The FA Youth Cup winner with a sweet left foot

PACY DARREN HUGHES made his Everton first team debut two days after Christmas 1983 while still a member of the club’s youth team.

That game at Molineux ended in a 3-0 defeat for the young defender against bottom-of-the-table Wolves who had Tony Towner on the wing and John Humphrey at right-back.

Exactly three years later, a picture of Hughes in full flight was on the front cover of Albion’s programme for their home festive fixture against Reading, the Scouser having signed for the second-tier Seagulls for £30,000.

The money to buy him came from the supporter-funded Lifeline scheme which also helped to buy goalkeeper John Keeley for £1,500 from non-league Chelmsford and striker Gary Rowell, from Middlesbrough.

Hughes had made only two more first team appearances for Everton before a free transfer move took him to second tier Shrewsbury Town, for whom he made 46 appearances.

It was while playing for the Shrews in a 1-0 win over Brighton that he had caught the eye of Alan Mullery, back in the Albion hotseat at the start of the 1986-87 season.

In his matchday programme notes, Mullery wrote: “Darren could become a really good player here. I was impressed with him when he played against us recently.

“He started at Everton and came through their youth scheme and had already played in their first team at 18. The grounding he received at Goodison should stand him in good stead.

“He has already shown he is the fastest player we have here, in training he even beat Dean Saunders in the sprints.”

Interviewed for the matchday programme, Hughes told interviewer Tony Norman: “I was quite happy at Shrewsbury. But when the manager told me Brighton were interested in signing me I thought it would be another step up the ladder. It’s a bigger club with better prospects and it’s a nice town as well.”

Hughes moved into digs in Hove run by Val and Dave Tillson where a few months later he was joined by Kevan Brown, another new signing, from Southampton.

Hughes meanwhile had made his Albion debut in a 3-0 defeat at home to Birmingham in the Full Members Cup on 1 October 1986 and his first league match came in a 1—0 home win over Stoke City three days later courtesy of a Danny Wilson penalty.

He scored his first goal for the Seagulls in a 2-2 Goldstone draw against Bradford City as Mullery continued to see points slip away. With financial issues continuing to cloud hoped-for progress, 1987 had barely begun before Mullery’s services were dispensed with.

Hughes played 16 games under his successor Barry Lloyd but those games yielded only two wins and the Albion finished the season rock bottom of the division, dropping the Albion back into the third tier for the first time in 10 years.

A rare happy moment during that spell was (pictured above) when Hughes slotted past George Wood in a 2-0 home win over Crystal Palace on Easter Monday although that game is remembered more for violent clashes between supporters outside the Goldstone Ground after fans left before the game had finished.

What turned out to be his 25^th and final league appearance in a Seagulls shirt came in a 1-0 home defeat to Leeds when he was subbed off in favour of youngster David Gipp.

*Going to ground in a pre-season friendly against Arsenal*

Hughes did start at left-back in a pre-season friendly against Arsenal at the Goldstone in early August (when a Charlie Nicholas hat-trick helped the Gunners to a 7-2 win) but when league action began he was on the outside looking in.

He was in the front row of the official team photo line-up for the start of the 1987-88 season, but Lloyd was building a new side with several new signings, such as Keith Dublin and Alan Curbishley, and young Ian Chapman was also beginning to stake a claim.

Hughes earned mentions in dispatches for his performances in the reserves’ defeats to Portsmouth and Spurs but come September he switched to fellow Third Division side Port Vale, initially on loan before making the move permanent.

Perhaps it was inevitable that when the Seagulls travelled to Vale Park on 28 September, Hughes was on the scoresheet, netting a second goal for the home side in the 84^th minute to complete a 2-0 win.

Born less than 10 miles from Goodison Park, in Prescot, on 6 October 1965, Hughes went to Grange Comprehensive School in Runcorn and earned football representative honours playing for Runcorn and Cheshire Boys. He joined Everton as an apprentice in July 1982.

Originally a midfield player, he switched to left-back in the two-legged 1983 FA Youth Cup semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday (when Mark Farrington scored four in Everton’s 7-0 second leg win).

In the final against Norwich City, two-goal Farrington missed a late penalty in the first leg in front of an extraordinary 15,540 crowd at Goodison Park. The tie was drawn 5-5 but the Canaries edged it 1-0 in a replay to win the trophy for the first time.

If that was so near and yet so far, youth team coach Graham Smith saw his young charges make up for it the following year. Hughes was on the scoresheet as Everton won the FA Youth Cup for the first time in 19 years.

This is how the Liverpool Echo reported it: “Everton’s brave youngsters survived a terrific onslaught to take home the Youth Cup when beating Stoke City Youth 2-0 and winning by a 4-2 aggregate.

“And the man to set them on their way was 18-year old full-back Darren Hughes, who set the game alight in the 62^nd minute with a brilliant goal.

“The Everton left-back picked the ball up on the halfway line and surged into the Stoke half before sending a wicked, bending drive past keeper Dawson.”

Eleven days later, there were even more Goodison celebrations when the first team won that season’s FA Cup, beating Watford 2-0 at Wembley.

Not long into the following season, Hughes learnt the hard way not to take anything for granted, as the website efcstatto.com revealed.

Manager Howard Kendall saw Everton Reserves, 2-0 up at half-time, concede six second half goals and lose 6-2 to Sheffield Wednesday Reserves.

He didn’t like the attitude he saw in several players and promptly put five of them, including Hughes, on the transfer list.

“It was important that we showed the players concerned how serious we were in our assessment of the game,” said Kendall. “Attitude in young players is so important. These lads would not be here if we did not think they have skill or we thought they would not have a chance of becoming First Division players.

“At some time, however, they must come to learn that football is not always a comfortable lifestyle. There are times when the only course of action is to roll up your sleeves and battle for yourself, your teammates and your club.”

Even though they were put on the transfer list, he said that they still had a future at the club as long as they behaved accordingly.

“What it does mean is that we shall be watching them very carefully over the next few months to see whether they have the right attitude in them – because it is a must,” said Kendall.

Hughes did knuckle down and at the end of what has come to be regarded as perhaps Everton’s greatest-ever season – they won the league (13 points clear of runners up Liverpool) and the European Cup Winners’ Cup (beating Rapid Vienna 3-1) and were runners up to Manchester United in the FA Cup (0-1) – he played two more first team games.

They were the penultimate and last matches of the season but were ‘dead rubbers’ because Everton had already won the league title and Kendall could afford to shuffle his pack to keep players fresh for the prestigious cup games that were played within four days of each other.

Hughes was in the Everton side humbled 4-1 at Coventry City, for whom Micky Adams opened the scoring (Cyrille Regis (2) and Terry Gibson also scored; Paul Wilkinson replying for Everton).

Two days later, he was again on the losing side when only two (Neville Southall and Pat Van Den Hauwe) of the team that faced Man Utd in the FA Cup Final were selected and the visitors succumbed 2-0 to a Luton Town who had Steve Foster at the back.

With the experienced John Bailey and Belgian-born Welsh international Van Den Hauwe in front of Hughes in the Everton pecking order, Kendall gave the youngster a free transfer at the end of the season.

After he left Brighton, Hughes enjoyed some success at Vale, and according to onevalefan.co.uk formed one of the club’s best full-back partnerships together with right-back Simon Mills.

A highlight was being part of the side that earned promotion to the second tier in 1988-89, but his time with Vale was punctuated by two bad injuries – a hernia and a ruptured thigh muscle.

Vale released him in February 1994 but he initially took the club to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. He was subsequently given a six-week trial in August to prove his fitness and, upset with that treatment, he left the club in November 1994.

Between January and November 1995, he played 22 games for Third Division Northampton Town. He then moved to Exeter City, at the time managed by former goalkeeper Peter Fox, and made a total of 67 appearances before leaving the West Country club at the end of the 1996-97 season.

He ended his career in non-league football with Morecambe and Newcastle Town. After his playing days were over, according to Where Are They Now? he set up a construction business.

Steve Cotterill hit the goal trail at Brighton and Bournemouth

STEVE COTTERILL, who made a lasting connection with Brighton fans after impressing during an all-too-brief spell in 1992, saw his injury-plagued playing career come to a juddering halt at Bournemouth.

Cotterill today is back where it all began managing his hometown club, Cheltenham Town, but back in the day he was an old school bustling centre forward who began to get his career back on track with Barry Lloyd’s cash-strapped Seagulls.

The West Country striker, affectionately nicknamed Wurzel (after TV character Wurzel Gummidge) by Albion veteran Steve Foster (back with the club he left in 1984) because of the distinctive Gloucestershire burr when he spoke, was desperate to get back playing regular league football after spending 14 months sidelined with an anterior cruciate ligament injury to his knee while playing for Wimbledon, who were just about to compete in the inaugural season of the Premier League.

“When Brighton asked for me on loan, I desperately wanted the chance to show what I could do,” he said. “I think that Martin Hinshelwood (Lloyd’s deputy) was impressed when he saw me a couple of years ago in a tournament at Arundel.”

Wimbledon didn’t tend to loan players out but manager Joe Kinnear, a former Brighton player himself back in the 1970s, agreed for Cotterill to make the move to try to regain his fitness.

Lloyd was managing on a shoestring after Albion had been relegated back to the third tier having missed out on leaving the second tier in the opposite direction the year before when losing the play-off final at Wembley to Neil Warnock’s Notts County.

He’d been forced to sell the prolific striking duo of Mike Small, to West Ham, and John Byrne, to Sunderland, and their replacements had been a huge disappointment.

Mark Gall, signed from Maidstone, offered a glimmer of hope, but one-time Arsenal striker Raphael Meade and former Everton trainee Mark Farrington failed to convince.

As the 1992-93 season got under way, Gall was unavailable due to a knee injury that eventually forced him to retire, Meade had departed and questions continued over Farrington, so Lloyd opened the season with loan signings Cotterill and Paul Moulden (who’d been at Bournemouth for seven months after leaving Manchester City) from Oldham Athletic (also in the Premier League that season), where he was surplus to requirements.

Each were on the scoresheet in Albion’s opening day 3-2 defeat at Leyton Orient and Cotterill scored again in a home 2-1 win over Bolton Wanderers and an away 3-2 win at Exeter City.

It looked like Lloyd had cracked it as the pair combined well and also enjoyed their partnership, as Moulden told Brian Owen in an interview with the Argus in October 2016. “One of the reasons I loved playing for Brighton was Mr Banter himself, Steve Cotterill. We met up like we had never been apart. I’d start the banter and he’d finish it or vice versa.

“We destroyed many a centre-half partnership during that three months. I was gutted to leave. I mean that very sincerely – absolutely gutted. I couldn’t believe nobody would have bought me and Steve as a pairing.

“We were both out of favour with our clubs and we hit it off so well. But it wasn’t to be – at Brighton or at any club.”

Cotterill had certainly hinted at making the move more permanent, saying in a programme interview: “I am glad to be playing again and scoring the odd goal. Who knows what may happen from here?”

*A somewhat unusual programme shot of Cotterill enjoying a spot of gardening*

He signed off by scoring the only goal of the game that beat Wigan Athletic at the Goldstone.

Unfortunately, parent club Wimbledon, playing in the inaugural season of the Premier League, wanted the sort of fee for Cotterill that, at the time, Albion couldn’t afford.

He’d scored four times in 11 matches – and on his return to the Dons promptly scored both of their goals in a 2-2 draw away to Southampton. But with John Fashanu and Dean Holdsworth ahead of him, he managed just a handful of games for the Dons.

He did get a start ahead of Holdsworth at home to Liverpool in January 1993 and scored the Dons second goal (Fashanu scored a penalty in the first half) as the Reds were put to the sword 2-0 at Selhurst Park (where Wimbledon played home games at the time).

Cotterill added to his Dons goal tally the following month, in the second minute of added on time in a fifth round FA Cup tie at Spurs, but it was simply a consolation as the home side ran out 3-2 winners. Cotterill had replaced Roger Joseph for the second half.

In the summer of 1993, Bournemouth found the £80,000 that Wimbledon wanted for Cotterill and he signed for the Cherries under manager Tony Pulis.

Pulis paired Cotterill with Steve Fletcher, who eventually went on to become a Cherries legend after a slow start. Fletcher spoke highly of his former teammate when interviewed by Neil Perrett for the Bournemouth Echo in March 2010.

In their first season together, their fortunes were quite contrasting. Cotterill scored 14 goals and was crowned supporters’ Player of the Year while Fletcher endured a second barren year following a £30,000 move from Hartlepool.

*Cotterill in action for Bournemouth against Burnley in 1993. Photo: Paul Collins.*

“Steve took me under his wing,” recalled Fletcher. “My first couple of years were hard. I started playing alongside Efan Ekoku and was a lone striker after he had been sold.

“I was young and needed someone to come in and help me out. Steve had experience of playing at a higher level with Wimbledon and was happy to pass it on.

“He used to sit me down and we would talk through things. He would back me up in the paper and I remember him jumping to my defence when someone criticised me at a fans’ forum.

“Things like that stick in your mind. I had moved down from Hartlepool and it was tough. Steve really looked after me during those early years and it is something I’ve always appreciated. I’ve kept in touch ever since.”

It was during their second season together that their fortunes reversed. Cotterill’s career was prematurely cut short following a serious knee injury sustained against Chester City in September 1994, with only 10 games of the season played. Fletcher went on to be crowned Player of the Year.

Cotterill said: “I had a good time at Bournemouth, but unfortunately my lasting memory was my last game.

“Snapping my cruciate ligament was the thing I remember because it was the last thing I did and it’s the thing that lives with me. I still remember doing it and it’s a bad memory really, but I did have some good times there and it’s a great part of the world.”

Pulis was succeeded by former player Mel Machin and in that campaign’s team photo there were two teammates who had played for Brighton in Gary Chivers and Kevin ‘Rooster’ Russell and two who would do so in the future: Mark Morris and Warren Aspinall.

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

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

Born in Cheltenham on 20 July 1964, Cotterill’s first football was played at primary school but his secondary school years were spent at rugby-playing Arle Comprehensive so it was a relief to resume the game he loved for the then semi-professional Cheltenham Town youth team.

He progressed to the reserves and first team of what at the time was a Southern League Premier Division club before his friend Tim Harris, assistant manager at Alvechurch, persuaded him to switch clubs, while he was working full time for a builder’s merchant.

“I must have impressed there because they cashed in and sold me for £4,000 to Burton Albion,” he recalled in a matchday programme interview.

His progress for the side who a dozen years earlier had unearthed the talent of Peter Ward saw him net 44 goals in 74 games for the Brewers between 1987 and 1989

“I have a great affection for Burton Albion and for all those people that work there and I’ll never forget my time there,” he said in a 2018 interview after his Birmingham side played his old club in the FA Cup.

Such a prolific scoring rate caught the eye of Bobby Gould, whose Wimbledon side were punching way above their weight in the old First Division, and the previous season had achieved an historic FA Cup win over Liverpool.

Wimbledon reportedly paid more than £100,000 to take him to south London and he recalled: “I scored on my league debut on 29 April 1989 in a 4-0 win against Newcastle and I thought I was on my way.

“But I didn’t get much of a look-in in the following season and then, when Ray Harford took over, I played a few games before I suffered a horrendous knee injury.”

Cotterill was out for 14 months and only managed a couple of reserve games towards the end of the 1991-92 season, before making the temporary move to Brighton.

Interesting to note in an Albion programme interview with him during his loan spell that he ended it by saying: “I want to stay in the game and I’d like to become a coach or manager.”

He certainly did that and what he did in those capacities is a story in itself. His first assignment was in Ireland where he succeeded his former Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez at League of Ireland’s Sligo Rovers.

But his hometown club Cheltenham Town offered him a management opening back in England in 1997, and he steered them from Southern League football into the Conference and then into the bottom tier of the Football League. He twice won the Manager of the Year title and earned another promotion, to the third tier, via a play-off final victory over Rushden & Diamonds.

After management and coaching posts at 12 clubs in various parts of the country, he returned to Cheltenham after a 23-year absence in September 2025 and was subject of an extensive feature on Sky Sports hailing his messianic return at the age of 61.

In between, he managed Stoke, Burnley, Notts County, Portsmouth, Nottingham Forest, Bristol City, Birmingham, Shrewsbury Town and Forest Green Rovers.

He cut short his tenure at Stoke in the autumn of 2002 after just 13 games to become assistant manager at Sunderland under Howard Wilkinson, but their stay on Wearside was also short lived, the pair being dismissed after only 27 games in March 2003.

Before taking up the Burnley post, Cotterill was briefly a coach under Micky Adams at Leicester and he was twice a coach under Harry Redknapp: at Birmingham, before taking over as manager, then again at QPR for the second half of the 2012-13 season.

Cotterill has certainly been on the wrong end of some trigger-happy club owners over the years but one of the toughest challenges he’s faced during his long career was during his time as boss of League One Shrewsbury during the Covid-19 pandemic. He was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary, spending time in intensive care, suffering badly from the virus and pneumonia.

Cotterill left the Shrews job in June 2023 and was out of work until January 2024, when he took charge of Forest Green Rovers.

He was unable to stave off relegation from the Football League, but he rebuilt the side during the summer of 2024 to push for promotion back to League Two. When Southend United visited The New Lawn in the National League on 15 March 2025, the 2-2 draw was Cotterill’s 1,000^th game as a manager.

Now back at Whaddon Road, he’s steered the Robins clear of the bottom-of-the-league spot they occupied when he returned.

*A manager of the month award shortly after his return to Cheltenham*

At his first game back, a banner in the stands referenced the return of the king, and Cotterill declared: “I felt the whole of Cheltenham behind me that day. Not that I have not felt it since too, by the way, because they have been incredible ever since I have been back.

“Even when I was at other clubs, this club has always been important to me. It is my hometown.”

Nonetheless, the Albion has always occupied a soft spot, as he once wrote in his programme notes prior to a Cheltenham v Brighton fixture: “I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and, whenever we’ve gone there, I’ve always had a great reception from their supporters. They’ve been terrific.”

Zeke Rowe’s three goals and a red card as Albion went down

CHELSEA loanee Zeke Rowe scored three goals in nine matches for doomed Brighton and ended his spell with the ignominy of being sent off.

Rowe, a 22-year-old striker who had scored plenty at youth level for Chelsea, was one of five new faces to join Jimmy Case’s relegation-bound Seagulls in the spring of 1996.

Winger Paul McDonald and striker Craig Maskell joined permanently from Case’s old club, Southampton, together with Saints defender Derek Allan, on loan initially and then permanently. Future captain Gary Hobson signed from Hull City.

All found themselves plunged into what turned out to be a fruitless battle to avoid relegation against a toxic backdrop created by the people running the club at that time – the hated Archer / Stanley / Bellotti regime – who tried to sell the club’s home without having a new ground to move to.

In the same matchday programme that announced the arrival of the five new players, the publication also detailed the impending departures of the likes of former first team regulars Steve Foster, Ian Chapman, Dean Wilkins, John Byrne, Stuart Myall and Stuart Munday; not to mention directors Bernard Clarke, Peter Kent, Dudley Sizen and Denis Sullivan. To misquote Shakespeare: Something was definitely rotten in the state of Hove!

Rowe made his debut in a 1-1 draw at home to Rotherham United, on 30 March, and then got off the mark with a goal away to Swindon Town four days later, although the Albion went down 3-2 (Jeff Minton scored the other).

Rowe’s picture adorned the front cover of the matchday programme for the 9 April home match v Burnley when his goal earned the Seagulls a win.

And his solitary goal also proved to be the decider in another 1-0 home win, over fellow strugglers Carlisle United, managed at the time by Mervyn Day.

Rowe’s dismissal for fighting with York City’s John Sharples came in a Thursday morning game, played five days after the official end of the season, in front of a post-War record low gate of 2,106 fans at the Goldstone.

The fixture had been rearranged because the original game 12 days previously had been abandoned after disgruntled Albion supporters had stormed the pitch in protest at the proposed sale of the ground and broken both crossbars.

It drew hysterical reaction in some quarters (probably because it was only a few weeks before England played host to Euro 96) but had the desired effect of bringing the rogue direction of the club to the attention of the football authorities who somewhat late in the day intervened to stop the Albion going out of business.

The original York game had looked like being the last ever at the Goldstone but a stay of execution saw the club stay for one more season before the site was redeveloped and the Seagulls were forced to groundshare at Gillingham.

The only happy supporters at the Goldstone on 9 May 1996 were around 400 followers of the Minstermen because their side overcame going a goal down to a Maskell opener to win 3-1, a result which prevented them joining Albion in the drop. Gary Bull, who had enjoyed a successful time on loan with Brighton at the start of that season, had equalised for York.

One City fan, Simon Worden, wrote an amusing blog about the whole occasion, and explained: “Whilst I should have been in a lecture at university at Preston, as I was only 19 at the time, I decided that the match was too important to miss and travelled down the day before to watch the match and stayed in a very cheap B&B.”

After witnessing the win, he said: “All the York fans were jumping around on a Thursday morning singing ‘We are staying up’ and enjoying the sunshine.

“One of the best days even and, whilst I was very tired, it was an enjoyable (but expensive) trip back to Preston where I had to catch up with my studies!”

Also watching on was Michael Knighton, chairman of Carlisle United, who, as a consequence of the result, were relegated with the Albion. Greg Wood, covering the game for The Independent, spiced up his report with a couple of choice quotes from him.

“Once York had gone 2-1 ahead, Brighton just weren’t interested,” said Knighton. “We’ve been relegated and we’ll never know if we should have been. This competition should be based on fairness, and towards us it hasn’t been.”

Wood also observed: “After York’s third goal, a member of their board turned to Knighton and made some distinctly unsporting gestures. Ordinary supporters have probably been expelled for less.”

Born in Hackney on 30 October 1973, Rowe was a frequent goalscorer in Chelsea junior teams playing alongside the likes of Neil Shipperley, Muzzy Izzet, Michael Duberry and Craig Burley.

But a first team breakthrough eluded him and before his time at Brighton he had scored twice in 10 games on loan at Barnet and had a trial with Swindon Town that didn’t work out.

When Chelsea let him go in the summer of 1996, he moved to Second Division Peterborough United under Barry Fry and was quickly off the mark netting the Posh opener in a 3-3 home draw with Millwall on 10 September 1996.

He was on target again, four days later, ironically against York City, in a 2-2 draw. But the season didn’t end well for Posh, because they were relegated. Rowe only scored once more in his 15 starts and 14 appearances off the bench that season.

Over the next two seasons, he only made four more starts for United and 13 appearances as a sub, while also going out on loan to Kettering Town and Doncaster Rovers.

Rowe later moved to Welling United where, according to the fanzine Winning Isn’t Everything, he was a disappointment after a bright start. It said: “Ezekiel Bartholomew Rowe, to give him his full name. Another in the long line of loanees from Uncle Barry Fry, he was brought in late in the 1998-99 season as the club attempted another Houdini act. Joined permanently in the summer, was on fire pre-season and then… he was shit. Had an impressive tattoo, erm, apparently.”

At King’s Lynn, Rowe played under his former Peterborough teammate Tony Spearing, who won the FA Youth Cup with Norwich City. (That 1983 success saw the Canaries draw 5-5 with Everton over two legs – Mark Farrington scoring four of Everton’s goals – before edging a replay 1-0).

Rowe ended his playing days with Conference North side Hinckley United where he was a teammate of Stuart Storer, who famously scored the last ever goal at the Goldstone – against Doncaster Rovers – a year after Rowe’s dismissal at that much-loved old stadium.

Ex-Clarets boss Steve Cotterill not always ‘Mr Popular’

FORMER Burnley manager Steve Cotterill hasn’t always been popular during a nomadic football career that’s taken him the length and breadth of the country.

But he made a lasting connection with Brighton fans after impressing during an all-too-brief playing spell in 1992.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and, whenever we’ve gone there, I’ve always had a great reception from their supporters. They’ve been terrific,” he wrote in his programme notes prior to a Cheltenham v Brighton fixture.

Injury curtailed Cotterill’s playing career – he endured 18 knee operations – but he made up for it by taking charge of nine different clubs over a period spanning more than 20 years.

His three years and seven months keeping Burnley in the second tier while seeing key players sold or injured was largely recognised as a decent achievement in the circumstances. Many of his other appointments were a lot shorter, and at times acrimonious.

Starting out as a player on the non-league circuit, it was Cotterill’s prolific scoring for Burton Albion (44 goals in 74 games) that prompted Wimbledon to snap him up in 1989.

Unfortunately, he sustained a serious cruciate ligament knee injury that halted his progress with the Dons and Albion boss Barry Lloyd gave him a lifeline to try to resurrect his career with the Seagulls.

Against a backdrop of financial instability, Lloyd had struggled to find adequate replacements for the prolific Mike Small and John Byrne in the 1991-92 season. Mark Gall, signed from Maidstone, offered a glimmer of hope, but Raphael Meade and Mark Farrington were disappointing to say the least, and Albion had been relegated back to the third tier a year after being one game from winning their place back amongst the elite in a play-off final against Notts County.

It looked like he’d cracked it as the pair combined well and started scoring goals. Indeed, Cotterill scored four in 11 games, which was a promising start. Unfortunately, parent club Wimbledon wanted the sort of fee for him that cash-strapped Albion couldn’t afford, so he returned to south west London and eventually moved on to Bournemouth the following summer for £80,000.

In an interview with the Argus in October 2016, Moulden told Brian Owen: “One of the reasons I loved playing for Brighton was Mr Banter himself, Steve Cotterill. We met up like we had never been apart. I’d start the banter and he’d finish it or vice versa.

“We were both out of favour with our clubs and we hit it off so well. But it wasn’t to be – at Brighton or at any club.”

Born in Cheltenham on 20 July 1964, Cotterill’s injury-ravaged playing career came to a close at Dean Court. He’d won the player of the year title three times and scored 18 goals in 55 starts for the Cherries, but another knee injury finally put paid to his playing career, and he turned his attention to managing.

His first assignment was in Ireland where he succeeded his former Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez at League of Ireland’s Sligo Rovers. But his hometown club Cheltenham Town offered him a management opening back in England in 1997, and he steered them from Southern League football into the Conference and then into the bottom tier of the Football League. He twice won the Manager of the Year title and earned another promotion, to the third tier, via a play-off final victory over Rushden & Diamonds.

After leaving Cheltenham, Cotterill had a controversial five-month, 13 game stay as Stoke City boss at the start of the 2002-03 season before quitting to join Sunderland as Howard Wilkinson’s no.2. In May 2020, Cotterill endeavoured to explain to the Stoke Sentinel the circumstances surrounding his tenure, and the board interference regarding players.

The stay on Wearside was also short lived, with the pair being dismissed after only 27 games in March 2003.

The collapse of ITV Digital coincided with Cotterill taking over from Stan Ternent as Burnley manager in the summer of 2004. When he joined, they had only eight players on the books and, despite reassurances to the contrary, within six months Robbie Blake and Richard Chaplow, who he’d hoped to build a team around, had been sold.

When Blake’s replacement Ade Akinbiyi started scoring on a regular basis, he too was sold, and when he returned to the club later, he wasn’t the same player in front of goal.

Even after Cotterill had left, Burnley directors acknowledged the platform he’d provided for their eventual elevation to the Premier League under Owen Coyle.

The excellent uptheclarets.com, summed up his time at Turf Moor, thus: “He kept us in the second tier of English football for three years and that, looking back, was some achievement in, at times, difficult financial circumstances.”

It probably said something about the Championship that when Cotterill finally departed Turf Moor in the autumn of 2007, he’d been its longest serving manager at three years and seven months.

The following year, Cotterill was offered the opportunity to try his hand in America with Minnesota Thunder but work permit issues meant it never materialised. He didn’t resurface in the English game until 2010, when he enjoyed a short but successful reign – five months in charge of Notts County. He took charge on 23 February 2010 and they were crowned League Two champions on 27 April. A month later Cotterill was on his way, appointed in June 2010 as the manager of Portsmouth.

He helped to stabilise the then Championship club against a background of financial troubles and other clubs began to cast eyes on his achievements. The persistence of Nottingham Forest finally paid off and he moved there in October 2011, but a change of ownership of the club spelled the end of his time by the Trent.

In July 2012, he was only nine months into a three-and-a-half-year contract at Nottingham Forest when the owning Al-Hasawi family decided to relieve him of his duties and go in a different direction.

He was out of the game for six months but in January 2013 accepted Harry Redknapp’s offer to join the coaching team at Queens Park Rangers until the end of the season.

He turned down the chance to stay in post the following season and in December 2013 took charge of League One Bristol City, signing another three-and-a-half-year contract.

In his second season at Ashton Gate, he steered City to promotion from League One as champions and they won the Football League Trophy. It earned Cotterill the League One Manager of the Year award.

As with other times in his career, Cotterill found his club’s better players were sold, ultimately weakening the squads he was in charge of. For example, when Sam Baldock moved from Bristol City to Brighton. Cotterill told bcfc.com: “He was a very good captain and very good goalscorer; we were sorry to see him go…that happens in football.”

Ultimately, as City struggled to attain the same level of success in the Championship as they’d experienced in the division below, Cotterill was sacked in January 2016.

Perhaps to prove the point about Cotterill not always being everybody’s cup of tea, former Albion defender Adam El-Abd vented his feelings in September 2020, explaining why he fell out of love with football following a bust-up with the manager only a short time after he moved to Bristol City.

With only three matches of the 2016-17 season left to play, Cotterill once again was grateful to Redknapp, by now manager at Birmingham City, and he joined him there as first team coach.

He subsequently left in the close season in the hope of landing a manager’s role in his own right. Ironically, that opportunity arose back at St Andrews when Redknapp was sacked in October 2017.

Cotterill told The Sun’s Graham Hill how he felt he had mellowed after 20 years in the hotseat at various clubs, although, at the time, he probably didn’t expect to be out of work again five months later.

After leaving Birmingham in March 2018, Cotterill ruptured a disc in his neck while trying to keep fit but in an interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk declared himself fit and ready for the next challenge.

That challenge emerged in November 2020 when Cotterill took charge of League One Shrewsbury Town but he faced a bigger fight – to his health – after contracting Covid-19 and he was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary, spending some time in intensive care, suffering badly from the virus and pneumonia. He was released from hospital in March 2021 to recover at home.

He left the Shrews job in June 2023 and was out of work until January 2024, when he took charge of Forest Green Rovers.

He was unable to stave off relegation from the Football League, but he rebuilt the side during the summer of 2024 to push for promotion back to League Two. When Southend United visited The New Lawn on 15 March 2025, the 2-2 draw was Cotterill’s 1,000^th game as a manager. At the time, Rovers were joint-second in the National League.

Former Gunner Raphael Meade a damp squib for the Seagulls

Meade best

ISLINGTON-born Raphael Meade joined Arsenal as a schoolboy and made it through the ranks to play more than 50 times for the Gunners.

A rather eclectic career saw him play in Portugal, Spain, Scotland, Denmark, Hong Kong and back in England.

Brighton boss Barry Lloyd had something of a penchant for picking up players from these shores who’d rather lost their way playing abroad and, while forwards Mike Small and John Byrne would count as great successes of that genre, Meade was largely a disappointment.

He played 40 times and scored 12 goals in the 1991-92 season, but the Albion were relegated to the third tier, so it was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Born on 22 November 1962, Meade was on the Gunners’ books from June 1977 to the summer of 1985.

The superb thegoldstonewrap.com unearthed the Arsenal annual for 1981 in its research; it said of the young Meade: “He’s got a hell of a lot of pace and is fantastically brave in the box. He’s got all the makings of a top player. However, he’s another one who has got to work on his control like Brian McDermott with tighter controls and lay-offs. But with his type of pace he will always be a threat.”

The reality was that with the likes of initially Alan Sunderland and John Hawley ahead of him in the pecking order, then Tony Woodcock and Lee Chapman, followed by the arrival of Charlie Nicholas and former Ipswich striker Paul Mariner, his first team chances at Highbury were restricted.

While he was prolific in the Reserves (24 goals in 27 league games in 1983-84), his first team appearances over four years were somewhat sporadic.

Manager Terry Neill handed him his debut in a 3-0 UEFA Cup away win against Panathinaikos on 16 September 1981 and he scored a spectacular goal with his very first kick! His league debut came a month later – and he scored again, netting the only goal in a 1-0 win at home to Manchester City. The 1981-82 season saw the majority of his first team involvement: he played a total of 22 games, scoring five times.

A cartilage injury sidelined him for a large part of the 1982-83 season but when he did return in February 1983 he scored twice against Brighton in a 3-1 win.

CN + RM braces v Spurs The following season, Meade scored a hat-trick in the 3-1 win over Watford, which began Don Howe’s tenure as Arsenal manager, and he also earned a special place in Gunners’ fans hearts when scoring twice (pictured celebrating above with Charlie Nicholas, who also got two) in Arsenal’s 4-2 victory over arch-rivals Spurs on Boxing Day 1983.

Unfortunately, they were sporadic highlights and, in the summer of 1985, he was sold to Sporting Lisbon.

“Sporting Lisbon provided me with a great experience. I really enjoyed myself because the climate was great and, as well as finishing third in the league one season, we also reached the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup,” Meade said in a Shoot/Goal article.

He said it was the arrival of former Spurs boss Keith Burkinshaw that precipitated the end of his time in Portugal because he wanted him to play in an unfamiliar right midfield role.

Thus he was loaned to Spanish side Real Betis towards the end of his three-year contract, and, on his return, was transferred to Dundee United where he made 16 starts, plus six substitute appearances, scoring seven goals.

However, United boss Jim McLean made public his dissatisfaction with the striker and questioned his fitness. Meade hit back saying he was fit but being played out of position on the wing.

Subsequently a shoulder injury saw him sidelined and unable to regain his place and he joined a struggling Luton Town side for a £250,000 fee.

luton move But after only four games for the Hatters he was on his way again, this time to Odense BK in Denmark.

During two years on their books, he had loan spells back in the UK, playing once for Ipswich Town and five times for Plymouth Argyle.

As the 1991-92 season got under way, cash-strapped Brighton were forced to sell the previous season’s successful strike duo of Small (to West Ham) and Byrne (to Sunderland).

Byrne’s departure didn’t happen until October, and it was while playing alongside the popular Republic of Ireland international that Meade scored his first goal for the Seagulls, in a 3-1 home win over Port Vale.

He had found himself in the right place at the right time in only the fourth game of the season when an injury sidelined Bryan Wade, who had started the first three games alongside Byrne. smart Meade

Lloyd had watched the former Arsenal striker score in a 2-0 win for the reserves against Fulham and pitched him in against Wolves – a 3-3 thriller in which Mark Barham, Gary O’Reilly and John Robinson netted for the Albion.

“Ideally, I needed one or two games to get match fit but it was great to get the chance in the first team and I wasn’t going to waste it,” said Meade.

Meade in action with another former Gunner, and ex-Albion defender, Steve Gatting (in Charlton’s colours), and a man of the match award for a brace against Grimsby Town.

After Byrne’s departure to the north east, there was seldom a regular strike partner for Meade. The busy and bustling Mark Gall, signed from non-league Maidstone United for £45,000, managed 14 goals but was some way short of Byrne or Small’s quality. And another of Lloyd’s overseas ‘finds’- Mark Farrington from Feyenoord – was an almighty flop.

Meade cover boy

Meade popped up with the occasional goal and one of those rare glimmers of light in an otherwise dark season came in a game I went to see at Vicarage Road on 31 March 1992.

Although Albion were ultimately headed back to Division 3, a brief respite from that tumble came against the Hornets courtesy of a howler by David ‘Calamity’ James in their goal. James came to the edge of his area to collect a routine-looking through ball, spilled it rather than gathering it cleanly and Meade was on hand to pick up the loose ball, round the stranded ‘keeper and slot what turned out to be the only goal of the game.

Meade scored twice more before the season’s end but Albion lost four of the final six games and were relegated along with Port Vale and Plymouth. Meade elected to leave the club and head for Hong Kong.

After a season with Sea Bee, he returned to England and rejoined Brighton but only featured in three games. He moved on to Crawley Town in 1995-96, where he ended his playing days.

Pictures from various sources including the matchday programme, Shoot/Goal, and online.

Elite career eluded Darren Hughes after cup-winning start

Hughes DARREN Hughes won the FA Youth Cup with Everton but it was lower down the league where he built a long career which included a season with second tier Brighton & Hove Albion.

Born in Prescot on Merseyside on 6 October 1965, left-back Hughes played for Everton in two successive FA Youth Cup finals.

He was on the losing side against Norwich City in 1983 (when among his Everton teammates was centre forward Mark Farrington, who later proved to be a disastrous signing for Barry Lloyd’s Brighton).

The tie went to a third game after it was 5-5 on aggregate over the first two legs. The Canaries won the decider 1-0 at Goodison Park. The following year, Hughes was a scorer, and collected a winners’ medal, as Everton beat Stoke City 4-2 on aggregate.

Meanwhile, the young Hughes had broken into Everton’s first team as an understudy to stalwart John Bailey, making his Everton debut two days after Christmas in 1983.

Unfortunately, the game ended in a 3-0 defeat away to Wolverhampton Wanderers, for whom former Albion winger Tony Towner was playing.

It wasn’t until May 1985 that Hughes next got a first team opportunity, featuring in a 4-1 defeat to Coventry City at Highfield Road and a 2-0 defeat to Luton Town – manager Howard Kendall resting some of the first-choice players after the League title had already been won and ahead of the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final against Rapid Vienna.

With the experienced Bailey and Pat Van Den Hauwe in front of Hughes in the pecking order, Kendall gave the youngster a free transfer at the end of the season, and he joined Second Division Shrewsbury Town, where he made 46 appearances.

Hughes played against Albion for Shrewsbury at Gay Meadow on 16 September 1986, and, two weeks’ later, Alan Mullery, back in charge of the Seagulls for a second spell, signed the 21-year-old for a £30,000 fee.

D Hughes blue

Not for the first time, hard-up Albion had devised a scheme to raise transfer funds from supporters, and the money for the purchase of Hughes came from the Lifeline fund which also helped Mullery to buy goalkeeper John Keeley for £1,500 from non-league Chelmsford and striker Gary Rowell, from Middlesbrough.

Hughes made his Albion debut in a 3-0 defeat at home to Birmingham in the Full Members Cup on 1 October 1986 and his first league match came in a 1—0 home win over Stoke City three days later.

“I was quite happy at Shrewsbury,” Hughes told matchday programme interviewer, Tony Norman. “But when the manager told me Brighton were interested in signing me I thought it would be another step up the ladder. It’s a bigger club with better prospects and it’s a nice town as well.”

The single lad, whose parents were living in Widnes, moved into digs in Hove run by Val and Dave Tillson. He was later joined there by Kevan Brown, another new signing, from Southampton.

Hughes said away from football he enjoyed golf and had played rounds with Steve Penney, Dean Saunders and Steve Gatting.

Brown, in a similar programme feature, said Hughes had been a big help in him settling into his new surroundings. “He has been showing me around the area and we’ve become good friends,” he said. “I’m glad I wasn’t put in a hotel on my own.”

Unfortunately for Hughes, life on the pitch didn’t go quite according to plan.

Mullery was somewhat controversially sacked on 5 January 1987 and, although Hughes played 16 games under successor Lloyd, those games yielded only two wins and the Albion finished the season rock bottom of the division.

The only consolation for Hughes was scoring in a 2-0 home win over Crystal Palace on 20 April. His final appearance in a Seagulls shirt came in a 1-0 home defeat to Leeds when he was subbed off in favour of youngster David Gipp.

Having played only 29 games, mostly in midfield, for Brighton, Hughes joined Third Division Port Vale in September 1987, initially on loan, before a £5,000 fee made the deal permanent.

It must have given him some satisfaction to score for his new employer in a 2-0 win against Brighton that very same month.

Hughes spent seven years with the Valiants, helping them to win promotion from the Third Division in 1989, making a total of 222 appearances, mainly as a left back.

His time with Vale was punctuated by two bad injuries – a hernia and a ruptured thigh muscle – and they released him in February 1994.

However, he gradually managed to restore his fitness and in 1995, between January and November, he played 22 games for Third Division Northampton Town.

He then moved to Exeter City, at the time managed by former goalkeeper Peter Fox, where he made a total of 67 appearances before leaving the West Country club at the end of the 1996-97 season.

He ended his career in non-league football with Morecambe and Newcastle Town but could look back on a total of 388 league and cup appearances for six clubs over a 14-year career.

After his playing days were over, according to Where Are They Now? he set up a construction business.

D hughes by tony gordon

Pictures: matchday programme.

Barry Lloyd’s turbulent time as Brighton boss

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HISTORY may have judged Barry Lloyd’s reign as Brighton manager unfairly: while bleak times cloud the memory, the former Fulham captain did chalk up some successes.

For instance, it’s worth remembering he put together two of the most entertaining strike partnerships in Albion’s history.

However, when managers start getting involved in the boardroom, it’s probably not going to end well and that certainly proved to be the case after Lloyd was handed the role of managing director.

Frankly, there is probably not enough space in one blog post to cover the various off-the-field shenanigans that were an ugly backdrop to the Lloyd era.

From an outsider’s perspective, it appeared he was the unfortunate public figure put up to deal with a huge amount of flak generated by others wielding power in the background.

Inheriting the hotseat at a time of financial turmoil, from a distance it could be said he did well to win promotion as well as coming mighty close to restoring the elite status lost in 1983.

But fans who had seen huge success under high profile bosses were not best pleased to see their club’s fortunes put in the hands of someone who had previously only managed outside of the league.

Let’s look first at Lloyd’s playing career because, from early on, he was obviously a shrewd observer who made contacts he would be able to call on in later years.

Born in Hillingdon on 19 February 1949, Barry’s early footballing ability was rewarded with selection for the Middlesex and South of England schoolboy sides. He was signed up by Chelsea and was in their 1964-65 youth team alongside former Albion right-back Stewart Henderson in defence and future England international and Chelsea legend Peter Osgood up front.

In an extended interview with Fulham’s club historian, Dennis Turner, Lloyd recalled: “I chose Chelsea because under Tommy Docherty’s management they were an exciting team, with the likes of Osgood, Charlie Cooke and Bobby Tambling.”

Former Albion player Dave Sexton was the reserve-team manager – “a really nice man and terrific coach” – and Lloyd says in his four years at Stamford Bridge he learned a lot.

He made his debut in the top flight in April 1967 aged just 18, but competition for places was tough and, after only 10 first team appearances, in January 1969 he moved to neighbours Fulham with their centre half John Dempsey moving in the opposite direction.

lloyd-fulham-goal

Fulham were struggling for survival in the old Second Division having been relegated from the top flight and the man who signed him, Bill Dodgin, was their fourth manager in a year.

They dropped down into the old Third Division but as part of his rebuilding, Dodgin made Lloyd captain in succession to the legendary Johnny Haynes, who was coming to the end of his career.

Lloyd is pictured below getting in a header against the Albion at the Goldstone, watched by John Napier (left) and Stewart Henderson. The packed East Terrace never looked like that by the time Lloyd was sitting in the Albion manager’s chair.

Lloyd at Goldstone

Fulham regained their tier two status in 1971 when they went up from Division III as champions. Manager Dodgin was sent packing in the summer of 1972, though, and Alec Stock took over, famously bringing in a number of top name players nearing the end of their careers – notably one Alan Mullery, along with Bobby Moore.

Lloyd remained part of the set-up but when Fulham surprised everyone by reaching the FA Cup Final against West Ham in 1975, he had to be content with what in those days was the single substitute’s berth on the bench, and didn’t get on.

Nonetheless, he chalked up 290 games for Fulham, before having brief spells at Hereford and Brentford (where Dodgin was the manager) and ending his playing days with Houston Hurricanes in the United States.

“I lived in Texas for a year. The league was never going to last but I learnt a lot about how the game can be promoted. They were very good at that over there,” he said in a matchday programme article. “Everyone was made to feel part of the club. It was an interesting experience; I’ve never regretted going.”

During his brief time at Hereford, Lloyd had an eye to the future and took his full coaching badge at Lilleshall, which wasn’t far away.

After his time in America came to an end, he got his first managerial experience with Yeovil Town (then a non-league club) and then headed to Sussex where he took Worthing from the Second Division of the old Isthmian League to runners-up in the Premier Division.

It was in 1986 when he got the call from Mullery to become reserve and youth team manager at the Albion. Dodgin was also on the staff.

lloyd desk

In January 1987, Mullery was unceremoniously dumped and Lloyd came out of the shadows to take charge. Perhaps what fans didn’t know at the time was that the day after Mullery left, Lloyd was summoned to a meeting with chairman Bryan Bedson and told to “get rid of everyone” because the club was going bust.

Against that backdrop, it was 15 games before the side managed to register a win under Lloyd and, unsurprisingly, Albion were relegated. Some of the mainstays of the side, like Danny Wilson, Eric Young and Terry Connor were sold. Fortunately, Lloyd was able to re-invest part of the proceeds from those sales in some buys who gelled together to form a promotion-winning team.

Screen Shot 2021-05-03 at 20.37.12 He returned to former club Chelsea to secure the signing of centre back Doug Rougvie who was made captain and he paired left winger Garry Nelson, a £72,500 signing from Plymouth, with tenacious Scot Kevin Bremner, from Reading, to lead the line. Nelson in particular was a revelation, scoring 32 goals and voted player of the season.

Lloyd reckoned the backbone of the side were two other shrewd signings: Alan Curbishley and Gary Chivers. “Alan was a very level-headed guy, an excellent passer and really disciplined,” he told Spencer Vignes in a matchday programme article. “Chivers was exactly the same, and a real joker at the same time. But there were a lot of great individuals in that side.”

The following two seasons saw Albion maintain their status with lower half finishes but, with the Goldstone Ground crumbling and debts mounting, there was little investment in the team and Lloyd had to use all his contacts to try to find some gems.

One was former England international winger Mark Barham, another was a former Soviet international, Sergei Gotsmanov, a real crowd-pleaser obviously capable of playing at a higher level (as was proved when he opted to join Southampton the following season).

Then, in 1990-91, he rescued two forwards languishing with also-ran clubs in Europe and together John Byrne and Mike Small were superb in attack as Brighton made it to the play-off final at Wembley only to lose 3-1 to Neil Warnock’s Notts County.

No-one had been expecting Brighton to get a tilt at promotion, particularly as the season had once again begun with big money departures of players like Keith Dublin and John Keeley.

But with Byrne and Small on fire and former Fulham and Chelsea winger Clive Walker added to the squad they clawed their way into contention and famously clinched the play-off spot on the last game of the season, courtesy of Dean Wilkins’ curling free kick past Ipswich Town’s Phil Parkes.

Another crucial signing that season was thanks to one of Lloyd’s old Chelsea teammates, George Graham. The Arsenal boss loaned cultured central defender Colin Pates to the Seagulls and he proved a mainstay in the final third of the season. Pates would later sign permanently.

Even though they were clearly beaten by the better side on the day, looking back now, I don’t think anyone could have realised what bad news it was for Albion not to win the final against County.

Starved of the funds promotion would have delivered, Lloyd was forced to sell star performers Small and Byrne and, 11 months after appearing at Wembley, Albion were relegated back to the third tier.

Lloyd had tried to repeat his previous successful European scouting mission with two former league players, but the hapless Mark Farrington turned out to be one of the worst buys ever, managing to score one solitary goal while former Arsenal youngster Raphael Meade fared slightly better but only just got into double figures.

Mark Gall, a £45,000 signing from Maidstone, arrived towards the end of October and ended up top goalscorer and was player of the season, but his 14 goals were still not enough to spare the team from the drop.

In the following season, the very survival of the club was under serious threat with the taxman chasing an unpaid bill. Lloyd rescued the club at the 11^th hour by managing to secure a £350,000 fee for goalkeeper Mark Beeney (bought two years earlier from Maidstone for £25,000), former Albion winger Howard Wilkinson buying him for League Champions Leeds United.

With the financial issues continuing in the background, a run of only two wins in 18 league games in the first half of the 1993-94 season eventually brought the Lloyd era to an end – the axe wielded by chief executive David Bellotti, who had arrived only a month earlier.

Fans who were euphoric to see Lloyd go might well have felt differently if they’d known what would eventually transpire, but that’s a story for another day.

The record books show Lloyd made a total profit of £1.2m in his seven years at the helm and he certainly knew his way around the transfer market, particularly in Europe, when it was a lot less fashionable than it is today.

Another of his discoveries was Dean Wilkins, playing for FC Zwolle in Holland, and in 2007 – 14 years after he had left the Albion – Lloyd returned as chief scout during Wilkins’ reign as first team manager.

Also part of the set-up then was director of football Martin Hinshelwood, who had been Lloyd’s assistant during his time in the dugout. Lloyd later returned to the club to assist in the recruitment department but retired in 2021.

He died aged 75 on 28 September 2024 and players in the Chelsea v Brighton game that afternoon wore black armbands in tribute to him.