Tag: Ashley Cole

Villa (eventually) paid up for Barry’s football education

THE MAN whose all-time appearance record was overtaken by James Milner in February 2026 spent six years from the age of nine training once a week at Albion’s school of excellence in Seaford.

Hastings-born Gareth Barry made one substitute appearance for the youth team but, with off-field issues clouding Albion’s horizon at the time, decided to continue his football education at Premier League Aston Villa.

“It wasn’t nice being at Brighton then,” Barry told Spencer Vignes in a matchday programme interview. “There was talk about the club folding and, if that had happened, I could have been left in the middle of nowhere.

Gareth Barry was a young Seagull in the 1995-96 season

“They were in Division Three and looking like they were going out of the league, so there were a lot of things favouring a move away.”

His move to the Birmingham suburb of Sutton Coldfield was the springboard to a stellar career that saw him go on to make an all-time record 653 Premier League appearances for Villa, Manchester City, Everton and West Brom as well as earn 53 caps for England.

He spent 12 years at Villa, became the club captain, was their Player of the Season in 2006-07 and made 440 league and cup appearances.

He made his Premier League debut at 17 on 2 May 1998, going on as a 49th minute substitute for Ian Taylor in a 3-1 win away to Sheffield Wednesday (Lee Hendrie was one of Villa’s scorers and future England manager Gareth Southgate was in defence).

His first start came in the last game of that season against champions Arsenal: it was eventful.  He started in midfield up against Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit and ended at centre-half covering for Ugo Ehiogu who’d been sent off. Before long he was a regular first team pick.

Barry on his full Villa debut against Arsenal

Noting the progress of their former player, the then hard-up Seagulls (as they were back in the 1990s) sought compensation for their early nurturing of Barry and his friend Michael Standing, who’d also switched from Albion to Villa at the same time.

Villa disputed the claim and, at a Football League Appeals Tribunal in London, Villa’s manager, the ex-Albion player John Gregory, declared Brighton chairman Dick Knight wouldn’t recognise Barry if he stood on Brighton Pier with a ball under his arm and a seagull on his head.

If he thought that was funny, the smile was soon wiped from his face when the powers-that-be sided with little old Brighton and ordered the Villains to cough up.

During the hearing, Les Rogers, the Albion youth coach spoke with knowledge and passion about the work he had done with Barry and Standing from under 10s to under 16s.

Les Rogers

Although he had only played one youth team game as a sub, Barry had featured in various age group teams as a left-sided defender, left-back and in midfield (Standing had actually been the better prospect in the younger age groups but he never made it to the Villa first team).

“We made the case that Albion had seen Gareth as a player of real potential from the early days and had given him and Michael top-quality coaching,” Knight recalled in his autobiography, Mad Man: From The Gutter To The Stars. “Whatever this boy had become – he was already being talked about as a future England international – was 95 per cent down to the football education he’d received from Brighton.”

Screenshot

The tribunal worked out a club and international appearances payment instalments package Villa should pay to Albion that, over time, would have totalled £1,025,000, plus a sell-on percentage. (There was a technical hitch over the compensation for Standing. It was eventually set at £200,000).

In spite of the ruling over Barry, aggrieved Villa started to stall on the payments due and, because Knight was desperate for cash to keep ailing Albion alive, he eventually did a once-and-for-all deal with Villa chairman ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis.

It meant the total Villa paid Albion for Barry was £850,000. As Knight would later rue, it meant when Barry was sold to Manchester City for £12.5million, Brighton missed out on £1.8million they would have received if the original tribunal settlement had remained valid.

Born on 23 February 1981, Barry’s footballing prowess first showed at William Parker Grammar School and as well as training with Brighton’s East Sussex school of excellence at Seaford, he earned recognition at school, district and county levels.

“My upbringing wasn’t overly comfortable,” Barry told reporter Joe Bernstein in a 2016 interview for the Daily Mail. “I’ve got three brothers and two sisters. Dad was a plumber who worked really hard to support six children, and mum was busy at home. The four brothers shared a room, a bunk bed on each side. It wasn’t luxurious.”

It was only in his final year at William Parker that national scouts took notice and he had a number of suitors prepared to take him on. He shunned offers from Brighton, Arsenal, Chelsea and Crystal Palace, and took his mum and dad’s advice to move 200 miles from home.

“My mum and dad were keen for me to skip London and go to the Midlands. They felt a proper move would serve me better than coming home every weekend. So, I did my GCSEs and left,” he recalled.

“I lived in digs, the minibus would arrive at seven in the morning and I wouldn’t get back until five in the afternoon. I missed my family but drilled it into my mind that I was there for the football. It was a very good decision from my parents.”

Managers came and went at Villa – Graham Taylor and David O’Leary before Martin O’Neill – and Barry remained a stalwart of the side, appointed captain under O’Neill in August 2006.

Bigger clubs started sniffing around him and in 2008 it looked like he would move to Liverpool with Steve Finnan as a makeweight, but Liverpool weren’t prepared to meet Villa’s asking price.

Barry took an unwise move to go public with his desire to leave and ended up having the captaincy withdrawn, being fined and ordered to train on his own, before patching things up.

O’Neill told the Birmingham Mail: “We obviously don’t want him to go, so the price we are asking is a fair and realistic one for a player who is so good. In fact, I think it is really cheap.

“My own view is that he should hang around for another year and see if we can make further progress as he would want.

“Gareth is still only 28 next year – if we don’t get where he wants to go, everybody would wish him well.” The following year fees were agreed with Manchester City and Liverpool.

Barry chose City because he was annoyed that Liverpool hadn’t found the cash the year before and he also didn’t pick up the right mood music from Reds’ boss Rafa Benitez about where he would fit into their set-up.

“I met the City manager Mark Hughes in a hotel. He emphasised the ambition of the owners. He described it as a speeding train and his advice was to jump on,” said Barry. “’It appealed to me that City hadn’t won a trophy for so long and I’d be part of the team to end it.”

It was the right choice because he went on to win the FA Cup in 2011 and the Premier League in 2012.

Barry’s development into a full England international began with selection at under-16 level, he went on to captain the under-18s and earned 27 caps for the under-21s between 1998 and 2003, equalling Jamie Carragher’s record, until it was beaten by James Milner.

When still only 19, Barry made two substitute appearances for Kevin Keegan’s senior team, picking up his first full cap against Ukraine in a Wembley friendly on 31 May 2000, shortly after he’d played in Villa’s 1-0 FA Cup Final defeat to Chelsea.

His first start for England was four months later in a 1–1 draw against France and he was a halftime sub against Germany in the 1-0 defeat that was Keegan’s last in charge and the last game played at the old Wembley.

Caretaker manager Howard Wilkinson selected him at left-back for a World Cup qualifier in Helsinki with Martin Keown captain for the one and only time. Antti Niemi and Sami Hyypia were playing for Finland. The game finished 0-0 but was full of controversy in that some felt Niemi should have been sent off for wiping out Teddy Sheringham outside his area in only the fifth minute and a late ‘goal’ by Ray Parlour was deemed not to have crossed the line.

During Sven Goran Eriksson’s time in charge Barry lost his England place to Ashley Cole and Wayne Bridge although he did make late sub appearances in May 2003 against South Africa and Serbia and Montenegro.

It was then another four years before he was recalled and became a regular, firstly under Steve McClaren and then Fabio Capello. Barry captained England against Ghana in a 1-1 draw in March 2011 and won his 50th cap for England against Spain later that year.

He scored in games against Trinidad and Kazakhstan and his headed goal (some said it was a Daniel Majstorović own goal) against Sweden in November 2011 was a landmark one – the 2,000th for England since their first international in 1872.

Bobby Zamora was up front for England that day, replaced in the 70th minute by Darren Bent, and Milner went on for Jack Rodwell. David Stockdale was an unused sub.

Barry’s last cap came when Roy Hodgson sent him on as a half-time sub for Steven Gerrard in a 1-0 win away to Norway in May 2012 and was then subbed off injured in the 73rd minute.

Barry initially left City for Everton on a season-long loan for the 2013-14 campaign during which he joined an elite club in going past 500 Premier League appearances and helped the Toffees seal a return to European competition for the first time since 2010 when they finished fifth.

He moved to Goodison Park on a permanent three-year deal in 2014 and played in all but one of their 10 UEFA Europa League games in 2014-15. The following season, when he turned 35, Barry claimed an awards double by being named both Everton’s Player and Players’ Player of the Season.

He told evertonfc.com: “It’s fantastic. It was great for me to be nominated and win these awards. If you look at the talent in our dressing room, for me to be chosen as the Player of the Season, it means a lot to me.

“Both awards mean so much and when you are getting voted by the players you are training with each day and then playing with, any professional will tell you that it means a lot.”

After a total of 154 appearances for Everton, he joined West Brom in August 2017 to fill the void left by the departure of Darren Fletcher.

Albion head coach Tony Pulis said: “He’s a fantastic player and I think his attitude towards playing is really gauged by the fact that Everton had offered him a two-year contract to stay there. He really wants to play and I’m really looking forward to working with him.”

Barry had one season in the Premier League with Albion, and another in the Championship after their relegation in 2018. Injury brought his 2018-19 season to an early end and he was initially released before re-signing in November 2019 until the end of the season.

Although 38 by then, he said: “I came to West Brom as a Premier League club and I want to help take it back there. I believe it is where this club really deserves to be.”

Baggies boss Slaven Bilic told BBC WM: “It will be brilliant to have him with us.

“You need that kind of quality in the middle of the park, and you need that kind of character around you in good times and hard times because he has been through it all.”

He finally called time on his career in August 2020, however, Barry didn’t stop pulling on his boots and turned out for Kidderminster-based Comberton Dynamoes Vets (who also included another ex-Villa player in Darren Byfield in their ranks).

He was once again in the headlines in July 2024 when, aged 43, he signed for 12th-tier Hurstpierpoint, in the second tier of the Mid Sussex Football League, to play alongside his lifelong friend and agent Michael Standing.

• As Milner closed in on Barry’s all-time Premier League appearances record, Barry told OLBG.com editor-in-chief Steve Madgwick: “Having played with James at Villa, Man City and England, and he’s a good friend, I know how hard he’s worked and he’s left no stone unturned.

“He is the ultimate professional, so if James is to pass it, it’s going to someone that fully deserves it because he’s getting every ounce out of the career that he deserves because he’s putting the maximum effort in. Now with that, he’s got quality as well. That’s not to be underrated.”

David Livermore was no stranger to yellow and red cards

DAVID LIVERMORE was one of those signings Brighton fans had a good feeling about, only to be disappointed with the outcome.

Here was a player who had learned his craft over 10 years as a youngster at Arsenal and, at 28, had played most of his career at second tier level.

So, when Micky Adams got him on a free transfer from Hull City for League One Albion in the summer of 2008, the signs were encouraging.

“David is an experienced midfield player who has played most of his football in the Championship,” Adams said. “He’s a versatile player who can play in midfield, left wing and left back, and he’s another quality signing.”

Maybe it was that versatility that counted against him, but by the turn of the year he’d only made 13 starts and had picked up so many bookings that he had to serve a suspension.

Perhaps the writing was already on the wall. “Suspension and the midfielder more often than not went hand in hand – his passion, commitment and tough-tackling nature meant that the former Arsenal trainee picked up a huge 86 yellow cards and 3 reds in his Lions career,” Millwall fan Mark Litchfield wrote in a profile on newsatden.co.uk.

The player’s frustration was revealed in an Argus interview with Andy Naylor, who said: “Livermore is an ‘old school’ player, more comfortable with an era when crunching challenges were greeted matter-of-factly by opponents and with no more than a quiet word from officialdom, rather than the modern malaise of writhing opponents and card-happy refereeing.”

Livermore told the reporter: “It’s the way things are now, suspensions are part and parcel of the game. I am someone that likes a tackle and, unfortunately, I’ve got six bookings now.

“The game has changed a lot. The referee was threatening to send me off at the weekend and I only gave away two fouls in the whole game. I think the tackle is slowly being erased.”

After the suspension, Livermore struggled to regain a place in the squad and he wrecked the opportunity of a rare start in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy when he was sent off for a bad foul in the semi-final at Luton Town. Albion clung on to a 1-1 draw but losing on penalties meant they were denied a trip to Wembley for the final against Scunthorpe.

That disappointment proved to be the final straw for the Adams reign, although being four places off the bottom of the table didn’t look pretty either.

Livermore went on as a sub in Adams’ successor Russell Slade’s first game in charge, a 2-1 defeat at Leyton Orient, and got a start in a home 5-0 win over the manager’s previous club, Yeovil.

He then started at left-back in a 3-0 defeat away to Walsall three days later, but was subbed off at half-time, and his replacement, loanee Gary Borrowdale, was Slade’s preference in that position for the rest of the season. Livermore was sent on loan, ironically to Luton.

But he had penned a two-year deal when signing the previous summer so he was back at Brighton for the 2009-10 season. He warmed the bench nine times in the first half of 2009-10 but only saw action once, going on as a sub for Andrew Whing in a 1-0 defeat at Orient in the JPT.

The arrival of Gus Poyet as manager didn’t help his cause either and eventually there was a mutual parting of the ways in February 2010. It felt very much like a case of what might have been, and the player himself gave a very honest assessment of his time with the Albion in an interview with the Argus.

“I am disappointed I have not fulfilled the expectations of supporters and probably myself,” he said. “I’ve played the majority of my career in the Championship. I started off at Arsenal and went to Millwall in League One, adapted to that and got promoted and had six or seven seasons in the Championship.

“I’m not saying I thought it would be easy coming to Brighton but I thought I would be able to do as well as at my other clubs.”

He said Albion was “a fantastic club” and he enjoyed the team spirit and friendliness of the squad, admitting: “It hasn’t worked out how I expected but I’ve enjoyed my time there.”

Livermore reckoned it was the money he was on at Brighton that put off other sides from taking him on loan. The ending of his contract gave him free agent status, which meant he was able to organise a short-term deal at Barnet.

It obviously hit the player hard to realise his playing days were coming to an end after Barnet released him at the end of the season.

He told the Cambridge Evening News: “I’d dropped through the leagues, from Championship to bottom of League Two in a couple of seasons.

“I knew I had to make a decision. I even qualified as a personal trainer – I don’t know what I was thinking.

“From a playing point of view, I fell out of love with the game. Part of me said just stop and get a job – deliver the post or something, just get a normal job, provide for your family and enjoy your life.”

He was rescued by the offer to manage non-league Histon, and he told the newspaper. “The Histon job came up and I took it and fell back in love with the game from a coaching point of view. I was very lucky that opportunity came up at the time.”

Born on 20 May 1980, in Edmonton, north London, Livermore grew up as a Spurs supporter and was taken on by them at the tender age of seven! But frustrated at just being asked to train, rather than play games, he switched to Arsenal and was on their books for a decade.

He was on a two-year YTS scheme before turning professional but had to move to Millwall, aged 19, to get a breakthrough in the game.

Livermore had been in the same Arsenal youth side as Ashley Cole, and played five games for the Gunners reserve team in the 1997-98 season, when Matthew Wicks and Matt Upson were regulars, scoring once in a 1-1 draw against Tottenham on 17 March 1998. In a pre-season friendly at Enfield on 18 July 1998, he went on an as substitute for 23 minutes but that was the extent of his first team involvement. He made 11 appearances plus two as a sub for the reserves in the 1998-99 season, before leaving the club.

He joined on loan initially making his Millwall debut on the opening day of the 1999-00 season at Cardiff City in a 1-1 draw that hit the headlines for fan clashes rather than the football. It took joint bosses Keith Stevens and Alan McLeary only four matches to convert the loan into a permanent transfer, and Livermore was signed for £30,000.

Football history books reveal Livermore as the scorer of the final football league goal of the 20th century: an injury-time winner against Brentford on December 28, 1999. It happened to be the first of his goals for Millwall and he made 34 appearances that season.

After the disappointment of losing a play-off semi-final to Wigan Athletic in 2000, Livermore was able to savour promotion from League Two as champions under Mark McGhee in 2001; he played 39 games and was part of an eye-catching partnership with Australian international Tim Cahill.

There was more play-off semi-final heartache the following season when Millwall were edged out of the League One end-of-season final two places by Birmingham City; another season in which Livermore only missed three games – through suspension.

2004 is to Millwall fans what 1983 is to Brighton supporters: it was the year that against all odds they made it to the FA Cup Final. Millwall’s achievement was arguably more remarkable in that they were in the division below opponents Man Utd. The Lions were beaten 3-0 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and Livermore gave away a penalty (bringing down Ryan Giggs) which Ruud van Nistelrooy scored from.

“We didn’t play a Premier League side all the way through until the final so it just shows you what can happen,” Livermore recalled in an interview with the Argus. “I played every minute of every game. That was the highlight of my career.”

The one consolation from the Cup Final defeat was that Millwall got to play in Europe – the UEFA Cup – the following season because United were in the Champions League. It was Livermore’s penultimate season with the Lions and, with a year left on his contract, close season speculation had him linked with a £500,000 move to either Southampton or Sunderland.

Millwall director, Theo Paphitis, said: “Livers asked to go on the transfer list and that hasn’t changed. We’ve had enquiries from two clubs, but neither have matched our valuation. We would dearly love Dave to stay at Millwall, but his contract is up at the end of the season when he would be in a position to leave us for nothing.” It emerged Arsenal were entitled to 30 per cent of any profit the Lions made if the player was sold.

Millwall managed to persuade him to stay and to sign a new contract in January 2006, with director of football Colin Lee declaring: “I have said, from the moment I arrived, David is an absolutely vital player. I’m hopeful others we are in the process of trying to re-sign will see this as evidence we have now turned the corner and are moving forward again.”

While his loyalty was rewarded with the Player of the Year trophy come the end of the 2005-06 season, Millwall were relegated to League One and Livermore, wanting to stay in the Championship, was soon on his way.

In a most curious turn of events, Livermore joined Leeds United for a £400,000 fee, telling the Leeds website: “This is a huge club, this is where you want to be playing – at the right end of the division. I just want to be part of things here. Every player wants to play in the Premier League. That’s the aim.”

But before he could kick a ball in anger for United; in fact, just 10 days’ later, he was sold to Hull City. Leeds boss Kevin Blackwell explained that he had subsequently been able to sign Kevin Nicholls from Luton Town and (future Albion loan signing) Ian Westlake from Ipswich Town, and both would be ahead of Livermore in the pecking order.

Hull began the season under Phil Parkinson, who had signed former Reading teammate Nicky Forster for £250,000, but Phil Brown took over halfway through and they only just managed to avoid relegation. However, the midfielder must have had a wry smile on his face to discover the club propping up the division were none other than Leeds!

The following season saw a big turnround in Hull’s fortunes and they won promotion via the play-offs although Livermore was on the periphery and on transfer deadline day in January 2008 he moved to Boundary Park, Oldham, pairing up with Preston midfielder Jason Jarrett, another loanee who he would subsequently meet again at Brighton.

That introduction to management at Histon, when they were relegated from the Conference in his first season and were 16th in Conference North the following year, proved a steep learning curve for Livermore, as he told the Cambridge Evening News.

“In the first season I was player-manager I didn’t take a wage. My wife and family couldn’t quite understand why I was going through all of that for no money. Fortunately, I had some money set aside anyway, and going to Histon was the best decision I made.”

As well as having the lowest playing budget in the league, Livermore had to deal with off-field issues such as players not being paid and points deductions. “It was a baptism of fire,” he told the newspaper. “I learned a lot about dealing with contracts, managing individuals, trying to make things more professional, and getting players in to help the team.

“All you can do in any job is be honest. I didn’t have all the answers and I told the players that. I think honesty is key, and having that integrity.”

It was while he was at Histon that he began talking about his future coaching career with his friend and former Millwall teammate, Neil Harris, who was also coming to the end of his playing career (at Southend United). When Harris was injured, he went to watch a few Histon games and Livermore told cardiffcityfc.co.uk. “It was always good to have his eyes on the games and bounce ideas off each other.

“I’ve known Neil since I was 19. We played together at Millwall for about six seasons and always stayed in touch after that despite our careers going in different directions.”

In 2012, Livermore had the opportunity to return to Millwall, as youth team coach, and Harris followed him back to take charge of the under 21s. “I’d assist him on his games with the 21s during that time and then when the opportunity came for him to take over as first team manager (in 2015), he asked me to join him, which was an easy decision for me to make,” said Livermore.

The pair took Millwall to the League One play-off final at Wembley in 2016, when they were beaten 3-1 by Barnsley, and the following season they returned after finishing sixth in the table and won their place back in the Championship courtesy of a 1-0 win over Bradford City. They also twice took Millwall to the quarter finals of the FA Cup.

Although Millwall won two of their first three matches of the 2019-20 season, a subsequent seven-game winless run saw the pair leave Millwall in October 2019. Club chairman John Berylson said: “Both Neil and David leave with their heads held high, forever friends of the club, and I wish them both every success in their future careers. They will always be welcome at The Den.”

The following month the pair were installed as successors to the Neil Warnock regime at Championship Cardiff and the Welsh side finished fifth in the league by the end of the first season but lost out to Fulham in the play-off semi-finals.

Unfortunately, the churn of managers in the Welsh capital didn’t spare Harris and Livermore and, in January 2021, after 14 months, their services were dispensed with after a six-game losing streak. Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor took over: they were only there for nine months.

After a year out of the game, Harris and Livermore were back in the managerial saddle in January 2022 at League One Gillingham, but they couldn’t prevent the Gills being relegated at the end of the season.

Illness put paid to John Piercy’s promising career

A FIVE-YEAR professional football career bookended by 3-1 results against Crewe Alexandra almost certainly wouldn’t have been the path John Piercy would have chosen for himself.

One saw him make a promising debut for Tottenham Hotspur on 13 October 1999, subbed off to a terrific ovation from a 25,000 crowd at White Hart Lane on 74 minutes as they progressed in a League Cup game against the lower league opposition.

The other was a League One defeat for Brighton & Hove Albion at humble Withdean Stadium on 6 November 2004, subbed off ignominiously only 12 minutes into the second half with many in the crowd of 6,163 unaware that the hereditary bowel disease afflicting him was putting paid to his hopes of a football career.

Born in Forest Gate, east London, on 18 September 1979, Spurs first spotted Piercy as a stand-out 12-year-old, talented enough to represent England Schoolboys.

He became a trainee with Spurs at the age of 16 and signed as a professional in July 1998.

It was George Graham who gave him his first team debut for Spurs in that game against Crewe, starting him up front alongside Chris Armstrong in a side that featured future Brighton player and assistant manager Mauricio Taricco in defence.

The Spurs goals were scored by Oyvind Leonhardsen, David Ginola and Tim Sherwood, but spursodyssey.com was full of praise for the young Piercy.

“One young man who will remember this night more than most is 20-year-old debutant John Piercy, who won the home fans’ hearts with two terrific efforts on goal, and an eye-catching performance all round,” it said. They even went as far as to suggest he might be ‘the new Ginola’.

The performance was good enough to earn him a place on the bench for the following Saturday’s Premier League game away to Derby County and he was called into action in the second half to replace Armstrong as Spurs won 1-0.

He made two more league appearances that season and an excellent Spurs archive website said of him: “The solidly built East Londoner had the ability to lead the line and to make chances for his team-mates, by going wide and taking people on.

“Some work was needed on his first touch and his pace, but he was strong, direct and knew where the goal was.  Preferred to play wide on the left of midfield, but was deployed at full back in the reserves to good effect.”

Chris Hughton was the Spurs reserve team manager at the time and said of Piercy: “John is able to adapt well to different roles which is why we’ve played him at full-back in pre-season when we’ve been stretched in those areas.  But I’d say his best position is definitely right or left of midfield.”

On 4 April 1999, he started for England under 20s against the USA in the World Youth Championships in Nigeria, but was subbed off in a game England lost 1-0. His teammates that day included future full international Ashley Cole, and the side was managed by former Albion full-back Chris Ramsey.

john piercyFrustrated by the lack of first team opportunities at Spurs, Piercy, by then based in Eastbourne, opted to join Brighton in September 2002 during Martin Hinshelwood’s brief reign as manager.

Hinshelwood told the BBC: “He’s a player who can play in a variety of positions. That will give us plenty of options.”

A first team breakthrough at Brighton was slow to happen, however, with Hinshelwood’s successor, Steve Coppell, opting for experience in the ultimately unsuccessful battle to avoid relegation from the second tier. Piercy top-scored for the reserves that season, netting 13 goals from midfield.

However, shortly after Mark McGhee’s appointment, he did get some game time and in December 2003 also registered his first league goal in a 1-0 win at home to Wrexham.

Later the same month, he went one better playing up front in place of the suspended Leon Knight and scored twice in a resounding 4-0 home win over Wycombe Wanderers.

More often than not, though, he was brought on as a substitute rather than starting games. He made just eight league starts and in six of them was subbed off.

His other appearances (16) were all from the bench and that was the role he found himself in at the 2004 play-off final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, although his contribution was certainly effective.

Piercy replaced Nathan Jones in the 77th minute. “He (McGhee) made a change with just over 10 minutes left and we went on to win the game, so no one is going to complain, are they?” Jones told walesonline.co.uk.

Reports also recorded how Brighton threatened Steve Phillips’ goal moments after Piercy replaced Jones, Iwelumo glancing the substitute’s cross wide of the far post.

Sadly for Piercy, while he showed promise on the football pitch, he began to suffer the horribly debilitating effects of colitis, as he described in an interview with the Argus.

He praised the support he got from McGhee and reserve team boss Dean White but it reached a point where it was evident the illness was simply sapping too much energy from him to continue a full-time professional football career.

That defeat at home to Crewe proved to be his last game for the Albion and he announced his retirement aged 25 shortly afterwards.

“He knows his capabilties and I know his capabilities,” said McGhee in a matchday programme article. “He’s a player that could easily cope with the standard of the Championship but this illness has just affected him in a way that he just can’t get fit enough to do himself justice.”

Chairman Dick Knight added: “It is a great shame that such a skilful player, with such tremendous natural ability, has seen his career curtailed in such a cruel way. All at the club are devastated for him to be hanging up his boots at the relatively young age of 25.”

Piercy subsequently regained sufficient fitness to play a season with non-league Eastbourne Borough and then took up a coaching role with the club.

Nowadays he is a sports coach at Ocklynge Junior School in Eastbourne where he teaches youngsters football and PE, and is also a coach at CACL Sports in the town.

Piercy Ocklynge Sch

Sweet left foot but McLeod wasn’t to Albion fans’ taste

McLeod stripesWHEN MICKY Adams returned to the Albion for a second spell as manager, he brought in a number of players who, for whatever reason, struggled to deliver what was expected of them on the pitch.

One was Kevin McLeod, a Liverpudlian who, earlier in his career, had come through the Everton academy and briefly made it through to the Everton first team.

During Adams’ previous reign at Brighton, he’d made a habit of recruiting players he had worked with before – with plenty of success. Second time around, it was not the same outcome. McLeod was a player who had played under Adams at Colchester United, joining Albion on a Bosman free transfer on 1 July 2008.

“He is a left winger with good pace. He can deliver crosses and he offers a goal threat,” Adams told the media at the time. “At this level, he’s going to be a terrific signing for us.”

McLeod scored in only the second minute of a pre-season friendly against Worthing at Woodside Road and followed up three days later with two goals against Bognor.

When the proper League One action got under way at Gresty Road, Crewe, McLeod was on fire in the opening 45 minutes and Albion went on to win 2-1.

Three days later, Adam Virgo scored twice from McLeod corner kicks as Barnet were swept aside 4-0 in the League Cup. But McLeod picked up a knee injury in that game which forced him off just before half time. Some critics maintain he never properly recovered from it for the rest of his time with the Albion. In the middle of September, he had to undergo an operation on the troublesome knee.

He returned to the line-up after a month, in a 0-0 home draw v Peterborough, and in his Argus match report, Andy Naylor observed: “McLeod once again demonstrated his ability to deliver quality crosses, which is why he has been so badly missed.”

However, by his own admission, McLeod rushed back rather too soon, and playing when not properly fit didn’t do him any favours.

650057It didn’t seem to stop him being the joker in the pack during training, though, on one occasion taking the key to loan signing Robbie Savage’s Lamborghini and hiding it. Former teammate Jim McNulty remembered him as being “hilarious for so many different reasons”, adding: “He was funny when he meant to be, he was funny when he didn’t mean to be and he was funny when he told a story because we never knew whether it was true or false. We could have so much humour with him from so many different angles and he probably wasn’t even aware of 95 per cent of them.”

McNulty detailed one stupid stunt in an interview with express.co.uk: “Macca took the car keys from the pants of one of the young lads in the changing room and decided to drive his brand new 4×4 straight onto the training pitches, over the grass and locked it between two goals.

“The goals would get chained up so he pushed two goals over the top of this lad’s BMW and locked them together. It was hilarious watching the lad trying to unlock them from his car.”

Poster ‘Basil Fawlty’ opined on North Stand Chat: “He never recovered after that knee injury against Barnet. His wages could have been used on somebody decent who can actually play left wing!”

‘Finchley Seagull’ added: “Most of the time he was here he was being paid for being injured or useless” and ‘EssBee’ declared: “Never have I seen such an unlikely professional footballer than that bloke. He looked like a poor pub team footballer…barrel chested, ill-physiqued, he was like a tub of f***ing lard with no control, no nothing.”

McLeodWell-known Albion watcher Harty observed: “I cannot think of any player, in recent years, who had a better first 45 mins for the club, vs Crewe in August 2008… then had an Albion career peter out in the manner it did.”

‘Twinkle Toes’ agreed: “I remember marvelling in his performance that day at Gresty Rd. He was absolutely terrorising the Crewe right-back with his pace and ability: he looked absolutely awesome.

“How the hell could somebody with that kind of ability turn into the no-hoper we all know and loathe?”

wearebrighton.com summed him up thus: “Another player to be filed under the umbrella of players signed by Adams who just wanted money. You could see that McLeod had talent, he just couldn’t be bothered to use it.”

While he made 28 appearances in the 2008-09 season, he only appeared eight times in 2009-10 and by the time Gus Poyet was in the manager’s chair, he let McLeod join Wycombe Wanderers on loan.

After the move he further riled Brighton supporters by claiming the humble Buckinghamshire club had “a better squad than Brighton, better ground, better fans”.

McLeod played just 11 more times as a professional for the Chairboys before going on to join a Sunday League side in Colchester.

Born in Liverpool on 12 September 1980, McLeod joined Everton as a schoolboy in 1991 and did well enough to become part of a decent youth side before establishing himself in their reserves. In the 2000-01 season, he was player of the season as they topped the reserve league.

His form was recognised by manager Walter Smith who called him up to the first team and gave him five substitute appearances in the Premier League. He made his debut v Ipswich on 30 September 2000; called off the bench for the last 15 minutes when the Toffees were already 3-0 down.

His next two appearances, two months later, were happier, though: he featured in a winning team against Arsenal and Chelsea.

Fellow youth team product Danny Cadamarteri had already given Everton a second-half lead over the Gunners when, within a minute of McLeod’s introduction, Kevin Campbell sealed the points against his old club.

The following week, the same two goalscorers gave Everton a 2-1 victory against a Chelsea line-up including the likes of Marcel Desailly, Eidur Gudjohnsen and Gianfranco Zola.

McLeod reflected some years later: “That’s not bad to have on your CV is it? Being an Evertonian it was great.

“When you are on the same pitch as Dennis Bergkamp, Ashley Cole, Ray Parlour, Lee Dixon, Martin Keown and the rest of them you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“It was a good experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In my age group there was Cadamarteri, Leon Osman, Francis Jeffers, Tony Hibbert, George Pilkington and Peter Clarke.”

The Arsenal-Chelsea double was as good as it got for McLeod. He made two more substitute appearances that season, in defeats at Ipswich and Chelsea.

The following season he made his only start for Everton as a team-mate of Paul Gascoigne in a League Cup defeat on penalties at home to Crystal Palace on 13 September 2001.

The excellent toffeeweb.com probably hit the nail on the head in describing the rising star.

“He may fall into the Everton black hole for promising youngsters who are good… but just not quite good enough,” it said. “He only has one weakness, and that is within himself when he will sometimes hide in a game if things don’t go to well in the first 10 to 15 mins.”

McLeod only got one chance under Smith’s successor David Moyes, coming on as a last-minute sub in a FA Cup defeat v Shrewsbury Town on 4 January 2003.

Ten years later he admitted to the Liverpool Echo that things might have turned out different if he had been more responsive towards Moyes.

Instead, he joined QPR on loan between March and May 2003, helping them reach the second division play-offs before joining them permanently for £250,000 on 18 August 2003.

McLeod said: “I didn’t like it at first when I moved to London. I didn’t want to go but I sat down and talked about it with my family and they said you can stay here and work hard or go and play League football.

“I went away and enjoyed it and got promotions (in his first season with both QPR and Swansea).

1068376

“You look at Leon Osman and Tony Hibbert. They stayed there for the extra year and now they are playing week in and week out but I am not one of those people who looks too much at the past.

“I’d rather go forward. I made my decision and I live with it to this day.”

McLeod initially joined Swansea on loan in February 2005 and made 11 appearances as the Swans won promotion to League One. The move was made pemanent for a fee of £60,000 at the start of the 2005-06 season and he went on to make 52 appearances (14 as a sub), before the move to Colchester.

In November 2015, McLeod was in trouble with the law, appearing before magistrates in Colchester accused of assault.