Tag: Colin Calderwood

Champion medal surprise for man on the mic Aspinall

THE starry-eyed teenager who made half a dozen top level appearances for eventual league champions Everton had to wait a long time for his share of that distant glory.

But Warren Aspinall was nonetheless delighted when his contribution to the Toffees achievement in 1986-87 was finally recognised with a medal more than 30 years later.

That’s happened since I last featured Aspinall in this blog, which recalled his early days at hometown club Wigan Athletic and darker days after he had ended his playing days in the blue and white stripes of the Albion (three goals in 24 starts plus 13 as sub) in the 1999-2000 season.

Aspinall is now more often heard rather than seen by Brighton supporters who listen to match commentaries on Radio Sussex, and it was commentator Johnny Cantor, who the summariser sits alongside for the regional BBC radio station’s coverage of all Albion’s games, who instigated a presentation of the belated honour.

“It was JC who pushed it forward and he kept it to himself before surprising me with the news that Everton would be making a presentation,” Aspinall told the matchday programme. “I was shocked but absolutely over the moon.”

The number of games to qualify for a winners’ medal used to be 14, or a third of the season, but the EFL in 2021 decided retrospectively to fall in line with the Premier League which awards medals to players who’ve made a minimum of five appearances.

Aspinall had been unaware of the rule change but Cantor had words in the right places and when Albion played at Goodison Park on 3 January 2023, the former player was finally presented with his medal by Graeme Sharp, one of his fellow Everton forwards back in the day who subsequently became an Everton director.

It’s probably a good job the presentation was made before the game because Albion romped to a 4-1 win that day with goals from Karou Mitoma, full debut-making Evan Ferguson, Solly March and Pascal Gross.

“The medal means the world to me and my family and it now sits proudly on my mantelpiece along with my England under 20 caps,” said Aspinall.

He earned the first of those two caps in the same month that Everton paid £125,000 to sign the 18-year-old from Wigan Athletic, although he saw out the season on loan with the Latics.

He featured in Young England’s 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland at Elland Road, Leeds, and the following month was in the side that suffered a 4-1 defeat to Scotland at Aberdeen’s Pittodrie ground. Tottenham’s David Howells and Neil Ruddock, then of Millwall, also played in both matches, as did Millwall goalkeeper Brian Horne.

Teenager Aspinall signs for Everton’s Howard Kendall watched by Wigan boss Bryan Hamilton

On his return to Goodison Park at the end of the 1985-86 season, Aspinall was on the bench for the last league game (Kendall rested several players because it was five days before the FA Cup Final, which Everton lost 3-1 to Liverpool) and he made his debut in the 3-1 home win over West Ham when going on for two-goal Gary Lineker, who was playing his last league game for Everton before joining Barcelona.

Everton finished as league runners up that season but they went one better the following season, when competition for forward places saw manager Howard Kendall able to pick Sharp and Adrian Heath as his preferred pair, with Paul Wilkinson and Ian Marshall as alternatives. It meant Aspinall’s playing contributions came in the form of nine league and cup appearances as a substitute (he was also a non-playing sub on four occasions). Although first team chances were limited, he bagged plenty of goals for the club’s reserve side, netting 21 in 23 games.

That was enough to convince former Celtic stalwart Billy McNeill, in charge of relegation-bound Aston Villa, to splash £300,000 to take him to Villa Park – where competition for a starting spot was again daunting, with Andy Gray, Gary Shaw, Simon Stainrod and Garry Thompson all striker options.

Aspinall made his Villa debut on 21 February 1987 in a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool and by the season’s end, while his former Everton teammates were lifting the league trophy, he was part of a Villa side that was bottom of the pile.

McNeill was duly sacked and the picture changed the following season when Aspinall was joint top-scorer as Graham Taylor’s Villa bounced straight back to the top tier as runners up behind Millwall.

“Garry Thompson and I hit it off up front and we had such a good understanding that we kept Alan McInally out of the team for a long time,” he told Villa supporter Colin Abbott. “Garry was good to play alongside because he was like a battering ram and I fed off him.”

Aspinall made his 50th and final appearance for Villa on 7 May 1988 in a 0-0 draw away to Swindon (playing left back for Villa was Bernie Gallacher and in the opposition line-up was Colin Calderwood and Kieran O’Regan).

Already warned by Taylor that he needed to improve ill discipline that had resulted in too many cautions, Aspinall got himself sent off for stamping in a pre-season friendly against St Mirren and Taylor transfer-listed him.

Happy at Pompey

England World Cup winner Alan Ball, in charge at recently relegated Portsmouth, seized the moment and took him to Fratton Park for a fee of £315,000 in August 1988, where his teammates included Mark Chamberlain and Terry Connor. In six years with Pompey, Aspinall also played under John Gregory, Frank Burrows, caretaker Tony Barton and Jim Smith.

Briefer stays followed along the coast at Bournemouth (loan and permanent), Swansea City (loan) and two seasons at Carlisle United.

Aspinall at Colchester

Keen to return to the south, Micky Adams first signed him when he had taken over as manager at Brentford and he made 48 appearances (plus three as sub) for the Bees but Aspinall then went on loan and then permanently to Colchester United for nine months before Adams brought him on loan and then permanently to the Albion in the autumn of 1999. It was a part exchange for midfielder Andy Arnott.

In only his third game, Aspinall was a delighted scorer of the only goal on his old stomping ground of Brunton Park as Albion returned to Sussex with all the points. The News of the World said: “Former Carlisle favourite Warren Aspinall seized on Billy Barr’s poor back pass to chip keeper Andy Dibble.”

In the Argus, Andy Naylor wrote: “The colourful midfielder then dashed towards the Albion supporters huddled in the seats on a drizzly day in Cumbria before sliding full-length on the greasy turf.”

Aspinall continued his celebration with a finger-on-lip gesture and an ear cupped towards the home support. He told the matchday programme: “I heard the keeper shout for the ball and anticipated the defender’s pass. I think I showed a great turn of pace for a veteran.”

In fact, Aspinall was 32 when he joined the Seagulls and he added experience to a side that went on to finish its first season back in Brighton in 11th place in the fourth tier

At the start of the following season, when he went on as a sub for Gary Hart in Brighton’s home 2-1 win over Rochdale (Bobby Zamora scored both Albion goals), it was to be his last ever appearance.

Suffering from the niggle of a piece of floating bone in his right ankle, he followed physio advice to have it removed in what was expected to be a routine operation. But while in hospital, he caught the MSRA superbug which ate away tendons and ligaments in his ankle.

“They eventually said I would never play football again as a result. I was finished,” he told The News, Portsmouth, in a graphic account of the trauma. “Yet now I needed an operation to get rid of this infection, which involved me scheduled to stay on a hospital ward for 14 days, attached to an intravenous drip while antibiotics were fed into my body.

“After 13 days, my body broke out in a rash from head to toe. It had rejected the drug. So, I had the operation once more – and it happened again. After 13 days, my body rejected it.

“For 28 days I’d been on that hospital ward, so I was then offered the chance to return home if I underwent an operation to insert two tubes into my heart, one for the intravenous drip to enter and the other to take blood out.

“That sounded good to me – apart from my heart subsequently stopping during the procedure. I died. I’m told it was for a few seconds, but I died on that operating table,’ Aspinall told The News. “But they brought me back, and I was allowed to go home to Hedge End, with a district nurse checking on me every day, even Christmas Day.

“There were two six-inch tubes hanging out of my chest, with the nurse taking blood out of one and putting the drugs into the other.

“I lived. The antibiotics killed the superbug, but my career ended there and then. I was aged 33, with nothing planned, no coaching badges. I had to go into the real world.”

The story of what happened in his post-playing days – battles against gambling and alcohol addictions – have been well documented in various media interviews, including a detailed one with the Birmingham Mail in October 2012, when he spoke openly about a near-miss suicide attempt.

He has been Cantor’s co-commentator on Albion matches for Radio Sussex since 2015.

Forest hopes felled for injury-stricken Matt Thornhill

TRANSFER makeweight Matt Thornhill fell foul of managerial changes and debilitating injury which together brought a promising professional playing career to an early end.

Brighton’s former assistant manager Colin Calderwood believed in the midfielder but his successor as Nottingham Forest manager, Billy Davies, didn’t.

Surplus to requirements at the City Ground, Thornhill was Russell Slade’s seventh signing of the summer in 2009, heading to Sussex as part of the deal that saw Albion academy graduate Joel Lynch move to Forest for £200,000 (having spent the previous season on loan there).

Thornhill initially joined on a six-month loan and he was full of optimism, telling the Argus: “They (Brighton) are looking to go for it this season and hopefully I can be a part of that team and help them strive for the top five of the table and the play-offs.

“My target is to play as many games as I can for Brighton and see what happens. If everything goes well then I could extend it to a year, but we’ll just see.”

Although he started the first game of the season at home to Walsall, he was subbed off at half-time as the Seagulls lost 1-0. Three days later, he was in the side beaten 3-0 by Swansea City in the League Cup (Andrea Orlandi was playing for the Swans and Stephen Dobbie scored his first two goals for City in the Liberty Stadium clash).

But it was another two months before he started another game. Other new arrivals at Withdean (like big money signing Elliott Bennett) at the start of that 2009-10 season and niggling injuries limited Thornhill’s involvement, and, at the end of October, Slade was sacked and replaced by Gus Poyet.

Thornhill, who turned 21 during his time with the Seagulls, only started five games, made four appearances off the bench, and was an unused sub for eight matches.

Poyet had his own ideas about the squad he wanted and swiftly Thornhill and fellow Forest loanee midfielder Arron Davies, who’d played under Slade at Yeovil, were sent back to the City Ground.

Born in Nottingham on 11 October 1988, Thornhill was only eight when he was first offered the chance to sign for Forest, but his father said he was too young.

They went back in for him when he was 14, and, despite other interest from Derby County and Notts County, as a Forest fan it was an easy decision to make.

He was initially coached by former Forest defender Chris Fairclough. When he left school at 16, he became a scholar under John Pemberton, and signed a pro contract a year later.

Calderwood gave him his first team debut at Chester City in the Carling Cup in August 2007, a game Forest won on penalties.

Thornhill made five starts and 11 sub appearances across that 2007-08 season as Forest went up from League One and he scored his first goal for the club in a 4-0 win over Leyton Orient. He featured in 28 league and cup games (16 starts, 12 from the bench) on their return to the Championship.

“Calderwood was really good,” said Thornhill in an extended interview with the Nottingham Evening Post in 2018. “He came and watched the young lads and gave us confidence,” he told reporter Matt Davies.

“He said that if you were good enough, he’d give you a chance with the first team. Some managers don’t go with the academy players.

“They bring players they know in. I saw Lewis McGugan get his chance though and that spurred me on.

“When I got in the team I never thought far ahead. I took every week as it came. I knew the manager believed in me.

“I tried to make the most of it. Playing for Forest meant a lot to me and my family.

“It was massive. I knew growing up how big the club was.”

Thornhill was still only 19 when he played in the biggest game of his career, a 3-0 FA Cup third round win at Manchester City in January 2009.

Forest were floundering at the wrong end of the Championship and had just sacked Calderwood. Pemberton took caretaker charge and it was the biggest cup upset of the round when Forest beat the newly-enriched City so convincingly.

“City were spending loads of money,” said Thornhill. “We had nothing to lose, but wanted to impress the new manager (Billy Davies was watching from the stands).

“I should have scored. I shanked it to Robert Earnshaw and he scored in the end.”

Two days later, Davies took over as manager and Thornhill said he made it quite clear he was going to send out on loan all the young lads who did well under Calderwood.

After his foreshortened Albion loan spell came to an end, he then joined League Two Cheltenham Town on a similar basis, helping them to narrowly avoid dropping out of the league.

Back at Forest for the new season, Thornhill thought he had changed Davies’ opinion, telling the Nottingham Evening Post: “I had a really good pre-season. He told me I’d done well and that I’d be in his plans for the season.

“I was buzzing. The first league game he named me on the bench.”

In the second game of the season, he was a starter in a 2-1 Carling Cup defeat at Bradford City

“I scored and felt I did really well,” said Thornhill. It turned out to be his last game for the club.

“I’d have loved to have got the opportunities Billy said he would give me but there was nothing I could do about it,” he said.

“It annoyed me that he told me I was in his plans and never got the chance when I was at my fittest.”

By Christmas 2010, he was told he had no future at Forest. And he never played in the Football League again.

Former boss Calderwood took him to Scottish Premier League Hibernian in January 2011, but after only nine matches for the Edinburgh side he damaged medial knee ligaments and missed the rest of the season.

Thornhill told Davies of the Post: “I believed in myself still when Forest let me go and Colin Calderwood gave me another chance at Hibs.”

As well as the knee issue, Thornhill contracted a stomach condition which kept him out for eight months. By the time he was fit again, Calderwood had been sacked.

New boss Pat Fenlon did not see a role for him; he was sent to train with the youth team, and was eventually released after making only 15 appearances for Hibs.

Still only 23, he joined Northern Premier League side Buxton (‘The Bucks’) while hoping he would get the chance to resurrect his league career. It never came and instead, after two years at Buxton, he moved on (left) to Barnsley-based Shaw Lane Aquaforce ‘The Ducks’), whose head coach Craig Elliott said: “It is a massive coup for the club.”

Elliott told Non League Yorkshire: “He’s one I didn’t think we would get as a couple of other clubs were after him, but I convinced him to be part of our project.
“He has a fantastic CV and he did well at Buxton last season. Everyone at the club is pleased to have him.”

He helped the club to win promotion to the Northern Premier League Division One South in 2014-15 and was club captain the following season when they reached the divisional play-off final, only to lose 3-1 to Coalville Town.

He then moved up two levels in the football pyramid and spent a season with National League North side Gainsborough Trinity, where he was appointed captain.

The player told Non League Yorkshire: “I am really pleased to be a part of what (Gainsborough manager) Dominic (Roma) is building at Trinity this season and am glad to be signed early, so I can get a good pre-season under my belt. I really feel I can help the team and channel my experience in a positive way.”

In 2017, Thornhill switched to his local club Basford United and he is still playing for the Northern Premier League Premier Division outfit.

A key figure for Basford United

When he signed a new two-year deal with Basford in 2021, then manager Steve Chettle (himself a former Forest player) told the Hucknall Dispatch: “It is vitally important that we set out to continue where we have been for the last two [incomplete] seasons and Matt has been a massive part of that, and he has a been a key figure in the success of this club in the last five years.

“His attitude to all parts of the games and training is an example to all and his contribution in assists and goals over the years has been fantastic. He is a fans favourite and for the captain to re-sign really shows our intentions.”

Chairman Chris Munroe added: “Matt has shown the club, Steve and myself a great deal of loyalty over the years and my dream is that he finishes his playing career with us at Basford, which is now a real possibility.

“There is nothing better for our fans than to see Matt scoring goals or contributing numerous assists and we hope that continues in good supply moving forward as we enter an exciting phase for the football club.”

In that 2018 interview with the Nottingham Evening Post, Thornhill said: “I never really got back where I wanted. I started so well and since Billy let me go I’ve been hampered by injuries.

“I do think I’d have kicked on but for injuries. I might still have been a pro now. It’s football though. It’s what can happen.”

The article said Thornhill was working for a company supplying paint to the car repairs industry and he said philosophically: “My job now is different to football obviously. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to get by in life.

“Anyone that knows me knows I get on with things. I see it that I was lucky to play for Forest.

“I was lucky to play for a club that big. There’s no point having regrets and always looking back.”

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 75th 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.”

Murphy in action for Glasgow Rangers

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 87th 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 67th 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.

Murphy joined Ayr United in 2023

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.”

Arron Davies and pal Gareth Bale’s careers diverged!

ARRON DAVIES moved to Nottingham Forest two months after scoring twice against them to shatter their chances of promotion via the League One play-offs.

Davies was in the Yeovil side, managed by Russell Slade, that beat Forest 5-2 in the first leg of their play-off semi-final in 2007 and edged the tie 5-4 on aggregate before losing to Blackpool in the final.

Liking what he saw in the opponents’ line-up, Forest boss Colin Calderwood, later Albion assistant manager to Chris Hughton, promptly signed Davies and his Glovers teammate Chris Cohen for £1.2m.

But a freak leg-break in a pre-season game in Scotland dealt Davies a massive blow and he was mainly on the fringes as Forest made up for the previous season’s disappointment by winning promotion in second place.

While he made ten starts, plus 12 appearances off the bench, Cohen, was a regular in the Forest midfield and became a fans’ favourite.

When Davies only featured in two Carling Cup games for Forest at the start of the 2009-10 season, his old boss, Slade, took him on a half-season loan to League One Brighton.

It wasn’t a completely strange dressing room for him to join; Forest teammate Matt Thornhill was already on loan, having joined as part of the deal that saw Albion defender Joel Lynch move to the City Ground.

He also knew Craig Davies and Andrew Crofts from involvement in the Wales under 21 team for who he won 14 caps and was made captain by Brian Flynn. In 2006, manager John Toshack gave him his solitary full cap for his country, aged just 17, going on as a sub (as did Davies and Crofts) in a 2-1 friendly win over Trinidad and Tobago. It was the match that marked his close friend (and fellow Southampton teenager) Gareth Bale’s debut as Wales’ youngest ever full international at the age of 16 years and 315 days.

On clinching his former player’s signing for the Albion, Slade told the Albion website: “Arron can play on either wing or as an attacking midfielder. He is a player I know very well from my time at Yeovil and I expect him to be a very good acquisition for the club.”

Davies was effectively a straight replacement for winger Mark Wright, who’d joined as a free agent that summer but failed to settle and was sold to Bristol Rovers after only two games.

He told the matchday programme: “Russell is a very good manager. I played under him for one season at Yeovil and we had a very good year that year as he led us to the play-off final.

“That was my most enjoyable year in football. It was a great season for me, getting to Wembley, and eventually getting a move to Nottingham Forest. He did a lot for me and hopefully I can repay him this time round.

“I have played the majority of my career at this level, in this league, and I know what it is all about. I have won promotion with Nottingham Forest and came very close with Yeovil, so I know what it takes.”

In the absence of Dean Cox through injury, Davies made eight starts for the Seagulls, but he was subbed off in seven of the games (Albion only won three of them).

When the 3-3 draw at home to Hartlepool signalled the end of Slade’s reign, it also marked the last game Davies played in the stripes. Unfortunately for him, new boss Gus Poyet preferred alternative options.

Born in Cardiff on 22 June 1984, Davies was brought up in the delightfully named Llantwit Major. He spent four years in Cardiff City’s youth set up but moved to Southampton in 1997 and eventually broke through to become a regular in their reserves during the 2002-03 season.

He had a sniff of involvement in the 2003 FA Cup final when Saints played Arsenal in Cardiff but manager Gordon Strachan didn’t select him in the matchday squad. He subsequently travelled to Bucharest where Saints played in a UEFA Cup tie but again didn’t play.

“I was fairly close to Gordon,” Davies told walesonline.co.uk in December 2018. “He made me travel with the first team and got me involved with training daily. He put me on the bench and spoke to me quite a bit.

“He liked the way I played football and he believed in me.”

He had a brief loan spell with Barnsley in February 2004, where he played four matches, but, on the day Harry Redknapp replaced Strachan as Saints manager, the youngster was released.

“They were a Premier League club at the time and I got close,” he said. “Obviously, though, it wasn’t close enough. I just decided to leave and then that year they got relegated.

“If I’d stayed, perhaps with hindsight I would have played a bit more in the Championship the year after.

“But it was the best decision I made as I had to go out and get first team football. From there, at Yeovil, that’s where my career really started.”

Davies joined Yeovil on a free transfer and went on to score 27 goals in 115 matches over the next three years.

If the move to Forest looked promising, a freak injury during a pre-season game at Motherwell changed everything.

A nudge knocked him off balance and he stumbled on his leg, causing a spiral fracture and a chip on the bone – rather than a clean break – which made it more difficult to fix.

“That was a massive setback,” he told BBC Radio Nottingham. Although he recovered to make his debut in October 2007, his three years in the East Midlands were blighted by injury. He played just 40 games for the Reds. “I couldn’t really get fit,” he said. “I couldn’t get a run of games, I couldn’t get a run of form going. I still have ongoing issues, it is mainly in my calf.

“Obviously if I could turn back time, I would have to miss the game away at Motherwell and not get injured. It’s pretty sad that it didn’t work out. I was pretty gutted about that. If I hadn’t have got injured it would have been a different story.”

When managerial change meant things didn’t work out for him at Brighton, he returned to Yeovil on loan, making a further 10 appearances.

In the summer of 2010, another former Yeovil boss, Gary Johnson, signed him for Peterborough United but after playing 28 games for Posh, Johnson’s successor, Darren Ferguson dispensed with his services.

Next stop was Northampton Town, signed for a third time by Johnson, who had become manager of the Cobblers. He played 19 times and scored four goals for Town, his best return for five years. But, in what was becoming a familiar pattern, when Johnson left, Davies found opportunities limited under successor Aidy Boothroyd.

He joined League Two Exeter City in the summer of 2012, with their manager Paul Tisdale telling BBC Sport: “It’s a good opportunity for him and I think he’s the right type of player to fit in with us. He’s an attack-minded player and I had to find some attack-minded players to fit into the squad.”

Tisdale saw it as a chance for Davies to resurrect his career, and over the course of four seasons he played more matches (148) than he’d played for any of his previous clubs, adding a further 10 goals to his career tally.

By 2016, Exeter couldn’t afford to give him a new contract and, ironically, he scored against them for new club Accrington Stanley in a 2-1 defeat at home to the Grecians in August 2016. However, it was his only goal in 10 appearances for Accrington before he retired.

After his playing days were over, he became an agent. “Throughout my time as a player people sort of gauged my advice on things and came to me, so I leaned towards that and did my badges as well,” he told walesonline.

“Even when I was playing League Two football I had friends in the Premier League that were ringing me and asking for advice.

“It was something I always liked doing, so I’m doing it full-time. It’s enjoyable, it’s demanding and it keeps me in football and I can’t ever picture not being involved in football.”

Davies told devonlive.com: “I did look into coaching, I’ve done a few of my badges, but the agent side of it really hooked me in.

“There’s no limits on it, you can be as good as you want, so I’m out, trying to work as hard as I possibly can.”

Fans warmed to ‘indestructible’ Goldson after own goal start

CONNOR GOLDSON’S dad Winston must have had mixed emotions when his son scored the only goal of the game at the Amex on New Year’s Day 2016.

The avid Wolverhampton Wanderers fan in him would have been delighted to see his side leave the south coast with three valuable Championship points.

Unfortunately, Wolverhampton-born Connor was playing for Brighton that day – just his second game in the blue and white stripes.

What made it worse was that the defender had been on Wanderers’ books for five years as a young boy but was released when he was only 13.

Goldson must have been mortified when, in the 32nd-minute of that first game of 2016, he inadvertently diverted Jordan Graham’s cross past David Stockdale in the home goal.

Sure, injury-hit Albion had chances to restore parity or even win, but 11th-placed Wolves hung on to the lead and Chris Hughton’s luckless Seagulls saw a winless run extend to six games.

Albion also lost the next two matches but got back on track with a 1-0 win at Blackburn on 16 January and then pushed hard for an automatic promotion slot.

For Goldson, that fixture marked the start of a run of games alongside Lewis Dunk, and his first goal for the club came in a 2-1 away win at Birmingham City on 5 April, when he glanced in a Jiri Skalak set-piece delivery.

Goldson celebrates his goal at Birmingham with Beram Kayal and Lewis Dunk

He found the net again a fortnight later with a towering header from a corner as the Seagulls crushed QPR 4-0 at the Amex to edge closer to the top two (Burnley and Middlesbrough) with three games to go.

The centre-back partnership was only broken up when Dunk was shown a red card in the penultimate game, a 1-1 draw at Derby, and suspended for the final game of the ordinary league season.

Goldson was alongside returning skipper Gordon Greer for the crucial away game at Middlesbrough on 7 May when the 1-1 draw meant Boro, equal on 89 points, pipped the Albion to automatic promotion by virtue of having scored two more goals.

With Albion forced to endure the play-offs, Goldson’s involvement in the Seagulls’ bid to overcome Sheffield Wednesday cruelly came to a premature end when the centre-back was forced off injured before half-time in the first leg at Hillsborough, and Albion eventually succumbed 2-0.

The injury prevented Goldson being involved in the second leg when Dunk scored but Wednesday somehow managed a 1-1 draw to thwart Albion’s progress.

If that was a blow, it was the least of the troubles the defender would have to overcome the following season.

Frustrating though it was that Brighton brought in Shane Duffy to partner Dunk in the centre of defence, Goldson’s brief spell back in the side in early 2017 came to a juddering halt when a routine scan discovered a heart defect that required surgery.

Then it wasn’t just his football career that was under threat, but his life was in danger if urgent action wasn’t taken to operate on the swollen aorta the tests uncovered.

It has since emerged that Winston suffered a heart attack aged only 35 and Goldson’s grandfather had died of a heart problem.

The required “preventative surgery” took place at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Chelsea, leaving him with a scar down the middle of his chest. His best friend in football and former Shrewsbury teammate, Jon Taylor, told The Athletic: “He thought the worst about not playing again. He was struggling. When I saw him in the hospital it was horrible.”

Taylor was among several former Shrews people Scottish football writer Jordan Campbell spoke to for an extended article about Goldson published by The Athletic in March 2021.

“I made a T-shirt for him before a game which said ‘Stay Strong Con’. That gave him a little bit of a boost but he’s got a great family around him,” said Taylor, who is now at Doncaster. “When he had the op, and he knew he could play again, his mentality was, ‘How quickly can I get back?’. Even as young lads at Wolves we knew his mindset was second to none.”

Campbell reported how once Goldson had come to terms with the situation, he was determined to get back playing regularly, and just 15 weeks after the operation he took part in a pre-season friendly match in Austria. In a changed second half team, he lined up alongside Uwe Hünemeier against Fortuna Dusseldorf.

Physio Chris Skitt, who’d nurtured Goldson through physical issues when he was developing at Shrewsbury, said: “If I talk to kids and they say, ‘What does it take to be a professional footballer?’, I use Connor as the example.”

With a surname that lent itself so readily to the Spandau Ballet classic Gold, the “indestructible” line in the lyrics was a natural for Albion’s singing fans to pick up on.

But at the end of August 2017, on transfer deadline day, it looked certain Goldson would continue his rehabilitation into league football with a season-long loan move to Ipswich Town.

He was manager Mick McCarthy’s main target, but Albion pulled the plug on the deal at the last minute because of the collapse of a separate deal for centre-back cover they’d hoped to complete.

Goldson played in League Cup matches against Barnet and AFC Bournemouth but it wasn’t until December that he finally got his chance to feature in Albion’s debut Premier League season – and he turned in a Man of the Match performance as the Seagulls beat Watford 1-0 at the Amex.

He played in three games in January: FA Cup matches against Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough (2-1 and 1-0 wins), and the 4-0 home defeat to a rampant Chelsea.

Goldson and Duffy in action v Chelsea

As Albion progressed to the fifth round of the FA Cup, Goldson once again got a start, alongside Hünemeier, as Albion beat Coventry City 3-1 at the Amex.

His last league game in an Albion shirt was as a 71st-minute substitute for Duffy in a 4-0 reverse away to Liverpool on the final day of the season.

During the close season, Goldson seized on the chance to play for his boyhood hero Steven Gerrard, who had just been appointed manager of Glasgow Rangers. Gerrard drove all the way to Brighton for face-to-face talks with Goldson and explained how he saw him as a cornerstone of the rebuilding job at Rangers.

The often magnanimous Hughton was not going to stand in his way and said on the club website: “Connor has done extremely well for the club in the three years he has been here, but he wants to play regular senior football, and at this stage we cannot give him that guarantee.

“He has been a great professional and a pleasure to work with – and he has shown a great mental strength to come through a very tough time after he underwent crucial heart surgery just over a year ago.”

Determined to seize the opportunity presented to him in Glasgow, Goldson remarkably played in 151 of 159 games Rangers took part in over the next three years; when he made his 150th appearance, it was the quickest any player had reached that landmark in the club’s history.

After Gerrard departed Rangers to take on the manager’s job at Aston Villa, Goldson indicated he wanted to make a move himself, although, at the time of writing, he remains in Glasgow.

Born on 18 December 1992, Goldson grew up on the same Wolverhampton estate as future Wanderers players Leon Clarke and Carl Ikeme.

As the son of a Wolves-mad dad, it was probably not surprising that his early footballing promise was nurtured with Wanderers. The family lived only a 10-minute car ride from Molineux.

“I was with Wolves from the age of eight until I was 13,” Goldson recalled in an Albion matchday programme article, explaining that he was in the same group as Jack Price and Ethan Ebanks-Landell, who both made it through to the first team.

“I was a striker until I was about 10 or 11, simply because I was the biggest and the quickest, but I was then converted into a centre-half,” he said. “When I got to under 14 level, the manager stopped playing me and so my dad and I made the decision to leave for Shrewsbury – and it was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

Shrewsbury fast-tracked Goldson through the groups and he was training with the first team by the time he was 16. He signed professional forms at 17 and made his first team debut the following year.

“I owe Shrewsbury a lot, both the first-team management and the coaches who brought me through,” he said.

In The Athletic feature, Skitt described in detail how Goldson went through a difficult physical development phase which in effect involved “putting him back together”.

The physio was responsible for resetting his body and created a specific programme comprised of core work, gym sessions and remedial work to counter the loss of power growth spurts were causing.

“We even tried to get him boxing to improve his footwork because of his canal boat shoes. He is a size 14 and they are absolutely honking,” said Skitt.

After successfully rebuilding his body, Goldson played 18 games at the start of the 2013-14 season under Graham Turner but only 11 were as a starter, so he went on a two-month loan to Cheltenham.

His loan was extended but he was recalled after first team coach and reserve team manager Mike Jackson (the chap who has taken over as caretaker Burnley manager following Sean Dyche’s sacking) was put in charge at Shrewsbury until the end of the season following Turner’s resignation. Goldson played every minute of the last 21 league games.

Shrews were relegated but the following season, under Micky Mellon, with Jackson as coach, Goldson was a key player as they bounced straight back: he won the club’s Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year awards and was named in the PFA Team of the Year.

Such recognition led to Brighton signing him, doubtless with half an eye on his replacing Greer, who was edging towards the end of his playing days with the Seagulls.

It was a while before Goldson got his chance and Greer admitted in The Athletic feature that the new boy’s frustration spilled over into a set-to with the skipper in training.

“Training finished and we went into the dressing room to find that the lads had laid out two sets of boxing gloves for a laugh with the Rocky music playing,” said Greer. “As soon it was over, though, it was done, as I liked Connor.”

And to show the hatchet had been well and truly buried, Goldson revealed that after he’d taken the captain’s place in the side, behind the scenes Greer had offered him encouragement and advice. “He’s been very helpful and supportive at the same time,” he said. “There are plenty of people who wouldn’t be like that, so I can’t speak highly enough of him.”

Goldson had to wait until 15 December 2015 to make his Albion debut, when he went on as a substitute for the injured Hünemeier against Middlesbrough. Unfortunately, the visitors emphatically ended Albion’s 21-game unbeaten run, winning 3-0.

That game was watched from the stands by Jose Mourinho, who’d just been deposed as Chelsea boss, catching up on the progress of his former Real Madrid colleague and Boro manager Aitor Karanka.

For the new young centre-back, the rise to playing in the Championship was all a learning experience, and he said: “I’ve been working with Colin Calderwood a lot, even after training, and as a former centre-back himself, he has put on a lot of good drills.”

Little did he know at the time there would be far greater challenges ahead.

McGhee provided Albion platform for playmaker Mark Yeates

TRICKY playmaker Mark Yeates spent five years as a Tottenham Hotspur player but it was with Brighton that he played his first competitive football.

Yeates looked like a useful loan signing when he joined new manager Mark McGhee’s Albion squad in November 2003. He drew plenty of admirers and featured in 10 games over two months.

It wasn’t long before McGhee was talking about the possibility of signing him on a permanent basis, but Spurs had other ideas. He eventually had to leave north London to pursue his career but he ultimately made nearly 500 professional appearances.

Eighteen-year-old Yeates arrived on the south coast shortly after Zesh Rehman had also signed on loan (from Fulham), Albion having lost midfield duo Charlie Oatway and Simon Rodger to injuries.

The diminutive Irishman made his debut in McGhee’s first match in charge: a 4-1 defeat to Sheffield United at Withdean.

The matchday programme’s assessment was thus: “The second half was better. Mark Yeates moved into the centre of midfield and so had an opportunity to show what he can do. He could beat players, look up, and try a perceptive through ball. Wide on the left in the first half, he’d been exposed and given the ball away too often.”

On the day England won the Rugby World Cup, Yeates was one of six Albion players booked as the Seagulls beat Notts County 2-1 at Meadow Lane; an eventful game which saw Adam El-Abd make his league debut, Leon Knight score twice and John Piercy sent off for two bookable offences.

After only his third game, Yeates was off on international duty, playing for the Republic of Ireland under 19s away to France.

It was in early December that McGhee spoke about wanting to take Yeates on a permanent basis, telling the club’s website: “I’ve said already that I knew before he came here what a good player he is and I imagined he would do well in this team, and he has done that.”

McGhee told the Argus: “He has a kind of Gaelic confidence. Robbie Keane had it and Mark is similar in that respect.

“His character is perfect really for the way he plays. It goes with the ability and flair.”

Yeates hailed from the same Tallaght district of Dublin as Keane – a player McGhee knew well having given him his English football debut at 17 when manager of Wolves.

After extending his stay at the Albion to a second month, Yeates told the Argus: “Before I came here I had never really played in the centre of midfield. I usually play up front off a big man.

Yeates takes control watched by Adam Hinshelwood

“The gaffer tried me up front in the first half at QPR (in the LDV Vans Trophy) but we didn’t get the ball into mine and Leon’s feet, and with two little men you are not going to get much joy.

“At Tottenham we play with wingbacks and two holding midfielders and I am allowed a free role.

“I have to be a bit more disciplined here. Sometimes I can go running about a bit, it’s just up to the lads to call me back in to help out.”

Yeates appreciated the opportunity Albion had given him to taste senior football, telling the newspaper: “It’s great for me just to be getting first team football, plus the reason I am staying here is because they are a good bunch down here.”

He observed: “It’s a lot more fast and furious because everyone is playing for their living. You have to give a bit more and get more out of yourself which you probably wouldn’t get in a reserve game.

“In reserve football, players are going through the motions. It’s just a matter of playing a game.”

After he’d played his final game on loan, a 0-0 home draw with Oldham Athletic, the matchday programme observed: “Yeates showed some neat touches and was Albion’s most creative outlet once again.”

When Albion struggled to beat Barnsley 1-0 in the FA Cup, the matchday programme noted: “The passing abilities of Mark Yeates, and his desire to get into the penalty area, were sorely missed.”

Back at Spurs, Yeates had to wait until the very last game of the season to make his Premier League debut. He’d previously been an unused substitute when Glenn Hoddle’s Tottenham were thrashed 5-1 by Middlesbrough at the end of the 2002-03 season.

But in May 2004, David Pleat selected him to start in a side also featuring Ledley King, Jamie Redknapp, Christian Ziege, Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane.

The fixture at Molineux ended in a 2-0 win for the visitors and Yeates helped Spurs take the lead against the run of play, laying on a cross for Keane to score against his former club. Defoe netted a second to seal the win.

Born in Tallaght on 11 January 1985, Yeates was the eldest son of former Shelbourne, Shamrock Rovers, Athlone Town and Kilkenny City striker Stephen Yeates, who died aged just 38 following a tragic accident, just as Mark was making his way through the youth ranks at Spurs.

The young Yeates first played competitive football with Greenhills Boys, a club who his grandfather and father had been involved with, and then moved on to Cherry Orchard, a Dublin side renowned for producing a number of players who went on to have successful professional careers.

In an extended interview with Lennon Branagan for superhotspur.com, Yeates recalled how Tottenham scout Terry Arber did a two-day coaching course at Cherry Orchard, after which he, Willo Flood (later to play for Manchester City and Dundee United) and Stephen Quinn (who went on to play for Sheffield United) were invited to London for a trial with Spurs.

Yeates was only 15 but he was taken on and had to up sticks from home and move into digs in London.

“As a skilful dribbler who was regularly a source of assists and goals in the youth set-up, Yeates quickly demonstrated to the coaching staff at Tottenham that he possessed the raw materials required to graduate to the next level,” wrote Paul Dollery in an October 2021 article for the42.ie.

Sadly, his progress through the youth ranks was interrupted by the shock news of his father’s death in an accident. Yeates told Dollery how it could have all gone the wrong way, but he thankfully remained focused.

“It was really tough, but you’d ask yourself what else you could do if you didn’t keep going – go home to your estate in Tallaght, drink cans every weekend and get roped into whatever else? 

“I could have done that, or I could look at the three-year contract that was on the table at Tottenham and get my head down to go after that.

“It was hard, but a bit of willpower and the desire to be a footballer – which I had since I started kicking a ball – got me through it.”

In his interview with Branagan, Yeates said: “I started to train with the first team at a decent age and really being involved quite a bit as well as being a regular with the reserves group with Colin Calderwood and Chris Hughton at the time.

“I’ve just got so many unbelievable things to say when I look back now and I can only say so many good things about Spurs because it sort of built me and gave me so much.”

It was in January 2005 when Yeates next appeared for the Spurs first team, Martin Jol sending him on as a sub in the third round FA Cup tie against Brighton at White Hart Lane when Tottenham edged it 2-1.

The following week he once again replaced Pedro Mendes as a sub when a star-studded Chelsea side won 2-0 on their way to winning their first Premier League title under Jose Mourinho. He also got on in the next game, as Spurs crashed 3-0 at Crystal Palace,

While he could have continued to bide his time at Spurs, he preferred to go out on loan again to get some games under his belt. He played four times for League One Swindon Town and then had a season-long loan at Colchester United, helping them to promotion from League One in 2005-06 in a squad which included Greg Halford and Chris Iwelumo.

Further loan spells followed at Hull City and Leicester City but, in the summer of 2007, he joined Colchester on a permanent deal.

Yeates scored 21 goals in 81 games for United drawing him to the attention of future England manager Gareth Southgate who took him to Middlesbrough (who had just been relegated from the Premier League) for a £500,000 fee.

On signing a three-year deal, Yeates said: “This is massive for me. There was interest from other clubs but there was only one thing on my mind once my agent told me Middlesbrough had been in touch.

“This club belongs in the Premier League, the fans deserve to be there and I can’t wait to play in front of them. It’s a Premiership club in my mind – all you have to do is look around the facilities, the training ground, the stadium, everything is spot on.”

Yeates reckoned his versatility would suit Boro. “I can play on the right or the left,” he said. “I played a full season’s Championship football on the right for Colchester, while I played most of last season on the left. But then, in probably eight of the last 10 games, I played behind the front two.

“For a winger, I think my goals record is quite good,” he added. “I got 14 last season and nine by Christmas the season before I got injured.

“I like to get on the ball and take on defenders. The number one job of being a wide man is creating chances and I certainly like to do that, but scoring goals isn’t a bad habit to have either. I promise the fans I’ll give 110 per cent. I’m hungry to prove that I deserve to be here.”

Fine words but it didn’t pan out well for him because Southgate was sacked in October 2009 and his successor Gordon Strachan shunned the Irishman. By January 2010, Yeates was on the move again, this time to Sheffield United.

Blades boss Kevin Blackwell told the club’s website: “He’s a player we have looked at before, I’ve had my eye on him for a year or two but we couldn’t agree terms with Colchester. I’m delighted to finally get my man, although I was surprised that Boro would let him go.”

Yeates was reunited with Stephen Quinn and another former Albion loanee, Darius Henderson, was up front for the Blades. Yeates reckoned he had his best ever spell playing under Blackwell’s successor, Gary Speed.

“He was just an unbelievable man and, going back to when I was at Tottenham as a young lad, he was the prime example of the player you should aspire to be like,” he said. “He had faith in me.”

Unfortunately, when Speed left to manage Wales, former Albion boss Micky Adams took charge and the pair didn’t see eye to eye, as he explained to watfordlegends.com.

“I was at Sheffield United and it was the season when we went from the Championship to League One. Micky Adams was the manager and we weren’t getting on. In the summer Micky was sacked and Danny Wilson came in as manager.

“I trained for the full pre-season with the club, but I was aware that there were a couple of clubs keeping an eye on my situation throughout the summer. It was Blackpool and Watford who put in offers for me, and I spoke with both clubs, but when I met Dychey (Sean Dyche) I decided to sign for Watford.

“I still had a house in Loughton so overall it was a good opportunity to get back down south, and everything that Sean said to me on the phone really appealed to me.”

Yeates was at Watford for two seasons, initially under Dyche and then Gianfranco Zola, but his contract wasn’t renewed in the summer of 2013 and he decided to link up once again with his former Colchester and Hull boss, Phil Parkinson, at League One Bradford City.

He was one of the goalscorers for Bradford when they completed a massive upset by beating Premier League table toppers Chelsea 4-2 at Stamford Bridge in the fourth round of the 2015 FA Cup.

However, released that summer, he switched across the Pennines to join Oldham Athletic and six months later was on the move again, this time to Blackpool.

“Since leaving Hull it’s been a bit up and down,” he told Branagan. “I was on a short term deal at Oldham which went alright before then deciding to go to Blackpool because of a longer contract which was put in front of me which I don’t regret, as I’ve been living around the St Annes area now for five years and my children have grown up here and are at school and it’s a great area to raise a family in.”

His final league club as a player was Notts County, who he joined on a short-term deal in January 2017, and he appeared in 11 games plus three as a substitute as new manager Kevin Nolan’s side turned what at one point looked like relegation from the league into a 16th place finish (although two years later County lost the league status they’d held for 157 years).

After playing non-league for Eastleigh, in 2019 Yeates moved closer to home and signed for AFC Fylde. In September 2021, he became an academy coach at Fleetwood Town, although he continued to keep his hand in as a player at Bamber Bridge.

Reflecting on the player’s career, Dollery wrote: “With a ball at his feet, Yeates was one of the most technically accomplished Irish players of his generation, cut from the same cloth as the likes of (Wes) Hoolahan and Andy Reid.

“That such a claim isn’t backed up by international achievements can perhaps be partly explained by his own admission that he didn’t marry his talent with a devotion to other aspects of the game that were beginning to play a more prominent role in the life of a professional footballer.

“If fitness coaches scheduled a gym session, Yeates felt his time would be better spent by staying on the training pitch to perfect his free kicks. A predilection for crisps, fizzy drinks and nights out didn’t aid his cause either.”

Yeates recognised he could have done things differently and said: “The reality was that I didn’t live like a saint.

“Everyone who knows me would know that that’s just not my personality. I’ve always been a fella who likes a bit of craic; just a normal Irish lad from an estate who happened to love playing football.”

• Pictures from the Albion matchday programme and various online sources.

Goalscorer Craig Maskell among Town’s top 100 crowd favourites

Screenshot

CRAIG MASKELL had a decent near 1 in 3 goalscoring record for Brighton & Hove Albion but he’s possibly best remembered for a shot that didn’t go in.

When Maskell’s curling effort in the relegation decider at Hereford United on 3 May 1997 struck the post rather than going in, fortunately Robbie Reinelt was on hand to slot home the rebound to earn Albion the draw that ensured they stayed in the league.

Born Craig Dell Maskell on 10 April 1968 in Aldershot, perhaps it was his destiny to play for Southampton! (for younger readers, The Dell used to be Southampton’s home ground).

Indeed, Maskell started his professional career at Southampton, signing pro forms just after his 18th birthday. But he appeared in only six league games for the Saints before joining Huddersfield Town in May 1988 for a £20,000 fee.

His new teammates included former Seagulls Chris Hutchings and Kieran O’Regan and the goals really flowed for him in the 1988-89 season when he scored 28 times in 46 games.

Arguably his most memorable match came in the 1989-90 season when he scored four in a 5-1 win at Cardiff City, thus becoming only the third player in Huddersfield’s history to score four in an away match.

By the end of that season, he’d scored an impressive 43 goals in 87 games for Town and, at the time of Huddersfield’s centennial in 2006, Maskell’s prolific goalscoring for them led to his inclusion in The Fans’ Favourites, a book listing their top 100 Town players.

That prolific scoring record earned him a £250,000 move to Third Division Reading. He scored in a season-opening 3-1 win at Exeter City and had 10 goals by the season’s end as the Royals completed a mid-table finish under player-manager Mark McGhee, who later became Brighton boss.

With John Madejski settling in as the new owner, and McGhee finding his feet in the managerial chair, the 1991-92 season saw Reading finish 12th. Maskell ended up top scorer with 16 goals in 35 appearances (plus five as sub), three of them coming in a 4-2 win away to Darlington.

In the summer of 1992, player-manager Glenn Hoddle paid £250,000 to take Maskell to second tier Swindon Town (where he had previously spent a month on loan in 1987).

It was to prove a memorable season for the Robins as they won promotion to the top tier for the first time in their history, via a 4-3 play-off victory over Leicester City. Maskell was leading scorer with 23 goals in a side captained by central defender Colin Calderwood, later Chris Hughton’s assistant manager at Brighton.

Maskell made his Robins debut on the opening day of the 1992-93 season, in a 1-0 win over Sunderland, and scored his first goal in a 2-2 draw at Wolves in late August. He went on to net eight times in the opening ten games of the season before suffering a mini goal drought between December and April.

Nevertheless, Maskell bagged two in a 6-4 win at Birmingham before scoring in both legs of the play-off semi-final against Tranmere Rovers. He then scored Town’s second at Wembley, thumping a left-footed drive off the post and into the net.

Although he started the first two matches amongst the elite, he then struggled to get game time in the Premier League, often warming the bench as Jan Age Fjortoft,  Andy Mutch and Keith Scott started ahead of him.

He scored twice in a 3-3 draw at Sheffield Wednesday on 29 December 1993, but he left the club in February 1994, returning to former club Southampton for a £250,000 fee.

However, Saints already had a fair bit of striking talent in their ranks and once again he found his opportunities limited, this time by the likes of Matt Le Tissier, Neil Shipperley and Gordon Watson. As a result, he only managed 17 Premier League starts.

He had a five-game loan spell at Bristol City but then joined Brighton on 1 March 1996, making his debut the following day against Brentford. He didn’t have to wait long for his first Albion goal, scoring against Oxford United on 12 March and then hit two four days later at home to Hull City.

The off-field shenanigans at Brighton were a big distraction at the time but on the pitch Maskell managed to score a total of 20 goals in 69 games, crucially netting 14 of them in 37 games during that make-or-break 1996-97 season.

After 17 games the following season, he was one of five senior players whose contracts were terminated early, in December 1997, as the cash-strapped Seagulls in exile at Gillingham were forced to make drastic cuts to survive. Maskell had a brief spell playing for Happy Valley in Hong Kong before linking up with Leyton Orient for 18 months.

It is recorded in a number of places that Maskell decided to quit the professional game while walking off the turf at Wembley having played as a substitute in the Orient team beaten by Scunthorpe United in the Nationwide League third division play-off final.

“I turned to one of my team-mates and said: ‘That’s enough’,” Maskell said. “I’d spent too much time away from my family and too little time on the pitch at Orient.”

He had scored just twice in 23 games for the O’s, however, he continued playing at non-league level for several years, turning out for Hampton & Richmond Borough, Aylesbury United and Staines Town, as well as being coach and assistant manager to Steve Cordery.

In an article in The Times on 16 November 2000, just prior to a FA Cup first round tie between Hampton & Richmond Borough and Barnet, Maskell talked about what he had learned from the various managers he’d played under.

“I look to Glenn Hoddle for his ability to create flair in attack and Lawrie McMenemy because he was so good at man-management.

“Most of my ideas on defensive organisation I learnt from Dave Merrington, who was youth-team coach at Southampton. He was fantastic. You just have to look at the players he found for the club, not just myself but Matt Le Tissier, Alan Shearer, the Wallaces and another dozen or so less well-known players who had good careers.”

Did Chris Ramsey’s injury alter outcome of 1983 FA Cup Final?

2-near-post-guardBRIGHTON & HOVE Albion’s May 1983 FA Cup Final clash with Manchester United was historic for the club and for their 21-year-old right back it was even more eventful.

Who would have known that former Bristol City apprentice Chris Ramsey’s ignominious departure from the field in a firemen’s lift on Glen Wilson’s shoulder would more or less be the end of an all-too-brief playing spell in the top echelons of the English game?

Might the match – and Ramsey’s career – have panned out differently if it hadn’t been for that diabolical tackle by Norman Whiteside?

Trouble had been brewing in the weeks leading up to the final and the national media, looking for every possible angle to pick at, had singled out Ramsey for criticism. Did that stoke the fire?

Let’s rewind a little and explore what happened.

Born in Birmingham on 28 April 1962 , Ramsey, whose father came to the UK from St Lucia, was one of two boys and five girls. Rejected by Charlton Athletic as a schoolboy, he became an apprentice at Ashton Gate but was then released and, after a successful trial, Brighton took him on.

The 1980-81 season was Albion’s second in the top division and, as it drew towards its close, it was looking increasingly likely they were heading for relegation.

Manager Alan Mullery was openly criticising his players for their efforts and his big ally off the field, vice-chairman Harry Bloom (current chairman Tony Bloom’s granddad) had died of a heart attack on the team coach on an away trip to Stoke.

Something had to change and, at the tender age of 19, Ramsey was called up from the reserves and plunged in at the deep end.

In three of the last four games, he took over the no.2 shirt after Mullery switched John Gregory from right back into midfield. Ramsey’s debut came in a crucial Easter Saturday clash away to rivals Crystal Palace when, released from the shackles of defending, Gregory scored twice in a 3-0 win. Ramsey also played in the wins over Sunderland away and Leeds at home.

The Seagulls stayed up by the skin of their teeth and Evening Argus reporter John Vinicombe said in his end of season analysis that Ramsey had been “a revelation” in those three games.

Within a matter of weeks, Mullery quit as manager in the furore over chairman Mike Bamber selling Mark Lawrenson to Liverpool (after Mullery had already agreed a deal to sell him to Manchester United).

Gregory was sold to QPR for £300,000 but, far from that move opening up an opportunity for Ramsey, Mullery’s replacement Mike Bailey brought in on a free transfer from Loftus Road the experienced Don Shanks, who was immediately installed as the first choice right back.

Indeed Bailey froze out Ramsey for the following 19 months! At one point he was transfer listed but it was Bailey who departed the Goldstone first – his sacking working to the advantage of the young defender.

When George Aitken and Jimmy Melia took over in December 1982, Ramsey was instantly promoted from the reserves and seized his opportunity.

In a profile in an Albion matchday programme in February 1983, Ramsey told Tony Norman: “Like any other young apprentice, my dream was to play in the First Division. I must admit that even after coming to Brighton, I had times when I wondered if I’d make it. But now I’ve got my chance and I’m keen to make the most of it.”

In one of the most comprehensive profiles on Ramsey, former Brighton teammate, Andy Ritchie, told Adam Ellis of The Football League Paper: “He was quite a shy lad back then but he had everything you want in a full back. Aggression, pace, agility – and he could tackle like a demon.”

These were the attributes that Melia appreciated too. In a Daily Mail preview of the Norwich quarter final, Melia told reporter Brian Scovell: “The other players love playing with him. He’s a great competitor, tackles well and uses the ball with a bit of style.

“I’m pleased he’s taken his chance. He deserves to play at Wembley if we manage to get there.”ramsey + mel

As it turned out, Ramsey’s place was in jeopardy because of two sendings off in the league in April which led to him being banned for the semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday at Highbury.

After being sent off in a 2-1 home win over Spurs, Terry McNeill reported in the News of the World: “Ramsey was lucky to stay on earlier after bringing down Mark Falco in a probable scoring position. When he took the striker again from behind, there was no escape.”

The 20-year-old Ramsey was fairly phlegmatic about the situation and told Alex Montgomery of The Sun: “Whatever I did, I did for the club. You can’t think about Cup games when you are struggling for points at the bottom of the First Division.”

His second dismissal, along with Coventry’s Steve Jacobs (who later played for the Albion under Chris Cattlin) after a scuffle in a 1-0 win at the Goldstone, was lambasted by one of the pre-eminent football writers of the day, Frank McGhee of the Daily Mirror.

“Can Brighton afford to field at Wembley a man who by then won’t have been able to play for 19 days?” he intoned. “And can they trust Ramsey not to sully soccer’s great state occasion by a moment of blind madness?”

Nevertheless, after Wednesday were beaten, Melia was happy to restore his first-choice right back to the starting line-up but one wonders now whether Ramsey had a sense of foreboding about how the big occasion would unfold.

Reflecting on those dismissals in the build-up to the final, he told The Sun’s Montgomery: “I just hope people aren’t looking for me. I’ll certainly be careful. I honestly don’t think I deserve the reputation which I’ve been saddled with in the last few weeks.

“The dismissals were just coincidences – nothing more than that. I know I am an aggressive type of player but that is my game. I always want to give 100 per cent for the club. The last thing I want is trouble at Wembley.”

After Albion had taken a shock lead through Gordon Smith’s header, United piled on the pressure and Ramsey headed a goalbound Gordon McQueen effort off the line.

But then came a pivotal moment early in the second half. Tim Carder and Roger Harris record it thus in their excellent Seagulls! The Story of Brighton & Hove Albion FC: “Whiteside went in high on Ramsey’s shin as the Albion full back cleared, and then trod on his ankle. The referee had a strong word with the United forward but did not signal a foul.”

The tackle had rendered Ramsey lame and while he tried in vain to carry on, two minutes later he wasn’t able to challenge for a ball to the far post which Frank Stapleton duly dispatched to equalise.

Those of us watching in the stadium, together with millions glued to TV screens around the world, saw Ramsey carried from the Wembley turf and, in those days of only one substitute, wondered how Albion would cope with a makeshift defender in the shape of Gerry Ryan.

After United took the lead through Ray Wilkins, Ramsey’s friend – and fellow England under-20 teammate – Gary Stevens’ equalised to send the game into extra time and ultimately a replay. Stevens was adamant about the impact Whiteside’s challenge had on the game.

In Match of My Life, edited by Paul Camillin, he said: “It was a bad tackle and perhaps cost us the game. In those days we only had one substitute and Gerry Ryan came on and did a great job at right back, even though he was a midfield player, but we did miss Chris because he had been having a great game.”

Whiteside was unapologetic about the challenge but Ramsey fumed to The Sun’s Montgomery: “It could have broken my leg. If I’d done it, I’d have been off. I just can’t understand how Whiteside got away with it.”

The injury deprived Ramsey of the chance to play in the replay five days later and, after that sad exit, his playing career never reached similar heights again.

Indeed he actually only played 37 games for the Albion, most of those coming in that 1982-83 season. He played only a handful of games in the following season and in August 1984 went on loan to Swindon Town before joining them permanently four months later.

There, he played alongside the likes of Sky Sports reporter Chris Kamara and one-time Albion assistant manager Colin Calderwood and clocked up over 120 appearances, including being part of Lou Macari’s Fourth Division champions in 1986 and Third Division play-off winners in 1987.

In August 1987, he joined Southend United but played just 13 games for them before persistent back injuries forced his early retirement at the age of just 26.

Some business ventures he embarked on didn’t work out and former Albion right back rival Shanks set him up with a trial for a team in Malta, Naxxar Lions, where he made a playing comeback.

Eventually the ongoing injury problems made him look to other ways of making a living. He coached in the United States but also started studying like crazy.

Amongst lots of qualifications, he got a Master’s degree at the University of North London in Health, Physical Education and Recreation (a qualification which enabled him to become a primary school teacher) and simultaneously obtained his UEFA coaching badges.

That Football League Paper piece records: “With an MSc, ten diplomas and myriad other qualifications, Ramsey is so highly educated that he actually sets the test for pro licence candidates.”

ramsey EngA stint in charge of youth development at Leyton Orient and coaching Newham Ladies was followed by an FA appointment as coach to the England under-20 side in the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship when among the players under his direction were Ashley Cole, Peter Crouch, Matthew Etherington and John Piercy, who later played for the Albion. At the FA he learned from the likes of Les Reed and one-time Albion winger Howard Wilkinson.

He had a short and unsuccessful three-month spell as assistant to Ricky Hill at Luton Town, and he said: “Ricky Hill was a massive inspiration to me.”

Just when it appeared new offers had dried up, Ramsey got the chance to manage Charleston Battery in the USA, where he stayed for three years.

Winning the USL A-League (second division) with Battery in 2003 brought him to the attention of Spurs, and, as head of player development, many of the young players he coached in tandem with Les Ferdinand and Tim Sherwood were Harry Kane, Ryan Mason, Danny Rose, Nabil Bentaleb, Andros Townsend, Steven Caulker and Jake Livermore.

“He was massive for all of us,” French midfielder Bentaleb told The Football League Paper. “He believed in us, he encouraged us. He told the manager we were ready when everyone else believed we were not. He was not shy or scared of anybody and he knew exactly what he wanted.”

chris ramsey (spurs)In the Evening Standard in 2012, Spurs and England centre back, Ledley King, said: “He is one of the best coaches in the country. The youngsters love the way he works and they have really bought into his methods.”

Ramsey left Spurs in 2014 to take up a coaching role at QPR, and when Harry Redknapp left the floundering Hoops in February 2015, Ramsey stepped up to become a fully-fledged Premier League manager.

He was not able to halt Rangers’ relegation from the elite, though, and lasted only until November in charge of the side as they struggled to come to terms with life back in the Championship.

However, in January 2016, he was appointed technical director at QPR to oversee the club’s academy coaching and player development.

The club’s director of football, Ferdinand, told The Guardian: “While we were disappointed things didn’t work out with Chris at first team level, we were determined to retain his services. As such, we actually put a clause in his contract which allowed us to retain Chris’s services in a player-development role should things not work out for him as head coach.”

Ramsey finally left QPR in January 2024. By then 61, the head of coaching and technical director told the club website: “I have had a fantastic nine years at QPR and the club will always have a special place in my heart.”

The club’s chairman Lee Hoos said: “Chris has been a great servant to the club. I cannot thank him enough for his incredible hard work, dedication and guidance.

“However, as we thoroughly rationalise everything we do, and following very amicable discussions with Chris, it is felt this move is in the best interests of all parties. He will always remain a friend of the club.”

  • Shootthedefence.com did a face-to-face interview with Ramsey on 23 September 2016 which is well worth a listen as he talks in detail about his whole career.
  • In pictures from my scrapbook, Ramsey graces the cover of an Albion matchday programme; (top) he defends the near post during the 1983 FA Cup Final with Gordon McQueen in attendance; he is photographed by Tony Norman outside the Goldstone and criticised in the Daily Mirror by Frank McGhee.