Tag: Goodison Park

Alexis Mac Allister: the history-making World Cup winner

IF WINNING the World Cup is the pinnacle of any footballer’s career, there can be no question that Alexis Mac Allister has no equal as the greatest ever Brighton and Hove Albion player.

Several players have achieved the honour of representing their country on the back of their performances for Brighton, but never before December 2022 had the club boasted a World Cup winner, an international teammate of world-renowned Lionel Messi.

Argentinian Mac Allister has got the lot in his locker: equally adept as a holding or attacking midfielder, a great eye for pinpoint passes, deadly from the penalty spot, and with thunderbolt shots from distance to boot.

Indeed, one of the most memorable long-range strikes he scored for Brighton – against Leicester in Graham Potter’s last game in charge – would have been a goal of the season contender had it not been ruled out by the narrowest of VAR calls. It took the video assistant referee more than four minutes to chalk it off for offside which Potter conceded was “probably a millimetre or two the right decision”.

Thankfully, Mac Allister managed two that did count in that 5-2 win, converting a penalty for Albion’s fourth and then curling in an excellent 25-yard free-kick in injury time.

Potter’s input to making Mac Allister a more complete player was acknowledged in an interview with SunSport, not long after the coach departed forChelsea.

“He was very helpful — improving my versatility and physicality. I’m a much better player today because of it so I can thank him a lot,” said Mac Allister, who admitted how at first he found it difficult to transition from a more advanced player to a deeper-lying midfielder.

“The first year wasn’t easy for me. I found it very hard coming from Argentina with a different language and different way to play football. I physically wasn’t as strong as I am today,” he said.

In fact, he came close to jacking it all in at Brighton in December 2020, as he revealed in an in-depth interview with theplayerstribune.com, but was talked round in a FaceTime call with his mum in Buenos Aires.

“By that Christmas, with no fans in the stadiums, I had my bags packed. Literally, they were packed. I had two offers to leave — one from Russia and another from Spain, and my mind was made up.

“At the time, I was barely playing for Brighton. It was embarrassing, because I had the no. 10 shirt for a Premier League club, which is the dream of so many kids in Argentina, but I was a nobody. My name was nothing. I thought that I was cursed,” he said.

He got on FaceTime with his mum and he admitted: “I was sobbing. I was at my flat in Brighton, and she was back home in Buenos Aires. I had lost my head. I said, ‘Mum, I can’t do it anymore. I’m coming home. I need to get out of here’.” 

He continued: “I wanted to go home so bad. But my mum made me see the light. ‘Ale, remember how much you always wanted this?’ she said. ‘You have to be brave. You can’t quit now’.” 

In the new year, Mac Allister started many more games and eventually cemented his place in the heart of Albion’s midfield.

No longer a nobody; Mac Allister now has a staggering 8.6 million followers of his Instagram account!

“I like to play as a no. 10, I like to play as a no. 6,” he said. “The most important thing for me is to help my teammates win football games and try to be as central as I can so I can be as close to the ball to get on it as much as possible.”

Potter himself spoke highly about the way Mac Allister handled the transition, saying in January 2021: “Sometimes when players make the move there can be an assumption that it will all happen for them straight away.

“He’s moved from South America and was adapting to a new country before COVID and then picked up a couple of injuries.

“But he’s a determined individual and he’s a really good guy to work with. He reads the game really well and has a good footballing brain.”

Born in the Argentine lowland city of Santa Rosa on Christmas Eve 1998, Mac Allister started his career with Club Social y Deportivo Parque before joining the youth team of Argentinos Juniors in Buenos Aires.

He made his senior team debut there in October 2016 and a year later he and his older brothers Kevin and Francis all played in the same side. Their father Carlos, a left back known as El Colorado — “the Redhead”—  had also played for Argentinos Juniors and Boca Juniors (and won three caps for Argentina).

Alexis signed for Brighton in January 2019 on a four-and-a-half-year contract and said at the time: “The main reason I signed was because the club came to Argentina looking for me and they seemed very convinced about me.

Mac Allister liked the direction Albion saw for him before signing

“They made a big effort, told me about their project and their ideas to keep growing in this league, and I liked their ideas. I liked what they said.”

He was loaned back to Argentinos Juniors until the end of the 2018-19 season and then moved on loan again to Boca Juniors, where brother Kevin was playing, for the first half of the 2019-20 season. This was a Boca side that had one of the players he used to admire from afar – former Man Utd and West Ham striker Carlos Tevez – up front.

Mac Allister told GQ magazine in September 2025: “When I was younger, there weren’t many Argentinians in the Premier League but I used to wake up very early in the mornings to watch players like Carlos Tevez and Maxi Rodriguez.

“I was a big fan of the Premier League, so I hope the next generations are doing the same with us, not just with me but with Argentinian players in general.”

Albion recalled Mac Allister in January 2020 a couple of months before the Covid pandemic began to bite. “My time at Boca helped me mature and I learned a lot of things,” he told the Albion website.

Mac Allister made his debut as a substitute at Molineux in the last fixture before matches were halted for three months. I was at that Wolves match and even in a few short minutes on the pitch there were glimpses of what the young Argentinian was going to add to Potter’s side.

But the break hit Mac Allister hard. “Everything shut down. No football. No friends. And the worst part was that I was stuck in a country where I didn’t speak the language, he told theplayerstribune.com.

“When I first came here, I thought ‘I’ve played for Boca Juniors, one of the best teams in South America, I am ready’,” Mac Allister said in an interview on the Albion website in February 2022. “We had the Covid situation and I didn’t train for two or three months with my teammates. When we returned, I realised I wasn’t at the level I needed to be. I had to work.”

The year which would end with Mac Allister as a World Cup winner began well too when he scored twice at Goodison Park in Albion’s first ever win at Everton on 2 January. The player himself saw it as pivotal moment.

Mac Allister reckoned everything clicked for him when he scored twice at Goodison Park

The game was only three minutes old when Mac Allister latched on to Neal Maupay’s knockdown to score in the third minute before Dan Burn put Albion 2-0 up on 21 minutes.

Anthony Gordon pulled one back but Mac Allister found the top-right corner with a superb strike to make it 3-1 on 71 minutes. Gordon struck again 14 minutes from the end, but Brighton held on to win.

“When I scored two against Everton in January 2022, it felt like everything clicked for me,” he said. “That day at Goodison, I became something different.”

Admitting he had been hoping to improve on the goalscoring front, Mac Allister told the club website: “When I played in Argentina I would score and assist a lot more. I have scored a few times for Brighton now, it’s nice to get the confidence from that.

“I had a few games where I was on the bench and that’s not what I want, so I knew I had to keep working because I knew I would get my chance and when I did, I wanted to be ready. When that chance came along, I thought I took it well.

“The message from the gaffer and my teammates was to keep my head down and work hard. It’s not just the 11 who start, the people on the bench are important too.”

Always deadly from the penalty spot

The next step change in his career came with the appointment of Roberto De Zerbi as Potter’s successor. “A few months before the World Cup, it changed everything for me,” he said.

“The main thing that he helped me improve was my scanning of the field — my “profiling” of the situation. Taking little mental pictures of the chess board every two seconds. We looked at Ødegaard as an example of this. For me, he’s one of the best in the world at scanning. His head never stops moving. De Zerbi gave me this gift, and it really elevated my game.”

Mac Allister told theplayerstribune.com: “Playing every week, with the manager’s trust, the idea of the World Cup started to seem not so distant.

“I will never forget, we were away at Wolverhampton, and I was in the hotel whenI received the call of my dreams. I was in the squad. I was actually going to Qatar.”

He called his parents and they cried together. He reflected: “Two years earlier, I couldn’t get off the bench at Brighton. Now I was going to the World Cup with Argentina, trying to make history.”

When he helped his country to lift the World Cup on 18 December 2022 (beating France 4-2 on penalties after the game finished 3-3), Mac Allister’s stock had already been rising. He was man of the match after scoring for his country for the first time in a 2-0 win over Poland that took Argentina through to the last 16. In the final, he delivered an inch-perfect cross for Angel di Maria to give Argentina a 2-0 lead in the first half and De Zerbi observed how well he played alongside maestro Messi.

“Messi and Mac Allister speak the same (football) language and Messi understands very well the quality of Alexis,” De Zerbi told The Athletic. “If you watch the game, Messi was looking for Alexis lots of times and they made a lot of passes to each other. Alexis was always giving back to Messi a clean pass.”

With Mac Allister playing further forward for his country than with the Albion, it had De Zerbi pondering. “I’d like to speak to him when he comes back,” the Italian told The Athletic. “I like him a lot in the other position (deeper).

“I spoke with his father the other day and he told me he prefers the Argentina position, but in that position we have (Adam) Lallana and Lallana is a teacher.

“If a team wants to become big, the quality needs to be further back. For me the midfielder can play on the defensive line, because he’s bringing more quality.”

But he added: “Alexis can play anywhere on the pitch. I don’t know if he’s better as a playmaker or 20 metres further forward.”

Established as a kingpin in Albion’s midfield alongside Moises Caicedo — almost certainly, Albion have never had a better pairing in that area of the team — it was inevitable that they would move on.

In May 2023, De Zerbi was phlegmatic about losing them both. “I think it’s right they can leave, can change teams and play in a level higher,” he said. “If you ask me about Caicedo and Mac Allister, I love them and they are two big, big players and can be in a big, big European team.

“They can play in every competition and are ready to compete for a big team and I hope for them they can play in the best team in the world.”

The manner of their departures differed, of course, and after Mac Allister had moved to Liverpool, De Zerbi admitted: “With me and with my staff he was super correct. Before we could read it in the newspapers, in the press, the possibility he could go to Liverpool, he went into my office to communicate it in front of me and to explain the reason.

“I understood logically and I appreciated a lot because he was clear and he was honest. Not all other players were the same. Of course, he was happy to go to Liverpool and we can understand it. But, in the same way, he was sad to leave his teammates and this club.”

Mac Allister revealed how he had a secret rendezvous with Jürgen Klopp ahead of the £35m deal being done. “He flew down and we met in secret somewhere halfway to Brighton,” he said. “I was a bit shocked that he did that for me.

“I had won a World Cup, but I was not a star at all. We had a coffee, and he explained to me that he really wanted me to come to Liverpool, because I reminded him a bit of Gündogan, who he developed at Dortmund into one of the best box-to-box midfielders in the world.”

After observing how well Mac Allister had settled in with the Reds, De Zerbi maintained: “He became a great, great player. I’m happy and I’m proud for him because I worked with him and he deserves to be an important player in a big team.”

The Argentinian’s first goal for the club, in a 4-3 Premier League win over Fulham at Anfield in December 2023, turned out to be Liverpool’s goal of the 2023-24 season.

It was a perfect half-volley that dipped and swerved into the top right corner of the net from around 30 yards.

He collected his first domestic honour that season, too, when Liverpool beat Chelsea 1-0 to win the Carabao Cup (right).

Under Klopp’s successor Arne Slot, Mac Allister made 35 appearances (30 starts + five as sub) when Liverpool won the Premier League title (left) in May 2025.

Not many of them, but Sidwell’s goals were memorable

STEVE SIDWELL was not a recognised goalscorer but when he did find the back of the net it was often memorable and headline-making.

Such was his most talked about goal for Brighton – hit from the centre circle away to Bristol City in a Championship match on Bonfire Night in 2016. 

Eight years earlier, he stunned Goodison Park by rifling home from 25 yards after only 31 seconds of Aston Villa’s 7 December Premier League visit to Everton.

I was at Ashton Gate to see Sidwell’s amazing 50-yard lob over stranded Robins’ ‘keeper Richard O’Donnell (Jamie Murphy added a second in promotion-chasing Albion’s 2-0 win).

Manager Chris Hughton said: “It was a wonderful strike by Sidwell on his left foot when I would have expected it more from his right. It caught everyone by surprise, including their goalkeeper.”

I was also at the City Ground, Nottingham, seven months earlier when Sidwell went on as an 85th-minute sub and scored the winner (below) in the 91st minute to earn a 2-1 victory over Forest.

With his right foot this time, he drilled the ball in from 12 yards giving Albion a fourth win in five games which extended their unbeaten run to nine games.

“We felt that the game was becoming open and we felt we could bring players off the bench who could influence the game,” said Hughton. “One thing about Steve Sidwell is that he can break forward from midfield. I did not bring him on for that, but I am very glad he did it.”

Back to that game for Villa in 2008; moments after kick-off, Everton’s Mikel Arteta lost possession to Ashley Young. He fed James Milner who in turn found Sidwell. Finding himself with a sight at goal from 25 yards, he buried a stunning shot past Tim Howard. In an extraordinary end to the game, Young, who had scored Villa’s second, got a 94th-minute winner for the visitors after Joleon Lescott thought he’d salvaged a point in the 93rd minute, netting his second of the game. 

That opener at Goodison was a rare highlight for Sidwell in what overall was an unhappy two and a half years at Villa.

Sidwell had first caught Villa boss Martin O’Neill’s eye when he scored twice for Reading in a 2-0 home victory over Villa in February 2007.

O’Neill tried to land him before he opted to join Chelsea (the team he’d supported as a boy) and, by all accounts, predecessor David O’Leary had also tried to sign him.

So, it appeared to be a case of third time lucky when in July 2008 O’Neill took him for a reported £5million fee from being a Chelsea benchwarmer and gave him a three-year contract.

Sidwell during his first Albion spell

After success at Reading, where he had been reunited with Steve Coppell (who’d had him on loan at Brentford and Brighton as a young Arsenal player, as covered in my 2017 blog post), Sidwell had a disappointing season at Stamford Bridge, where he made just seven Premier League starts. 

Managerial change didn’t help his cause: he’d been signed by Jose Mourinho who left early in the season to be replaced by Avram Grant.

Sidwell later admitted: “I left for Aston Villa in search of regular football. In hindsight, I wished I’d stayed another six months because Luiz Felipe Scolari came in and you never know what might have happened then.”

At the time, Sidwell told Villa’s official website: “For me personally, it’s about getting back and playing. I have had a year of not playing as much as I would have liked so to get out on the pitch is the first aim.” 

Although he played in both legs of the InterToto Cup tie against Odense in July, knee and calf problems delayed his league debut until the end of October which he marked with a goal after going on as a late substitute in a 4-0 win at Wigan Athletic. That and the strike at Everton were two of four league and cup goals he scored for Villa that season when his 25 appearances (20 starts + five as sub) would ultimately amount to nearly half the total he made for the club: 37 starts + 27 as sub.

He didn’t add any more goals in the claret and blue and in the remainder of his time at Villa Park he was never really a regular, eg in 2009-10 only 14 of 33 appearances were as a starter and in 2010-11, three of six under Gérard Houllier.

Although he and O’Neill clashed on occasion, the Northern Irishman did say: “I’ve been very happy with him. It’s just that other players playing in positions all over the place have been playing brilliantly. Some people are playing out of their skin at this minute in our team. But I’ve been very pleased since he’s arrived at the football club.”

Sidwell’s former Reading teammate Nicky Shorey, who’d joined him at Villa Park, had high expectations of him ahead of his second season, telling the Birmingham Mail: “I don’t think Villa have seen the best of him yet. It’s been a strange season for Siddy. He’s been out injured for long periods and he’s picked up niggles here and there. I don’t think he’s ever had that before.

“For as long as I’ve known him, he’s never really been injured, so I think that’s something new for Siddy to try and learn from.”

Shorey said Sidwell had remained positive and upbeat around Bodymoor Heath and Villa Park and reckoned: “When he comes back for pre-season and hopefully has a good pre-season you’ll see the best of him and I think everyone will be impressed with how well he can do.

“When you know Siddy, that’s all he ever does – trains and plays with a smile. You haven’t got any worries with him on that count. He just keeps going and he’ll be fine. He’s just an all-round good midfielder and I’m sure he’ll show that before too long.”

Sidwell found himself competing for a midfield place with the likes of Milner (before his move to Manchester City), Gareth Barry, Stiliyan Petrov, Nigel Reo-Coker and Craig Gardner. He revealed later that he’d fallen out with O’Neill and at one point he went on the transfer list.

After O’Neill quit in protest at the sale of Milner to City, and ahead of Houllier’s appointment, Sidwell hoped to be given a new lease of life in claret and blue.

He overcame an Achilles’ problem and declared himself raring to go after playing 90 minutes in a 4-0 reserve team win over Blackpool at Bodymoor Heath.

“I feel I’ve shown glimpses,” he told the Birmingham Mail. “In the previous years, there have been good games and some poor games.

“If I get a run of games, I am sure I can perform to the best of my ability. Hopefully, now, whoever takes charge I will just get an opportunity and I will take it.

“It is going to be tough but it is down to individuals to perform in training, perform in reserve games and show the manager you are worthy of a start.

“Once you get that, you have to take it with both hands. Fitness wise, I’ve been training really well and looking sharp. It is just games that I need. I wasn’t unfit before the injury took place.”

When the Mail spoke to him ahead of a second city derby at the end of October 2010, Sidwell sought to exploit a two-month injury absence for Petrov saying: “It is all about opinions.

You don’t play under certain managers. Under certain managers you do get a chance.

“Once you get a chance it is about taking it and staying in the team.”

Sidwell started the game but was replaced by young Barry Bannan in the 58th minute of the dour goalless draw – and it turned out to be his last game for Villa (he was an unused sub away to Fulham the following week).

It was in a 2018 interview with Donald McRae of The Guardian that Sidwell revealed the extent of his disillusionment at Villa, telling the journalist: “When I was at Aston Villa I was on the most money in my career. But that was when I was at my unhappiest. I was living in Birmingham away from my wife and family.

“My middle son caught meningitis and was in hospital. The football never really took off and me and Martin O’Neill clashed. So, it was a combination of things.”

Released on a free transfer in January 2011, after being deemed surplus to requirements by Houllier, Sidwell joined Fulham – which is a story for another blog post.

After three years with the Cottagers, he followed ex-Fulham boss Mark Hughes to Stoke City and it was from there that he made his initial return to Brighton, on a half-season loan. 

Sidwell in action for Albion against Villa

In clinching his signing in January 2016, Hughton told the Albion website: “Steve is an experienced player who has played virtually his entire career in the Premier League. He knows this club, as well as a few of the squad and will supplement our existing midfield options.

“Beram Kayal, Dale Stephens, Andrew Crofts and others have been excellent in midfield for us this season, but we also need to make sure we have good options in every position of the team, and options which will be enough for us through until the end of the season.

“Steve brings that, and in addition, he is another experienced head; he is a player who’s proven at the very top level of English football. Brighton fans will know Steve is also a great athlete and top professional.”

Although he only made six starts, Sidwell went on as a sub 13 times in that half-season. When Albion had to endure the end-of-season play-offs after missing out on automatic promotion by only drawing (1-1) the last game of the season at Middlesbrough, it was Sidwell who stepped in to fill the boots of Stephens, who was suspended after his controversial sending off by Mike Dean at the Riverside Stadium.

Unfortunately, Sidwell was one of four Albion players who had to go off injured in the 2-0 play-off first leg defeat at Sheffield Wednesday. He suffered ligament damage but was taped up and given medication to enable him to play in the home tie, although he later admitted: “I should never have played really.”

He reckoned the Amex atmosphere for that game was the best he’d ever been involved in. In spite of a valiant effort, it ended in a disappointing 1-1 draw although Sidwell said: “I ended up playing one of my better games in a Brighton shirt, which maybe cemented a contract for the following season.”

Released on a free transfer by Stoke, Sidwell signed on a permanent basis for the Seagulls and was a key component in the side that won promotion from the Championship in May 2017. He made 29 starts plus eight substitute appearances that campaign.

“The whole reason behind my return was to help the club into the Premier League,” he said.

Sidwell was on the bench as Albion began life amongst the elite but after that “a slipped disc, surgery, and then before you know it your career’s gone.”

Sidwell later admitted: “It was really hard. I came here to do a job, to get the football club into the Premier League, and then it was time to go and enjoy it. I thought I had two or three years left, but that was cut very short.”

Recognising he was blessed to have enjoyed a 20-year career, he nonetheless said: “To not really say goodbye to football, something I’d done since I left school, and also to Brighton, was really disappointing.”

He stayed on at Albion as under-16s coach (right) for a while but increasingly his work as a pitchside pundit for live TV coverage of matches took up more of his time. He is also now a regular co-host of the popular That Peter Crouch Podcast.

Sidwell is also business development director of Box3 Projects, a company that constructs and designs office spaces to be rented out or sold.

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.

Albion promotion winner with a place in West Ham history

BERTIE LUTTON has a place in the West Ham history books even though he only made 13 appearances.

He was the first Hammer ever to play for Northern Ireland, winning four caps in 1973 (more on these later).

Lutton, frozen out at second tier Brighton less than a year after signing from Wolverhampton Wanderers, stepped back up a level to join Ron Greenwood’s side.

Although he had played at the elite level for Wolves, having been unable to hold down a regular first team spot at Molineux, he joined Pat Saward’s promotion-chasing Brighton in the 1971-72 season.

Lutton played his part in helping Albion go up from the old Third Division as runners up behind Aston Villa in the spring of 1972, as described in my 2016 blog post about his contribution.

But, when Brighton struggled to cope with the higher grade football, Saward questioned the commitment and attitude of certain players and Lutton was put on the transfer list.

It was certainly something of a surprise when, unable to get a start in a second tier side, he went on loan to First Division West Ham.

Lutton did well enough to secure a full-time switch to Upton Park. Almost a year to the day of his arrival at the Goldstone, he was London-bound and the shrewd Saward turned a £10,000 profit on the player.

The enigmatic Irishman made his Hammers First Division debut in a 1-0 away win against Norwich City on 10 February 1973, alongside the likes of Bobby Moore, Billy Bonds and Trevor Brooking, in front of a crowd of 32,597.

Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson scored the only goal of the game and finished the season as the club and League top goalscorer with 28 goals from 46 games. Lutton didn’t reappear until April when he went on as a sub in a 1-1 draw at home to Leeds and a 4-3 Good Friday win over Southampton at the Boleyn Ground (when George Herrington captured the action picture below of him).

Reviving his scoring feat for Brighton at Bournemouth a year previously, given a start on Easter Saturday, Lutton scored his only goal for the Hammers in a 1-1 draw away to Derby County. He then played in the last two games of the season, a 0-0 draw at Birmingham City, and a 2-1 defeat at home to Arsenal. West Ham finished the season in sixth place, though, which was the highest league position they’d achieved under Greenwood.

Lutton’s crucial equaliser for Brighton at Bournemouth on Easter Saturday 1972

Those league appearances earned Lutton a recall to the Northern Ireland squad and manager Terry Neill sent him on as a second half sub for Bryan Hamilton in a World Cup qualifier against Cyprus on 8 May 1973.

The game was played in front of a paltry 6,090 at Fulham’s Craven Cottage because of the troubles in Northern Ireland at the time. The Irish were already 3-0 up at half time and that’s how it finished: Sammy Morgan (later to play for Brighton) scored one and Man Utd’s Trevor Anderson hit two.

Eight days later, Lutton went on for goalscorer Anderson in Glasgow as the Irish succumbed to a 2-1 defeat to Scotland in the Home International tournament.

Three days after that, he saw action again when he once again replaced Ipswich Town’s Hamilton, who’d scored the only goal of the game as the Irish beat Wales 1-0 at Everton’s Goodison Park. Only 4,946 watched that one.

Back with West Ham at the start of the 1973-74 season and Lutton was in the starting line-up for home defeats to Newcastle United (2-1) and QPR (3-2) and was a sub in a 3-1 defeat away to Manchester United.

He started a 1-0 home defeat to Burnley, but was subbed off, as the Hammers’ torrid first half of the season continued. Previously imperious captain Bobby Moore was dropped and the side were bottom of the table at Christmas.

Lutton only re-appeared in the starting line-up in January when, in a FA Cup third round replay away to Third Division Hereford United, West Ham embarrassingly lost 2-1.

He retained his place three days later when, although the Hammers were missing Moore, Brooking, Kevin Lock, John McDowell and Robson, they made amends by beating Man Utd 2-1 at Upton Park. Billy Bonds and Pat Holland scored for the home side, Sammy McIlroy for United.

A week later, Lutton played his last Hammers match when appearing as a sub in a 1-1 draw at Newcastle United.

It came two months after he had made his last appearance for his country. That was in another World Cup qualifier, on 14 November 1973, when the Irish earned a 1-1 draw against Portugal in Lisbon. He played in midfield alongside Tommy Jackson and captain Dave Clements behind George Best, Anderson and Morgan up front.

Lutton had made his Northern Ireland debut three years earlier when his Wolves teammate Derek Dougan led the line in a 1-0 Home International defeat against Scotland in Belfast.

N Ireland training with George Best

Three days later, on 21 April 1970, he played the first half against England at Wembley when Best scored but the hosts won 3-1 (Lutton was replaced by sub John Cowan for the second half).

That was the game in which Bobby Charlton won his 100th England cap (and was made captain for the occasion) and his Man Utd teammate Brian Kidd made his debut. Ralph Coates also won his first England cap. Charlton, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst scored the English goals.

Born in Banbridge, County Down, on 13 July 1950, Lutton’s brief footballing career began with his hometown club, Banbridge Town, and it’s reported just £50 exchanged hands to take him to Wolves in 1967.

At a time when Wolves were blessed with some outstanding players like Dougan, Hugh Curran, Dave Wagstaffe, Jim McCalliog and Mike Bailey, the young Irishman managed just 25 matches for Wolves between 1967 and 1971.

Although he may have only had a brief spell in the limelight, he seems to have had a penchant for earning a place in footballing history.

His one and only First Division goal for Wolves was also the club’s 2000th goal in that league to be scored at Molineux.

Goal v Arsenal in frront of the Match of the Day cameras

Arsenal were the visitors on 15 November 1969 and Lutton seized on a fortunate deflection off the aforementioned Terry Neill to net in the 47th minute past the Gunners’ back-up ‘keeper Geoff Barnett. The home side won 2-0 with Scottish international Curran scoring the second just two minutes after Lutton’s opener.

Not listed in the matchday programme line-up, Lutton played instead of the injured Mike O’Grady in the no.8 shirt (players didn’t wear a squad number shirt in those days).

The game was featured on Match of the Day with the legendary Kenneth Wolstenholme commentating and the rather grainy black and white coverage of the game can still be found on the internet wolvescompletehistory.co.uk/arsenal-h-1969-70/.

Lutton only made one start and one sub appearance in the 1970-71 season but was a regular in the Wolves reserve side in which the emerging John Richards was banging in the goals.

The pair were room-mates as teenagers with Wolves and were reunited after 37 years by the wolvesheroes.com website.

They hadn’t seen each other since 12 May 1973 at Goodison Park when Lutton was an unused sub for Northern Ireland in a Home International against England and Richards was playing up front for the English alongside two-goal Martin Chivers. (England won the game 2-1).

Lutton has popped up on the Wolves history site on several occasions over the years, often when he has returned from his home in Australia to the Black Country to see his son, Lee, who still lives in the area.

Brighton fans had first seen Lutton back in September 1969 when he played for them in a memorable third round League Cup match in front of a packed Goldstone Ground.

Two years later Saward, quite the specialist at using the loan market, acquired Bertie’s services on a temporary basis between September and November, 1971.

He made his debut in a 2-0 defeat at Aston Villa and scored twice in seven games (in a 2-2 draw at Torquay United and a 3-1 home win over Bristol Rovers) before returning to his parent club.

Celebrating a goal at the Goldstone for Brighton

Then, on 9 March 1972, with the clock ticking down to what in those days was the 5pm transfer deadline, Saward completed a double transfer swoop, securing Lutton’s permanent signing for £5,000 together with Ken Beamish from Tranmere for £25,000 (plus the surplus-to-requirements Alan Duffy).

A delighted Saward declared to Argus reporter John Vinicombe: “Bertie can do a job for us anywhere. This can’t be bad for us. At 21 and with two caps for Ireland he has a future and played very well for us while on loan.

“He can play right or left, up the middle, or midfield and Beamish can fit into a number of positions.”

It’s likely that versatility counted against him and, in the days of only one substitute, he was more often than not a sub, being able to go on in a variety of positions.

He was on the bench when Brighton began the 1972-73 season in the second tier and went on in three games. He then got four successive starts before going back to the bench.

Albion were finding life tough at the higher level and although Saward switched things around and brought in new faces, results went from bad to worse.

Lutton started three games in December which all ended in defeat and the 3-0 Boxing Day reverse at Oxford United turned out to be his last appearance for the Albion.

It fell in the middle of a spell of 12 successive defeats during which only five goals were scored. Saward couldn’t put his finger on the reason for the slump but Lutton found himself one of three put on the transfer list.

The West Ham move must have seemed ideal but sadly it was all over after just 13 games. Injury forced him to quit the professional game and he had a brief spell playing non-league for Horsham before emigrating to Australia.

There he played semi-professional football in the Australian Soccer League for a number of years before settling in Melbourne where he worked for the paint giant Dulux.

‘Weirdo’ makes meteoric rise to Albion’s top football role

DAVID WEIR had something of a meteoric rise to the top football role at Brighton.

Weir, a former Rangers, Everton and Scotland international, became the club’s new technical director in May 2022 having only been appointed assistant technical director in January. He stepped up to the top job in an interim capacity only a month later after Dan Ashworth quit (and was put on ‘gardening leave’ before joining Newcastle).

Previously Weir had been pathway development manager, keeping tabs on players sent out on loan. When Weir’s appointment to the top role was confirmed, chairman Tony Bloom told the club website: “During his recent role as acting technical director he has used his experience, knowledge and ability in supporting  both Graham Potter and the men’s first-team, as we secured a record top-flight finish, and to Hope Powell and the women’s first-team. 

“In that time he has already further enhanced an already excellent working relationship with both Paul Barber and me, as well as our executive team responsible for the running of the club. David will oversee all football operations; including recruitment, analysis, medical and player welfare, across both the men’s and women’s set-up.”

Weir didn’t have long in the role before he was having to help Bloom and deputy chairman and chief executive Paul Barber find a new head coach following Potter’s defection to Chelsea. Weir found himself facing the media when Roberto De Zerbi was unveiled as Potter’s replacement.

However, as Barber said at the time of Weir’s appointment: “It is well known by Everton, Rangers and Scotland fans that David was a leader on the pitch. He has continued to show those qualities off the pitch and has quickly settled into the role.”

When the pathway development manager job was created, who better to entrust the care and progress of promising youngsters than a father of four who played more than 600 matches at the highest level in both the English and Scottish leagues, not to mention 69 games for his country.

Weir had a 20-year playing career, and was still playing for Scotland aged 40, after starting out with his hometown club Falkirk. He was at the heart of Everton’s defence for seven years, including several as captain.

“David has an excellent playing and coaching CV, has excellent contacts throughout the football world and is hugely respected within the industry,” Albion’s head of recruitment, Paul Winstanley, said at the time of his appointment.

“With an increasing number of our younger players going out on loan, this is a particular area in which we feel it is important for us to develop.

“David will be responsible for working with those players individually and collectively, during pre-season and throughout their loan spells to help their footballing development, with the aim of assisting with their graduation to long term first-team football.”

Weir told the matchday programme: “As a former manager and coach, I know the pitfalls that come with loan moves and so I put procedures in place to make sure our players gain the most from their time away from the club.

“It’s also important that we send our players to work with coaches who will enhance their experience – I think a loan move is more about sending them to the right coach rather than any particular club.”

One of the many aspects Weir keeps an eye on is how a player adapts outside the cosseted Brighton bubble.

“The loan process, to a lower league club for instance, should make them appreciate how good they’ve got it here and provide the motivation for them to want to succeed at our club.

“They will have to adapt to new surroundings, maybe bringing their own food, washing their kit or finding a gym to work out in. They have to grow up quickly but I’m available to support and help.”

Weir knows himself what it is like being far from home while trying to get your career started. He went to the United States on a scholarship deal, at Indiana’s University of Evansville, between 1988 and 1991.

Born in Falkirk on 10 May 1970, when the centre back returned to the UK he linked up with his hometown team, playing 134 matches over four seasons, before being transferred to Edinburgh side Hearts.

He was in the 1998 Scottish Cup-winning Hearts side (they beat Rangers 2-1) and featured in a total of 116 games before Everton took him to England in February 1999 for a £250,000 fee.

He was signed by Walter Smith and spent seven seasons with the club as a player, during which time he was club captain under both Smith and his successor, David Moyes.

“I spent ten years in total at Everton, so they will always be a club that means a lot to me,” said Weir. “It’s just a special club for me and one that provided me with many happy memories.”

Everton fan website toffeeweb.com summed him up thus: “Weir brought all the essentials of a great defender: big, strong, good in the air and a hard tackler, he had also shown that he was good at attacking, scoring important goals and taking set pieces.”

Weir cited the 2004-05 season when Everton finished fourth and qualified for the Champions League as one of his highlights.

“It was a team that worked hard for each other, and we had that never-say-die attitude that came from the manager (David Moyes),” he pointed out.

Weir played alongside the likes of Wayne Rooney, Duncan Ferguson, Mikel Arteta and Paul Gascoigne during his time at Goodison Park, and he went back after his playing days were over to coach the academy and reserve teams.

Weir had returned to Scotland in 2007 and, while silverware eluded him on Merseyside, he made up for it in Glasgow, where he won the Scottish Premier League title three times, the Scottish Cup twice and the League Cup on three occasions. A personal high came in 2010 when he was the SFWA Footballer of the Year and the Scottish Premier League Player of the Year.

The previous year he had taken over the Rangers captaincy from Barry Ferguson and in 2011 he became the first player to be inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame while still playing.

Weir was first selected for Scotland in 1997 and was in Craig Brown’s squad for the 1998 World Cup in France. He only scored once – in a World Cup qualifier versus Latvia at Hampden Park in 2001. He retired from international football in 2002, when Berti Vogts was the coach, but had a change of heart and returned when his old club boss Walter Smith took charge two years later.

It was in a Euro 2012 qualifying game in 2010 that Weir became the oldest player to play for his country. His 69 caps make him the nation’s seventh-most capped player.

He finally hung up his boots in May 2012 at the age of 42 and returned to Everton as an academy coach. A year later, he took over as manager of third tier Sheffield United but his tenure lasted only 13 games after a disastrous start in which only the opening game was won.

Undeterred, he became Mark Warburton’s assistant manager at Brentford and, after winning promotion to the Championship in their first season and securing a fifth-placed finish in their second season, the pair left the club after a management restructure.

In the summer of 2015, Warburton took charge of Rangers with Weir as his assistant, and after their departure from Ibrox in early 2017, they joined forces at Nottingham Forest in the Championship. 

Warburton, Weir and director of football Frank McParland were all appointed towards the end of Fawaz Al Hasawi’s ownership of the club – two months before a takeover by Greek shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis – and lasted only nine months at the City Ground.

It was in July 2018 that Brighton took on Weir to guide the club’s loanees.

Amongst his cohort were his own son, Jensen, who went on loan to League One Cambridge United in 2021-22. The England under 20 international then joined Morecambe for the 2022-23 season.

On 20 December 2021, according to Mail Online, Everton held talks with Weir senior about him rejoining the club in a player development role at Goodison Park, but nothing came of it.

A month later, Albion announced Weir had been promoted to become the club’s assistant technical director, supporting Dan Ashworth.

Why Shane Duffy is forever grateful to Everton

SHANE DUFFY has seized the opportunity to re-establish himself at the heart of Brighton’s defence to the obvious delight of the manager who appeared to have shunned him.

With injury sidelining Dan Burn and Covid-19 isolation protocol ruling out Joel Veltman, Duffy stepped up with a solid performance in the season-opener at Burnley, and a goalscoring return to the Amex in the 2-0 win over Watford.

“It was a fantastic header from Duffy, he’s a monster in the box,” boss Graham Potter told the BBC after the televised Watford match. “He is so big and strong to stop – it was a great goal.”

Duffy’s form has been a reminder of the solid centre-back partnership he formed with Lewis Dunk as the bedrock of Brighton’s promotion from the Championship in 2017.

Although a metatarsal injury in a 3-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest meant he missed out on the run-in, Duffy was obviously confident of being restored to the line-up when the Premier League season got under way.

“I’m looking forward to going back to Everton to see a few mates but they’re all going to be big games,” Duffy said in a matchday programme article. “I feel more ready for it than I was four or five years ago at Everton, and I deserve another crack at it, but I know I’ve got to work hard.”

While additions to the squad were to be expected as the Albion sought to stay among exalted company, the Duffy-Dunk pairing at the back didn’t look much like being broken up. Certainly not under Chris Hughton.

Happy with his mainstays at the heart of the defence, Hughton allowed Connor Goldson to leave for Glasgow Rangers and Uwe Hünemeier to return to Germany and Duffy was comfortable alongside Dunk as Albion retained their top division status. And so it remained for Albion’s two first two seasons back amongst the elite.

But when Potter replaced the popular Hughton in 2019, it soon became apparent Duffy didn’t fit the mould of the sort of ball-playing centre-back he wanted in the side.

Although he started the season under Potter, his place was gradually taken over by big money signing Adam Webster. Duffy invariably ended up warming the bench and at the start of the 2020-21 season, with Ben White preferred alongside Dunk and Webster, he jumped at the chance to go on loan to Glasgow giants Celtic, the team he’d supported as a boy.

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be quite the dream move Duffy had hoped for, with criticism arrowing in from all quarters as the Republic of Ireland international underwhelmed in the centre of the Hoops defence, and Celtic could only watch as city rivals Rangers won the Scottish title.

Doubtless the irony wasn’t lost on Duffy that his first match back in a Seagulls shirt saw him up against Rangers in a pre-season friendly, when the home fans ensured he was given a ‘warm’ reception.

But let’s go back to where it all started.

Born in Derry, Northern Ireland, on 1 January 1992, Duffy was playing for Northern Ireland Under-16s against England in the Victory Shield when he caught the eye of watching Everton boss David Moyes.

Duffy had been playing for his local side, Foyle Harps, at the time and, although Arsenal took him on trial and offered him a scholarship, Everton invited him to train with them and offered him a professional contract immediately.

“Of the two clubs, I just had a good feeling about Everton; obviously it was more of a family club, and there’s also the Irish connection with the city of Liverpool, so it was easy for me to settle in,” Duffy told the matchday programme.

In his second season at Goodison Park, he made his first team debut aged just 17 in a Europa League match against AEK Athens.

“David Moyes handed me my debut and I owe him a lot because he always had belief in me, whereas I could have gone somewhere else and maybe ended up back in Ireland,” he said. “I was raw as I hadn’t been with an academy before, but he was patient with me, as were all the coaches, and I came through the youth team and reserves before I got my break in the Europa League and then later in the Premier League.”

Duffy played against Brighton when the third-tier club’s youngsters (with Dunk in defence) acquitted themselves brilliantly in the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup against Everton at the Withdean on 21 January 2010 before eventually losing 2-0. The programme pen picture said of him: “Strong in the tackle and dependable in the air, Shane is considered a ball-playing defender.”

Duffy recalled: “I’d just turned 18 and had recently broken into the Everton team in the Europa League. I do remember Dunky a little bit because we were marking each other at corners.”

A month after his visit to Withdean, Duffy decided to switch allegiance to the Republic having previously captained Northern Ireland’s Under-19s. It came just as he was selected for the full international squad to face Albania in a friendly in Tirana where he was expected to receive his first cap in the absence of captain Aaron Hughes (who later spent a season with Brighton) and Chris Baird.

Disappointed Northern Ireland boss Nigel Worthington told The Guardian: “There is a loophole where a player can walk away after a lot of time and investment has gone in. Until it is resolved, that’s where we are. Shane has represented Northern Ireland all the way through from a very early age to the Under-21s.

“I am a big admirer of Shane. I like him as a player and a lot of work has gone in with different coaches. I am disappointed with the situation as he is going to be a very good player. Shane has decided, after discussing the matter with his family, to represent the Republic. As a manager, I have got to respect that.”

Duffy, who had close family ties to Donegal in the Republic, said the decision to switch his allegiance from Northern Ireland was the right thing to do to help his international career.

Speaking to evertontv, Duffy said:“It was difficult for me to leave because of what they’ve done for me in Northern Ireland since I was young. They brought me through the ranks which gave me the chance to come to Everton.

“It was hard to leave all the coaches and all the players, but it was always a case of wanting to come to my own country. I spoke to a couple of people about it because I didn’t want to disrespect Northern Ireland, but I just had to do what was best for me and I thought it would be best for me to switch.”

Astonishingly, in his first-ever training match with the Republic, under manager Giovanni Trapattoni, he was involved in a freak collision that lacerated his liver and emergency surgery was required to save his life as he lost a huge amount of blood.

After a speedier-than-expected recovery, Duffy was soon lining up for the Republic’s Under-19s and Under-21s and he went on to make 20 appearances for the Under-21s.

In 2012 he was called up to the senior squad to replace the injured Richard Dunne but missed out on the squad for the 2012 Euros. He had to wait until June 2014 to make his full debut and it was another two years before he was next involved.

He was called up to the side who famously beat Italy in a 2016 Euros group match to qualify for the final 16 but was then sent off as the Republic bowed out 2-1 against France. Nevertheless, under Martin O’Neill, Duffy became established in the side and in March 2018 was named his country’s Player of the Year. He told the matchday programme: “When I heard the news, I was shell-shocked, but when it sunk in it gave me time to reflect on how far I’ve come in a short space of time.

“So much has happened: the Euros, failing to reach the World Cup in the play-offs, winning promotion with Brighton, playing in the Premier League.

“The manager noticed a difference in me when he brought me back into the side two years later, and that’s because I went away, played games and I worked hard. I got myself properly fit, dedicated, and I feel like I’ve benefited from that.”

Reflecting on the experiences given to him by Hughton and O’Neill, Duffy pointed out: “Chris has given me the chance to play in the Premier League where I’m developing, and Martin has given me the chance to play on the big stages and in a big tournament.

“You take little things out of each one of them and it’s coming together a bit now, and hopefully there’s more to come. I’m still a bit raw in some things I do but I’m getting better and it’s a nice feeling to go out knowing you can compete with top players and feel comfortable.”

Duffy went on to captain the Republic for the first time in a 1-1 draw against Denmark in November 2019 and retained the captaincy in Stephen Kenny’s first game in charge, in September 2020; a 1-1 draw against Bulgaria.

As an established international, Duffy has nearly 145,000 followers on Twitter.

Looking back, by his own admission, Duffy had realised his early exposure to senior football at Everton was going to be short-lived, telling the club’s website at the time: “I know I’m not ready to play in Everton’s first team yet as I’m so young but if I’m needed I’ll do my best for the team. A loan would obviously make me better and make me more mature on the pitch.”

Initially that loan came at Burnley in the Championship, but he only played one game under Eddie Howe and, in 2011-12, he had a more fruitful loan at League One Scunthorpe United, playing 19 games under Alan Knill.

An injury to Phil Jagielka prompted Everton to recall Duffy from Scunthorpe in January 2012 and a week after playing against Hartlepool he found himself going on as a substitute for Sylvain Distin against Spurs at White Hart Lane.

Spurs had Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Emmanuel Adebayor in their line-up but Duffy said: “I refused to get overawed by the occasion. I just treated it as another football match, another opponent, and only afterwards did I take in what had happened.”

He said: “Everton are a club that will always mean a lot to me because they gave me my chance as a professional and shaped the player I am today. David Moyes was a big influence on my career; he helped me a lot.”

Duffy spent the 2013-14 season on loan at Yeovil – “another fantastic learning curve for me” – when Gary Johnson’s side were in the Championship and although Moyes’ successor Roberto Martinez offered Duffy a new contract at Everton, he was warned he would have to wait to establish himself because he was still young and inexperienced.

So, in the summer of 2014, he decided to join Paul Lambert’s Championship side Blackburn Rovers and, while a knee injury restricted his appearances in his first season at Ewood Park, he became a permanent fixture alongside Grant Hanley in 2015-16.

When Gordon Greer’s imposing reign as Brighton centre-back and captain came to an end in 2016, Hughton turned to Duffy as his replacement (Greer went back to Rovers). The fee was undisclosed but was reported in The Mirror to be £4m.

It remains unclear where Duffy’s future lays although his performances in the opening two games of the season suggest there could yet be a future for him under Potter. The manager didn’t hold back in his praise for the big Irishman, but the defender didn’t get carried away.

Duffy opened up to the media after the win at Burnley, talking about what he’d been through over the previous 12 months, but he pointedly added: “It is only one game and a lot can still happen, but as long as I am here I’ll try and help the team whether that’s on the pitch or off the pitch with the younger lads. That is what I am here to do.”

He said he had “hit rock bottom” when affected by off-field problems (for example, his father Brian died aged 53 in May 2020), but he praised the Seagulls for continuing to offer him support and he added: “I am still taking it day by day and be like an 18-year-old try and impress every day, try and improve and try and help as much as I can. I feel like if you do that you get the reward sometimes when maybe you don’t expect it.”

Duffy also spoke openly and honestly to Sky Sports as part of the build-up to the game against Watford.

Pictures from Albion’s matchday programme and online sources.

Transfer makeweight Storer became all-time Seagulls hero

STUART Storer cemented his place in Brighton’s history when he scrambled home a last-gasp winner in the final ever home game at the Goldstone Ground.

When a seemingly goal-bound header from Mark Morris bounced off the south stand end’s crossbar, fortunately it fell into the path of the onrushing Storer who managed to scramble it over the line among a sea of flailing Doncaster Rovers legs.

That moment on 26 April 1997 is often brought up with Storer via media interviews or simply when bumping into Brighton fans while on his travels. The goal is featured in the pre-match video montage shown on the TV screens at the Amex, so it has been seen by various generations of fans.

“I’m proud that people hold me in so much esteem and I’m very fortunate to be part of the club’s history,” Storer told Brighton & Hove Independent in an April 2017 interview. “Younger people that I teach watch the video and take the Mickey but they’ll never kill my pride. I’m very proud of that moment.”

Storer provided the photographers with plenty of action shots

The goal ensured a vital three points were secured in the fight to avoid relegation from the lowest tier in the Football League. In the one remaining game the following week, Albion managed to get the point needed to stay up while simultaneously relegating Hereford United.

Those crucial matches were just two of more than 150 games Storer played for the Albion under six different managers during an extraordinarily turbulent time for the club.

It was, though, a rather curious playing career all round that saw some of the game’s biggest names – Liam Brady, Alan Ball, Howard Kendall and Ron Saunders – sign him for their clubs. And he carried on playing until he was 42.

In 2006 and 2007, he was part of Everton’s Masters’ six-a-side team in the televised tournament featuring veteran players. Storer’s teammates included the likes of Neville Southall, Adrian Heath and Alan Harper.

Storer had been at Goodison Park the last time the Toffees were the English league champions. However, he didn’t make a first team appearance, invariably being the 13th man in the days when there was only one substitute.

He’d arrived on Merseyside as a transfer makeweight in a £300,000 deal Kendall struck with Birmingham City to sign Wolverhampton-born striker Wayne Clarke – the youngest of five brothers who played league football.

Clarke’s former club, Wolves, were convinced Storer had been included in the deal simply to lower the sell-on amount they were due as part of a previous agreement.

Clarke scored five goals in 10 games – including a hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Newcastle United on Easter Monday – to help Everton win the League Championship. Storer had made only 12 appearances for City in three years so his chances of making an impact with the title-chasers were slim.

Although Storer was on Everton’s books for nine months, he never crossed the white line for the first team and went on loan to Wigan Athletic, making his debut on the opening day of the 1987-88 season in a 4-4 draw away to Notts County (Garry Birtles scored two of County’s goals).

Storer was no stranger to a 4-4 draw. He played in two for Albion in 1997 – on 8 March at home to Orient and on Boxing Day later the same year when they drew at Priestfield against Colchester United (Paul Emblen got a hat-trick for the Seagulls).

Storer started nine games for the Latics and came on as a sub three times under Ray Matthias but they didn’t have the funds for a permanent transfer. Instead, the loan was cut short and, on Christmas Eve 1987, Everton sold him to then Fourth Division Bolton Wanderers for £25,000. He scored his first goal for the Trotters four days later in a 2-1 home win over Stockport County.

He enjoyed seven seasons at Burnden Park as they progressed from the basement division to the third tier under former Liverpool and England full-back Phil Neal.

His time with the Trotters included two trips to Wembley. He was a late substitute in the Wanderers side captained by Phil Brown who beat Torquay United 4-1 in to win the Sherpa van Trophy in 1989. And he was a starter in the Wanderers side who lost the 1991 Third Division play-off final to Tranmere Rovers.

Having broken an ankle and seen Neal switch to become Steve Coppell’s assistant manager at Manchester City, Storer was sold to Exeter City in March 1993 by Neal’s successor Bruce Rioch. Storer made 177 appearances for Bolton, but Rioch’s signing of David Lee had signalled the beginning of the end of his time there.

It was former World Cup winner Ball, then boss of Exeter City, who paid £25,000 for Storer’s services. He made 75 appearances (plus two as a sub) for the Grecians, initially under Ball and then his successor, former Leeds and England left-back Terry Cooper in the 1994-95 season.

Financial problems at the Devon club led to his departure. Early negotiations with a view to a transfer to Brighton initially broke down but Brady finally managed to secure his services for £15,000 in March 1995.

Ironically, he then suffered an injury during his first day’s training with the Seagulls, delaying his first appearance until 29 April. But it was memorable as he scored in a 3-3 draw away to his former club, Birmingham.

He recalled in a March 2019 interview with Michael Walker for the Daily Mail: “I was in an untenable situation at Exeter because they were going into administration. I had to get out. It was from the frying pan into the fire.”

However, Storer said, at the time he signed, he was unaware of the tensions going on around the Albion, although he knew he was the first player signed after a transfer embargo had been lifted. Not for the first time in the club’s history, fans dipped into their pockets to help buy the player.

“I think the fans just wanted to buy a player, any player, and they chipped in,” said Storer.

Born in the village of Harborough Magna, just north of Rugby, on 16 January 1967, he was raised in the village of Dunchurch, just south of Rugby, attending its local junior school before moving on to Bilton High School, where his footballing ability was recognised with selection in the Rugby Boys and Warwickshire Boys representative sides.

Wolverhampton Wanderers scout John Jarman spotted him and he went along to Molineux during the Ian Greaves managerial reign. When a takeover at Wolves saw Jarman and Greaves depart for Mansfield Town, they took the young Storer on as a trainee at Field Mill.

He began playing for their youth side but he was given his Mansfield first team debut aged only 16 in a 4-0 win over Hartlepool.

Storer and Julian Dicks at Birmingham City

Released after only a year with the Stags, he was offered another chance to build a league career by Birmingham who he joined in July 1984, initially signing as a trainee and then becoming a professional. But after limited first team opportunities at St Andrews, Saunders’ successor, John Bond, sold him to Everton as part of the Clarke transfer.

After Storer’s crucial part in keeping Albion in the League, he remained at the club until 1999, playing a total of 152 games and being part of the side who had to spend two years playing home games at Gillingham.

He moved back to Warwickshire on the day the Seagulls played their first friendly at Withdean on 24 July 1999,signing for Southern League Premier Division side Atherstone United, but he was only there for two months before moving to Kettering Town, who were playing in the Football Conference, the tier just below the Football League.

In May 2000, Storer signed for Isthmian League Premier Division side Chesham United and spent a season with them, before moving nearer to his Midlands base and signing for Hinckley United in March 2001.

Storer was made club captain, and as he approached his late 30s, he got more involved with coaching. At the age of 40, Storer was a member of the Hinckley team that achieved their highest ever league position of fourth in the Conference North, losing in the play-off final to deny them promotion.

After eight seasons, he had made more than 300 appearances for the part-timers of Hinckley while working as a PE teacher at various colleges in Coventry.

Storer continued to play until he was 42 and since 2013 has managed Bedworth United, where he is still in charge and also runs academies for boys and girls and A Level courses. He said: “I played until I was 42 at Hinckley in the Conference and then my legs gave way and I had to do something else in football.”

There’s a Michael Portillo style to Storer’s attire here and he admitted in a matchday programme article to having a penchant for “having a bizarre choice in clothing” as well as being an avid collector of hats.