Three-time Clough signing Jamie Murphy was an Albion promotion winner

BRIGHTON provided a step up in class for Jamie Murphy when they bought the Scottish winger from League One Sheffield United in August 2015.

“I feel like I’ve been able to play in the Championship but I’ve never been given the opportunity,” he said. “It’s thanks to the club for giving me that opportunity.”

Murphy was 25 when he joined the Albion on a four-year deal. The fee was undisclosed but was reported to be £1.8m.

He was Albion’s ninth summer signing and his arrival was somewhat overshadowed by the return of Bobby Zamora to the Albion. But boss Chris Hughton said at the time: “He is somebody we monitored very closely last season and he was one of Sheffield United’s most influential and creative players.

“He’s a winger who can play on either flank and he will give us extra options in both wide positions. He’s a very good age, an age where he can continue to develop as a player and build on his experience.”

Murphy quickly settled at the club, finding a few familiar voices in the likes of captain Gordon Greer (he discovered their respective parents lived round the corner from each other in Glasgow and even drank in the same pub!), sports therapist Antony Stuart who Murphy knew at his first club, Motherwell, and assistant manager Colin Calderwood, whose Hibernian side he had played against.

He scored his first goal for the club in a 2-2 draw at Bolton on 26 September 2015 – but was later sent off in the same match. Zamora, making his first Albion start since returning to the club, set up Dale Stephens to put Albion ahead and Murphy increased the lead after a surging run into the penalty area by Liam Rosenior.

Neil Danns pulled one back before half time and Murphy saw red for a heavy tackle on Danns in the 75^th minute. Albion had to settle for a point when Gary Madine headed an injury-time equaliser.

Impressive displays and another goal, against MK Dons, helped to earn him the November player of the month award – and, courtesy of the sponsor, the opportunity to drive a Porsche for 48 hours.

Murphy scored four more goals in a season’s total of 31 starts plus six appearances off the bench and he revealed in a matchday programme article how his eye for a goal stemmed from playing as a striker earlier in his career.

“When I was a kid, I was always the quickest so I always scored a lot of goals but as I got older and then turned professional with Motherwell it got harder and harder. I’m not the biggest player in the world, so I got moved out to the wing, but I still think like a striker when I’m in front of goal.”

Unfortunately, the campaign ended in disappointment when Albion missed out on promotion from the Championship. Hughton’s side finished third and Murphy’s form for Brighton earned him a call-up to the Scotland squad for two friendlies in March 2016, although he remained an unused sub.

When Albion lost in the two-legged Championship play-off semi-final to Sheffield Wednesday, Murphy was an unused sub (Anthony Knockaert and Jiri Skalak got the nod) but it was a familiar feeling for Murphy who had experienced semi-final heartache in two League One play-offs (2013 and 2015) for Wednesday’s fierce city rivals.

Hughton had plenty of competition for the wide spots in Albion’s 2016-17 promotion challenge, reducing Murphy’s starts to 20 plus 15 appearances off the bench.

He tried hard to seize his chance when it was presented. He scored twice in a 4-0 League Cup win over Colchester United at the start of the season and was the ‘other’ scorer in the Bonfire Night 2-0 win at Bristol City when Steve Sidwell scored a worldy from the halfway line.

A 3-0 home win over Reading at the end of February saw Murphy put in a man-of-the-match performance and he scored his first goal in 16 matches (Sam Baldock and Knockaert the other scorers).

He was praised for his pace on the break and excellent decision-making and later told the matchday programme: “It was one of my best performances. I always feel as if I’ve given 100 per cent – but sometimes things go for you, sometimes they don’t.

“I was delighted to get the goal; it’s been coming these past couple of weeks. But all across the team we’ve played well, done our jobs and obviously come away with a great win. It was a big game and we put in a very professional performance.”

Expanding on the whole-squad approach, Murphy said: “Anyone can come in and do a job. When I was on the bench I always felt there was a chance for me coming and I’m sure the boys on the bench feel that as well.

“We’re in this as a squad, it’s not just about the starting 11.” And he also spoke about the part the Amex crowd played. “It’s great as a player when you know you’ve got that backing of the fans behind you.

“When this place is rocking it really makes a big difference to us as a team. The fans get right behind us home and away.”

Murphy was certainly at the heart of the celebrations (above) when the Seagulls finally made it over the promotion finishing line, via a 2-1 win over Wigan Athletic, and he fondly recalled crowdsurfing (together with teammates Ollie Norwood and Skalak) on a happy, packed train from Falmer to the centre of Brighton as players joined with fans to celebrate the achievement.

The players were headed to a party in central Brighton laid on by chairman Tony Bloom and Murphy told The Athletic’s Andy Naylor in 2021: “There was no other way to get from the stadium to the party. The train station is 100 yards away, so we thought, ‘Why not just jump on a train?’.

“I don’t know what we were thinking, or if we thought it was going to be empty. Obviously, it wasn’t!

“It’s one of the best memories I have of that day. I’ve still got the video on my phone of us crowdsurfing and then coming off the train and getting carried down on someone’s shoulders, all the way down to the party.”

Once the Albion were in the Premier League, Murphy’s playing time was virtually non-existent (one start and three sub appearances in the league; one League Cup outing), and although speculation arose about a possible move, Hughton tried to play it down.

In December 2017, he told the Argus: “At this moment, if I am looking at the options I have in the wide areas, it’s been unfortunate for Jamie because of what we’ve had and no injuries in that area.

“He is still very much part of our plans. It only takes a lack of form, an injury or a couple of injuries and then he is very much back in the squad.”

Within weeks, though, the winger joined Glasgow Rangers (the team he supported as a boy), initially on loan until the end of the season, before making the move permanent in the summer of 2018.

Hughton told the club website: “Jamie is a great lad, a fantastic professional and has a desire to play – and while we were in no hurry to see him leave, we do understand his desire to play for his boyhood team and one of the biggest clubs in Scotland.

“He’s been excellent for the club, ever since we signed him from Sheffield United, and wrote himself into club folklore as a crucial part of our promotion-winning side last season.”

Murphy played 18 league and cup matches (plus one as a sub) as Graeme Murty’s reign came to an end and during that initial time back in Scotland earned two full caps to go with his previous under 21 honours. They came in friendlies against Costa Rica and Peru: going on as an 87^th minute sub for Matt Ritchie in a 1-0 win over Costa Rica and starting in a May 2018 2-0 defeat in Peru ((he was replaced by Oli McBurnie in the 67^th minute).

Murphy signed a three-year contract with Rangers and was the club’s first goalscorer under new manager Steven Gerrard, netting the opener in front of a crowd of 49,309 at Ibrox in a Europa League qualifying match against North Macedonian side Shkupi.

He had played in just five Europa League games and two Scottish Premiership games before suffering a career-changing injury in a League Cup tie at Kilmarnock in late August.

The anterior cruciate ligament tear in his left knee, sustained on the astroturf pitch at Rugby Park in an innocuous coming-together with an opponent, put him out of action for 14 months.

Gerrard told the Glasgow Times: “Jamie’s coming to terms with it. He’s found it tough. He was upset at the beginning and understandably so.

“It is a tough one to take as a footballer. But we will give him every bit of help and support off the pitch that he needs. We will make sure that he sees the right specialists and gets the job done properly.

“Then as a team we will rally around him and make sure he is in good spirits. He is here for the long term. He is a big player for us.

“What Jamie has to do now and what we have to help him do is make sure he does everything in his powers to come back strong and doesn’t have any setbacks.

“He has got an opportunity to work on his whole body and make sure he comes back really strong.”

“It is a big blow. He found consistency straight away. He was on a big buzz from signing long-term for the club.

“He knows the league, he knows the club, he is very well-liked in the dressing room. We have had a big cog, a big piece of the jigsaw, taken away from us.

“We are still coming to terms with it. I know Jamie is as well. I’m not going to try and play it down. It’s a big blow.”

As it turned out, Murphy played only two more matches for Rangers after returning to fitness in October 2019 and in January 2020 linked up once again with his former Sheffield United boss Nigel Clough on a six-month loan at League One Burton Albion.

“I have worked with Nigel Clough before and had some of my greatest moments as a footballer under him, so it was an easy one to pick,” he said. “I want to be back enjoying football again. It has been a nightmare time with my knee but I’m now just looking forward to playing again.

Clough said: “To get a player from Rangers of Jamie’s quality is brilliant. The fact that we have worked with him before and that we get on well with his agent has helped.

“He wants to get out and play some football. He was out for a while with a knee injury, which is one of the reasons he’s coming out, but he’s fully fit now. What he did for us at Sheffield United and how he played there means we are very excited to have him on board.

“He plays wide mainly but can play up the middle as well. He carries the ball very well, makes goals and scores goals. He will be a great asset as we try and push for a place in the top six.”

He scored seven goals in 10 matches but then returned to Scotland and joined Hibernian, initially on loan and then permanently.

After making a total of 50 league and cup appearances for Hibs, he linked up with Clough for a third time in February 2022, signing on loan at League Two Mansfield Town. He scored once in 16 appearances for the Stags.

When he left Hibs at the end of his contract in June 2022, he switched to Perth for a year to play for St Johnstone where he scored five times in 29 appearances and in June 2023 was on the move again, this time to Scottish Championship side Ayr United.

Born in Glasgow on 28 August 1989, Murphy was inspired by Rangers strikers Ally McCoist and Mark Hateley as a boy and played junior football at Westwood Rovers and Drumchapel Thistle before linking up with Clyde. He joined Motherwell aged 11 and broke through to the first team at 17 in 2006 under former Albion boss Mark McGhee.

He said of McGhee: “He was the first man to give me a real chance in the first team. I played a good run of games, played in Europe and played well so he was big for me at the time.”

In 11 years at Fir Park, Murphy helped the club reach a Scottish Cup Final and regularly qualify for European football.

Having scored 50 goals in 215 games for Motherwell, he was then bought in January 2013 by former Albion captain Danny Wilson, who had switched allegiance in Sheffield to manage United.

It was Stuart McCall who sold Murphy to a club he had served as a player and a manager, and he believed at a reported fee of £106,000 they were getting a bargain for the 23-year-old.

McCall told the Daily Record: “We are not getting anywhere near what he is worth but he has given this club great service over the years. He is a great kid and goes with our blessing.

“It is probably the right time for Jamie to move on and flourish elsewhere.

“I would love to have kept him until the summer and it is disappointing for us. But Jamie is a talented boy and can force himself into the Sheffield United team.

“Sheffield United may be a League One side now but they are a great club for him to go to.

“I am hopeful they will be in the Championship next season and they are a Premiership club in the making as they have that status.”

McCall added: “I told Jamie they have a great fanbase, fantastic set-up and good manager in Danny Wilson.” However, Wilson’s two-year tenure at Bramall Lane came to an end in May that year. He was replaced by David Weir (now Albion’s technical director) and Murphy’s third United boss was Clough, who, on awarding Murphy a two-year contract extension in January 2015 said: “Jamie has caused Premier League defenders countless problems in our cup runs.”

With his playing days now winding down, Murphy has an eye on the future and on X (formerly Twitter) in October 2023 he posted that he had successfully passed the UEFA A coaching licence.

In an extended interview with the Hibernian club website in January 2021, he spoke about his desire to become a manager. “That’s something I definitely want to try,” he said. “I like the problem-solving aspect of it, being able to watch a game and pick apart a team’s strengths and weaknesses.

“I probably watch games in a different way now and it started when I was injured. I wasn’t able to train for the best part of a year, so I found myself taking down notes in a journal whenever I’d watch a game – about how teams would play, how they won or lost the game.”

The geography was all wrong for O’Grady’s Seagulls excursion

SHEFFIELD UNITED and Brighton once went head to head for the services of journeyman striker Chris O’Grady.

It might be said many Albion followers were somewhat disappointed that the Seagulls pipped the Blades to signing the player from Barnsley in the summer of 2014!

It wasn’t long, however, before United, then in League One, landed their man when he failed to score in 11 appearances and struggled to settle in Sussex.

On taking O’Grady on loan, United manager Nigel Clough said: “There aren’t too many strikers of Chris’s calibre around at the moment.

“We liked him last season at Barnsley and he has got good Championship experience. Chris was a target for us in the summer but Brighton came in with a deal we simply couldn’t match in terms of wages and what they could have been potentially offering him as a playing challenge.”

The 28-year-old impressed in four Blades starts, scoring once in a draw with Walsall at Bramall Lane, and Clough remained hopeful of eventually doing a permanent deal for the player.

But Albion head coach Sami Hyypia left the club shortly before Christmas and O’Grady was recalled to cover a mini injury crisis amongst the available forwards.

Under caretaker manager Nathan Jones, O’Grady was introduced off the bench at Fulham and set up a goal for Solly March in a 2-0 win.

Then, in Chris Hughton’s first match in charge, a third round FA Cup tie at Brentford, O’Grady bagged his first Seagulls goal in another 2-0 win. On as a 67^th minute substitute for Mackail-Smith, O’Grady hit a post, saw an effort trickle wide and then scored a decisive stoppage time second goal against the Bees to secure Albion’s passage through to the fourth round.

It was in the third minute of added on time when, put clear through by Adam Chicksen, he doubled the lead gained when Lewis Dunk headed in an 88^th-minute opener at Griffin Park, thus helping Hughton’s reign get off to a winning start against Mark Warburton’s side.

After the match, O’Grady opened up about his struggles in an interview with BBC Sussex. “It’s been extremely tough,” he said. “It has tested a lot of relationships in my life. Thankfully the strongest one, my family, is still together which is the most important thing.”

O’Grady had spent all of his career playing in the Midlands, Yorkshire or the North West and said settling on the south coast with his partner and three children had proved difficult.

“We’ve been trying to settle in the area and it’s not quite happened on the pitch,” he said.

“We’ve got a home we’ve had for quite a few years back up north and we’ve been half in that and half down here as we don’t know what’s going on.

“I’ve been doing my best but it was not working out. I got a chance to go back up north and find myself and get some fitness.

“My whole career I have performed for people who believe in me. I felt I wasn’t sure why I was here.”

O’Grady was fighting an uphill battle at the Albion from the moment he was signed by head of football, David Burke. The Seagulls had banked £8m from the sale of Leonardo Ulloa to Leicester and obtaining O’Grady’s services from relegated Barnsley (he’d scored 15 goals as they went down) was seen by fans as inadequate recompense, even though the club tried to insist it wasn’t a like-for-like transaction.

Hyypia said at the time: “This is an area we want to strengthen, and Chris is a good start. He is a strong, physical presence and gives us something different to the other strikers we already have here at the club.

“You need that option in the squad of a forward with power and strength, and Chris can give us that – as well as scoring goals.

“We still want some extra attacking additions, and in other areas of the team, but I’m pleased we have another one of our targets.”

Those “extra attacking additions” turned out to be Adrian Colunga and Sam Baldock the following month and both largely put paid to O’Grady’s hopes of gaining a regular starting spot.

Not that O’Grady felt overawed by the challenge. “For the past two seasons I’ve hit double figures and that has been a reflection of the desire and hunger that I have to succeed at this level,” he said.

“Having played for Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday in the past, I know what it’s like to play for a big club – and Brighton certainly fall into that category.

“Earlier in my career playing for those clubs might have been a bit daunting for me, but at my age I know how to deal with the expectation and to win the fans over. It’s fantastic to be joining a club with such big ambitions and to be joining in the peak years of my career.”

O’Grady started the first three games of the season, but the presence of incumbent Craig Mackail-Smith plus the late August signings of Colunga and Baldock soon indicated competition for forward places was going to get a lot tougher.

Injuries to Baldock and Mackail-Smith gave him some limited game time but Hyypia told the Argus he expected more from the bustling big man.

“He is training well, he’s doing his work and he can be a tricky player for the centre-backs because he is so strong.

“I know that he can be dangerous. Sometimes I wish he would go forward a little bit more.

“He’s not slow so he could give the centre-backs more problems if he didn’t always come to the ball.”

*Nigel Clough’s Sheffield United were keen to sign O’Grady permanently*

It seemed the FA Cup suited O’Grady because he also pulled a goal back for the Seagulls in the 50^th minute of the glamour fourth round tie against holders Arsenal, in front of a 30,278 crowd, although they eventually lost 3-2.

Although Clough was keen to take O’Grady back to south Yorkshire, Hughton made it plain he wanted him to stay and fight for his place

“This is a player that came here and had a difficult time, went away on loan and has been excellent for us since he came back,” Hughton told the Argus. “I must admit I’m still getting to know him. I knew him from his time at Barnsley, I don’t know him as much from his time here.

“He certainly couldn’t have done any more than he has in the last two games. He is no different to any other player, you want to be playing and involved, and if you are you are generally happier. At the moment, I think he’s in a nice place.”

O’Grady admitted: “I’m just getting a chance to play. I’m taking it and doing my very best for however long I am wanted here.

“I am being professional and doing my very best. Since I’ve been back, there is a freshness and a chance to get involved and contribute. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”

Buoyed by the change in management, and with his family settled, O’Grady told the Argus in early February: “I’ve succeeded at all the clubs I’ve been at in the past five years, which has led me to be here.

“I started in League Two and if you do fail at any club at any time then you are only going to go down. Failure is not really an option. You have to work as hard as possible to succeed.

“Even though the first half of the season didn’t go well, it would have been too easy to give up and just write it off as ‘this one didn’t really work out’.

“That’s a lesson that if you persevere with a situation it will eventually come good if you deserve it.”

Unfortunately, Hughton thought Leon Best on loan from Blackburn Rovers might be a better option, and Baldock or Mackail-Smith invariably were ahead of him as the manager shuffled his pack in a battle to stay in the division.

It wasn’t until 10 March 2015 when O’Grady, making a rare start away to Reading, scored his first – and only – league goal for the Seagulls, netting from the penalty spot as the Albion went down 2-1.

Come the start of the 2015-16 season, Tomer Hemed and the returning Bobby Zamora made O’Grady’s future involvement a lot less likely.

His only action came in two League Cup matches, away to Southend and Walsall, and he missed a penalty as the Saddlers dumped out the Albion 2-1.

So, it was no surprise he was sent out on a season-long loan to Nottingham Forest, the club who’d let him go as a young boy. During that temporary return to Forest in 2015-16, he scored twice in 21 games.

In the last year of his Albion contract, 2016-17, he was reunited with Nigel Clough, this time at Burton Albion, (pictured in action below) where he scored once in 26 games. While he was a regular in the first half of the season, he made only five appearances after the turn of the year following the arrivals of Cauley Woodrow, Luke Varney and Marvin Sordell.

Born in Nottingham on 25 January 1986, O’Grady was at Forest from the age of 10 to 13. “I dropped out of football for a while but then got back into it at 15,” he told Albion’s matchday programme. “I wrote to the clubs local to me: Leicester and Derby. Leicester were doing open trials at the time, and I progressed through that, then on to proper trials at the training ground, and I eventually got signed up.”

*A young Chris O’Grady in his Leicester days*

It was during his time at Leicester that he took up yoga, inspired by the knowledge Ryan Giggs was an advocate of it. “It definitely helps,” said O’Grady. “I was a young lad in the youth team at Leicester and quite big physically but not very flexible with it.

“I was also picking up injuries at the time so I just knew I needed to do something. Once I started with the yoga all the injuries kind of went away and I’ve never really had a muscle injury since.”

After he’d got on the scoresheet regularly at under 18 and reserve level, former Albion boss Micky Adams gave him his first team chance with the Foxes.

He also won an England Youth cap in a 3-0 defeat away to France in Limoges on 13 November 2002. When he couldn’t pin down a regular place at City, he had loan stints with Notts County and Rushden and Diamonds and, although he returned to Leicester and played a handful of games in the Championship, in January 2007 he was sold to Rotherham United, where he spent 18 months.

Next up was Oldham but, in two years on their books, he had loan spells at Bury, Bradford City, Stockport County and Rochdale.

*O’Grady in action for Barnsley against Albion’s Stephen Ward*

His 31 goals in 95 matches for Dale earned him a move to Sheffield Wednesday on a three-year deal in the summer of 2011 but on transfer deadline day in January 2013 he made the short journey to Barnsley and then made the move permanent that summer.

At the end of his three-year Brighton deal, O’Grady moved to League Two Chesterfield for a season, but when they lost their league status he moved on in 2018-19 to his former club, Oldham Athletic, by then in League Two, where he scored eight goals in 47 matches.

The following season he moved up a division and played for League One Bolton Wanderers but their relegation to League Two brought down the curtain on O’Grady’s league playing days.

After he was released, he spent a year out of football. But in May 2022 he signed for Southern League Premier Division Central side Ilkeston Town, where he scored seven goals in 19 games. The side’s manager Martin Carruthers declared on signing him: “Chris is an excellent addition to our squad and brings with him a wealth of experience.

“He is a big, powerful unit and super fit, he will certainly be of huge benefit to our current strikers who will all be able to learn and develop from Chris this season.

“He will give us different attacking options and I’m sure will bring plenty of goals to the team.This is a real coup for the club.”

In February 2023, at the age of 37, O’Grady joined ‘The Gingerbreads’ – Northern Premier League Division One East side Grantham Town – where he played alongside former Nottingham Forest and Derby County forward Nathan Tyson. He scored just the once in eight matches, in a 3-0 win over Brighouse Town (Tyson scored the other two).

Albion rookie Richard Martin became Sven goalie at City

RICHARD MARTIN could justifiably be dubbed ‘The Nearly Man’ of goalkeeping.

Once thought to have the potential to play 200 games for the Albion, he left the Seagulls having only ever warmed the first team bench.

In an unlikely turn of events, he went from back-up League One Seagulls ‘keeper to no.3 behind Kasper Schmeichel and Joe Hart at Premier League Manchester City, thanks to former England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson.

After two years at City, he went on loan to Burton Albion, then worked under Ben Roberts and Nathan Jones as back-up ‘keeper at Yeovil Town before enjoying fleeting fame on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.

Doubtless it wasn’t the career he expected when his teenage promise between the sticks led to him earning trials with Liverpool and Everton.

Born in Chelmsford on 1 September 1987, Martin spent part of his childhood in Liverpool but the family were living in Burgess Hill when the young goalkeeper was picked up by the Albion.

Martin was only 16 when Liverpool took him on a week-long trial and Albion manager Mark McGhee went public in the Argus on 4 February 2004, explaining why he thought the youngster should stick with the Seagulls.

*Warming up for the Albion (pictured by the Argus)*

“We have put forward a reasonable argument to the boy and to his parents as to why we think he should stay here,” said McGhee. “The thing we can promise him at a club like ours, like any other young player in any other position, is that if he is good enough he will be fast-tracked into the first team or certainly onto the bench.

“If he goes to Liverpool there is no chance of that happening. At the very best he is going to spend two or three years at youth level, then at reserve level and in five years’ time he might start to make an impression in the first team squad.

“By that time, he would have played 200 games for us and be worth a lot of money and move to Liverpool under different circumstances.”

The Argus reckoned Albion could have got compensation of at least £200,000 if Martin, a Liverpool supporter, had ended up at Anfield. But Liverpool didn’t take him on, he remained an Albion scholar, progressed through the youth ranks and was awarded a two-year professional contract in the summer of 2005, before his scholarship was due to expire.

With Michel Kuipers sidelined by injury, Martin and fellow young ‘keeper John Sullivan shared opportunities to play for the first team in pre-season friendlies ahead of the 2005-06 season. Martin appeared against Le Havre, Oxford United and Bournemouth, as well as coming on as a sub in two other matches.

A sizeable Albion following went over to France to watch Albion’s 2-0 defeat to Le Havre when Martin began in goal in the absence of Michel Kuipers. The Argus reported: “Martin flew high to his right to brilliantly tip away a 12th-minute thunderbolt from Jean-Michel Lesage which was dipping and swerving towards the top corner from 25 yards.”

Goalkeeping coach John Keeley went further and told the matchday programme: “That was an absolute world-class save. I’m sure if Michel had made it people would still have been talking about it – it was that good..

“He can take big positives out of that and the other bits he had to do in the first half.”

When the season proper got under way, Martin found himself on the bench for 14 matches as Irish international Wayne Henderson, on loan from Aston Villa, was the established first choice. But then Frenchman Florent Chaigneau arrived on a year-long loan from Rennes.

In December 2005, Everton took Martin on trial and for a while there was speculation that a nice fat transfer fee from selling the youngster could be reinvested in signing a much-needed striker for the first team. But the move didn’t materialise because Everton boss David Moyes didn’t think Martin was big enough.

The Argus reported: “Martin impressed during a recent trial with the Merseyside giants but Goodison boss Moyes has decided not to sign the slimly-built 18-year-old from Burgess Hill due to his size.”

Instead of heading to Goodison, Martin went on loan to non-league Kingstonian, competition for the no.1 spot at Albion having increased with the permanent signing of Henderson from Villa.

Martin was part of the successful Albion youth side of 2006 from which six players went on to play first team football. But even at youth level he was competing with Sullivan, who eventually edged ahead of him and did manage to break through into the first team.

Competitive football game-time was considered the best option for Martin and the following season he went on a season-long loan deal to Conference South Dorchester Town. But his stay was cut short by injury. Once recovered, in the second half of the season, he joined Folkestone Invicta where he played 12 matches.

However, on his return to the Albion his contract wasn’t renewed, and he was without a club until the surprise opportunity arose at Manchester City, where the goalkeeping coach at the time was ex-Albion No. 1 Eric Steele.

Martin told the Argus: “This is completely unexpected. I’d like to think Brighton were wrong to let me go but these things happen.

“I went up to City initially just for a week to do a bit of training, because my agent knows Eric.

“(First choice Andreas) Isaksson and Joe Hart picked up injuries, they had a reserve game which I played in and then I carried on training.

“I don’t think I am in contention for the first team, I will just be in the reserves and go from there. Hopefully the month will be extended if I can keep on doing well.”

Sure enough, it was and boss Eriksson was happy to give Martin a season-long contract.

His only first-team action came on 22 May 2008 when replacing Schmeichel for the second half in an end-of-season charity match in Hong Kong against a South China Invitational XI.

Even after Steele switched allegiance to Manchester United and Eriksson had moved on, Martin had done enough to establish himself as third in line behind Hart and Schmeichel.

Mark Hughes took over as manager and Martin remained at the club working with ex-Chelsea ‘keeper Kevin Hitchcock, who Hughes had taken with him from Blackburn.

Martin was given the no.13 squad number for the 2008-09 Premier League and UEFA Cup campaign and it was an irresistible opportunity for the Argus to catch up with him ahead of Brighton’s home Carling Cup tie against City at Withdean in September 2008 when Albion sprung a big shock by winning the penalty shoot-out.

Reporter Andy Naylor discovered Martin had been philosophical, rather than disappointed, about the way things turned out with Albion. “When I look back at the situation at that time it was all about getting results and Michel (Kuipers) and Wayne (Henderson) were the two generally ahead of me,” he said. “I got a lot of good experience at Brighton and that set me in good stead for coming up to Manchester.”

Unfortunately, a knee injury Martin sustained shortly after sidelined him until the following March. Then in April, City allowed him to move temporarily to Burton Albion as cover because their first choice ‘keeper Kevin Poole was injured.

When released by City in the summer of 2009, more Albion connections provided him with his next opportunity, and finally the opportunity to play league football, at Yeovil Town.

*Martin at Yeovil (picture by YTFC Digital)*

In the Seagulls’ 2004 play-off winning season, Martin was a youth-teamer when Glovers assistant boss Jones was Albion’s left-back and goalkeeping coach Roberts was between the sticks.

Ahead of Brighton’s 2-2 draw at Huish Park on 10 October 2009, Martin told Brian Owen of the Argus: “I was fortunate I got the call from Yeovil in the summer and went down there for a trial. They liked what they saw. Of course, I know Nathan and Ben well and the fact they knew about me must have helped them make a decision.”

Martin was on the bench for the Albion fixture but had made his league debut shortly before as a substitute when first-choice Alex McCarthy (at the time on loan from Reading) was sent-off 20 minutes into a 2-2 draw with Stockport County. With McCarthy banned, Martin got his first start in a defeat at Southampton.

However, in total he made just three league and two cup appearances in that first half of the season and in January 2010 was loaned to Conference National bottom-placed side Grays Athletic – and within the space of a fortnight had conceded 11 goals in three matches!

Although he returned to Yeovil after a month, McCarthy’s fine form denied him any further first team action at Huish Park and he was released in July 2010. After brief spells with Havant & Waterlooville and Crawley Town, Yeovil re-signed him on 31 December 2010.

*Plenty to say in goal for Puerto Rico Islanders*

However, in March 2011 he had the opportunity to head to the Caribbean and play for Puerto Rico Islanders, who at the time were in the second tier of the North American Soccer League. He made his debut in May 2011 having initially been back-up ‘keeper and then signed for a second season, during which he established himself as first choice and played a total of 33 matches.

*Talking on camera after the NASL player of the month award*

In August 2012 he was named NASL player of the month, and he was interviewed about the experience of playing for the Islanders. There is an excellent montage feature in which the commentator purrs in this YouTube footage: “Richard Martin has the reflexes of a jungle cat.”

Back in the UK in 2013, Martin played briefly for Whitehawk and Burgess Hill before retiring.

Ex-Clarets boss Steve Cotterill not always ‘Mr Popular’

FORMER Burnley manager Steve Cotterill hasn’t always been popular during a nomadic football career that’s taken him the length and breadth of the country.

But he made a lasting connection with Brighton fans after impressing during an all-too-brief playing spell in 1992.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and, whenever we’ve gone there, I’ve always had a great reception from their supporters. They’ve been terrific,” he wrote in his programme notes prior to a Cheltenham v Brighton fixture.

Injury curtailed Cotterill’s playing career – he endured 18 knee operations – but he made up for it by taking charge of nine different clubs over a period spanning more than 20 years.

His three years and seven months keeping Burnley in the second tier while seeing key players sold or injured was largely recognised as a decent achievement in the circumstances. Many of his other appointments were a lot shorter, and at times acrimonious.

Starting out as a player on the non-league circuit, it was Cotterill’s prolific scoring for Burton Albion (44 goals in 74 games) that prompted Wimbledon to snap him up in 1989.

Unfortunately, he sustained a serious cruciate ligament knee injury that halted his progress with the Dons and Albion boss Barry Lloyd gave him a lifeline to try to resurrect his career with the Seagulls.

Against a backdrop of financial instability, Lloyd had struggled to find adequate replacements for the prolific Mike Small and John Byrne in the 1991-92 season. Mark Gall, signed from Maidstone, offered a glimmer of hope, but Raphael Meade and Mark Farrington were disappointing to say the least, and Albion had been relegated back to the third tier a year after being one game from winning their place back amongst the elite in a play-off final against Notts County.

As the 1992-93 season got under way, Gall was unavailable due to a knee injury that eventually forced him to retire, Meade had departed and questions continued over Farrington, so Lloyd turned to loan signings Cotterill and Paul Moulden from Oldham Athletic.

It looked like he’d cracked it as the pair combined well and started scoring goals. Indeed, Cotterill scored four in 11 games, which was a promising start. Unfortunately, parent club Wimbledon wanted the sort of fee for him that cash-strapped Albion couldn’t afford, so he returned to south west London and eventually moved on to Bournemouth the following summer for £80,000.

In an interview with the Argus in October 2016, Moulden told Brian Owen: “One of the reasons I loved playing for Brighton was Mr Banter himself, Steve Cotterill. We met up like we had never been apart. I’d start the banter and he’d finish it or vice versa.

“We destroyed many a centre-half partnership during that three months. I was gutted to leave. I mean that very sincerely – absolutely gutted. I couldn’t believe nobody would have bought me and Steve as a pairing.

“We were both out of favour with our clubs and we hit it off so well. But it wasn’t to be – at Brighton or at any club.”

Born in Cheltenham on 20 July 1964, Cotterill’s injury-ravaged playing career came to a close at Dean Court. He’d won the player of the year title three times and scored 18 goals in 55 starts for the Cherries, but another knee injury finally put paid to his playing career, and he turned his attention to managing.

His first assignment was in Ireland where he succeeded his former Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez at League of Ireland’s Sligo Rovers. But his hometown club Cheltenham Town offered him a management opening back in England in 1997, and he steered them from Southern League football into the Conference and then into the bottom tier of the Football League. He twice won the Manager of the Year title and earned another promotion, to the third tier, via a play-off final victory over Rushden & Diamonds.

After leaving Cheltenham, Cotterill had a controversial five-month, 13 game stay as Stoke City boss at the start of the 2002-03 season before quitting to join Sunderland as Howard Wilkinson’s no.2. In May 2020, Cotterill endeavoured to explain to the Stoke Sentinel the circumstances surrounding his tenure, and the board interference regarding players.

The stay on Wearside was also short lived, with the pair being dismissed after only 27 games in March 2003.

The collapse of ITV Digital coincided with Cotterill taking over from Stan Ternent as Burnley manager in the summer of 2004. When he joined, they had only eight players on the books and, despite reassurances to the contrary, within six months Robbie Blake and Richard Chaplow, who he’d hoped to build a team around, had been sold.

When Blake’s replacement Ade Akinbiyi started scoring on a regular basis, he too was sold, and when he returned to the club later, he wasn’t the same player in front of goal.

Even after Cotterill had left, Burnley directors acknowledged the platform he’d provided for their eventual elevation to the Premier League under Owen Coyle.

The excellent uptheclarets.com, summed up his time at Turf Moor, thus: “He kept us in the second tier of English football for three years and that, looking back, was some achievement in, at times, difficult financial circumstances.”

It probably said something about the Championship that when Cotterill finally departed Turf Moor in the autumn of 2007, he’d been its longest serving manager at three years and seven months.

The following year, Cotterill was offered the opportunity to try his hand in America with Minnesota Thunder but work permit issues meant it never materialised. He didn’t resurface in the English game until 2010, when he enjoyed a short but successful reign – five months in charge of Notts County. He took charge on 23 February 2010 and they were crowned League Two champions on 27 April. A month later Cotterill was on his way, appointed in June 2010 as the manager of Portsmouth.

He helped to stabilise the then Championship club against a background of financial troubles and other clubs began to cast eyes on his achievements. The persistence of Nottingham Forest finally paid off and he moved there in October 2011, but a change of ownership of the club spelled the end of his time by the Trent.

In July 2012, he was only nine months into a three-and-a-half-year contract at Nottingham Forest when the owning Al-Hasawi family decided to relieve him of his duties and go in a different direction.

He was out of the game for six months but in January 2013 accepted Harry Redknapp’s offer to join the coaching team at Queens Park Rangers until the end of the season.

He turned down the chance to stay in post the following season and in December 2013 took charge of League One Bristol City, signing another three-and-a-half-year contract.

In his second season at Ashton Gate, he steered City to promotion from League One as champions and they won the Football League Trophy. It earned Cotterill the League One Manager of the Year award.

As with other times in his career, Cotterill found his club’s better players were sold, ultimately weakening the squads he was in charge of. For example, when Sam Baldock moved from Bristol City to Brighton. Cotterill told bcfc.com: “He was a very good captain and very good goalscorer; we were sorry to see him go…that happens in football.”

Ultimately, as City struggled to attain the same level of success in the Championship as they’d experienced in the division below, Cotterill was sacked in January 2016.

Perhaps to prove the point about Cotterill not always being everybody’s cup of tea, former Albion defender Adam El-Abd vented his feelings in September 2020, explaining why he fell out of love with football following a bust-up with the manager only a short time after he moved to Bristol City.

With only three matches of the 2016-17 season left to play, Cotterill once again was grateful to Redknapp, by now manager at Birmingham City, and he joined him there as first team coach.

He subsequently left in the close season in the hope of landing a manager’s role in his own right. Ironically, that opportunity arose back at St Andrews when Redknapp was sacked in October 2017.

Cotterill told The Sun’s Graham Hill how he felt he had mellowed after 20 years in the hotseat at various clubs, although, at the time, he probably didn’t expect to be out of work again five months later.

After leaving Birmingham in March 2018, Cotterill ruptured a disc in his neck while trying to keep fit but in an interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk declared himself fit and ready for the next challenge.

That challenge emerged in November 2020 when Cotterill took charge of League One Shrewsbury Town but he faced a bigger fight – to his health – after contracting Covid-19 and he was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary, spending some time in intensive care, suffering badly from the virus and pneumonia. He was released from hospital in March 2021 to recover at home.

He left the Shrews job in June 2023 and was out of work until January 2024, when he took charge of Forest Green Rovers.

He was unable to stave off relegation from the Football League, but he rebuilt the side during the summer of 2024 to push for promotion back to League Two. When Southend United visited The New Lawn on 15 March 2025, the 2-2 draw was Cotterill’s 1,000^th game as a manager. At the time, Rovers were joint-second in the National League.

The multi-million pound striker who scored on his Albion debut

STRIKER Darren Bent spent the last month of 2014 with Championship-struggling Brighton as the hapless Sami Hyypia tried to bring a halt to a dismal run of form.

Unable to command a regular starting spot at Aston Villa, Bent made an encouraging enough start, scoring on his debut against Fulham.

But the game ended in a 2-1 defeat and his only other goal came at Molineux two days before the axe fell on Hyypia’s time in the hotseat as Albion drew 1-1 with Wolves.

Bent told BBC Radio Sussex he’d reached “boiling point” in his frustration at the lack of starts under Paul Lambert at Villa. Previous boss Gerard Houllier had smashed Villa’s transfer fee record to take Bent from Sunderland for an initial £18m in January 2011, but, after Lambert became manager in 2012, he made just 13 Premier League appearances.

albion D Bent At the time he headed to the Amex, Bent had scored 184 goals in 464 career appearances, not to mention scoring four while winning 13 caps for England.

“I hope he will score plenty of goals for us during his time with us,” Hyypia had told the club website. “His record speaks for itself. He is a top-class striker with more than 100 Premier League goals with Charlton, Spurs, Sunderland and Aston Villa.

“Three years ago, he was a regular in the England squad under Fabio Capello; there is no doubting his ability to score goals.

“He also wants to play regular games and that is evident in his willingness to step down from the Premier League to the Championship.”

Bent told the matchday programme: “It doesn’t bother me that I’ve had to drop down a division to play football. Anyone who knows me knows that all I care about is football.

“It has never been about money or anything like that. It has always been about playing football. I’m always at my happiest when I’m playing.”

At least Bent found some familiar faces in the Albion dressing room in fellow Villa loanees Joe Bennett and Gary Gardner and former Fulham teammates David Stockdale and Aaron Hughes.

“Brighton felt like the perfect place to come and play football, especially for someone like Sami Hyypia, who I’ve played against many times over the years,” Bent added. “As a manager, I think he is the right man. He is the kind of guy I want to play for.”

Bent goal Bent returned to Villa after playing in five games and although new boss Chris Hughton indicated a willingness to bring him back, the striker was soon on his way to Derby County for the remainder of the season.

He scored 12 in 17 games for Steve McLaren’s Rams and subsequently joined them on a permanent basis in the summer of 2015. After two seasons in the Championship with Derby, scoring 14 in 67 matches, a hamstring injury sidelined him for the start of the 2017-18 season and in January 2018 he went on loan to Championship strugglers Burton Albion.

Having been without a club since released by Derby in the summer of 2018, he announced his retirement at 35 in July 2019.

Since then, he has joined the football pundit circuit, although not everyone is convinced he’s making that good a job of it!

pundit D Bent Nevertheless, Talksport and Sky Sports are happy to give him a platform and, in an interview with Metro, he suggested what might be the most difficult aspect of it. “I played with some of these guys and regard them as friends so, when they have had a bad game, will I be able to dig them out? It’s finding the line between being objective and respectfully constructive.”

Only in January 2020, Bent could be found arguing the case for Lewis Dunk to be recalled by England. The former striker is also active on Twitter with @DarrenBent attracting just short of 492,000 followers.

Born in Tooting, south London, on 6 February 1984, Bent was probably destined to be a footballer because his dad Mervyn had been on the books of Wimbledon and Brentford as a youngster.

The family moved to Cambridgeshire when the young Bent was only 10 and his early football career was nurtured at Godmanchester Rovers.

Ipswich Town picked him up as a 14-year-old and nurtured him through their youth ranks until he eventually made it to the first team in November 2001.

In four seasons with Ipswich, he scored 56 goals in 141 appearances before then Premier League Charlton Athletic paid a fee of £2.5m to take him to The Valley.

After two successful seasons in which he bagged 37 goals in 79 games for the Valiants, he made another big money move, this time to North London to join Spurs.

It was in June 2007 they paid a club record £16.5m and he scored 25 in 79 games for them before a similar fee saw him move to Sunderland, then in the Premier League, in the summer of 2009.

After 18 months in the North East, Bent put in for a transfer and Aston Villa paid £24m to sign him on a four-and-a-half year contract. He marked his debut with the only goal of the game in a win over Manchester City.

In his second season with Villa, Bent took on the captaincy for a while but managerial changes meant his face didn’t always fit and he spent the whole of the 2013-14 season on loan to Fulham, where he scored six in 30 matches.

All-time Albion hero Peter Ward scored inside a minute of debut

ward v bpool

ARMS aloft in familiar salute to yet another goal, the smiling footballer in a black and white picture on a Florida football club’s website dates back 40 years!

All around the world, it seems, Peter Ward’s goalscoring exploits for Brighton & Hove Albion are still the stuff of legend.

Four decades may have come and gone but the memories of this mercurial talent have never dimmed.

FC Tampa Rangers say of their youth coach: “During the 1976–77 season at Brighton, he scored 36 goals, beating the club record and winning him the golden boot.

“He is still revered by Brighton fans who sing a song dreaming of a team in which every player is Peter Ward: ‘We all live in a Wardy Wonderland’.”

If the word legend gets bandied about a little too frequently, where Peter Ward is concerned it is perfectly apt.

1-ward-scores Few Brighton players have managed to approach the esteem in which this extraordinary talent is held by supporters who saw him score the goals which took the Seagulls from perennial third tier also-rans to a place among the elite.

It takes genuine talent, bravery and skill to score goals at all three levels but Ward delivered. In 220 games for the Albion (plus seven as sub) he scored 95 goals.

In his splendid 2007 book, A Few Good Men (The Breedon Books Publishing Company Limited), Spencer Vignes refers back to 1980 and says of Ward: “No centre forward since has managed to steal his crown. Some have come close – Garry Nelson and Bobby Zamora spring to mind – but Wardy remains special, the golden boy of what proved to be a golden time for the club.”

I was sorry to have missed Ward’s latest return to Brighton when in 2016 he joined some of the Goldstone heroes of the past at the Theatre Royal.

Impishly donning a curly wig on top of his now bald pate to make his grand entrance, Ward showed he’d still got something of the showman about him.

There was never a shortage of superlatives to describe his skills on the pitch. While his dad Colin was a compositor on the Tamworth Herald, his son’s talents with a football filled dozens of column inches in a variety of football publications.

PW green BW Alan Mullery, the manager who benefited most from his audacious skill and compared him to the great Jimmy Greaves, said: “He was just the skinny little kid who could do fantastic things with a football.”

Mullery told Shoot: “Peter has the ability to kill a ball no matter how it comes at him. His pace over short bursts is incredible and he shoots powerfully and accurately with either foot.”

He continued: “Above all else, Peter’s strength on the ball, for a player of his stature, is remarkable. He fools defenders who believe they can easily knock him flying.”

Two of Ward’s former teammates told Vignes what made him so special. “He had this long stride that just seemed to take him away from people,” said Peter O’Sullivan. “One step and he’d be gone. Once he got goal-side of a player, that was it really – bang! Nobody ever seemed to be able to catch him, even in training.”

Brian Horton joined the club around the same time as Ward and said of his younger teammate: “He was this thin, scrawny little player that needed to learn the game, but his finishing was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.”

Nottingham Forest fans will have less happy memories of a player the managerial duo of Clough and Taylor took to the City Ground as they strived to replace Garry Birtles and Trevor Francis with any pairing from Ward, Ian Wallace and Justin Fashanu.

It just didn’t work out for Wardy at Forest although he tells Vignes in A Few Good Men: “I had a great time at Forest. I got on well with the lads and had a laugh.”

While he always got on well with Taylor, his relationship with the erratic Clough was a lot stormier which meant he was in and out of the side.

When Lichfield-born Ward left school he was only 4’8” and because he was told he was too small to make a career playing football he got a job as an apprentice fitter at Rolls Royce and played local football in the Derby area.

The detail of those early years can be discovered in Matthew Horner’s excellent biography of Ward (He Shot, He Scored, Sea View Media).

Scout Jim Phelps recommended Ward to the then non-league Burton Albion manager Ken Gutteridge having worked with the freescoring player at a Sunday afternoon side, Borrowash United.

After joining the newly-promoted Brewers initially in the Reserves, the 1974-75 season was only a month old when he made his first team bow alongside former England internationals Frank Wignall and Ian Storey-Moore – and promptly scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over Tamworth, his hometown team.

By the middle of November that season, with 10 goals to his name, Ward’s scoring exploits had attracted the attention of league clubs and Brighton boss Peter Taylor, with plenty of contacts in the area, put in a bid.

The Burton chairman, Jim Bradbury, went public on the approach – which Gutteridge found completely unacceptable. He promptly resigned… and before long was appointed to Taylor’s backroom staff!

In the meantime, Burton resisted Brighton’s money and it later emerged that Gutteridge had told Taylor he would only take up the post on condition that Ward would eventually be brought to the Goldstone.

Taylor stuck to his word and eventually signed Ward for £4,000 in the close season of 1975.

The rest, as they say, is history and in researching for this piece it was difficult to sift through the multitude of material from my scrapbooks, programmes, books and other places to condense it all into something manageable.

Because of his popularity, most of the story is familiar to fans of a certain generation anyway and anyone who has not yet read Horner’s book should get themselves a copy because it is rich with material from Ward himself and others who played alongside him or observed him.

Scoring within 50 seconds of his Albion debut away to Hereford United in front of the Match of the Day cameras couldn’t have been a better start and the partnership he struck up with beanpole Ian Mellor was key to promotion from the old Division 3.

For what at times seemed like a fantasy coming to life, it’s intriguing to learn that Ward’s watching of the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me on the eve of two games was followed the next day by him scoring hat-tricks.

In the 1977-78 season, he saw it before making his England under 21 debut at the Goldstone against Norway in a 6-0 win, and, later the same season, he saw it again before an away game at Mansfield and scored three once again!

It seemed a natural progression that Ward would make it to the full England team and he did eventually – winning one cap for a six-minute substitute appearance against Australia in May 1980.

In fact he made the full England squad three years earlier for a game against Luxembourg but wasn’t involved in the match itself and, by his own admission, reckons he blotted his copybook with manager Ron Greenwood by being ill in the room he shared with Trevor Brooking after going out drinking with Brian Greenhoff.

ward cover In the way that all good things must come to an end, the beginning of the end of the fairytale came as Albion struggled to come to terms with their first season at the top level.

Ward was certainly not as prolific as he had been lower down the football pyramid although, as reported in my previous blog post, the arrival of Ray Clarke helped him rediscover his form to finish that season as top goalscorer with 17.

However, a return to his Midlands home territory looked increasingly likely. He nearly went to Derby in November 1979 but a swap deal with Gerry Daly fell through, and Forest also wanted him but Clough walked away from the deal.

Eleven months later, though, Clough and Taylor were back in for him when Birtles was sold to Man Utd, paying the Albion £450,000 for his services. Andy Ritchie, being displaced by Birtles’ move to United, promptly replaced Ward at the Albion.

Ward made just 33 appearances for Forest, scoring seven goals, and in 1981-82 went on loan to Seattle Sounders.

In the autumn of 1982, Brighton brought him back to the Goldstone on loan and it was in the fourth game of a 16-game spell that he scored (above) what he considered his favourite goal, the winner against his boyhood idols Manchester United at the Goldstone on 6 November 1982.

Ward was part of the Albion line-up that won that memorable FA Cup fifth round tie at Anfield en route to the 1983 FA Cup Final but it was to prove his penultimate game as the eccentric Clough quashed Ward’s desire to stay with the Seagulls and that potential trip to Wembley.

At that time, Clough’s Forest hadn’t been to a FA Cup Final and he told Ward: “Son, I’ve never been to a Cup Final and neither will you.”

That spelled the end of Ward’s time at the City Ground and by the end of 1983 he was sold to Vancouver Whitecaps for £20,000; the beginning of what became a 13-year career playing mainly indoor football in America, where he still lives.

• Pictures from various sources: the matchday programme, Evening Argus and Shoot! / Goal.