Tag: Darren Ferguson

‘Rooster’ became pivotal to developing young players

FORMER BRIGHTON apprentice Kevin Russell enjoyed a 20-year playing career in which he scored 105 goals in 552 games but he had forgettable spells at three South Coast clubs.

As we learned in my previous blog post, England Youth international Russell scored goals for Albion’s youth team and reserves but moved on before making the first team after a falling out with manager Chris Cattlin.

He got on better with Alan Ball at Portsmouth but only played eight games in three years at Pompey.

In March 1994, he was back in the south after a £125,000 move from Burnley to AFC Bournemouth. Unfortunately, his time at Dean Court coincided with dismal form on the pitch and financial pressures off it.

Russell was signed by Tony Pulis, who, it turned out, was in the final throes of his first spell as a manager, having succeeded Harry Redknapp at Dean Court.

The side had a dreadful run of form the month after Russell joined, suffering five defeats and three draws in eight matches. It was in the last of these that Russell finally got on the scoresheet for the Cherries as they picked up a point in a 1-1 draw at Hull City (his only goal in 17 matches).

While Mark McGhee won the Division Two title with Reading and Russell’s former club Burnley won promotion via a play-off final win over Stockport County, the Cherries finished a disappointing 17th in the table.

Portsmouth-born Russell had joined a squad (above) that included a number of players with past or future Brighton connections: Gary Chivers, Mark Morris, Paul Wood, Steve Cotterill and Warren Aspinall.

Cotterill recalled in a 2023 interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk: “I know Rooster very well. I played with him at Bournemouth and he’s a great guy and a good coach.

“I liked him when I played with him because he used to stick crosses on a sixpence for me. I remember scoring a few goals from his crosses.”

Back in 1994, Pulis was sacked early on in the new season and former player Mel Machin took over, but the Cherries had managed only one win and a draw in their first 14 matches by the time they met the Albion at the Goldstone on 2 November 1994.

The game ended in a 0-0 draw and, although they won their next game, by Christmas they’d only got nine points from 21 games. Staring down the barrel of relegation, a last ditch revival in fortunes saw the season go down in memory as ‘The Great Escape’ because Bournemouth managed to avoided the drop by two points.

Russell, who had scored twice in 18 matches, had moved on by then and according to Aspinall, in a September 2011 interview with the Bournemouth Daily Echo: “Mel wanted rid of myself and Kevin Russell.”

Russell, who later had a habit of scoring against the Cherries – he hit four in 10 games against them – said after a 2001 encounter between Wrexham and Bournemouth: “The club was in a bad state when I was there, but Mel Machin and Sean O’Driscoll have turned things round and you know you’re always going to have a hard game against them.

“I don’t try any harder than normal when I play against them, but because I am playing up front and not in midfield or out wide, I get more chances to score.”

Aspinall had a couple of trial matches for the Albion before being packed off to Carlisle, while in February 1995 Russell joined First Division strugglers Notts County where he was reunited with former Leicester teammates Gary Mills and Phil Turner.

Howard Kendall was in charge at the time but County, who got through four managers that season (including Russell Slade for four months), finished bottom of the table having won only nine matches all season.

Russell then returned to his spiritual home in north Wales and, over the next seven years, played a further 240 matches for Wrexham, scoring 23 goals along the way.

One of the most memorable was a last-minute winner at the Boleyn Ground in January 1997 as Wrexham pulled off a FA Cup giant-killing against West Ham. Having held the Hammers to a 1-1 draw at the Racecourse Ground, Russell went on as a 75th minute sub in the replay and scored a screamer in the dying seconds against a side that included Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard.

While the Dragons fans were elated, protesting home supporters spilled onto the pitch in anger at Harry Redknapp’s side’s performance and lowly Premier League position.

Slaven Bilic, later West Ham’s manager, was playing alongside Ferdinand and remembered the game thus: “We were struggling. We weren’t conceding a lot of goals but we couldn’t score and then Wrexham came and they scored at the end of the game, a great goal from 25 yards. After that we signed Johnny Hartson and Paul Kitson and we stayed up.”

When Russell’s playing days were over, he stayed on as a coach and worked as assistant manager under Denis Smith, taking Wrexham to promotion from the Third Division in 2002-03 and winning the LDV (English Football League) trophy in 2005.

That same year his loyalty and service to the club were rewarded with a pre-season testimonial against Manchester United – managed by his former teammate and captain Darren Ferguson’s dad!

Russell played the first 14 minutes of the match against a largely youthful United before being replaced by Ferguson. United won the game 3-1 with goals from Giuseppe Rossi, Liam Miller and Frazier Campbell and one of their subs that day was Paul McShane.

“I can’t speak highly enough of Alex for bringing his side here for me,” said Russell. “I’ve been treated to a special team with a lot of quality. I know there were a lot of young players out there, but you could see the potential they’ve got is immense.”

A crowd of nearly 6,000 watched the match and Wrexham secretary Geraint Parry said: “It just shows how well respected Kevin Russell is after his many years in the game.”

Smith and Russell were sacked in January 2007 but he went straight to Peterborough with Ferguson, who had been appointed Posh player-manager.

“We had an unbelievable time at Peterborough,” Russell told John Hutchinson. “We took them from the bottom league to the Championship in successive seasons in 2008 and 2009.”

There was a brief and unsuccessful spell for the managerial duo at Preston North End in 2010 – they were sacked four days after Christmas with Preston bottom of the Championship – but they weren’t out of work for long because they were re-appointed at Peterborough the following month.

They lost their first game back in charge though – to Brighton. Albion, on course to be league one champions under Gus Poyet that season, beat Posh 3-1: Chris Wood two and Elliott Bennett the scorers while Craig Noone made his home debut for the Seagulls.

After three years at Peterborough, Russell moved back to the Potteries to join the coaching staff at Stoke (below) and stayed for nine years! He mainly worked with the under 18s and under 21s but also helped with the first team in between managerial changes in 2018 and 2019.

In May 2023, Russell joined Cheltenham Town as assistant manager to Wade Elliott. He was in caretaker charge for two matches when Elliott was sacked four months later but didn’t want the job on a permanent basis and left the club in October 2023 when Darrell Clarke was appointed.

Robins chairman David Bloxham said: “I am extremely grateful to Kevin for all his hard work and dedication and for his willingness to step in to manage the side in an extremely difficult period between Wade leaving and Darrell’s appointment.”

Once again, Russell wasn’t out of work for long. In January 2024, he was reunited with former Stoke technical director Mark Cartwright, a former goalkeeper who played 15 matches in Brighton’s 2000-01 promotion winning side, at Huddersfield Town.

Back in the game at Huddersfield Town

He was appointed as B team manager with a glowing endorsement from Cartwright, now Town’s sporting director, who said: “Not only is Kevin a great coach, but he also has a brilliant ability to develop relationships with young players.

“He’s a lively character and he knows how to relate to individuals to get the best out of them. Whilst at Stoke City, he played the pivotal role in developing players such as Nathan Collins, Harry Souttar, Tyrese Campbell, and Josh Tymon, alongside many others.

“He’s been so successful in doing that because he has a great understanding of the qualities that senior coaching staff want to see in young players.”

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.”