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*

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.

Fiery Ian Baird saw red in crucial last Goldstone game

FIERY Ian Baird was no stranger to yellow and red cards – in five games for Newcastle United he was booked three times!

And in Brighton’s last ever game at the Goldstone Ground, against Doncaster Rovers, Baird was sent off long before the game had even reached half time.

Something of a disciple of Joe Jordan, the tenacious centre forward who starred for Leeds United and Manchester United, Baird was his teammate at Southampton and played under the Scot at Hearts in Scotland and at Bristol City.

Baird didn’t fear incurring the wrath of supporters, happily playing for arch-rival clubs in his pursuit of goals. Indeed, on Teesside he earned a place in fans’ folklore by scoring two goals in an end-of-season clash that not only kept Middlesbrough up but prevented their noisy north-east neighbours Newcastle from getting automatic promotion to the elite (to make matters worse, they then lost a play-off semi-final to Sunderland).

Baird scored twice in that 4-1 win over United on the final day of the 1989-90 season at Ayresome Park, and earlier the same season he’d scored a winner for Leeds United against Newcastle at Elland Road.

Baird played on the south coast for both Southampton and Portsmouth before making the Albion his 10^th and last English league club. He joined for £35,000 from Plymouth Argyle when the club was in turmoil off the field and floundering at the bottom of the basement division. But he went on to net 14 goals in 41 games.

He spoke about the move to Tim Ashton of the Sutton and Croydon Guardian in July 2016. “I was at Plymouth, and Jimmy Case took me on and explained all the problems to me about the likes of (David) Bellotti,” he said.

“To be honest, as a player, all you are bothered about is making sure you get your wage, and you’re not really taking any notice of what he is saying.

“I played at Brighton on many occasions, I have been there with Leeds and Middlesbrough, and it was always a favourite place of mine to go – and as soon as I got there as a player, I knew the importance of survival.”

Baird continued: “Brighton are a big club, and I could not believe what was happening. It took a strain on Jimmy, that’s for sure, and he was not the man he was normally with all the pressure.

“Then he was sacked and we were 12 points adrift at Christmas – they brought in Steve Gritt, and he brought a different kind of management.

“It got to February and March time, then all of a sudden Doncaster Rovers and Hereford were sucked into it – we had to beat Doncaster in the final (home) game.”

Sent off 11 times in his career, it was his dismissal just 18 minutes into that game in 1997 that threatened the very existence of the club – and he was captain that day!

Baird later told portsmouth.co.uk: “It was just a natural thing really. Sometimes my enthusiasm got the better of me. There were plenty of times I chinned someone or got into trouble.

“The most stupid one was when me and Darren Moore had a fight. He was playing for Doncaster and I was playing for Brighton in the last game at their old Goldstone Ground.

“He came through the back of me, there was a bit of afters and I ended up trying to give him a right hook, and there was a bit of a ruck.

“We had a bit of rough and tumble and I was just lucky he didn’t chase me up the tunnel because he’s huge!”

Thankfully, Albion famously still won that match courtesy of Stuart Storer’s memorable winner. Because red card bans were delayed for 14 days back then, Baird was able to play in what has since been recognised as the most important game in the club’s history: away to Hereford United.

As the history books record, it was Robbie Reinelt, on as a sub, who stepped into the breach to rescue a point for the Albion, enough to preserve their league status and to send the Bulls down.

In November of the following season, Baird still had six months left on his Brighton contract, but a surgeon told him he should not play pro football any more because of a troublesome knee, so he decided to retire.

But, when he had turned 35, he said: “I had a phone call from Mick Leonard (former Notts County and Chesterfield player) who played in Hong Kong, and he said they were desperate for a striker.

“I went for a month’s trial and ended up signing an 18-month deal. My knee flared up again and they offered me a coaching role, and it ended up with me managing the side.”

He added: “Then I was put in charge of the national side for the Asian Cup qualifiers and we played 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.”

Over the 17 years of his league career, Baird commanded a total of £1.7m in transfer fees; £500,000 Boro paid Leeds being the highest.

Although born in Rotherham on 1 April 1964, the family moved first to Glasgow and then Southampton when Baird was small, his father having sailed from the south coast port when working on the Queen Mary.

The always comprehensive saintsplayers.co.uk notes the young Baird survived meningitis as a six-year-old and later came to the attention of Southampton when appearing in the same boys team, Sarisbury Sparks, as their manager Lawrie McMenemy’s son, Sean.

The excellent ozwhitelufc.net.au details how Baird’s footballing ability saw him play for Bitterne Saints, St. Mary’s College, Southampton, Southampton and Hampshire Schools, before earning England Schoolboy caps in 1978-79 alongside the likes of Trevor Steven and Mark Walters.

He was offered terms by Swindon Town but he chose to stay closer to home and Southampton took him on as an apprentice in July 1980. He turned professional in April 1982 but McMenemy’s preference for old stagers Frank Worthington and the aforementioned Jordan limited his opportunities and he made just 21 appearances for Saints, plus three as a sub, scoring five times.

He was sent out on loan a couple of times: to Cardiff City in November 1983, where he scored six goals in twelve League games, and that spell at Jack Charlton’s Newcastle in December 1984 where aside from a booking in each of his four starts and one appearance from the bench, he scored once – in a 2-1 defeat at West Brom on Boxing Day.

Taking the advice of former teammate Jordan, Baird signed for Eddie Gray at Second Division Leeds in March 1985 and undoubtedly his most successful playing years were there, in two separate spells.

He played more than 160 matches and scored 50 goals. In the 1986-87 season, Gray’s successor, Billy Bremner, made him captain. The Yorkshire Evening Post spoke of “the powerhouse striker’s fearless commitment, no-holds-barred approach and goalscoring ability”.

In the blurb introducing his autobiography Bairdy’s Gonna Get Ya! (written by Leeds fan Marc Bracha) it says “he’s best remembered for his spells at Leeds, where goals, endless running, will to win and fearless approach ensured he was adored by the fans”.

In the 1987-88 season, though, he was wooed by the prospect of playing at the higher level he had just missed out on with Leeds (they’d lost in end-of-season play-offs) and signed for Alan Ball at Portsmouth for £250,000; he later described it as “the worse move I ever made”.

The season was disrupted by injury and disciplinary problems, and he returned to Leeds the following season, being named their Player of the Year in 1989.

But when ex-Albion winger Howard Wilkinson, then manager of Leeds, signed Lee Chapman, Baird sought the move to Boro. He told Stuart Whittingham in 2013 for borobrickroad.co.uk:

“I felt a little aggrieved and basically I spat the dummy out and asked for a move.

“He (Wilkinson) said that he didn’t want me to go but I insisted and within 24 hours I was speaking to Bruce Rioch and Colin Todd and I was on my way to Middlesbrough.”

Curiously, though, when Leeds won promotion at the end of the season, Baird picked up a medal because he had played his part in the achievement.

At the end of the 1990-91 season, Baird spent two years playing for Hearts under Jordan, although a torn thigh muscle restricted the number of appearances he’d hoped to make and at the end of his deal he moved back to England and signed for Bristol City, initially under Russell Osman and then Jordan once again.

After his experience in Hong Kong, Baird returned to Hampshire to put down roots back in Southampton, and pursued business interests in vehicle sales/leasing and the sports gear industry. He also spent five years managing Eastleigh before becoming Paul Doswell’s assistant at Sutton United. He then followed him to Havant & Waterlooville in May 2019.

Flu-hit Flinders came to the rescue in a goalkeeping crisis

AN UNDERSTUDY to eccentric Crystal Palace goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly played a dozen games in goal for Brighton in the spring of 2007.

Scott Flinders was just 20, and suffering from the effects of a bout of ‘flu, when he answered a call from fledgling manager Dean Wilkins to help solve a goalkeeper crisis.

With first choice Michel Kuipers injured, Wilkins considered it too early to risk rookie ‘keepers Richard Martin and John Sullivan, so he turned to Albion’s arch rivals to borrow 6’ 4” Flinders.

“I always thought Millwall were Palace’s biggest rivals but then I got told, I think it was by Dougie Freedman or Clinton Morrison, that it is Brighton,” Flinders told The Argus. “It didn’t put me off signing. It is just about playing games.”

Flinders made a slightly shaky start in a win away to Gillingham, and in a defeat to Bristol City on his first appearance at Withdean, but he made some important stops to help earn points in consecutive away draws at Crewe and Blackpool.

Manager Wilkins told The Argus: “We knew we were bringing in somebody who was not 100 per cent for the first couple of matches. Scott has recovered from that and he has done very well for us.

“We are still in a position where we need another ‘keeper with a bit more experience than the young lads we’ve got.”

Flinders seemed happy to extend his loan from one month to two and said: “The fans have been absolutely excellent towards me, even though I am coming from a rival club.

“John Keeley, the goalkeeping coach, has been different class and I am delighted to be here.”

Unfortunately, Albion lost all five of their matches in April and finished 18th, six points clear of relegation.

Born in Rotherham on 12 June 1986, Flinders joined nearby Barnsley as a youth trainee in 2003 and made it through to the first team in 2005 when former Albion striker Andy Ritchie was the manager.

He took over from Ross Turnbull and featured in 11 games over three months before losing his place and subsequently having to settle for being understudy to Republic of Ireland international Nick Colgan.

However, Flinders earned his own international recognition in the shape of five caps for the England under 20 side, three of them in the 2005 Toulon tournament. He made his debut in a 3-0 win against the Korean Republic in a side which also featured Liam Ridgewell, Liam Rosenior and Greg Halford.

He kept his place three days later in a 0-0 draw with France, then came on as a sub three days later in a 1-1 draw with Mexico.

In August the same year, he started against Russia but was substituted as the side went down 4-0. A teammate in that one was Will Hoskins. His final match was at Turf Moor when England drew 2-2 with Holland, although he was subbed off again. In that England team was future England centre-back Gary Cahill while the left-back was Gary Borrowdale, who played on loan at Brighton under Russell Slade in 2009.

Frustrated playing second fiddle at Barnsley, Flinders had trials at Chelsea and Wigan Athletic but he ended up at Crystal Palace in 2006 as part of an exchange deal involving midfield player Sam Togwell.

It’s believed Palace paid an initial fee of £250,000 with additional instalments to be paid according to appearances.

However, Flinders only made one league cup appearance before being sent on loan to Gillingham. It was the first of five loans away from Selhurst Park, the lengthiest being his time at Brighton.

Other loan spells saw him spend time with Yeovil Town, Blackpool and Falkirk and he was released by Palace in May 2009 after playing just 13 games for them in three years.

His years of understudying finally came to an end when he headed to the north east in the summer of 2009 and joined Hartlepool United, where he established himself as first-choice ‘keeper.

Flinders even got on the scoresheet while at Hartlepool, scoring with a 94^th minute header against Bournemouth on 30 April 2011 to earn his side a point in the last home game of the season.

The 2012-13 season was a particular triumph for him when he earned the accolades of Player’s Player, Supporter’s Player, Away Player of the Year and Hartlepool Mail SportsMail Player of the Year.

In six years at Hartlepool, he made more appearances – 276 – than any other ‘keeper in the club’s history, eventually moving on in June 2015 to League Two York City.

Flinders received a five-match ban from the Football Association in August 2016 following an incident in a League Two game between York and AFC Wimbledon on 19 March that year.

It was alleged Dons striker Lyle Taylor grabbed Flinders by the testicles and, as he retaliated, the goalkeeper was alleged to have used racist abuse.

Flinders denied the charge but was found guilty by the FA following an independent regulatory commission. Fined £1,250, Flinders was also warned about his future conduct and ordered to complete an education course.

York initially suspended Flinders but then loaned him out to National League rivals Macclesfield Town, who he subsequently joined on a contract from January to June 2017.

On deadline day in August 2017, he joined League Two Cheltenham Town, with boss Gary Johnson telling the club’s website: “Scott has played over 400 league and cup games in his career and there is no substitute for experience.”

In January 2020, Flinders suffered a broken leg in a game against Oldham which put him out of the game for nine months.

Pictures and headlines from The Argus.

‘Have boots, will travel’ striker Steve Claridge mixed it with Lions, Wolves, Foxes – and Seagulls

VETERAN striker Steve Claridge, who saw service with 22 professional and semi-professional clubs, helped Brighton to one of the most amazing smash-and-grab raid wins I’ve ever seen as an Albion fan.

The former Millwall forward answered a plea from his old Lions boss Mark McGhee in November 2004 which paid off big time when the Seagulls snatched a 1-0 win away to West Ham United.

It was the first of only five games Claridge played for second-tier Brighton after McGhee turned to a player who had delivered for him during his spell in charge of Millwall.

Albion went into the game at the Boleyn Ground on 13 November 2004 on the back of three defeats and McGhee was desperate to stem a tide which had seen eight goals conceded and no points on the board.

A trip to West Ham (who ended up being promoted via the play-offs that season) was a daunting prospect if the bad run was to be halted.

However, as McGhee pointed out: “We approached the game differently. Whereas before we thought we could win, today we did not, and played to make sure we didn’t get beaten.

“We kept the ball up front more which is important. Steve Claridge was key to that.

“He is one of the fittest players I’ve worked with and I had no doubt that after 18 months away from this level he would be able to perform.”

Centre back Guy Butters headed the only goal of the game on 68 minutes from Richard Carpenter’s pinpoint pass and the Seagulls held out for an unlikely three points. Hammers boss Alan Pardew had to admit: “Technically they were perfect and obviously came here to play deep and try and nick it on a set piece, which is what they did.”

Claridge’s professional career looked to have run its course after he left Millwall in 2003 and became player-manager of Southern League side Weymouth.

But the disappointment of missing out on promotion had seen him and chairman Ian Ridley leave the club and Claridge, at the age of 38, was keen to give league football another go.

McGhee knew the qualities Claridge could bring to his ailing side having been a popular figure as Millwall came close to promotion from the second tier.

The West Ham success didn’t spark a great revival in Albion’s fortunes, however, and there was only one more win (1-0 at home to Rotherham) during Claridge’s month with the club.

In one of those strange footballing quirks of fate, his fifth and final game for the Seagulls came away to Millwall (see Argus picture at top of article) on 11 December 2004, when Albion lost 2-0.

Claridge said all the right things in a programme feature about him that day, included likening the circumstances of both clubs. “The club has no money and it is tough just to survive, but everyone is in it together,” he said. “At Millwall we had a great team spirit and togetherness, and that is very much the case here.”

Unfortunately, it seemed money was the obstacle that precluded Claridge’s stay at Albion being extended and, after his deal was over, rather than it being one last hurrah, he went on to continue his league playing days at Brentford, Wycombe Wanderers, Gillingham, Bradford City and Walsall.

Then, at the age of 40, and with him needing just one more game to fulfil the landmark of 1,000 professional games, his old club Bournemouth gave him a match against Port Vale on 9 December 2006. No fairy tale, though, as they lost 4-0.

Born in Portsmouth on 10 April 1966, there aren’t many clubs in Hampshire and Dorset that Claridge has not had some kind of association with! Having been brought up in Titchfield, he started out with nearby Fareham Town in 1983. AFC Bournemouth took him on and gave him his debut in 1984 but he only played seven games before moving to Weymouth for three years.

Crystal Palace offered him a route back to the full professional game in 1988 but he didn’t make their league side, instead moving on to fourth tier Aldershot Town.

In two spells with Cambridge United, he scored 46 goals in 132 games. A falling out with manager John Beck saw him sold to Luton Town, and then bought back after Beck’s departure!

Nearly two years later, Birmingham City paid £350,000 to take Claridge to St Andrews and he became one of the club’s most prolific goalscorers, netting 35 in 88 games.

Such form eventually saw him switch to Leicester City and Claridge wrote himself into Foxes’ folklore, scoring winning goals in a play-off final to earn promotion to the elite level, and in the 1997 League Cup Final over Middlesbrough, the last time the competition staged a final replay. That, though, came after an ignominious beginning with Leicester.

McGhee’s successor as manager, Martin O’Neill, signed him for £1.2m in March 1996 and his early form was dreadful. Astonishingly, it seemed his poor start might well have been related to the wrong medication he had been taking for a heart defect for EIGHTEEN years, according to this official Leicester City website report.

In 1998, Leicester sent Claridge on loan to his hometown club, Portsmouth, but, in March 1998, McGhee, then boss at Wolves and seemingly at odds with more established strikers at the club, took Claridge to Molineux for a £350,000 fee. Only five months later he was sold to Portsmouth for £250,000.

Writer Dan Levelle said on an amusing Wolves’ fan website: “He was that amazing food blender you saw at your mate’s house, but you can’t get it to work at all for love nor money.”

Claridge’s time at Molineux was clearly not appreciated by the Molineux faithful, as Levelle revealed in this 2012 piece.

Even more galling for Wolves followers was that no sooner had Claridge made the switch to Portsmouth, he was scoring a hat-trick against them in a 3-1 win at Fratton Park!

The goals and games came thick and fast for Claridge back on home turf – 34 in 104 – but his reign as player-manager at Fratton Park in 2000 was curtailed after just 25 games.

Remembering the player he’d seen only briefly a couple of years earlier, McGhee, by now in charge at Millwall, offered the striker a lifeline with the Lions, initially on loan and then as a permanent signing.

He joined on a temporary basis to cover a period when current boss Neil Harris was banned following a sending off, but, after he hit the ground running, was then tied to a permanent deal, as this Millwall blog post described in 2016.

Writer Mark Litchfield summed him up brilliantly when he said: “His style was unconventional, to say the least: shirt untucked, one sock down and no shin pads, any naïve defender probably thought they could eat him for breakfast. But hard work was a pre-requisite for Claridge – he wouldn’t give any opposition player a moment’s rest and would more often than not always get the better of them, too.”

Few could doubt Claridge’s enthusiasm for the game, as he told the Bradford Telegraph & Argus during his time in Yorkshire.

Even after achieving the 1,000-game landmark courtesy of Bournemouth, Claridge couldn’t resist the lure of another game, turning out for Worthing, Harrow Borough, Weymouth, Gosport Borough and Salisbury.

Many younger readers will know Claridge as a pundit who worked extensively for the BBC on TV and radio and he now coaches youngsters in Salisbury and Warsash through his own scheme, the Steve Claridge Football Foundation.

In parallel lines

Memories from 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Rotherham