Tag: Frank Sinclair

City cult hero Paul Dickov never forgot his Seagulls goals

A POCKET dynamo of a striker who became a Manchester City cult hero never forgot the goalscoring platform a short spell with Brighton provided him.

Paul Dickov is fondly remembered by the City faithful, particularly for his equalising goal (above) in the fifth minute of added on time in the League Two play-off final at Wembley in 1999 (City famously went on to win the penalty shoot-out in which Guy Butters missed a vital spot-kick for Gillingham).

The diminutive Dickov had wowed Brighton fans during the dark days of the 1993-94 season when Barry Lloyd’s replacement as manager, legendary Liam Brady, had secured the striker’s services on loan from his old club Arsenal.

Dickov had managed to break through to the Arsenal first team under George Graham in the latter stages of the 1992-93 season.  But his chances were limited by the manager’s preference for the more experienced Ian Wright and Kevin Campbell.Dickov south stand

Earlier in the 1993-94 season, the young forward left Highbury for a 15-game spell with League One Luton Town, but only managed one goal.

His goalscoring fortunes changed when Brady persuaded his former employers to let Dickov join the struggling Seagulls, who, at the time, were fighting to avoid relegation from League Two.

Dickov Sandtex

The tenacious Dickov relished the opportunity and scored on his debut in a 2-0 home win over Plymouth Argyle on 30 March 1994. It was the first of five goals in eight games to help Brighton avoid the drop. (Pictured below, Dickov scores from close range against Fulham).

“I had a great time there. I loved every minute of it, and it has stuck with me,” Dickov told the Argus some years later. “I’ve always looked out for Brighton since then and I want them to do well.”

Born in Livingston, Scotland, on 1 November 1972, Dickov came to the attention of the Gunners while playing for Scotland at the 1989 FIFA Under-16 World Championship.

Having shown his goalscoring potential in Arsenal’s reserve side, Dickov got his first team opportunity when Graham rested players ahead of the FA Cup Final (in which they beat Sheffield Wednesday after a replay).

Dickov made his Arsenal debut against Southampton on 20 March 1993, and he went on to score against Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur at the end of the season.

Over the following three seasons, although on the fringes of the first team, he was competing against the likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Wright and John Hartson and he was restricted to just 17 appearances in which he scored once.

Despite the disappointment of not quite making it at Arsenal, he is still fondly remembered there, with their history recording: “He never gave anything less than his all in an Arsenal shirt and, despite question marks over his height, Dickov compensated for his 5’5” frame with heart and endeavour.

“He was quick, skilful and scurried around up front causing problems for defenders.”

On 23 August 1996, City paid £1m to take him to Maine Road.

Over six seasons with the club, he was involved in two promotions and two relegations, which saw him play in three different divisions.

For all their success in more recent times, that memorable play-off at Wembley in 1999 was still being talked about 20 years later.

In 2000, Dickov won his first full international cap for Scotland and he earned 10 caps between then and 2004.

By then, he had moved on from City to try to keep Dave Bassett’s Leicester City in the top division. He joined the Foxes in February 2002, and, although he scored four goals as Leicester valiantly tried to maintain their Premiership status, they were not enough to prevent them being relegated to the Championship.

When former Albion boss Micky Adams took over the following season, Dickov thrived up front, netting a career-high 20 goals as Leicester won an instant return to the top-flight, finishing second behind champions Portsmouth.

Dickov scored 13 goals in the Premier League the following season but once again the Foxes were relegated. Even so, Dickov almost had a dream final game of the season against the team who had first give him his chance in the English game.

Arsenal were unbeaten throughout the season going into the Highbury finale but Dickov gave Leicester a shock headed lead before Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira turned the game back in the Gunners’ favour to earn them the ‘Invincibles’ crown for their achievement.

That season at Leicester was also blighted by a shocking series of events during a training camp in La Manga, Spain, when Dickov and teammates Keith Gillespie and Frank Sinclair were falsely accused of sexual assault.

PD BlackburnAt the season’s end, Dickov took up an option on his contract which allowed him to leave for a top-flight club and Graeme Souness signed him for Blackburn Rovers. It was not long before Mark Hughes took over and Dickov scored 10 goals in 35 games. Craig Bellamy was Rovers’ main man up front the following season and Dickov’s Premier League appearances were confined to 17 games plus four as a sub.

With his contract at an end, he rejoined Manchester City for the 2006-07 season but his time there was dogged by a series of injuries and he ended up having loan spells at Crystal Palace and Blackpool before returning to Leicester in 2008.

During that spell, when City were in League One, he was mainly back-up to Matty Fryatt and Steve Howard, but managed a further 20 appearances and scored two goals to help the club to promotion back to the Championship.

Eventually, he ended up going out on loan, this time to Derby County to help them out in an injury crisis. His Leicester contract was terminated in February 2010 and he took up a short-term deal to the end of the season with League One Leeds United, who ended the season earning promotion to the Championship.

Dickov’s next move, though, was into management. He initially joined Oldham Athletic as player-manager, before packing up playing in May 2011.

In Dickov’s first game as manager, a young Dale Stephens scored both goals as the Latics beat Tranmere Rovers 2-1. The highlight of his tenure at Oldham was leading the Latics to a shock 3-2 win over Liverpool in the FA Cup fourth round in January 2013, but he resigned a few weeks later because of the side’s poor league form.

Three months later, he took over at Doncaster Rovers, with former Albion captain and manager Brian Horton as his assistant.

Since leaving Rovers in September 2015, Dickov has been on the football speakers circuit and is also a frequent eloquent contributor as a pundit.

pundit Dickov2019

Much-travelled Ade Akinbiyi a big hit in brief Seagulls spell

A STRIKER with wildly differing fortunes in a varied and much-travelled career made a good early impression when joining Albion on loan from Norwich City back in the autumn of 1994.

Ade Akinbiyi had not long since broken through to the City team as a teenager and he scored four times in seven games on loan to the Seagulls.

Just turned 20, Akinbiyi arrived at a time when Liam Brady’s Albion hadn’t registered a win for 11 games and, although Albion lost the first game he played in, the remaining six produced three wins and three draws.

AA scores

There is some YouTube footage of him scoring Albion’s second goal on a snowy pitch at Hull City’s old Boothferry Park ground in a game that finished 2-2.

“He is powerful and big and he can take knocks and we have missed having somebody in that mould,” Brady wrote in his matchday programme notes.

Later in his career Akinbiyi would prove to be a real handful for the Seagulls – I recall him shrugging off a powder-puff challenge from a young Dan Harding at Withdean and muscling his way to a winning goal for Stoke City. Manager Mark McGhee subbed Harding off and publicly lambasted him afterwards.

Born in Hackney on 10 October 1974, Akinbiyi was more interested in athletics at an early age, as he told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“I was interested in football but not massive on playing it,” he said. His school PE teacher persuaded him otherwise. “I went to play for my district team, Hackney, and it all started from there.”

From Hackney, Akinbiyi joined nearby Senrab, the team that blooded the likes of Bobby Zamora, Leon Knight, John Terry and Jermain Defoe.

His age group earned a place in a children’s tournament in Great Yarmouth called the ‘Canary Cup’ where he was spotted by a scout for nearby Norwich, who signed him as a schoolboy.

“The schoolboy and youth team system was second to none, as it still is now,” said Akinbiyi. But he found it hard living away from home, missing his mum’s native Nigerian cooking.

But after finding new digs with a few of his team-mates, he stuck at it and earned a dream debut as a substitute against Bayern Munich in the return leg of their UEFA Cup second round game, less than a month after his 19th birthday.

“I thought my debut would come in a cup game, perhaps against lower league opposition, not against Bayern Munich,” he said. “Not many people make their debut in a European cup competition.”

Although Akinbiyi made 51 league appearances for Norwich, his Canaries career never really took off, hence the Brighton loan spell and a similar move to Hereford United.

Eventually, though, a manager who believed in him, Tony Pulis, made him a record £250,000 buy for Gillingham in January 1997. Akinbiyi repaid Pulis’ faith in him with 29 goals in 67 starts, leading to Bristol City paying £1.2million for the striker following their promotion to the old Division One (now the Championship).

akinbiyi + colin lee

After scoring 21 goals in 47 league appearances for the Robins, in 1999 he completed a £3.5m move to Wolverhampton Wanderers. In the same year, he played his one and only game for Nigeria, in a friendly against Greece in Athens.

He made a great start at Wolves, scoring eight times in his first 12 games for Colin Lee’s side, but a year later, switched to Premier League Leicester City, after the Foxes’ boss Peter Taylor (later to replace Micky Adams at Brighton) paid out a £5m fee for the striker.

Ade A LeicesterAkinbiyi was brought in to replace Emile Heskey, a real Filbert Street hero who had been sold to Liverpool for £11m. However, his goal touch eluded him and he managed to score only 11 goals in 58 league appearances for the club – some Leicester fans dubbing him Ade Akin-Bad-Buy!

Akinbiyi looked back on it in an interview with Four Four Two magazine and said: “I came in as Emile Heskey’s replacement, but he is a different breed of footballer.

“He’s big, strong and scores goals, but, back then, if Heskey wasn’t scoring a lot he could get away with it. He was the local hero. I was a different player – I’d be running in behind and trying to cause people problems. But Leicester looked at my record in the Championship and thought I’d come and do the same thing.”

Eventually they cut their losses and sold him to Division One Crystal Palace for £2.2m. At Selhurst, he was rather ignominiously given the number 55 shirt! Having scored just one goal in 14 league and cup appearances, in 2003 he was loaned to Stoke City, under his old boss Pulis.

He scored twice – the second goal coming in the last game of the 2002-03 season, when the Potters won 1-0 against Reading to seal their Division One (now the Championship) status (the season Albion were relegated).

Akinibiyi discussed the events in an interview with another ex-Stoke, Burnley and Brighton striker, Chris Iwelumo, for Stoke City FC TV.

AA chat with CIIt led to Akinbiyi joining on a permanent basis, on a free transfer, and he became a cult hero with the Stoke City crowd.

In March 2005, Burnley signed him for £600,000 – and he was promptly sent off on his debut! The game was only two minutes old when he head-butted George McCartney of Sunderland, and was shown a straight red.

Less than a year later, he was on the move again, switching to Sheffield United in January 2006 for what was then a club record £1.75m fee.

He scored on his Blades debut against Derby County but by October that year he was in the news for his alleged involvement in a training ground bust-up with team-mate Claude Davis.

In all, Akinbiyi made only five appearances for the Blades in the Premiership in 2006 and, on New Year’s Day 2007 he returned to Burnley for a £650,000 fee, with add-ons.

He scored in his first game back, against Reading, but only notched three by the season’s end. Burnley fans have some good memories of him, particularly in a brief spell when he played alongside loan signing Andrew Cole, but on 2 April 2009, Burnley offloaded him to Houston Dynamo.

Dave Thomas, a prolific writer on all things Burnley, talked about Akinbiyi’s cult hero status among Burnley fans, telling thelongside.co.uk: “Ade certainly had a talent and that talent was scoring goals. The story that he was utterly bad at this is totally inaccurate, but that is the legend that developed, at one club in particular, Leicester City.

“In truth, at Burnley too, he missed sitters that Harry Redknapp might say his wife could have scored. But then so do all other players and, in many games, he displayed all the things that he was good at, and the attributes that he had in abundance.”

After he was released by Houston, back in the UK he played 10 games for Notts County, as they won the League Two title In 2009-10, and the following season pitched up in south Wales to play for then non-league Newport County.

In July 2013, Akinbiyi became a player-coach for Colwyn Bay, managed by his former Burnley teammate Frank Sinclair, but both resigned in January 2015 after a 5-0 defeat at Boston.

Akinbiyi now lives in Manchester and in 2015 was interviewed about work he has done as an ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK after his father died from the disease.