Tag: Blackburn Rovers

Wembley hero Liam Dickinson’s nomadic football journey

HE’D SCORED a decisive play-off final goal at Wembley for Stockport County but a subsequent £750,000 move to Derby County didn’t work out for Liam Dickinson and Brighton signed him for £300,000 only a year after the Rams had shelled out that big money.

Dickinson didn’t even get a game for the Rams, instead being sent out on loan to Huddersfield Town, Blackpool (where he’d begun his career in their school of excellence) and Leeds United.  He was a player who didn’t stay in the same place for long; in total he featured for 23 different clubs.

Like many before and since, changes of manager were often the cause of him moving on. At Derby, for instance, he was signed by Paul Jewell, recalled from his loan at Blackpool by caretaker manager Chris Hutchings and eventually let go by Nigel Clough.

It had been intended he’d join Leeds in January 2009 but the necessary paperwork didn’t arrive until 14 minutes after the deadline! Further discussions led to a revised deal, but the move was called off because he was injured. He eventually joined up with United in the second week of March and although he scored in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Sheffield United (1-1), he didn’t get on the scoresheet in eight League One games (four starts, four as a sub) under Simon Grayson.

His first start was in a 3-2 win at Crewe and he managed three successive starts, in a 2-2 draw at Leyton Orient, a 1-0 win over old club Stockport and a 1-0 defeat at Leicester but he was not involved in the end-of-season play-offs when Leeds (with Casper Ankergren in goal) lost out to Millwall in the semi-finals.

An enclave of former Stockport teammates – James Tunnicliffe, Jim McNulty, Gary Dicker and Craig Davies – helped Dickinson to choose Brighton as his next club

After Brighton boss Russell Slade welcomed the 6’4” forward to Withdean on a three-year contract, he told the club website: “He brings something different to the table. His goalscoring record is very good and he has a good goals-per-game ratio, and like one or two of the other signings I have made this summer, he is hungry to get his career back on track. I’m sure there is a lot more to come from him.”

He scored in his third and fourth games for the Albion, but both came in defeats against former clubs: the first in a 7-1 capitulation to Huddersfield and the next in a 4-2 defeat to Stockport.

He was on the scoresheet in the home 3-3 draw against Hartlepool (Nicky Forster scored Albion’s other two goals) that spelled the end of Slade’s tenure as manager. But it is what happened two days later that many will remember him for.

Unluckily for him, he was pictured carrying a seemingly comatosed young woman in his arms in the middle of Brighton at 1am. The Sun newspaper was covering a renowned student pub crawl ritual at the time and didn’t realise who they’d snapped.

Eagle-eyed Albion supporters did, though, and, after discussion about the incident on fans’ forum North Stand Chat, The Argus picked up the story, running an article headlined ‘Samaritan Brighton and Hove striker scores an own goal’.

For his part, Dickinson told reporter Ben Parsons how he was on his way home after a meal out in the city when he helped a girl to a car waiting to pick her up.

He said it was simply a coincidence that he was helping the girl when the photos were taken, adding: “I saw two girls holding another girl up. She collapsed in front of us. Her mum or her auntie picked her up in a car. I picked the girl up and put her in the car.

“I didn’t want to just leave her. Anybody else would have done the same thing.”

Albion said they would deal with the matter internally. Dickinson was omitted from the squad for the following game, a 4-4 FA Cup draw with Wycombe Wanderers with caretaker manager Martin Hinshelwood in charge, but he was back in the fold for Gus Poyet’s first game as Slade’s replacement.

In the televised away game at Southampton, he went on as a sub for Forster in Albion’s 3-1 win at St Mary’s. Dan Harding, Dean Hammond and Adam Lallana were in the Saints side.

Dickinson got occasional starts under Poyet but more often than not was sent on as a sub to replace either Glenn Murray or Forster.

Given a start in the FA Cup second round win over Rushden and Diamonds, he scored twice, in the third and 86th minutes, as Albion edged the tie 3-2. He was preferred to Murray in a Boxing Day clash with Leyton Orient that finished goalless but, perhaps to prove a point, two days later the restored Murray hit four at Wycombe in a 5-2 Seagulls win.

Dickinson was back on familiar territory at Edgeley Park in January 2010, but only got a half an hour run-out as a sub against his old club (replacing another former County man in Dicker) as the game finished 1-1, Andrew Crofts salvaging a point with a 90th minute equaliser.

In a 1-1 draw at Leyton Orient, Dickinson started the game and, when he was denied a penalty, incandescent Poyet was sent from the dug-out for protesting.

“If you ask anyone, they will tell you it was a penalty and a red card,” Poyet maintained afterwards. “The referee is 10 yards away and he doesn’t give it. You’ve got a chance to score a penalty and it’s 2-0. It’s a different game.”

Dickinson took to the field against another of his former clubs in Huddersfield wearing distinctive ‘banana yellow’ boots. “I don’t like dull, boring colours. I like to brighten the pitch up a bit. I’ve had a bit of stick off the lads,” he told The Argus.

The striker, who’d scored six goals in 13 games for the Terriers while on loan, didn’t manage to get on the scoresheet and was replaced by Murray as the game petered out to a 0-0 draw.

At that stage, Dickinson was deputising for Forster who was out of favour with Poyet over a contract dispute.

As the Uruguayan began to bring in his own selections, such as on-loan Kazenga LuaLua, Dickinson chose to go on loan to Championship strugglers Peterborough United, who were managed by his former Stockport boss Jim Gannon. Dickinson scored three in nine games for Posh. On his return to Brighton, he was sold to Barnsley, who were in the Championship at the time, for reportedly half the fee paid out for him just a year earlier.

Tykes boss Mark Robins declared: “He is different to the strikers we have here already and will give us something else up front.

“He is only 24 and still has room for improvement. He has a decent scoring record both in the Championship and in the lower leagues.

“Liam fits in to what we are trying to do here both in terms of on the pitch and within our budget.”

But he made just one start, in a League Cup match, and three sub appearances in the league for Barnsley when his old Derby caretaker manager, Hutchings, took him on loan to Walsall. He didn’t find the net in seven League One games.

Next stop, from January to the end of the season, was Rochdale, the side against which he had scored that 2008 League Two play-off final winner.

But a goalless run of 14 games (seven starts and seven off the bench) prompted this comment from AtThePeake on fansnetwork.co.uk in 2021: “In terms of expectation versus reality, few signings can have disappointed Rochdale fans quite like the loan signing of Liam Dickinson in January 2011.”

The supporter wrote: “Dale were looking for someone to become the fulcrum of an attack that included Chris O’Grady drifting in from the left and the emerging Matt Done playing as a second striker.

“Having seen first-hand the threat Dickinson could be with his aerial prowess, strength and touch in front of goal, Dale fans were reasonably excited that the answer to their striker problem had been found, but it quickly became apparent that the struggles with Derby and Barnsley had affected Dickinson’s confidence.

“During his spell, Dickinson was all too easy to defend against, struggled to hold the ball up and lacked any cutting edge when it came to finishing the chances he did manage to fashion for himself.”

A projected move to Plymouth Argyle was called off after just eight days, with personal reasons being cited, but the nomadic striker’s next stop was League Two Southend United under Paul Sturrock, where he netted 12 goals in 37 matches (33 starts plus four as a sub).

Dickinson scored a dozen times for Southend United

Not for the first time, he found himself in the headlines for the wrong reason when he and two others were reprimanded for a breach of club discipline over an unspecified incident at a hotel the evening before a match at Morecambe.

A broken ankle brought a premature end to his season with the Shrimpers, and it proved problematic in trying to continue his league career elsewhere.

He trained with Port Vale but even his agent Phil Sproson was quoted as saying: “Liam will admit he has been no choirboy in the past.

“He has had quite a few clubs and that’s probably because he has been no angel.

“He is loud and vocal and has had too many nights out over the years – but he has matured.

“He realises he will have to change and toe the line because he has a darker side that has dragged him down in the past.”

As it turned out, he was eventually out for a year because his broken ankle didn’t heal properly. He played two pre-season friendlies for Vale in 2013 but manager Micky Adams didn’t take him on because of ongoing problems with the ankle.

Born in Salford on 4 October 1985, Dickinson was originally a centre-half when he was on the youth books of Blackpool, Bolton and Blackburn. He stepped away from professional football at 16 and studied to be a graphic artist but continued to play in non-league sides. He appeared for Irlam, Swinton, Trafford and Woodley Sports before he was taken on as a pro by Stockport in 2005 after a successful trial.

He scored on his County debut, only five minutes after going on as a 71st-minute sub against Cheltenham Town at Edgeley Park. In three years under Jim Gannon, he hit 33 goals in 94 appearances.

The 2007-08 season was his most prolific term as a league player, netting 21 times from 32 starts and six games from the bench. It also earned him Stockport’s Player of the Year award.

It was to Stockport, then in the Conference North league, that he returned in 2013, but he only managed one goal in 13 games before returning to the non-league arena.

Between 2014 and 2019, he turned out for Stalybridge Celtic, Guiseley, Bradford Park Avenue, FC United of Manchester and finally Droylsden before calling it a day.

In an online chat with Stockport County Live towards the end of the Covid lockdown, in August 2020, Dickinson opened up about his mental health, admitting he’d been through a period when he was suffering with depression.

Post playing, he told his interviewer, he was working installing signage for a print company.

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.

Brighton trial was curtain call for Fred Pickering’s career

PROLIFIC goalscoring centre-forward Fred Pickering, who at his peak scored hat-tricks on his Everton and England debuts, ended his career after an unsuccessful two-month trial with Brighton.

Pickering was a transfer record signing for Everton (the previous season’s league champions) when he joined them from Blackburn Rovers for £85,000 in March 1964.

On his debut for Harry Catterick’s side, he scored three past Nottingham Forest’s Peter Grummitt in a 6-1 thrashing.

Eight years later, a player who’d played for his country and, but for injury, might have been involved in the 1966 World Cup, scored once for Brighton’s reserve side: in a 3-0 home win over Colchester United on 8 March 1972.

Brighton won promotion from the old Third Division two months later thanks in no small part to 19 goals scored by Kit Napier and 17 from Willie Irvine (Pickering’s former Birmingham City teammate Bert Murray netted 13 and Peter O’Sullivan hit 12).

Throughout the season, manager Pat Saward had been hankering for something a bit extra in the forward line. While he appreciated the skill of Napier and Irvine, he said “none had the devil in him. We wanted more thrust.”

Pickering was the second seasoned striker Saward had run the rule over, wondering whether their experience of goal plundering at the highest level several years before might be revived in third tier Albion’s quest for promotion.

Earlier in the season, he tried recruiting an ageing Ray Crawford but contract issues with the player’s last club, Durban City, meant the former Portsmouth, Ipswich, Wolves and Colchester centre-forward ended up joining the staff as a scout and coach instead.

In February 1972, 31-year-old Pickering, by then not even getting a game in Blackburn’s Third Division side, was given a chance by Saward to show he still had the goalscoring ability he had demonstrated so effectively earlier in his career.

Photographs of a rather heavy-looking Pickering training appeared in the Evening Argus and the former England striker was interviewed on Radio Brighton (as it was then) about his illustrious career. Although he played for the reserves, he wasn’t deemed fit enough to make it into the first team.

Saward eventually got the thrusting forward he sought on March transfer deadline day when he signed Tranmere Rovers’ Ken Beamish, who, at 24, was younger and fitter, and quickly endeared himself to Albion fans by scoring a handful of late goals which helped clinch promotion.

But what of Pickering? Born in Blackburn on 19 January 1941, he played junior football in his hometown before joining Rovers as an amateur aged 15.

As a schoolboy, he’d been an inside forward (a no.8 or no.10 in today’s parlance) but he was a full-back when he signed as a professional for Rovers on his 17th birthday.

Indeed, he was at left-back in the Rovers side that won the FA Youth Cup in 1959, beating West Ham United 2-1 on aggregate over two legs.

Alongside him for Rovers were future Spurs and Wales centre-half Mike England and Keith Newton, who also later moved to Everton and played for England at the 1970 World Cup. West Ham included Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst in their line-up.

With the likes of Dave Whelan and Bill Eckersley ahead of Pickering in the Blackburn pecking order, his chances of a first team breakthrough were limited.

But after a successful outing for the reserves up front, and with wantaway Irish striker Derek Dougan dropped, Pickering was given a chance as a centre forward – and he never looked back.

He scored twice in a 4-1 win over Manchester City and went on to strike up successful partnerships with Ian Lawther, initially, and then Andy McEvoy.

“It was a big turning point for me to be playing centre forward,” Pickering told the Lancashire Telegraph. “Especially when you consider in 1961, Dally Duncan (Blackburn manager, and later Brighton guesthouse owner) told me that Plymouth wanted me and that I was free to leave. I didn’t want to go because Blackburn was my club.

“I only left in the end because the club wouldn’t give me a rise of a couple of quid. It was absurd.”

By then Pickering had scored 74 goalsin158 appearances – some strike rate – which meant he always held a special place in the hearts of the Ewood Park faithful, as reporter Andy Cryer described in a 2011 article for the Lancashire Telegraph.

“Had fate been kinder to him he could easily have been a national darling too,” wrote Cryer.

“When hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst was firing England to World Cup final glory in 1966, an injured Pickering was left reflecting on what might have been after an incredible journey took him from Rovers reserves to international stardom.”

Pickering, nicknamed Boomer for his powerful right foot, had scored five goals in three England appearances and looked set for inclusion in England’s 1966 World Cup squad having been named in Sir Alf Ramsey’s provisional selection.

But he suffered a knee injury in an FA Cup quarter final replay against Manchester City which not only caused him to miss Everton’s FA Cup final win that Spring, but also meant he had to withdraw from the England squad. Cryer reckons it also led to the subsequent demise of his career.

Pickering told the reporter: “I played three games for England and I scored in every game I played, I scored five goals and I was playing well. I was named in the World Cup squads. I was going and from that day it was the following weekend when the knee started to go.

“I watched all the Brazil games at Goodison. England struggled in their first game against Uruguay and that is when Jimmy Greaves got injured.

“Obviously that is how Hurst got in, he wasn’t even really in the set up before. There was every chance if I had been fit it that might have been me who had got in. I wouldn’t say I would have done what Geoff Hurst did but you never know what might have happened.”

Pickering had made his England debut two months after moving to Everton, in a 10-0 demolition of the USA on 27 May 1964. It was the same match that saw future Albion manager Mike Bailey play his first full international for his country. Roger Hunt went one better than Pickering by scoring four, Terry Paine got two and Bobby Charlton the other. Eight of that England side made it to the 1966 World Cup squad two years later – alas Pickering didn’t.

The same scoring rate he had enjoyed at Blackburn continued at Everton and in his first full season he scored 37 goals in all competitions – the most by an Everton player since Tommy Lawton scored 38 in 1938-39.

In three years with the club, he scored 70 times in 115 matches but his exclusion from the 1966 FA Cup final squad soured his relationship with manager Catterick, as covered in detail by the efcstatto.com website. Injuries disrupted his involvement at the start of the following season, and a cartilage operation put him out of action for nearly six months.

Although he made his comeback in March 1967, his Everton days were numbered and, in August 1967, moneybags Birmingham City bought him for £50,000 to form a hugely effective forward line with Barry Bridges and Geoff Vowden.

Pickering and Bridges played in all 50 of Birmingham’s matches in the 1967-68 season; the aforementioned Bert Murray 47. Bridges was top scorer with 28 goals and Pickering netted 15.

The Second Division Blues made an eye-catching run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, but they lost 2-0 to West Brom (who went on to beat Everton 1-0 in the final).

The following season, Pickering scored 17 times in 40 appearances (Phil Summerill also scored 17, and Jimmy Greenhoff 15) but City finished a disappointing seventh.

That signalled the end of the striker’s time in the Midlands and he returned to his native north west with Blackpool, who paid £45,000 for his services.

It was money well spent as Pickering top-scored with 18 goals as the Tangerines won promotion back to the elite, finishing runners up to Huddersfield Town. His most memorable performance was on 13 April 1970 when he scored a hat-trick away to local rivals Preston North End in front of a Deepdale crowd of 34,000. It earned Blackpool promotion while simultaneously relegating North End to the third tier.

But the 1970-71 season didn’t go well for Blackpool or Pickering. The club got through three managers and only won four matches all season, which eventually saw them finish bottom of the pile and relegated along with fellow Lancastrians Burnley. Pickering found himself fined and excluded for breaches of club discipline (mainly involving missing training) and before the season was over he was sold back to his first club, Blackburn.

That was a blow to Preston, who had just loaned Willie Irvine to Brighton and were keen to install Pickering as his replacement. But it was to Rovers, for £9,000, that he went, but he couldn’t prevent the Ewood Park outfit being relegated to the third tier.

He scored just twice in 11 League games in his second spell at Blackburn before that two-month trial at Brighton.

After he retired from football, he became a forklift truck driver. Warm tributes were paid when Pickering died aged 78 on 9 February 2019. Well-known football obituarist Ivan Ponting said of him: “At his rampaging best, Fred was an irresistible performer.

“Though neither outstanding in the air, nor overly-physical for a man of his power, not even particularly fast, he could disrupt the tightest of defences with his determined running and a savage right-foot shot that earned him the nickname of ‘Boomer’.

“Boasting nimble footwork for one so burly – he could nutmeg an opponent as comprehensively as many a winger – he was especially dangerous when cutting in from the flank, a manoeuvre that yielded some of his most spectacular goals.”

In March 2022, a road in the Mill Hill district of Blackburn, where he lived all his life, was named after him and his family spoke of their pride as they unveiled the street sign in his honour.

A lifetime in football for Mike Trusson the enforcer

MIKE TRUSSON has spent a lifetime in football since Plymouth Argyle spotted his raw teenage talent, took him on as an apprentice and gave him his professional debut at 17.

After playing more than 400 matches over 15 years, he became prominent in football marketing, coaching and scouting, often in association with his good friend Tony Pulis, who he played alongside at Gillingham after leaving the Albion.

As recently as late 2020 he was assistant manager to Pulis for an ill-fated brief spell at Sheffield Wednesday.

Much fonder memories of his time in the steel city were forged when he was twice Player of the Year at Sheffield United.

In an exclusive interview with the In Parallel Lines blog, Trusson told Nick Turrell about his time with the Seagulls, his first coaching job at AFC Bournemouth and the formative years of his career.

A goalscoring home debut for Mike Trusson

A MOVE TO SUSSEX in the summer of 1987 ticked all the right boxes for Mike Trusson.

An experienced midfielder with more than 300 games under his belt already, he welcomed the opportunity to be part of the rebuilding job Barry Lloyd was undertaking at the Goldstone following the club’s relegation back to the third tier. He was one of seven new signings.

The move also brought him a whole lot closer to his family in Somerset than south Yorkshire, where he’d lived and played for seven years.

And it gave him the chance to earn more money.

The only problem was he had a dodgy left knee – it was an injury that prevented him making his first team debut for the Seagulls for four months, and it troubled him throughout his first season.

Frequent leaping to head the ball had resulted in a torn patella knee tendon that had needed surgery during the latter days of the player’s time at Rotherham United, where for two years his manager had been the legendary former Leeds and England defender Norman Hunter.

Prior to the injury, Blackburn Rovers had bid £200,000 to sign him, but nothing came of it and a contractual dispute with the Millers (who were not keen to give him what he said he was entitled to because of the injury) led to him being given a free transfer (Hunter subsequently signed former Albion midfielder Tony Grealish).

Trusson fancied a move south to be nearer his folks and had written to several clubs, Albion included, who he thought might be interested in his services (these were the days before agents).

Although Millwall and Gillingham had shown an interest, it was a call from Martin Hinshelwood, Lloyd’s no.2, that saw Trusson head to Sussex for an interview where he met the management pair, chairman Dudley Sizen and director Greg Stanley.

Trusson looks back on the encounter with amusement because not only did they agree to take him on but they offered him more money than he was asking for because they said he’d need it in view of the North-South disparity in property prices.

“Brighton was a big club. Only four years earlier they’d been in the Cup Final and some of those players from that time were still at the club,” he said. “From my point of view, it was a big career move. It ticked all the boxes.”

Initially Trusson shared a club house in East Preston with fellow new signings Kevin Bremner, Garry Nelson and Doug Rougvie before moving his wife and daughter down and settling in Angmering, close to the training ground (Albion trained at Worthing Rugby Club’s ground at the time).

Before he could think about playing, though, he had to get fit. Scar tissue after the operation on his knee had left him in a lot of pain, and although he passed his medical, the pain persisted.

New physio Mark Leather told him straight that he wouldn’t be able to train, let alone play, with the leg in the condition it was. It had shrunk in size due to muscle wastage so his first two months at the Albion were spent building it back up and regaining match fitness in the reserves.

In the meantime, former full-back Chris Hutchings was keeping the no.8 shirt warm until he finally got a move to Huddersfield that autumn.

Trusson recalled: “I was aware there was a rebuilding process going on. It was a very different group to ones I’d experienced at other clubs. A lot of the lads travelled down from London so there was not much socialising.”

There was certainly lots of competition for places during his time at the club. Sometimes Dale Jasper would get the nod over him and he could see Lloyd preferred the ball-playing types like Alan Curbishley and Dean Wilkins, and later Robert Codner and Adrian Owers.

“I thought if I was going to play, I had to change,” Trusson reflected. “I became more of a midfield enforcer and left it to the better players to play.”

As such, he was surprised yet delighted to score on his home debut, albeit, more than 30 years on, he doesn’t remember much about it.

For the record, it was on 12 December 1987, in front of a rather paltry 6,995 Goldstone Ground crowd, that Trusson scored the only goal of the game against Chester City as Albion extended an unbeaten run to 15 matches. (Chester’s side included former Albion Cup Final midfielder Gary Howlett, who was on loan from Bournemouth).

In that injury-affected first season, he played 18 games plus seven as sub. He had been on the subs bench for three games as the season drew to an exciting climax, but he was not involved in the deciding game when Bristol Rovers were beaten 2-1 at the Goldstone.

Teaming up with Garry Nelson against Arsenal in the FA Cup

When the 1988-89 season got under way, Trusson was on the bench for the first two league games and he got a start in a 1-0 defeat away to Southend in the League Cup. After the side suffered eight defeats on the trot, Trusson was back in the starting line-up for the home game v Leeds on 1 October and Albion chalked up their first win of the season (1-0).

Unsurprisingly, Trusson kept his place for the next clutch of games, although Curbishley returned and kept the shirt for an extended run.

It wasn’t until the new year that he won back a starting place but then he had his best run of games, keeping the shirt through to the middle of April.

The previous month he was sent off (above) in the extraordinary match at Selhurst Park which saw referee Kelvin Morton award five penalties in the space of 27 minutes, as well as wielding five yellow cards and Trusson’s red. Four of the penalties went to Palace – they missed three – but they went on to win 2-1 against the ten men. Manager Lloyd said: “I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in such a crazy game – we could have lost 6-1 but were unfortunate not to gain a point.”

Looking back, Trusson reckoned: “I was always conscious I wasn’t Barry’s type of player.” With a gentle but respectful sense of understatement, he said: “He was not the most communicative person I have met in my life!”

In essence, perhaps not surprisingly, Trusson would seek an explanation as to why he wasn’t playing when he thought he deserved to, but it wasn’t always forthcoming. He recalled that defender Gary Chivers, who he was reunited with at Bournemouth and who he stays in touch with, used to call Lloyd ‘Harold’ after the silent movie star!

Nevertheless, he said: “Tactically Barry was a good manager. When he did talk, he talked a lot of sense.”

It was during his time at Brighton that Trusson started running end-of-season soccer schools for youngsters. He was honest enough to admit they gave him an opportunity to earn a bit of extra money to put towards a holiday rather than laying the foundations for his future career as a coach.

That was still a little way off when, at 29, he left the Albion in September 1989 having played 37 games. By then, Curbishley, Codner and Wilkins were firmly ensconced as the preferred midfield trio, and he wanted to get some regular football. Cardiff wanted him but his family were settled in West Sussex so he opted for Gillingham, which was driveable, although he stayed in a clubhouse the night before matches.

It was at Priestfield where he began to establish a close friendship with Tony Pulis, who was winding down his playing career and was similarly commuting to north Kent (from Bournemouth).

“We had always kicked each other to bits when we played against each other but often ended up having a drink and a chat afterwards, and got on,” said Trusson. “We were also keen golfers, and both talkers; we had our views (even if we didn’t always agree) and the friendship developed.”

This is a good point to go back to the beginning because it was his early appreciation of the art of coaching that would ultimately become the foundation for what followed later.

Born in Northolt on 26 May 1959, Trusson had trials with Chelsea as a schoolboy but a bout of ‘flu put the kibosh on any progress. It also wasn’t helped by the family relocating to Somerset, not a renowned hotbed for nurturing football talent.

The young Trusson went to Wadham Comprehensive School in Crewkerne and his hopes for another crack at professional football were given a huge boost when a Plymouth Argyle vice-president, who was involved with the local youth football side he played for, organised for him to have a trial at Home Park.

Argyle liked what they saw and offered him an apprenticeship, and the excellent greensonscreen.co.uk website details his career in the West Country.

It was Trusson’s good fortune that former England goalkeeper Tony Waiters – a coach ahead of his time – was Argyle boss and he gave him a first team debut aged just 17 in October 1976.

Waiters was a great believer in giving youngsters their chance to shine at an early age; he’d already worked for the FA as a regional coach, for Liverpool’s youth development programme, and been manager of the England Youth team, before being appointed Argyle manager. He later went on to manage the Canadian national team at the 1986 World Cup.

Waiters and his assistant Keith Blunt, who later took charge of the Spurs youth team in the 1980s (and was technical director at the English National Football School at Lilleshall between 1991 and 1998) together with Bobby Howe, the former West Ham and Bournemouth defender, completely opened Trusson’s eyes to what could be achieved through good coaching.

“They were in the vanguard of English coaching in the mid to late ‘70s,” he said. “I joined Plymouth as a kid having never been coached. Growing up in Somerset, we just used to play games.

“From when I was 15 to 17, they taught me so much, talking me through so many aspects of the game, and coaching me to understand why I was doing certain things on the pitch, giving advice about things like timing and angled runs.”

In an Albion matchday programme interview, Trusson told reporter Dave Beckett: “They kept us in a youth hostel and looked after us really well, even providing us with carefully planned individual weight and fitness programmes.

“Certainly you couldn’t fault them on their ideas. Out of the 20 apprentices I knew brought on by the scheme, 17 made the grade as pros. That’s an astonishingly high return by anybody’s standards.”

Although Argyle were relegated in his first season, Trusson kept his place under Waiters’ successors in the hotseat: Mike Kelly, Lennie Lawrence and Malcolm Allison. Bobby Saxton was in charge by the time he left Plymouth in the summer of 1980 to join then Third Division Sheffield United.

He was signed by Harry Haslam but, halfway through a season which it was hoped would see Blades among the promotion contenders, things went horribly wrong when Haslam moved ‘upstairs’ and former World Cup winner Martin Peters took over the running of the team. United were relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in their history.

Peters and Haslam quit the club and former Sunderland FA Cup Final matchwinner Ian Porterfield, who had just won the Division Three title with Rotherham, took charge.

Player of the Year at Sheffield United

Blades bounced straight back as champions, losing only four games all season, and Trusson was their Player of the Year. He earned the accolade the following season as well, when they finished 11th in Division Three.

The side’s prolific goalscorer at that time, Keith Edwards, a former teammate who now works as a co-commentator covering Blades matches for Radio Sheffield recently told the city’s daily paper The Star: “He was such a likeable character in the dressing room.

“I had a great understanding with him. He was a great team man, good for the dressing room and could play in a lot of positions. Every now and then he got himself up front with me and he worked his heart out.

“He looked after you as a player, he could be a tough lad. We played Altrincham one week and he got sent off for whacking someone that had done me a previous week. He was handy.

“And he was such a good character to have in the team.”

After three years at Bramall Lane, and 126 appearances, (not to mention scoring 31 goals), he was then swapped for Paul Stanicliffe and, instead of involvement in a promotion bid, found himself in a relegation fight at Rotherham United.

Trusson enjoyed his time with the Millers under George Kerr and over four years he played 124 games and chipped in with 19 goals. It was a regime change, and the aforementioned injury, that saw life at Millmoor turn sour.

A brief spell playing for Sing Tao in Hong Kong followed the end of his time with Gillingham and on his return to the UK his pal Pulis, who had taken over as Bournemouth manager from Harry Redknapp, invited him to become youth team coach at Dean Court.

Linking up with former Gillingham teammate Tony Pulis at Bournemouth

“I loved it and, when David Kemp moved on, I got the opportunity to coach the first team,” he said.

“We were very young and we were struggling to avoid relegation,” he recalled. “We kept them up and it was great experience. We both learned so much and we spent a lot of time together.”

When Pulis was sacked, Trusson was staggered to be offered the job as his replacement but turned it down out of loyalty to his friend.

The pair have since worked together at various clubs. For example, he was a senior scout at Stoke City and head of recruitment at West Brom.

“I’ve worked for him as a scout at pretty much every club he’s been at,” said Trusson, who cites trust, respect and judgement as the attributes Pulis saw in him.

Trusson was also once marketing manager for football-themed restaurant Football, Football in London – he managed to woo Sean Bean, the actor who is a well-known Blades fanatic, to the opening – and he had a marketing job for the PFA.

He runs his own online soccer coaching scheme and was working as a European scout for Celtic when, in an unexpected return to football’s frontline in November 2020, he was appointed assistant manager of Sheffield Wednesday.

Assistant manager at Wednesday

Pulis replaced Garry Monk at Hillsborough and turned to Trusson as his no.2. In that interview with The Star, Edwards said: “He’s a great lad. I was slightly surprised to see him get the job at Wednesday, but it was completely understandable.

“He’s a clever bloke, knows his football and has stayed in the game all this time, which is to his credit. His experience of scouting, coaching and having played in several different positions makes him a massive asset to any football club, I’d say.”

Edwards recalled how his former teammate had an eye for coaching from a young age. “He was always keen to get into that, he always wanted to lend a hand to the coaches,” he said.

“Some players would get off as quickly as they could to their families or whatever they were doing with their time. He wasn’t like that, he bought into the club thing. Some players were always around the place and he was like that, very understanding and willing to help out.

“I had massive fall-outs with the odd person, you know how it is, but I never saw Truss like that. He was always so calm and understanding of other people’s opinion. That’s how and why he’s stayed in the game throughout all this time. That either comes naturally to you or it doesn’t.

“I remember he always had a way of talking to people, whether that’s players or fans or board members or coaches. That’s stuck with him today.”

Bradley Johnson always liked a pop from long range

Bradley Johnson scores on his debut v Leicester (photo Simon Dack)

THE COCA-COLA Kid’s cousin was an instant hit when he joined seventh-from-bottom Brighton on loan from second-placed League One rivals Leeds United in October 2008.

Bradley Johnson, who’d heard about the Seagulls from his relative Colin Kazim-Richards, scored twice on his debut as the Seagulls turned round a 2-0 half-time deficit to beat Leicester City 3-2.

“I hadn’t played for two months and Micky (Adams) asked if I was fit and I admitted I wasn’t match fit, but he said he would throw me in anyway,” Johnson recounted.

“The two goals I scored gave me great confidence as a player, but the win helped everyone,” he said. “On the night, the fans were immense and the result gave us all a good boost.”

In an Argus interview in March 2021, Johnson recalled: “I was a young boy from Leeds coming into a struggling team against a team who were flying so it was a bit daunting for me.

“I didn’t know what to expect but, as debuts go, I don’t think it could have gone any better.

“Anyone who knows me knows I like a shot and I’ve always had that since a young age. Some don’t go where planned but thankfully on that night they did.”

Albion had failed to score in their three previous games, against Hereford, Peterborough and Hartlepool, and soon found themselves 2-0 down to City courtesy of two Matty Fryatt goals.

Adams hauled off a somewhat better known loanee – the ineffective Robbie Savage – at half-time, along with wideman Kevin McLeod, and the changes galvanised the Albion in the second half.

Right-back Andrew Whing reckoned the withdrawal of Savage might have helped Johnson to shine. “Maybe he’d felt a bit in Robbie’s shadow up until that point,” he told Spencer Vignes. “But he really stepped up in the second half and scored twice, one of them an unbelievable strike. We needed a spark and that was it.

“Bradley deserved a lot of credit that night. He’d come to us from Leeds and he just took responsibility, scored twice and got us back into it. He really made an impression.”

After Johnson’s pair of long range strikes past David Martin in the Leicester goal, City defender Jack Hobbs sealed a memorable comeback for the Seagulls when he diverted Joe Anyinsah’s cross past his own ‘keeper.

It was a tad ironic that Johnson should have scored against Leicester too because at the start of that year he came very close to signing for them but couldn’t agree terms and ended up at Leeds instead.

Five days after his impressive Albion debut, Johnson was on the scoresheet again as Adams’ side beat Millwall 4-1 at the Withdean Stadium (Glenn Murray, two, and Dean Cox, the other scorers).

Kazim-Richards, whose £250,000 transfer from Bury to Brighton had been paid for via fan Aaron Berry winning a competition organised by the soft drink giant, had already moved on to Fenerbahçe in Turkey via Sheffield United by the time Johnson arrived in Sussex.

But he said: “My cousin Colin had played there so I knew Brighton and I knew a few lads, and that it was a good place to be. But it was Micky that really sold the place to me and I just wanted to play. That is all I wanted to do; I didn’t look at the side’s league position. I just wanted to be a part of what Micky spoke about and help the club beat relegation.”

Unfortunately, the mini revival in the autumn of 2008 didn’t continue although Johnson was on the winning side again when, in his 10th and last game for the Albion, two Nicky Forster goals earned a 2-0 win at Swindon Town, spoiling Danny Wilson’s first game in charge of the Robins (Peter Brezovan was in goal for Town).

By then, Johnson, who’d lost his place at Leeds following an injury, had scored four times for the Albion (some records show he scored twice in a 4-2 home defeat to MK Dons, others that the second Brighton goal was netted by Stuart Fleetwood).

Somewhat gallingly, Johnson was next seen at Withdean less than three weeks into the new year – back in the fold with Leeds as they took all three points in a 2-0 win on 17 January 2009.

“When I was out on loan, Leeds were struggling and when I went back Gary McAllister got the sack. Simon Grayson came in and I didn’t know where my future lay, but Grayson told me I had a part to play and it was down to me to train hard and prove myself,” he said.

“He was true to his word, and I kept my head down, then I ended up coming back to Brighton and played against them for Leeds. It was a bit surreal to be in the away dressing room, but that is football.”

Johnson became a regular at Elland Road for the next two years and was part of the Leeds side who won promotion to the Championship in 2010, as well as earning headlines in memorable FA Cup ties against Premier League opposition.

In particular, in a third round replay against Arsenal at Elland Road in January 2011, Johnson scored a spectacular goal for the home side although they lost the tie 3-1.

Having spent five years on Arsenal’s books as a promising youngster, it was a bittersweet moment for Johnson who said afterwards: “It was a goal I’m not going to forget. I’m an Arsenal fan myself and so are all my family.”

On the transfer list at the time because he couldn’t agree a new deal with Leeds, he eventually got the chance he craved to play in the Premier League that summer when he moved to newly promoted Norwich City, where his teammates included Elliott Bennett and Andrew Crofts.

It was Canaries boss Paul Lambert who sold the club to him at the time but he also sang the praises of his successor, Chris Hughton.

Johnson joined the Canaries

“Hughton did come in with a different style of play,” he told pinkun.com. “He was very tactical. He was mindful that we were playing in the Premier League against good players whereas Paul Lambert wouldn’t care, if we were playing Manchester United, he’d say ‘if they score two, we’ll score three’.

“Different approaches, different ideas and different philosophies. People weren’t happy with the way he played but we finished 11th. I can only speak for myself, but I really enjoyed my time there and Chris is a great manager.”

He added: “Credit to him when he got the sack because he stuck by his morals and got Brighton promoted.”

After three seasons in the Premier League, the 2014–15 Championship season was one of Johnson’s most successful seasons with the Canaries: he became vice-captain to Russell Martin, appeared in 44 of the 46 league matches (including one appearance as a sub) and scored 15 goals.

He was voted fans’ Player of the Year and was part of the side that won the play-off final 2-0 against Middlesbrough to ensure City won back their Premier League place.

However, unable to get a place in Alex Neil’s side back among the elite, he switched to Derby County for £6m in September 2015.

That was the start of seven more seasons in the Championship: after 140 appearances over four years with the Rams, he moved on a free transfer to Blackburn Rovers, where he made 86 appearances over three seasons.

He eventually left Ewood Park at the end of the 2021-22 season and in the summer of 2022 joined MK Dons on a free transfer.

Johnson scored both goals as MK Dons turned round a disappointing start to the season by beating Port Vale 2-1 in their fourth match.

Johnson interviewed after scoring twice for MK Dons

Born in Hackney on 28 April 1987, Johnson was on Arsenal’s books from 1997 to 2002 but was released aged 15.

“Like any kid, being released from a club was horrible and I didn’t really feel like going back on a round of trials with other professional clubs, so instead I just played locally in Leyton.

He went to Ryman Premier side Waltham Forest but when he was 17 was invited for a trial at Cambridge United. He signed on a non-contract basis for eight months and was then offered a professional contract.

Johnson attracted suitors when playing for Northampton Town

But Northampton Town had been tracking him. “They made me a counter-offer which I accepted and that is where my career began,” he said.

That was in May 2005, and after he had been out on loan to gain experience at Gravesend & Northfleet and Stevenage Borough, he became a regular starter under Stuart Gray and his performances attracted scouts from clubs further up the league.

When that aforementioned move to Leicester fell through in January 2008, a few days later Leeds stepped in and paid a £250,000 fee for him.

He played in the same Leeds side as Casper Ankergren that lost the 2008 League One play-off final 1-0 to Doncaster, but picked up a back injury in pre season that led to him being sidelined. Although he returned to fitness, the side was doing well in his absence which meant he was unable to force his way back in. And then the chance to play competitive football was presented by the Albion.

Why Shane Duffy is forever grateful to Everton

SHANE DUFFY has seized the opportunity to re-establish himself at the heart of Brighton’s defence to the obvious delight of the manager who appeared to have shunned him.

With injury sidelining Dan Burn and Covid-19 isolation protocol ruling out Joel Veltman, Duffy stepped up with a solid performance in the season-opener at Burnley, and a goalscoring return to the Amex in the 2-0 win over Watford.

“It was a fantastic header from Duffy, he’s a monster in the box,” boss Graham Potter told the BBC after the televised Watford match. “He is so big and strong to stop – it was a great goal.”

Duffy’s form has been a reminder of the solid centre-back partnership he formed with Lewis Dunk as the bedrock of Brighton’s promotion from the Championship in 2017.

Although a metatarsal injury in a 3-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest meant he missed out on the run-in, Duffy was obviously confident of being restored to the line-up when the Premier League season got under way.

“I’m looking forward to going back to Everton to see a few mates but they’re all going to be big games,” Duffy said in a matchday programme article. “I feel more ready for it than I was four or five years ago at Everton, and I deserve another crack at it, but I know I’ve got to work hard.”

While additions to the squad were to be expected as the Albion sought to stay among exalted company, the Duffy-Dunk pairing at the back didn’t look much like being broken up. Certainly not under Chris Hughton.

Happy with his mainstays at the heart of the defence, Hughton allowed Connor Goldson to leave for Glasgow Rangers and Uwe Hünemeier to return to Germany and Duffy was comfortable alongside Dunk as Albion retained their top division status. And so it remained for Albion’s two first two seasons back amongst the elite.

But when Potter replaced the popular Hughton in 2019, it soon became apparent Duffy didn’t fit the mould of the sort of ball-playing centre-back he wanted in the side.

Although he started the season under Potter, his place was gradually taken over by big money signing Adam Webster. Duffy invariably ended up warming the bench and at the start of the 2020-21 season, with Ben White preferred alongside Dunk and Webster, he jumped at the chance to go on loan to Glasgow giants Celtic, the team he’d supported as a boy.

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be quite the dream move Duffy had hoped for, with criticism arrowing in from all quarters as the Republic of Ireland international underwhelmed in the centre of the Hoops defence, and Celtic could only watch as city rivals Rangers won the Scottish title.

Doubtless the irony wasn’t lost on Duffy that his first match back in a Seagulls shirt saw him up against Rangers in a pre-season friendly, when the home fans ensured he was given a ‘warm’ reception.

But let’s go back to where it all started.

Born in Derry, Northern Ireland, on 1 January 1992, Duffy was playing for Northern Ireland Under-16s against England in the Victory Shield when he caught the eye of watching Everton boss David Moyes.

Duffy had been playing for his local side, Foyle Harps, at the time and, although Arsenal took him on trial and offered him a scholarship, Everton invited him to train with them and offered him a professional contract immediately.

“Of the two clubs, I just had a good feeling about Everton; obviously it was more of a family club, and there’s also the Irish connection with the city of Liverpool, so it was easy for me to settle in,” Duffy told the matchday programme.

In his second season at Goodison Park, he made his first team debut aged just 17 in a Europa League match against AEK Athens.

“David Moyes handed me my debut and I owe him a lot because he always had belief in me, whereas I could have gone somewhere else and maybe ended up back in Ireland,” he said. “I was raw as I hadn’t been with an academy before, but he was patient with me, as were all the coaches, and I came through the youth team and reserves before I got my break in the Europa League and then later in the Premier League.”

Duffy played against Brighton when the third-tier club’s youngsters (with Dunk in defence) acquitted themselves brilliantly in the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup against Everton at the Withdean on 21 January 2010 before eventually losing 2-0. The programme pen picture said of him: “Strong in the tackle and dependable in the air, Shane is considered a ball-playing defender.”

Duffy recalled: “I’d just turned 18 and had recently broken into the Everton team in the Europa League. I do remember Dunky a little bit because we were marking each other at corners.”

A month after his visit to Withdean, Duffy decided to switch allegiance to the Republic having previously captained Northern Ireland’s Under-19s. It came just as he was selected for the full international squad to face Albania in a friendly in Tirana where he was expected to receive his first cap in the absence of captain Aaron Hughes (who later spent a season with Brighton) and Chris Baird.

Disappointed Northern Ireland boss Nigel Worthington told The Guardian: “There is a loophole where a player can walk away after a lot of time and investment has gone in. Until it is resolved, that’s where we are. Shane has represented Northern Ireland all the way through from a very early age to the Under-21s.

“I am a big admirer of Shane. I like him as a player and a lot of work has gone in with different coaches. I am disappointed with the situation as he is going to be a very good player. Shane has decided, after discussing the matter with his family, to represent the Republic. As a manager, I have got to respect that.”

Duffy, who had close family ties to Donegal in the Republic, said the decision to switch his allegiance from Northern Ireland was the right thing to do to help his international career.

Speaking to evertontv, Duffy said:“It was difficult for me to leave because of what they’ve done for me in Northern Ireland since I was young. They brought me through the ranks which gave me the chance to come to Everton.

“It was hard to leave all the coaches and all the players, but it was always a case of wanting to come to my own country. I spoke to a couple of people about it because I didn’t want to disrespect Northern Ireland, but I just had to do what was best for me and I thought it would be best for me to switch.”

Astonishingly, in his first-ever training match with the Republic, under manager Giovanni Trapattoni, he was involved in a freak collision that lacerated his liver and emergency surgery was required to save his life as he lost a huge amount of blood.

After a speedier-than-expected recovery, Duffy was soon lining up for the Republic’s Under-19s and Under-21s and he went on to make 20 appearances for the Under-21s.

In 2012 he was called up to the senior squad to replace the injured Richard Dunne but missed out on the squad for the 2012 Euros. He had to wait until June 2014 to make his full debut and it was another two years before he was next involved.

He was called up to the side who famously beat Italy in a 2016 Euros group match to qualify for the final 16 but was then sent off as the Republic bowed out 2-1 against France. Nevertheless, under Martin O’Neill, Duffy became established in the side and in March 2018 was named his country’s Player of the Year. He told the matchday programme: “When I heard the news, I was shell-shocked, but when it sunk in it gave me time to reflect on how far I’ve come in a short space of time.

“So much has happened: the Euros, failing to reach the World Cup in the play-offs, winning promotion with Brighton, playing in the Premier League.

“The manager noticed a difference in me when he brought me back into the side two years later, and that’s because I went away, played games and I worked hard. I got myself properly fit, dedicated, and I feel like I’ve benefited from that.”

Reflecting on the experiences given to him by Hughton and O’Neill, Duffy pointed out: “Chris has given me the chance to play in the Premier League where I’m developing, and Martin has given me the chance to play on the big stages and in a big tournament.

“You take little things out of each one of them and it’s coming together a bit now, and hopefully there’s more to come. I’m still a bit raw in some things I do but I’m getting better and it’s a nice feeling to go out knowing you can compete with top players and feel comfortable.”

Duffy went on to captain the Republic for the first time in a 1-1 draw against Denmark in November 2019 and retained the captaincy in Stephen Kenny’s first game in charge, in September 2020; a 1-1 draw against Bulgaria.

As an established international, Duffy has nearly 145,000 followers on Twitter.

Looking back, by his own admission, Duffy had realised his early exposure to senior football at Everton was going to be short-lived, telling the club’s website at the time: “I know I’m not ready to play in Everton’s first team yet as I’m so young but if I’m needed I’ll do my best for the team. A loan would obviously make me better and make me more mature on the pitch.”

Initially that loan came at Burnley in the Championship, but he only played one game under Eddie Howe and, in 2011-12, he had a more fruitful loan at League One Scunthorpe United, playing 19 games under Alan Knill.

An injury to Phil Jagielka prompted Everton to recall Duffy from Scunthorpe in January 2012 and a week after playing against Hartlepool he found himself going on as a substitute for Sylvain Distin against Spurs at White Hart Lane.

Spurs had Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Emmanuel Adebayor in their line-up but Duffy said: “I refused to get overawed by the occasion. I just treated it as another football match, another opponent, and only afterwards did I take in what had happened.”

He said: “Everton are a club that will always mean a lot to me because they gave me my chance as a professional and shaped the player I am today. David Moyes was a big influence on my career; he helped me a lot.”

Duffy spent the 2013-14 season on loan at Yeovil – “another fantastic learning curve for me” – when Gary Johnson’s side were in the Championship and although Moyes’ successor Roberto Martinez offered Duffy a new contract at Everton, he was warned he would have to wait to establish himself because he was still young and inexperienced.

So, in the summer of 2014, he decided to join Paul Lambert’s Championship side Blackburn Rovers and, while a knee injury restricted his appearances in his first season at Ewood Park, he became a permanent fixture alongside Grant Hanley in 2015-16.

When Gordon Greer’s imposing reign as Brighton centre-back and captain came to an end in 2016, Hughton turned to Duffy as his replacement (Greer went back to Rovers). The fee was undisclosed but was reported in The Mirror to be £4m.

It remains unclear where Duffy’s future lays although his performances in the opening two games of the season suggest there could yet be a future for him under Potter. The manager didn’t hold back in his praise for the big Irishman, but the defender didn’t get carried away.

Duffy opened up to the media after the win at Burnley, talking about what he’d been through over the previous 12 months, but he pointedly added: “It is only one game and a lot can still happen, but as long as I am here I’ll try and help the team whether that’s on the pitch or off the pitch with the younger lads. That is what I am here to do.”

He said he had “hit rock bottom” when affected by off-field problems (for example, his father Brian died aged 53 in May 2020), but he praised the Seagulls for continuing to offer him support and he added: “I am still taking it day by day and be like an 18-year-old try and impress every day, try and improve and try and help as much as I can. I feel like if you do that you get the reward sometimes when maybe you don’t expect it.”

Duffy also spoke openly and honestly to Sky Sports as part of the build-up to the game against Watford.

Pictures from Albion’s matchday programme and online sources.

Benno’s quick route to the top after ‘fantastic’ Albion chapter

SEVENTEEN GOALS in 100 appearances don’t tell the whole story of Elliott Bennett’s two seasons as a Brighton player.

Russell Slade signed him in August 2009 from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £200,000, but it was under the guidance of Gus Poyet that he flourished and was a stand-out performer when Albion won promotion from League One in 2011.

Not only was he chosen by his fellow professionals in the PFA League One team of the year (along with teammates Gordon Greer and Inigo Calderon), he was Four Four Two magazine’s League One Player of the Year.

Always diplomatic in interviews about personal achievements, typically he said: “If you win awards, it’s nice personally but you have to remember you can’t win them without your teammates. If I’m setting up goals, then it means our strikers are on their game as well as they’re getting on the end of my crosses.”

In a matchday programme feature, he added: “These individual awards really are not possible unless you have a good team around you, so this award is really on behalf of the whole squad and coaching staff.”

Bennett acknowledged the impact Poyet made on improving him as a player. “Gus has given me different roles to play throughout the season. I’m a lot more aware as a player as a result and I’m better with the ball now. There’s still lots for me to work on, but the gaffer has really brought my game on. I definitely owe him a lot.”

In another matchday programme article, he once again paid tribute to Poyet, his assistant Mauricio Taricco and coach Charlie Oatway. “I feel like I’m improving all the time and I owe so much to the coaching staff: the gaffer and Tano, while Charlie has got my head right. I used to beat myself up if I gave the ball away but Charlie has stamped that out of me. Technically, all three have helped me and I’ve also been playing in the middle a bit more, which has added another string to my bow.”

Bennett continued: “While I’m known for being a winger, my link-up play has also improved this season, which has really pleased me. I’m now more involved and it’s important that I keep on learning. The gaffer will always pull me to one side if he sees something that can help improve me – which he does with everyone – and then it’s a case of trying to replicate that on a match day.

“When you’ve got a gaffer who’s played the game at the highest level, you can only learn from him – and if you didn’t listen you’d be pretty stupid.

“I’ll play anywhere for the good of the team – I’ve even played right-back this season, but I must admit that I do prefer playing in a more advanced role where I can create things for the team. Whether that’s right wing, the left wing or even behind the strikers I don’t mind. I just love being involved.”

Bennett’s impact wasn’t confined to games, either. He and Liam Bridcutt used to visit Westdean Primary School, near Withdean, where they listened to youngsters reading. His wife, Kelly, worked for the club too.

Aware they had a hit property on their books, Albion awarded Bennett a new three-and-a-half-year deal in November 2010, when Poyet told the club website: “Elliott has been a good pro and has earned this new contract.

“He has shown he is capable of playing in a number of positions, he enjoys playing our style of football and I think he will continue to get better as a player.”

For his part, Bennett said: “Gus is a big factor for me. I will always be grateful to Russell Slade for signing me, but the current gaffer has brought his own style of play.

“I have really taken to the club ever since I arrived from Wolves last summer. I feel I have grown up as a person and developed as a player.”

Unfortunately for Brighton, Bennett’s superb contribution drew plenty of admirers and, when Norwich City offered £1.9million to give him the chance of Premier League football, the lure was too great to resist for player and club.

While his promoted teammates looked forward to Championship football in the brand new Amex Stadium, Bennett joined Paul Lambert’s Canaries to test his talent at the highest level.

Bennett told HITC Sport’s Alfie Potts Harmer: “Brighton was a fantastic part of my life and a fantastic chapter of my career, I loved every minute of it.

“When we won the title there, League One was full of teams who are now flying, you look at Southampton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield, it was a strong League One that year, and we played some fantastic stuff.

“The stadium coincided with promotion and I’d just signed a new contract. I think I would have stayed there for many years had it not been a Premier League move, but I don’t regret moving to Norwich. When an opportunity like that comes you have to take it as a player. You don’t know if it will come again.”

Lambert was delighted to land the youngster having previously had a bid to sign him in January that year rejected. “He is a young and exciting player with plenty of pace,” Lambert told the Norwich website. “He can play in a wide position or in behind the forwards, he’s a quick lad and he’s got a winning mentality.

“He played his full part in what Brighton achieved last season and that desire to succeed will stand him in good stead here.”

Bennett declared: “It’s an unbelievable opportunity for me to fight for a place in a team which will be playing in the Premier League.

“I like the mentality at Norwich City that has seen them get back-to-back promotions and I’m grateful to Paul Lambert for giving me the chance to be part of what’s happening at the club.

“I didn’t make it through at Wolves, which was my home-town club, and Brighton gave me the opportunity and I’m grateful for that.

“Now I’m just really excited about the chance to try to help Norwich in the Premier League.”

Bennett certainly seized the opportunity and in his first season was delighted to score the winning goal in Norwich’s 2-1 win over Spurs at White Hart Lane. He’d played 57 games in the Premier League when his career suffered a major hiatus. In the first home game of the 2013-14 season, against Everton, he sustained a cruciate injury which ruled him out of all but the last game of that campaign, as City were relegated.

Frustrated by the lack of starts at Norwich as they began life back in the Championship, Bennett was happy to return to the Seagulls on loan as Sami Hyypia tried various permutations to get some wins on the board.

Bennett received a warm reception from the Seagulls supporters as he stepped out at the Amex for a home game against Wigan Athletic on 4 November and helped the side to their first win in eight matches.

Unfortunately, the upturn in fortunes was all too brief and, although Bennett’s loan was extended by a second month, six winless games saw Hyypia exit the hotseat. “I had nothing but respect for him,” Bennett later told The Athletic. “He gave me an opportunity, after a big injury, to get out and play some football. He didn’t have to bring me back. I was thankful for that. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.”

Bennett’s final appearance came in the memorable 2-0 win over Fulham under caretaker manager Nathan Jones.

He returned to Norwich just as Alex Neil was taking over from Neil Adams as manager and was part of the squad who won promotion back to the Premier League via a play-off win over Middlesbrough.

But back in the elite, first team opportunities were limited and during the first part of the 2015-16 season Bennett went out on loan again, this time to Bristol City, where Steve Cotterill was the manager.

Bennett made 14 appearances for the Robins but soon after his deal expired in January 2016, a £250,000 fee saw him move permanently to Blackburn Rovers, where, from the start of the 2019-20 season, he became club captain, and he continued to be a well-respected part of Tony Mowbray’s set-up.

Bennett has certainly endeared himself to the Rovers supporters and has even been hailed as a modern-day ‘Mr Blackburn’ by website roverschat.com, who lauded his contribution to the club.

“Elliott Bennett’s evergreen positivity, fan interactions, and trademark fist pump were key in improving the culture at Rovers, as the dark, grey clouds over Ewood Park that had called it home since 2011 ever so slowly began to dissipate.

“His leadership has been a key contribution, as even when he is not playing for Rovers, he still is managing to inspire others to become the best version of themselves.”

One of those times spent out of the side came when Bennett tested positive for Covid-19 in May 2020 although the player said he didn’t feel unwell, and typically was thinking of others when interviewed about it.

“There seems to have been a lot of hysteria about footballers returning to training, but it’s not a big deal at all,” he said. “It’s the people who are seriously ill in hospital that we need to worry about, not footballers who are fit and healthy, and who aren’t showing any signs of being unwell.”

The popular Bennett is an active participant on social media and has 76,000 followers on Twitter.

In the summer of 2021, he moved to League One Shrewsbury Town, just 15 miles from Telford where he was born on 18 December 1988,

Bennett first showed his talent playing for local Telford team Hadley Juniors. Wolves scouts Les Green and Tony Lacey spotted him and invited him to train with the club’s under sevens and under eights. Remarkable as it sounds, he was offered a contract at the age of nine! “From then I just worked my way up through the age groups,” he told wolves.co.uk in a January 2019 article.

“The coaching was fantastic, the level of care we got was outstanding and we had the chance to travel the world. We got to go to Holland, we went to Japan, and it was a fantastic experience for me. Going to Japan and winning the under-12 World Cup was probably one of my favourite memories I have from the playing side of the academy.”

At Thomas Telford School, Bennett captained the school team as they won the county cup five years in a row. He was also a talented 200m runner who represented Shropshire at sprinting.

After leaving school to go on a scholarship at Wolves, he signed professional in 2007.

“The biggest moment for me was being given my professional contract,” he said. “I always dreamt of one day being able to pull on that gold and black shirt and play at Molineux, and thankfully I did.”

He got a taste of first team action in pre-season matches, scoring after only five minutes in a 3-2 win at Hereford United, and in 2007-2008 he made two appearances for the first team in the League Cup.

Mick McCarthy gave him his first competitive start in a 2-1 win over Bradford City on 15 August 2007 but he was replaced by Stephen Ward at half-time, and on 28 August was in the Wolves side humbled 3-1 after extra time by lowly Morecambe.

Although he was involved with the first team squad for some league matches, he didn’t get any game time, but gained experience going out on loan, initially playing 11 games at League One Crewe Alexandra, and later featuring in 19 League Two games for Bury.

He spent the whole of 2008-09 on loan with Bury, scoring three goals in 52 matches.

It must have been quite a wrench for Bennett to contemplate moving away from the club he’d been associated with for 14 years, but it was a former Brighton striker, the then Wolves assistant manager Terry Connor, who persuaded him to spread his wings and move to the Albion, as he revealed in a Football the Albion and Me interview.

He explained that he’d still got two years left on his contract at Wolves and being very much “a home person” he’d not considered leaving home in Telford, 20 minutes away from Wolverhampton.

“I remember Terry pulling me into his office and saying ‘Look, I went to Brighton in a similar position to yourself, you’ve got to go out and forge your own career. Become a man, become a person, don’t be Elliott Bennett from the academy at Wolves. You’re Elliott Bennett the professional footballer, create your own path.’

“And from that conversation I thought ‘You have to take the shackles off and go and try something different’ and you can’t really get a much better place to live than Brighton, as I later found out. It turned out to be the best decision I have made since I started playing.”

The week before he signed, he went to watch Albion away at Huddersfield…..and saw his new employer thrashed 7-1. Luckily, he’d made up his mind to join before the game!

“I was a guest of Tony Bloom,” he said. “I had a good chat with him before the game and he told me the vision. He told me where he wanted to take the club. I was blown away to be honest. I couldn’t wait to get started.”

Pictures from Albion matchday programmes and various online sources.

Dean Saunders raised cash for Brighton and Liverpool

IT’S NOT often Brighton and Liverpool have had something in common but, when it came to striker Dean Saunders, they both sold him to raise money. And they weren’t alone.

In the Albion’s case, it happened in 1987 when manager Barry Lloyd was forced to cash in on the free transfer signing to raise £60,000 to go towards players’ wages.

For their part, five years later, Liverpool let the Welsh international depart Anfield for £2.3m because boss Graeme Souness wanted the money to buy a central defender.

When Saunders was remarkably transferred for £1m from the Maxwell-owned Oxford United to the Maxwell-owned Derby County, it prompted former Brighton and Liverpool defender Mark Lawrenson to quit as boss at the Manor Ground after he’d been promised there would be no transfers likely to weaken his squad.

Saunders’ long and much-travelled career began in Swansea, the place where he was born on 21 June 1964, the son of former Swansea and Liverpool wing-half Roy Saunders.

He attended GwrossydJunior School and was soon appearing in the school football team on Saturday mornings and playing minor football in the afternoons. He went on to Penlan Comprehensive in Swansea and his career began to blossom, playing in the school team at all levels under sports master Lee Jones, a former British gymanstics champion. Saunders played for the Swansea Schools representative sides at under 11, 13 and 15 levels.

“I can remember enjoying watching the Swansea players train when I was a lad,” he told Tony Norman in an Albion matchday programme article. “I was lucky because my dad was the assistant manager, so I could go to pre-season training and things like that.

“I used to kick a ball around on the sidelines and dream of playing for Swansea.” That dream turned to reality after he joined the Swans in 1980 as an apprentice (when John Toshack was the manager), turned professional in 1982, and made his debut in the 1983-84 season. He scored 12 times in 49 appearances but in his final year had a goalless four-game loan at Cardiff City.

Manager John Bond released him on a free transfer after a turbulent season in which the Swans only narrowly avoided relegation to the basement division and Chris Cattlin, who’d been impressed when he saw Saunders playing for Swansea Reserves at the Goldstone Ground, snapped him up for Brighton.

“I was amazed when the Welsh club let him go for financial reasons,” Cattlin wrote in his matchday programme notes for the opening game of the season. “He is young, quick and, if he works hard, he has a great chance.”

By the end of that season, Saunders had scored 19 goals in 48 league and cup games and was voted player of the season. His performances in the second tier for the Albion caught the eye of the Welsh national team manager, Mike England, and on 26 March 1986 Saunders made his full international debut for Wales as a substitute in a 1-0 win away to the Republic of Ireland. It was the first of 75 caps.

Saunders scored his first international goals when he netted twice in a 3-0 friendly win over Canada in Vancouver on 19 May 1986, after which England said: “He goes past defenders with his tremendous pace and his finishing against Canada was a revelation.

“The experience he gained at Brighton has done him the world of good. To finish top scorer in his first full season of Second Division football tells its own story.”

Saunders, who shared a house with Albion’s young Republic of Ireland international Kieran O’Regan, said being happy at home had helped him to settle down quickly.

“I liked Brighton from the day I arrived,” he said in a matchday programme article. “It reminds me of my home town of Swansea and I like living by the sea.”

A lover of all sports, Saunders revealed how he liked to play cricket in the summer, when he turned out for Haywards Heath, and he played snooker with O’Regan and Steve Penney.

That summer, Saunders told Shoot! magazine: “I had both cartilages out of my left knee at 18 and had both Swansea and Cardiff turn me down. I’ve had my share of the downs. From the moment I joined Brighton, my career has turned for the better.”

The young striker continued: “Swansea just gave me away – despite the fact that I was top scorer in a team coming apart. Cardiff City gave me a few games but always seemed to have reasons for not playing me consistently when I was on loan there.

“So, I had every incentive to make the break from Welsh football and I joined Brighton. Brighton can go places.

“I was disappointed that we didn’t make the First Division first time around. But all the lads are convinced that we will get there next season. I’ve been given a three-year contract so there are tremendous incentives to do better.”

It didn’t work out that way, though. After only a mid-table finish, Cattlin was sacked and there were rumblings of financial issues beginning to reverberate around the corridors of the Goldstone. Alan Mullery returned as manager but had limited funds to invest in the team, and, with echoes of the Pat Saward era back in the early ‘70s, the club turned to fans for financial help to bring in players.

After Mullery’s unseemly swift departure halfway through the season, former Worthing boss Lloyd took over and fans were completely mystified as to how he could leave out Saunders in favour of Richard Tiltman, who Lloyd had plucked from local football. Since then, it has been suggested his omission was more to do with money than football ability.

There was great consternation that Albion collected only £60,000 when Lloyd sold Saunders to Oxford in early March 1987, especially as the Seagulls were fast hurtling back to a level of football they’d manage to avoid for ten years.

That was no longer a concern for Saunders who recovered the goalscoring touch he’d shown during his first season at the Goldstone Ground, scoring 33 goals in 73 games for Oxford before being sold to Derby for £1m against Lawrenson’s wishes 19 months after arriving at the Manor Ground.

A popular goalscorer for Derby

Meanwhile, the goals kept flowing for Saunders as he netted 57 in 131 games for Derby. The side finished fifth in the old First Division by the end of Saunders’ first season with the Rams, and he’d contributed 14 goals. The Derby Telegraph noted: “From the moment ‘Deano’ arrived, the players were inspired and the crowd enthused. The signing also suited the post-war tradition of 5ft 8in goalscoring heroes at the Baseball Ground – Raich Carter, Bill Curry, Kevin Hector and Bobby Davison.

“Derby fans were too wise to comment on height. What mattered was Saunders’ speed, eel-like turn and persistence. He scored six in his first five games, starting with two against Wimbledon when he captured supporters’ hearts with the immediacy of a Kevin Hector. A close-in header and long-range right-footer were beautiful appetisers.”

Despite Saunders scoring 24 goals for Derby in 1990-91, the side was relegated and Saunders and teammate Mark Wright were snapped up by Liverpool. Reds paid £2.9m to take Saunders to Anfield, boss Souness believing he’d be an ideal strike partner for their established Welsh international striker, Ian Rush.

Saunders made his Liverpool debut on 17 August 1991 in a 2-1 win over Oldham Athletic (Mark Walters and defender Wright also played their first league games for Liverpool); Ray Houghton and John Barnes scored Liverpool’s goals.

Saunders scored his first goal for the Reds 10 days’ later in a 1-0 win over QPR at Anfield but a Liverpool history website reckons he struggled to adapt to Liverpool’s passing game. “He was used to Derby’s counter-attacking style, scoring many of his goals by using his exceptional pace,” it said. “Saunders wasn’t very prolific in the league with about one goal every four games but flourished in the UEFA Cup with nine goals in five matches that included a quadruple against Kuusysi Lahti.”

Saunders scored twice in Liverpool’s successful FA Cup campaign, which culminated in them lifting the trophy at Wembley after beating Sunderland.

Although he scored twice in seven games at the start of his second season at Anfield, a cashflow issue meant Souness was forced to sell him to raise funds to dip into the transfer market.

Saunders explained: “Graeme called me in one day and told me he needed a centre-half [Torben Piechnik], and that he could raise the money by selling me to Aston Villa.

“I couldn’t believe he was prepared to let me go, but he said he didn’t think my partnership with Ian Rush had worked out, and Rushy wouldn’t be the one going anywhere. That was it.” 

Saunders had scored 25 goals in 61 appearances for Liverpool, the last coming in a 2-1 home win over Chelsea (Jamie Redknapp scoring the other Liverpool goal) on 5 September 1992.

Among the goals again at Aston Villa

The Welshman had the last laugh, though, because only nine days after his departure from Liverpool he scored twice in Villa’s 4-2 victory over the Reds.

“Obviously I had a big incentive to do well today and I’m thrilled to have scored,” said Saunders. “Both my goals went through the goalkeeper’s legs.”

Signed by Ron Atkinson, Saunders spent three seasons at Villa, initially developing a formidable strike partnership with Dalian Atkinson, and then pairing up with Dwight Yorke. Saunders’ brace in the 1994 League Cup final helped beat Manchester United 3-1.

Villa history site lerwill-life.org.uk remembers him as “a spring-heeled attacker and very popular with the supporters” and adds: “Not big in size, he was very speedy and scored some spectacular goals including a 35-yard spectacular against Ipswich.”

His time at Villa Park came to an end when Brian Little took over as manager, and Saunders was reunited with his old Liverpool boss Souness in Turkey. A £2.35million fee took him to Galatasaray for the 1995-96 season and he netted 15 goals in 27 Turkish League matches.

Next stop for Saunders was back in the UK at Nottingham Forest, but the 1996-97 was an unhappy one as the manager who signed him, Frank Clark, was sacked in December after a bad run of defeats and Forest’s slide towards relegation continued under Stuart Pearce and Dave Bassett.

Sharpshooter for the Blades

By the time Forest had bounced straight back up, Saunders had left the club, moving in December 1997 to second-tier Sheffield United for a year under Nigel Spackman and caretaker managers Russell Slade and Steve Thompson. United made the play-offs but lost out to Sunderland in the semi-finals. In December 1998, Saunders moved abroad again to link up with Souness a third time, at Benfica in Portugal.

Up front for the Bantams

The following summer, he returned to England and joined Bradford City, where his former Brighton teammate Chris Hutchings was assistant manager, then briefly manager. Saunders was a regular in his first season at Valley Parade, when the Bantams managed to narrowly avoid relegation from the Premier League, but he played only a handful of games in 2000-01, when they were relegated. Saunders retired as a player shortly before his 37th birthday and became a coach at Bradford before linking up with Souness again, this time as a coach.

He joined him at Blackburn Rovers and then Newcastle United, but when Newcastle sacked Souness early in 2006, Saunders lost his job as well.

In the following year he began taking the Certificate in Football Management course run by the University of Warwick; and this led to him being granted his UEFA Pro Licence coaching badge, a qualification that allowed him to be appointed as assistant to John Toshack with the Welsh national team. 

In October 2008, Saunders replaced Brian Little as manager of Wrexham, newly relegated to the Conference. He eventually managed to steer the north Wales outfit into the play-offs in the 2010-11 season, but they were knocked out by Luton Town and, in September 2011, Saunders was appointed manager of then Championship club Doncaster Rovers.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t save Rovers from relegation and they went back down to League One with only 36 points from their 46 League fixtures.

Having guided Rovers to second place in League One, Saunders was appointed manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers in January 2013, but he couldn’t prevent them being relegated from the Championship and he was sacked three days after relegation was confirmed courtesy of a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Gus Poyet’s Albion.

Suffering relegation with Wolves

Saunders told the media after the game: “We have to get some players in who think like I’m thinking, who want to win, fresh minds, no damage done to them, no confidence issues, no ‘been here too long’ issues, no ‘I don’t know if the manager likes me’ issues. Once I get my own team on the pitch, imagine what the supporters will be like.”

Saunders, with only five wins from his 20 games in charge, didn’t get that chance and rather ruefully said of his opponents that day: “A few years ago they were bankrupt and without a stadium, but they’ve shown what is possible and, with the momentum, they have could well get into the Premier League.”

Just after Christmas 2014, Saunders was named as the interim manager of Crawley Town after the previous incumbent John Gregory stood down for health reasons.

Saunders then became manager of League One side Chesterfield on 13 May 2015 but his stay there lasted only five months.

In June 2016, Saunders was part of the BBC pundit team for their coverage of the Welsh national team’s games at Euro 2016 and made the headlines during the tournament when it was revealed that he had incurred parking charges of over £1,000 from Birmingham Airport’s short stay car park as he wasn’t expecting Wales to progress as far as they did. The charge was eventually waived by the airport who asked him to make a donation to charity instead.

His subsequent involvement in football has been as a pundit on BT Sport’s Saturday afternoon Score programme as well as on the radio with talkSPORT. He hit the headlines in 2019 when he was jailed for failing to comply with a roadside breath test but the initial punishment was quashed and changed to a suspended sentence. Via the League Managers’ Association, Saunders issued a statement in which he said: “I made a terrible error of judgment for which I have been rightly punished, and I wholeheartedly regret that it happened.”

Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and various online sources.

Burnley graduate Ronnie Welch briefly captained the Albion

welch and wilsonTHE FOOTBALLING fortunes of two graduates from Burnley’s famous talent academy of the 1970s took quite different paths after the legendary Brian Clough signed them for Brighton.

While left-back Harry Wilson stayed for four years and enjoyed promotion success under Alan Mullery, midfielder Ronnie Welch left the club less than a year after he’d joined, ‘used’ (together with fellow midfielder Billy McEwan) as a makeweight in the transfer of Ken Tiler to the Albion.

The early signs following Welch’s arrival on the south coast had been positive. Although he and Wilson’s debuts at home to Aldershot on Boxing Day 1973 ended in a 1-0 defeat, results gradually picked up and, at the tender age of 21, Welch even found himself captaining the Albion in the absence of skipper Norman Gall.

Clough had turned to them as he tried to sort out a side who’d experienced a series of heavy defeats (the now-infamous 8-2 home loss to Bristol Rovers; a 4-0 reverse v non-league Walton & Hersham in the FA Cup, and a 4-1 loss away to Tranmere Rovers).

The tale of how Clough turned up at Turf Moor to sign them one lunchtime, only to find the place deserted apart from groundsman Roy Oldfield, has been recounted in said groundsman’s memoirs.

A fee of £70,000 for virtually untried youngsters was quite a lot of money in those days.

Midfielder Welch took over the no.4 shirt previously worn by Eddie Spearritt, who’d started the season as the club captain, and Wilson replaced George Ley, a big-money signing from Portsmouth the season before.

wilson and R WelchWelch stood just 5’6½” tall and weighed 10st 7lb, but Evening Argus football writer John Vinicombe was suitably impressed. His match report of the 1-0 home defeat to Aldershot was unearthed by thegoldstonewrap.com, and we learned: “After a subdued first-half, Welch had a storming second half against the Shots, impressing with his energy.”

Vinicombe reckoned Welch wasn’t as extrovert as Wilson “but is no less involved in midfield and has a fine turn of speed. He made one mistake through trying to play the ball instead of hoofing it away, but this can only be described as a ‘good’ fault.”

For a while, the Albion midfield featured the two Ronnies — Welch and Ronnie Howell became Clough’s preferred pairing — although Spearritt replaced the former Swindon player for a short spell, and competition for those spots hotted up at the end of February with the arrival of fiery Scot McEwan from Blackpool.

In his 10th match in Albion’s colours, Welch scored his first goal as Brighton beat Blackburn Rovers 3-0 in front of a 12,102 Goldstone crowd on 23 February 1974 (Barry Bridges scored twice), and he was on the scoresheet again in the 3 April 1974 midweek evening home game v Cambridge United, as the visitors were dispatched 4-1 (Bridges, McEwan and Howell the other scorers).

Clough was happy to give Welch the responsibility of captaining the side in Gall’s absence, although thegoldstonewrap.com reported: “Unfortunately, the burden of being skipper at such a young age affected his form for the side.”

Nevertheless, after Clough quit the Albion in July 1974, leaving his old sidekick in sole charge, Welch was in the starting line-up for the new season.

Ronnie W 74 pre-seasonAlbion got off to a cracking start with a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, and Welch played in the opening eight matches. But results didn’t go Taylor’s way and he shook up the midfield by introducing the experienced Ernie Machin, the former Coventry City captain, and also brought in Coventry’s Wilf Smith on loan.

Welch filled in at right-back for three matches and his last involvement in an Albion shirt was as a non-playing substitute away to Gillingham on 26 October.

Ever one for wheeler-dealing, Taylor had his eye on right-back Tiler at Chesterfield, but he had to exchange Welch and McEwan to land his man.

Welch had been born in Chesterfield on 26 September 1952, so it no doubt suited him down to the ground to move back home.

RW ChesterfieldHe was at Chesterfield for three years during the managerial tenure of the former Sheffield United legend Joe Shaw, but only played 24 games.

Welch at BostonIn the 1978-79 season he popped up at non-league Boston United where he played 39 matches plus four as a sub and scored four times.

It must have all seemed a long way from the heady days when he graduated from apprentice through to the Burnley first team. He featured three times for the England Youth team in February and March 1969 and Burnley awarded him a professional contract in September that year.

At the time, Burnley had a reputation for bringing through a succession of talented young players.

RW BurnleyHis breakthrough came on 30 January 1971, in a home 1-1 draw against Newcastle United, but it was to be his only appearance in the first team. There were a number of established midfield players ahead of him: the likes of Doug Collins, Mick Docherty and Martin Dobson, and later Geoff Nulty and Billy Ingham

While Welch may have ‘disappeared’ in a footballing sense, when in June 2019 a picture of him was posted by someone on a Chesterfield FC history Facebook page – the excellent Sky is Blue – a flurry of followers came forward to identify him, including his daughter and sister! It was said he now lives in the New Whittington area of Chesterfield.

Goal-shy journeyman striker Leon Best drew derision

FOR SOMEONE purporting to be a striker, Leon Best fired blanks at a good many of the clubs he played for.

Such was his time at Brighton where he failed to get on the scoresheet in 13 games (six as a starter, seven as a substitute).

When he featured for AFC Bournemouth in the third tier, he fared slightly better. He managed three goals in 14 starts plus three as a substitute when on loan from Premier League Southampton during the 2006-07 season.

The somewhat derogatory phrase ‘journeyman’ was tailor-made for the likes of Best, who appeared for 13 different league clubs, failing to score for five of them and only registering double figure tallies at three.

Brighton supporters, on the whole, are normally supportive of anyone who appears for their team, but feelings boiled over at Best’s apparent lack of desire when pulling on the Seagulls stripes.

He was part of the struggling 2014-15 side which narrowly avoided the drop from the Championship, and I recall him being booed when he came on as a substitute at the Amex. On reflection, of course, such derision was unlikely to improve his demeanour.

The keyboard warriors of North Stand Chat weren’t slow to vent their anger, with one correspondent suggesting: “We’ve not seen much in the way of desire, endeavour, hunger or appetite from someone you would hope feels he has something to prove.”

Chris Hughton had not long been in the manager’s chair when he was casting around for players to help Albion climb away from the foot of the table.

Perhaps not unreasonably, he turned to a player who’d scored goals for him in the Premier League during his time at Newcastle United.

Hughton told the Argus: “I know Leon very well, having signed him during my time at Newcastle and I am delighted to have him here.

Screen Shot 2021-06-10 at 14.55.50“He is a strong, physical presence, he knows the Championship and knows the position we are in. We wanted new faces, to freshen up the squad, and Leon will add competition alongside our existing strikers.

“I signed him previously at Newcastle. I know he can be a very good player and he did very well for me both in the Championship and Premier League. He also had a very good spell with Newcastle after I left the club.”

Best scored 10 in 46 games for the Magpies but, at his next club, Blackburn Rovers, he managed only two in 16, hence them sending him out on loan.

While Best had scored five in 16 playing on loan at Sheffield Wednesday in 2013-14, he scored a big fat zero in 20 games for Derby County earlier in the 2014-15 season so perhaps expectations should not have been high when he arrived at Brighton on 20 January 2015.

Nevertheless, Hughton told Brian Owen: “I am very pleased he is here. He gives us another attacking option and I hope he can produce the same form he did for me when we worked together at Newcastle.” In short, he didn’t.

Born in Nottingham on 19 September 1986, his first steps into the professional game came with his local side Notts County. When international recognition came calling, he chose to represent his mother’s birth country, the Republic of Ireland, and was capped at under 17, under 19 and under 21 levels before gaining seven full caps in 2009-10.

Southampton snapped up Best in 2004 and gave him his league debut aged 18, ironically against his future employer, Newcastle.

But opportunities were limited with the Saints and over the course of three years on their books they loaned him out to QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Bournemouth and Yeovil Town.

In 2007, Best transferred to then Championship side Coventry City for £650,000 and arguably his most successful goalscoring spell came during his time there, as he netted 23 goals in 104 appearances over three seasons.

It prompted Hughton to spend £1.5m of Mike Ashley’s money to take Best to Tyneside on 1 February 2010.

Maybe the warning bells should have been sounding in those first few months on Tyneside when he didn’t register a goal in 13 Championship appearances and fell behind Andy Carroll and Peter Lovenkrands in the pecking order.

Although he managed a couple of goals in pre-season matches, the early part of the 2010-11 season was marred by a cruciate knee ligament injury. Nevertheless, when he returned to action in the January, he did it in some style, bagging a hat-trick in a 5-0 win over West Ham. He got a further three goals before injury ruled him out once again.

3490663In the following season, he went 12 games without scoring but in the summer of 2012, Blackburn Rovers paid £3m to take him to Ewood Park – only for him to pick up an anterior cruciate knee injury one month into the season, ruling him out of action for six months.

The temporary move to Brighton was one of three loans away from Blackburn before they finally released him by mutual consent in July 2015.

It wasn’t until November 2015 he managed to find another club, pitching up for six months at Championship side Rotherham United. When he couldn’t agree terms on a new deal with the Millers, he instead moved to Ipswich Town, ostensibly as a replacement for Daryl Murphy.

He made six starts and six appearances as a substitute without scoring and, by January 2017, manager Mick McCarthy had lost patience with him and declared he wouldn’t play another game for the club.

Released by Town in the summer of 2017, Best managed to secure a two-month deal with Charlton Athletic in November 2017 but he sustained a knee injury on New Year’s Day 2018 and hasn’t played since.