Tag: Jason Jarrett

‘Glove-wearing gazelle’ played only 16 Albion games

SCOUSE defender Jim McNulty, who played alongside Wayne Rooney at Everton as a schoolboy, will probably always be remembered by Brighton fans for a horror injury he suffered in a match at Withdean.

After an on-off transfer saga in which McNulty initially rejected Albion’s desire to sign him, the £150,000 signing from Stockport County scored on his debut and less than three weeks later was involved in an accidental collision that threatened to end his career at 23.

In only his fifth game after under-pressure boss Micky Adams finally landed the left back, a seemingly innocuous challenge as a Crewe defender caught him with his knee in his side quickly became much more serious when he started passing blood.

“Having walked back to the changing room I remember having the sensation of needing to go to the toilet and it was then that blood started spurting out,” he recounted. “I was also throwing up and the real scary part was the look of concern on the medical team’s faces.

“I was rushed to the Royal Sussex County Hospital for an MRI scan and had a catheter inserted as my belly was swelling up. It was then that I discovered one of my kidneys had capitulated.

“I was on the bed in the hospital after the scan when the surgeon said 90 per cent of the kidney is mush and I don’t believe you can play again,” McNulty told the club’s official website.

Nine years later, ahead of facing Harry Kane for Rochdale against Spurs in the FA Cup, McNulty told Ivan Speck of the Express: “It was instant tears. I was there with my father and fiancée, at the time. I remember crying into my dad’s chest.

“It was probably a bit of everyday information for him but, for me, football was my life and he should have stayed quiet until he was better informed. It still winds me up now.

“The FA actually got wind of the news and their doctor spoke with our club doctor. They had spoken to some rugby guys in the southern hemisphere because it’s a more common injury in rugby than it is in football.

“It was nonsense to suggest it would end my career.”

Initially, because he was a professional sportsman, the medics tried two operations to save the kidney but, when he was still passing blood three weeks later, the decision was taken to remove it.

McNulty described incredible pain he had to endure but realised once he had gone through with the operation that he would be able to play football again.

Amazingly, he was able to return to training within three months although he had a lot of work to do to rebuild his fitness. Within four weeks he was even able to play in a couple of pre-season friendlies.

However, McNulty went on to suffer a number of knock-on injuries because his posture was affected by having an empty space on the right side of his body.

“I had multiple ankle injuries because my pelvic alignment was a nightmare from that point on,” he said.

The first came just when it looked like he would make a return to league action in September 2009. He damaged his ankle ligaments on a local park pitch while training ahead of the 7-1 defeat at Huddersfield and was ruled out for a further four weeks.

His long-awaited return to first team action came in a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie away to Leyton Orient on 6 October, which Albion lost 1-0.

“Just to get out on the pitch and on the ball was fantastic,” he said. “I cramped up after about 70 minutes but the reaction from our fans was tremendous.”

McNulty told the matchday programme: “I have no intention of just sitting around, hoping to break into the side. I want to be playing every week now. I’m fit, raring to go and I want to help us get up the table.”

The unlucky McNulty then missed the following Saturday’s match at MK Dons, enduring yet more pain when he had to have two wisdom teeth extracted.

Nevertheless, McNulty’s eventual return to league action followed on 13 October in a 2-0 Withdean win over a Gillingham side which featured former Albion loanee Simon Royce in goal.

Astonishingly, the following Saturday, he lasted only 27 minutes before injury struck again in a 2-1 defeat away to Tranmere. He limped off with an ankle injury and Jake Wright was sent on to replace him. Glenn Murray scored a penalty consolation for the Albion and was then sent off for a second yellow card.

By the time McNulty was fit enough to return, the second manager of his brief time at the Albion, Russell Slade, had been replaced by Gus Poyet. His first involvement under the new boss saw him go on as a sub against: Charlton at home on 1 December.

He then went on as an 87th minute substitute for his good friend Gary Dicker at Exeter and provided the all-important cross from which Andrew Crofts headed the only goal of the game in the 92nd minute.

He had what one observer described as a man of the match involvement as a sub in the next match, a 2-1 home defeat v Colchester United. Saying the left back was “the epitome of Poyet’s ‘bravery on the ball’ mantra”, Richie Morris wrote: “Jimmy McNulty, like a rampaging glove-wearing gazelle, mercilessly attacked the left flank. Time and again he delivered teasing crosses, and time and again the ball simply would not nestle in the net.”

McNulty celebrates with goalscorer Tommy Elphick

That performance was rewarded with four starts on the trot – but then Poyet brought in the cultured Marcos Painter as his preferred left-back. McNulty was in the Albion side that put on a decent show in a 3-2 fourth round FA Cup defeat at Aston Villa, because Painter was ineligible, but he didn’t make another start that season. And, as it turned out, he didn’t play for the club again. He’d actually only played 16 times for the Albion.

Before the end of the season, to get some games, McNulty actually stepped up a level, going on loan to Scunthorpe United in the Championship, where he made two starts and a sub appearance under Nigel Adkins.

He rejoined The Iron in July 2010 on a six-month loan arrangement and played six games. But he suffered a recurrence of his ankle issues, so returned to Brighton in December.

When Albion kicked off a new era playing Championship football at the Amex, McNulty had stayed at the same level but with Barnsley, where he was voted players’ player of the year in his first season, and was made captain in his second season at Oakwell.

McNulty certainly wasn’t bitter about the way things turned out for him in Sussex. He said: “I couldn’t speak more highly of my time with Brighton. It is an unbelievable club, an unbelievable fan base, and it was an incredible place to live.

“My daughter was born there and we had a brilliant time, despite the fact that I was horrendously injured for pretty much all of that time.

“I’ve always been a 40-game-a-season man wherever I’ve been, but at Brighton I hardly played at all. Saying that, it was the club I had the best time at.”

Born in Runcorn on 13 February 1985, Liverpool and Everton were both interested in him when he was young, but it was Everton who put a contract offer in front of him.

“At the time I actually played for Everton against Liverpool in a game at Melwood,” he explained. “This would have been in the under-9s and we absolutely destroyed them.

“Ourselves and Arsenal dominated in that particular age group, right up to the under-16s – every week, every game, every season. Everton were a very dominant team and it gave me a great grounding, so I chose the right team.”

Initially a central midfield player, McNulty was switched to left-back during his time at Everton. Although Rooney was in the year below him, from under-10s, he was put up an age level. “I played with him for about four years until he jumped up again,” said McNulty. “He was playing two or three years up during the teenage years. I was just always playing at my own age.

“He was incredible, incredible. It was like watching a man play with boys in terms of his strength and aggression. He was pinging balls 70 yards as a 10- or 11-year-old boy.

“We couldn’t really lift it off the floor yet. His technique and the power that he had as a young boy, he was devastating at that age. He’d score eight goals every week. He’s one of the reasons we were so rampant as a team. Probably the main reason.”

McNulty moved on to Wrexham to make his breakthrough at senior level, ironically going on as a sub against Stockport in a Northern Section Football League Trophy game which the Welsh side lost 5-4 after extra time.

Because he had a Scottish mother, Englishman McNulty was selected for Scotland at under-17 and under-19 level, although one of his worst footballing memories came while playing for Scotland against France when they were beaten 5-0 in the European Under-19s Championship.

“I always remember being particularly mentally scarred by one player,” he said. “He was a winger and I was at left-back – and he scored four, so obviously that was mentally scarring. His name was Jimmy Briand.”

Briand went on to have a 20-year playing career in France and Germany and played five times for the senior French national team, but McNulty didn’t make it to the Scots full international side.

“There was a time when I had some genuine belief that it might happen,” he told The Sunday Post. “I had a good season in my first year at Barnsley in the Championship, in 2011, and ended up being named player of the year and made captain of the club.

“At the time, Scotland were having a bit of a defender crisis, and there was an opportunity there. I actually thought, ‘My name might come out of the hat here.’ But they ended up choosing a couple of guys who were playing in League One at the time ahead of me. That was a bit of a disappointment.”

But back to those early days, and when he didn’t make further progress at Wrexham he dropped down to League of Wales level to play for Bangor City and Caernarfon Town, but in June 2006, former Albion skipper and manager Brian Horton signed him for Macclesfield Town.

“I appreciate what Brian did for me, bringing me back into league football,” he said. “I was playing non-league football in Wales and he gave me a chance to come back and prove myself.”

He spent 18 months at Macclesfield, where he also played under Paul Ince, before moving to Stockport on a free transfer in January 2007. He became part of the County side that won promotion via the League Two play-off final at Wembley, when they beat another of his future employers, Rochdale, 3-2 in front of a crowd of 35,000.

McNulty was reluctant to give up a League One promotion tilt at County to join struggling Albion but chairman Dick Knight and manager Adams spoke of the club’s ambition and he was finally persuaded.

Albion needed a left back after loan signing Matt Richards had returned to Ipswich and

Adams said: “He fits the profile of what we are looking for. He likes getting forward and, without being disrespectful to anyone who has played there before, he is a natural defender, and he is six-foot two. At one stage it looked like we had lost out, so I am delighted to get him.”

Knight and Adams finally persuade their man to sign for the Albion

McNulty was not alone as Knight sanctioned quite a spending spree on new signings – Craig Davies, Calvin Andrew, Seb Carole, Jason Jarrett and Chris Birchall also arrived in that window, all financed by Tony Bloom, a low-profile investor at that time.

“I am very satisfied,” said Adams. “Finding a left back was a major priority. We haven’t been scoring the amount of goals we should, so we needed to look at avenues to open up teams. We have got Carole and Birchall for that.

“We also needed two strikers (Davies and Andrew) to increase the striking options and we needed a bit more physical strength in midfield, which is why Jason (Jarrett) is there, so I can’t complain.

“I had to be patient to make sure the right type of player was available and at the right price. Two of them were money buys and I am delighted that the board have backed me.”

Both Davies and McNulty were on the scoresheet when Peterborough visited the Withdean on 10 February but Barry Fry’s side took away the three points courtesy of a 4-2 win; Craig Mackail-Smith scoring for Posh along with strike partner Aaron McLean (two) and Dean Keates.

With only one League One win in six and a hoped-for tilt at silverware – the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy – gone in a penalty shoot-out defeat to Luton Town, the second coming of Adams was over. That horrendous injury to McNulty came while Dean White was caretaker manager and, when new boss Russell Slade arrived, one of his first tasks was to bring in Gary Borrowdale on loan from QPR to cover McNulty’s absence.

A change in manager often spells bad news for certain players and, after those successful first two seasons at Barnsley, McNulty found his face didn’t fit when David Flitcroft succeeded Keith Hill as manager. He’d only had one first team outing in a Capital One Cup tie against Southampton.

He grabbed the chance to join Tranmere Rovers on loan in November 2013, although he told the Liverpool Echo: “I have not even had a chance there.  I think I should still be playing for Barnsley.

“They are struggling defensively this season and had been conceding a lot of goals. But now I’m thinking about helping Tranmere.”

Rovers boss Ronnie Moore said: “Jim is a knowledgeable player and a good talker. He settled in quickly here. He is a footballing centre-back, rather than the Terry Butcher type. I don’t think you will see too many cuts and bandages around Jim’s head. He is clever. He drops off and picks the ball up.”

In January 2014, McNulty reached a mutual agreement with Barnsley to terminate his contract and he switched to Bury under old boss Flitcroft. He played 51 times for the League Two Shakers before beginning a long association with Rochdale in 2015.

McNulty in control with the Shakers

Over eight seasons, McNulty played a total of 237 matches for Dale, eventually combining coaching with playing. In August 2022, he found himself in interim charge for three matches after the club sacked Robbie Stockdale.

Former Morecambe boss Jim Bentley was appointed manager but when his services were dispensed with in March 2023, with Rochdale at the foot of League Two, 2023, McNulty once again stepped in as boss.

He was unable to prevent the club’s 102-year reign as a league club coming to an end but, in May 2023, he was appointed manager on a two-year deal.

“The opportunity to lead our team and represent our club, which the fans cherish, has always been a dream of mine,” he said.

“To be given the opportunity at a club so close to mine and my family’s hearts, is really special to me.

“As a boy, first and foremost, I dreamt of becoming a footballer, then when I did, I very quickly knew I wanted to become a manager thereafter.

“Within a couple of years of being a Dale player, I knew that this would be the club where I hoped to fulfil that ambition.”

David Livermore was no stranger to yellow and red cards

DAVID LIVERMORE was one of those signings Brighton fans had a good feeling about, only to be disappointed with the outcome.

Here was a player who had learned his craft over 10 years as a youngster at Arsenal and, at 28, had played most of his career at second tier level.

So, when Micky Adams got him on a free transfer from Hull City for League One Albion in the summer of 2008, the signs were encouraging.

“David is an experienced midfield player who has played most of his football in the Championship,” Adams said. “He’s a versatile player who can play in midfield, left wing and left back, and he’s another quality signing.”

Maybe it was that versatility that counted against him, but by the turn of the year he’d only made 13 starts and had picked up so many bookings that he had to serve a suspension.

Perhaps the writing was already on the wall. “Suspension and the midfielder more often than not went hand in hand – his passion, commitment and tough-tackling nature meant that the former Arsenal trainee picked up a huge 86 yellow cards and 3 reds in his Lions career,” Millwall fan Mark Litchfield wrote in a profile on newsatden.co.uk.

The player’s frustration was revealed in an Argus interview with Andy Naylor, who said: “Livermore is an ‘old school’ player, more comfortable with an era when crunching challenges were greeted matter-of-factly by opponents and with no more than a quiet word from officialdom, rather than the modern malaise of writhing opponents and card-happy refereeing.”

Livermore told the reporter: “It’s the way things are now, suspensions are part and parcel of the game. I am someone that likes a tackle and, unfortunately, I’ve got six bookings now.

“The game has changed a lot. The referee was threatening to send me off at the weekend and I only gave away two fouls in the whole game. I think the tackle is slowly being erased.”

After the suspension, Livermore struggled to regain a place in the squad and he wrecked the opportunity of a rare start in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy when he was sent off for a bad foul in the semi-final at Luton Town. Albion clung on to a 1-1 draw but losing on penalties meant they were denied a trip to Wembley for the final against Scunthorpe.

That disappointment proved to be the final straw for the Adams reign, although being four places off the bottom of the table didn’t look pretty either.

Livermore went on as a sub in Adams’ successor Russell Slade’s first game in charge, a 2-1 defeat at Leyton Orient, and got a start in a home 5-0 win over the manager’s previous club, Yeovil.

He then started at left-back in a 3-0 defeat away to Walsall three days later, but was subbed off at half-time, and his replacement, loanee Gary Borrowdale, was Slade’s preference in that position for the rest of the season. Livermore was sent on loan, ironically to Luton.

But he had penned a two-year deal when signing the previous summer so he was back at Brighton for the 2009-10 season. He warmed the bench nine times in the first half of 2009-10 but only saw action once, going on as a sub for Andrew Whing in a 1-0 defeat at Orient in the JPT.

The arrival of Gus Poyet as manager didn’t help his cause either and eventually there was a mutual parting of the ways in February 2010. It felt very much like a case of what might have been, and the player himself gave a very honest assessment of his time with the Albion in an interview with the Argus.

“I am disappointed I have not fulfilled the expectations of supporters and probably myself,” he said. “I’ve played the majority of my career in the Championship. I started off at Arsenal and went to Millwall in League One, adapted to that and got promoted and had six or seven seasons in the Championship.

“I’m not saying I thought it would be easy coming to Brighton but I thought I would be able to do as well as at my other clubs.”

He said Albion was “a fantastic club” and he enjoyed the team spirit and friendliness of the squad, admitting: “It hasn’t worked out how I expected but I’ve enjoyed my time there.”

Livermore reckoned it was the money he was on at Brighton that put off other sides from taking him on loan. The ending of his contract gave him free agent status, which meant he was able to organise a short-term deal at Barnet.

It obviously hit the player hard to realise his playing days were coming to an end after Barnet released him at the end of the season.

He told the Cambridge Evening News: “I’d dropped through the leagues, from Championship to bottom of League Two in a couple of seasons.

“I knew I had to make a decision. I even qualified as a personal trainer – I don’t know what I was thinking.

“From a playing point of view, I fell out of love with the game. Part of me said just stop and get a job – deliver the post or something, just get a normal job, provide for your family and enjoy your life.”

He was rescued by the offer to manage non-league Histon, and he told the newspaper. “The Histon job came up and I took it and fell back in love with the game from a coaching point of view. I was very lucky that opportunity came up at the time.”

Born on 20 May 1980, in Edmonton, north London, Livermore grew up as a Spurs supporter and was taken on by them at the tender age of seven! But frustrated at just being asked to train, rather than play games, he switched to Arsenal and was on their books for a decade.

He was on a two-year YTS scheme before turning professional but had to move to Millwall, aged 19, to get a breakthrough in the game.

Livermore had been in the same Arsenal youth side as Ashley Cole, and played five games for the Gunners reserve team in the 1997-98 season, when Matthew Wicks and Matt Upson were regulars, scoring once in a 1-1 draw against Tottenham on 17 March 1998. In a pre-season friendly at Enfield on 18 July 1998, he went on an as substitute for 23 minutes but that was the extent of his first team involvement. He made 11 appearances plus two as a sub for the reserves in the 1998-99 season, before leaving the club.

He joined on loan initially making his Millwall debut on the opening day of the 1999-00 season at Cardiff City in a 1-1 draw that hit the headlines for fan clashes rather than the football. It took joint bosses Keith Stevens and Alan McLeary only four matches to convert the loan into a permanent transfer, and Livermore was signed for £30,000.

Football history books reveal Livermore as the scorer of the final football league goal of the 20th century: an injury-time winner against Brentford on December 28, 1999. It happened to be the first of his goals for Millwall and he made 34 appearances that season.

After the disappointment of losing a play-off semi-final to Wigan Athletic in 2000, Livermore was able to savour promotion from League Two as champions under Mark McGhee in 2001; he played 39 games and was part of an eye-catching partnership with Australian international Tim Cahill.

There was more play-off semi-final heartache the following season when Millwall were edged out of the League One end-of-season final two places by Birmingham City; another season in which Livermore only missed three games – through suspension.

2004 is to Millwall fans what 1983 is to Brighton supporters: it was the year that against all odds they made it to the FA Cup Final. Millwall’s achievement was arguably more remarkable in that they were in the division below opponents Man Utd. The Lions were beaten 3-0 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and Livermore gave away a penalty (bringing down Ryan Giggs) which Ruud van Nistelrooy scored from.

“We didn’t play a Premier League side all the way through until the final so it just shows you what can happen,” Livermore recalled in an interview with the Argus. “I played every minute of every game. That was the highlight of my career.”

The one consolation from the Cup Final defeat was that Millwall got to play in Europe – the UEFA Cup – the following season because United were in the Champions League. It was Livermore’s penultimate season with the Lions and, with a year left on his contract, close season speculation had him linked with a £500,000 move to either Southampton or Sunderland.

Millwall director, Theo Paphitis, said: “Livers asked to go on the transfer list and that hasn’t changed. We’ve had enquiries from two clubs, but neither have matched our valuation. We would dearly love Dave to stay at Millwall, but his contract is up at the end of the season when he would be in a position to leave us for nothing.” It emerged Arsenal were entitled to 30 per cent of any profit the Lions made if the player was sold.

Millwall managed to persuade him to stay and to sign a new contract in January 2006, with director of football Colin Lee declaring: “I have said, from the moment I arrived, David is an absolutely vital player. I’m hopeful others we are in the process of trying to re-sign will see this as evidence we have now turned the corner and are moving forward again.”

While his loyalty was rewarded with the Player of the Year trophy come the end of the 2005-06 season, Millwall were relegated to League One and Livermore, wanting to stay in the Championship, was soon on his way.

In a most curious turn of events, Livermore joined Leeds United for a £400,000 fee, telling the Leeds website: “This is a huge club, this is where you want to be playing – at the right end of the division. I just want to be part of things here. Every player wants to play in the Premier League. That’s the aim.”

But before he could kick a ball in anger for United; in fact, just 10 days’ later, he was sold to Hull City. Leeds boss Kevin Blackwell explained that he had subsequently been able to sign Kevin Nicholls from Luton Town and (future Albion loan signing) Ian Westlake from Ipswich Town, and both would be ahead of Livermore in the pecking order.

Hull began the season under Phil Parkinson, who had signed former Reading teammate Nicky Forster for £250,000, but Phil Brown took over halfway through and they only just managed to avoid relegation. However, the midfielder must have had a wry smile on his face to discover the club propping up the division were none other than Leeds!

The following season saw a big turnround in Hull’s fortunes and they won promotion via the play-offs although Livermore was on the periphery and on transfer deadline day in January 2008 he moved to Boundary Park, Oldham, pairing up with Preston midfielder Jason Jarrett, another loanee who he would subsequently meet again at Brighton.

That introduction to management at Histon, when they were relegated from the Conference in his first season and were 16th in Conference North the following year, proved a steep learning curve for Livermore, as he told the Cambridge Evening News.

“In the first season I was player-manager I didn’t take a wage. My wife and family couldn’t quite understand why I was going through all of that for no money. Fortunately, I had some money set aside anyway, and going to Histon was the best decision I made.”

As well as having the lowest playing budget in the league, Livermore had to deal with off-field issues such as players not being paid and points deductions. “It was a baptism of fire,” he told the newspaper. “I learned a lot about dealing with contracts, managing individuals, trying to make things more professional, and getting players in to help the team.

“All you can do in any job is be honest. I didn’t have all the answers and I told the players that. I think honesty is key, and having that integrity.”

It was while he was at Histon that he began talking about his future coaching career with his friend and former Millwall teammate, Neil Harris, who was also coming to the end of his playing career (at Southend United). When Harris was injured, he went to watch a few Histon games and Livermore told cardiffcityfc.co.uk. “It was always good to have his eyes on the games and bounce ideas off each other.

“I’ve known Neil since I was 19. We played together at Millwall for about six seasons and always stayed in touch after that despite our careers going in different directions.”

In 2012, Livermore had the opportunity to return to Millwall, as youth team coach, and Harris followed him back to take charge of the under 21s. “I’d assist him on his games with the 21s during that time and then when the opportunity came for him to take over as first team manager (in 2015), he asked me to join him, which was an easy decision for me to make,” said Livermore.

The pair took Millwall to the League One play-off final at Wembley in 2016, when they were beaten 3-1 by Barnsley, and the following season they returned after finishing sixth in the table and won their place back in the Championship courtesy of a 1-0 win over Bradford City. They also twice took Millwall to the quarter finals of the FA Cup.

Although Millwall won two of their first three matches of the 2019-20 season, a subsequent seven-game winless run saw the pair leave Millwall in October 2019. Club chairman John Berylson said: “Both Neil and David leave with their heads held high, forever friends of the club, and I wish them both every success in their future careers. They will always be welcome at The Den.”

The following month the pair were installed as successors to the Neil Warnock regime at Championship Cardiff and the Welsh side finished fifth in the league by the end of the first season but lost out to Fulham in the play-off semi-finals.

Unfortunately, the churn of managers in the Welsh capital didn’t spare Harris and Livermore and, in January 2021, after 14 months, their services were dispensed with after a six-game losing streak. Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor took over: they were only there for nine months.

After a year out of the game, Harris and Livermore were back in the managerial saddle in January 2022 at League One Gillingham, but they couldn’t prevent the Gills being relegated at the end of the season.

Confrontation was seldom far away in Micky Adams’ career

THE FIRST player ever to be sent off in a Premier League game managed Brighton twice.

Fiery Micky Adams saw red playing for Southampton when he decked England international midfielder Ray Wilkins.

“People asked me why I did it. I said I didn’t like him, but I didn’t really know him,” Adams recalls in his autobiography, My Life in Football (Biteback Publishing, 2017).

It was only the second game of the 1992-93 season and Adams was dismissed as Saints lost 3-1 at Queens Park Rangers.

Adams blamed the fact boss Ian Branfoot had played him in midfield that day, where he was never comfortable.

“He (Wilkins) was probably running rings around me. I turned around and thumped him. I was fined two weeks’ wages and hit with a three-match ban.”

It wasn’t the only time he would have cause not to like Wilkins either. The former Chelsea, Manchester United and England midfielder replaced Adams as boss of Fulham when Mohammed Al-Fayed took over.

His previously harmonious relationship with Ray’s younger brother, Dean, turned frosty too. When Adams first took charge at the Albion, he considered youth team boss Dean “one of my best mates”. But the two fell out when Seagulls chairman Dick Knight decided to bring Adams back to the club in 2008 to replace Wilkins, who’d taken over from Mark McGhee as manager.

“He thought I had stitched him up,” said Adams. “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.”

With the benefit of hindsight, Adams also regretted returning to manage the Seagulls a second time considering his stock among Brighton supporters had been high having led them to promotion from the fourth tier in 2001. The side that won promotion to the second tier in 2002 was also regarded as Adams’ team, even though he had left for Leicester City by the time the Albion went up under Peter Taylor.

Adams first took charge of the Seagulls when home games were still being played at Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium.  Jeff Wood’s short reign was brought to an end after he’d failed to galvanise the side following Brian Horton’s decision to quit to return to the north. Horton took over at Port Vale, where Adams himself would subsequently become manager for two separate stints.

Back in 1999, though, Adams had been at Nottingham Forest before accepting Knight’s offer to take charge of the Albion. He’d originally gone to Nottingham to work as no.2 to Dave Bassett but Ron Atkinson had been brought in to replace Bassett and Adams was switched to reserve team manager.

The Albion job gave him the opportunity to return to front line management, a role he had enjoyed at Fulham and Brentford before regime changes had brought about his departure from both clubs.

On taking the Albion reins, Adams said: “For too long now this club has, for one reason and another, had major problems. The one thing that has remained positive is the faith the supporters have shown in their club.

“The club has to turn around eventually and I want to be the man that helps to turn it around.”

The man who appointed him, Knight, said: “Micky is a formidable character with a proven track record. He knows what it takes to get a club promoted from this division. But, more than that, Micky shares our vision of the future and wants to be part of it. That is why I have offered him a four-year contract and he has agreed to that commitment.”

Not long after taking over the Albion hotseat, he was happy to say goodbye to the stadium he’d previously known as home when a Gillingham player in the ‘80s and it was a revamped squad he assembled for the Albion’s return to Brighton, albeit within the confines of the restricted capacity Withdean Stadium.

Darren Freeman and Aidan Newhouse, two players who’d played for Adams at Fulham, scored five of the six goals that buried Mansfield Town in the new season opener at the ‘Theatre of Trees’.

Considering he was only too happy to be photographed supporting the campaign to build the new stadium at Falmer, it’s disappointing to read in his autobiography what he really thought about it.

“My mates and I nicknamed it ‘Falmer – my arse’ although I never said this to Dick’s face,” he said. “There was always so much talk and we never felt like it was going to get done.”

The turning point in his first full season in charge was the arrival of Bobby Zamora on loan from Bristol Rovers. “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.”

Interestingly, considering Adams makes a point of saying he usually ignored directors who tried to get involved on the playing side, he took up Knight’s suggestion that the side should switch to a 4-4-2 formation – and the Albion promptly won 7-1 at Chester with Zamora scoring a hat-trick!

After a so-so first season back in Brighton, not long into the next season Adams was forced to replace his no.2, Alan Cork, with Bob Booker because Cork was offered the manager’s job at Cardiff City, at the time owned by his former Wimbledon chairman, Sam Hammam. Adams reckoned Booker’s appointment was one of the best decisions he ever made.

Surrounded by players who had served him well at Fulham and Brentford, together with the additions of Zamora, Michel Kuipers and Paul Rogers, Adams and Booker steered Albion to promotion as champions. Zamora was player of the season and he and Danny Cullip were named in the PFA divisional XI.

Not long into the new season, the lure of taking over as manager at a Premier League club saw Adams quit Brighton, initially to become 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.”

He admitted in the autobiography: “Had I been in charge at the age of 55, rather than 40, then I perhaps would have taken a different decision.”

While Albion enjoyed promotion under Taylor, what followed at Leicester for Adams was a lot more than he’d bargained for and, to his dismay, he is still associated with the ugly shenanigans surrounding the club’s mid-season trip to La Manga, to which he devotes a whole chapter of his book, aiming to set the record straight.

On the pitch, he experienced relegation and promotion with the Foxes and he doesn’t hold back from lashing out about ‘moaner’ Martin Keown, “one of the worst signings of my career”. Eventually, he’d had enough, and walked away from the club with 18 months left on his contract.

After a break in the Dordogne area of France, staying with at his sister-in-law and her husband’s vineyard, he looked for a way back into the game. He was interviewed for the job of managing MK Dons but was put off by a Brighton-style new-ground-in-the-future scenario. Then Peter Reid, a former Southampton teammate, was sacked by Coventry City. He put his name forward and took charge of a Championship side full of experienced players like Steve Staunton and Tim Sherwood.

The side’s fortunes were further boosted by the arrival of Dennis Wise, but, in an all-too-familiar scenario Adams had encountered elsewhere, the chairman who appointed him (Mike McGinnity) was replaced by Geoffrey Robinson. It wasn’t long before it was obvious the relationship was only going to end one way. As Adams tells it, Robinson was influenced by lifelong Sky Blues fan Richard Keys, the TV presenter, and it was pretty much on his say-so that Adams became an ex-City manager after two years in the job.

With an ex-wife and three children to support as well as his partner Claire, Adams couldn’t afford to be out of work for long and fortunately his next opportunity came courtesy of Geraint Williams, boss of newly promoted Colchester United, who took him on as his no.2.

However, it only got to the turn of the year before he was out of work once again, although, from what he describes, he wasn’t enjoying his time with the U’s anyway because Williams kept him at arm’s length when it came to tactics and team selection.

He was amongst the ranks of the unemployed once again when Albion chairman Knight gave him a call, but, with the benefit of hindsight, he said: “Going back turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

Adams blamed the backdrop of “the power struggle” between Knight and Tony Bloom on the lack of success during his second stint in the hotseat, and he reckons it was Bloom who “demanded my head on a platter”. The fateful meeting with Knight, when a parting of the ways was agreed, famously took place in the Little Chef on the A23 near Hickstead.

Looking back, Adams conceded he bowed to pressure from Knight to make certain signings – namely Jim McNulty, Jason Jarrett and Craig Davies in January 2009 – who didn’t work out. He reflected: “I shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. I’d let my heart rule my head but, in fairness, I didn’t have any other offers coming through and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

“I wouldn’t ever say he (Knight) let me down, but he had his idea about players. I did listen to him, and maybe that’s where I went wrong.”

He added: “Going back to a club where success had been achieved before felt good, yet, the second time around, the same spark wasn’t there no matter how hard I tried.”

Born in Sheffield on 8 November 1961, Micky was the second son of four children. It might be argued his penchant for lashing out could have stemmed from seeing his father hitting his mother, which he chose to spoke about at his father’s funeral. Adams is obviously not sure if he did the right thing but he felt the record should be straight.

The Adams family were always Blades rather than Wednesdayites and, at 15, young Micky was in the youth set-up at Bramall Lane having made progress with Sunday league side Hackenthorpe Throstles.

While he thought he had done well under youth coach John Short during (former Brighton player) Jimmy Sirrel’s reign as first team manager, Sirrel’s successor, Harry Haslam, replaced Short and, not long afterwards, Adams was released.

However, Short moved to Gillingham and invited the young left winger to join the Gills. Adams linked up with a group of promising youngsters that included Steve Bruce.

In September 1979, he had a call-up to John Cartwright’s England Youth side, going on as a sub in a 1-1 draw with West Germany, and starting on the left wing away to Poland (0-1), Hungary (0-2) and Czechoslovakia (1-2) alongside the likes of Colin Pates, Paul Allen, Gary Mabbutt, Paul Walsh and Terry Gibson.

Adams honed his craft under the tutelage of a tough Northern Irishman Bill ‘Buster’ Collins and began to catch the attention of first team manager Gerry Summers and his assistant Alan Hodgkinson, who had played 675 games in goal for Sheffield United.

He made his debut aged just 17 against Rotherham United but didn’t properly break through until Summers and Hodgkinson were replaced by Keith Peacock (remember him, he was the first ever substitute in English football, in 1965, when he went on for Charlton Athletic against John Napier’s Bolton Wanderers) and Paul Taylor.

“Keith saw me as a full-back and that was probably the turning point of my career,” Adams recalled.

Once Adams and Bruce became regulars for the Gills, scouts from bigger clubs began to circle and at one point it looked like Spurs were about to sign Adams. That was until he came up against the aforementioned Peter Taylor, who was playing on the wing for Orient at the time (having previously played for Crystal Palace, Spurs and England).

“He nutmegged me three times in front of the main stand and, to cut a long story short, that was the end of that. Gillingham never heard from Spurs again,” Adams remembered.

Even so, Adams did get a move to play in the top division when Bobby Gould signed him for Coventry City. Managerial upheaval didn’t help his cause at Highfield Road and when John Sillett preferred Greg Downs at left-back, Adams dropped down a division to sign for Billy Bremner’s Leeds United (pictured below right with the legendary Scot).

“He had such a big influence on my career and life that I wouldn’t have swapped it for the world,” said Adams. But life at Elland Road changed with the arrival of Howard Wilkinson, and Adams found himself carpeted by the new boss after admitting punching physio Alan Sutton for making what an injured Adams considered an unreasonable demand to perform an exercise routine even though he was in plaster at the time.

Nevertheless, Adams admits he learned a great deal in terms of coaching from Wilkinson, especially when an improvement in results came about through repetitive fine-tuning on the training pitch.

“It is the one aspect of coaching that is extremely effective, if delivered properly,” said Adams. “I learnt this from Howard and took this lesson with me throughout my coaching and managerial career.”

However, Adams didn’t fit into Wilkinson’s plans for Leeds and he was transferred to Southampton, managed by former Aston Villa, Saints and Northern Ireland international Chris Nicholl. Adams joined Saints in the same week as Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock and the pair were quickly summoned by Nicholl to explain the large size of the hotel bills they racked up.

Adams moved his family from Wakefield to Warsash and he went on to enjoy what he reflected on as “the best few years of my playing career”. He was at the club when a young Alan Shearer marked his debut by scoring a hat-trick and the “biggest fish in the pond at the Dell” was Jimmy Case.

Adams described the appointment of Branfoot in place of the sacked Nicholl as a watershed moment in his own career. “Overall he was decent to me and I found his methods good,” he said. And he pointed out: “I was getting older, I’d started my coaching badges and I already had one eye on my future.”

Adams recalled an incident during a two-week residential course at Lilleshall, after he had just completed his coaching badge, when he dislocated his shoulder trying to kick Neil Smillie.

“I was left-back and he was right-wing, and he took the piss out of me for 15 minutes. The fuse came out and I decided to boot him up in the air,” Adams recounted. “The only problem was that I missed. I fell over and managed to dislocate my shoulder hitting the ground. It was the worst pain I’ve ever had.”

If life was sweet at Southampton under Branfoot, that all changed when he was replaced by Alan Ball and the returning Lawrie McMenemy. Adams and other older players were left out of the side. Simon Charlton and Francis Benali were preferred at left-back. Eventually Adams went on a month’s loan to Stoke City, at the time managed by former Saints striker Joe Jordan, assisted by Asa Hartford.

On his return to Southampton, and by then 33, Adams was given a free transfer.

Former boss Branfoot came to his rescue, inviting him to move to League Two Fulham as a player-coach in charge of the reserve team. Branfoot also signed Alan Cork and he and Adams began a longstanding friendship that manifested itself in becoming a management pair at various clubs.

On the pitch, Branfoot struggled to galvanise Fulham and, with the team second from bottom of the league, he was sacked – and Adams replaced him. He kept Fulham up by improving fitness levels and introducing more of a passing game.

But he knew big changes were needed if they were going to improve and he gave free transfers to 17 players, despite clashing with Jimmy Hill, who had different ideas.

An admirer of what Tony Pulis was doing at Gillingham, Adams signed three of their players: Paul Watson, Richard Carpenter and Darren Freeman. He also got in goalkeeper Mark Walton and centre back Danny Cullip. Simon Morgan was one of the few who wasn’t let go, and Paul Brooker emerged as a skilful winger. All would later play under him at Brighton.

Promotion was secured and Adams was named divisional Manager of the Year but after all the celebrations had died down Mohamed Al-Fayed bought the club and things changed dramatically.

“The club was in a state of flux as it tried desperately to come to terms with its new status as a billionaire’s plaything,” Adams acerbically observed. “From having nothing, we had everything.”

Before too long, in spite of being given a new five-year contract, Adams was out of the Craven Cottage door, replaced by Wilkins and Kevin Keegan.

But he wasn’t out of work for long because Branfoot’s former deputy, Len Walker, introduced him to the chairman of Swansea City, who were on the brink of relieving Jan Molby of his duties as manager.

Various promises were made regarding funds that would be made available to him but when they were not forthcoming he realised something was not right and he quit, leaving Cork, the deputy he’d taken with him, to take over.

By his own admission, if he hadn’t been sitting on the £140,000 pay-off he’d received from Fulham, he probably would have stayed. As it was, he was out of work once again…..until he had a ‘phone call from David Webb, the former Chelsea and Southampton defender who was the owner of Brentford, but in the process of trying to sell the club.

His brief was to keep the side in the league and to make it attractive to potential purchasers. It was at Griffin Park that he first met up with the aforementioned Bob Booker, who was managing the under 18s at the time. “He is one of the most loyal and trustworthy friends I have ever known,” said Adams. “He would do anything for you.”

However, although he signed the likes of Cullip and Watson from Fulham, he wasn’t able to stop the Bees from being relegated. During the close season, former Palace chairman Ron Noades bought the club and announced he was also taking over as manager.

Once again, Adams was out of a job but his next step saw him appointed as no.2 to Dave Bassett at Nottingham Forest.

Which brings us almost full circle in the Adams career story, but not quite.

After the debacle of his second stint in charge of Brighton, he was twice manager at Port Vale, each spell straddling what turned out to be a disastrous period in charge of his family’s favourite club, Sheffield United.

It was Adams who gave a league debut to Harry Maguire during his time at Bramall Lane, but the side were relegated from the Championship on his watch, and he was sacked.

Adams took charge of 249 games as Vale boss but quit after a run of six defeats saying he’d fallen out of love with the game.

It didn’t prevent him having another go at it, though. He went to bottom of the league Tranmere Rovers and admitted in his book: “It was arrogance to think I could turn round a club that had been relegated twice in two seasons.”

In short, he couldn’t and he ended up leaving two games before the end of what was their third successive relegation.

“It was a really poor end to a career that had started so promisingly at Fulham,” he said.

Relegation scrap was chicken feed for troubled Bangura

IN THE TUMULTUOUS days after Albion dispensed with the services of Micky Adams in early 2009, virtually half the side was made up of loan players.

Away to Leyton Orient on 7 March 2009, five loanees were involved, including Al Bangura, a 21-year-old midfielder from Watford.

Goalkeeper Mikkel Andersen was on loan from Reading, QPR’s Gary Borrowdale was left-back and Lloyd Owusu, released by Cheltenham, was up front.

Colchester United’s Matt Heath scored Albion’s only goal in a 2-1 defeat, as well as conceding a penalty, while Bangura was considered fortunate to escape with just a yellow card for a high challenge on Charlie Daniels.

The game saw new boss Russell Slade take charge for the first time, inheriting signings authorised by caretaker manager Dean White, who said of Bangura: “Al is someone we have been aware of for some time. He is a lively, energetic and tenacious midfielder.”

Bangura was just grateful to be playing in the UK having come close to being deported back to his native Sierra Leone the previous year.

Six years later, he revealed to the BBC that he was originally brought to Europe from Guinea by a human trafficker in order to be used as a male prostitute.

He had a lucky escape but the experience prompted him to take action to work with the Premier League to prevent other vulnerable young people being similarly caught up.

prog spreadBangura was profiled in the matchday programme

Bangura started six games for the Albion, and he said: “It’s not bothering me that I’m dropping down a division because I want to make sure I help them out of trouble and do my best for them.”

In his third game, he was alongside Jason Jarrett in the centre of midfield when Albion thrashed Yeovil Town 5-0 at Withdean, threading through a pass for Nicky Forster to score.

However, at the expiry of his loan, he returned to Watford but was released at the end of the season and joined Blackpool who were in the Championship at the time.

Limited to just 10 games for the Tangerines, Bangura headed for Turkey to play for Mersin Idmanyurdu and then played five games for Azerbaijani team Gabala, managed by the former Arsenal captain Tony Adams.

Hockaday w Al BHis former youth coach at Watford, Dave Hockaday (left, who briefly managed Leeds United) signed him for Conference Premier outfit Forest Green Rovers in 2011, and he completed 91 appearances for them before getting a chance to return to league action with Coventry City.

The aforementioned Hockaday had become under 21 manager at the Sky Blues and Bangura won a short-term contract after a successful trial, although he didn’t feature in Tony Mowbray’s league side.

After spending time working with the Premier League on the issue of the growing number of African boys being tricked into leaving their home for the promise of a football career in Europe, he returned to playing in the National League, initially with St Albans City and then Nuneaton Town.

Bangura talksIn October 2016, Bangura spoke to the Santa Marta Group – an alliance of international police chiefs, bishops, religious communities and NGOs – at an international conference in Rome to tackle human trafficking and modern slavery.

Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 24 January 1988, Alhassan Bangura sensed trouble when his family expected him to get involved in some kind of secret society at the age of 14 so he ran away to Guinea where he met a Frenchman who promised to help him realise his dream of pursuing a football career in the UK.

That dream very nearly turned into a nightmare when he realised on arrival in England aged only 15 that he was being lined up as a male prostitute. Luckily, he screamed out, escaped the room where he was being held, and pleaded for help from a Nigerian passer-by who directed him towards the Home Office to get official assistance.

Bangura WatThe ’system’ thankfully came to his aid and before long a Watford scout spotted him playing football in a park and signed him up to the Hertfordshire club’s youth academy, where he was nurtured by assistant academy director Chris Cummins, who was also recognised for helping Hameur Bouazza, Adrian Mariappa and Lloyd Doyley to make it through to the first team.

Bangura was just 17 when then Watford boss Ray Lewington, better known as Roy Hodgson’s loyal assistant, gave Bangura his first team debut in April 2005, away to Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium.

Eleven months later he scored his first goal. It came at Vicarage Road v Derby County – a right-footed 20-yard half-volley in the fourth of six minutes of stoppage time to earn Watford a point in a 2-2 draw.

Bangura was voted Watford’s Young Player of the Season in 2005-06, a year in which he made 37 appearances (24 of them as substitute).

After Watford won promotion in May 2006, Bangura made his first Premier League appearance against Man Utd in August 2006. He was still only 18, and came on as a sub for Gavin Mahon on 30 minutes.

While everything seemed to be going well, Bangura faced a bombshell in November 2007 when a deportation tribunal failed to extend his right to stay in the country.

Al B on TV

Watford led a successful campaign for him to be granted asylum and, on 14 January 2008, Bangura won his appeal for a work permit, receiving support from FIFPro (world representative organisation for pro footballers), Watford MP Claire Ward, Sir Elton John, former Watford manager Aidy Boothroyd and former Home Secretary David Blunkett.