Tag: Darragh Ryan

Football’s Ansah to making the game look dramatic

FICTIONAL football gained an unlikely champion in Andy Ansah.

The journeyman striker eventually mixed it with the game’s elite players as he built a new career in the world of football make-believe for TV and film.

His own exploits on the field were in less esteemed company, including stints playing in the lower leagues for Brighton, Brentford and Southend United.

Not too many Brighton fans will remember him, though, because his 25 appearances in the blue and white stripes coincided with the two seasons when home matches were played 90 miles from home in Gillingham.

With crowd numbers low and finances tight as a consequence, Albion were in no position to splash the cash in the autumn of 1997; indeed John Humphrey, Craig Maskell, Paul McDonald, Denny Mundee and Ian Baird, five of the squad who had kept the Seagulls in the league by the skin of their teeth only six months earlier, were let go in an effort to trim the wage bill.

It was in that climate that Ansah, who had dropped out of league football at the time, was picked up by Steve Gritt.

It only transpired in an interview Ansah gave to the Express in December 2011 that he came clean to the Albion about a kidney condition (nephrotic syndrome) he had suffered from since teenage years but had kept hidden at previous clubs.

It could at times make his body swell so much he could hardly walk and he would need hospital treatment to bring it under control.

He told the newspaper he had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide the illness from managers, coaches and fellow players for fear that it would mean the end of his career. When he felt poorly, he would wear tracksuit bottoms on the training ground to hide the swelling, and then feign illness.

At Brighton, however, the condition did not stop him being involved, although the majority of his appearances were as a substitute.

Apart from a start in a 5-0 mauling at the hands of Walsall in the Auto Windscreens Shield on 6 January 1998, he had made three Third Division appearances going on as a sub and was unused on seven occasions before his fortunes changed.

Although he missed a decent chance after going on as a sub in a 2-0 defeat at Rochdale, he made amends when Gritt gave him his first League start away to Exeter City, curving the ball beyond Ashley Bayes from Stuart Storer’s flick-on.

Sadly, a rogue refereeing decision helped the home side to a 2-1 win, and, with Albion floundering in second-to-bottom spot in the division, Gritt was sacked the following day.

Andy Ansah on the ball for the Albion

Ansah retained his place for new manager Brian Horton’s first match – and he was on the scoresheet again. This time, his goal and a brace from Kerry Mayo gave the Seagulls a 3-2 win over Chester – the side’s first taste of victory in 10 matches!

“The emergency partnership of Stuart Storer and Andy Ansah has provided fresh movement and impetus up front, while wingers John Westcott and Steve Barnes saw far more of the ball on Saturday than they have been accustomed to,” reported The Argus.

Albion finished the season 23rd of 24 teams but thankfully 15 points ahead of Doncaster Rovers in last place.

Ansah scored again in the last ‘home’ game of the season – a 2-2 draw with Horton’s old side Hull City (who finished 22nd) – but, like a lot of players, he was out of contract at the end of the season.

Horton wanted to bring in his own players but, as it turned out, Ansah was offered a new one-year deal, with The Argus saying “Horton hasn’t been able to find a better replacement at the right price, so Ansah has been given a second chance”.

The manager explained: “He did well, but I was bringing new faces in. I’ve had a good look around and Andy is as good as what we could get. He can score goals and he can play in different positions.”

Ansah lines up for the Seagulls in exile

For his part, Ansah told the newspaper:“Technically I was given a free, but I knew I would be speaking to the gaffer again before pre-season.

“There was still a chance that I was going to get a contract and I’m very pleased that I have. I think Brighton are going to do things this season.”

Although Albion avoided flirting with relegation for the first time in three seasons, their 17th finishing spot was hardly cause to put the flags out, and Ansah made only two starts. He went on as a sub on nine occasions and was an unused sub on nine others.

Horton left mid-season to return to the north, assistant Jeff Wood struggled in a brief spell as no.1, and Micky Adams only arrived to take charge towards the very end. Ansah was one of nine players out of contract and released at the end of the season (the others were Derek Allan, Michael Bennett, Tony Browne, Lee Doherty, Danny Mills, Darragh Ryan, Peter Smith, Storer, Terry Streeter and Paul Sturgess).

While the Albion prepared to return to Brighton to play at the Withdean athletics stadium, Ansah embarked on a career that attracted a hell of a lot more viewers than had seen him perform at the Priestfield Stadium.

Brentford fan Nick Bruzon has told Andy’s remarkable story on a few occasions and his ‘last word’ blog goes into plenty of detail about it.

In summary, though, after leaving Brighton, Ansah worked as an actor for six seasons on the Sky TV football soap Dream Team, appearing for fictional Harchester United.

He recruited two other former Albion players for Harchester: Peter Smith and Junior McDougald. As one of the older players, early on he was asked the best way to shoot certain scenes and within a year he was the producer.

His ability to choreograph football scenes then led him to Hollywood as a consultant on Goal!, a US film trilogy about a Mexican immigrant who gets to play in the English Premiership.

He even got to spend a day working with his all-time hero Pele in Brazil. “He was an unbelievable guy, a real gentleman,” Ansah told the Southend Echo in a 2008 interview with John Geoghegan.

“Because of my footballing background, I can talk to the players and the crew and translate between the two.

“It’s my job to make sure the footballers feel relaxed and do what they do normally in front of a camera.

“Film has always been a big love of mine, ever since school. And with football, to a degree, you are on stage entertaining. So, there are a lot of similarities between the two.”

He choreographed the whole of the Mike Bassett: England Manager film (starring Ricky Tomlinson) and worked on three series of Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.

As co-presenter of the Sky 1 programme, Ansah scouted the UK for talent, and took to Rooney 100 talented young footballers who he had to whittle down to win the Street Striker crown.

It was with encouragement from contacts in Hollywood that he put his work on a more commercial footing. He set up his own consultancy, Soccer on Screen, and among many football-based advertisements helped Guy Ritchie direct a Nike commercial for the 2010 World Cup. He has also advised EA Sports, makers of the Fifa video games.

Born in Lewisham, south east London, on 19 March 1969, Ansah was a promising winger during his school days and was playing at county level when he started to attract the attention of clubs.

Way before the days of organised academies, he was picked up by Charlton Athletic aged 11 and stayed with them until he was 16. When he turned 17, he signed as a professional at Crystal Palace.

Ansah told Bruzon: “Because I had been in the system from such a young age, I kind of got a bit complacent and a little bit fed up of football.

“When I left Palace, Steve Coppell said to me: ‘I’m not sure if you really want to play football so I’m going to release you.’

After a six-month break from the game, he joined non-league Dorking stayed out of the game for about six months and then joined Dorking, where Dave Goodwin, who had originally scouted him for Charlton, was working.

When he scored 14 goals in three months for Dorking, Brentford, Fulham and Reading all offered him a contract but he chose the Bees because assistant manager Phil Holder promised to pick him up and take him to play for the reserve team, which he was managing.

Ansah scored twice on his first start for Brentford in a 3-2 defeat at Bolton but only made eight appearances after falling out with manager Steve Perryman.

In a reserves match between Brentford and Southend, Ansah scored and caught the attention of Shrimpers boss David Webb, who eventually took him to Roots Hall.

Over the course of six years, he scored 38 goals in 180 appearances for Southend and, as well as Holder, reckoned Webb had been the biggest influence on his career.

“David gave me a licence to express myself,” Ansah told Bruzon. “He would say, ‘I don’t care what the outcome is, just go out there and express yourself.’ It really did work!”

Ansah was part of the United side that earned promotion to Division One (now the Championship) and was later named Southend’s 13th most popular player of all time.

“That in itself is a massive achievement,” he said. “It’s good to know that the fans enjoyed what I was doing when I was there. It’s always nice, to get that sort of feedback.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when Webb took charge at Brentford, Ansah ended up following him, albeit on loan, scoring just the once (ironically against Brighton in a 2-1 Bees win on 26 November 1994) in four games and again the following season, when he scored once in six appearances.

But Ansah told Bruzon that he didn’t do himself justice because he wasn’t properly fit at that time and, if he had taken medical advice, he probably should have retired because of a knee injury.

“I was fighting to get myself back fit again,” he said. “My first game back I got a cut on my head within 15 minutes and then got it stitched up. I got man of the match but never could regain full fitness. At that stage, the surgeon told me I’d never be fully fit again with my knee.”

He played a couple of games at each of Peterborough, Gillingham and Leyton Orient before dropping out of the league with Hayes, Bromley and Heybridge Swifts.

Ansah’s son Zac spent 10 years with Arsenal’s academy. He moved on to Charlton Athletic when they were in the Championship but didn’t break through and had loan spells with League Two sides Plymouth Argyle and Newport County (playing a total of 26 matches) before moving into non-league football.

Nicky Rust played more than 200 games then quit at 24

IT SEEMS extraordinary that a young goalkeeper who played more than 200 first-team games for Brighton quit the professional game at 24.

Nicky Rust had been one of the country’s elite young players when he graduated from the FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall. Then, at Arsenal, he was coached by the club’s legendary former ‘keeper Bob Wilson and trained alongside England international David Seaman.

But with little likelihood of 18-year-old Rust dislodging the established Seaman any time soon (and Alan Miller as back-up), Arsenal let him go in the spring of 1993. He ended up playing for five different managers in five years with the Albion.

Young Rust found himself picking the ball out of his net after only four minutes of his debut in Albion’s colours. That was on trial on 23 April 1993 away to Norwich City when Albion’s reserves, under Larry May, were looking for their first win in TWENTY attempts!

The Canaries included big money signing Efan Ekoku in their side and he opened the scoring before Rust had even had chance to break into a sweat.

However, a fairly strong Brighton side, including striker Andy Kennedy, returning to action after a back injury, Ian Chapman and Dean Wilkins, equalised with a Wilkins special: a 25-yard free kick that flew into the top corner past Mark Walton, a goalkeeper who would join Brighton five years later. Kennedy won it for the Albion with a cool finish past Walton in the last minute of the game.

Rust’s arrival was as a direct replacement for Mark Beeney, whose £350,000 move to Leeds three days previously had quite literally saved the club from going under (all the money went to pay an overdue tax bill with the Inland Revenue threatening to wind up the Albion).

By the time the summer came round, cash-strapped Albion also let go long-serving ‘keeper Perry Digweed, who’d been with the club for 12 years. So Rust, still only 18, suddenly found himself first choice at the start of the new season.

“I was thrown in the deep end and didn’t have time to think about nerves,” Rust told the Argus in a 2002 interview. “Barry Lloyd brought me in. Obviously, like any youngster, I had aspirations of making it in the Premiership.”

Arsenal boss George Graham was a former teammate of Lloyd’s going back to their days together at Chelsea and that friendship had already helped Albion obtain the services of defender Colin Pates on loan two years earlier (Pates also made a permanent move to the Albion that summer).

“Arsenal were and are a big club,” said Rust. “I had Bob Wilson as a goalkeeping coach and David Seaman was there offering me a lot of good, sound advice. He was a bit like myself in temperament, laid back, and we got on very well. But unfortunately for me it didn’t work out, and I was released. I was pleased Albion wanted me.”

Albion lost their opening two games, 2-0 at Bradford City in the league and 1-0 at Gillingham in the League Cup but two wins and a draw followed. While the side’s subsequent poor form ultimately led to the end of Lloyd’s reign, Rust kept his place when Liam Brady took over and was Albion’s regular no.1 for the next four years, much of which was played out against huge turbulence off the pitch.

“There was a lot of turmoil when I was there and saving our league status was a huge relief and was, in a strange way, one of my highlights,” he said. “The club’s problems were constantly there in the background and we were getting headlines for all the wrong reasons.”

On the pitch, Rust only missed two games in his first three years at the Albion. He equalled a club record for clean sheets with five on the bounce across February and March 1995.

The young goalkeeper had his own place in Portslade and also proved to be something of a landlord for other young players. He welcomed to his home temporarily during their loan spells former Arsenal teammates Mark Flatts and Paul Dickov and, longer term, striker Junior McDougald who had been at Lilleshall at the same time.

“Even though he was ex-Spurs and I was an ex-Gunner we got on really well,” he said. “We came from similar areas. I was from Cambridgeshire and he was from Huntingdonshire.”

Rust played his 100th league game for the Albion away to Bournemouth the day before he celebrated his 21st birthday on 25 September 1995. Teammate Steve Foster celebrated his 38th birthday on the day of the game, which Brighton lost 3-1. “Fozzie was a big influence in the dressing room,” Rust remembered. “He was highly respected and one of the loud characters. I certainly got my ear bent.”

Rust’s 210 games for Albion place him eighth in the list of longest-serving goalkeepers in the club’s entire history. But an injury and loss of form in the 1996-97 season led to him losing his place to local lad Mark Ormerod, who had started the season and was in goal for the final six matches when Albion only just survived dropping out of the league.

Rust had to play a waiting game as Ormerod continued as first choice at the start of the 1997-98 season. Unluckily for him, his chance of returning to the starting XI coincided with his partner having their first child. In November 1997, after only two wins in 15 matches, manager Steve Gritt was planning to rest Ormerod and reinstate Rust for an away game at Hull City.

But Rust’s pregnant partner went into labour and he dashed to be with her for the birth. Typically, Ormerod kept the first away clean sheet Albion had managed for TWENTY months and when he repeated the feat the following Saturday at Hartlepool, they were the first successive clean sheets since Rust’s run of five in March 1995!

Rust had to wait another fortnight, after Ormerod had been beaten twice in a defeat at home to Rotherham, before finally getting his chance to return to first-team duties.

Before long he demonstrated what he was capable of in a game close to home territory, at Peterborough United on 28 December 1997.

Albion were under severe pressure but held on for a 2-1 win and Gritt said: “We showed a great deal of fighting spirit and commitment to overcome their attacks and, on the day, had Nicky Rust in superb form to keep them out when they got through our last line of defence.”

The game was marred by young Darragh Ryan breaking a leg but Jeff Minton celebrated his 24th birthday by scoring Albion’s first goal and substitute Robbie Reinelt added Albion’s second – the first goal he’d scored since that all-important equaliser in the last game of the previous season at Hereford.

It came halfway through a run of 17 league games Rust played that season, the last of which (a 2-0 defeat at Exeter City) coincided with Gritt’s last game in charge.

New boss Brian Horton went with Ormerod and Rust had to watch on from the sidelines, although he did prove quite adept at offering his opinion on matches when drafted in as a summariser for South Coast Radio coverage of games.

The matchday programme noted he had been “doing an excellent job with his inside knowledge whilst, at the same time, earning the respect of his fellow players whose loved ones have been listening at home”.

While admitting he’d rather have been playing, Rust said he enjoyed the commentary banter. “His perception of the game and sense of humour have certainly come through on the air; they have received many favourable comments from listeners,” the programme noted.

However, disillusioned with life as an understudy, Rust chose to leave the Seagulls at the end of that season.

“I had got used to being No.1, but I wasn’t complacent and worked hard to get back in,” he told the Argus. “But it wasn’t the best of times for me.

“Brian Horton called me in one day and said: ‘You’re not in the team, how are you feeling?’ I said I thought I needed a new challenge. He told me not to rush into anything and I waited until the end of the season when I still felt the same way. It was very amicable.”

However, the grass definitely wasn’t greener on the other side. He spent pre-season with Orient but didn’t get taken on and moved to Barnet instead.

On his debut for Barnet, he picked the ball out the back of his net NINE times as the ‘keeper’s new club went down 9-1 at home to Peterborough, the cause not being helped by two Barnet players being sent off, one as early as the ninth minute.

After only two games for Barnet, Rust switched to Conference side Farnborough Town (where former Albion defender Wayne Stemp was playing at the time).

“The trouble was that the only contract Barnet could afford, because of limited finances, was just not enough,” Rust told the Argus. “It just wasn’t viable for me to sign it. I had a young family, my partner Clare, a childhood sweetheart by the way, and baby daughter Eloise to consider. Quite simply, the family came first. I wasn’t prepared to put them at risk by being selfish.” They later had a son, Harrison.

Rust chose to quit the full-time game and went on to run his own building business.

“A lot of goalkeepers go on forever but, in my case, I thought, at 24, that I ought to go out and get a proper job,” he said. “I don’t regret it for a moment.”

He went on to play non-league closer to home with Cambridge City and later helped out with once-a-week goalkeeper coaching.

Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, on 25 September 1974, his father Alistair was a policeman in Great Shelford, just south of Cambridge, and his mother Corinne ran her own curtain making business. Rust was one of five children: there were three brothers (James, Philip and Thomas) and a sister (Francesca).

From Swavesey Primary School he moved on to Sawston Village College and the promising youngster was chosen for the Cambridgeshire and East Anglia representative sides.

He then gained a place at the FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall. Apart from McDougald, other contemporaries were Kevin Sharp and Jamie Forrester from Leeds United and Tottenham’s Sol Campbell, Danny Hill and Andy Turner.

Rust had trials at Tottenham and Luton Town, and Manchester United showed some interest, but he chose Arsenal as an associated schoolboy. It was the summer of 1991 when he joined them on a full-time basis as a YTS trainee.

The young ‘keeper played for England at under 15, under 16 and under 18 level and after joining the Albion was at one point put on standby for England under 21s.