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.

Thomas swapped a relegation struggle for another promotion push

MARTIN THOMAS was a fourth-tier promotion winner with Fulham, Swansea and Brighton – twice under manager Micky Adams.

Thomas played 90 matches for the west London side between 1994 and 1998 and was part of the side promoted from the basement division in 1997 when runners up behind Wigan Athletic.

He was in the Swansea side that won promotion from the same division as champions three years later.

And following his March transfer deadline day switch to the Seagulls in 2001, Thomas was once again a promotion winner from that division when Adams’ Albion topped the table 10 points clear of second-placed Cardiff, who had tried to sign Thomas themselves.

The manager certainly knew what he was bringing to the squad that spring having known Thomas since he’d been a trainee on the books at Southampton, where Adams had spent five years as a player.

Having been a regular at Swansea for two years, he’d been in and out of the side as City struggled near the bottom of the Second Division. He’d made the last of his 24 appearances that season just before Christmas and had missed two months with a bruised ankle bone.

He was on the transfer list after falling out with boss John Hollins and Albion agreed to take over his contract for the rest of the season, although the paperwork was only completed 45 minutes before the transfer deadline.

The Argus noted that Thomas then caught a train to his parents’ home near Romsey and borrowed his mum’s car the following morning to drive to Sussex for his first training session with the Albion. There were plenty of familiar faces to greet him.

Apart from Adams, there was Richard Carpenter, Danny Cullip, Paul Watson, Paul Brooker, and Darren Freeman. (Thomas is pictured below with Freeman at Fulham and warming up as Brighton substitutes)

Carpenter told The Argus: “I played with Thomo at Fulham for just under two seasons. He is a hard-working player who puts his foot in and never gives less than 100 per cent.

“I would say he is much the same as Charlie (Oatway). Both are tough tacklers and very aggressive.”

There’s no love lost between Swansea and their south Wales rivals Cardiff City and Adams’ former no. 2, Alan Cork, who was boss at the Bluebirds at the time, admitted to The Argus that he’d hoped to sign Thomas for their own promotion push.

“I tried to take Martin until the end of the season two weeks before Micky got him, but Swansea wouldn’t deal with us,” said Cork. “Martin is a very aggressive, up and down midfielder,” he said. “He has a lot of pace, works his heart out for the team and is a good all-round player.”

The player himself told The Argus: “I wanted to get away because I need to be playing and I am excited about coming here. I made my mind up straight away.

*Thomas in the heart of* *the goalmouth action* *for Brighton*

“It looks like Brighton are going up and I just hope I can help them get there. The lads have done all the hard work so far this season. I just hope I can add that little bit more.”

It certainly looked like a smart move for a player who’d twice before played a part in winning promotion from the basement division, and Swansea supporters were sad to see him go.

The previous season he’d been headline news after scoring the only goal when the Swans knocked Premier League West Ham out of the FA Cup in a third round replay at the Vetch Field.

*Thomas, evading a Frank Lampard tackle, hit the headlines when scoring in Swansea’s FA Cup win over West Ham.*

He’d already gone close to breaking the deadlock midway through the first half when he beat Hammers’ goalkeeper Shaka Hislop only to see his shot hit the crossbar. Eight minutes later he hit the target from 25 yards, firing into the bottom corner of the net. Swansea duly became the first Third Division side to knock a Premier League side out of the FA Cup.

Swansea supporters’ leader Keith Haynes reckoned: “Brighton have definitely got a bargain.

“All the Swansea fans I know are fed up that Martin has gone. Every side needs a grafter in midfield and we haven’t got one now.

“He is the sort of battling, hard-tackling player you will get 100 per cent from whoever he plays for. He has been one of the favourites at Swansea because he scores crucial goals as well.”

Haynes added: “He is a top man, the type you need either to get out of trouble or get out of the division you are in.”

Thomas made his debut as a substitute for skipper Paul Rogers in a 2-0 home win over Mansfield Town, the first of seven involvements off the bench.

His only start came in the penultimate game, a 0-0 draw away to Halifax Town. Adams made numerous changes to the side that had clinched the championship at Withdean two days earlier when promotion rivals Chesterfield were beaten 1-0 by defender Cullip’s goal.

*Thomas joins in promotion celebrations at the Withdean Stadium*

Born in the New Forest town of Lymington on 12 October 1973, Thomas was a trainee with Southampton and signed professional terms for them in June 1992.

But he left without making a first-team appearance, moving to east London to join Leyton Orient in March 1994. He scored on his debut, ironically in a 2-2 draw with Fulham, a week after the Os had lost 2-0 at Brighton (Robert Codner and Andy Kennedy with the goals). He scored again in a 3-2 home defeat to Port Vale but only made five appearances in total.

Next stop was Craven Cottage which was to be his home for the next four seasons.

Thomas and Brooker were among the scorers when Third Division Fulham beat Second Division Swansea 7-0 at Craven Cottage in the first round of the 1995-96 FA Cup – the biggest victory over a team from a higher division in the history of the competition. Cusack, Jupp and Conroy (3) were the other scorers.

Thomas didn’t leave the Cottage quite as swiftly as the likes of Aidan Newhouse, Watson, Mark Walton and Cullip after Kevin Keegan and Ray Wilkins were installed in place of Adams, following Mohammed Al Fayed’s takeover of the club.

But in July 1998 he moved to south Wales where former Chelsea, Arsenal and QPR midfielder Hollins had just been appointed Swansea manager.

Thomas scored in first half stoppage time on his debut to give his new club the advantage in the new season opener at home to future employer Exeter City; they went on to win 2-0.

There was disappointment at the season’s end when they lost out to Scunthorpe United at the play-offs semi-final stage but that was all behind them when they topped the division the following campaign.

Thomas had played at the Withdean when Swansea suffered their fifth winless game on the trot on 1 April 2000 but their form eventually returned with four successive wins to carry off the title.

After his cameo in Brighton’s promotion, Thomas stayed in the basement division when he moved on to newly-relegated Oxford United under Mark Wright and then Ian Atkins. But having made only 14 league appearances for Oxford, he moved on again, to Exeter City, in August 2002.

*A Grecians turn for Martin Thomas: relegation at Exeter City*

I’m indebted to The Grecian Archive to learn that Thomas made his debut as a substitute on the opening day of the season at Shrewsbury Town. He made 22 league starts, with another four appearances from the bench, but was not in the side towards the end of the season which ended in relegation from the Football League.

Thomas appeared in 10 games in the Conference for Exeter but, after reportedly turning down a reduced-terms two-year contract with the Grecians, he joined Isthmian Premier Eastleigh on a free transfer in July 2004.

He was still only 30 but Eastleigh manager Paul Doswell told the Daily Echo that Thomas decided to pack up full-time football to go into a plumbing job with his brother-in-law.

“It’s great news for us to get someone with that much experience on a free transfer,” Doswell told the Echo. “Nicky Banger (ex-Southampton) recommended him last season when we were talking about the need to get a midfielder who gets his head above the parapet when the going gets tough.

“Martin’s that kind of player and he’s very fit for a 30-year-old.”

Doswell added: “What impresses me about him is that he’s very motivated to finish his career on a high with us.”

That said, Thomas later played for AFC Totton and Winchester City before hanging up his boots.

Melton took Micky at his word – and saw red

MIDFIELDER Steve Melton took manager Micky Adams at his word in a notorious pre-season friendly – and ended up being sent off after putting in a waist-high tackle on an opponent.

Adams subbed off a riled Richard Carpenter against Longford Town in July 2001 with instructions to former Nottingham Forest trainee Melton “to give the lad who was booting our players up in the air a taste of his own medicine. Make sure he knows you are around.”

Melton duly put in a flying lunge on Longford midfielder Alan Reynolds that saw him receive an automatic red card and the fall-out from the challenge sparked an almighty punch-up which ended up with Albion’s Charlie Oatway and opponent Alan Murphy also being sent off after an altercation.

That particular battle then led to an even bigger scrap involving coaches and even the Longford chairman who took a punch in the face from one of his own players!

The so-called pre-season “friendly” – later dubbed the Battle of Longford – was abandoned with only 44 minutes on the clock by inexperienced ref Dermot Tone, who had only stepped in to officiate because senior Irish referees were at a seminar.

For Melton, it was all a far cry from making your Premier League debut two years earlier in front of 25,353 fans at the City Ground, Nottingham, in Ron Atkinson’s last-ever game as a manager. Melton was pitched in for already-relegated Forest for an East Midlands derby against Leicester and they went down in style (Blackburn and Charlton also went down), scraping a 1-0 win against the Foxes.

Born in Lincoln on 3 October 1978, Melton first linked up with Forest when he was just 11, playing at the centre of excellence. He signed full time at 16, a matter of days after finishing his GCSEs. He progressed through the youth team and reserves and it was during that time that he first worked with Adams, who’d been assistant manager to Dave Bassett before Atkinson’s arrival.

Before he got close to the Forest first team, 18-year-old Melton and another trainee had experienced competitive football in Finland where Bassett had sent them to play for Sami Hyypiä’s old club MyPa on a three-month loan.

“He sent us out there to toughen us up. It also got us used to playing in a proper men’s league so that we learnt to value the prize of the three points and the standing within the first team,” he explained in a matchday programme interview.

That experience followed by his Forest first team debut didn’t have the outcome he wanted and after only three games under Atkinson’s successor, David Platt, he picked up an injury and couldn’t force his way back into the first team picture.

In February 2000, he switched 50 miles west to third tier Stoke City and admitted: “It seemed a good move as I didn’t have to travel too far.

“It was a chance for me to play for a decent-sized club that were going strong in the cup and in the league. It was either that or play reserve team games for the rest of the year at Forest and wait for a break that I didn’t think was going to come.”

As it turned out, it was mainly a watching role, making only seven appearances as a substitute. He was a non-playing bench warmer alongside Chris Iwelumo (who did get on) when City won the Football League (Auto Windscreens Shield) Trophy at Wembley, beating Bristol City 2-1.

Stoke’s new Icelandic consortium hinted that they wanted to keep him on but in the absence of a contract offer, rather than risk uncertainty, he took up Adams’ offer to join fourth-tier Albion.

*A complimentary caption in the club match day programme*

On a trial in the Emerald Isle the year before the Longford incident, Melton did enough across the week of the tour to earn a one-year contract. He had a long wait before getting a start but after 11 introductions as a substitute he finally made his full debut in February 2001, stepping in for Carpenter at Torquay after the regular midfield starter pulled out with an injured ankle.

After playing his part in Albion’s first win (1-0 courtesy of Bobby Zamora) at Torquay for 36 years, Melton told The Argus: “I’m enjoying it here. I’ve settled in with the lads and I share a house with some of them.”

On playing for Adams, he said: “I think Micky is going to be a really good manager. I enjoy working with him. A lot of the lads do.

“Hopefully he will take Brighton up. He’s had a taste of managing at a higher level at Forest and I think he has the potential to do it again.”

Melton’s outlook brightened the following month and he got starts in nine of the season’s remaining 15 matches as Adams led the Seagulls to promotion as champions.

At home to his future employer Hull City, Melton made his home debut and scored his first goal for the club in a 3-0 win (Paul Watson and substitute Phil Stant also scored).

Reflecting on his involvement, he said: “It’s difficult to break in when the team keep winning every week, and they go unbeaten for 12 or 13 games, maybe drop a point but then go off on another run.

“It’s frustrating because you’re not playing, but you can’t really have too much of a case when the team is sat at the top of the league.”

Come the end of the season, he had done enough to be offered a two-year extension to his contract. As it turned out, the 2001-02 season followed much the same pattern as his first in terms of more appearances off the bench than starts.

He was on the scoresheet twice in the LDV Vans Trophy, scoring an extra time golden goal in a 2-1 home win over Wycombe Wanderers but was then inadvertently the fall guy in a 2-1 quarter-final defeat at Cambridge United.

Having given Albion a 36th-minute lead, latching on to Dirk Lehmann’s lay-off to fire a low right-footer past Lionel Perez from just outside the penalty area, he lost possession to Dave Kitson, who ran away to equalise, and then, four minutes into extra time, a shot by Armand One that was going wide took a wicked deflection off Melton’s shoulder to send United through to the next round.

A happier outing came when he made a rare start and scored as promotion-chasing Albion beat table-toppers Reading at the Withdean in February 2002. Peter Taylor’s Seagulls triumphed 3-1 on a rain-lashed night under the lights (Zamora and Junior Lewis also scored).

*Goalscorers Melton and Zamora after a memorable win over Reading*

“It was pleasing to start,” Melton told The Argus. “You have got to be patient and I have waited a good few months.

“I have been on the outside for the last few weeks. Hopefully I can stay on the inside now.

“Playing against the League leaders is a different matter completely from the LDV appearances that I made earlier in the season.

“You can only do as well as you can when you are chosen to play and hopefully I did that. Once you have been given the shirt you have to try and keep it.”

Melton’s goal was only the second league goal of his career and his first for 11 months.

Taylor reckoned it was the best home performance since he took over from Adams the previous autumn and Albion won eight (and drew five) of the following 14 games to go on and clinch the third-tier title with the also-promoted Royals six points behind.

Melton scored Albion’s first goal of the 2002-03 season when he started in the 3-1 win at Burnley under his third Brighton manager, Martin Hinshelwood (Zamora and Paul Brooker also scored; Hinshelwood’s 18-year-old nephew Adam made his debut).

Unfortunately, Melton tweaked a hamstring in the process and had to be subbed off. He only made nine more appearances (six starts plus three off the bench) as Hinshelwood’s short reign in charge ended with 10 league defeats in a row.

Incoming boss Steve Coppell brought in the likes of free agent Simon Rodger and Arsenal loanee Steve Sidwell and Melton found himself surplus to requirements.

It was in October 2002 that he moved to Hull on loan shortly after Peter Taylor had replaced Jan Molby as manager with the club about to move out of Boothferry Park and into the Kingston Communications Stadium.

Melton made 19 starts plus six appearances off the bench as the Tigers finished 13^th in the old Third Division.

According to the website oncloudseven.com: “Despite his promise and Taylor’s persistence, Melton’s career at City was not a success and he showed only brief flashes of good form. Melton is, however, forever enshrined in the City record books because in December 2002 he scored the first ever goal at the KC Stadium against Sunderland, for the honour of lifting the Raich Carter Trophy.”

He found himself only on the fringes the following season and he had moved on to Boston United under Steve Evans by the time Taylor steered Hull to promotion as divisional runners up.

A recurring back injury restricted his playing time at Boston and during 2005-06 he was sent out on loan to Conference National side Tamworth. On his release from Boston in the summer of 2006, he switched to Southern League Premier King’s Lynn FC for two seasons.

In September 2008, he rejoined Boston with manager Tommy Taylor telling the club’s website: “Steve has great quality on the ball and that’s what we have been missing in the midfield area.

Hopefully he will add another dimension to our team.”

But he was released at the end of the season and joined Lincoln United of the Northern Premier League Division One East, alongside his former Boston and King’s Lynn teammate Matt O’Halloran. After spells with Lincoln Moorlands Railway, Grantham Town and Worksop Town, he wound up his playing days back at Lincoln United.

In the meantime, his first job outside of football was in sales for mobile comms company Vodacom. He spent nearly seven years with the now defunct energy advice and installation company the Mark Group and since 2019 has worked for building services certification business The National Association of Professional Inspectors and Testers, where he is now commercial and compliance director.

Bees and Seagulls milestones on Michael Bennett’s wellbeing journey

IT ALMOST certainly wouldn’t have occurred to the loyal few Albion fans who followed the basement division Seagulls in exile in 1998-99 that one of the men in stripes would go on to make a difference to the lives of hundreds of footballers.

Brighton was the eighth and last league club Michael Bennett played for over the course of 12 years in which he discovered all the highs and lows that footballers can experience.

Since packing up playing, those personal insights helped him to begin a journey that led him to help huge numbers to cope with the game’s often-unseen stresses and strains.

Bennett became a psychotherapist, gained a degree and led the setting up of a counselling and mental health and wellbeing support network for the Professional Footballers’ Association, where he worked for 15 years, latterly as director of player wellbeing. In that role, he was frequently a media spokesman for the PFA.

Now running his own counselling business it’s all a far cry from the days when his league playing career ended filling a variety of positions in Brian Horton’s fourth-tier Brighton team, playing home games in exile at Gillingham. In one game, he was racially abused by a Swansea City fan who ran onto the pitch to confront him (more of which, later).

It was quite a fall from career highlights that saw him play for England at under-20 level alongside the likes of Matt Le Tissier, David Batty, Neil Ruddock and Tim Sherwood, make his debut at 17 in the top division for Charlton Athletic alongside John Humphrey, Colin Pates and Steve Gritt, and feature for Brentford (with Chris Hughton and Neil Smillie) when the Bees played second-tier football for the first time in 38 years.

While Addicks fans remember Bennett fondly, Bees supporters are a lot less generous and mainly recall a training ground incident in which the player broke a teammate’s jaw with a single punch.

The internet can be – and is – many things and unfortunately for people like Dr Bennett, such past incidents are still recorded for all to read about.

Thankfully, all the excellent work he has achieved in the health and wellbeing field is also documented and, in October 2021, Andy Naylor of The Athletic did an in-depth piece which examined his journey in detail.

“The story of his rise to prominence as a leader in his field is inspirational, a demonstration that with application, determination and drive you can build a career in the game that extends well beyond playing football,” wrote Naylor.

Bennett eschewed a coaching career (even though he passed his UEFA B licence) and at college, while studying Maths and English, was urged to take up counselling. As Naylor reported: “By 2004, Bennett had his degree in it and the following year he set up his own company, Unique Sports Counselling.”

Three years later, he joined the PFA as southern region education adviser aiming to get players to prepare for life after football. He also invited attendees to his workshops to speak to him privately about emotional issues – and he discovered there were plenty who took up the offer.

Eventually he persuaded then PFA chairman Gordon Taylor of the need for a designated wellbeing department dealing with the welfare of players.

In 2015, Sam Wallace of The Independent interviewed Bennett for an article about troubles ex-Arsenal and England full-back Kenny Sansom was facing. He discovered the year before the PFA had requests for support from 197 of its members.

“That is some caseload for Bennett, a man who talks in the careful, measured tones of someone used to dealing with problems that must seem intractable,” wrote Wallace. “Last year, the PFA established a 24-hour telephone helpline for members. Safe to say, it is not underused.”

The problem, Bennett told Wallace, is that the elite-level game prepares footballers physically but not emotionally. “What we realise is players often don’t get asked how they are. They get asked about football. When they get asked about their emotions, they tend to open up.”

After a 2017 presentation by Bennett to first and second-year scholars at Norwich City, Canaries’ assistant head of education and welfare Mike Macias told Press Association Sport: “When they see it and hear it coming from someone like Mickey, who has been there, done it and bought the T-shirt, they will think: ‘This impacts me and there is someone there to help me’.”

When Bennett left the PFA earlier in 2025, he said: “I am proud of the work we have done within the department which has grown into a vital and impactful part of the PFA’s mission, ensuring that wellbeing remains at the heart of everything we do.”

Among dozens of messages of thanks for his contribution left on his LinkedIn account was one from former Albion and West Ham midfielder George Parris, who wrote: “A great stint Dr Bennett, thanks for all your help, support and encouragement not just to myself, but loads of other people along the way during your time at the PFA.”

Born to Jamaican parents in Camberwell on 27 July 1969, Bennett was raised in a block of flats near Millwall’s old ground, The Den, and it was only when he was spotted by Charlton playing Sunday League football that thoughts of a professional career in the game arose.

He went straight into the Addicks academy at 16 and made his debut in Charlton’s first team a year later. In his interview for The Athletic, he said: “You move from a youth team changing room to a first-team changing room. People don’t talk about that transition but that, for me, was pressure. I’ve gone from having jokes and banter with the boys in the youth team to the first team.

“The pressure intensifies. You put it on yourself more than anything else, because you don’t want to let anyone down.”

He continued: “The first well-being issues came when I signed for Charlton. I went from parks football, having fun, to going into a pressurised environment where results are key and you know if you have one or two bad games there’s somebody behind you waiting to take your spot.

“So, the pressure for me was constant. I wasn’t able to deal with that, I didn’t know who to talk to about it. I’d already formed my personality going into the game. I’m a very talkative person and I like to talk about stuff. There wasn’t anyone to do that with.”

On top of the various issues he was facing as a young player, he then ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and crushed the cartilage in his knee against QPR in December 1988 which sidelined him for nine months. By his own admission, when he eventually returned to action he was not the same player, concerned over whether the injury would happen again.

On the fans forum Charlton Life: ‘Amos on the wing’ wrote: “One of the good guys Mickey Bennett. Good player, but was never quite the same player after his bad injury against OPR in 1988.”

Another poster, Leroy Ambrose, said: “One of my favourite players from the ‘Sellout’ era (ed: Charlton played ‘home’ games at Selhurst Park at the time). Good bloke – my mate was a mascot back when he was playing and he and his parents were thrilled at how nice he was, and how much time he took with them during the pre-match kickabout and after the game.”

And Ormiston_Addick added: “Started brilliantly for us, great pace and drive but never the same player after doing his knee. Great little period in 88-89 with our ‘Black Magic’ front line of Bennett – Leaburn – Williams – Mortimer.”

‘Home’ continued to be Selhurst Park between 1990 and 1992 after Bennett switched to then top division Wimbledon, who rented Palace’s stadium because their own Plough Lane wasn’t up to scratch for the top division. But Bennett was never a regular for the Dons and he and Detzi Kruszynski were used as makeweights in the transfer of Dean Holdsworth from Brentford to Wimbledon.

He joined just as Brentford began playing second tier football for the first time since 1954 but the elevation didn’t last long. They were relegated in bottom place come May 1993 although Bennett was a fixture in the side, playing a total of 43 league and cup matches plus six as a sub, and scoring four goals.

The Brentford fans forum bfctalk declared: “Despite losing Chris Hughton in December to a career ending injury, no real replacement was signed until March by which time the rot had well and truly set in. Mickey Bennett flattered to deceive and was a one game in four merchant, Detzi Kruszynski had an aversion to training and hard work.”

In another post, the forum said Bennett had “started out like a house on fire as a direct and goal hungry right winger and we thought we had discovered a new star, but he too flattered to deceive”.

It was what happened in November 1993 that many Bees fans of a certain vintage remember. Bennett had his contract terminated by manager David Webb after breaking transfer-listed teammate Joe Allon’s jaw in three places with one punch in a training ground incident.

But the PFA backed Bennett’s version of the incident and took Brentford to a Football League commission of appeal which decided the player should be reinstated. However, Bennett knew his position in the Griffin Park dressing room was untenable, and he was released by mutual consent.

The incident was back in the spotlight five years later when the media was pondering what fate awaited John Hartson for his infamous West Ham training ground kick in the head of teammate Eyal Berkovich.

Bennett, by then playing for Brighton, told a reporter: “Obviously you can’t do that sort of thing to a teammate and I would prefer to leave that memory where it belongs – in the past.”
He added: “You have to get on with life, and I have no complaints. What happened between me and Joe Allon was little more than handbags at six paces – that’s why the PFA got involved and stood my corner.”

Bennett also said: “What happened to me at Brentford was way back. Right now, I’ve got other things on my mind, like trying to score my first goal of the season for Brighton.”

However, when an enterprising journalist caught up with Allon, he said: “Mickey broke my jaw in three places with a single punch in an unprovoked attack. There had been no history of ill-feeling between us and something inside him must have snapped.

“He just flipped, I collected a punch on the chops and got carted off to hospital, where they operated on me and wired up my jaw. I was in hospital for about 10 days and out of football for three months.

“The funny thing is that Mickey was supposed to be a born-again Christian, and I couldn’t work out how such a religious bloke could just clock one of his teammates.”

For all Bennett’s desire to steer clear of headlines for the wrong reason, it was while playing for Brighton away at Swansea City on 5 February 1999 that he was in the spotlight again when he was racially abused by a home supporter who ran onto the pitch.

“I was shocked by it,” he told Naylor of The Athletic in 2021. “I knew it was bad because I couldn’t function in the game after that, my head had gone.

“The police came to me and asked what I wanted to do. For a split second I remember thinking, ‘I just want to get on the bus and go home’. The other side of me thought, ‘If I don’t do something, that person could do something to another player’.”

The case went to court and the 29-year-old assailant, who admitted racially abusing Bennett and invading the pitch, was sent to prison for a year and banned from watching in a football league ground for three years.

The player told The Argus: “All of a sudden, I turned around and saw this fan running towards me. He was coming closer and closer.

“I remember thinking to myself should I just take a punch or what do I do? Then a steward and one of their players jumped in front of him when he was about a foot away from me and hauled him off.

“For five minutes I was a bit shaky. He could have done anything to me.

“After that I just got on with the game and tried to cancel it out, but when the police came to me after the game to take a statement it brought it all back again.”

By the time of that match, Jeff Wood had succeeded Horton, the manager who’d taken on Bennett after he’d impressed enough on trial in pre-season games against Lewes and Crawley to be awarded a one-year contract.

The matchday programme introduced him as “a versatile right sided player who can operate at anywhere down the right side or in the centre of midfield”.

He started off in central midfield alongside Jeff Minton and later was used as a central defender. That autumn, he clocked up his 150th League appearance in a 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City, where he’d spent the opening three months of the 1996-97 season. Having left Brentford, he’d gone back to Charlton briefly before barely featuring in the 1995-96 season at Millwall. On leaving south Wales, he spent a year at non-league Cambridge City, and at Christmas 1997 returned to the league at Orient under Tommy Taylor.

Before facing the Os in a first round FA Cup tie in 1998, Bennett told The Argus: “I knew Tommy Taylor from my time at Charlton and I figured in one game away to Exeter, then four or five more as a sub before I was eased out.

“I’ve got another chance to face them now because I missed the league game away with a groin injury. It’s a nice tie, but I’ve got nothing to prove to Tommy or anyone else.” (Albion lost 4-2).

*Bennett in Albion’s change kit in the 1998-99 season*

Bennett found himself playing for a third Albion manager when Wood’s brief and unsuccessful reign at the Albion helm was brought to an end and, although he featured under Micky Adams, he was one of eight players released at the end of the season.

His league career at an end, he continued to play at non-league level for Canvey Island and in the 2003-04 season was part of a Canvey Island squad that also included former Brighton players Junior McDougald, Peter Smith, and the aforementioned Minton.

Meanwhile, he transitioned into a mental health and wellbeing counsellor, saying: “I identified the value of offering to the side of the game that rarely grabs the headlines but is just as affecting to the people it helps.”

On his LinkedIn profile, he points out: “Playing at all levels of the football league has provided me with an invaluable knowledge of the inner workings and operational structure of football in this country, experience that I have endeavoured to apply for the benefit of my fellow pros since my retirement.”

Jamie Moralee’s pitfalls a valuable lesson for future prosperity

IT WOULD BE an understatement to say striker Jamie Moralee had mixed fortunes during his time with Brighton.

A one-time £450,000 signing, the former Crystal Palace player joined the lowly Seagulls on a free transfer when they were playing home games in exile at Gillingham in 1998-99.

His lack of goals earned a certain amount of derision from the handful of Albion followers who supported the club in those dark days.

And on one infamous occasion, in March 1999, he managed to get himself sent off within a minute of going on as a late substitute, without touching the ball.

To make matters worse, the punch he threw didn’t even catch the opponent, John Eyre, who promptly added to Albion’s woes by completing his hat-trick in a 3-1 home win for Scunthorpe United.

The Argus put Moralee’s “moment of madness” down to frustration at so regularly being on the subs bench (16 times – and only sent on in eight of them).

“He did not actually connect, but the intent was obvious and the resulting red card inevitable,” the newspaper reported.

Signed at the start of the season on a month-to-month contract, Moralee had a run of 14 starts under Brian Horton but after scoring just the one goal (in a 3-1 defeat against Mansfield), he was dropped to the bench.

Just before Horton quit to move to Port Vale, he gave Moralee a contract until the end of the season and in January, after Jeff Wood briefly took charge, the player hoped his impact as a sub when laying on a winning goal for Paul Armstrong against Scarborough would help change supporters’ views of his contribution.

“It was nice to be a bit of a hero for a change,” he told The Argus. “I was a bit unlucky with a goal which was disallowed at Chester in the game before and I just want to get on with Brighton and do my best.

“I’ll take the credit because I’ve not had much this season. Hopefully the corner has turned for me.”

Moralee said he had been asked to play several different roles and reckoned much of the criticism aimed his way was unjustified.

“I feel I have done all right,” he maintained. “I don’t think the supporters really appreciate me and they let me know that when I came on, but I will just keep doing my job.

“The players give me all the support I need and I am confident enough to go out and do the business. I certainly won’t hide.”

Having missed several matches after the red mist descended at Scunthorpe, a third manager arrived in the shape of Micky Adams, and Moralee started the last seven matches of the season under the new boss, scoring once.

But it wasn’t enough to earn a new deal and Moralee was one of eight players released at the end of the season. Having played under three managers in one season for the Albion, there was swift change in the dugout at his next port of call too.

He began the next season up a division with Colchester United, whose manager Mick Wadsworth said: “I remember him as a very outstanding young player with Millwall. We watched him several times during last season.

“He is very sharp in and around the penalty box and his hold-up play is exceptional – a quality we were sadly lacking in the season just gone.

“Jamie was an outstanding prospect as a young player with Millwall and was sold on to Watford for £450,000 around five years ago before his career became blighted by injuries.

“Last season was his first full season for some time as he battled to shrug off a string of injuries and has probably used Brighton to get back to full fitness and match sharpness.”

The season was only three games old when Wadsworth resigned and was replaced by Steve Whitton who saw his United side beat Reading 3-2 in his first match (Warren Aspinall scored twice and Nicky Forster scored one for the visitors). Moralee, making his league debut for Colchester, was subbed off on 76 minutes.

After that, Colchester went on an 11-game winless run and other than a positive spell in January, had a forgettable season and finished third from bottom. Moralee made 21 starts plus eight as a sub.

Born in Wandsworth, London, on 2 December 1971, Moralee joined Palace as a YTS trainee, working his way through the levels alongside Gareth Southgate. He was a regular in the Palace reserves playing up front with Stan Collymore.

But after just two first team starts and four sub appearances under Steve Coppell, he was traded as a makeweight in exchange for Millwall’s Chris Armstrong.

When unveiled to Lions fans in a matchday programme article, Moralee boldly declared: “Having broken though into first team football with Palace last season and learned from strikers like Mark Bright and Garry Thompson, I feel I’m ready to come to a club like Millwall and score twenty goals a season.”

Of the player he swapped places with, he even went as far as to say: “Chris was quick and by all accounts did very well here in the opening games this season, but I’ll score more goals than him.”

Continuing in a similar vein, he added: “I’m most effective in the box, I like the ball into my feet and, at the risk of sounding over confident, if I get the chances I’ll score goals for you.”

True to his word, Moralee did get amongst the goals for Mick McCarthy’s side and 20 goals in 63 appearances (plus 13 as a sub) over two seasons earned him a £450,000 move to Watford.

*Moralee made a big money move from Millwall to Watford*

But the Glenn Roeder signing had a tough time with the Hornets, only seeing his fortunes change after Graham Taylor returned to the club as manager. He explained the circumstances in a full-page piece in the Wolves v Watford matchday programme of 30 March 1996.

“Glenn bought me to play up front with a big target man, which I was used to at Millwall. But the partners I had were all smaller than me and I was now the big target man, a role that did not suit me and one that I do not enjoy.

“I had always been used to scoring, something that wasn’t happening, and this resulted in a loss of confidence.

“The intentions were there, but I needed a big target man to feed me the ball. It just did not work out.”

When Taylor took over from Roeder, Moralee got back the starting place he’d lost and learned how to play as a lone striker. “It is a lot of work but I believe I have developed into a better all-round player,” he said. “It is nice to have a manager with a little faith in me.”

After Watford were relegated to Division Two, in the summer of 1996 he moved on a free transfer to Crewe Alexandra where he didn’t register any goals and made just 13 starts and six sub appearances.

He ended the 1997-98 season with Royal Antwerp in Belgium and spent pre-season with Fulham before Horton took him on at the Albion, initially on a monthly contract basis, at the start of the 1998-99 season.

After his season at Layer Road, he linked up with former Crystal Palace colleague Peter Nicholas at Welsh Premier League side Barry Town. He spent three seasons with Barry, winning the Welsh Premier-Welsh Cup double each season. He was also involved in three Champions League campaigns with the club and netted 59 goals in 96 appearances.

Financial problems at Barry led to Moralee moving on and he had spells with Forest Green Rovers, Newport County and Chelmsford City before ending his playing career in 2006.

After retiring from playing, Moralee set up his own football agency, New Era, in conjunction with former Albion teammate Peter Smith, with Rio Ferdinand as its highest profile client.

In an interview for a webinar, Moralee said the agency aims to teach up and coming talented footballers how to avoid the pitfalls that affected his own playing career.

Describing his own “very up and down career with a couple of highs and many, many lows”, he explained to The Player, The Coach, The Person webinar: “When I got a few quid, I was spending it on all the wrong things. Buying cars and watches and going out too much; drinking too much. I wasn’t investing it.”

Hard work, application and a ruthlessness to succeed in life are aspects he’s now passing on having realised they were attributes that would have made a difference to his own career as a player.

“I needed to stay in football in some capacity,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a coach or manager.I knew that young players, if they got to the edge of the pitfalls I fell down, I could help them.”

He is particularly pleased to have helped players who had rejection in their early days who went on to have successful careers, such as Welsh internationals Chris Gunter, Neil Taylor and Ashley Williams.

Moralee spoke openly about his 20-year friendship with Rio Ferdinand in a 2018 film for the ‘Best Man Project’ of The Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm): an initiative to celebrate the power of friendships which supports men in looking out for their mates.

*Opening up on the power of friendships in football*

Wembley hero Liam Dickinson’s nomadic football journey

HE’D SCORED a decisive play-off final goal at Wembley for Stockport County but a subsequent £750,000 move to Derby County didn’t work out for Liam Dickinson and Brighton signed him for £300,000 only a year after the Rams had shelled out that big money.

Dickinson didn’t even get a game for the Rams, instead being sent out on loan to Huddersfield Town, Blackpool (where he’d begun his career in their school of excellence) and Leeds United. He was a player who didn’t stay in the same place for long; in total he featured for 23 different clubs.

Like many before and since, changes of manager were often the cause of him moving on. At Derby, for instance, he was signed by Paul Jewell, recalled from his loan at Blackpool by caretaker manager Chris Hutchings and eventually let go by Nigel Clough.

It had been intended he’d join Leeds in January 2009 but the necessary paperwork didn’t arrive until 14 minutes after the deadline! Further discussions led to a revised deal, but the move was called off because he was injured. He eventually joined up with United in the second week of March and although he scored in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Sheffield United (1-1), he didn’t get on the scoresheet in eight League One games (four starts, four as a sub) under Simon Grayson.

His first start was in a 3-2 win at Crewe and he managed three successive starts, in a 2-2 draw at Leyton Orient, a 1-0 win over old club Stockport and a 1-0 defeat at Leicester but he was not involved in the end-of-season play-offs when Leeds (with Casper Ankergren in goal) lost out to Millwall in the semi-finals.

An enclave of former Stockport teammates – James Tunnicliffe, Jim McNulty, Gary Dicker and Craig Davies – helped Dickinson to choose Brighton as his next club

After Brighton boss Russell Slade welcomed the 6’4” forward to Withdean on a three-year contract, he told the club website: “He brings something different to the table. His goalscoring record is very good and he has a good goals-per-game ratio, and like one or two of the other signings I have made this summer, he is hungry to get his career back on track. I’m sure there is a lot more to come from him.”

He scored in his third and fourth games for the Albion, but both came in defeats against former clubs: the first in a 7-1 capitulation to Huddersfield and the next in a 4-2 defeat to Stockport.

He was on the scoresheet in the home 3-3 draw against Hartlepool (Nicky Forster scored Albion’s other two goals) that spelled the end of Slade’s tenure as manager. But it is what happened two days later that many will remember him for.

Unluckily for him, he was pictured carrying a seemingly comatosed young woman in his arms in the middle of Brighton at 1am. The Sun newspaper was covering a renowned student pub crawl ritual at the time and didn’t realise who they’d snapped.

Eagle-eyed Albion supporters did, though, and, after discussion about the incident on fans’ forum North Stand Chat, The Argus picked up the story, running an article headlined ‘Samaritan Brighton and Hove striker scores an own goal’.

For his part, Dickinson told reporter Ben Parsons how he was on his way home after a meal out in the city when he helped a girl to a car waiting to pick her up.

He said it was simply a coincidence that he was helping the girl when the photos were taken, adding: “I saw two girls holding another girl up. She collapsed in front of us. Her mum or her auntie picked her up in a car. I picked the girl up and put her in the car.

“I didn’t want to just leave her. Anybody else would have done the same thing.”

Albion said they would deal with the matter internally. Dickinson was omitted from the squad for the following game, a 4-4 FA Cup draw with Wycombe Wanderers with caretaker manager Martin Hinshelwood in charge, but he was back in the fold for Gus Poyet’s first game as Slade’s replacement.

In the televised away game at Southampton, he went on as a sub for Forster in Albion’s 3-1 win at St Mary’s. Dan Harding, Dean Hammond and Adam Lallana were in the Saints side.

Dickinson got occasional starts under Poyet but more often than not was sent on as a sub to replace either Glenn Murray or Forster.

Given a start in the FA Cup second round win over Rushden and Diamonds, he scored twice, in the third and 86^th minutes, as Albion edged the tie 3-2. He was preferred to Murray in a Boxing Day clash with Leyton Orient that finished goalless but, perhaps to prove a point, two days later the restored Murray hit four at Wycombe in a 5-2 Seagulls win.

Dickinson was back on familiar territory at Edgeley Park in January 2010, but only got a half an hour run-out as a sub against his old club (replacing another former County man in Dicker) as the game finished 1-1, Andrew Crofts salvaging a point with a 90^th minute equaliser.

In a 1-1 draw at Leyton Orient, Dickinson started the game and, when he was denied a penalty, incandescent Poyet was sent from the dug-out for protesting.

“If you ask anyone, they will tell you it was a penalty and a red card,” Poyet maintained afterwards. “The referee is 10 yards away and he doesn’t give it. You’ve got a chance to score a penalty and it’s 2-0. It’s a different game.”

Dickinson took to the field against another of his former clubs in Huddersfield wearing distinctive ‘banana yellow’ boots. “I don’t like dull, boring colours. I like to brighten the pitch up a bit. I’ve had a bit of stick off the lads,” he told The Argus.

The striker, who’d scored six goals in 13 games for the Terriers while on loan, didn’t manage to get on the scoresheet and was replaced by Murray as the game petered out to a 0-0 draw.

At that stage, Dickinson was deputising for Forster who was out of favour with Poyet over a contract dispute.

As the Uruguayan began to bring in his own selections, such as on-loan Kazenga LuaLua, Dickinson chose to go on loan to Championship strugglers Peterborough United, who were managed by his former Stockport boss Jim Gannon. Dickinson scored three in nine games for Posh. On his return to Brighton, he was sold to Barnsley, who were in the Championship at the time, for reportedly half the fee paid out for him just a year earlier.

Tykes boss Mark Robins declared: “He is different to the strikers we have here already and will give us something else up front.

“He is only 24 and still has room for improvement. He has a decent scoring record both in the Championship and in the lower leagues.

“Liam fits in to what we are trying to do here both in terms of on the pitch and within our budget.”

But he made just one start, in a League Cup match, and three sub appearances in the league for Barnsley when his old Derby caretaker manager, Hutchings, took him on loan to Walsall. He didn’t find the net in seven League One games.

Next stop, from January to the end of the season, was Rochdale, the side against which he had scored that 2008 League Two play-off final winner.

But a goalless run of 14 games (seven starts and seven off the bench) prompted this comment from AtThePeake on fansnetwork.co.uk in 2021: “In terms of expectation versus reality, few signings can have disappointed Rochdale fans quite like the loan signing of Liam Dickinson in January 2011.”

The supporter wrote: “Dale were looking for someone to become the fulcrum of an attack that included Chris O’Grady drifting in from the left and the emerging Matt Done playing as a second striker.

“Having seen first-hand the threat Dickinson could be with his aerial prowess, strength and touch in front of goal, Dale fans were reasonably excited that the answer to their striker problem had been found, but it quickly became apparent that the struggles with Derby and Barnsley had affected Dickinson’s confidence.

“During his spell, Dickinson was all too easy to defend against, struggled to hold the ball up and lacked any cutting edge when it came to finishing the chances he did manage to fashion for himself.”

A projected move to Plymouth Argyle was called off after just eight days, with personal reasons being cited, but the nomadic striker’s next stop was League Two Southend United under Paul Sturrock, where he netted 12 goals in 37 matches (33 starts plus four as a sub).

*Dickinson scored a dozen times for Southend United*

Not for the first time, he found himself in the headlines for the wrong reason when he and two others were reprimanded for a breach of club discipline over an unspecified incident at a hotel the evening before a match at Morecambe.

A broken ankle brought a premature end to his season with the Shrimpers, and it proved problematic in trying to continue his league career elsewhere.

He trained with Port Vale but even his agent Phil Sproson was quoted as saying: “Liam will admit he has been no choirboy in the past.

“He has had quite a few clubs and that’s probably because he has been no angel.

“He is loud and vocal and has had too many nights out over the years – but he has matured.

“He realises he will have to change and toe the line because he has a darker side that has dragged him down in the past.”

As it turned out, he was eventually out for a year because his broken ankle didn’t heal properly. He played two pre-season friendlies for Vale in 2013 but manager Micky Adams didn’t take him on because of ongoing problems with the ankle.

Born in Salford on 4 October 1985, Dickinson was originally a centre-half when he was on the youth books of Blackpool, Bolton and Blackburn. He stepped away from professional football at 16 and studied to be a graphic artist but continued to play in non-league sides. He appeared for Irlam, Swinton, Trafford and Woodley Sports before he was taken on as a pro by Stockport in 2005 after a successful trial.

He scored on his County debut, only five minutes after going on as a 71^st-minute sub against Cheltenham Town at Edgeley Park. In three years under Jim Gannon, he hit 33 goals in 94 appearances.

The 2007-08 season was his most prolific term as a league player, netting 21 times from 32 starts and six games from the bench. It also earned him Stockport’s Player of the Year award.

It was to Stockport, then in the Conference North league, that he returned in 2013, but he only managed one goal in 13 games before returning to the non-league arena.

Between 2014 and 2019, he turned out for Stalybridge Celtic, Guiseley, Bradford Park Avenue, FC United of Manchester and finally Droylsden before calling it a day.

In an online chat with Stockport County Live towards the end of the Covid lockdown, in August 2020, Dickinson opened up about his mental health, admitting he’d been through a period when he was suffering with depression.

Post playing, he told his interviewer, he was working installing signage for a print company.

Toon scourge Ian Baird no stranger to red cards

A GOALSCORING scourge of Newcastle United once pulled on the famous black and white stripes – and was booked in three of the five games he played for them!

Baird, who notoriously got himself sent off in the crucial last ever game Brighton played at the Goldstone Ground, led the line in an infamously fiery New Year’s Day derby between Newcastle and Sunderland when the Toon won 3-1 courtesy of a hat-trick by Peter Beardsley.

Jeff Clarke, who’d previously spent seven years at Sunderland and had five games on loan at Brighton at the start of that season, was at the back for Newcastle and future Albion veteran Clive Walker was in attack for the visitors.

A crowd of 36,529 watched the First Division fixture on 1 January 1985 when Sunderland were reduced to nine men through the sendings off of Howard Gayle and Gary Bennett. Baird was one of five bookings made by ref David Scott.

It was Baird’s fourth match for Newcastle after England World Cup winner Jack Charlton signed him on loan from Southampton. He made his debut three days before Christmas 1984 in a 4-0 defeat away to Aston Villa when his former England Schoolboys strike partner Paul Rideout scored a hat-trick. Baird’s only goal for United came in a Boxing Day 2-1 defeat at West Brom.

Three days later, as United lost 3-1 at home to Arsenal, Baird’s involvement was from the bench as a sub for David McCreery. His last game, on 12 January, was another tonking, 4-0 away to champions-in-waiting Everton.

Five years after his Toon cameo, Baird twice stymied Newcastle’s hopes of promotion from the second tier, scoring against them for Leeds in a 1-0 win in December 1989 (it turned out to be his last goal for them) and, after he’d fallen out with manager Howard Wilkinson and been transferred to Middlesbrough in January 1990, netted twice for Boro as they beat Newcastle 4-1 in the last game of the season.

Leeds finished that campaign as second tier champions (Newcastle, who by then had Mark McGhee up front, were five points behind in third place) and Baird’s goals in Boro’s win put paid to the Magpies’ hopes of automatic promotion. To add salt to the wound, Newcastle lost to Sunderland in the semi-final of the play-offs.

Six years later Baird was Brighton’s captain in the penultimate must-win game of the season, when Doncaster Rovers were the visitors.

Albion needed all three points to give themselves a chance of avoiding relegation out of the league when they travelled to Hereford the following week for the final fixture of that tumultuous season.

What they really didn’t need was for the captain to get himself sent off after just 18 minutes of the match!

Talking to The Athletic about it in a 2022 interview, Baird recalled: “I was fired up for it. Darren (Moore) had come right through me, literally in the first minute. The referee didn’t give anything.

“Then he came through me again, and the referee gave a foul. The third time, I lost it. I just turned around and tried to wallop him. There was a big melee. Everyone knew what was at stake.”

Both players were dismissed (it was one of 11 sendings off in Baird’s career) and thankfully Stuart Storer’s memorably-scrambled goal in the 67th minute settled the game in Albion’s favour, although Baird admitted: “It was nerve-racking. I felt guilty that I’d let my team-mates down, let everybody down by getting sent off. It was a massive relief when we won.”

Thankfully, disciplinary rules were different back then (bans were only applied 14 days after the offence) and Baird was able to play his part in the match at Hereford when a 1-1 draw ensured Albion stayed up and The Bulls went down.

*Baird’s exploits for the Albion highlighted in the matchday programme*

Brighton were the tenth and last league club Baird had played for and he had only ended up with the Seagulls because of a pre-season falling out with Plymouth Argyle manager Neil Warnock.

Living near Southampton, only a 15-minute drive from Brighton manager Jimmy Case, a move east along the coast made good geographical sense, and a £35,000 fee took him to the Goldstone at the start of the 1996-97 season.

“Whenever I’d played against Brighton, I seemed to score,” Baird told The Athletic. “I loved the Goldstone Ground and there was the lure of playing for Jimmy.”

Although born in Rotherham on 1 April 1964, Baird had moved to Southampton with his family, via Glasgow, when he was a young lad, his father having sailed from the port when he worked on the Queen Mary.

After surviving meningitis as a six-year-old, Baird’s footballing ability saw him turn out for Bitterne Saints, St. Mary’s College, Southampton, Southampton and Hampshire Schools. He joined Southampton on schoolboy terms after he’d been spotted in the same boys’ team, Sarisbury Sparks, as Lawrie McMenemy’s son, Sean.

Baird won two England schoolboy caps: he was in England’s Victory Shield team that beat Wales 2-1 at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground on 27 April 1979, playing alongside Rideout and winger Mark Walters, who went on to star for Aston Villa, Rangers and Liverpool.

In the same competition, he also played at St James’ Park – two days after Brighton had won 3-1 on the same pitch to win promotion to the top division for the first time in the club’s history.

On 7 May 1979, young England drew 1-1 with Scotland and 14-year-old Rideout’s goal was enough to enable England to retain the Victory Shield. The following month, Baird was an unused sub when England drew 2-2 with West Germany at Wembley.

Baird was offered pro terms by Swindon, but he chose instead to sign for his adopted home town club. However, with McMenemy preferring the more experienced Frank Worthington and Joe Jordan, Baird was restricted to 21 starts and three sub appearances for Saints, and, after that loan spell at Newcastle, he moved to Leeds.

His two spells at Leeds (sandwiched either side of an unhappy time at Portsmouth) produced 50 goals in more than 160 appearances and he was in the Leeds side alongside Mervyn Day and Micky Adams that lost the 1986-87 Division Two play-off final to a Charlton Athletic team that included his future Brighton boss Steve Gritt and teammate John Humphrey.

Baird scored 19 goals that season for Billy Bremner’s side, four of them in the FA Cup as United reached the semi-final where they were beaten 3-2 by eventual cup winners Coventry City.

He had taken Saints’ teammate Jordan’s advice to move to Leeds and his next move was to Scotland where Jordan was in charge of Hearts. He later played under the Scottish international striker at Bristol City too.

*The Pilgrim who fell out with Neil Warnock*

Baird scored six in 29 appearances for Plymouth before that move to Brighton. Discipline might have been a problem but Baird scored eight goals in 10 games from January 1997 as nine wins and a draw at the Goldstone went a huge way to enabling Albion to escape the drop.

As Albion began the 1997-98 season in exile at Gillingham, Baird began the campaign with a three-match ban for that red card against Doncaster — and it wasn’t long before he was seeing red again!

It came in the 13^th game of the season and it was certainly unlucky for Baird, well, unlucky in that a linesman spotted his off-the-ball headbutt on a Chester defender. Gritt publicly condemned Baird’s “out of order” behaviour and stripped him of the captaincy.

The following month, with another knee operation required, a surgeon advised him to pack in the game and he left Brighton in December that year having scored 14 goals in 41 appearances in 16 months.

“At least we kept Brighton up,” he told The Athletic. “There were a multitude of problems, it was a weird period, but it was a big thing.”

Post-Brighton, Baird ended up coaching in Hong Kong and was put in charge of the national side for three Asian Cup qualifiers, playing in Jakarta in front of 75,000 people, and then in Cambodia in front of 1,200 people. “It was certainly an experience, that is for sure,” he said.

Baird eventually returned to Hampshire, developed business interests in the vehicle sales and leasing and sports gear industries, while keeping his football links going in non-league circles: at Eastleigh, Sutton United and Havant & Waterlooville.

*Baird certainly never ducked a challenge*

Tommy Elphick’s cherry picking ride to coaching

MEADOW LANE, Nottingham, is probably not one of Tommy Elphick’s favourite grounds. When he left the pitch on a stretcher in the 53^rd minute on 7 May 2011, it was a great opportunity for the youngster who replaced him – Lewis Dunk – but for Elphick it was a turning point in a fledgling, promising career with his hometown club.

League One champions Brighton drew 1-1 with Notts County that day but, as they looked forward to playing Championship football in the shiny new American Express Community Stadium at Falmer, Elphick was sidelined for the whole of the following season with a ruptured Achilles tendon injury.

Unsurprisingly, others made the most of his absence. Although he briefly returned to first team action in a pre-season friendly v Lewes in August 2012, the level of competition by then made him realise he would need to move elsewhere to get back in the groove.

That’s when he began an association with AFC Bournemouth that continues now as first team coach, retained by the club in spite of the man who appointed him (Gary O’Neil) being replaced as manager.

As a player, Elphick took a step back to make a stride forward, dropping down a division to join the Cherries and ended up reaching the ‘promised land’ of the Premier League before the Albion.

“To say it worked out well for me was an understatement,” Elphick told Nick Szczepanik in an Albion website interview in 2020. Little wonder he is hailed as “the most successful captain in the history of AFC Bournemouth” having led them to promotions from League One in 2013 and the Championship in 2015, when he was ever-present and named Cherries supporters’ player of the season.

En route to that achievement, he finally got to play at the Amex – on 1 January 2014 – but it was in the red and black stripes of the Cherries in a 1-1 Championship draw.

*At the Amex in Bournemouth’s red and black stripes*

Interviewed in that game’s matchday programme, he admitted: “I’m buzzing for it. I was the first Brighton player contracted to play at the Amex but obviously my Achilles injury conspired against me and I never got the opportunity.

“Having been with the club since a kid, as we went through all the struggles the dream was always to run out at the new stadium at Falmer. It was disappointing that it never happened for me.”

Born in Brighton on 7 September 1987, Elphick played locally for Woodingdean FC before linking up with the Albion academy at the age of 11 after impressing head of youth Martin Hinshelwood.

In his early days with Brighton, he came under the influence of Vic Bragg who he described as “a very astute tactician” whose “coaching drills were excellent and kept us on our toes”.

In a matchday programme article, he said of Bragg: “While he has a heart of gold and is genuinely a nice guy, you didn’t want to cross him on a bad day – but if he did have a word in your ear, it was always constructive.”

It was under Mark McGhee that Elphick made his first team debut (above) in December 2005, going on as a 73^rd minute sub away to Reading in a 5-1 mauling after his older brother Gary had earlier been sent off on his full debut.

“I’m Brighton born and bred, I was a fan at Withdean before I played, and even remember doing a bucket collection on the touchline at Priestfield (when Albion were in exiled at Gillingham) in a bid to raise money for some new jumpers for us youth-team players.

“To then go on and make my debut, having come through the system under Dean Wilkins, well it doesn’t get any better than that.

“That was the highlight for me; being one of seven players from the youth-team set-up to make it to the first team.”

Gary didn’t play for the Seagulls again and Tommy had to wait until April 2007 to make his first start, by which time his old youth team coach Wilkins was in charge of the first team. That game also ended in a defeat, 2-0 to Doncaster, and it was only the following season that he established himself as a starter, initially playing alongside Guy Butters and Joel Lynch and later Adam El Abd and Gordon Greer.

A personal highlight was winning the Player of the Season accolade at the end of his first full season (2007-08), and he went on to captain the side on many occasions, as well as being part of the team that won the League One title.

“Brighton are the club who gave me my chance in the game, who shaped me as a footballer and a person,” he said.

As well as McGhee and Wilkins, Elphick’s 182 Seagulls appearances also spread across the reigns of Micky Adams, Russell Slade and Gus Poyet.

The changes introduced by Poyet really struck home with Elphick, who told Spencer Vignes: “From day one there was absolute clarity in terms of what he expected from us, with a few simple rules to start with, which he built on week by week.

“We were in the lower reaches of the table and flirting with relegation, so for him to come in and demand that we play the way he saw the game was unbelievable really.

“A lot of managers would’ve tried to tighten the ship and play a more basic brand of football, but his football was based around possession.

“The style he produced, the football we played and what we went on to do for the next two or three years was phenomenal.”

But Elphick appreciated others too, saying: “I had such a good grounding as a kid and I’m so lucky to have played under some great managers and coaches.”

As a pointer to how things have panned out, he said: “I definitely want to stay in the game, coach, and hopefully manage one day.”

Reflecting on the League One title-winning campaign, Elphick told Szczepanik: “I relished the way we played in that season. I was brought up to play that way in the youth teams under Vic Bragg, Martin Hinshelwood and Dean Wilkins, who all wanted the game played in the right way.

“We lost our way a little after Dean left and we didn’t really have any style until Gus Poyet came to the club and revolutionised it. It was something I was enjoying until I got that injury. But if I hadn’t been injured, would I have ended up at Bournemouth?”

Elphick had signed a new contract with Albion when the move to Bournemouth in League One came up. “In theory it was a step down, but for me it was important to get back playing again,” he said.

The 2011-12 season had been a wipe-out as far as he was concerned because an infection and a repeat of the initial injury ruled out any chance of a swift comeback. He was operated on in Finland by the same surgeon (Professor Sakari Orava) who had performed similar surgery on David Beckham.

It was fully 16 months between the initial injury and playing 45 minutes of a pre-season friendly at Lewes in July 2012. “The idea had been to go out on loan and there were four or five different options, but Bournemouth were looking to have a right go at getting promoted and when I went down to meet the manager, Paul Groves, and the chairman, I was taken by the plans they had for the club,” said Elphick.

“Paul’s assistant, Shaun Brooks, was quite close to Dean Wilkins, and used to come and watch the Brighton youth team, so there was a connection there. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out for Paul and Shaun but that led to Eddie Howe coming back to the club.”

After making 145 appearances for Bournemouth, in 2016 Elphick moved on to Aston Villa, who he had scored against for Brighton at Villa Park in a 3-2 FA Cup defeat three years earlier (below left).

In the summer of 2016, Villa, under Roberto di Matteo, had just been relegated to the Championship and wanted Elphick as their captain as they aimed to bounce straight back to the Premier League.

He was di Matteo’s first signing as Villa manager – and he can thank a very understanding wife that the move went through smoothly.

Elphick cut short his honeymoon to get cracking with his new club, telling the Birmingham Mail: “As soon as I heard about Villa’s interest it’s something that turned my head straight away.

“To be able to come here and represent such a great club with such great history is going to be a real honour for me.”

However, it wasn’t long before Steve Bruce took over from di Matteo and he preferred a different centre-back pairing, meaning Elphick spent most of the second half of the season on the subs bench. I recollect him going on for Villa in the last game of the season when Albion hoped to clinch the Championship title only to concede a late equaliser when a shot from Jack Grealish squirmed through David Stockdale’s grasp.

In January of the following year, Elphick went out on loan to Reading for half a season (but only played four games) and he began the first half of the 2018-19 season on loan at Hull City, playing 18 games under Nigel Adkins.

Because of injuries to others, he was recalled to Villa at the start of 2019 by Bruce’s replacement Dean Smith. He played 14 matches but was not involved in the end-of-season play-off final when they finally earned promotion back to the Premier League (beating Derby County 2-1).

Interviewed by the Birmingham Mail about his three years at Villa, Elphick replied: “Tough, unbelievable, disappointing, anger – I had every emotion but I wouldn’t change it for the world because it’s created who I am now.

“What I saw and experienced at Villa was mental, good and bad. A big club brings different pressures and different pitfalls and you have to experience that to know what you could be dealt with further down the line.

“It was really troubled and there was poison in the brickworks to start with. Steve Bruce did the most unbelievable job at weeding that out and bringing it all together.

“He wasn’t a manager I particularly took a shine to in the way he coached or managed but he taught me a lot about how to bring people together and how to create a group.

“I experienced working under Roberto di Matteo, a Champions League-winning manager, and Steve Bruce, one of the most successful managers in the Championship. Dean Smith was a bit of a trailblazer and did some powerful stuff.”

After two injury-ravaged seasons at Huddersfield Town, when he managed just 14 games for the Terriers, Elphick quit playing to embark on a coaching career that always seemed to be his destination.

He reckoned it was that long spell out injured while at Brighton that helped his move into coaching because he had time to watch and understand football in a way that wouldn’t have happened if he’d been playing every weekend.

He returned to Bournemouth as coach of their development squad, explaining to premierleague.com: “I was delighted to work alongside Shaun Cooper with the 21s. I was very, very lucky to work with such an outstanding coach, and I learned so much. That period also opened my eyes to the time and effort required to do this job properly.

“In truth, academy football probably had a lifespan for me, but it was an invaluable year.”

When Parker lost his job in the wake of a 9-0 humbling by Liverpool, Cooper and Elphick were promoted to work alongside new boss Gary O’Neil.

“There are benefits and negatives to being thrust into that situation,” admitted Elphick. “I would love to have spent more time coaching, experimenting, and finding out who I really am on the grass before going into such a high-pressure situation, but it was an opportunity which had to be grabbed with both hands.”

Elphick told Adrian Clarke: “At the outset, none of us had coached at Premier League level before, but we went in, took the handbrake off and went for it. Thankfully, the three us had a nice blend.”

Elphick absorbed plenty from O’Neil’s way of working and observed: “Premier League football is such a high-level now that as a coach, if you’re put on the spot you need to be able to answer questions or offer advice on all aspects of the game. My intention is to become as well-rounded as possible.”

After helping Andoni Iraola settle in as new head coach, Elphick has relished his supporting role although he confessed: “I’ve always wanted to manage, and down the line I’d like to put my principles and ideas into practice. It’s an itch I will need to scratch, but there is no rush.

“Right now, I just feel so lucky to have experienced contrasting styles in O’Neil and Iraola, and I have learned an incredible amount from both men. I really resonate with Andoni, and the way he wants his team to play with emotion, and he places a lot of emphasis on spirit.

“What I have learned so far is that to be a successful coach you firstly need strong beliefs. Then, you must deliver your messages with consistency and confidence, and of course be authentic, true to yourself.”

Andy Crosby enjoyed the taste of success with Brighton

ROCK-solid centre-half Andy Crosby won a Division 3 Championship medal with the Albion in 2001 before experiencing two frustrating near-miss seasons as captain of Oxford United.

Brighton’s achievement provided him with his first-ever promotion, but it didn’t turn out to be his last: he climbed out of the same division with Scunthorpe United and then, against all the odds, reached the Championship with the Iron – twice.

Micky Adams, who was a player at Leeds when Crosby was in their youth ranks, had been unsuccessful in trying to sign the defender when he was in charge of Brentford.

But as Adams set about building his first squad at the Albion, he managed to secure Crosby’s services for a £10,000 fee in the summer of 1999.

“I didn’t need any convincing at all to sign,” said Crosby. “It was good timing for me and it worked out fantastically well,” he told Richard Walker. “Sometimes it’s hard to see where you’re going when you’re just keeping your head down and working hard at a struggling club so the Albion did wonders for my career.”

In a matchday programme interview with Spencer Vignes, he added: “I couldn’t wait to sign. Even at that level, I still thought of them as a big club.

“My only reservations were that I’d never lived down south and that we’d just bought a house. We also had a one-year-old daughter. But in the end the pros outweighed the cons.”

The family moved into a house at Stone Cross, near Eastbourne, and Crosby made his debut (albeit with a broken toe!) in the 6-0 Withdean win over Mansfield (as featured in my recent blog post about Darren Freeman).

He developed an effective central defensive partnership with Danny Cullip, and he said: “Although we were very different characters away from the 90 minutes, something really clicked between us and everyone knows how vital it is to have a good centre-half pairing, just as much as a good front two working for each other.

“Our paths have crossed since, and the talk’s always of great memories from Brighton days.”

Hired as a stopper rather than a scorer, Crosby helpfully weighed in with five goals as Albion found their feet back in Sussex.

Then in the following season, Crosby was at the heart of the defence when Albion won the league. “That win down at Plymouth and the home game against Chesterfield where we sealed the Championship will stay with me forever,” he said. “It was just an amazing ride.”

Crosby continued: “We had this great spirit, a team desperate to do really well.

*Pouncing to score and celebrate against future employer Hull City*

“I’ve got nothing but good memories of the place. It was the first time I’d ever been involved in a promotion campaign as a player. For the first time in my life, I was seeing on a day-to-day basis what it takes to be successful.

“We played some great football and the fans were fantastic. I’ve said it before but if you can’t play for them you can’t play for anyone.”

He added: “Withdean was a funny place but somehow we were able to use it to our advantage. Other clubs didn’t like playing there.”

Once elevated to the higher level, Crosby lost his starting place to Simon Morgan and Adams’ successor Peter Taylor continued with Cullip and Morgan as his preferred centre-back pairing.

By then 28, Crosby didn’t fancy a watching brief and in December 2001 he moved on a free transfer to Oxford, the first United signing made by Ian Atkins. He said: “I didn’t want to go, and Peter said he wanted me to stay, but I wanted to play. Going to Oxford meant first team football.”

Although Crosby’s first half season with Oxford saw them struggle near the foot of the division, the 2002-03 campaign ended with them only a point off the play-off places and the central defender scored winning goals in four of the 53 matches he played.

It got better for him on a personal level the next season when his fellow pros named him in the 2003-04 PFA team of the year, but United missed out on the play-offs by three points.

Another string to Crosby’s bow at Oxford was being an accomplished penalty taker. He never missed a spot kick in normal play and, in 2003-04, one of the five he buried was at Scunthorpe’s Glanford Park.

In the summer of 2004, he declined a new contract believed to have been on worse terms than the previous one and chose to move back to the north to join Scunny.

Nonetheless, the Oxford Mail said of him: “The 31-year-old centre back has been a model of consistency in his time at the Kassam Stadium.

“Ideally suited to the Third Division with his uncompromising, no-nonsense style, the hard-tackling defender, who is also good in the air, was also greatly respected by his teammates for his cool professionalism.”

He may have started out in the basement division with Scunthorpe, but what followed was the stuff of dreams. Crosby himself later admitted: “When I joined, if someone had told me I’d be playing for Scunthorpe in the Championship, I would have called them a doctor.

“But it reaffirms your belief in football a little bit, especially when you’re involved first-hand, to see a club of Scunthorpe’s size still being able to pull off what was nothing short of a minor miracle.”

In an interview with the Scunny website, Crosby pointed out: “I was 31 when I arrived at Scunthorpe and I had to use my knowledge and experience in whatever capacity I could, and set standards on and off the pitch. It was something I enjoyed doing and I think it’s something that’s either in you or it’s not.

“My whole time at Scunthorpe was great and I never thought when I signed that we’d get to the Championship twice. It was fantastic and the highlight of my career without a shadow of a doubt.

“I was captain of a promotion-winning team from League One to the Championship, playing at some massive stadiums.”

Although knee injury issues limited him to nine appearances in the 2008-09 season, he was restored to the side for the play-offs and led Scunny to a 3-2 League One play-off final win over Millwall at Wembley in May 2009 (Matt Sparrow scored twice for Scunny).

“It was a great way to end playing,” he admitted. “I have some fantastic memories and look back at my time at the club with nothing but fondness.”

By then he had already been working as assistant manager to Nigel Adkins, the former Iron physio and after playing a total of 715 games for six league clubs he was also Adkins’ assistant manager at Southampton, Reading, Sheffield United, Hull City and Tranmere Rovers.

Crosby, who took over from Adkins as manager of League Two Tranmere in February 2025, said “I’ve got a fantastic relationship with Nigel. He’s been fantastic for me, changed me as a person and polished off a few of the rough edges. I’ve got nothing but great words to say about him.”

In an interview with tribalfootball.com, he said: “My coaching journey has been full of learning experiences, and I’m a much better coach now than when I started. I was fortunate to work with some fantastic players.

“My best experience was at Southampton, where we achieved back-to-back promotions from League One to the Premier League, working with incredible players like Lallana, Lambert, and Schneiderlin. Even the difficult moments teach you a lot, though. Results didn’t always go our way, but even then, those experiences helped me grow as a coach.”

Crosby also saw the development of the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Ward-Prowse and Luke Shaw during nearly two and a half years at Southampton. While at Bramall Lane, he also worked with future England internationals Aaron Ramsdale and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Even at Hull, he had the fortune to work with Fikayo Tomori, on loan from Chelsea, and Jarrod Bowen.

Born in Rotherham on 3 March 1973, miner’s son Crosby was raised in the village of Maltby. He supported the Millers as a youngster but was rejected by them as a player when he was 11. At 14, though, he was taken on at Leeds.

When he didn’t progress beyond the youth team at Elland Road, former Leeds captain and manager Billy Bremner took him on at Doncaster Rovers and gave him his league debut aged 18.

He played 60 times for Donny over a couple of seasons (and spent a month on loan at Conference side Halifax) before moving to the north east and spending five years at Darlington, notching up a total of 211 appearances.

He was captain of the losing side in the 1996 Third Division play-off final at Wembley when Jim Platt’s Darlo lost by a single goal to Neil Warnock’s Plymouth Argyle.

Off-field financial issues marred his time at Chester City in the 1998-99 season, so his move to Brighton was a welcome change.

Reflecting on that time with the Seagulls, he said: “In any walk of life, if you get a really good group together, recruit well and get good characters in who complement each other well, then you should succeed. A lot of that was down to Micky.

“It was the fittest I’ve ever been – that was down to him – but that work and organisation brought its reward which is something I’ve taken with me into my own coaching career.”

Before his current (August 2025) position at Prenton Park, he also coached the Northern Ireland under 21 international side and spent three years coaching and managing at Port Vale.

Champion medal surprise for man on the mic Aspinall

THE starry-eyed teenager who made half a dozen top level appearances for eventual league champions Everton had to wait a long time for his share of that distant glory.

But Warren Aspinall was nonetheless delighted when his contribution to the Toffees achievement in 1986-87 was finally recognised with a medal more than 30 years later.

That’s happened since I last featured Aspinall in this blog, which recalled his early days at hometown club Wigan Athletic and darker days after he had ended his playing days in the blue and white stripes of the Albion (three goals in 24 starts plus 13 as sub) in the 1999-2000 season.

Aspinall is now more often heard rather than seen by Brighton supporters who listen to match commentaries on Radio Sussex, and it was commentator Johnny Cantor, who the summariser sits alongside for the regional BBC radio station’s coverage of all Albion’s games, who instigated a presentation of the belated honour.

“It was JC who pushed it forward and he kept it to himself before surprising me with the news that Everton would be making a presentation,” Aspinall told the matchday programme. “I was shocked but absolutely over the moon.”

The number of games to qualify for a winners’ medal used to be 14, or a third of the season, but the EFL in 2021 decided retrospectively to fall in line with the Premier League which awards medals to players who’ve made a minimum of five appearances.

Aspinall had been unaware of the rule change but Cantor had words in the right places and when Albion played at Goodison Park on 3 January 2023, the former player was finally presented with his medal by Graeme Sharp, one of his fellow Everton forwards back in the day who subsequently became an Everton director.

It’s probably a good job the presentation was made before the game because Albion romped to a 4-1 win that day with goals from Karou Mitoma, full debut-making Evan Ferguson, Solly March and Pascal Gross.

“The medal means the world to me and my family and it now sits proudly on my mantelpiece along with my England under 20 caps,” said Aspinall.

He earned the first of those two caps in the same month that Everton paid £125,000 to sign the 18-year-old from Wigan Athletic, although he saw out the season on loan with the Latics.

He featured in Young England’s 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland at Elland Road, Leeds, and the following month was in the side that suffered a 4-1 defeat to Scotland at Aberdeen’s Pittodrie ground. Tottenham’s David Howells and Neil Ruddock, then of Millwall, also played in both matches, as did Millwall goalkeeper Brian Horne.

*Teenager Aspinall signs for Everton’s Howard Kendall watched by Wigan boss Bryan Hamilton*

On his return to Goodison Park at the end of the 1985-86 season, Aspinall was on the bench for the last league game (Kendall rested several players because it was five days before the FA Cup Final, which Everton lost 3-1 to Liverpool) and he made his debut in the 3-1 home win over West Ham when going on for two-goal Gary Lineker, who was playing his last league game for Everton before joining Barcelona.

Everton finished as league runners up that season but they went one better the following season, when competition for forward places saw manager Howard Kendall able to pick Sharp and Adrian Heath as his preferred pair, with Paul Wilkinson and Ian Marshall as alternatives. It meant Aspinall’s playing contributions came in the form of nine league and cup appearances as a substitute (he was also a non-playing sub on four occasions). Although first team chances were limited, he bagged plenty of goals for the club’s reserve side, netting 21 in 23 games.

That was enough to convince former Celtic stalwart Billy McNeill, in charge of relegation-bound Aston Villa, to splash £300,000 to take him to Villa Park – where competition for a starting spot was again daunting, with Andy Gray, Gary Shaw, Simon Stainrod and Garry Thompson all striker options.

Aspinall made his Villa debut on 21 February 1987 in a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool and by the season’s end, while his former Everton teammates were lifting the league trophy, he was part of a Villa side that was bottom of the pile.

McNeill was duly sacked and the picture changed the following season when Aspinall was joint top-scorer as Graham Taylor’s Villa bounced straight back to the top tier as runners up behind Millwall.

“Garry Thompson and I hit it off up front and we had such a good understanding that we kept Alan McInally out of the team for a long time,” he told Villa supporter Colin Abbott. “Garry was good to play alongside because he was like a battering ram and I fed off him.”

Aspinall made his 50th and final appearance for Villa on 7 May 1988 in a 0-0 draw away to Swindon (playing left back for Villa was Bernie Gallacher and in the opposition line-up was Colin Calderwood and Kieran O’Regan).

Already warned by Taylor that he needed to improve ill discipline that had resulted in too many cautions, Aspinall got himself sent off for stamping in a pre-season friendly against St Mirren and Taylor transfer-listed him.

England World Cup winner Alan Ball, in charge at recently relegated Portsmouth, seized the moment and took him to Fratton Park for a fee of £315,000 in August 1988, where his teammates included Mark Chamberlain and Terry Connor. In six years with Pompey, Aspinall also played under John Gregory, Frank Burrows, caretaker Tony Barton and Jim Smith.

Briefer stays followed along the coast at Bournemouth (loan and permanent), Swansea City (loan) and two seasons at Carlisle United.

Keen to return to the south, Micky Adams first signed him when he had taken over as manager at Brentford and he made 48 appearances (plus three as sub) for the Bees but Aspinall then went on loan and then permanently to Colchester United for nine months before Adams brought him on loan and then permanently to the Albion in the autumn of 1999. It was a part exchange for midfielder Andy Arnott.

In only his third game, Aspinall was a delighted scorer of the only goal on his old stomping ground of Brunton Park as Albion returned to Sussex with all the points. The News of the World said: “Former Carlisle favourite Warren Aspinall seized on Billy Barr’s poor back pass to chip keeper Andy Dibble.”

In the Argus, Andy Naylor wrote: “The colourful midfielder then dashed towards the Albion supporters huddled in the seats on a drizzly day in Cumbria before sliding full-length on the greasy turf.”

Aspinall continued his celebration with a finger-on-lip gesture and an ear cupped towards the home support. He told the matchday programme: “I heard the keeper shout for the ball and anticipated the defender’s pass. I think I showed a great turn of pace for a veteran.”

In fact, Aspinall was 32 when he joined the Seagulls and he added experience to a side that went on to finish its first season back in Brighton in 11^th place in the fourth tier

At the start of the following season, when he went on as a sub for Gary Hart in Brighton’s home 2-1 win over Rochdale (Bobby Zamora scored both Albion goals), it was to be his last ever appearance.

Suffering from the niggle of a piece of floating bone in his right ankle, he followed physio advice to have it removed in what was expected to be a routine operation. But while in hospital, he caught the MSRA superbug which ate away tendons and ligaments in his ankle.

“They eventually said I would never play football again as a result. I was finished,” he told The News, Portsmouth, in a graphic account of the trauma. “Yet now I needed an operation to get rid of this infection, which involved me scheduled to stay on a hospital ward for 14 days, attached to an intravenous drip while antibiotics were fed into my body.

“After 13 days, my body broke out in a rash from head to toe. It had rejected the drug. So, I had the operation once more – and it happened again. After 13 days, my body rejected it.

“For 28 days I’d been on that hospital ward, so I was then offered the chance to return home if I underwent an operation to insert two tubes into my heart, one for the intravenous drip to enter and the other to take blood out.

“That sounded good to me – apart from my heart subsequently stopping during the procedure. I died. I’m told it was for a few seconds, but I died on that operating table,’ Aspinall told The News. “But they brought me back, and I was allowed to go home to Hedge End, with a district nurse checking on me every day, even Christmas Day.

“There were two six-inch tubes hanging out of my chest, with the nurse taking blood out of one and putting the drugs into the other.

“I lived. The antibiotics killed the superbug, but my career ended there and then. I was aged 33, with nothing planned, no coaching badges. I had to go into the real world.”

The story of what happened in his post-playing days – battles against gambling and alcohol addictions – have been well documented in various media interviews, including a detailed one with the Birmingham Mail in October 2012, when he spoke openly about a near-miss suicide attempt.

He has been Cantor’s co-commentator on Albion matches for Radio Sussex since 2015.

In parallel lines

Memories from more than 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Micky Adams