Tony Towner on the wing for Brighton at the Goldstone Ground
TONY TOWNER finally got to play in the equivalent of the Premier League only for it to end in disappointment.
Just over ten years after Towner burst onto the football scene with hometown club Brighton, with his old club going in the other direction, he pulled on the old gold of newly-promoted Wolverhampton Wanderers.
It was at the start of the 1983-84 season, with Liverpool at home first up, while relegated Albion faced Oldham away as they reverted to second tier football after four years at the top.
In those days, the competition was known as the Canon League First Division – and it went off in the wrong direction as far as Wolves were concerned, failing to win in their first 14 league matches although that opener ended in a 1-1 draw against the Reds, when Towner joined the action as a sub in the 69th minute.
My previous blog post about Towner in 2017 focused on his early days at Brighton and his subsequently achieving cult hero status at Rotherham United. He had experienced promotions and relegations with both clubs, playing in the second and third tiers.
He had moved on (to Millwall) from Brighton before they reached the elite level for the first time so linking up with Wolves finally gave him the top tier platform that had previously eluded him, signing for a side who’d bounced straight back to the top after relegation in 1982.
The history books record that Towner wasn’t even signed by manager Graham Hawkins, who was on holiday when former Wolves legend Derek Dougan sealed the winger’s £80,000 move from Rotherham in the summer of 1983.
Wolves legend Derek Dougan
While a pundit for Yorkshire TV, Dougan had seen plenty of Towner playing for the Millers and, as chairman and chief executive of Wolves, he reckoned he could do a job at Molineux.
“They needed to add more players, they needed to strengthen, which is always the case for any team getting promoted to the top league,” Towner recalled in a 2021 interview with the Express & Star.
“In the end, I was the only one who came in through the door. I did feel a bit of pressure because of that but I was just concentrating on doing everything I could to be a success.”
Wolves’ finances at the time were not at all healthy and Hawkins’ assistant Jim Barron told wolvesheroes.com: “We started to discover that signing players was going to be difficult. I was on holiday when Graham rang me to say that The Doog had signed Tony Towner – a lovely lad but certainly not one we would have considered to be high-priority.”
Wolves winger Towner tussles for the ball with Tottenham’s Chris Hughton
As it turned out, he made 29 league and cup starts plus six appearances off the bench. He scored just the two goals: in a 3-2 defeat at Sunderland on 7 September 1983 (Gary Rowell was among the Mackem scorers) and with a long range header past Chris Woods in Wolves’ New Year’s Eve 2-0 win over Norwich City.
Sadly, that was one of only six wins all season and in what became a disastrous campaign they were relegated in last place. Hawkins left in February 1984 and Barron was in caretaker charge as they went down.
The fan website alwayswolves.co.uk said: “Towner was a one-season wonder, whom we wondered what all the fuss was about, despite his previous good form at the likes of Brighton and Rotherham.”
Nevertheless, the player himself revelled in the experience, telling Paul Berry in that 2021 interview: “We had some good players in the squad, but we just never got going that year. Every day you could sense around the place that something just wasn’t right.
“We were getting beat game after game, and I mean game after game, and it got so demoralising in the end.
“We were up against it and just weren’t able to bring in the sort of players they needed to strengthen, the money just wasn’t there.
“A lot of it was trying to gamble on younger players, and even though it was my first season at that level, at 28 I was one of the more experienced. In the end, we had a shocking year.”
While it was mostly doom and gloom that season, Wolves did pull off a shock 1-0 win at Anfield on 14 January 1984, which gave Towner a happy memory to look back on.
John Humphrey was making his 100th League appearance for the bottom-of-the-league visitors and Steve Mardenborough scored his first goal for Wolves in only the 10th minute.
“After that, I’m not sure we even got out of our penalty area,” said Towner. “What a day that was. They hit the post I don’t know how many times but, somehow, we held on and won the game.
“To play at Liverpool is special enough, and you don’t get many chances to do that, but to win as well, that is something I will never forget even if I didn’t touch the ball that often!”
Even though Wanderers went down (with Notts County and Birmingham) fully 21 points behind 19th-placed Coventry City, Towner reflected: “I loved being associated with Wolves, even though it was such a difficult season.
“It was my only experience of the top division, and even though I was in and out of the side, it was a fantastic one and something I enjoyed.
“Life’s too short to worry too much and think about the ‘if onlys’ – of course we needed more wins and who knows if I could have stayed there longer but it just wasn’t to be.
“I still feel it was a real achievement for me to get there and to play for Wolves and I loved it.”
While not all Wolves fans liked what they saw in Towner, interviewer Berry was one who did appreciate his attributes.
“Towner was one of those exciting wingers, direct, able to employ a trick or two to get past defenders or relying on his genuine pace,” he wrote.
“Wolves fans have always loved their wingers, those with the capabilities to beat opponents, get fans off their seats, and while it was a step-up for Towner at a time when Wolves were struggling, he still had chances to show what he could do.
“As a young whippersnapper, I remember sitting on the wall of the Family Enclosure near the South Bank, gradually wrecking my nice white trainers in the pitchside RedGra, and loving watching Towner – bedecked in Tatung pin-striped shirt, shorts and those magnificent hooped socks – picking the ball up on the halfway line and then running at the opposing full back.”
IZZY BROWN was just 20 when he joined Albion on a season-long loan from Chelsea hoping to prove his worth as a Premier League striker.
Sadly, a serious anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury meant that ambition was thwarted after only four starts and eight appearances off the bench.
Then, at the age of 26, a twice-ruptured Achilles tendon forced him to quit the game altogether.
Brown’s ascent to the elite level of English football was rapid. He was only 16 when he made his debut for West Bromwich Albion, becoming the second-youngest player in Premier League history when he went on for the Baggies towards the end of a 3-2 defeat against Wigan in May 2013.
Two months later, Chelsea offered him five times more than West Brom were paying him and he switched to Stamford Bridge to join their scholarship scheme.
The financial cushion they gave him at such a tender age meant retiring from the game early came as less of a blow than it might have done.
“I’m thankful to Chelsea for everything they’ve ever done for me because if it wasn’t for them, I don’t know what my life would be like now,” Brown told Nancy Froston in an exclusive April 2023 interview with The Athletic.
“They put me in a position where, while it’s not that I don’t ever want to work again, it has set me up to provide for my family for quite a few years.”
Brown spent eight years as a Chelsea player although Brighton were the fourth of seven clubs he joined on loan over that period.
Although he scored twice on his Chelsea debut in a 5-0 pre-season friendly win over Wycombe Wanderers, he made only one competitive first team appearance and that was as a sub against his old club, West Brom, in May 2015. Chelsea lost 3-0 and Brown saw only 11 minutes of action when Jose Mourinho sent him on to replace Loic Remy.
Brown had previously been an unused sub on several occasions in the second half of the 2014-15 season, but that summer he was sent on loan to Vitesse Arnhem where he registered just the one goal in 24 appearances.
In the 2016-17 season, Brown had two loans in Yorkshire: scoring three in 20 matches for Rotherham United and then five in 21 for their fellow Championship side Huddersfield Town.
He was involved in the Terriers’ Championship play-off final win over Reading and there were reports they wanted to make his move permanent, with a fee of £8m mentioned.
But Brown thought it wasn’t the right move for him, still harbouring hopes of making it at Chelsea. “I’m still learning and I feel Brighton is the place for me to develop further,” he said.
“There were plenty of clubs calling my agent but Brighton was always my number one choice,” he told the matchday programme. He explained he wanted to learn from manager Chris Hughton, adding: “The facilities here and the ambition of the club was also important for me.”
Hughton said of the youngster: “He’s a very flexible forward player. We brought him in very much as a (number) ten, where he had played for Huddersfield last season.
“In his first loan at Rotherham he played very much off the front, went abroad played off the left, and in his first game for us and in pre-season was on the left. He has that versatility in his game.”
That first league game was the opening day defeat at home to Manchester City and he went off injured (replaced by Jamie Murphy) as Albion went down 2-0. He didn’t re-appear until 1 October away to Arsenal when he struggled as an orthodox striker in another 2-0 defeat.
Thereafter, he only made two more league starts – the 5-1 home battering by Liverpool and a 2-0 defeat at Huddersfield.
Although Crystal Palace in the third round of the FA Cup on 8 January gave him a chance to show what he could do from the start, the game was only six minutes old when he was forced off with the knee injury that brought his time with Albion to a close.
Hughton saw it as a big blow because he had been planning to make much more use of the young striker in the second half of the season.
“You would have seen him much more involved,” he said. “He’d had a slight hamstring injury when he first came which kept him out for a few weeks.
“But certainly I would have seen him play in more games than perhaps in that first half,” said Hughton.
“He is a very popular player here. Before he’d come here, he’d had a couple of other loans and I think that adapted him well going into a new environment.”
Brown himself had said the only player he knew before his arrival was Connor Goldson through his friendship with Jonny Taylor, who Brown had played with at Rotherham.
Deprived of Brown’s services, Hughton brought in Jurgen Locadia from PSV Eindhoven and a familiar face in Leonardo Ulloa, returning to the Amex on loan from Leicester City.
Although both were on the scoresheet when Albion dispensed with Coventry City in the fifth round of the FA Cup, it would probably be fair to say neither were a rip-roaring success. The combination of Glenn Murray and Pascal Gross were the main goal contributors.
Born in Peterborough on 7 January 1997, Isaiah Brown, to give him his proper name, said in an emotional open letter on his retirement: “As soon as I could walk, I always had a football at my feet. That was me, that was my happy place.”
He was talented enough to represent England at under 16, under 17, under 19 and under 20 levels, winning a total of 34 caps.
At Chelsea, he was in the side that won the Under-21 Premier League title in 2013-14 and the UEFA Youth League the following season.
After the disappointment of his time at Brighton being curtailed, he was still recovering in August 2018 when he went back to Yorkshire on loan to Championship Leeds United under Marcelo Bielsa.
But once recovered, he was mainly involved in United’s under 21 side. He only made two substitute appearances for the first team, one in a 1-0 league defeat at QPR and one in the end-of-season play-off final that Leeds lost 4-3 on aggregate to Derby.
The following season once again saw him head out on loan for a season, this time to Luton Town. He scored once in 19 starts, plus nine games as a sub, as the Hatters narrowly avoided relegation from the Championship.
The 2020-21 season once again saw Brown heading to Yorkshire, this time with Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship.
It was a season that saw the club have three full-time managers and a caretaker, finishing bottom of the league and relegated to League One. Brown made only five starts plus 16 appearances off the bench.
With his contract at Chelsea finally coming to an end, his next move was a permanent switch away from the Bridge, and he signed a one-year deal with Preston North End.
Head coach Frankie McAvoy said: “He’s got good pedigree. He’s got great experience in terms of playing in the Championship and an ex-Chelsea player from a young age.
“He’s had quite a few loans over his time, some he’s done well, others maybe latterly not done as well as he hoped, so he just needs to find that self-belief again and confidence. But we’re certainly getting a player with undoubted talent, very offensive and we’re looking forward to working with him.
“He can play across the front, but probably his preferred position is a ten behind a striker or two, depending on how we play.
“He can also play in pockets off right and left, so he adds that bit of versatility to our front players and I think if we can get him up and running, believing in himself, being confident in his own ability then I’m sure he’ll endear himself to the Preston faithful.”
Brown, by then 24, said: “Now I’m getting to that age where I want to develop myself as a player and hopefully be a legend at a club, and I really feel like Preston’s a place where I could do that.”
But less than a month after signing for North End, he ruptured an Achilles during pre-season training – and he never actually played a competitive game for Preston.
“We had a pre-season game against Celtic when I was at Preston and I felt some pain in my Achilles, but it wasn’t too bad,” Brown told Froston. “Then we had a couple of days off, I came back for training and then I just passed the football, like I’d done a million times before, and I heard a pop. I thought someone had kicked me but no one was around me.
“It had snapped. So I had the surgery and it went well, but we noticed there was like a little gap in my Achilles.
“We thought maybe it’s not healed properly, but this was only after two months so we gave it time. Then I went out for some dinner and stepped down a small step and it snapped again.
“So I had two Achilles surgeries in the space of three and a half months. To come back from one is hard. To come back from two is basically impossible.”
On top of those football injuries, he got sick with hand, foot and mouth disease, then had an issue with his nervous system that led to muscle loss and affected the nerves in his feet.
He was subsequently told he had a rare and serious condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome and it was apparent he would have to retire from playing football.
In a revealing interview with Froston, he concluded: “Football was my dream. It still is my dream. But dreams have to end one day.”
In the open letter he wrote on his retirement, he said: “Football doesn’t define me as a person. I’m a father, a son, a brother and a friend, and I will be that after football.
“I’ve lived my dream and memories that will stay with me forever. To every club that I have played for, I really appreciate you all for believing in me and giving me a chance to play the game I love.”
DAVID STOCKDALE kept 20 clean sheets as Brighton were promoted from the Championship to the Premier League.
He was chosen by his peers in the PFA Championship team of the year and was runner up to Anthony Knockaert as player of the season.
What seemed like a mystery at the time, though, was that he then remained in the Championship by signing a three-year contract with Birmingham City (at the time managed by Harry Redknapp).
“I’m not ashamed to say I put my family first and football second for a change,” Stockdale explained, referring to his desire to sign a longer term deal than the Seagulls offered because he didn’t want the upheaval of a move that might have unsettled his daughter’s education at a time she was about to take exams.
Stockdale had joined the Seagulls from Fulham in the summer of 2014 and was first choice ‘keeper for three seasons, playing a total of 139 matches for the club.
Remembered for some notable performances between the sticks, Stockdale impressed off it too. In the wake of the Shoreham air crash, he showed great compassion for the victims.
Before the next game, away to Ipswich Town, he wore personalised gloves and a training top bearing the names of two of them, Albion groundsman Matt Grimstone, who was Worthing United’s goalkeeper, and his teammate Jacob Schilt.
He also spent time talking to Matt’s family, visiting with Albion ambassador Alan Mullery. “We are all guilty of complaining about the little things in life but there are far more important things to worry about and I wish more people realised that,” he told the matchday programme.
At the end of the season, Stockdale’s support was recognised by the award of the PFA Community Champion trophy. “A lot of tears were shed,” he told Albion reporter Andy Naylor, when he got the inside track on Stockdale’s story in an interview for The Athletic on 17 November 2019.
“I’d spoken to Matt a few times, with him being a goalkeeper. We used to shout across at each other. I’d joke, ‘You come and train with us and I’ll do that (groundskeeping)’.”
The way the club rallied round didn’t surprise the goalkeeper because he’d heard good things from Fulham teammate and all time Albion legend Bobby Zamora when he was mulling over the move.
“I knew it was a good club, a very progressive club, but when Bobby told me it was the best club, that was good enough for me,” he said.
There was a familiar face waiting for him at training too because the goalkeeping coach when he arrived was Antti Niemi, who had taken him under his wing in his early days at Fulham.
“I was only 21 at the time, at a big Premier League club, and he spoke to me a lot in those early days,” he said. “Although he’s the goalkeeping coach here now, it sometimes feels the same as it did back then.
“He’s the one putting on the sessions now, and I’ve enjoyed them like I did when I trained with him before,” he said.
Even so, Stockdale was even more impressed by Niemi’s successor, Ben Roberts. “There’s no better goalkeeping coach than him,” he said. “Ben and I had tried to work together at previous clubs and it hadn’t come off. So, when we finally did at Brighton, he said ‘this is what I want you to work on, stay with me and trust me and the process’.
“It wasn’t always easy, I was 30 at the time trying to adapt my style, sometimes it’s hard. But I trusted him and it worked. He’s shown with numerous keepers that he can help anyone improve. That’s why people hold him in such high regard.”
A personal highlight for Stockdale came in January 2017 at the Amex when he made a double save from a Fernando Forestieri penalty against Sheffield Wednesday that helped put Brighton top of the division.
Less memorable were two own goals in a 2-0 defeat at Norwich City when Alex Pritchard shots rebounded off the woodwork, hit him and went in.
And when Albion had a chance to clinch the Championship title at Villa Park, Stockdale fumbled a long-range Jack Grealish shot to concede a late equaliser which meant Newcastle finished top instead.
“I left with great memories, on a high, apart from the Villa game,” Stockdale told Naylor. “It was one of those when everyone knows it was a mistake. It just wasn’t meant to be, but as a player you feel the responsibility.
“We got what we wanted, got promoted, but I think it left a bit of a bad feeling.”
Born in Leeds on 20 September 1985, Stockdale stayed in Yorkshire in the early part of his career, initially in the youth sides of Huddersfield Town and York City.
It was York who took him on as a trainee, in 2000, and in the last game of the 2002-03 season, aged just 17, Terry Dolan gave him his first team debut as a half-time substitute for Michael Ingham, who was suffering a shoulder injury, although City lost 2-0 to Oxford United.
By then in the Conference, Stockdale made 19 consecutive appearances for the Minstermen between August and December 2004 before being dropped by caretaker manager Viv Busby.
It was during that run of games that Stockdale first gained international recognition, being selected for the England C (non-league) squad for a friendly v Italy (he went on as a sub for Nikki Bull).
After his club disappointment, he told the York Evening Press: “I was gutted when I was taken out of the team but I’ve just gone back to the training ground and worked as hard as I can.
“I have got my best years to come. I am only 19 and I hope I can get a contract for next year and stay at the club.”
When former Albion midfielder Billy McEwan took charge, he offered Stockdale his first professional contract, although the youngster prevaricated over signing it, much to the manager’s dismay.
McEwan told the York Evening Press: “If the players don’t want to sign, then it’s up to them. They can go because I want players who want to play for York City Football Club.
“But David Stockdale is the biggest disappointment to me and I have told him that. He’s a young apprentice getting his first professional contract and the last thing in his mind should be money. That should be of secondary importance and he should be grateful York City are offering him a contract.
“On the evidence of his last performance of the season, he has to do better if he wants to get into the team.
“At the moment, he has potential but so have a lot of players. Maybe he feels he can get an automatic number one spot but that’s up for grabs this summer.”
Shortly after signing the contract, Stockdale went on loan to Northern Premier League club Wakefield-Emley and the following March joined Worksop Town on a temporary basis.
Stockdale was released by York at the end of the 2005-06 season with some more harsh words from McEwan about his weight ringing in his ears. After signing for League Two Darlington, Stockdale told the York Evening Press being released had been the incentive he needed to save his career.
“I have done well in pre-season and got back into shape after letting myself go at York, which was well-documented,” he said. “I accept now that was the case and agree with the manager but I would have preferred not to have been criticised in public.
“It has probably given me a kick up the backside though to get me going again and I feel a better person now. I would have loved to have stayed at York because I was there for a long time and have a great affection for the club.
“I would like to thank everybody there for all the help they have given me. The fans were always great and I learnt everything there so it was a bit of a shock to go.”
Clearly benefiting from full-time goalkeeping coaching from former Darlington, Bristol Rovers and Middlesbrough no.1 Andy Collett, Stockdale became manager Dave Penney’s preferred first choice ‘keeper, ousting former Derby and Bolton stopper Andy Oakes.
Scouts from Birmingham and Newcastle were said to be monitoring his development but it was Fulham who stepped in and signed him in April 2008 for an undisclosed sum (thought to be £350,000 rising to a possible £600,000). He was loaned back to Darlo to finish the season when they lost out in the League Two play-off semi-finals.
Although he was at Fulham for six years, much of Stockdale’s time on their books was spent out on loan: in League Two with Rotherham United, League One at Leicester City, and in the Championship with Plymouth Argyle, Ipswich Town and Hull City.
Temporary Tractor Boy
Nevertheless, his parent club did give him a reasonable sprinkling of first team outings: he played a total of 52 games, 39 in the Premier League.
Indeed in 2011, when he was covering for the injured Mark Schwarzer, Fabio Capello, the England boss at the time, called him up for international duty, although he didn’t get to play.
His best run of games for Fulham in the Premier League came in the 2013-14 season when he made 21 appearances (he also played five cup games).
After he left Brighton, Stockdale was Birmingham’s first choice ‘keeper throughout the 2017-18 season (apart from two months out with an injured wrist). He played 39 games, having replaced the previous season’s no.1, Tomasz Kuszczak, who had also moved to City from Brighton.
Blues only narrowly avoided relegation from the Championship with Redknapp only lasting until mid-September as manager; Lee Carsley briefly in temporary charge, Steve Cotterill for five months and then Garry Monk.
Monk brought in Lee Camp as his first-choice ‘keeper and Stockdale was sent out on loan to three different League One clubs: Southend United (on an emergency seven-day arrangement), Wycombe Wanderers and Coventry City.
After making a single appearance for Birmingham under Monk’s successor Pep Clotet at the start of the 2019-20 season, Stockdale rejoined Wycombe in January 2020 on a half-season loan.
He then moved to Wycombe on a permanent contract in September 2020 but only played twice, with Ryan Allsop the preferred no.1. In February 2021, he linked up with League Two Stevenage on loan and played five matches before having to return to Wycombe when Allsop was injured.
He kept the shirt until the end of the season, when Wanderers were relegated to League One, and, with Allsop having been released, Stockdale stepped up and was ever-present throughout the 2021-22 season. His 18 clean sheets earned him the League One Golden Glove award, jointly with Michael Cooper of Plymouth.
Nevertheless, with his contract up, he then returned to Yorkshire, signing for Darren Moore’s Sheffield Wednesday, where he played 27 games in the 2022-23 season.
They say what goes around comes around, and at the start of the 2023-24 season Stockdale went back to York City, although he sustained an injury early on in the season that caused him to be sidelined from the National League team.
As well as his familiar playing role, Stockdale began to look towards a time when he hangs up the gloves by also being appointed York’s head of recruitment. However, he was let go from the role in April 2024.
Away from his direct involvement in club football, he began a postgraduate diploma in Global Football Sport Directorship with the PFA Business School.
MIKE TRUSSON has spent a lifetime in football since Plymouth Argyle spotted his raw teenage talent, took him on as an apprentice and gave him his professional debut at 17.
After playing more than 400 matches over 15 years, he became prominent in football marketing, coaching and scouting, often in association with his good friend Tony Pulis, who he played alongside at Gillingham after leaving the Albion.
As recently as late 2020 he was assistant manager to Pulis for an ill-fated brief spell at Sheffield Wednesday.
Much fonder memories of his time in the steel city were forged when he was twice Player of the Year at Sheffield United.
In an exclusive interview with the In Parallel Lines blog, Trusson told Nick Turrell about his time with the Seagulls, his first coaching job at AFC Bournemouth and the formative years of his career.
A goalscoring home debut for Mike Trusson
A MOVE TO SUSSEX in the summer of 1987 ticked all the right boxes for Mike Trusson.
An experienced midfielder with more than 300 games under his belt already, he welcomed the opportunity to be part of the rebuilding job Barry Lloyd was undertaking at the Goldstone following the club’s relegation back to the third tier. He was one of seven new signings.
The move also brought him a whole lot closer to his family in Somerset than south Yorkshire, where he’d lived and played for seven years.
And it gave him the chance to earn more money.
The only problem was he had a dodgy left knee – it was an injury that prevented him making his first team debut for the Seagulls for four months, and it troubled him throughout his first season.
Frequent leaping to head the ball had resulted in a torn patella knee tendon that had needed surgery during the latter days of the player’s time at Rotherham United, where for two years his manager had been the legendary former Leeds and England defender Norman Hunter.
Prior to the injury, Blackburn Rovers had bid £200,000 to sign him, but nothing came of it and a contractual dispute with the Millers (who were not keen to give him what he said he was entitled to because of the injury) led to him being given a free transfer (Hunter subsequently signed former Albion midfielder Tony Grealish).
Trusson fancied a move south to be nearer his folks and had written to several clubs, Albion included, who he thought might be interested in his services (these were the days before agents).
Although Millwall and Gillingham had shown an interest, it was a call from Martin Hinshelwood, Lloyd’s no.2, that saw Trusson head to Sussex for an interview where he met the management pair, chairman Dudley Sizen and director Greg Stanley.
Trusson looks back on the encounter with amusement because not only did they agree to take him on but they offered him more money than he was asking for because they said he’d need it in view of the North-South disparity in property prices.
“Brighton was a big club. Only four years earlier they’d been in the Cup Final and some of those players from that time were still at the club,” he said. “From my point of view, it was a big career move. It ticked all the boxes.”
Initially Trusson shared a club house in East Preston with fellow new signings Kevin Bremner, Garry Nelson and Doug Rougvie before moving his wife and daughter down and settling in Angmering, close to the training ground (Albion trained at Worthing Rugby Club’s ground at the time).
Before he could think about playing, though, he had to get fit. Scar tissue after the operation on his knee had left him in a lot of pain, and although he passed his medical, the pain persisted.
New physio Mark Leather told him straight that he wouldn’t be able to train, let alone play, with the leg in the condition it was. It had shrunk in size due to muscle wastage so his first two months at the Albion were spent building it back up and regaining match fitness in the reserves.
In the meantime, former full-back Chris Hutchings was keeping the no.8 shirt warm until he finally got a move to Huddersfield that autumn.
Trusson recalled: “I was aware there was a rebuilding process going on. It was a very different group to ones I’d experienced at other clubs. A lot of the lads travelled down from London so there was not much socialising.”
There was certainly lots of competition for places during his time at the club. Sometimes Dale Jasper would get the nod over him and he could see Lloyd preferred the ball-playing types like Alan Curbishley and Dean Wilkins, and later Robert Codner and Adrian Owers.
“I thought if I was going to play, I had to change,” Trusson reflected. “I became more of a midfield enforcer and left it to the better players to play.”
As such, he was surprised yet delighted to score on his home debut, albeit, more than 30 years on, he doesn’t remember much about it.
For the record, it was on 12 December 1987, in front of a rather paltry 6,995 Goldstone Ground crowd, that Trusson scored the only goal of the game against Chester City as Albion extended an unbeaten run to 15 matches. (Chester’s side included former Albion Cup Final midfielder Gary Howlett, who was on loan from Bournemouth).
In that injury-affected first season, he played 18 games plus seven as sub. He had been on the subs bench for three games as the season drew to an exciting climax, but he was not involved in the deciding game when Bristol Rovers were beaten 2-1 at the Goldstone.
Teaming up with Garry Nelson against Arsenal in the FA Cup
When the 1988-89 season got under way, Trusson was on the bench for the first two league games and he got a start in a 1-0 defeat away to Southend in the League Cup. After the side suffered eight defeats on the trot, Trusson was back in the starting line-up for the home game v Leeds on 1 October and Albion chalked up their first win of the season (1-0).
Unsurprisingly, Trusson kept his place for the next clutch of games, although Curbishley returned and kept the shirt for an extended run.
It wasn’t until the new year that he won back a starting place but then he had his best run of games, keeping the shirt through to the middle of April.
The previous month he was sent off (above) in the extraordinary match at Selhurst Park which saw referee Kelvin Morton award five penalties in the space of 27 minutes, as well as wielding five yellow cards and Trusson’s red. Four of the penalties went to Palace – they missed three – but they went on to win 2-1 against the ten men. Manager Lloyd said: “I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in such a crazy game – we could have lost 6-1 but were unfortunate not to gain a point.”
Looking back, Trusson reckoned: “I was always conscious I wasn’t Barry’s type of player.” With a gentle but respectful sense of understatement, he said: “He was not the most communicative person I have met in my life!”
In essence, perhaps not surprisingly, Trusson would seek an explanation as to why he wasn’t playing when he thought he deserved to, but it wasn’t always forthcoming. He recalled that defender Gary Chivers, who he was reunited with at Bournemouth and who he stays in touch with, used to call Lloyd ‘Harold’ after the silent movie star!
Nevertheless, he said: “Tactically Barry was a good manager. When he did talk, he talked a lot of sense.”
It was during his time at Brighton that Trusson started running end-of-season soccer schools for youngsters. He was honest enough to admit they gave him an opportunity to earn a bit of extra money to put towards a holiday rather than laying the foundations for his future career as a coach.
That was still a little way off when, at 29, he left the Albion in September 1989 having played 37 games. By then, Curbishley, Codner and Wilkins were firmly ensconced as the preferred midfield trio, and he wanted to get some regular football. Cardiff wanted him but his family were settled in West Sussex so he opted for Gillingham, which was driveable, although he stayed in a clubhouse the night before matches.
It was at Priestfield where he began to establish a close friendship with Tony Pulis, who was winding down his playing career and was similarly commuting to north Kent (from Bournemouth).
“We had always kicked each other to bits when we played against each other but often ended up having a drink and a chat afterwards, and got on,” said Trusson. “We were also keen golfers, and both talkers; we had our views (even if we didn’t always agree) and the friendship developed.”
This is a good point to go back to the beginning because it was his early appreciation of the art of coaching that would ultimately become the foundation for what followed later.
Born in Northolt on 26 May 1959, Trusson had trials with Chelsea as a schoolboy but a bout of ‘flu put the kibosh on any progress. It also wasn’t helped by the family relocating to Somerset, not a renowned hotbed for nurturing football talent.
The young Trusson went to Wadham Comprehensive School in Crewkerne and his hopes for another crack at professional football were given a huge boost when a Plymouth Argyle vice-president, who was involved with the local youth football side he played for, organised for him to have a trial at Home Park.
Argyle liked what they saw and offered him an apprenticeship, and the excellent greensonscreen.co.uk website details his career in the West Country.
It was Trusson’s good fortune that former England goalkeeper Tony Waiters – a coach ahead of his time – was Argyle boss and he gave him a first team debut aged just 17 in October 1976.
Waiters was a great believer in giving youngsters their chance to shine at an early age; he’d already worked for the FA as a regional coach, for Liverpool’s youth development programme, and been manager of the England Youth team, before being appointed Argyle manager. He later went on to manage the Canadian national team at the 1986 World Cup.
Waiters and his assistant Keith Blunt, who later took charge of the Spurs youth team in the 1980s (and was technical director at the English National Football School at Lilleshall between 1991 and 1998) together with Bobby Howe, the former West Ham and Bournemouth defender, completely opened Trusson’s eyes to what could be achieved through good coaching.
“They were in the vanguard of English coaching in the mid to late ‘70s,” he said. “I joined Plymouth as a kid having never been coached. Growing up in Somerset, we just used to play games.
“From when I was 15 to 17, they taught me so much, talking me through so many aspects of the game, and coaching me to understand why I was doing certain things on the pitch, giving advice about things like timing and angled runs.”
In an Albion matchday programme interview, Trusson told reporter Dave Beckett: “They kept us in a youth hostel and looked after us really well, even providing us with carefully planned individual weight and fitness programmes.
“Certainly you couldn’t fault them on their ideas. Out of the 20 apprentices I knew brought on by the scheme, 17 made the grade as pros. That’s an astonishingly high return by anybody’s standards.”
Although Argyle were relegated in his first season, Trusson kept his place under Waiters’ successors in the hotseat: Mike Kelly, Lennie Lawrence and Malcolm Allison. Bobby Saxton was in charge by the time he left Plymouth in the summer of 1980 to join then Third Division Sheffield United.
He was signed by Harry Haslam but, halfway through a season which it was hoped would see Blades among the promotion contenders, things went horribly wrong when Haslam moved ‘upstairs’ and former World Cup winner Martin Peters took over the running of the team. United were relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in their history.
Peters and Haslam quit the club and former Sunderland FA Cup Final matchwinner Ian Porterfield, who had just won the Division Three title with Rotherham, took charge.
Player of the Year at Sheffield United
Blades bounced straight back as champions, losing only four games all season, and Trusson was their Player of the Year. He earned the accolade the following season as well, when they finished 11th in Division Three.
The side’s prolific goalscorer at that time, Keith Edwards, a former teammate who now works as a co-commentator covering Blades matches for Radio Sheffield recently told the city’s daily paper The Star: “He was such a likeable character in the dressing room.
“I had a great understanding with him. He was a great team man, good for the dressing room and could play in a lot of positions. Every now and then he got himself up front with me and he worked his heart out.
“He looked after you as a player, he could be a tough lad. We played Altrincham one week and he got sent off for whacking someone that had done me a previous week. He was handy.
“And he was such a good character to have in the team.”
After three years at Bramall Lane, and 126 appearances, (not to mention scoring 31 goals), he was then swapped for Paul Stanicliffe and, instead of involvement in a promotion bid, found himself in a relegation fight at Rotherham United.
Trusson enjoyed his time with the Millers under George Kerr and over four years he played 124 games and chipped in with 19 goals. It was a regime change, and the aforementioned injury, that saw life at Millmoor turn sour.
A brief spell playing for Sing Tao in Hong Kong followed the end of his time with Gillingham and on his return to the UK his pal Pulis, who had taken over as Bournemouth manager from Harry Redknapp, invited him to become youth team coach at Dean Court.
Linking up with former Gillingham teammate Tony Pulis at Bournemouth
“I loved it and, when David Kemp moved on, I got the opportunity to coach the first team,” he said.
“We were very young and we were struggling to avoid relegation,” he recalled. “We kept them up and it was great experience. We both learned so much and we spent a lot of time together.”
When Pulis was sacked, Trusson was staggered to be offered the job as his replacement but turned it down out of loyalty to his friend.
The pair have since worked together at various clubs. For example, he was a senior scout at Stoke City and head of recruitment at West Brom.
“I’ve worked for him as a scout at pretty much every club he’s been at,” said Trusson, who cites trust, respect and judgement as the attributes Pulis saw in him.
Trusson was also once marketing manager for football-themed restaurant Football, Football in London – he managed to woo Sean Bean, the actor who is a well-known Blades fanatic, to the opening – and he had a marketing job for the PFA.
He runs his own online soccer coaching scheme and was working as a European scout for Celtic when, in an unexpected return to football’s frontline in November 2020, he was appointed assistant manager of Sheffield Wednesday.
Assistant manager at Wednesday
Pulis replaced Garry Monk at Hillsborough and turned to Trusson as his no.2. In that interview with The Star, Edwards said: “He’s a great lad. I was slightly surprised to see him get the job at Wednesday, but it was completely understandable.
“He’s a clever bloke, knows his football and has stayed in the game all this time, which is to his credit. His experience of scouting, coaching and having played in several different positions makes him a massive asset to any football club, I’d say.”
Edwards recalled how his former teammate had an eye for coaching from a young age. “He was always keen to get into that, he always wanted to lend a hand to the coaches,” he said.
“Some players would get off as quickly as they could to their families or whatever they were doing with their time. He wasn’t like that, he bought into the club thing. Some players were always around the place and he was like that, very understanding and willing to help out.
“I had massive fall-outs with the odd person, you know how it is, but I never saw Truss like that. He was always so calm and understanding of other people’s opinion. That’s how and why he’s stayed in the game throughout all this time. That either comes naturally to you or it doesn’t.
“I remember he always had a way of talking to people, whether that’s players or fans or board members or coaches. That’s stuck with him today.”
SHEFFIELD UNITED and Brighton once went head to head for the services of journeyman striker Chris O’Grady.
It might be said many Albion followers were somewhat disappointed that the Seagulls pipped the Blades to signing the player from Barnsley in the summer of 2014!
It wasn’t long, however, before United, then in League One, landed their man when he failed to score in 11 appearances and struggled to settle in Sussex.
On taking O’Grady on loan, United manager Nigel Clough said: “There aren’t too many strikers of Chris’s calibre around at the moment.
“We liked him last season at Barnsley and he has got good Championship experience. Chris was a target for us in the summer but Brighton came in with a deal we simply couldn’t match in terms of wages and what they could have been potentially offering him as a playing challenge.”
The 28-year-old impressed in four Blades starts, scoring once in a draw with Walsall at Bramall Lane, and Clough remained hopeful of eventually doing a permanent deal for the player.
But Albion head coach Sami Hyypia left the club shortly before Christmas and O’Grady was recalled to cover a mini injury crisis amongst the available forwards.
Under caretaker manager Nathan Jones, O’Grady was introduced off the bench at Fulham and set up a goal for Solly March in a 2-0 win.
Then, in Chris Hughton’s first match in charge, a third round FA Cup tie at Brentford, O’Grady bagged his first Seagulls goal in another 2-0 win. On as a 67th minute substitute for Mackail-Smith, O’Grady hit a post, saw an effort trickle wide and then scored a decisive stoppage time second goal against the Bees to secure Albion’s passage through to the fourth round.
It was in the third minute of added on time when, put clear through by Adam Chicksen, he doubled the lead gained when Lewis Dunk headed in an 88th-minute opener at Griffin Park, thus helping Hughton’s reign get off to a winning start against Mark Warburton’s side.
After the match, O’Grady opened up about his struggles in an interview with BBC Sussex. “It’s been extremely tough,” he said. “It has tested a lot of relationships in my life. Thankfully the strongest one, my family, is still together which is the most important thing.”
O’Grady had spent all of his career playing in the Midlands, Yorkshire or the North West and said settling on the south coast with his partner and three children had proved difficult.
“We’ve been trying to settle in the area and it’s not quite happened on the pitch,” he said.
“We’ve got a home we’ve had for quite a few years back up north and we’ve been half in that and half down here as we don’t know what’s going on.
“I’ve been doing my best but it was not working out. I got a chance to go back up north and find myself and get some fitness.
“My whole career I have performed for people who believe in me. I felt I wasn’t sure why I was here.”
O’Grady was fighting an uphill battle at the Albion from the moment he was signed by head of football, David Burke. The Seagulls had banked £8m from the sale of Leonardo Ulloa to Leicester and obtaining O’Grady’s services from relegated Barnsley (he’d scored 15 goals as they went down) was seen by fans as inadequate recompense, even though the club tried to insist it wasn’t a like-for-like transaction.
Hyypia said at the time: “This is an area we want to strengthen, and Chris is a good start. He is a strong, physical presence and gives us something different to the other strikers we already have here at the club.
“You need that option in the squad of a forward with power and strength, and Chris can give us that – as well as scoring goals.
“We still want some extra attacking additions, and in other areas of the team, but I’m pleased we have another one of our targets.”
Those “extra attacking additions” turned out to be Adrian Colunga and Sam Baldock the following month and both largely put paid to O’Grady’s hopes of gaining a regular starting spot.
Not that O’Grady felt overawed by the challenge. “For the past two seasons I’ve hit double figures and that has been a reflection of the desire and hunger that I have to succeed at this level,” he said.
“Having played for Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday in the past, I know what it’s like to play for a big club – and Brighton certainly fall into that category.
“Earlier in my career playing for those clubs might have been a bit daunting for me, but at my age I know how to deal with the expectation and to win the fans over. It’s fantastic to be joining a club with such big ambitions and to be joining in the peak years of my career.”
O’Grady started the first three games of the season, but the presence of incumbent Craig Mackail-Smith plus the late August signings of Colunga and Baldock soon indicated competition for forward places was going to get a lot tougher.
Injuries to Baldock and Mackail-Smith gave him some limited game time but Hyypia told the Argus he expected more from the bustling big man.
“He is training well, he’s doing his work and he can be a tricky player for the centre-backs because he is so strong.
“I know that he can be dangerous. Sometimes I wish he would go forward a little bit more.
“He’s not slow so he could give the centre-backs more problems if he didn’t always come to the ball.”
Nigel Clough’s Sheffield United were keen to sign O’Grady permanently
It seemed the FA Cup suited O’Grady because he also pulled a goal back for the Seagulls in the 50th minute of the glamour fourth round tie against holders Arsenal, in front of a 30,278 crowd, although they eventually lost 3-2.
Although Clough was keen to take O’Grady back to south Yorkshire, Hughton made it plain he wanted him to stay and fight for his place
“This is a player that came here and had a difficult time, went away on loan and has been excellent for us since he came back,” Hughton told the Argus. “I must admit I’m still getting to know him. I knew him from his time at Barnsley, I don’t know him as much from his time here.
“He certainly couldn’t have done any more than he has in the last two games. He is no different to any other player, you want to be playing and involved, and if you are you are generally happier. At the moment, I think he’s in a nice place.”
O’Grady admitted: “I’m just getting a chance to play. I’m taking it and doing my very best for however long I am wanted here.
“I am being professional and doing my very best. Since I’ve been back, there is a freshness and a chance to get involved and contribute. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”
Buoyed by the change in management, and with his family settled, O’Grady told the Argus in early February: “I’ve succeeded at all the clubs I’ve been at in the past five years, which has led me to be here.
“I started in League Two and if you do fail at any club at any time then you are only going to go down. Failure is not really an option. You have to work as hard as possible to succeed.
“Even though the first half of the season didn’t go well, it would have been too easy to give up and just write it off as ‘this one didn’t really work out’.
“That’s a lesson that if you persevere with a situation it will eventually come good if you deserve it.”
Unfortunately, Hughton thought Leon Best on loan from Blackburn Rovers might be a better option, and Baldock or Mackail-Smith invariably were ahead of him as the manager shuffled his pack in a battle to stay in the division.
It wasn’t until 10 March 2015 when O’Grady, making a rare start away to Reading, scored his first – and only – league goal for the Seagulls, netting from the penalty spot as the Albion went down 2-1.
Come the start of the 2015-16 season, Tomer Hemed and the returning Bobby Zamora made O’Grady’s future involvement a lot less likely.
His only action came in two League Cup matches, away to Southend and Walsall, and he missed a penalty as the Saddlers dumped out the Albion 2-1.
So, it was no surprise he was sent out on a season-long loan to Nottingham Forest, the club who’d let him go as a young boy. During that temporary return to Forest in 2015-16, he scored twice in 21 games.
In the last year of his Albion contract, 2016-17, he was reunited with Nigel Clough, this time at Burton Albion, (pictured in action below) where he scored once in 26 games. While he was a regular in the first half of the season, he made only five appearances after the turn of the year following the arrivals of Cauley Woodrow, Luke Varney and Marvin Sordell.
Born in Nottingham on 25 January 1986, O’Grady was at Forest from the age of 10 to 13. “I dropped out of football for a while but then got back into it at 15,” he told Albion’s matchday programme. “I wrote to the clubs local to me: Leicester and Derby. Leicester were doing open trials at the time, and I progressed through that, then on to proper trials at the training ground, and I eventually got signed up.”
A young Chris O’Grady in his Leicester days
It was during his time at Leicester that he took up yoga, inspired by the knowledge Ryan Giggs was an advocate of it. “It definitely helps,” said O’Grady. “I was a young lad in the youth team at Leicester and quite big physically but not very flexible with it.
“I was also picking up injuries at the time so I just knew I needed to do something. Once I started with the yoga all the injuries kind of went away and I’ve never really had a muscle injury since.”
After he’d got on the scoresheet regularly at under 18 and reserve level, former Albion boss Micky Adams gave him his first team chance with the Foxes.
He also won an England Youth cap in a 3-0 defeat away to France in Limoges on 13 November 2002. When he couldn’t pin down a regular place at City, he had loan stints with Notts County and Rushden and Diamonds and, although he returned to Leicester and played a handful of games in the Championship, in January 2007 he was sold to Rotherham United, where he spent 18 months.
Next up was Oldham but, in two years on their books, he had loan spells at Bury, Bradford City, Stockport County and Rochdale.
O’Grady in action for Barnsley against Albion’s Stephen Ward
His 31 goals in 95 matches for Dale earned him a move to Sheffield Wednesday on a three-year deal in the summer of 2011 but on transfer deadline day in January 2013 he made the short journey to Barnsley and then made the move permanent that summer.
At the end of his three-year Brighton deal, O’Grady moved to League Two Chesterfield for a season, but when they lost their league status he moved on in 2018-19 to his former club, Oldham Athletic, by then in League Two, where he scored eight goals in 47 matches.
The following season he moved up a division and played for League One Bolton Wanderers but their relegation to League Two brought down the curtain on O’Grady’s league playing days.
After he was released, he spent a year out of football. But in May 2022 he signed for Southern League Premier Division Central side Ilkeston Town, where he scored seven goals in 19 games. The side’s manager Martin Carruthers declared on signing him: “Chris is an excellent addition to our squad and brings with him a wealth of experience.
“He is a big, powerful unit and super fit, he will certainly be of huge benefit to our current strikers who will all be able to learn and develop from Chris this season.
“He will give us different attacking options and I’m sure will bring plenty of goals to the team.This is a real coup for the club.”
In February 2023, at the age of 37, O’Grady joined ‘The Gingerbreads’ – Northern Premier League Division One East side Grantham Town – where he played alongside former Nottingham Forest and Derby County forward Nathan Tyson. He scored just the once in eight matches, in a 3-0 win over Brighouse Town (Tyson scored the other two).
FOR A FEW seasons, it seemed Brighton’s left back spot would always be occupied by a player on loan.
In the second half of the 2011-12 season, it was Joe Mattock who slotted in there, having been edged out by a change of management at West Bromwich Albion.
“I am delighted to come and play where I am wanted and for a manager who feels I can do a job for him,” Mattock declared in a matchday programme.
Mattock made his debut as a substitute in Brighton’s 4 February 1-0 home win over his former club, Leicester City, and he subsequently made 14 starts after Gus Poyet borrowed him from the Baggies.
Mattock’s signing was largely to cover a long term hamstring injury to Marcos Painter after Romain Vincelot and Gus Poyet’s assistant, Mauricio Taricco, had been temporary stand-ins.
Mattock made his debut in Albion’s 2-1 win away to Leeds United on 11 February with fellow West Brom loanee Gonzalo Jara Reyes occupying the right-back spot.
Unfortunately, Albion only registered three more wins through to the end of the season, so it wasn’t a particularly successful period.
Mattock was on the scoresheet once, netting Albion’s only goal in a 3-1 defeat away to Blackpool, and the side finished 10th in the Championship.
Mattock was given a free transfer by the Baggies at the end of the season and, while Poyet viewed signing him permanently as an option, the defender went instead to Sheffield Wednesday, putting pen to paper on a three-year deal.
It would be something of an understatement to say he wasn’t missed, bearing in mind the next loanee left back through the door was Wayne Bridge!
Born in Leicester on 15 May 1990, Mattock was a successful graduate of his hometown club’s academy system, initially as a forward, then as a midfield player before settling as a left-back from the age of 16. He was named Leicester’s academy player of the year in 2006-07.
Leicester caretaker boss Nigel Worthington gave him his first team debut as a substitute in his first game in charge, a 2-1 Championship defeat to Norwich City.
He was chosen at left-back for three more matches at the end of that season, a 2-1 defeat at home to Birmingham and 1-0 wins away to Preston and Barnsley.
Current day BBC pundit Dion Dublin was something of a guiding light to him as he was progressing. “He was a good bloke who spoke to all the young players,” Mattock told the matchday programme. “He was playing centre-back at the time, so taught me a few things about how to defend and how to be a professional footballer.”
While the 2007-08 season saw a veritable merry-go-round of managers as the side eventually lost their Championship status, Mattock’s performances attracted attention and it was said West Ham and Aston Villa had bids to buy him rejected.
After gaining England under 17 and under 19 caps, Mattock went on to win five England under 21 caps, making his debut in a 2-0 home win over Bulgaria in November 2007 alongside the likes of Joe Hart, James Milner and Theo Walcott.
He also played in a 1-1 draw away to Portugal, a 3-0 win over Republic of Ireland, he went on as a sub in a 0-0 draw at home to Poland and his last international action saw him start in the 3-2 defeat away to Ecuador in February 2009.
Although he was selected for the squad, Kieran Gibbs and Ryan Bertrand subsequently got the nod ahead of him.
In August 2009, unsettled Mattock finally got to follow former teammate Richard Stearman away from the Foxes when West Brom, newly relegated from the Premiership, paid a £1m fee to take him to The Hawthorns.
The manner of his exit didn’t go down well with Leicester boss Nigel Pearson, who said: “I like to deal with people straight up. I don’t like it when the player rings the chairman when we are playing a pre-season game to ask to leave when he is out of the country on international duty.
“That gives you a taste of the situation and we’ll wait and see what happens.”
Mattock made 29 starts plus five substitute appearances in Roberto di Matteo’s side as the Baggies were promoted back to the Premier League in runners up spot.
But he didn’t feature in West Brom’s elite side and instead was sent out on loan to Sheffield United where he met up with another loanee from the Black Country, Sam Vokes, who was later on loan with him at the Albion.
Di Matteo’s eventual successor, Roy Hodgson, didn’t fancy the defender either and, before he moved to Brighton, he spent time on loan at Portsmouth who were managed by his former West Brom coach, Michael Appleton.
After choosing to join Wednesday, Mattock barely got a look-in during his first season, when Dave Jones was Owls boss, and supporters were convinced he would be shipped out.
But he was selected for around half of the 2013-14 season’s fixtures under Stuart Gray, and played in 25 games, plus three as a sub, the following season.
“I didn’t have a great start at Wednesday,” Mattock told the Rotherham Advertiser. “I didn’t get on with the manager.
“Then Stuart Gray came in and played me all the time. I was told they thought they were going to offer me a new deal, but I got injured six weeks before the end of my third year and it didn’t happen.”
In the summer of 2015, he was one of 11 Owls players released and the left-back made the short South Yorkshire journey to Rotherham United.
Being settled in the area, he was keen not to have to up sticks and he was persuaded to join by then boss Steve Evans.
Evans was soon on his way from the AESSEAL New York Stadium but Mattock remained and has subsequently played under Neil Warnock, Alan Stubbs, Kenny Jackett and Paul Warne.
He is now in his seventh season with the Millers and has played more than 200 games for them in the Championship and League One.
“I was promoted from League One with Leicester when I was 19. The year after, I was promoted to the Premier League with West Brom,” he told the Rotherham Advertiser.
“When you’re young you don’t realise how much it should mean to you. You do when you’re older, so when we went to Wembley last season (2017-18) and won in the play-off final (they beat Shrewsbury Town 2-1), in front of all the family, in front of all the fans, it was a perfect day, one of the big highlights of my entire career.”
JUNIOR MCDOUGALD played professional football for 23 years and managed to combine it with acting, featuring in Sky 1’s Dream Team series.
Brighton fans of a certain vintage will remember him as a nippy, diminutive forward who scored 22 goals in 88 matches (+ seven as sub) during a difficult period for the club.
By his own admission (in an interview with the Argus), he left too soon, and a move to Rotherham United didn’t work out.
Born in Big Spring, Texas, on 12 January 1975, McDougald grew up in the UK and his early potential saw him associated with Tottenham Hotspur from the age of nine.
He was subsequently chosen as part of a group of the country’s top 25 14-year-old footballing prospects to be nurtured at the FA’s National School at Lilleshall.
On his graduation from Lilleshall in 1991, he joined Spurs as a trainee. Alongside McDougald both at Lilleshall and Tottenham was Sol Campbell, the defender who went on to star for Spurs and Arsenal, as well as England. Campbell told tottenhamhotspur.com: “I’ve some fond memories of Junior. We used to play against each other when we were 13, then we were at Tottenham and Lilleshall when we were 14.
“He’s a smashing lad and I can’t speak highly enough of him. He’s a good bloke, a good man and a fabulous footballer.”
McDougald joined the full professional ranks at White Hart Lane in the summer of 1993, but when he didn’t make the breakthrough to their first team, he made the switch to Brighton.
He described his time at Spurs as “a dream come true” and, in an article on tottenhamhotspur.com, said: “I know it’s an old cliché but I’d always supported Spurs.
“I think it’s well documented now that I even wrote to Jim’ll Fix It to ask to go training with them!”
He added: “It was a great experience, a positive experience and it was always my dream to play for the club.”
Spurs fanzine My Eyes Have Seen The Glory (mehstg.com), recalled him as “a young striker who scored a large number of goals for the Tottenham junior sides, but progressed no further than the reserves at White Hart Lane. Blessed with good pace, but a little on the short and light side.”
Unfortunately, while his contemporary Campbell went on to superstardom, McDougald was released at the age of 19.
“It was very disappointing to leave,” he said. “But at the same time, I was ambitious and, when Liam Brady at Brighton called me, I saw it as a great opportunity. I wanted first team football.
“Any disappointment was hidden by excitement. It was a new start.”
I can remember seeing McDougald make his debut in the opening game of the 1994-95 season, away to Swansea City at their old Vetch Field ground; Albion resplendent in the turquoise and black striped shirts in the style of the kit once worn by boss Brady at Inter Milan.
McDougald’s subsequent one-in-four scoring ratio with the Seagulls was set against the backdrop of financial turmoil at the club and he was there when the club was relegated to the fourth tier.
“There was no stability off the field and that could transfer itself on to it,” he told the Argus. “I was very young and Liam Brady was a great help. I was pleased to have played with legends like Steve Foster, although he was coming to the end of his career.
“The supporters were fantastic and really good to me as a young player. Overall, I had two enjoyable years there and I’m delighted to see them doing so well now. They’ve always had the potential and the fans deserve the success.”
Towards the end of his second season with the club, he was loaned to Chesterfield, where he scored once in nine games, and he then chose to move to Rotherham United for £50,000 in August 1996.
“It is only when you leave somewhere sometimes that you realise how good a club it was,” he told the Argus. “I have fantastic memories of Brighton. The support was so good and they have such potential.
“I thought I was doing the best thing for my career when I left. I wasn’t to know I would go to Rotherham, score on my debut, get injured in the same game and not play for three months.”
He had a relatively successful six-month spell at Toulon in France but efforts to re-establish himself back in the UK with Cambridge, Millwall and Orient didn’t work out.
“With the gift of hindsight maybe I would have stayed at Brighton for another season or two and established myself,” McDougald said in the Argus interview.
It was only when he signed for Dagenham & Redbridge in 1999 that he got back in the headlines, in particular when, in January 2001, he scored in the FA Cup 3rd round as the non-league Essex side held Alan Curbishley’s then Premier League Charlton Athletic to a 1-1 draw.
The 4th round draw paired the winners of the tie with Spurs, so it looked like it would be a perfect match for the former Spurs youngster, but the Addicks edged the replay 1-0 in extra time to spoil his dream.
Nevertheless, his form for Dagenham saw him selected for the England semi-professional side at a Four Nations Trophy tournament in 2002, where he was up against his clubmate Tony Roberts, the former Spurs goalkeeper.
Alongside the serious business of earning a living from playing football, McDougald also appeared for the fictional Harchester United side in Sky’s Dream Team, together with former Albion players Peter Smith and Andy Ansah.
“It was through Andy who actually recruits the players,” he said. “Pete Smith told me it was fun and it is. We just do what footballers do and are filmed playing, in changing rooms and night clubs. It is a good little avenue.”
By the time Dagenham made it into the Football League, McDougald had moved on to St Albans and, in the 2003-04 season, he was part of a Canvey Island squad that also included former Brighton players Mickey Bennett, the aforementioned Peter Smith, and Jeff Minton.
He later played for Kettering Town, Histon, and Cambridgeshire side St. Ives.
McDougald, a Born-again Christian, has since become the co-founder and director of children’s charity Sports Connections Foundation which uses sport to help and inspire children.
TIME was of the essence when utility player Greg Halford agreed to make a temporary move to Brighton.
He penned a deal to join the Seagulls temporarily at Nottingham Forest’s training ground at 12.30pm and then got in his car to drive to Brighton for 6pm in time to be involved in the squad for that evening’s game at the Amex against Wigan Athletic.
It was 4 November 2014 and he was Sami Hyypia’s sixth loan signing – even though only five were eligible to play in any matchday squad (emergency loan goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi only played one game).
Regular centre backs Gordon Greer and Lewis Dunk were perilously close to suspension and deputy Aaron Hughes was sidelined with an ankle injury, so Hyypia moved to bring in an experienced back-up.
Albion hadn’t registered a win in the previous 11 league matches but the 29-year-old Halford proved to be a lucky charm as the side finally reacquainted themselves with the taste of victory. Fellow loanee Gary Gardner got the only goal of the game and Halford made an appearance off the bench towards the end of the game.
“I wasn’t really expecting to get any game time. I thought I’d just be in and around the lads, to get a feel for how everything works,” he told the club programme. “But I’m glad I got a few minutes at the end.”
Halford explained how he’d agreed to join the Seagulls because he’d been frozen out at Forest after Stuart Pearce took over as manager.
The player said he was familiar with the south coast having previously played for Portsmouth.
Asked what he could bring to the side, he added: “I can add a bit of height, I can score goals and obviously I can defend, which is my main attribute. I’m here to help the team and manager in any way I can.”
It wasn’t long before he was helping out a different manager as the side’s run of poor form brought a premature end to Hyypia’s brief time in charge.
Halford, though, hung around at the Amex, his loan extended by Hyypia’s successor, Chris Hughton, and he had made 14 starts and five substitute appearances by the season’s end, when the Seagulls narrowly escaped the drop back to the third tier.
Born on 8 December 1984 in Chelmsford, Essex, Halford began his professional career at nearby Colchester United. I well remember a Chelmsford-based work colleague telling me about this talented young footballer who’d been head and shoulders the best player in a local schoolboy football team his son had played for.
That player was Halford, who progressed from Colchester’s youth team and made his first team debut in April 2003. Loan spells at non-league Aylesbury Town and Braintree Town were part of his development, but he eventually made his mark at Colchester and was named in the PFA League One team of the year in 2005-06.
Played mainly at right-back, Halford’s speciality was his ability to deliver searching long throws which led to a good proportion of goals for Colchester.
After playing more than 150 games in five years for the Us, Halford wanted to prove himself at the highest level. He got a move to Premier League Reading in January 2007 but he couldn’t make the breakthrough there and ended up switching to Sunderland, signed by Roy Keane.
Just six months later, Sunderland made him available on loan and he joined Championship side Charlton until the end of the season. Then he spent the whole of the 2008-09 season on loan to Sheffield United, featuring in 49 of their 56 games that season.
His personal highlight was scoring the only goal of the game as United beat Preston to reach the 2008-09 play-off final.
Unfortunately, United lost the final 1-0 to Burnley, and that summer Halford was on the move again, this time to newly-promoted Wolverhampton Wanderers. Although he featured in 20 games, a regular starting berth eluded him and, in October 2010, he joined Championship side Portsmouth. Initially on loan, he eventually joined Pompey on a permanent basis but relegation to the third tier brought with it the need to trim budgets and in July 2012, they offloaded Halford to Nottingham Forest.
Under Billy Davies, Halford was generally deployed as a striker but when Pearce took over at the City Ground, he didn’t get close to the first team. On his return from Brighton at the end of the 2014-15 season, he was released by Forest and joined Rotherham United on a free transfer.
Manager Steve Evans appointed him captain but, after a winless run of five games, he was deposed and only played one more game for the Millers before joining Birmingham City on loan.
That spell was also brief and although he returned to Rotherham and played 15 games for them in the 2016-17 season, he then joined Cardiff City and made 33 appearances in two seasons for Neil Warnock’s side.
FOR SOMEONE purporting to be a striker, Leon Best fired blanks at a good many of the clubs he played for.
Such was his time at Brighton where he failed to get on the scoresheet in 13 games (six as a starter, seven as a substitute).
When he featured for AFC Bournemouth in the third tier, he fared slightly better. He managed three goals in 14 starts plus three as a substitute when on loan from Premier League Southampton during the 2006-07 season.
The somewhat derogatory phrase ‘journeyman’ was tailor-made for the likes of Best, who appeared for 13 different league clubs, failing to score for five of them and only registering double figure tallies at three.
Brighton supporters, on the whole, are normally supportive of anyone who appears for their team, but feelings boiled over at Best’s apparent lack of desire when pulling on the Seagulls stripes.
He was part of the struggling 2014-15 side which narrowly avoided the drop from the Championship, and I recall him being booed when he came on as a substitute at the Amex. On reflection, of course, such derision was unlikely to improve his demeanour.
The keyboard warriors of North Stand Chat weren’t slow to vent their anger, with one correspondent suggesting: “We’ve not seen much in the way of desire, endeavour, hunger or appetite from someone you would hope feels he has something to prove.”
Chris Hughton had not long been in the manager’s chair when he was casting around for players to help Albion climb away from the foot of the table.
Perhaps not unreasonably, he turned to a player who’d scored goals for him in the Premier League during his time at Newcastle United.
Hughton told the Argus: “I know Leon very well, having signed him during my time at Newcastle and I am delighted to have him here.
“He is a strong, physical presence, he knows the Championship and knows the position we are in. We wanted new faces, to freshen up the squad, and Leon will add competition alongside our existing strikers.
“I signed him previously at Newcastle. I know he can be a very good player and he did very well for me both in the Championship and Premier League. He also had a very good spell with Newcastle after I left the club.”
Best scored 10 in 46 games for the Magpies but, at his next club, Blackburn Rovers, he managed only two in 16, hence them sending him out on loan.
While Best had scored five in 16 playing on loan at Sheffield Wednesday in 2013-14, he scored a big fat zero in 20 games for Derby County earlier in the 2014-15 season so perhaps expectations should not have been high when he arrived at Brighton on 20 January 2015.
Nevertheless, Hughton told Brian Owen: “I am very pleased he is here. He gives us another attacking option and I hope he can produce the same form he did for me when we worked together at Newcastle.” In short, he didn’t.
Born in Nottingham on 19 September 1986, his first steps into the professional game came with his local side Notts County. When international recognition came calling, he chose to represent his mother’s birth country, the Republic of Ireland, and was capped at under 17, under 19 and under 21 levels before gaining seven full caps in 2009-10.
Southampton snapped up Best in 2004 and gave him his league debut aged 18, ironically against his future employer, Newcastle.
But opportunities were limited with the Saints and over the course of three years on their books they loaned him out to QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Bournemouth and Yeovil Town.
In 2007, Best transferred to then Championship side Coventry City for £650,000 and arguably his most successful goalscoring spell came during his time there, as he netted 23 goals in 104 appearances over three seasons.
It prompted Hughton to spend £1.5m of Mike Ashley’s money to take Best to Tyneside on 1 February 2010.
Maybe the warning bells should have been sounding in those first few months on Tyneside when he didn’t register a goal in 13 Championship appearances and fell behind Andy Carroll and Peter Lovenkrands in the pecking order.
Although he managed a couple of goals in pre-season matches, the early part of the 2010-11 season was marred by a cruciate knee ligament injury. Nevertheless, when he returned to action in the January, he did it in some style, bagging a hat-trick in a 5-0 win over West Ham. He got a further three goals before injury ruled him out once again.
In the following season, he went 12 games without scoring but in the summer of 2012, Blackburn Rovers paid £3m to take him to Ewood Park – only for him to pick up an anterior cruciate knee injury one month into the season, ruling him out of action for six months.
The temporary move to Brighton was one of three loans away from Blackburn before they finally released him by mutual consent in July 2015.
It wasn’t until November 2015 he managed to find another club, pitching up for six months at Championship side Rotherham United. When he couldn’t agree terms on a new deal with the Millers, he instead moved to Ipswich Town, ostensibly as a replacement for Daryl Murphy.
He made six starts and six appearances as a substitute without scoring and, by January 2017, manager Mick McCarthy had lost patience with him and declared he wouldn’t play another game for the club.
Released by Town in the summer of 2017, Best managed to secure a two-month deal with Charlton Athletic in November 2017 but he sustained a knee injury on New Year’s Day 2018 and hasn’t played since.
AFTER 10 years at Tottenham Hotspur, Jeff Minton spent five years with Brighton & Hove Albion making just one short of 200 appearances and scoring 32 goals.
He was arguably the stand-out player in an otherwise gloom-laden period for the club when off-field issues overshadowed the playing side.
Minton’s spell in Seagulls’ colours remarkably straddled the reigns of five managers and he eventually left the south to rejoin one of them, Brian Horton, at Port Vale.
It was Liam Brady who brought him to the Albion on a free transfer and it is good to read how he viewed the genial Irishman as “like a father figure to me” and “somebody who had great confidence in my ability during his spell as manager”.
He made his Brighton debut away to Swansea in August 1994 and remained a mainstay of the midfield until the summer of 1999.
It doesn’t say a huge amount about the rest of the Albion side in the 1997-98 season that Minton was the top scorer with seven goals.
It’s to his credit though that, the following season, despite Albion finishing a lowly 17th in the fourth tier, Minton was chosen by his fellow professionals in the division in the PFA team of the year.
In the October 2017 issue (no.9) of The Albion Mag (below), Tom Stewart featured Minton as one of his cult heroes of yesteryear.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement – “a vaguely skillful midfielder in an era featuring some of the poorest Albion players of all time” – Stewart nonetheless reckoned for the five seasons he was at the club he was “probably our most talented player”.
He went on to say: “Minton stood out from the crowd purely because he had a bit of nous and finesse surrounded by fairly untalented ‘grafters’ and was the only real shining light of that era.”
Stewart posed the conundrum: “Perhaps Minton is a tale of a player with unfulfilled potential, or perhaps he is a player who was decent at Divison Three level but struggled to make an impact at a higher level, or perhaps he was just an alright player in an awful team. Or is he a combination of the three?”
In April 2017, Brighton & Hove Independent gathered together player and fan memories of Albion’s iconic former home, the Goldstone Ground, and Minton was among the contributors.
“I loved the Goldstone, it was a great stadium and it’s a shame it got sold off,” he said. “The fans were all brilliant. I’m not too sure if they took to me in the first couple of years I was there, but the last two or three seasons I got on really well with them. “They were always fantastic and got right behind their side at the Goldstone. You don’t see that at a lot of teams.”
Born on 28 December 1973 in Hackney, Minton initially started training with Arsenal but, as a Spurs fan, he jumped at the chance to join Tottenham as a schoolboy.
“I joined the club as a 10-year-old after the scout Dick Moss watched me playing a district game for Hackney against Enfield in which I scored a hat-trick,” Minton recounted in a January 2018 interview with superhotspur.com (pictured below).
“Joining as a 10-year-old and leaving as a 20-year-old gave me 10 very valuable learning years at a club I supported, and also one of the country’s top clubs which is steeped in so much tradition and history. Those treasured memories will forever live with me.”
Like fellow Spurs schoolboy Junior McDougald, at 14 Minton was invited to become a member of the FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall.
Having successfully worked his way through the ranks, Minton was given his first team debut by boss Peter Shreeves on 25 April 1992 in a game that turned out to be Gary Lineker’s last home match for Spurs.
If reaching that promised land wasn’t good enough, the dream debut was complete when he scored in a 3-3 draw against Everton, with Paul Stewart and Paul Allen also on the scoresheet.
However, Minton only played two more games for the Spurs first team: one in the league seven days later in a 3-1 defeat away to Manchester United, the other in the league cup, going on as a substitute for Darren Anderton in a 3-1 win over Brentford.
Managerial upheaval probably didn’t help his cause: Terry Venables had been in charge when he joined, after Shreeves’ spell in charge, Doug Livermore and Ray Clemence took over, and it was Ossie Ardiles who ended up releasing him on a free transfer in July 1994.
It’s interesting to read that Minton’s former youth team manager, Keith Waldon, was disappointed that Minton didn’t make more of a name for himself. Waldon told superhotspur.com: “One of those who disappointed me with how far he went in the game was Jeffrey Minton.
“Jeffrey had phenomenal ability with his feet, was quick off the mark and had wonderful skill. But he didn’t go as far as I hoped he would, and I think that he’d tell you that he wasn’t the most disciplined person, but he was a wonderful player.”
While welcoming the chance to play first division football for Port Vale after his Brighton career came to a close, he struggled to settle in the Potteries and in his second year there moved on loan to second division Rotherham United, who he helped to promotion.
He then returned to London for the 2001-02 season and played 39 league and cup games for Third Division Leyton Orient.
Although offered a contract extension by the O’s, Minton says excessive demands from his agent scuppered a deal and he ended up playing non-league football with Canvey Island for three seasons.
He moved on to Chelmsford City in August 2006 where he played for a further three years, had a brief spell at Welling United and ended his playing days with Isthmian League Ware.
Under Billy Davies, Halford was generally deployed as a striker but when Pearce took over at the City Ground, he didn’t get close to the first team. On his return from Brighton at the end of the 2014-15 season, he was released by Forest and joined Rotherham United on a free transfer.
That spell was also brief and although he returned to Rotherham and played 15 games for them in the 2016-17 season, he then joined Cardiff City and made 33 appearances in two seasons for Neil Warnock’s side.
“He is a strong, physical presence, he knows the Championship and knows the position we are in. We wanted new faces, to freshen up the squad, and Leon will add competition alongside our existing strikers.
In the following season, he went 12 games without scoring but in the summer of 2012, Blackburn Rovers paid £3m to take him to Ewood Park – only for him to pick up an anterior cruciate knee injury one month into the season, ruling him out of action for six months.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement – “a vaguely skillful midfielder in an era featuring some of the poorest Albion players of all time” – Stewart nonetheless reckoned for the five seasons he was at the club he was “probably our most talented player”.
Having successfully worked his way through the ranks, Minton was given his first team debut by boss Peter Shreeves on 25 April 1992 in a game that turned out to be Gary Lineker’s last home match for Spurs.
In parallel lines 