WHEN MICKY Adams returned to the Albion for a second spell as manager, he brought in a number of players who, for whatever reason, struggled to deliver what was expected of them on the pitch.
One was Kevin McLeod, a Liverpudlian who, earlier in his career, had come through the Everton academy and briefly made it through to the Everton first team.
During Adams’ previous reign at Brighton, he’d made a habit of recruiting players he had worked with before – with plenty of success. Second time around, it was not the same outcome. McLeod was a player who had played under Adams at Colchester United, joining Albion on a Bosman free transfer on 1 July 2008.
“He is a left winger with good pace. He can deliver crosses and he offers a goal threat,” Adams told the media at the time. “At this level, he’s going to be a terrific signing for us.”
McLeod scored in only the second minute of a pre-season friendly against Worthing at Woodside Road and followed up three days later with two goals against Bognor.
When the proper League One action got under way at Gresty Road, Crewe, McLeod was on fire in the opening 45 minutes and Albion went on to win 2-1.
Three days later, Adam Virgo scored twice from McLeod corner kicks as Barnet were swept aside 4-0 in the League Cup. But McLeod picked up a knee injury in that game which forced him off just before half time. Some critics maintain he never properly recovered from it for the rest of his time with the Albion. In the middle of September, he had to undergo an operation on the troublesome knee.
He returned to the line-up after a month, in a 0-0 home draw v Peterborough, and in his Argus match report, Andy Naylor observed: “McLeod once again demonstrated his ability to deliver quality crosses, which is why he has been so badly missed.”
However, by his own admission, McLeod rushed back rather too soon, and playing when not properly fit didn’t do him any favours.
It didn’t seem to stop him being the joker in the pack during training, though, on one occasion taking the key to loan signing Robbie Savage’s Lamborghini and hiding it. Former teammate Jim McNulty remembered him as being “hilarious for so many different reasons”, adding: “He was funny when he meant to be, he was funny when he didn’t mean to be and he was funny when he told a story because we never knew whether it was true or false. We could have so much humour with him from so many different angles and he probably wasn’t even aware of 95 per cent of them.”
McNulty detailed one stupid stunt in an interview with express.co.uk: “Macca took the car keys from the pants of one of the young lads in the changing room and decided to drive his brand new 4×4 straight onto the training pitches, over the grass and locked it between two goals.
“The goals would get chained up so he pushed two goals over the top of this lad’s BMW and locked them together. It was hilarious watching the lad trying to unlock them from his car.”
Poster ‘Basil Fawlty’ opined on North Stand Chat: “He never recovered after that knee injury against Barnet. His wages could have been used on somebody decent who can actually play left wing!”
‘Finchley Seagull’ added: “Most of the time he was here he was being paid for being injured or useless” and ‘EssBee’ declared: “Never have I seen such an unlikely professional footballer than that bloke. He looked like a poor pub team footballer…barrel chested, ill-physiqued, he was like a tub of f***ing lard with no control, no nothing.”
Well-known Albion watcher Harty observed: “I cannot think of any player, in recent years, who had a better first 45 mins for the club, vs Crewe in August 2008… then had an Albion career peter out in the manner it did.”
‘Twinkle Toes’ agreed: “I remember marvelling in his performance that day at Gresty Rd. He was absolutely terrorising the Crewe right-back with his pace and ability: he looked absolutely awesome.
“How the hell could somebody with that kind of ability turn into the no-hoper we all know and loathe?”
wearebrighton.com summed him up thus: “Another player to be filed under the umbrella of players signed by Adams who just wanted money. You could see that McLeod had talent, he just couldn’t be bothered to use it.”
While he made 28 appearances in the 2008-09 season, he only appeared eight times in 2009-10 and by the time Gus Poyet was in the manager’s chair, he let McLeod join Wycombe Wanderers on loan.
After the move he further riled Brighton supporters by claiming the humble Buckinghamshire club had “a better squad than Brighton, better ground, better fans”.
McLeod played just 11 more times as a professional for the Chairboys before going on to join a Sunday League side in Colchester.
Born in Liverpool on 12 September 1980, McLeod joined Everton as a schoolboy in 1991 and did well enough to become part of a decent youth side before establishing himself in their reserves. In the 2000-01 season, he was player of the season as they topped the reserve league.
His form was recognised by manager Walter Smith who called him up to the first team and gave him five substitute appearances in the Premier League. He made his debut v Ipswich on 30 September 2000; called off the bench for the last 15 minutes when the Toffees were already 3-0 down.
His next two appearances, two months later, were happier, though: he featured in a winning team against Arsenal and Chelsea.
Fellow youth team product Danny Cadamarteri had already given Everton a second-half lead over the Gunners when, within a minute of McLeod’s introduction, Kevin Campbell sealed the points against his old club.
The following week, the same two goalscorers gave Everton a 2-1 victory against a Chelsea line-up including the likes of Marcel Desailly, Eidur Gudjohnsen and Gianfranco Zola.
McLeod reflected some years later: “That’s not bad to have on your CV is it? Being an Evertonian it was great.
“When you are on the same pitch as Dennis Bergkamp, Ashley Cole, Ray Parlour, Lee Dixon, Martin Keown and the rest of them you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“It was a good experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In my age group there was Cadamarteri, Leon Osman, Francis Jeffers, Tony Hibbert, George Pilkington and Peter Clarke.”
The Arsenal-Chelsea double was as good as it got for McLeod. He made two more substitute appearances that season, in defeats at Ipswich and Chelsea.
The following season he made his only start for Everton as a team-mate of Paul Gascoigne in a League Cup defeat on penalties at home to Crystal Palace on 13 September 2001.
The excellent toffeeweb.com probably hit the nail on the head in describing the rising star.
“He may fall into the Everton black hole for promising youngsters who are good… but just not quite good enough,” it said. “He only has one weakness, and that is within himself when he will sometimes hide in a game if things don’t go to well in the first 10 to 15 mins.”
McLeod only got one chance under Smith’s successor David Moyes, coming on as a last-minute sub in a FA Cup defeat v Shrewsbury Town on 4 January 2003.
Ten years later he admitted to the Liverpool Echo that things might have turned out different if he had been more responsive towards Moyes.
Instead, he joined QPR on loan between March and May 2003, helping them reach the second division play-offs before joining them permanently for £250,000 on 18 August 2003.
McLeod said: “I didn’t like it at first when I moved to London. I didn’t want to go but I sat down and talked about it with my family and they said you can stay here and work hard or go and play League football.
“I went away and enjoyed it and got promotions (in his first season with both QPR and Swansea).
“You look at Leon Osman and Tony Hibbert. They stayed there for the extra year and now they are playing week in and week out but I am not one of those people who looks too much at the past.
“I’d rather go forward. I made my decision and I live with it to this day.”
McLeod initially joined Swansea on loan in February 2005 and made 11 appearances as the Swans won promotion to League One. The move was made pemanent for a fee of £60,000 at the start of the 2005-06 season and he went on to make 52 appearances (14 as a sub), before the move to Colchester.
In November 2015, McLeod was in trouble with the law, appearing before magistrates in Colchester accused of assault.
In parallel lines 