REGARDLESS of the often overblown ‘bitter rivalry’ between Brighton and Crystal Palace, many people have served both clubs with equal distinction, none more so than Martin Hinshelwood.
A player at Palace until injury curtailed his career when only 27, he went on to have a long career in the game, much of it with Brighton; more often in youth development as a coach and briefly as the no.1.
In the summer of 2002, his appointment as Albion boss 11 weeks after his former Palace teammate Peter Taylor had quit came as something of a surprise considering chairman Dick Knight declared he had interviewed seven candidates for the post.
In more recent times, Albion have had a Uruguayan, a Spaniard, a Finn and an Italian as head coach, back in 2002 it looked a strong possibility Knight might appoint wild-haired German coach Winfried Schafer, who had just managed Cameroon at the World Cup, but the chairman suspected his lack of command of English might be too big a hurdle to get over.
A terrific start
A clear favourite had been Steve Coppell but when the ex-Palace manager fell asleep during his conversation with Knight, apparently fatigued after a long-haul flight, the chairman was suitably unimpressed and, with time running out before the 2002-03 season got under way, Hinshelwood was appointed instead.
A 3-1 win away to Burnley looked like a terrific start but after a 0-0 home draw with Coventry, the side went on a disastrous 10-game losing spell (a 2-1 League Cup win over Exeter City the only bright spot amid the gloom).
Knight had already publicly signalled he would take decisive action after the sixth defeat in a row – a 4-2 home reverse to nine-man Gillingham!
He told the Argus: “If the team went ten matches losing every one, then you have got to do something about it.
“It’s very easy to criticise him (Hinshelwood). Obviously, he is a manager under pressure because we have just lost six games.
Getting his message across
“To suggest we should instantly sack him puts out the wrong message. Most people right now will think it was the wrong decision to appoint him, but I am not going to panic. I am going to monitor the situation.”
Of course, that monitoring didn’t take long to reach an inevitable conclusion – four more defeats and Hinshelwood was relieved of first team duties. He was made ‘director of football’ and Knight went back to Coppell to try to keep the Albion in the division. He very nearly managed it, too, but such a bad run of defeats had taken their toll on the points total.
As it happened, it wasn’t the first time Hinshelwood had found himself in the Albion hotseat: he was caretaker manager on three occasions: in 1993 (before Liam Brady’s appointment), in 2001 (after Micky Adams left for Leicester) and again in 2009, when he was in charge for a 4-4 FA Cup first round tie at Wycombe Wanderers after Russell Slade had been sacked and before Gus Poyet’s arrival.
When researching backgrounds of any number of players for this blog, Hinshelwood’s name is often cited as the one who either made the approach to bring them to Brighton or who was a major influence in their development.
For example, when Hinshelwood first joined the Albion in 1987, from Chelsea, he was instrumental in bringing from Stamford Bridge to the Goldstone Doug Rougvie and Keith Dublin, who both played their part in getting Albion promoted straight back to the second tier in 1988.
Hinshelwood had been reserve team manager at Chelsea for two years during the managerial reign of John Hollins, after first team coach Ernie Walley, his former Palace youth team coach, put in a good word for him.
His long association with Brighton began with a ‘phone call to Barry Lloyd to congratulate him on landing the Albion manager’s job. The former Fulham captain asked Hinshelwood to join him at the Goldstone – and he stayed for the next six and a half years.
He returned to the club in the summer of 1998, when Brian Horton had taken over, and was appointed Director of Youth, with Dean Wilkins as youth team coach.
Pensive Hinsh
An interview with the matchday programme pointed out that across the following 14 years, he oversaw a youth system that produced 31 players who made it through to the first team, although he said such success had very much been a team effort, name-checking Wilkins, centre of excellence managers Vic Bragg and John Lambert, scouting chief Mark Hendon and physio Kim Eaton.
Dean Hammond, Adam Hinshelwood, Adam Virgo, Adam El-Abd, Dean Cox, Jake Robinson, Dan Harding and later Lewis Dunk, Jake Forster-Caskey and Solly March all graduated from that period. “To have been a part of their journeys makes me immensely proud,” he said.
Hinshelwood left the Albion for a second time in 2012 and worked variously for Crawley, Portsmouth, Stoke City and Lewes. He returned to the Seagulls once again when the former head of academy recruitment at Stoke, Dave Wright, who had joined Brighton in 2019, invited him to take on a role of scouting 13 to 16-year-olds.
When Hinshelwood himself was that age, he had visions of following in his dad Wally’s footsteps. He had been a professional for Fulham, Chelsea, Reading, Bristol City and Newport County, and, although born in Reading (on 16 June 1953), young Martin had become accustomed to an unsettled childhood, moving around the country to wherever dad’s next club took him.
The family finally settled in New Addington, near Croydon, with Wally playing non-league football in Kent and Martin played representative football for Dover Under 15s, Croydon Boys and Surrey Under 16s.
He was on schoolboy terms at Fulham when Bobby Robson was manager but they didn’t think he would make it. It was while he was playing for Surrey Schools that former Spurs and Palace manager Arthur Rowe scouted him for Palace and he was taken on as an apprentice in 1969.
Hinshelwood playing for Palace, up against Stoke’s George Eastham
Hinshelwood was given his first team debut by Bert Head in 1972. He played in midfield in the old First Division for a dozen matches but the side were relegated in his first season. The flamboyant fedora-wearing Malcolm Allison took over as manager and he was later replaced by Terry Venables.
Martin’s younger brother Paul (Jack Hinshelwood’s granddad) played in the same side at full-back and the brothers were alongside the likes of Kenny Samson and Peter Taylor. In 1975-76, when still a Third Division side, they shook the football world by making it to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, where they lost to eventual winners Southampton, although Martin missed the game through a right knee injury. It eventually forced him to quit playing in 1978, after he’d made 85 appearances for Palace in five years.
Venables appointed him as youth team coach at Selhurst Park and although he spent 18 months as player-manager of non-league Leatherhead, he then resumed his Palace role under Steve Kember.
Alan Mullery dispensed with Hinshelwood’s services during his brief managerial reign at Palace but he kept his hand in at coaching with non-league clubs Kingstonian, Barking and Dorking.
Selsey-based Hinshelwood then had a spell as manager of Littlehampton before the Chelsea job came up.
DEAN WILKINS might have lived in the shadow of his more famous elder England international brother Ray but he certainly carved out his own footballing history, much of it with Brighton.
Albion fans of a certain vintage will never forget the sumptuous left-footed free-kick bouffant-haired captain Wilkins scored past Phil Parkes at the Goldstone Ground which edged the Seagulls into the second-tier play-offs in 1991.
Supporters from the mid-noughties era would only recall the balding boss of a mid-table League One outfit at Withdean comprising mainly home-grown players who Wilkins had brought through from his days coaching the youth team.
After Dick Knight somewhat unceremoniously brought back Micky Adams over Wilkins’ head in 2008, he quit the club rather than stay on playing second fiddle and subsequently went west to Southampton where he worked under Alan Pardew and his successor Nigel Adkins as well as taking caretaker charge of the Saints in between the two reigns.
Wilkins’ initial association with the Seagulls went back to 1983, when Jimmy Melia brought him to the south coast from Queens Park Rangers shortly after Albion’s FA Cup final appearances at Wembley.
Melia’s successor Chris Cattlin only gave him two starts back then and although he pondered a move to Leyton Orient, where he’d had 10 matches on loan, he opted to accept to try his luck in Holland when his Dutch Albion teammate Hans Kraay set him up with a move to PEC Zwolle. Playing against the likes of Johann Cruyff, Marco Van Basten and Ruud Gullit proved to be quite the footballing education for Wilkins.
Wilkins in the thick of it in Dutch football for PEC Zwolle
After two years in the Netherlands, 25-year-old Wilkins rejoined the relegated Seagulls in the summer of 1987 as the club prepared for life back in the old Third Division under Barry Lloyd.
Relegation had led to the sale for more than £400,000 of star assets Danny Wilson, Terry Connor and Eric Young but more modest funds were allocated to manager Lloyd for replacements: £10,000 for Wilkins, £50,000 for Doug Rougvie, who signed from Chelsea and was appointed captain, Garry Nelson, a £72,500 buy from Plymouth and Kevin Bremner, who cost £65,000 from Reading. Midfield enforcer Mike Trusson was a free transfer.
The refreshed squad ended up earning a swift return to the second tier courtesy of a memorable last day 2-1 win over Bristol Rovers at the Goldstone.
At the higher level, Wilkins had the third highest appearances (40 + two as sub) as Albion finished just below halfway in the table. The following season Wilkins was appointed captain and was ever-present as Albion made it to the divisional play-off final against Notts County at Wembley, having made it to the semi-final v Millwall courtesy of the aforementioned spectacular free kick v Ipswich.
Wilkins scored again at Wembley but it turned out only to be a consolation as the Seagulls succumbed 3-1 to Neil Warnock’s side.
As the 1992-93 season got underway, Wilkins, having just turned 30, was the first matchday programme profile candidate for the opening home game against Bolton Wanderers (a 2-1 win) when he revealed the play-off final defeat had been “the biggest disappointment of my career”.
The 1993-94 season was a write-off from October onwards when he damaged the medial ligaments in both his knees after catching both sets of studs in the soft ground at home against Exeter City.
Although injury plagued much of the time during Liam Brady’s reign as manager, the Irishman acknowledged his ability saying: “He is a very fine footballer and a tremendous passer of the ball and he possesses a great shot.”
Ahead of the start of the 1995-96 season, Wilkins was granted a testimonial game against his former club QPR, managed at the time by big brother Ray. But at the end of the season, when the Seagulls were relegated to the basement division, he was one of six players given a free transfer.
Born in Hillingdon on 12 July 1962, Wilkins couldn’t have wished for a more football-oriented family. Dad George had played for Brentford, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Hearts and appeared at Wembley in the first wartime FA Cup final. While Ray was the brother who stole the limelight, Graham and Steve also started out at Chelsea.
In spite of those older brothers who also made it as professionals, Wilkins attributed his development at QPR, who he joined straight from school as an apprentice in 1978, to youth coach John Collins (who older fans will remember was Brighton’s first team coach under Mike Bailey).
He made seven first team appearances for Rangers, his debut being as a substitute for Glenn Roeder in a 0-0 draw with Grimsby Town on 1 November 1980. After joining the Albion in August 1983, he had to wait until 10 December that year to make his debut, in a 0-0 draw at Middlesbrough, in place of the absent Tony Grealish. He started at home to Newcastle a week later (a 1-0 defeat), this time taking the midfield spot of injured Jimmy Case.
Perhaps the writing was on the wall when Cattlin secured the services of Wilson from Nottingham Forest, initially on loan, and although Wilkins had a third first team outing in a 2-0 FA Cup third round win at home to Swansea City, boss Cattlin didn’t pick him again. Instead, he joined Orient on loan in March 1984.
A long career in coaching began when Wilkins was brought back to the Albion in 1998 by another ex-skipper, Brian Horton, who had taken over as manager. With Martin Hinshelwood as director of a new youth set-up, Wilkins was appointed the youth coach – a position he held for the following eight years.
Return to the Albion as youth coach
His charges won 4-1 against Cambridge United in his first match, with goals from Duncan McArthur, Danny Marney and Scott Ramsay (two).
That backroom role continued as managers came and went over the following years during which a growing number of youth team products made it through to the first team: people like Dan Harding and Adam Virgo and later Adam Hinshelwood, Joel Lynch, Dean Hammond and Adam El-Abd.
At the start of the 2006-07 season, with Albion back in the third tier after punching above their weight in the Championship for two seasons, Wilkins was rewarded for his achievements with the youth team with promotion to first team coach under Mark McGhee.
By then, more of the youngsters he’d helped to develop were in or getting close to the first team, for example Dean Cox, Jake Robinson, Joe Gatting and Chris McPhee.
After an indifferent start to the season – three wins, three defeats and a draw – Knight decided to axe McGhee and loyal lieutenant Bob Booker and to hand the reins to Wilkins with Dean White as his deputy. Wilkins later brought in his old teammate Ian Chapman as first team coach.
Into the manager’s chair
Tommy Elphick, Tommy Fraser and Sam Rents were other former youth team players who stepped up to the first team. But, over time, it became apparent Knight and Wilkins were not on the same page: the young manager didn’t agree with the chairman that more experienced players were needed rather than relying too much on the youth graduates.
Indeed, in his autobiography Mad Man: From the Gutter to the Stars (Vision Sports Publishing, 2013), Knight said Wilkins hadn’t bothered to travel with him to watch Glenn Murray or Steve Thomson, who were added to the squad, and he was taking the side of certain players in contract negotiations with the chairman.
“In my opinion, his man-management skills were lacking, which was why I made the decision to remove him from the manager’s job,” he said. It didn’t help Wilkins’ cause when midfielder Paul Reid went public to criticise his man-management too.
Knight felt although Wilkins hadn’t sufficiently nailed the no.1 job, he could still be effective as a coach, working under Micky Adams. The pair had previously got on well, with Adams saying in his autobiography, My Life in Football (Biteback Publishing, 2017) how Wilkins had been “one of my best mates”.
But Adams said: “He thought I had stitched him up. I told him that I wanted him to stay. We talked it through and, at the end of the meeting, we seemed to have agreed on the way forward.
“I thought I’d reassured him enough for him to believe he should stay on. But he declined the invitation. He obviously wasn’t happy and attacked me verbally.
“I did have to remind him about the hypocrisy of a member of the Wilkins family having a dig at me, particularly when his older brother had taken my first job at Fulham.
“We don’t speak now which is a regret because he was a good mate and one of the few people I felt I could talk to and confide in.”
Youth coach
Knight knew his decision to sack the manager would not be popular with fans who only remembered the good times, but he pointed out they weren’t aware of the poor relationship he had with some first team players.
Knight described in his book how a torrent of “colourful language” poured out from Wilkins when he was called in and informed of the decision in a meeting with the chairman and director Martin Perry.
“He didn’t take it at all well, although I suppose he felt he was fully justified,” wrote Knight. “He was fuming after what was obviously a big blow to his pride.”
Reporter Andy Naylor perhaps summed up the situation best in The Argus. “The sadness of Wilkins’ departure was that Albion lost not a manager, but a gifted coach,” he said. “Wilkins was not cut out for management.”
Saints coach
One year on, shortly after Alan Pardew took over as manager at League One Southampton, he appointed Wilkins as his assistant. They were joined by Wally Downes (Steve Coppell’s former assistant at Reading) as first team coach and Stuart Murdoch as goalkeeping coach.
Saints were rebuilding having been relegated from the Championship the previous season and began the campaign with a 10-point penalty, having gone into administration. The club had been on the brink of going out of business until Swiss businessman Markus Liebherr took them over.
A seventh place finish (seven points off the play-offs because of the deduction) meant another season in League One and the following campaign had only just got under way when Pardew, Downes and Murdoch were sacked. Wilkins was put in caretaker charge for two matches and then retained when Nigel Adkins, assisted by ex-Seagull Andy Crosby, was appointed manager.
It was the beginning of an association that also saw the trio work together at Reading (2013-14) and Sheffield United (2015-16).
Adkins, Crosby and Wilkins were in tandem as the Saints gained back-to-back promotions, going from League One runners up to Gus Poyet’s Brighton in 2011, straight through the Championship to the Premier League. But they only had half a season at the elite level before the axe fell and Mauricio Pochettino took over.
When the trio were reunited at Reading, Wilkins, by then 50, gave an exclusive interview to the local Reading Chronicle, in which he said: “This pre-season has given me time to learn about the characters of the players we’ve got at Reading and find out what makes them tick.
At Reading with Crosby and Adkins
“It’s my job then to make sure every player maximises his potential. That’s what I see my role as, to bring out the very best of them from now on and make them strive to attain new levels of performance.
“I will always keep working toward that goal. If we can do that with every individual and get maximum performances out of them, I believe we will be in for a great season.
“We’re back together now and it’s going fantastically well. I have loved every minute of it. I’m used to working with Nigel and Andy and we are carrying out similar work to what we’ve done in the past.”
The Royals finished seventh, a point behind Brighton, who qualified for the play-offs, and the trio were dismissed five months into the following season immediately following a 6-1 thrashing away to Birmingham City.
Six months later the trio were back in work, this time at League One Sheffield United, but come the end of the 2015-16 season, after the Blades had finished in their lowest league position since 1983, they were shown the door.
Between January 2018 and July 2019, Wilkins worked for the Premier League assessing and reporting on the accuracy, consistency, management and decision-making of match officials.
In the summer 0f 2019, he was appointed Head of Coaching at Crystal Palace’s academy, a job he held for 15 months.
A return to involvement with first team football was presented by his former Albion player Alex Revell, who’d been appointed manager of League Two Stevenage Borough. Glad to support and mentor Revell in his first managerial post, Wilkins spent a year as assistant manager at the Lamex Stadium.
FORMER DUTCH MARINE Michel Kuipers earned back-to-back promotions with Brighton and Hove Albion and Crawley Town.
He was between the sticks for the Albion when they won promotion from the basement division in 2000-01 and the third tier in 2001-02.
And after 10 years with the Seagulls, during which he made a total of 287 appearances, he spent two years with Crawley where, over 49 matches, he won promotion from the Conference in 2011 and League Two in 2012.
Undeniably, it was Kuipers’ years with the Seagulls that defined his career after an inauspicious start when Micky Adams subbed him off at half-time on his debut away to Southend United. Replaced by Mark Cartwright in that match, he was left out of the next 11 matches before an injury to Cartwright enabled him to win back the shirt. He didn’t look back after that, though, and only missed three more matches as the Seagulls were crowned champions.
Early days between the sticks
Although there were to be plenty of ups and downs over the following years, when he wasn’t always first choice, Kuipers remained a crowd favourite for his agility as a shot stopper and his fanlike celebrations of goals and wins.
“I was a player but I also turned into a fan of the Albion,” he said in an interview with the matchday programme. “On the pitch I would celebrate each goal we scored like I was on the terraces with our supporters.
“After we had a good result in the game, I would celebrate with the players but always expressed my joy and gratefulness to the supporters.”
A sensational double-save in a televised game away to Wolves in November 2002 was a highlight for many and a one-handed reaction stop at Blackpool earned him a ‘save of the month’ award from sponsor Nationwide.
He didn’t always see eye to eye with Mark McGhee, who reckoned his kicking let him down, and the Scot said: “His desire to do well is unquestioned, but I had to make a decision and it was not always one he agreed with.”
McGhee was nonetheless full of admiration for the Dutchman and in a programme for Kuipers’ testimonial match v Reading in 2012, he recounted a specific role he played when Albion’s back-up goalie at the 2004 Second Division play-off final against Bristol City.
“I asked Michel to warm up, but in truth to get the supporters going. I remember him going down to the corner and waving with those huge arms – he absolutely galvanised the support.
“What was brilliant for me was that he did it despite his huge disappointment not to be playing himself – he did it for the team. The rest is history as the fans got behind the team. We got the penalty and went on to win the game.”
Later that evening, the trophy Albion won got bent when someone fell on it: with his bare hands, Kuipers straightened it!
Five years (from 19 to 24) in the Dutch Marines during which he’d parachuted from aeroplanes and learned to survive in harsh conditions, definitely left their mark. His training had taken him into jungles, deserts and the Arctic, but he said: “My love and passion for football was always there. In my spare hours I played for the Marines team.”
Born in Amsterdam on 26 June 1974, as a childKuipers played football with his mates in front of some garages near the flats where he lived. He recalled they would be told off for hitting the ball against the garage doors, so he went in goal to try to save the ball from making loud bangs every time one of his friends scored.
“I was doing OK, so from that day onwards I played as a goalkeeper,” he said. He played for the local Blauw-wit under six team and went all the way through the age groups to the first team at 18.
A keen Ajax fan as a youngster, his idol was their goalkeeper Stanley Menzo – “one of the best goalkeepers of his generation” – and he also admired Menzo’s successor, Edwin Van Der Sar, who later played in England for Fulham and Manchester United.
Although Kuipers went straight from full-time education into the Marines, he also played part time for AFC Door Wilskracht Sterk (it means Strong Through Willpower) and Kuipers explained: “We won the Amsterdam regional league for the first time in 25 years and this brought me to the attention of Ian Holloway at Bristol Rovers.
“When I was offered a contract by him, I wasn’t sure I could leave the Army, but the officers knew I’d put 110 per cent into my job, so they were happy to release me.”
But in 18 months with Rovers, Kuipers only managed one first team appearance (against Bournemouth in March 1999). Indeed, it was while playing for Rovers Reserves against Brighton at Worthing that he caught the eye of Brighton boss Adams. He jumped at the chance when Albion offered him a trial and he played well enough in a Sussex Senior Cup semi-final against Langney Sports for Adams to persuade him to make a permanent move to the Seagulls with the intention of being back-up to Mark Walton.
When Walton suddenly upped sticks and joined Cardiff before the 2000-01 season had started, Kuipers found himself in the starting line-up for the opening game away to Southend.
Understandably, Kuipers was distraught at being taken off at half time but he knuckled down to try to win back the shirt and said: “If you’re mentally strong and you’ve got good self-confidence and belief then you just fight back and that’s the way I approached it in the following months.”
He credited the work he put in with goalkeeping coaches John Keeley and Mike Kelly, admitting: “They improved my technique and made me more professional.”
Even when Adams left for Leicester, Kuipers remained no.1 under Peter Taylor as the Seagulls soared to a second successive promotion.
Injury meant Kuipers missed the second half of the season when Steve Coppell’s side only just missed out on avoiding an immediate drop back to the third tier.
When Ben Roberts was preferred as first choice goalkeeper, Taylor, by then manager of Hull City, took Kuipers on loan in September 2003.
Albion rebuffed Hull’s attempt to sign him on a free transfer but shortly after his return to Sussex he was involved in a horror car smash on his way to training.
Remarkably, considering he was airlifted to hospital, he escaped serious injury although club physio Malcom Stuart reported: “Michel knows he was very lucky. There’s a degree of shock and he will need time for that to clear his system. Structurally there are no serious injuries, but he’s had several stitches and is very sore and uncomfortable muscularly.”
Manager McGhee added: “My God, we feared the worst. But in a sense it’s an absolute bonus, a miracle – they sent him home with a few cuts and bruises, a swollen face, a sore back and a sore neck, which in a week or two will be fine.”
Nevertheless, it was Roberts who kept his place as Albion won promotion via the aforementioned play-off final win in Cardiff. But in the first half of the 2004-05 Championship season, Kuipers was back in the saddle courtesy of injury to Roberts.
All was fine until a home game v Nottingham Forest on 22 January 2005 when Kuipers came off worse in a challenge with Kris Commons and the shoulder injury he sustained kept him out for the rest of the season. Former Arsenal ‘keeper Rami Shabaan and Southampton loanee Alan Blayney took over the gloves.
New competition arrived in the shape of Aston Villa loanee Wayne Henderson, who took over in goal at the start of the 2005-06 season and with the brief return of Blayney as well as Frenchman Florent Chaigneau as back-up, it seemed Kuipers’ Albion days might be over.
He was sent out on two loan spells at League Two Boston United – initially playing four times in December 2005, then 11 matches between February and April 2006.
With Brighton back in the third tier for the 2006-07 season, and another change of manager when McGhee gave way to Dean Wilkins, Kuipers found himself vying for the jersey with Henderson, who had been signed permanently. Local lad John Sullivan was beginning to emerge too. But there was no keeping a good man down and Kuipers was the ever-present first choice goalkeeper throughout the 2007-08 season.
At that time, he admitted he was still learning ways to improve thanks to goalkeeping coach Paul Crichton and told the matchday programme: “I am very pleased with the progress I have been making under Paul.
“My game has definitely improved and it is great to see the results of hard work on the training ground coming out in games.”
When Adams returned ahead of the 2008-09 season, Kuipers was still in pole position and he famously saved Michael Ball’s penalty when League One Albion beat Manchester City 5-3 on penalties in a second round League Cup tie at Withdean.
Although Sullivan had a run in the side, and Adams’ successor Russell Slade briefly turned to loanee Mikkel Andersen, Kuipers was once again in the box seat come the end of the season.
It wasn’t long after the arrival of Gus Poyet that Kuipers’ time at Brighton finally came to an end. A 2-1 home defeat to Norwich City in February 2010 was his last Albion start as Poyet turned instead to his ‘keeper of choice, Peter Brezovan.
The Dutchman continued his association with the Seagulls through involvement in the Albion in the Community programme and his long service was rewarded with a testimonial game at the Amex (a 1-1 draw v Reading when he played 15 minutes). He told BBC Radio Sussex: “Bar my family, this football club is the closest thing to my heart.
“I’ve been bleeding blue and white for the last 12 years so this is a very proud moment for me and my family.”
He added: “I love the Brighton supporters. They’ve been absolutely fantastic to me and a lot of the times when we had our backs against the wall, they were the 12th man.
“Especially as a goalkeeper, I really appreciate them backing the team. I think people appreciated me because I threw my body on the line for the club.”
Kuipers early days at Crawley saw him making headlines for all the wrong reasons – he was sent off twice in the first month, v Grimsby Town and v Forest Green Rovers – but he was in the Blue Square Bet Premier league side that had a terrific run in the FA Cup, only narrowly losing in the fifth round, 1-0 to Man Utd at Old Trafford in February 2011.
Kuipers’ loyalty was rewarded with a testimonial in 2012
On leaving Crawley in early 2013, he said: “When I joined, the club had finished mid-table in the Conference and I leave challenging for the play-offs in League One.
“The supporters have always backed me and I am really proud of the part I have played in raising the profile of Crawley Town with two successive promotions.
“It’s been a fantastic part of my career and I will always remember my time at the club.”
The final four months of his playing days were spent on the subs bench at Barnet, as back-up to first choice Graham Stack.
In 2020, Kuipers was behind the setting up of the PHX gym at Hollingbury.
LANKY Slovakian stopper Peter Brezovan, who saved penalties on his Albion and Swindon Town debuts, once came close to a dream move to Everton.
The Merseyside outfit had him on a five-day trial with a view to signing him on a permanent basis from Swindon.
“It was very rewarding just to train alongside Tim Howard and face all these international players,” he said. “It was an experience I’ll never forget.”
Former Man Utd ‘keeper Howard was Everton’s no.1 in 2007 and, having released Richard Wright that summer, manager David Moyes had only new signing Stefan Wessels and the little-used Iain Turner as back-up ‘keepers. Everton’s goalkeeper coach was the former England international Chris Woods.
While Everton didn’t follow up their interest in Brezovan with an offer (three years later they did sign a Slovakian goalkeeper, Jan Mucha), it sounded like Swindon rather over-egged their expectations of a big payday.
Robins stopper
The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald reckoned a £300,000 eve of deadline day offer from Wolverhampton Wanderers had been rejected, saying: “Town will be asking for a substantial amount more.”
The newspaper added: “If the price is right, Town are ready to cash in on their number two keeper.” And manager at the time, Paul Sturrock reportedly told the Mirror: “If I was offered something like £2m, Brez would be an Everton player.”
The Toffees had originally taken an interest in Brezovan and invited him for a trial when he made an eye-catching start in English football in 2006. Not only did he save two penalties in his first game for Swindon, he conceded only five goals as Town won six of their opening seven matches and won the PFA Player of the Month award for September. Unluckily, a badly broken arm put him out of the game for nine months but Everton revived their invitation when Brezovan was fit again.
It probably didn’t help the ‘keeper’s progress at Swindon that successive managers came and went during his time at the club. It was Dennis Wise who signed him on a year’s loan from Czech side 1.FC Brno shortly after he’d taken over as Swindon manager, assisted by his former Chelsea teammate Gus Poyet, but by October the pair (along with goalkeeper coach Andy Beasley, who later spent a year at Brighton) left Wiltshire to take over at Leeds United.
County Ground caretaker managers David Tuttle and Ady Williams were followed by Sturrock for a year; David Byrne twice held the fort temporarily and Maurice Malpas was in charge for 11 months in 2008. When he left in November that year, Danny Wilson arrived the following month.
Born on 9 December 1979 in Bratislava, Brezovan’s first football memories were playing at right-back. In a matchday programme article, he explained: “In the first game of the season our ‘keeper got injured, so the biggest kid had to go in goal – and I’ve been there ever since. I’ve always been tall so looked upon to go in goal but, unlike a lot of kids, I enjoyed it.”
Brezovan spent his youth career at the city’s MŠK Iskra Petržalka and also played for Devin in the city before spending two years in the Czech Republic with FC Slovan Břeclav and HFK Olomouc. He then spent four years at FC Brno in South Moravia, although it was while he was on loan back in Bratislava, playing for FK Inter Bratislava, that he was spotted by Swindon and subsequently made the move to England.
In spite of his spectacular start for the Robins, when he couldn’t speak a word of English, it would be fair to say Swindon have mixed memories of his time at the County Ground, chronicled in detail on swindon-town-fc.co.uk. After former Albion captain Wilson released him at the end of the 2008-09 season, he was without a club for six months.
He had an unsuccessful trial at Crewe Alexandra in October 2009 but Poyet, not long after succeeding Russell Slade as Albion boss, signed him for a month at the beginning of December to cover a mini goalkeeper crisis he inherited.
Regular no.1 Michel Kuipers was injured and Slade’s misfit summer signing Graeme Smith had conceded 11 goals in three defeats and one win.
Handed his debut on a drizzly, grey December afternoon at Exeter (I know, because I was there, getting wet on the uncovered terrace behind the goal!), Brezovan went from zero to hero, according to writer Richie Morris, after upending former Albion loanee Stuart Fleetwood in the penalty area and then impressively saving Marcus Stewart’s spot kick.
“The former Slovakian under 21 international pulled off a string of comfortable, but reassuring saves,” wrote Morris. “True, he did nearly gift the home side a goal with a wayward clearance, but, considering how long he has been out of first team football, he can be happy with a solid performance.”
A somewhat modest Brezovan attributed his penalty save to goalkeeper coach Tony Godden’s homework. “He told me where Marcus Stewart puts his penalties and I dived the right way but it was a great feeling to help the team to victory,” he said.
Penalty-saver!
On another occasion, Brezovan expanded on his technique with penalties, telling the matchday programme: “It’s mainly instinct on the day. You get the stats guys who help you with your preparation – they will tell you where certain players tend to put the ball but sometimes you just have to go with how you feel in that moment and go for it.
“I don’t get the lads to take penalties at me after training either – I hate doing that. It’s all about how you are on the day.”
Brezovan’s arrival signalled the departure of the hapless Smith who ended his six-month nightmare in English football by returning to Scotland, moving on a free transfer to Hibernian. And the Slovakian’s short-term arrangement ultimately extended into a four-and-a-half-year spell as a Brighton player.
There were occasions when he was tempted to move on for more regular game time, but he confessed to loving the area and stayed put even though first team opportunities were few and far between.
In that first season, fans’ favourite Kuipers, not for the first time, found his place under threat because of the 6’6” Brezovan’s form. But a blunder by the new man in a game at home to Wycombe prompted Poyet to bring back the former Dutch marine (chef) at the start of the new year.
Kuipers had an eight-game run in the starting line-up but then broke a finger. Brezovan, having had his contract extended, seized his chance and kept his place through to the end of the season.
Brezovan told the matchday programme: “We are good friends, we train well together, and so I really feel for him. We don’t feel like rivals at all in that respect but I know that while I am in the team I will be giving my all to make sure I maintain my place.”
It paid off because Poyet offered him a two-year contract at the end of the season, saying: “Peter has earned his new contract. Initially he came to play and help us out but I expected he would prove he was worth a longer deal and he has done that.
“He has been a very important part of our turnaround since Christmas and now his challenge is to make the position his own for next season and beyond.”
And the ‘keeper told the Argus: “Together with my girlfriend, I’ve really settled here. I think that Brighton is the nicest city in England and we’re really happy here.
“I owe a lot to the manager because he brought me to the club and I’m glad he wants me to stay. That’s why it was so easy to sign the deal. The manager will no doubt bring in more good players in the summer so it’s going to be an exciting season.”
He was right about the excitement because Albion went on to win the League One championship title; what he might not have anticipated was that because he was nursing a wrist injury on the eve of the season opener against his old club Swindon, Poyet moved quickly to sign another ‘keeper who he’d worked with at a previous club: Casper Ankergren.
The Dane, released by Leeds, instantly became first choice ‘keeper and Brezovan spent most of the season watching from the bench, making just seven starts in the FA Cup (the first and second round matches both went to replays). Close to the end of the season he went on as a sub for the injured Ankergren in the 18th minute of the 25 April league game at Colchester United, making important saves from Ian Henderson and David Mooney as the Albion salvaged a point in a 1-1 draw.
Brezovan was also in goal for the penultimate game of the season, and the last ever played at the Withdean, when Huddersfield won 3-2. A defensive gaffe by Inigo Calderon, who left Brezovan stranded by chesting the ball down inside the area, let in Benik Afobe to put Town 2-1 ahead; sub Matt Sparrow equalised for the Seagulls and, although Brezovan twice made excellent saves to deny defender Jamie McCombe, sub Danny Ward scored a last-minute winner.
Brezovan resumed his place on the bench as 2011-12 got under way with Ankergren once again Poyet’s first choice no.1, although, after he’d shipped 13 goals in eight games in the autumn, the manager brought experienced Newcastle custodian Steve Harper on loan for five games.
Brezovan preferred to see the positive side of it, though, telling the matchday programme: “That was a good experience for all the goalkeepers. He is a vastly experienced ‘keeper and we have learned from his time here.”
After Albion went through a four-game losing streak in December, Brezovan got the call to take over from Ankergren in the new year match at home to Southampton when an injury-hit Albion sprung a surprise, winning 3-0 with a memorable brace from midfielder Sparrow.
It was only after the game that Poyet revealed how his plan to change ‘keepers nearly didn’t come to fruition. “For the last week Peter has been waiting for his wife to have a baby, every day,” Poyet told the Argus. “I needed to wait until 1.30 to tell him he was playing. The baby was due three or four days ago, so we were all thinking ‘come on girl, go on’!”
Later the same month, Brezovan was hailed a hero when he saved a crucial spot-kick in a penalty shoot-out in a third round FA Cup replay at Wrexham and he told Brian Owen of the Argus: “I enjoyed it. The pressure is all on the strikers at penalties because they can just mess it up. You have nothing to lose, you are practically without pressure.
“I knew one player and where he goes and I saved his penalty so we could have a laugh in the end.”
Nevertheless, Poyet was obviously still unsure about the goalkeeping situation. He let third choice Michael Poke go on loan to Bristol Rovers but brought in Columbian David Gonzalez, who’d been with Man City for two years, to put pressure on Brezovan and Ankergren.
“The gaffer wanted to bring in another keeper. You have to face it, with Casper, and keep working to keep our positions,” said Brezovan.“I’ve got another year. If you want to stay at a club for a long time, you have to play. You can’t be just like a useless second or third choice. This is my opportunity and I am going to do everything to stay in goal.”
He did indeed stay in goal but on two occasions let in six! The first drubbing was handed out by Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup at Anfield (with Albion famously conceding three own goals in a 6-1 defeat).
After Brezovan shipped another six against West Ham at the Boleyn Ground, Poyet had seen enough. The patient Gonzalez replaced Brezovan in goal for the following game, one of six changes to the side that capitulated to the Hammers.
Come the new season, Brezovan and Ankergren had even more of a challenge on their hands when experienced Polish international and former Manchester United ‘keeper Tomasz Kuszczak arrived at the Amex.
It pushed Brezovan down the pecking order to third choice ‘keeper and he played only once all season, in a 2-1 win at Huddersfield when Kuszczak had a finger infection that ruled him out and Ankergren picked up an injury in training two days before the game.
Brezovan stayed at the club as no.3 ‘keeper for the 2013-14 season and once again injuries to the first and second choices in Oscar Garcia’s side presented him with a rare opportunity. He ended up playing eight games, four in the league and four in the FA Cup.
He made his first appearance for 13 months in the 7 December 3-1 win at home to Leicester after Kuszczak pulled out in the warm-up with a stomach muscle strain, with Ankergren already sidelined with a wrist injury. In an interview with the Argus, on his 34th birthday, Brezovan spoke openly about possibly moving on to get more games.
“It’s hard because Brighton is a beautiful place and I love the people around here. It’s not easy to go.
“If there was an offer from the same level, I would probably try it. Going to a lower division, getting injured and then to be there on the bench is risky.”
And of his sudden chance back in the Albion goal, he reflected: “That’s football. Things can happen quickly and it’s beautiful. It shows how everyone is important. When you don’t play for a long time, even in training, you start to think it’s hard to motivate yourself.
“That’s why you need good lads around you. I love the guys here. They always help you to be motivated. When you play and your contract is running out you need to find that motivation.”
His appearance in the fifth round FA Cup replay defeat (1-2) at Hull City on 24 February turned out to be his last first team game and he was released at the end of his contract that summer having featured 62 times for the Seagulls.
He trained with Oxford United during pre-season and at the start of the next season joined Portsmouth for a month as cover for Paul Jones. On transfer deadline day, he signed a one-year contract with Tranmere Rovers.
Although he played seven games for Rovers, he lost his place to regular ‘keeper Owain Fon Williams. He had a loan stint at Southport in early 2015 but at the end of the season, following Rovers’ relegation from League Two, he was released.
Interviewed by the Argus in December 2015, Brezovan had returned to Brno in the Czech Republic, quit football and turned to publishing music online.
“I lost a little bit of motivation,” he said. “The football wasn’t going anywhere and I’d had enough. I’m focusing on this now.”
DIMINUTIVE midfielder Jamie Smith spent 11 years at Crystal Palace, going through the youth ranks before signing as a pro, but didn’t play league football until he joined Brighton.
Russell Slade took on the 19-year-old during his brief reign in charge of the Seagulls (and signed the player again when he was in charge at Orient).
Albion picked up the discarded 5’6” Smith in the summer of 2009 and he did enough as a triallist in pre-season friendlies to be awarded a contract by the Seagulls.
Slade said: “Jamie has done exceptionally well throughout pre-season. He’s worked hard to convince us he is worth a contract and he has the potential to be a very good player.”
His first league start was memorable for all the wrong reasons. In only the third league game of the season, he was selected in midfield away to Huddersfield Town.
But when regular no.1 ‘keeper Michel Kuipers was sent off six minutes before half time, the young midfielder was sacrificed to allow substitute goalkeeper Graeme Smith to take over between the sticks. Depleted Albion then went on to succumb to a 7-1 battering.
“I had mixed feelings really,” he told the matchday programme. “It was great to make my debut and I thought we started the game well, but the sending off changed everything and it was all downhill from then on.”
It was Smith’s only start of the whole season. He was on the subs bench on half a dozen occasions but only went on in one of them, away to Wycombe Wanderers at the end of the year.
Gus Poyet had succeeded Slade by then and with Albion coasting at 5-2 – Glenn Murray having scored four of them – Smith replaced Dean Cox in stoppage time.
During the close season, Andrew Crofts was sold to Norwich City and Cox left for Orient, but new arrivals Radostin Kishishev and Matt Sparrow provided new competition for midfield places.
But Poyet reckoned there was something about Smith and enthused about an “outstanding” performance he’d delivered in a pre-season friendly at Burgess Hill. He told the Argus: “We really like him. He could be an interesting player for the future, I’m telling you. He has got some qualities we need to use a bit better.”
After also impressing in a pre-season game against Aberdeen, Smith was in the starting line-up for the opening game of the 2010-11 season, when Albion won 2-1 at Swindon (Sparrow scored twice on his debut).
He played the following two league matches too: a 2-2 draw home to Rochdale (although Smith was sacrificed on 54 minutes after Gordon Greer was sent off for punching Anthony Elding and Adam El-Abd was sent on to play in the centre of defence).
I was sat in the Leppings Lane end at Hillsborough seven days later when Smith retained his place in midfield against Sheffield Wednesday (above left).
The youngster even came closest to netting an equaliser for the Seagulls; his shot from Ashley Barnes’ cutback clipped the bar.
However, Albion then re-signed Kazenga LuaLua and Poyet reckoned Smith didn’t do enough to show he wanted it more than the explosive winger. “Because he is young, maybe he took it too nicely,” Poyet told the Argus. “I need people to react, to show me I have made a mistake or even to put me under pressure. He was just normal, not at his best to give me a headache to have to play him.”
Smith himself admitted: “When LuaLua)was playing I seemed to take it that he would be playing instead of me.
“Sometimes, when we were both on the bench, I used to think he would go on, not me, whereas I should have been doing everything I could to make sure I was involved. If I had the time again, I would have done things differently.
“I wouldn’t be one to go in and moan and stuff because there are always ups and downs in football but you can always go out every day and do your best and work hard.
“The season started really well for me, a lot better than I expected. I didn’t expect to be playing as much as I was but when that happens you just want more and I just want to be playing every week.
“Maybe when the team was doing really well, on a long unbeaten run, I was slacking off in training and things like that.”
The door opened ajar again after LuaLua suffered a broken leg and Smith impressed after going on as a 53rd-minute sub away to Southampton (below, left).
Smith told Andy Naylor: “LuaLua was class. He changed games when he came on and when he started he was really good. Hopefully I can do as well, if not better, than he was doing if I get the chance.
“We are really different players. He is really explosive with pace and loads of ability. I like trying to play clever little passes and making space for myself and my team-mates.”
One such cute pass at St Mary’s let in Glenn Murray to earn the Seagulls a penalty and the longstanding Albion reporter said: “The door is ajar for Smith again after that Southampton cameo and now he has to walk through it. His Albion future depends on it.”
Smith told the matchday programme: “I feel I’ve done well in most of the games I’ve played in and want to use the Southampton game as a platform for the rest of the season.
“The manager told me after that game that he wants me to give him performances like that all the time.”
Enjoying time in the limelight, the player explained: “I love to get the ball, drive forward and create chances.
“I am slight in size and most managers from the Championship downwards want strong, athletic midfielders but our manager wants footballers, players who get the ball down and play.
“As long as I’m on the ball and doing a job for the team, then the manager will be happy.”
Smith added: “I knew that if I didn’t progress this season there’s every chance I would be let go in the summer so I’ve been using that as an incentive.
“With the way the club has been progressing on the pitch and off it, there’s no way I want to leave. I want to stay here for years to come because I’m happy at the club.”
Unfortunately, the new year wasn’t even three weeks old when an accidental collision in training saw Smith sidelined for two months.
He sustained a fractured metatarsal after colliding with teammate Jake Forster-Caskey and, with his contract due to expire at the end of the season, the outlook was bleak.
But Poyet said: “I have already had a good chat with him. I told him not to worry and that we will look after him.
“He will be out until March but it is important he doesn’t feel under pressure to rush back because of his contract situation.
“I want him to make sure his foot is properly healed first, and then I expect we will see him back to fitness before the end of the season.”
Come the end of the season, Poyet was as good as his word and gave Smith a six-month contract to prove his worth.
But he wasn’t able to capitalise on the opportunity, Poyet saying: “Jamie was a revelation at the beginning of last season before we got Kazenga (LuaLua) back.
“Then he was injured for months and we were established at the top of the table, so he didn’t get the chance to play.
“I thought I would give him the chance to prove himself but it hasn’t really happened for him.”
Albion supporter ‘The Phantom’ on an Argus report of Smith’s imminent departure from the club wrote: “Shame it hasn’t worked out for Jamie Smith as showed at times that he had what it takes to be an influential attacking midfielder.
“Way too much competition in the squad now so best that he moves on. Surprised he has not been able to pick up a club so far.”
Eventually, former boss Slade offered him a chance at Orient, but he made just the one substitute appearance for the Os before dropping out of league football with Dover Athletic.
Born in Leytonstone, East London, on 16 September 1989, Smith was on Palace’s books from the age of eight to 19 and although he progressed through the ranks he didn’t get to make a competitive first team appearance.
Nevertheless, Palace under 18 coach Gary Issott said: “Jamie Smith is a diminutive attacking central midfielder in the mould of Eyal Berkovic.
“He is very clever and improved after a frustrating first year. He started this season well and, up until Christmas, his form was electric.”
He was involved in pre-season friendlies ahead of the 2008-09 season and scored the winner from the penalty spot after going on as a substitute in a 4-3 win over Aldershot. (Calvin Andrew, later an Albion loanee, made his debut for Palace in the same match).
But while Smith saw several of his contemporaries make it through to competitive first team action, such an elevation remained elusive for him.
“That was disappointing but we had the likes of Nick Carle and Neil Danns in my position and it was hard to break through,” he said.
A year below him, the likes of Victor Moses and Nathaniel Clyne did progress. Smith said: “I spoke to Neil Warnock but he said there were experienced players ahead of me and couldn’t see me breaking into the team. We agreed it would be best for me to move on.”
Smith had a spell at Doncaster Rovers but returned to Palace to keep his fitness up before joining Brighton for pre-season training, and then being taken on after a successful trial of three or four weeks.
URUGUAYAN international Diego Arismendi shook his Staffordshire neighbourhood but left football followers somewhat unmoved.
Noisy late-night parties hosted by the defensive midfielder at his Newcastle-under-Lyme home hit the headlines for the wrong reasons but on the pitch he made little impact, in spite of high expectations. He ended his first season in England on loan at Brighton – and got sent off in his last game for the Seagulls.
Stoke City, then in the Premier League, paid £2.6m for the 20-year-old after he had already won medals at one of his home country’s top teams – Nacional – and two caps for his country.
He made his first appearance for Stoke on his first day at the club, setting up the only goal of the game in a reserve team win over Wolves.
Peter Reid, assistant manager at the time, said: “Diego was excellent. He broke up the play and the beauty with him is, for a defensive midfielder, he can pass, which he did extremely well.
“It will take him a little bit of time to get used to the pace but first impressions on him, I’m very pleased. He has had a smile on his face since being with us and he really enjoys his football. He has the attributes to be a very good player for us.”
Arismendi made his first team debut in a League Cup match against Blackpool but was forced off with an injury on 47 minutes of the 4-3 win.
Having struggled with the language barrier and not being able to force his way into Tony Pulis’s starting line-up, he was loaned to third tier Albion…where there was a Uruguayan in charge.
Gus Poyet was excited by signing his fellow countryman and saw it as quite a sign of the Albion’s intentions under Tony Bloom. He told The Argus: “We are showing where we want to go as a club, starting from the chairman and going through the whole of the staff.
“We are trying to achieve things that are not very easy but, because of the knowledge of the game and the contacts we’ve got, sometimes they work.
“When you know people and people know you personally and they are happy to let you have a player like Diego, you have to take advantage of that.
“I know him and his agent very well from before he came to England. He was a player growing up in one of the two biggest teams in Uruguay (Nacional) and playing for them regularly.
“I was surprised when he came because, I don’t know why, but Uruguayans have got a little bit of fear about England. I suppose it’s because of the language and the weather. They prefer Italy or Spain.
“I was very pleased by his decision to come and join Stoke. Of course, I have been following him a bit to see if he was making the first team.
“Unfortunately, Stoke are doing very well and there is no place for him right now there. He wants to play football, so he is very welcome.”
One place he wasn’t so welcome was Newcastle-under-Lyme. The month before he joined Brighton he had upset his neighbours by holding a number of noisy, late night parties, playing loud music and apparently having indoor kickabouts with his friends.
One neighbour at the prestigious No 1 London Road apartment complex, plastic surgeon Dr Muhammad Khan, told the Daily Mail: “I can’t sleep and I can’t concentrate doing my work. I am at my wits’ end. My flat vibrates from the volume of the music and it is like elephants stomping across the floor.
“Sometimes it sounds like he is playing football in the flat. It makes my lights flicker. It is every single night and then gets worse at weekends. I have spoken to Mr Arismendi twice, but all he said was that it was his friend’s birthday.”
In Sussex, Poyet hoped Arismendi would find the surroundings more to his liking. “I think he will love the city, a young boy with his girlfriend. He is going to adapt to Brighton very nicely. He wants to enjoy playing football so, slowly, I think he is going to get into the team.”
Poyet thought Arismendi would adjust to life in League One and the English game in general, but things didn’t work out that way and he only made three starts and three appearances off the bench for the Seagulls.
To make matters worse, in his final game he saw red (above) after scuffling with MK Dons’ Alex Rae. It was the same match that saw Lewis Dunk make his debut.
Poyet considered bringing Arismendi back to the Albion the following season on a season-long loan but they couldn’t afford to buy him and instead he ended up joining Barnsley, newly promoted to the Championship, on a similar arrangement.
He scored once (against Yorkshire rivals Leeds United in a 5-2 win) and featured in 32 games for Mark Robins’ Tykes, together with fellow loanees Kieran Trippier (from Man City), Chris Wood (from West Brom) and Paul McShane (from Hull) before returning to Stoke at the end of the season.
Because previous season’s FA Cup winners Man City had qualified for the Champions League in third place, cup runners up Stoke got to play in the Europa League (their first venture into Europe since 1975) and Arismendi started two matches and was sub in another two.
As an aside, in August 2011 I was on holiday in Split, Croatia, when City and their fans arrived to play local side Hadjuk (the visitors won 1-0). Our swimming pool sunbeds were taken over by red and white striped towels!!
Back in England, Arismendi remained firmly rooted to the bench as an unused sub for league matches and in March 2012 he was sent out on loan again, this time to Huddersfield Town until the end of the season.
Newly appointed manager Simon Grayson gave him seven starts and two appearances off the bench but he was not involved as the fourth-placed Terriers won promotion via an 8-7 penalty shoot-out win over Sheffield United at Wembley.
When Stoke excluded him from their 25-man squad at the start of the 2012-13 season, the writing was on the wall and his unhappy three-year spell in England came to an end when his contract was terminated in November 2012. He rejoined Nacional back in Uruguay.
Born in Montevideo on 25 January 1988, Arismendi said: “I had a tough upbringing. Everybody in Uruguay has a hard life, that is just the way it is there. But I come from a working class family and my childhood was not really any harder than anyone else.
“The aim, though, for me was always to play football and I have managed to realise that dream.”
He was only 20 when he won his first international cap in a friendly match against Norway in May 2008 and his second came in a World Cup qualifier against Bolivia. Both games finished 2–2.
After he returned to Montevideo and helped Nacional continue their domestic dominance by winning the Torneo Apertura (round robin South American tournament) and Uruguayan championship, he won two more caps in 2014.
He spent the 2015-16 season in Saudi Arabia playing for Al-Shabab but returned to Nacional for a third spell between 2016 and 2018. He then moved to Argentina, and at Rosario Central he once again didn’t leave a lasting impression.
A Copa Argentina win for Rosario in 2018 – but Arismendi was a non-playing sub
In a rather scathing assessment elciudadano.com reported: “Arismendi had the confidence of the coach when he signed earlier this year but did not meet expectations at all.
“(Coach) Paton Bauza thought he would fit in quickly but that was very far from reality. He never adapted to the team. When he had chances to show himself, he wasted them; he suffered injuries and he always showed more errors than virtues when he got on the pitch.”
Arismendi once again returned to the Uruguayan capital, this time to play for Racing Montevideo, where he spent one season, before switching to one of the city’s other clubs, Montevideo City Torque.
EVERY NOW AND AGAIN as a football supporter a truly special player stands out well above the rest you’ve watched. Bobby Zamora was most definitely in that category.
As the new year dawns on what will be my 55th year supporting Brighton & Hove Albion, it is perhaps fitting to spend a little time remembering just how good Zamora was for the Seagulls before his outstanding ability to score goals was taken to higher levels: Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham, Fulham and ultimately, and, quite deservedly, England.
That he came back to the Albion from QPR as his career began to ebb was nothing short of a bonus – and, while I’m not a big gambler, I was delighted to get a modest return from the bookies when my punt on him being the last goalscorer came good after he had gone on as a sub at Elland Road on 15 October 2015 and chipped the winner (below) to register his first goal since rejoining!
“That goal was definitely the highlight of my season,” Zamora told interviewer Adam Virgo in a Seagulls World interview. “It was my first goal since coming back and to score the winner so late in the game was unbelievable. It was a special moment for me, and it settled the nerves knowing that we’d got the three points.”
Just four days later, Zamora repeated the feat going on as a 76th-minute substitute for Tomer Hemed at home to Bristol City and beating goalkeeper Frank Fielding with a low shot from 15 yards out. Albion won 2-1; Sam Baldock having levelled things up against his former club after Derrick Williams opened the scoring for City.
Unfortunately, Zamora managed just five more in that second spell. He made 10 starts plus 16 as a sub in Chris Hughton’s side but he was struggling with a hip injury.
It eventually caught up with him and prevented him from contributing further to Albion’s aim of promotion back to the elite; his last game being as a sub in a 0-0 draw at home to Sheffield Wednesday on 8 March 2016. “If I was fit, I would have scored some goals and we’d have been promoted automatically,” he told the UndrThe Cosh podcast (pictured above).
Thankfully another returning striker in the shape of Glenn Murray completed that task the following season and went on to cement his own place in Albion’s history: his 111 goals in 287 appearances putting him second in the list of Brighton’s all-time top goalscorers.
Golden goalscorers: Zamora + Murray
Each of the different eras I’ve watched the Albion has thrown up truly memorable players who have generated their own air of excitement and anticipation because of the goals they scored.
The first one for me was Alex Dawson, who netted seven in the first five games I watched in 1969. Then along came Willie Irvine whose goalscoring in third tier Albion’s promotion-winning season of 1972 earned him an unexpected recall to the Northern Ireland side – and an appearance (that I went to watch) in a 1-0 win against England at Wembley.
Next, of course, was the truly outstanding Peter Ward, who jinked his way past defenders with apparent ease and scored goals for fun, his 36 goals in 1976-77 smashing a decades-old record. Like Zamora, he came back to the scene of past glories (albeit only on loan) and scored a magnificent winner against the team he supported as a boy, Manchester United.
Garry Nelson, with 32 goals, and Kevin Bremner were a superb front pair in another third tier promotion-winning line-up in 1988 while, in 1990-91, Mike Small and John Byrne combined brilliantly to take the Seagulls within a hair’s breadth of a return to the big time.
The arrival of a beanpole of a kid with an eye for goal in Zamora completely transformed Albion’s fortunes under Micky Adams and he was the talisman in back-to-back promotions following years in the doldrums.
Zamora’s Albion story is pretty well known but let’s remind ourselves of how it all began.
Depending on whose account you believe more, it was either Dick Knight or Adams who had the foresight to bring Zamora to the Withdean.
Adams said: “The first time I saw him he came onto the training ground; he looked like a kid. But he was tall and gangly with a useful left foot; there was potential there.”
In fact, Zamora might never have arrived in Sussex if Albion had been successful in securing a permanent deal for on-loan Lorenzo Pinamonte. When Brentford outbid Brighton for the services of the Bristol City loanee, Albion turned their attention to Zamora (left), a Bristol Rovers player who was only getting sub appearances under Ian Holloway but had scored eight goals in six games on loan at nearby non-league Bath City.
“He was six foot one and we knew he had a very good first touch and could hold the ball up well, the type of player we wanted,” Knight recounted in his autobiography Mad Man: From The Gutter to the Stars (Vision Sports Publishing, 2013).
Zamora duly arrived on loan and scored six in six matches (including a hat-trick in a 7-1 away win at Chester). He scored an equaliser and was named Man of the Match on his debut v Plymouth and by the end of February was Player of the Month.
Hat-trick ball at Chester
While Knight and Adams wanted him to stay, he insisted on returning to Rovers where he thought he might force his way into Holloway’s starting line-up. But it was back only to the bench as Nathan Ellington, Jason Roberts and Jamie Cureton were ahead of him in the pecking order.
As preparations began for the new season, Albion offered £60,000 for Zamora but Rovers chairman Geoff Dunford wanted £250,000. An incredulous Knight said he wouldn’t go higher than £100,000 and couldn’t believe they could demand such a figure for someone who hadn’t actually started a first team game.
Zamora had Rovers’ youth team coach Phil Bater to thank for forcing through the move. He accompanied the shy youngster into a meeting with Holloway, who tried to say he’d get some games if he stayed. Bater reckoned the youngster was being strung along and argued Zamora’s cause saying he stood more chance of playing if Rovers let him join the Albion.
After some brinkmanship from each club’s respective chairmen, with Knight threatening to walk away from the deal, it finally went through two days before the start of the season, although Albion’s chairman reluctantly agreed to a 30 per cent sell-on clause for the player.
Zamora instantly became one of the top earners on £2,000 a week with a goal bonus built in.
“It was an absolute coup that we had finally secured this player,” said Knight. “I could only see good things in him, could only see that he would be a huge asset to us.
“Football is all a matter of opinions. There is little science to it. For me, Zamora was the best signing I ever made.”
Zamora has eyes on the ball closely watched by a young Wayne Bridge for Southampton
Not only did Zamora manage to score 31 goals as Albion won promotion from the basement division, he went one better when they went straight to the top of the third tier the following season, netting 32 times in 46 matches.
A significant number of those goals came courtesy of Zamora’s excellent understanding with left-footed right-back Paul Watson, of whom he said: “He created a lot of goals for me with those quick free kicks. He didn’t put a foot wrong too often and was very underrated. He never got the credit his hard work deserved.”
Expanding on it in another interview, he said: “Whenever Watto got the ball I knew precisely where I needed to run to and he knew where to deliver it. It was such a great connection: Watto has an absolutely wonderful left foot and it made my job as a striker so much easier when you get deliveries like that.”
Declaring that even in the Premiership he hadn’t come across anybody with a better left foot, he added: “I was very lucky to have played in the same team as him; he created numerous goals for me; not only with his deliveries but with his intelligent play as well.”
Watson had arrived at the club with Charlie Oatway and was part of a cluster of players who had served under Adams at Brentford and Fulham. When Adams and assistant Bob Booker steered Albion to promotion as fourth tier champions, Zamora was player of the season and he and Danny Cullip were named in the PFA divisional XI.
Not long into the following season, the lure of taking over as manager at a Premier League club saw Adams quit Brighton, initially to become Dave Bassett’s no.2 at Leicester City, but with the promise of succeeding him.
“While I thought I had a shot at another promotion, it wasn’t a certainty,” Adams explained. “I knew I had put together a team of winners, and I knew I had a goalscorer in Bobby Zamora, but football’s fickle finger of fate could have disrupted that at any time.”
His successor, Peter Taylor, knew how fortunate he was to inherit an experienced squad, and said: “Of course the greatest asset we had was Bobby Zamora. Having him meant that we could play a front two at home and away from home we could play him on his own and he would still get us a goal out of nothing. He was an incredible player and miles too good for that level.”
And Zamora wasn’t only a star on the pitch, as Knight spoke about in his autobiography. “When he was at his zenith at Brighton, the requests we got for him to visit schools, hospitals and go to prize-givings far outweighed all the other players together, but he was always amenable. He was never starry, never refused. I couldn’t speak more highly of Bobby Zamora as a person.”
Knight recounted in his book how, after a 1-0 win at Peterborough, when Zamora missed a penalty but also scored the only goal of the game, Albion’s promotion to the second tier was confirmed and in his own inimitable way Posh boss Barry Fry said to Brighton’s star striker: “You’re a fucking great player and you’ll play for England one day, I’m fucking sure of it.”
Zamora was still only 21 when Tottenham signed him from relegated Brighton in July 2003. He left the south coast having scored a total of 83 goals in 136 appearances but in his last season in the stripes he netted just 14 as the Seagulls battled unsuccessfully to retain their tier two status.
Unfortunately, he missed eleven matches with a dislocated shoulder and, had former Premier League striker Paul Kitson been fit to play alongside him (he managed only seven starts plus three off the bench), the season may well have had a different outcome.
Everton’s Bill Kenwright had offered £3m for Zamora during the season but their manager Walter Smith seemed less convinced and, with Kevin Campbell and Wayne Rooney likely to be ahead of him, Zamora stayed in Sussex.
But chairman Dick Knight promised not to stand in his way if an opportunity was presented at the end of the season and that came from Tottenham. Manager Glenn Hoddle and assistant Chris Hughton had been to see Zamora in action at the Withdean on a number of occasions.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy played hardball over the deal. Eventually, Knight settled on a £1.5m fee but, because of the original sell-on clause, £450,000 was due to Bristol Rovers.
Hoddle told The Guardian: “He has got good pace and great movement on and off the ball. No disrespect to Brighton, they have got a good team down there, but we have got players here who can make the most of his movement.”
The player’s agent Phil Smith told the newspaper: “The fee for Bobby is £1.5m which is a decent price in today’s market for a Second Division striker.
“It has been a long time coming for Bobby but he is delighted to be going into the Premiership. It has always been an ambition.”
Disappointed Albion manager Steve Coppell observed: “It is a big move for Bobby and nobody really expected we could hang onto him for much longer. But it has blown a big hole in any plans I had. I don’t have a better option than playing with Bobby Zamora up front.”
When he arrived at Spurs, one of the senior pros who took him under his wing was none other than Gus Poyet.
“As a young guy coming into the team, he was one of the senior pros who would always talk to me and encourage me,” Zamora told the matchday programme. “He didn’t have to do that, but he went out of his way to do so and you could see he had coaching qualities. He would often point things out on the pitch that you’d pick up on, and when he spoke, you’d listen.
“He wasn’t starting every game either, so in training I did more things with him than maybe the rest. I really got on well with him.”
As it turned out, Zamora made only 18 appearances for Spurs (11 as a substitute) and only scored once – ironically a single goal that knocked West Ham out of the Carling Cup in October 2003.
In January 2004, Spurs chose to use him as a makeweight in taking Jermain Defoe from the Boleyn Ground to White Hart Lane.
Phlegmatic Zamora didn’t look on it as a failure but embraced the “learning curve” of training alongside the likes of Poyet, Robbie Keane, Darren Anderton and Jamie Redknapp.
“I came away a better player and with more experience,” he said. “Glenn Hoddle had signed me and then he got sacked not long afterwards. David Pleat took charge and we didn’t really see eye-to-eye, but the lads and the club were brilliant and I learned so much from my time there.
“I took a chance by stepping back down to the Championship with West Ham – but it was the opportunity of playing regular football again that was the pull for me.”
CHARLIE OATWAY’S colourful life story has often appeared in the media and he now uses it to try to persuade wayward youngsters back onto the straight and narrow.
Brighton supporters of a certain vintage will remember a promotion-winning tenacious midfielder and captain who went on to be a coach at the club (see my 2018 blog post).
How he turned his life round was the subject of a book, Tackling Life, and, after injury brought a premature end to his professional playing career, he initially worked in the Albion in the Community scheme alongside former teammates Guy Butters and Danny Cullip.
He became first team coach under Gus Poyet in 2009 and followed the Uruguayan and assistant manager Mauricio Taricco to Sunderland, AEK Athens, Real Betis and Shanghai Shenua.
But he didn’t follow Poyet to French Ligue 1 side Bordeaux, popping up instead to help out his former Albion in the Community mentor, Dr Alan Sanders, who had become director of education, sport and health for Charlton Athletic Community Trust.
It was Sanders who Oatway had first turned to for advice at Brighton at the age of 30, subsequently going on to enrol on an adult literacy course to help with reading and writing.
At Charlton, Oatway delivered football courses for the community scheme, and shared his experiences with schoolchildren in south east London.
Sanders subsequently became chief executive at the Russell Martin Foundation, and Oatway joined as a relationships manager. Adopting the title of his book, Oatway’s Tackling Life programme aims to try to return to education young people between 11 and 14 who have dropped out of the system.
Dyslexic Oatway had a troubled childhood growing up in Shepherd’s Bush in a family where criminality was commonplace, and he didn’t attend school from the age of 14. He told the Safeguarding and Child Protection Association: “A lot of these kids are going through what I went through.
“They get to know me and my background. The things I’ve done, the things I haven’t done and then I can start to get through to them a bit.”
An integral part of the foundation’s offer, Oatway shares his personal experiences and imparts invaluable life lessons via interactive sessions, workshops, and mentoring, Topics he covers include resilience, self-belief, teamwork, and making responsible choices.
“The kids we deal with, any sort of authority, such as police or social workers, teachers, headmasters etc, they don’t tend to engage with. I try to break that down for them.”
The Southampton manager’s foundation works with 30 schools across Sussex, including all 10 secondary schools in Brighton and Hove, to build the confidence and skills of young people struggling with mainstream education.
“I get sworn at less by the kids than I used to by Gus,” said Oatway, who nonetheless always spoke highly of Poyet when standing in for the boss on occasional media duties.
For example, under scrutiny at Premier League Sunderland, Oatway responded angrily to criticism from former Black Cats chairman Niall Quinn, telling the Daily Express: “Gus works so hard on a daily basis. Even if he chooses to part company with me tomorrow, I’d still say the same about him.
“We all know how tough this job was when we got here, but the players and the gaffer have managed to do it, so he deserves a pat on the back and a little more respect.”
Sunderland successfully avoided relegation under Poyet and during the battle Oatway gave a typical rallying call: “Life’s a fight. You either stand up and be counted in everything that you do or you sink.”
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.”
RUSSELL SLADE had an eye for picking up footballing gems for nothing and he worked an unlikely miracle to spare relegation-bound Albion from the drop.
The one-time PE teacher who never played professional football himself was only Brighton manager for eight months but keeping them in League One in an end-of-season nailbiter was a much-lauded achievement.
He did it with some astute forays into the loan market and snapping up free agent Lloyd Owusu who made a crucial contribution to Albion’s injury-hit misfiring forward line.
Some years earlier, when youth team manager at Sheffield United, Slade famously picked up three young players – Phil Jagielka, Nick Montgomery and Michael Tonge – discarded by other clubs who went on to become Blades stalwarts.
At Brighton, his summer re-shaping of the squad he inherited put down the foundations on which his successor Gus Poyet was able to build a successful side capable of promotion.
In particular, Slade took great pride in bringing Andrew Crofts to the Albion on a free transfer from Gillingham, the club later selling him on to Norwich City for what was believed to be £300,000.
Slade signing Elliott Bennett, bought from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £200,000, was later sold to the Canaries for a fee believed to be £1.5million.
“The majority of my player signings went on to play crucial roles in this promotion season,” Slade asserts on his LinkedIn profile. “During my closed season I began what proved to be an extremely successful transitional period.”
If Slade had failed to keep Albion up at the end of that 2008-09 season, it is doubtful Poyet would have been drawn to the task of lifting the side through the leagues and possibly there would have been a longer wait to see Championship football at the Amex.
Slade’s tenure at the Albion may well have been longer if Tony Bloom hadn’t taken over control of the club from Dick Knight, who was chairman at the time Slade was brought in to replace Micky Adams.
Adams reckoned he was a victim of the power struggle between the two and it seems clear that Bloom wanted to install his own man once he was fully in the driving seat of the club.
Although Slade’s achievement in keeping Albion up was rewarded with a permanent two-year deal in the summer of 2009, the new season got off to a terrible start with no wins in the first six games, one of which saw Albion on the wrong end of a 7-1 thumping at Huddersfield.
Time was up for Slade after rocky start to the season
With only three wins and three draws in the next 10 games, after a 3-3 home draw against Hartlepool at the end of October, Slade was sacked with the side only out of the relegation zone on goal difference.
Bloom said: “It is not a decision we have taken lightly and one taken with a heavy heart. Russell is a good man – which made it an even harder decision to take – but it is one which has been made in the club’s best interests.
“Like all Albion fans, I am extremely grateful for Russell’s achievements at the end of last season, as he kept us in League One against the odds.”
When he reflected on his tenure in the Albion book Match of My Life, Slade explained: “Despite the club’s perilous position, I felt it was a great opportunity. I signed on a short-term deal, with the incentive to keep the club in the division.
“I inherited a huge squad but it was decimated by injuries and many of the players were loan signings or youngsters, but, in spite of that, I still thought there was enough within the squad to keep Brighton up.”
With 14 games to save the club from the drop, the first two ended in defeats but when Slade’s previous employer Yeovil Town were thumped 5-0 at the Withdean, there was cause for optimism.
A 3-2 Withdean win for Swindon, for whom Gordon Greer and Billy Paynter scored, threatened Brighton’s survival but it turned out to be the only defeat in the last seven games.
Albion memorably lifted themselves out of the relegation zone three games from the end of the season when they won 2-1 at Bristol Rovers, long-serving Gary Hart teeing up goals for Owusu and Palace loanee Calvin Andrew. Both players were also on target to earn a point in a 2-2 draw at Huddersfield.
After safety was secured in the last game of the season courtesy of barely-fit substitute Nicky Forster’s goal against Stockport, fans invaded the pitch and Slade was carried shoulder high by the Albion faithful.
“My hat got nicked and my head scratched, but it didn’t really matter,” he said. “When I finally got back to the office, I sat there with Bob Booker and Dean White and was absolutely exhausted – both emotionally and physically.”
Born in Wokingham on 10 October 1960, Slade’s route into professional football didn’t follow the traditional path.
“At 18 I had a chance to go to Notts County but I got into university so I went away to get a degree in sport instead,” he said. After completing his degree over four years at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancashire, he became a PE teacher at Frank Wheldon Comprehensive School in Nottingham (it later became Carlton Academy).
“My experiences helped me be more prepared and organised,” he explained. “I took numerous coaching courses and it allows you to be really open minded and dealing with different situations.
“I had qualifications to be a coach in swimming, athletics, badminton, basketball, cricket and tennis. It not only broadens your horizons but allows you to look at things in different ways.”
While he was qualifying as a teacher, he joined Notts County as a non-contract amateur player, appearing in their reserves and manager Neil Warnock appointed him an assistant youth coach under youth team head coach Mick Walker.
When Warnock was sacked in January 1993, County were bottom of football’s second tier (having been relegated from the top flight in the final season before the Premier League started), and Walker and Slade took charge of the first team, keeping them up with three points to spare.
The pair almost took County to the play-offs the following season, only missing out by three points, and also reached the final of the Anglo-Italian Cup, where they lost 1-0 to Brescia at Wembley.
After only one win at the start of the 1994-95 season, Walker was sacked in September and Slade took over as caretaker manager.
After managing only six wins and five draws in 23 matches, Slade reverted to assistant when ex-Everton boss Howard Kendall was appointed manager.
Kendall only lasted three months at Meadow Lane and Slade left the club at the same time but he later acknowledged how much he had learned from Kendall, Warnock and Jimmy Sirrel (an ex-Albion player who was a Notts County legend as manager and general manager).
“I’ve had a good upbringing,” he said. “The one for player management and for talking to players was Howard Kendall, without a doubt.
“He was terrific – had something about him. He had that X factor and you would listen to Howard – and when he coached you took it on board as well.”
Slade told walesonline.co.uk: “Working with Howard was massive because of his man management and his ability to give a football club direction.
“Neil was the big motivator out of all the coaches and managers I have worked with over the years.
“He took County into the top flight and his best work came at 10 minutes to three. He was exceptional, able to get every last drop of effort and energy from his team.”
Slade dropped into non-league football as manager of Southern League Midland Division Armitage but when they finished bottom of the division and then went into liquidation, Slade followed the chairman Sid Osborn to his new club, Leicester United.
That side finished 16th in the Southern League Midland Division, but they too went out of business in August 1996.
Kendall, in charge of Sheffield United, recruited Slade as youth team coach at Bramall Lane and even tried to take him with him when he returned to Everton in June 1997, but Blades demanded a compensation payment the Toffees weren’t prepared to pay.
Kendall said some while later: “I wanted Russell, who I knew from Notts County, to come and coach my kids. He was at Sheffield United at the time, and they didn’t want to lose him. He’s a talented coach who would have been a popular figure at Goodison.”
Slade remained in Sheffield and, in an interview with The Guardian in October 2013, recalled: “My best three spots were when I was at Sheffield United [in 1998].
“At the time I was doing a lot of work on released players because we needed to strengthen our youth squad and in one evening I took Phil Jagielka, Nick Montgomery and Michael Tonge – all for nothing.”
Montgomery made just short of 400 appearances for United and Tonge and Jagielka both played more than 300 games for the club. Jagielka became one of the best defenders in the top flight (at Everton) and won 40 England international caps.
“That was my best night’s work ever,” said Slade. “You don’t half get a buzz when you see those. When we played Everton in the [Capital One] Cup last season Phil gave me a signed shirt with ‘Thanks very much, Russ’ written on it.”
It was in March 1998 that Slade found himself in caretaker charge of the United first team after the departure of Nigel Spackman, overseeing a draw and a defeat, and he also stepped in for two games in November 1999 when Adrian Heath left the club, again overseeing a draw and a defeat before Warnock arrived at Bramall Lane.
It was at Scarborough where Slade landed his first full-time job as a league manager in his own right. During a three-year spell, he helped rescue the club from relegation, resigned when they went into administration but withdrew it when a fans petition urged him to stay.
A highlight was guiding the side on an excellent FA Cup run, when they memorably played Premier League Chelsea in a televised home tie. The Seadogs were only defeated 1-0 by a Chelsea side that included a young Alexis Nicolas in their line-up.
Next up for Slade was the first of two spells as manager of Grimsby Town. Supporters were calling for his head when they only managed a mid-table finish in the 2004-05 season, but an upturn the following season saw them flirt with automatic promotion and have a good run in the League Cup, beating Derby County and Tottenham.
Slade’s Mariners beat a Spurs side that included Jermaine Jenas, Michael Carrick, Robbie Keane and Jermaine Defoe 1-0. In the next round they went down 1-0 at home to a Newcastle United side managed by Graeme Souness, a goal from Alan Shearer sealing it for the visitors.
Grimsby slipped into the play-offs on the last day of the season and beat local rivals Lincoln City in the semi-finals to reach the play-off final at the Millennium Stadium.
But they missed out on promotion when Cheltenham Town edged the tie 1-0, and Slade was on his way.
He might not have reached League One with Grimsby but he was taken on by Yeovil Town on a three-year contract, declaring when appointed: “It is a fantastic opportunity for me as I think Yeovil are a very progressive club. They are going through a period of transition and I am really looking forward to the challenges that are ahead.”
Slade once again found himself a play-off final loser when the Glovers, captained by Nathan Jones, lost 2-0 to Blackpool in the 2007 League One end-of-season decider at Wembley.
It was a heartbreaking finish especially after Yeovil pulled off one of the most remarkable comebacks in the history of play-off football by coming from 2-0 down to beat Nottingham Forest 5-4 on aggregate in the semi-finals.
“Russell Slade’s side gained many plaudits for an impressive campaign in which they almost went up despite being one of the pre-season favourites for relegation,” said somersetlive.co.uk.
Small consolation for Slade was to receive the League One Manager of the Year award, but disappointment followed in 2007-08 when they won only four games in the second half of the season to leave them only four points clear of relegation.
When things didn’t improve in 2008-09, a frustrated Slade reportedly fell out with Yeovil chairman John Fry over a lack of transfer funds and he left Huish Park by mutual consent in February 2009.
The vacancy at the Albion was almost tailor-made for Slade, and chairman Dick Knight admitted he had spoken with the aforementioned former Seagull, Nathan Jones, about the managerial candidate.
“I had a long chat with Nathan and he told me some good stuff,” Knight told the Argus. “It was a very honest appraisal and I took that into account.
“When I met with Russell initially he impressed me greatly. His CV speaks for itself and his confidence and tactical shrewdness were obvious when I interviewed him.
“He has delivered at this level. He has an extremely competent track record at clubs who have punched above their weight, like Grimsby and Yeovil.
“His players like him. He will convey confidence to our squad and give them a lift.”
Stockport chief Jim Gannon had turned down the job and former England international Paul Ince didn’t even want to hold talks.
“The quality of applications was tremendous, even up to the last minute, from the top of the top league in Romania to one from Portugal which was very interesting but not appropriate at this time,” said Knight.
“By handing the mantle to Russell at this stage, the club is in good hands to address the task right now of staying in League One. We have got a very good and capable man.”
The rest, as they say, is history and, to borrow another familiar phrase, it was a case of not keeping a good man down after his departure from the Seagulls.
It wasn’t long before Barry Hearn, the sports promoter owner of Leyton Orient, was hiring Slade to try to improve the fortunes of the East London minnows.
It turned out to be a great move because Orient was where Slade had his longest ever spell as a manager, presiding over 241 matches with a 42 per cent win ratio.
Amongst the players he recruited were two who had played under him at Brighton: Andrew Whing and Dean Cox. Ex-Seagull from another era, Alex Revell, also joined and a certain Harry Kane took his first steps into competitive football on loan from Spurs on Slade’s watch.
The manager’s trademark baseball cap that he could be seen wearing at each of the clubs he served even had its own sponsor at Orient. City of London tax advisory firm Westleton Drake put their logo on the headwear.
Slade repeated the magic touch he’d shown at Brighton to keep Orient in League One and in his first full season in charge took them to seventh place, only missing out on the play-offs by one place.
Along the way was a memorable fifth round FA Cup tie with Arsenal, forcing a 1-1 draw at home before succumbing 5-0 at the Emirates.
There was certainly no questioning Slade’s commitment to the Os’ cause, as Simon Johnson, writing for the Evening Standard on 23 September 2010, observed: “His wife Lisa and four children are living more than 200 miles away in Scarborough, meaning he is all alone most evenings to worry about the side’s plight.”
Slade lived in one of the flats next to the stadium and told Johnson: “Most people get the chance to get away from the office if they have a bad day, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I come back from training and work in the office for a few hours and then go to my flat. I love my job and enjoy the fact my finger is on the pulse and I’m right on top of things.”
When Sheffield United sacked manager David Weir (later to become Albion’s director of football) in October 2013, there was speculation Slade might be in the running for the job, but the out of work Nigel Clough was appointed.
The following Spring, Slade once again found himself in charge of a team in the final of the League One play-offs. Although Orient drew 2-2 with Rotherham United, they missed their last two penalties in the shoot-out to decide the winner and once again he left Wembley disappointed. His only consolation was once again being named League One Manager of the Year.
Even though the club narrowly missed out on the step up to the Championship, Slade himself made it shortly into the new season. After a change of ownership at Orient, Slade resigned and was appointed manager at Cardiff City in October 2014, succeeding Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
History records Slade’s reign being heavily hampered by a lack of finance and being forced to cut the wage bill significantly and cancelling the contracts of several highly paid players. There was even an embargo on new signings during his second season.
The Bluebirds finished mid-table in his first season and then missed out on the play-offs the following season, losing 3-0 at Sheffield Wednesday in the penultimate game of the season to dash hopes of a top six finish.
Slade was removed from his post to be replaced by his head coach Paul Trollope (later Albion assistant manager to Chris Hughton) but was retained as Head of Football.
Slade decided it wasn’t for him and switched to a more familiar dugout job at Charlton Athletic.
Given a three-year contract by unpopular owner Roland Duchatelet, Slade lasted just 16 matches before he was sacked, although a club statement said: “The club would like to thank Russell for his tireless work during his time at The Valley, particularly the processes and disciplines he has instilled at the training ground.”
He wasn’t out of work for long, though, because Coventry City, sitting 21st in League One and enduring their worst run of results for 43 years, appointed him.
On the wrong end of a 4-1 defeat at Bristol Rovers in his opening match, on Boxing Day, he oversaw just three wins in 16 games and was sacked on 5 March.
In circumstances similar to the atmosphere at The Valley, Sky Blues fans were in dispute with the club’s owners, and the Ricoh Stadium was empty week after week.
Surprisingly, he guided the club to a Checkatrade Trophy final – Coventry later won the competition in front of more than 40,000 of their supporters at Wembley – but by then Slade had been sacked, having equalled the record for the most games (nine) without a win for a City manager before winning at the tenth attempt.
Andy Turner, writing for the Coventry Evening Telegraph, pulled no punches when he said: “Russell Slade will go down in Coventry City history as arguably the worst manager to have taken charge of the club.”
Slade’s take on it was: “It was not a good decision for me to go there, I didn’t do my homework enough before going there.”
Once again, though, Slade was back in work just over a month later when he returned to one of his former clubs, Grimsby Town.
Succeeding Marcus Bignot, Slade took charge with Grimsby 14th in League Two and they won two and drew another of their remaining five matches to stay in that position by the season’s end.
After making an encouraging enough start to the 2017-18 season, the side’s form dipped badly over the festive period, and with no wins on the board the club sank like a stone towards a relegation battle. Slade was sacked after a run of 12 games without a win, including eight defeats.
There was no swift return to management after his Grimsby departure, though, and it was another 18 months before he next took charge of a side, National League North side Hereford United, with former Albion full-back Andrew Whing as his assistant.
Not long afterwards, though, Slade started up his own business, Global Sports Data and Technology, and his tenure with the Bulls lasted only five months, club chairman Andrew Graham saying: “Unfortunately the existing business commitments of Russell Slade do not meet with the current demands of this football club.” Hereford had recorded only one win in 18 games at the time.
The ever-resilient Slade was back in the game the following month when his former player, Alex Revell, appointed manager at Stevenage, invited him to join his staff as a managerial consultant.
Revell, who played under Slade at Orient and Cardiff, said: “I have always respected Russ and it will be a great boost to be able to use his experience around the training ground and on matchdays.”
Plenty of disgruntled fans from clubs where Slade had been less than successful took to social media to mock the appointment.
Nevertheless, Revell was certainly right about experience because Slade could reflect on a managerial career that saw him serve 11 different clubs, taking charge of 865 matches, winning 314, drawing 240 and losing 311.
In his new venture, Slade champions the cause of the way performance data information is handled, as described in a BBC news item in October 2021.
It focuses on companies who take data and process it without consent. “It’s making football – and all sports – aware of the implications and what needs to change,” he said.
