything is good except for playing more games…I’ll work hard for that.”

He was talking after he had been handed his Albion debut in the final game of the 2010-11 season, a 1-1 draw away to Notts County, with the Seagulls already having been crowned League One champions.

Kasim played for 70 minutes in midfield alongside Liam Bridcutt, Matt Sparrow and Elliott Bennett before being substituted, with Poyet saying: “The pitch didn’t help him. He is a technical player. We are trying to work on the other side of his game, the toughness and his defensive work. I think he has got a great future.

“He was very good on the ball, confident and strong. As soon as the game became more 50-50 it wasn’t good for him or us but opponents are going to try to make it a war against us.”

The Uruguayan added: “We are offering him the chance to stay with us. He is thinking about it and we’ll probably have a few more words.

“He knows where he stands. We’ve been honest with him, it’s up to him.

“It’s complicated because I don’t know if it will be easy for him to step up and start playing for the first team in the Championship, but we are offering him the chance to be there or thereabouts.”

As it turned out, he was a regular in Luke Williams’ development squad but only made the first team bench on three occasions, getting on (pictured above) just the once, as a sub for Alan Navarro, in the 66th minute of an inexperienced Albion’s 1-1 FA Cup draw at home to then non-league Wrexham on 7 January 2012.

Kasim managed to collect a booking during his brief time on the pitch in a game that saw young Ben Sampayo given his debut and Grant Hall his first start (he’d previously been a sub five days earlier against Southampton). Anton Rodgers, son of Brendan, was sent on at the same time as Kasim entered the fray. Kasim was an unused sub in the replay when Albion only advanced courtesy of a penalty shoot-out, edging it 5-4 after the game ended 1-1.

Come the summer of 2012 and Kasim went on a six-month loan to then Conference Premier League Luton Town, with Hatters boss Paul Buckle telling the club’s website: “Yaser can do a variety of jobs. He can be a box-to-box man and also play in a defensive midfield role.

“It’s great we have been able to capture someone of his calibre for six months. I have no doubt that he will prosper with us.”

The player made five starts plus six appearances off the bench and scored once, in a 2-1 win at Tamworth (the other scorer was Stuart Fleetwood, who’d been on loan at the Albion in the 2008-09 season).

In the second half of the season, Kasim played five games for Conference National League Macclesfield Town.

Released by Brighton in May 2013, Kasim went on trial to League One Swindon and signed a three-year deal after spending a week at the Robins’ pre-season training camp in Portugal. Manager Mark Cooper paired him in midfield with Massimo Luongo and he played 45 times in his first season.

Reliable Robin

Perhaps it was inevitable that Kasim managed to get on the scoresheet against Brighton in August 2014 when Swindon lost 4-2 (after extra time) at home to Sami Hyypia’s Albion in the second round of the League Cup (future Town midfielder Rohan Ince scored a belter for the Seagulls, Adrian Colunga edged Albion ahead in the 95th minute. Kasim equalised before two late penalties scored by Jake Forster-Caskey put Albion through).

Kasim ended up having four seasons at the County Ground, was part of the side that made it to the League One play-off final in 2015, when they lost 4-0 to Preston, and it was reported at one point that Premier League Swansea City and West Ham were interested in signing him.

Nothing came of that, though, and his final campaign with the Robins saw him dogged by groin and hip injuries as Town were relegated to the bottom tier.

Mentor Williams was Town’s head coach by then and, after being forced to drop Kasim in February 2017 and replace him with the aforementioned Ince, opened up to the Swindon Advertiser.

Reckoning Kasim was not showing enough of a physical side to his game, Williams said: “I have known Yaser a long time and he is an incredibly talented player but, for one reason or another, I don’t think he is performing to anywhere near his best and at the moment, he needs to come out of the team.

“Players fall out of form because of a combination of things, sometimes off the pitch as well.

I wish I could find the reason and try to make everything okay for Yaser because he is a very important player and has given a fantastic service to us.

“He is somebody that I think a lot of personally so I would love for him to be in top form.

“I think Yaser in top form is as good a player as you’ll see at this level for sure, unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be able to quite find it.”

The coach added: “He came here and I think, certainly for the first two seasons, he was absolutely fantastic and last season, there was far more good from Yaser than bad. This year, he hasn’t been able to recapture that.”

Born in the Karrada district of Baghdad on 10 May 1991, three months after the end of the Gulf War, Kasim’s passion for football began at a young age on the streets of Baghdad.

“I lived in Iraq until I was six years old,” he told the-afc.com. “I don’t know how young I was when I started to play, but before I left we used to play a lot of football on the streets.

“It is a very sunny and hot climate so we used to play on the streets and there were a lot of people playing 20 a-side sometimes on the tarmac and there were a few rolled ankles and a few chipped toe nails, but I loved it and we used to be outside all day.”

The family left Iraq because Kasim’s father saw a decline in his business as a used car parts salesman. They spent a year in Jordan before moving to England, and eventually settling in north west London.

“I started playing after school every day and then I started to go to football clubs and a coach at one of my sports centres took me to Fulham,” he said. He had only been at Fulham a few months before switching to Spurs.

Explaining why he turned down the offer of a professional contract at Tottenham, Kasim had concerns about the way players were being cared for. He said: “There was a lot of competition; I don’t mind competition as the more the competition, when growing up especially, the better it is, but they were bringing in players without plans on how to look after them and I felt they weren’t doing things right by the players so I saw that my opportunities would be limited and I thought this was not for me.”

It was during his time at Brighton that he was approached to join up with the Iraq national side, at the time coached by Wolfgang Sidka. He won 21 caps over a number of years, although he had a somewhat chequered relationship with the representative side.

In international action for Iraq

He made his debut in March 2014 featuring in a 3-1 win over China, was hero-worshipped after a series of influential performances in the 2015 Asian Cup (scoring a key winning goal in their opener against Jordan and netting a penalty in the quarter-final shootout against Iran), but went AWOL during the country’s preparations for the 2016 Rio Olympics (he was called up as one of three coverage players for the tournament but he left the training camp in Spain and never returned).

He also turned down national team call ups under coaches Radhi Shanaishel and Basim Qasim then, after saying he’d retired from the national set-up, returned and went on as a sub in a 4-1 win over Saudi Arabia in 2018 – the most high-profile match to be staged in Iraq for years and Kasim’s first international match on Iraqi soil (previously ‘home’ matches were played at empty grounds across the world).

“Just having that real home feeling is very special,” Kasim told Mark Lomas in a post-match interview for Arab News.

“When you compare it to playing in Dubai, or playing in Malaysia, the difference is just ridiculous. Even when it’s an important game, it is just not the same as it being in Iraq. It elevates you to another level – really, it’s amazing being out there on the pitch. I really do hope we get to play our home games here going forward.
“I truly hope that FIFA sees this game and realises that these fans deserve to watch their team play in Iraq.”

Kasim added: “I have always said that the Iraqi fans are the best in the world — they are crazy for football and for the players.

“I appreciate them so much and I’m humbled when they shout my name. When I come back to Iraq, I get to meet a lot of people every day and you just get such a good vibe.”

By the time of that interview, Kasim had moved on to League One Northampton Town but he told Thomas: “It is just really good that someone like me, who left Iraq at a young age, is able to come back and reconnect with my heritage. It brings out something within you as a man, a bit of maturity and cultural understanding. It goes some way to helping you feel more complete as a person.

“This occasion, obviously, will always give me happy memories of Basra. It kind of trumps everything else I’ve experienced in Iraq. Being around the people and these sorts of occasions, it really helps the country move forward. You realise that officials are stepping up and doing things right. I’m hoping this is just the beginning.”

After Kasim left the Cobblers in January 2019, he had brief spells with Örebro SK in Sweden, and Erbil and Zakho in Iraq (when Dick Advocaat was briefly Iraq manager, Kasim was recalled for the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup after he’d impressed playing for Zakho).

Ahead of the 2022-23 season, Kasim was a trialist for Notts County in a pre-season 1-1 draw with   Boston United (National League County were managed by the aforementioned Luke Williams) but his next club was National League South Welling United, where he played 11 matches.

On signing him, manager Warren Feeney said: “He’s a fantastic player. We’re very lucky to get him and we’re absolutely delighted. He’s a player who can open teams up, he’s a great player who’s played at a great level and is an international so he has great pedigree. He’s hungry and we’re delighted to have him.”

After only three months, he moved on to National League North Gloucester City but after only one game headed back to the south east and linked up with Football’s Next Star winner (and one-time Brighton teammate) Ben Greenhalgh, who was assistant manager at Margate, of the Isthmian Premier League. Kasim played 13 matches for Margate and the following season linked up with another former Brighton colleague, coach Mark Beard, who was in charge of National League South Eastbourne Borough.

He played 17 matches for Boro before returning to Margate where after 12 more games he decided to retire from playing at the age of 33.

In May 2024, Kasim wrote a lengthy piece on the medium.com platform entitled The Illusion of Time and Space: A Footballer’s Perspective in which he explained: “The most beautiful part of playing the game has been the ability to create the illusion of time and space on the pitch. This involves making complex decisions and movements appear effortless, allowing a player to control the game seamlessly.”

As to what he’s doing now, his LinkedIn profile says he’s aiming to develop a career in investment management. Also, as the holder of a UEFA B licence, he’s a part-time coach for Crystal Palace’s academy, working with different age groups.

Ince ‘disciple’ Keith Andrews helped Albion to play-offs

ONE OF BRIGHTON’S more successful season-long loan signings spent six years at Wolverhampton Wanderers having arrived as a 15-year-old from Dublin.

Keith Andrews signed on at Molineux on the same day as another Irish youngster, Robbie Keane, although he didn’t hit quite the same heights as the prolific goalscorer.

Nonetheless, Andrews eventually represented his country on no fewer than 35 occasions – not a bad achievement considering he had to wait until he was 28 before winning his first cap.

The self-styled ‘Guvnor’ Paul Ince, who Andrews had first encountered at Wolves, ultimately took the Irishman’s career onto a different level, initially when manager at MK Dons and then with Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League.

“I picked up so much from him, although probably a whole lot more when he managed me later on and I wasn’t in direct competition for a place in the team,” he said.

“I needn’t have been concerned when he came to MK, because he made me feel like a million dollars from the first conversation we had on the phone.

“He pretty much based the team around me, let me lead the dressing room like he had at Wolves, and I think that working relationship was mutually beneficial for both of us.

“He coached me and nurtured me and gave me some of his pearls of wisdom, and ultimately gave me the confidence to go and show I could become the player he felt I could become.

“Offers started coming in for me, but Incey asked me to stay, and said that if he got a job in the Premier League, he would take me with him.

“That happened with Blackburn, and I know he had to fight to get me there as the club weren’t keen on bringing in a player from League One.

“But he wanted me there, he knew what I was like and how he could trust me, and I would like to think that even though unfortunately Incey wasn’t there anywhere near as long as he would have liked, I vindicated his decision and desire to get me there.”

However, it was from Bolton Wanderers that Andrews joined the Seagulls for the 2013-14 season and he played a pivotal role – literally – taking over from the initially-injured, then transfer-seeking Liam Bridcutt as Albion’s defensive midfielder.

I covered head coach Oscar Garcia’s view of his signing in a previous blog post about the player in January 2019. Andrews featured in 35 matches for the Seagulls and scored once as Garcia steered Albion to a second successive tilt at the Championship play-offs, only for the team to lose out to Derby County in the two-legged semi-final.

Burnden Aces, a Wanderers fans website, interviewed Albion fan Chris Field to ask his opinion of Andrews and his summary was “good” but inconsistent.

Field couldn’t understand why neither Bolton nor Blackburn fans had rated the Irishman, saying:

“He’s come into our midfield and held it together fantastically well. We needed a bit more Premier League/Championship experience in our midfield and he’s fitted that bill superbly.

“Possibly he wasn’t used in the right way with Dougie Freedman’s style of football. In our free-flowing passing game, he’s fantastic in the holding role. A change of scenery has done him good.”

When Garcia quit the club after the play-offs defeat, it also marked the end of Andrews’ time with the Seagulls, although he later expressed his gratitude for the time he spent at the club.

“Although I was only at the Amex for one season, I have a lot of affection for the club as I think they try to do things in the right manner for the club to evolve with real sustainability for years to come,” he wrote in a Sky Sports blog.

“There are good people involved behind the scenes there, none more so than in the academy. Last season I worked closely with the academy manager John Morling and the development coach Ian Buckman as I was in the middle of my UEFA ‘A’ Licence, and they couldn’t have done any more to help me.

“It was a great experience to work with them as they prepared weekly and monthly schedules with the rest of the coaches and sports scientists to ensure the young lads had the best chance of developing their games, both technically and physically.”

He added: “I was amazed at the schedule a 14-year-old at the club had and a little envious to be honest as it certainly wasn’t like that in my day!”

Born in Dublin on 13 September 1980, Andrews went to Ardscoil Ris secondary school in Dublin and his football reputation grew in the schoolboys sides of Stella Maris and Elm Mount.

“Most young players are playing at quite a high level in Ireland,” Andrews told the Wolves website. “I played in the DDSL – the Dublin District Schoolboy League – and trials at English clubs became quite frequent for a lot of us.

“I must have gone on trial to about 10 or 12 clubs and then you just have to start narrowing it down to who you like, who likes you. I then started to visit Wolves more frequently and just got a good feeling about it.

“I felt very at home in Wolverhampton, I was very well looked after from the moment that I went over as an under-14 at the time. I had a few contract offers from different clubs, but Wolves just felt right and I felt the club would offer me the best chance of playing first-team football at a high level.”

Andrews reflected that he probably started out too young although he said: “I relished playing football full-time and I enjoyed the environment that I went into. I enjoyed living in Wolverhampton, I enjoyed the family I was living with; they looked after me.

“There were some tough times, some teary phone calls home, and you go through some really difficult moments, but that was all part of the journey of building your character and trying to forge a career in the professional game, which isn’t easy.”

He went through the Wolves academy alongside the likes of Keane, Matt Murray, Joleon Lescott and Lee Naylor and said it was a “proper apprenticeship” adding: “The structure must have been in a good place. It was a well-run football club with the Hayward family in charge of it.”

Appreciating the values that were drilled into him from an early age, he said the academy was where he learned how to approach the game and how to do things the right way. He then progressed under youth team coach Terry Connor before turning professional in September 1997.

He made his first team debut under Colin Lee as a substitute on 18 March 2000 in a 2-1 win at Swindon. He also went on in a 2-0 home win over Crewe but, when further openings didn’t follow, he went on loan to Oxford and scored the winner on his full league debut away at Swansea.

Under Lee’s successor, Dave Jones, in the last game of the 2000-01 season, he was Wolves’ youngest ever captain aged 21 in a 1-1 draw at home to QPR.

“I looked around the dressing room and saw some really experienced players, players whose boots I had cleaned as an apprentice, and so to be chosen as captain was a huge day in my career,” says Andrews. “The game was fairly forgetful but certainly not for me!”

Managers came and went, some giving Andrews a chance, others sending him out on loan. In 2005, after just 24 starts for Wolves, plus no fewer than 47 appearances as a sub, he moved on to Hull City, where injury blighted his only season with them.

Promotion winner at MK Dons

He then had a two-year spell with Milton Keynes Dons, where he had a productive midfield partnership with Alan Navarro, and he assumed the captaincy of Ince’s side.

In his second season, the Dons won promotion to League One; Andrews scoring the goal which secured the success. He also scored in the club’s 2-0 win over Grimsby Town in the Football League Trophy at Wembley.

Andrews was chosen in the PFA Team of the Year, won the League Two player of the Year Award and was listed 38th of FourFourTwo magazine’s top 50 Football League players.

It was in September 2008 that he followed old boss Ince to Blackburn Rovers. He stayed for three years although during his time at Ewood Park he was subjected to barracking from a small section of supporters.

Some fans didn’t believe he merited a starting berth but injuries meant he got a chance and made 37 appearances in his first season at the club, scoring four goals in Rovers’ battle for survival.

Under Sam Allardyce, an approach from Fulham to sign him in 2009 was rebuffed and he was rewarded with a new four-year deal instead. In March 2011, an Andy Cryer exclusive in the Lancashire Telegraph said Allardyce’s successor Steve Kean backed the player and still saw him as a key member of his first team squad even though the player had been sidelined by a groin injury for five months.

The player’s agent, Will Salthouse, told Cryer: “Keith loves the club. He has a contract for two more years at the club and he wants to stay. Keith is not looking to go anywhere.

“There has been interest from other clubs but Keith has not even spoken to them. The club have said they want him to stay and I can dismiss the rumours that he will be leaving.”

Nonetheless, at the start of the following season, Andrews joined Championship side Ipswich Town on a half-season loan.

Instead of moving to Suffolk permanently, on deadline day in January 2012 he joined Wolves’ Black Country rivals West Brom, under Roy Hodgson, on a six-month deal.

Into the bargain, Andrews, making his debut for West Brom, scored the fourth goal in a 5-1 rout of their neighbours that sealed the fate of Mick McCarthy’s reign in charge at Molineux.

“I joined Wolves at the age of 15 and, having then lived in the Midlands for a few years, I knew all about this derby,” Andrews told the Express & Star.

“I was a fan who had been to games and to different derbies like Celtic against Rangers, and I was well aware of games which had more significance growing up even playing schoolboy football and Gaelic football as well.

“Once I had been in Wolverhampton for a while it was made pretty clear to me that Wolves against Albion was a big deal.

“Sometimes people try to throw derbies and rivalries at you at certain clubs when they don’t really exist but Wolves and Albion is proper, it’s fierce.

“At Wolves everyone would be telling you much they hated the Baggies and how important those two games of the season were – so yes, I was well aware of it!”

Although personally delighted to score, Andrews said: “I also had a lot of friends on the Wolves team that day – Ireland team-mates – and my overriding emotion as I walked off the pitch as I looked at Mick and Terry Connor was sadness.

“I knew where Wolves were in the league, the pressure they were under, and what might happen after such a result.

“I knew Terry from the help he had given me when I was at Wolves, and while I didn’t know Mick personally, he is someone I have always looked up to and have the utmost respect for with what he has achieved in the game.

“Wolves at the time were struggling, and that was something that carried on after the decision was made for Mick to leave.”

On the expiry of his Baggies contract, Andrews joined newly relegated Bolton on a free transfer, and, although he made 26 Championship appearances, he struggled with an achilles problem and then a thigh injury which eventually required surgery.

It was Bolton’s signing of Jay Spearing from Liverpool at the start of the 2013-14 season that made him surplus to requirements for the Trotters and opened the door to him joining the Seagulls.

A year later, Andrews joined Watford on loan while Brighton struggled under Sami Hyypia but after half a season returned to MK Dons where he eventually began coaching.

He later appeared frequently on Sky Sports as a pundit and became a coach to the Republic of Ireland side under Stephen Kenny. In December 2023, he was appointed a first team coach at Sheffield United following the return of Chris Wilder to Bramall Lane.

The moment Lee Hendrie felt ten feet tall at Brighton

SKY SPORTS pundit Lee Hendrie has reached heights and plumbed depths in a life that saw him stop off at third-tier Brighton in 2010 after 17 years with Aston Villa.

Hendrie was something of a forgotten man of football when Gus Poyet snapped him up for the Seagulls on loan from Derby County in March 2010.

Hendrie featured in eight Albion games in the last six weeks of the season: four wins, two draws and two defeats.

Turning out in League One was quite a fall for a player Glenn Hoddle selected for England, but he told the matchday programme: “The main thing is to play football. If you’re not playing then you tend to get forgotten but hopefully I can get some game time between now and the end of the season.”

And he later said to football.co.uk: “I went to Brighton to get my face back out there. Gus Poyet was brilliant. He got the lads together in a circle and said, ‘******* hell, we’ve got Lee Hendrie here’. Let me tell you, after feeling so unwanted I suddenly felt 10 feet tall.”
Hendrie made his debut as a 75th minute substitute for Sebastien Carole in a 3-0 home win over Tranmere Rovers, and he told the matchday programme: “We could have had more than three goals and I should have scored.”

But Hendrie was bubbling after his involvement and said: “Listening to the gaffer in the changing room, you can see why the lads are playing with a lot of confidence and have improved so much.

“I’ve played under a few managers, but not many, can I say, are like Gus, who is so enthusiastic and tells the players to go and enjoy themselves. There is nothing a player wants more than a gaffer telling you to enjoy your game.”

Of Albion’s midfield triumvirate of Gary Dicker, Alan Navarro and Andrew Crofts, it tended to be Dicker who was edged out by Hendrie’s arrival.

However it was in Crofts’ place that the loanee got his first start, in a 2-0 Easter Monday defeat at Hartlepool in which former Albion loanee ‘keeper Scott Flinders prevented the visitors from leaving with a point. Hendrie was subbed off on 58 minutes when Kazenga LuaLua took over.

Hendrie went on as a sub for Dicker in the following home game against Carlisle United and it was his cross that set up what looked like a late equaliser by Tommy Elphick, only for Gary Madine to nick all three points with a second for United two minutes from the end.

Hendrie started in place of Dicker away to Gillingham but gave way to the Irishman in the 79th minute and the game ended 1-1. Hendrie started once again in the 1-0 win away to Southend, but Dicker replaced him on 65 minutes.

Hendrie’s third successive start in place of Dicker came at home to Bristol Rovers, when Albion won 2-1, but once again he didn’t last the 90 minutes as Dicker took over on 74 minutes.

In the penultimate game of the season, away to MK Dons, the game finished goalless although Alex Rae and Diego Arismendi were red carded for brawling. Hendrie started and Dicker replaced him on 58 minutes.

The on-loan midfielder’s only full 90-minute appearance came in the last game of the season when Yeovil were beaten 1-0 at the Withdean Stadium; Elliott Bennett scoring the only goal of the game a minute before half-time.

The chances of a permanent deal for Hendrie looked unlikely with Poyet admitting: “We were very pleased with him and he was pleased to be here. We will wait to see if, when we start putting the squad together, there is a possibility of it happening. It’s not an easy one, because of the wages.”

Born in Solihull on 18 May 1977, football was in Hendrie’s blood: Scottish dad Paul had played for Villa’s arch rivals Birmingham City and he was playing professionally for Portland Timbers at the time his son was born. He later played for Bristol Rovers, Halifax Town and Stockport County.

For someone who became Villa through and through, Hendrie admitted to the Birmingham Mail that he had actually been at city rivals Birmingham’s school of excellence before ‘Big’ Ron Atkinson snapped him up as a teenager.

As well as his dad having played for them, his nan was a City season ticket holder and his uncle also supported them. “Villa didn’t come and scout me at the time and Blues were the first club that did. It was an opportunity for me to get myself into the pro ranks and see what it was all about. Dad said it would be good to go and have a feel for it, which I did.”

But ever since he’d scored two goals in a schools’ cup final victory for his school, Washwood Heath, against Hodge Heath at Villa Park, he had dreamed of playing for Villa.

The dream came closer when Hendrie signed on the dotted line as a 14-year-old at Villa’s Bodymoor Heath training ground, although he remembers his dad tempering his excitement.

“When we came out after I’d signed, I’d got given a load of training clobber and I thought this was it, I’d made it,” he said. “My dad said: ‘Take a step back, you, you ain’t got anywhere yet, this is the start of a long road. Just because you’ve got all the kit it doesn’t mean you’re a professional footballer and an Aston Villa player – relax yourself’.”

Hendrie and his best mate Darren Byfield, who had been strike partners in Erdington Star and Erdington & Saltley district team as kids, developed a reputation as a dynamic duo on and off the pitch, and soon became Atkinson’s ‘teacher’s pets’.

Atkinson converted Hendrie from a centre forward to left winger (even predicting he’s one day play for England in that position) and the duo continued to do well for the Villa youth team.

As it turned out, it was Atkinson’s successor, Brian Little, who ended up giving Hendrie his first team debut – although it was memorable for all the wrong reasons!

It came two days before Christmas in 1995 when he went on as a 33rd minute substitute for Mark Draper away to Queens Park Rangers. He collected a yellow card for kicking the ball away and was red carded in stoppage time; a second booking for an innocuous foul on Rufus Brevett. Into the bargain, Villa lost 1-0.

A devastated Hendrie revealed it was the opposition player-manager, Ray Wilkins, rather than Little, who put a comforting arm round him. “Someone who I’ve seen play football, a legend of the game, to come and console me and say: ‘This is football, welcome to football, these are the ups and downs you’re going to have in your career’.

“He said there’s lot of people who are talking highly of you, you’ve got a big future in the game, kid. As he got up, he tapped my shoulder and said: ‘Keep that up’.”

Few subsequent chances were given to him under Little but, when John Gregory took over, he became more established.

He would go on to make a total of 308 appearances for Villa (243 league and cup starts), scoring 32 goals, with his best performances coming in Gregory’s tenure. He wasn’t quite the same player under Graham Taylor or David O’Leary.

It was on November 18 1998 that he won his one and only England cap, sent on by Glenn Hoddle as a 77th minute substitute for Villa team-mate Paul Merson in a 2-0 win over the Czech Republic at Wembley. Two other Villa teammates, Dion Dublin and Gareth Southgate, were also part of Hoddle’s squad.

Unfortunately for Hendrie, Hoddle was sacked two months later and no subsequent England bosses called on him. “It’s a regret that I didn’t go on and make more of my England career,” he said. “It’s great that I’ve got a cap and it’s something you can’t take away from me, but I hate being classed as a one-cap wonder.”

Hendrie’s days at Villa came to an end in August 2006, his last involvement being from the bench in Martin O’Neill’s first match in charge, a 1-1 Premier League draw at Arsenal on the opening day of the 2006-07 campaign.

While Hendrie, by then 30, was excited about playing for O’Neill, the new boss had other plans and told him he was not part of them.

Initially he joined Stoke City under Tony Pulis on a season-long loan but Bryan Robson at Sheffield United outbid the Potters for his services on a permanent basis, and he signed a three-year deal at Bramall Lane at the start of the 2007-08 season.

Unfortunately, when Robson swiftly parted company with the Blades, Hendrie didn’t see eye to eye with his successor, Kevin Blackwell, who accused the player of being a money-grabber.

“Sheffield United was just the worst thing I could have done,” he told the Claret & Blue podcast.

“Kevin Blackwell was one of the worst managers I have ever, ever been under. He put the nail in the coffin for (my career).”

Blackwell sent him on loan to Leicester City, where he played nine games, and he later went to Blackpool too. United moved him on to Derby County but when he struggled for games there, he joined Brighton.

If the spell at Brighton was a temporary relief from his mounting problems, he revealed in a Guardian interview with Donald McRae that 2010 turned out to be one of the worst years of his life, and he attempted suicide on several occasions.

A property empire he had built up amassed insurmountable debts which even saw his mother’s home repossessed. He lost his own house as well, and it sent him into depression. Divorce and bankruptcy made the situation even worse.

“The football was almost over and my head was gone. I’d been trying to sell property, but the housing market crashed,” he said. “I got to the stage where I just wanted to end it all. I’d hit rock bottom.”

The ups and downs of Hendrie’s colourful life have featured in various media interviews.

The rise and fall tale was charted by the sporting.blog and Hendrie’s spoken about his troubles on Sky Sports, where he later became a pundit.

He was in tears on Harry’s Heroes: Euro Having A Laugh discussing his depression struggles with Vinnie Jones. The BBC radio programme You and Yours highlighted his plight in a March 2013 episode.

On the footballing front, a brief spell at Bradford City was followed by a host of short stopovers at Bandung (2011), Daventry Town (2011), Kidderminster Harriers (2011-12), Chasetown (2012), Redditch United (2012) and Tamworth (2012-13) before he retired as a professional.

He then played for Corby Town (2013), Highgate United (2013), Basford United (2013 – 2015), Montpellier (2016-17), Redditch United (2016), Nuneaton Griff (2019) and Highgate United (2019) on a non-professional basis.

As he tried to find a new purpose in life, alongside his media work, Hendrie set up FootieBugs, a football academy for kids aged from three to 12.

Hendrie chats on TV with Dion Dublin, a former Villa teammate