Tag: Sami Hyypia

Melton took Micky at his word – and saw red 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A complimentary caption in the club match day programme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goalscorers Melton and Zamora after a memorable win over Reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tiger Melton

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

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

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

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

Melton at Boston

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

Hopefully he will add another dimension to our team.”

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

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

The ‘Derry Pelé’ only briefly strutted his stuff at Brighton

PADDY McCourt put a dent in Brighton’s promotion hopes when he scored for managerless Barnsley at the Amex. Eight months later he joined the Albion’s renewed attempts to lift themselves out of the Championship.

The mazy dribbler from Derry lit up the evening of Tuesday 3 December 2013 when he gave the bottom-of-the-table Tykes an unlikely first-half lead.

Barnsley arrived at Falmer having just sacked manager David Flitcroft and when McCourt teased and tormented the retreating Seagulls defenders to net in the 35th minute it ended a sequence of nearly five hours without a goal.

McCourt celebrates scoring for Barnsley at the Amex

Recalling what was something of a trademark finish by the bearded Irishman in a 2018 post wearebrighton.com described howMcCourt picked up a loose ball 40 yards out from goal, dribbled round Liam Bridcutt and Andrew Crofts, drifted past Matt Upson with a quick step-over, nutmegged Gordon Greer before playing a quick one-two with Worthing-born Marcus Tudgay,  then ghosted round Stephen Ward before slotting the ball into the bottom corner of the goal past Tomasz Kuszczak in Albion’s goal.

Five minutes after the restart, the visitors went further ahead through Jacob Mellis before Upson pulled a goal back with a header from a Craig Conway corner. Barnsley had on-loan goalkeeper Jack Butland to thank for ensuring they left with all three points, making notable saves from subs Will Buckley and Leroy Lita (who moved to Barnsley the following year).

While Albion went on to finish sixth under Oscar Garcia but failed to get further than the play-off semi-final for the second year running, Barnsley, who’d appointed former Albion captain Danny Wilson as Flitcroft’s successor, exited the division the wrong way, finishing in 23rd place.

Barnsley’s top scorer, Chris O’Grady, stayed in the division by signing for the Albion and a month later his former teammate, 30-year-old McCourt, released on a free transfer at the end of the season, joined him in Sussex after impressing new Seagulls boss Sami Hyypia in a trial period.

“We have seen enough of Paddy in the last week or so to know that he is a player who has quality going forward,” said Hyypia. “He is the type of player who can pick a pass and create a chance.”

That said, Hyypia only gave McCourt starts in two League Cup games (v Burton Albion and Tottenham Hotspur); his 11 other Albion appearances were all as a substitute.

When he did start, away to Burton, he set up goals for Rohan Ince and Craig Mackail-Smith in Albion’s 3-0 win and he told the matchday programme: “There’s nothing like playing games for your fitness and I’m sure that the more I play the better I will feel.”

Hyypia kept his feet on the ground, though, pointing out: “He needs to realise what he needs to do to improve and to be a very important player for the team defensively as well.”

Often described as a ‘maverick’, McCourt’s response was: “I like to get on the ball and be creative; that’s always been part of my game and something I’ve always been good at. I love taking on players, creating chances and now I just hope I can get a run in the team and show what I can do on a regular basis.”

He certainly couldn’t have been accused of lacking ambition, maintaining: “I still have aspirations to play in the Premier League and hopefully that will happen in my time here.

“I’ve played international football, I’ve played Champions League and Europa League football with Celtic, so the next step for me would be to play at the highest level in England – I would love that to happen.”

That international career was as strange as much of his career. There were 13 years between the first and last of 18 caps for Northern Ireland: he made his debut under Sammy McIlroy in 2002 (a 5-0 defeat against Spain) then had to wait seven years before he was selected again. That was in a 3-0 World Cup qualifier win over San Marino, when he went on as an 81st minute sub for future Albion teammate Aaron Hughes.

He scored twice in Northern Ireland’s 4-0 win over the Faroe Islands in a Euro 2012 qualifier in August 2011 (when Hughes scored his first goal for his country in his 77th appearance!).

McCourt’s second goal that day was reckoned to be one of the best ever goals seen at Windsor Park. According to the Belfast Telegraph, he “collected the ball just inside the opposition half and left three defenders in his wake with magical dribbling skills and impeccable close control before outfoxing another… then to cap it off he produced a stunning left foot chip over the bemused goalkeeper which floated into the net.”

McCourt helped manager Michael O’Neill’s side reach the Euro 2016 finals, but was not available for the finals in France because his wife Laura was seriously ill (more of which later).

“I really enjoyed it,” he told BBC Northern Ireland’s Mark Sterling in a lockdown interview in 2020. “Any time I was picked I turned up, and to be involved in the Euros qualifying campaign was fantastic.

“Everybody wants to play international football, The fans took to me straight away, were always singing my name and I hope I gave them some good memories.”

Born in Derry on 16 December 1983, McCourt’s early footballing promise was nurtured by Eunan O’Donnell, his PE teacher at Steelstown Primary School. At the club he joined as a youngster, Derry-based Foyle Harps, it was club chairman Gerry Doherty “who deserves more credit than anyone else” according to McCourt’s brother Leroy (who was his agent).

However, McCourt reckoned: “The street is where I learnt how to play football.”

In that lockdown interview with BBC’s Sterling, he said: “When I was younger there was more emphasis on players to develop themselves. We trained once a week for an hour with our clubs, when you might only get 40 or 50 touches of the ball at most, with 20 kids in a session.

“It was up to you to go out into the streets with your mates and practice your skills in small-sided games. We’d play for six or seven hours, there might only be four of you and you’d get thousands of touches.

“You were probably playing with older kids and on concrete as well, so that would improve your balance.”

Although given the moniker of the greatest Brazilian footballer of all time, McCourt’s boyhood hero was Robbie Fowler. “I’m a Liverpool and Celtic fan, and for some reason he was a player I just absolutely adored growing up,” he said.

“My memories are of seeing Fowler scoring – left foot, right foot, header – it didn’t seem to matter to him. He just had this unbelievable talent for putting the ball in the back of the net.”

McCourt’s first taste of professional football in England came at Third Division Rochdale, joining them in 2000 aged 17. But in an open and honest question and answer session in March 2018 at the Talent Development Academy Elite Soccer Coaching event, at the Magee Campus of the Ulster University, the player spoke about how youthful wrong lifestyle choices meant he blew the opportunity.

“I was nowhere near ready for it and the events that transpired in the next couple of years proved that. It’s very hard to know the situation you’re going into when you’re not prepared for it.

“I was coming from Foyle Harps, playing junior football and then going into a professional environment. It wasn’t that big of a jump in terms of what you did differently because Rochdale was a small club and you went in and trained and were home for 1pm living in digs and I didn’t drive at the time.

“You had so much spare time on your hands and as a young lad, you do daft stuff and make mistakes and I admit I made plenty. It was basic stuff like going out too much and not eating the right food.”

Although he made 94 appearances for Rochdale, around half were as a substitute and after unsuccessful trials with Motherwell and Norwich City he was eventually released in February 2005 and returned to the League of Ireland with Shamrock Rovers.

“Initially when I was at Rochdale I did quite well and broke into the first team quite early but when I came back I took stock. I made mistakes and wasn’t really living my life to be a professional footballer.

“I had six months with Shamrock Rovers where I didn’t make many changes to my lifestyle but I was doing quite well on the pitch.”

It was only when he returned to his home town and played at Derry City where things began to change under the positive influence of future Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny.

“I learned what it takes to become a proper athlete because you need to live a clean lifestyle to make it as a footballer and I wish I knew back then what I know now,” he said.

“There was a bit of sports science starting to come in at Derry in terms of what to do leading up to a game, and then your recovery sessions on a Saturday morning after a game. It was tiny, basic stuff but it started to kick in then and that helped me because I was getting information I didn’t have before. It was up to yourself to buy into it and I started to buy into it a bit more and started to see the benefit.”

Between 2005 and 2008 with Derry, McCourt won an FAI Cup, three League Cups, was involved in a league runners-up spot (2005) and was part of a UEFA Cup run in 2006.

He then got the chance to join Celtic, the side he’d supported as a boy, signing for a fee of £200,000 in June 2008. Hoops boss Gordon Strachan told the Derry Daily: “Paddy is as gifted a footballer as I’ve ever seen. Some players can pass but can’t dribble. Others can dribble but can’t pass. Paddy can do both.”

It wasn’t until the 2009-10 season that he forced his way into the first team and his  first goal for the club was in a 4-0 League Cup win at Falkirk in September 2009 when he skipped past five defenders before chipping the goalkeeper.

His own favourite was his first goal at Parkhead in a 3-0 win over Hearts on 11 September 2010 which realised a lifetime ambition.

“I actually had dreams of scoring at Celtic Park,” he said. “I felt I had let that go when I had that setback at Rochdale. Self-doubt creeps in but I remember the night. It was Hearts at home and it was a very proud moment.

“It might never have happened if I hadn’t made the sacrifices I made and I have a lot of people to thank for that.”

When Aiden McGeady left Celtic for Spartak Moscow in August 2010, Celtic manager Neil Lennon challenged McCourt to step into his shoes and said: “He’s wonderful to watch. He’s beautifully balanced and he’s got great vision and great feet and that’s why we decided to get him on a longer-term contract. He’s pleased and we’re pleased.”

In his five years in Glasgow, McCourt scored 10 goals in 88 appearances for the Hoops although he actually only made 20 starts. He collected medals for his part in Scottish Premier League title wins in 2011-12 and 2012-13 as well as Scottish Cup wins in 2011 and 2013.

That 3-0 2013 final win over Hibernian was his last game for Celtic before he joined English Championship Barnsley, who were managed by his former Rochdale teammate David Flitcroft.

The goal against Brighton in December 2013 was one of only two he scored for the Tykes in 15 starts plus eight appearances off the bench and Barnsley fans certainly had mixed views about his contribution.

Online chat group contributor ‘Jay’ posted: “At his best he was as good as I’ve ever seen. Be nice if he can produce that sort of form consistently, even if it’s not for us. All that talent shouldn’t go to waste.”

Another, ‘JLWBigLil’ reckoned: “One of the most skilful players I’ve ever seen play for Barnsley in all my years of going down to Oakwell. Possibly the right player at the wrong time for us.”

Whereas ‘MarioKempes’ opined: “There was no doubting his ability but the other key aspects such as workrate, fitness, stamina and heart were sadly lacking from his game.”

It almost certainly didn’t help McCourt’s cause at Brighton that new boss Hyypia struggled to get to grips with the task in hand and chopped and changed the line-up. The addition of several loan players didn’t help matters either.

Frustrated Albion fans reckoned McCourt should have had a bigger involvement than his few cameos off the bench, citing his influence in helping to salvage a point away at Watford, and planting the ball on Gordon Greer’s head to score a consolation goal from his corner kick at Middlesbrough.

After Hyypia left the club before Christmas, McCourt’s last Albion appearance was as a sub in the home Boxing Day 2-2 draw with Reading (on loan Glenn Murray scored twice for the visitors; Jake Forster-Caskey and Inigo Calderon for the Albion), going on for Danny Holla.

Nathan Jones was in caretaker charge that day and the pair were subsequently reunited at Luton Town the following season.

Before then, unable to get games under Albion’s new boss Chris Hughton, McCourt dropped into League One on loan at relegation-bound Notts County.

He scored County’s winner in their 1-0 win at Colchester on 3 March 2015 but they went on an 11-game winless run after that and went down with Crawley Town and Leyton Orient.

Released by Brighton that summer, McCourt joined the League Two Hatters under John Still in July 2015 and was followed there a month later by Mackail-Smith.

After a run of three starts in September, when Town won all three matches, McCourt played in a 1-1 draw with Leyton Orient on 20 October, before being restricted to a role on the bench.

On his return to the starting line-up in January 2016, away to Mansfield, he scored his fist Luton goal after just seven minutes in a 2-0 win. He told Luton Today: “It was great, all players want to play from the start and it’s been disappointing to sit on the sidelines.

“It was very frustrating because we’d just won three or four games in a row, then I came back from an international double header, was on the bench, played in the draw against Leyton Orient and that was it, I didn’t play again.

“I don’t know why, I didn’t ask the manager and he ended up getting the sack, but it was very disappointing as I felt that although I wasn’t where I wanted to be in terms of performance, I was playing, we were winning games.”

In action for Luton Town

When former Brighton coach Jones was appointed as Still’s successor, McCourt told Luton Today: “He’s a coach who wants to play football, ball from the back, get between the lines, bring a wee bit of flair and creativity back to Luton, so hopefully I can play a big part in that.”

Unfortunately, he cut short his stay at Kenilworth Road after 16 starts and nine appearances off the bench to return to Ireland because his wife Laura had to undergo treatment for a brain tumour. She recovered after a successful operation and O’Court resumed playing at Glenavon.

According to the Belfast Telegraph: “It ended up being a disappointing half-season at Mourneview Park and was followed by a move to Finn Harps, where he was able to roll back the years, not least when he ghosted past a whole host of Sligo players and dinked home the finish with his inimitable swagger.”

That was in 2018 before he retired from playing and began coaching academy players at Derry City. He later became the club’s technical director and left in January 2024 before taking up a role as assistant to manager Declan Devine at Irish Premiership side Glentoran.

Perhaps the last words should go to reporter Daniel McDonnell, who wrote in the Irish Independent: “Football is nothing without entertainers. Punters paying cash to watch a game want to see individuals capable of doing things that the ordinary player could only daydream about. McCourt could do things that top pros were unable to manage.”

While recognising McCourt’s CV might have glittered more brightly, he declared: “There are players who will retire with more medals and more money that will never garner a comparable level of affection.

“Mention McCourt’s name to those who had the pleasure of watching him in full flight and responses will be delivered with a smile.”

Albion’s lifeline for the boy from Baghdad who turned down Spurs

BAGHDAD-BORN Yaser Kasim went through the youth ranks at Tottenham Hotspur but rejected a professional contract at White Hart Lane and tried to build a career at Brighton instead.

Although it didn’t work out at the Albion, he subsequently thrived at Swindon Town where his former Seagulls’ development squad coach Luke Williams had become assistant manager.

“He is one of the best coaches I have worked with. This guy is at another level,” he said.

Kasim joined the Spurs academy at the age of 11 in June 2003 and progressed to become a full-time scholar at 16. He was in the club’s youth team in the 2009 FA Youth Cup (they lost 3-1 to north London neighbours Arsenal in the quarter-finals) alongside Andros Townsend, Steven Caulker and Jonathan Obika.

“When the time came to sign pro forms at Tottenham, I decided to go on my own and turned it down,” Kasim told Tom Hopkinson of the Sunday People.

“From that decision it was ­difficult to get another club ­because everyone knows how ­powerful Spurs are and I couldn’t sort the compensation out for all those years I’d trained with them.”

Kasim in action for Albion Reserves v Eastbourne Borough. Pic: Simon Dack

A contractual impasse left Kasim in limbo and he was forced to train on his own until former Spurs teammates Gus Poyet and Mauricio Taricco, having taken over as manager and no.2 at Brighton, stepped in.

The pair managed to resolve the dispute between player and club and in October 2010 offered him a short-term deal with the Seagulls. Kasim later told the Argus: “They sorted something out for me and I love the football here, because they play good football, and the players are great, so everything is good except for playing more games…I’ll work hard for that.”

He was talking after he had been handed his Albion debut in the final game of the 2010-11 season, a 1-1 draw away to Notts County, with the Seagulls already having been crowned League One champions.

Kasim played for 70 minutes in midfield alongside Liam Bridcutt, Matt Sparrow and Elliott Bennett before being substituted, with Poyet saying: “The pitch didn’t help him. He is a technical player. We are trying to work on the other side of his game, the toughness and his defensive work. I think he has got a great future.

“He was very good on the ball, confident and strong. As soon as the game became more 50-50 it wasn’t good for him or us but opponents are going to try to make it a war against us.”

The Uruguayan added: “We are offering him the chance to stay with us. He is thinking about it and we’ll probably have a few more words.

“He knows where he stands. We’ve been honest with him, it’s up to him.

“It’s complicated because I don’t know if it will be easy for him to step up and start playing for the first team in the Championship, but we are offering him the chance to be there or thereabouts.”

As it turned out, he was a regular in Luke Williams’ development squad but only made the first team bench on three occasions, getting on (pictured above) just the once, as a sub for Alan Navarro, in the 66th minute of an inexperienced Albion’s 1-1 FA Cup draw at home to then non-league Wrexham on 7 January 2012.

Kasim managed to collect a booking during his brief time on the pitch in a game that saw young Ben Sampayo given his debut and Grant Hall his first start (he’d previously been a sub five days earlier against Southampton). Anton Rodgers, son of Brendan, was sent on at the same time as Kasim entered the fray. Kasim was an unused sub in the replay when Albion only advanced courtesy of a penalty shoot-out, edging it 5-4 after the game ended 1-1.

Come the summer of 2012 and Kasim went on a six-month loan to then Conference Premier League Luton Town, with Hatters boss Paul Buckle telling the club’s website: “Yaser can do a variety of jobs. He can be a box-to-box man and also play in a defensive midfield role.

“It’s great we have been able to capture someone of his calibre for six months. I have no doubt that he will prosper with us.”

The player made five starts plus six appearances off the bench and scored once, in a 2-1 win at Tamworth (the other scorer was Stuart Fleetwood, who’d been on loan at the Albion in the 2008-09 season).

In the second half of the season, Kasim played five games for Conference National League Macclesfield Town.

Released by Brighton in May 2013, Kasim went on trial to League One Swindon and signed a three-year deal after spending a week at the Robins’ pre-season training camp in Portugal. Manager Mark Cooper paired him in midfield with Massimo Luongo and he played 45 times in his first season.

Reliable Robin

Perhaps it was inevitable that Kasim managed to get on the scoresheet against Brighton in August 2014 when Swindon lost 4-2 (after extra time) at home to Sami Hyypia’s Albion in the second round of the League Cup (future Town midfielder Rohan Ince scored a belter for the Seagulls, Adrian Colunga edged Albion ahead in the 95th minute. Kasim equalised before two late penalties scored by Jake Forster-Caskey put Albion through).

Kasim ended up having four seasons at the County Ground, was part of the side that made it to the League One play-off final in 2015, when they lost 4-0 to Preston, and it was reported at one point that Premier League Swansea City and West Ham were interested in signing him.

Nothing came of that, though, and his final campaign with the Robins saw him dogged by groin and hip injuries as Town were relegated to the bottom tier.

Mentor Williams was Town’s head coach by then and, after being forced to drop Kasim in February 2017 and replace him with the aforementioned Ince, opened up to the Swindon Advertiser.

Reckoning Kasim was not showing enough of a physical side to his game, Williams said: “I have known Yaser a long time and he is an incredibly talented player but, for one reason or another, I don’t think he is performing to anywhere near his best and at the moment, he needs to come out of the team.

“Players fall out of form because of a combination of things, sometimes off the pitch as well.

I wish I could find the reason and try to make everything okay for Yaser because he is a very important player and has given a fantastic service to us.

“He is somebody that I think a lot of personally so I would love for him to be in top form.

“I think Yaser in top form is as good a player as you’ll see at this level for sure, unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be able to quite find it.”

The coach added: “He came here and I think, certainly for the first two seasons, he was absolutely fantastic and last season, there was far more good from Yaser than bad. This year, he hasn’t been able to recapture that.”

Born in the Karrada district of Baghdad on 10 May 1991, three months after the end of the Gulf War, Kasim’s passion for football began at a young age on the streets of Baghdad.

“I lived in Iraq until I was six years old,” he told the-afc.com. “I don’t know how young I was when I started to play, but before I left we used to play a lot of football on the streets.

“It is a very sunny and hot climate so we used to play on the streets and there were a lot of people playing 20 a-side sometimes on the tarmac and there were a few rolled ankles and a few chipped toe nails, but I loved it and we used to be outside all day.”

The family left Iraq because Kasim’s father saw a decline in his business as a used car parts salesman. They spent a year in Jordan before moving to England, and eventually settling in north west London.

“I started playing after school every day and then I started to go to football clubs and a coach at one of my sports centres took me to Fulham,” he said. He had only been at Fulham a few months before switching to Spurs.

Explaining why he turned down the offer of a professional contract at Tottenham, Kasim had concerns about the way players were being cared for. He said: “There was a lot of competition; I don’t mind competition as the more the competition, when growing up especially, the better it is, but they were bringing in players without plans on how to look after them and I felt they weren’t doing things right by the players so I saw that my opportunities would be limited and I thought this was not for me.”

It was during his time at Brighton that he was approached to join up with the Iraq national side, at the time coached by Wolfgang Sidka. He won 21 caps over a number of years, although he had a somewhat chequered relationship with the representative side.

In international action for Iraq

He made his debut in March 2014 featuring in a 3-1 win over China, was hero-worshipped after a series of influential performances in the 2015 Asian Cup (scoring a key winning goal in their opener against Jordan and netting a penalty in the quarter-final shootout against Iran), but went AWOL during the country’s preparations for the 2016 Rio Olympics (he was called up as one of three coverage players for the tournament but he left the training camp in Spain and never returned).

He also turned down national team call ups under coaches Radhi Shanaishel and Basim Qasim then, after saying he’d retired from the national set-up, returned and went on as a sub in a 4-1 win over Saudi Arabia in 2018 – the most high-profile match to be staged in Iraq for years and Kasim’s first international match on Iraqi soil (previously ‘home’ matches were played at empty grounds across the world).

“Just having that real home feeling is very special,” Kasim told Mark Lomas in a post-match interview for Arab News.

“When you compare it to playing in Dubai, or playing in Malaysia, the difference is just ridiculous. Even when it’s an important game, it is just not the same as it being in Iraq. It elevates you to another level – really, it’s amazing being out there on the pitch. I really do hope we get to play our home games here going forward.
“I truly hope that FIFA sees this game and realises that these fans deserve to watch their team play in Iraq.”

Kasim added: “I have always said that the Iraqi fans are the best in the world — they are crazy for football and for the players.

“I appreciate them so much and I’m humbled when they shout my name. When I come back to Iraq, I get to meet a lot of people every day and you just get such a good vibe.”

By the time of that interview, Kasim had moved on to League One Northampton Town but he told Thomas: “It is just really good that someone like me, who left Iraq at a young age, is able to come back and reconnect with my heritage. It brings out something within you as a man, a bit of maturity and cultural understanding. It goes some way to helping you feel more complete as a person.

“This occasion, obviously, will always give me happy memories of Basra. It kind of trumps everything else I’ve experienced in Iraq. Being around the people and these sorts of occasions, it really helps the country move forward. You realise that officials are stepping up and doing things right. I’m hoping this is just the beginning.”

After Kasim left the Cobblers in January 2019, he had brief spells with Örebro SK in Sweden, and Erbil and Zakho in Iraq (when Dick Advocaat was briefly Iraq manager, Kasim was recalled for the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup after he’d impressed playing for Zakho).

Ahead of the 2022-23 season, Kasim was a trialist for Notts County in a pre-season 1-1 draw with   Boston United (National League County were managed by the aforementioned Luke Williams) but his next club was National League South Welling United, where he played 11 matches.

On signing him, manager Warren Feeney said: “He’s a fantastic player. We’re very lucky to get him and we’re absolutely delighted. He’s a player who can open teams up, he’s a great player who’s played at a great level and is an international so he has great pedigree. He’s hungry and we’re delighted to have him.”

After only three months, he moved on to National League North Gloucester City but after only one game headed back to the south east and linked up with Football’s Next Star winner (and one-time Brighton teammate) Ben Greenhalgh, who was assistant manager at Margate, of the Isthmian Premier League. Kasim played 13 matches for Margate and the following season linked up with another former Brighton colleague, coach Mark Beard, who was in charge of National League South Eastbourne Borough.

He played 17 matches for Boro before returning to Margate where after 12 more games he decided to retire from playing at the age of 33.

In May 2024, Kasim wrote a lengthy piece on the medium.com platform entitled The Illusion of Time and Space: A Footballer’s Perspective in which he explained: “The most beautiful part of playing the game has been the ability to create the illusion of time and space on the pitch. This involves making complex decisions and movements appear effortless, allowing a player to control the game seamlessly.”

As to what he’s doing now, his LinkedIn profile says he’s aiming to develop a career in investment management. Also, as the holder of a UEFA B licence, he’s a part-time coach for Crystal Palace’s academy, working with different age groups.

Managerial turnover played havoc with goalscorer Bent’s career

FORMER England striker Darren Bent, who now shares his opinion of the game with listeners to talkSPORT, was still only 30 when he pulled on the stripes of Brighton, one of nine clubs he represented in the Premier League and Championship.

He couldn’t have got off to a better start when he scored on his debut at the Amex, netting against one of his former clubs, Fulham. Unfortunately, the visitors turned the game on its head and won 2-1.

Timing is everything in football and perhaps if Bent had joined the Albion in happier circumstances, there may have been a better story to tell. The Seagulls were about the ditch the manager who brought him to the club – an all-too-familiar scenario Bent encountered on many occasions throughout an 18-year playing career.

At Spurs he played under three different managers – he later described it as “the worst two years of my career” – and his temporary move from Aston Villa to Brighton came about because he’d been frozen out by Paul Lambert even though Gerard Houllier had smashed Villa’s transfer fee record to sign Bent from Sunderland for £18m in January 2011.

Bent arrived at the Amex in November 2014 with 184 goals in 464 career appearances behind him, and only three years earlier had won the last of 13 caps for England, for whom he scored four goals.

“His record speaks for itself,” said Albion boss Sami Hyypia. “He is a top-class striker with more than 100 Premier League goals with Charlton, Spurs, Sunderland and Aston Villa. I hope he will score plenty of goals for us during his time with us.

“There is no doubting his ability to score goals. He also wants to play regular games and that is evident in his willingness to step down from the Premier League to the Championship.”

The player himself told the matchday programme: “Anyone who knows me knows that all I care about is football.

“It has never been about money or anything like that. It has always been about playing football. I’m always at my happiest when I’m playing.”

Bent added: “Brighton felt like the perfect place to come and play football, especially for someone like Sami Hyypia, who I’ve played against many times over the years.

“As a manager, I think he is the right man. He is the kind of guy I want to play for.”

It was a generous assessment in the circumstances because Brighton had managed only two wins in 16 matches before Bent’s arrival.

The experienced striker’s second goal for the Albion looked like it might have earned the beleaguered coach a reprieve from the inevitable. He scored in the 10th minute away at Wolves, stooping to head Inigo Calderon’s first-time cross past goalkeeper Carl Ikeme. It was a lead that lasted until the 88th-minute but was cancelled out by a Danny Batth equaliser after Albion had played 30 second half minutes with 10 men following a red card shown to Bruno. Brighton parted company with the big Finn shortly afterwards.

Bent played one more game, under caretaker Nathan Jones, when Albion fought back from 2-0 down (both scored by on-loan Glenn Murray against his old club) to earn a home draw against Reading, but he was forced off injured after less than half an hour and the knock kept him out of the next game at Fulham, when Brighton won 2-0.

Hyypia’s replacement, Chris Hughton, spoke at his first press conference of trying to keep the player, but Bent had the chance to join a side at the opposite end of the Championship and he moved to promotion-seeking Derby County instead, scoring 12 times in 13 starts as the Rams missed out on a play-off spot by one point.

Released by Villa at the end of the season, he subsequently joined the Rams on a permanent basis in the summer of 2015. He saw even more managerial churn at Pride Park – Paul Clement and Darren Wassall in 2015-16 and three – Nigel Pearson, Steve McLaren and Gary Rowett – in 2016-17. Across the two seasons in the Championship, Bent scored 14 in 67 matches, but a hamstring injury sidelined him for the start of the 2017-18 season.

In January 2018 he went on loan to Championship strugglers Burton Albion under Nigel Clough where he scored twice in 14 appearances (nine starts + five off the bench) including netting the equaliser against his old club Sunderland when Burton’s 2-1 win relegated the Black Cats to the third tier of English football for only the second time in the club’s history. Burton also went down.

Released by Derby in the summer of 2018, he announced his retirement at 35 in July 2019.

Funny that he should end his career at Derby County because it was against them that he scored his first competitive goal for Tottenham in a 4–0 home victory in August 2007.

Bent had previously scored 37 goals in 79 matches over two seasons at Premier League Charlton Athletic before making what at the time was a record £16.5m move to White Hart Lane, where Dutch boss Martin Jol greeted him enthusiastically.

On target for Spurs

Although he already had Robbie Keane, Dimitar Berbatov, Jermain Defoe and Mido as forward options, Jol said of the new signing: “Darren’s strength is his stamina. Normally players will make runs three or four times in 45 minutes, he will do it all the time and if you manage to play balls behind the defence, he will be there.

“He has pace, he links play well and can see a pass – he can exploit the space and play as well.”

What happened subsequently is covered superbly in a 2019 article by Jack Beresford on Planet Football, but, to fast forward a little, Jol was shown the White Hart Lane exit and his replacement, Spaniard Juande Ramos (assisted by Gus Poyet) was a lot less enamoured by the big money signing.

Indeed, Beresford writes: “Bent later recalled how Tottenham became ‘a horrible place to be’ under Ramos, who regularly lambasted players over a lack of professionalism in regards to training and nutrition, demoting several senior figures to the reserves.”

Although Bent struggled to cement a regular starting spot in his first season at White Hart Lane, he was Spurs’ top scorer at the end of the 2008-09 campaign with 17 goals.

While things initially looked good under Bent’s third Spurs boss, Harry Redknapp, the manager’s decision to publicly humiliate the striker eventually brought an unhappy spell to an end.

Bent missed a golden chance to score in a match against Portsmouth and Redknapp told reporters after the game: “You will never get a better chance to win a match than that. My missus could have scored that one.

“Bent did not only have part of the goal to aim for, but he had the entire net – and he put it wide. Unbelievable. I was just so frustrated.”

Bent put in a transfer request and said: “No one goes out to deliberately miss. When you miss a chance and your manager comes out and supports you rather than criticises you, it’s a big help.”

Ironically, circumstances meant Bent went on to make 12 more appearances for Tottenham, scoring five times and his 12 league goals made him the club’s top scorer.

Although Redknapp said Bent had a future at the club, he signed Peter Crouch and Beresford reported Bent later said: “I didn’t feel Redknapp wanted me there. It’s massive to have the support of your manager and that’s not been the case for the last two years.

“My career stood still at Tottenham. There’s a lot of politics going on there. I scored a lot of goals, but it was the hardest two years of my life.”

In those two years, he scored 25 goals in 79 games for Tottenham, but 36 of those appearances had been as a substitute.

Born in Tooting, south London, on 6 February 1984, Bent seemed always destined to be a footballer because his dad Mervyn had been on the books of Wimbledon and Brentford as a youngster.

The family moved to Cambridgeshire when the young Bent was only 10 and his early football career was nurtured at Godmanchester Rovers.

Ipswich Town picked him up as a 14-year-old and nurtured him through their youth ranks until he signed his first professional deal on 2 July 2001. George Burley gave him his debut five months later as a sub in a 3-1 UEFA Cup win away to Helsingborgs IF.

He scored twice in seven league and cup appearances that first season but the Tractor Boys were relegated from the top flight. Burley was soon replaced, temporarily by Tony Mowbray, then Joe Royle, under whom he cemented a regular starting berth in the second tier over the next three seasons.

By the time he left Ipswich in 2005, he’d scored 56 goals in 141 appearances. Former Brighton midfielder Alan Curbishley was at the helm of the Addicks when they paid a fee of £2.5m to take him to The Valley.

He scored five goals in Charlton’s first four league games (including two in the opening day 3-1 win over future employer Sunderland), finished his first season with 22 league and cup goals and was named Charlton’s Player of the Year.

Bent top scored again the following season, with 15, but under three different managers – Iain Dowie, Les Reed and Alan Pardew – they were relegated to the Championship along with Watford and Sheffield United.

As described earlier, Spurs presented the opportunity for him to continue playing in the Premier League, and he continued playing at that level when Sunderland bought him for £16.5million in the summer of 2009. Demonstrating the knack he had at several clubs, he scored on his debut, giving the Black Cats a 1-0 win at Bolton.

Bent went on to score 24 league goals for the Black Cats in his debut season at the club – and you can only imagine how delighted he was (pictured below) to net two in a 3-1 win over Spurs at the Stadium of Light!

The first came after just 34 seconds of the game on 3 April 2010, and a 29th-minute penalty gave him his 23rd goal of the season, although incredibly Bent also saw two other penalties saved by Spurs ‘keeper Heurelho Gomes. He had also missed a penalty in the reverse fixture at White Hart Lane the previous November, when Spurs won 2-0.

He obviously wasn’t the most reliable from 12 yards: I witnessed a Bent penalty miss myself back in 2003 when he’d gone on as a sub for Ipswich against Brighton at Portman Road. With the score at 1-1, Richard Carpenter’s foul on Chris Makin gave Bent the chance to restore the home side’s advantage from the spot. But he blasted the ball over without goalkeeper Dave Beasant needing to make a save. Tony Rougier then put Albion ahead but a Martin Reuser thunderbolt evened it up.

Bent’s 18-month stay with Steve Bruce’s Sunderland proved to be his most prolific goalscoring spell in football, netting 38 goals in just 52 appearances.

In the first half of the 2010-11 season, his partner up front was young Manchester United loanee Danny Welbeck, but in the January 2011 transfer window Bent was on the move again, this time to Villa.

Once again, he got off to a great start for a new club, marking his debut with the only goal of the game in a win over Manchester City. It was the first of nine goals in 16 league appearances which put him joint top scorer with Ashley Young, even though he’d only arrived at the club in January.

After health issues forced Houllier to step down as Villa boss, Alex McLeish took over for what was a tumultuous and under-performing season when relegation was only avoided by two points, although Bent was top scorer with 10.

McLeish’s successor Lambert not only took the captaincy off Bent, he also froze him out, only selecting him for 13 Premier League appearances. If he thought it was difficult enough to have three different managers in three seasons at Villa, when he spent the whole of the 2013-14 season on loan to Fulham, they had three different managers in one season!

Bent’s old Spurs boss Jol was in charge as the campaign got under way but, with only two wins in 14, he was replaced by former Man Utd no.2 René Meulensteen in December before Felix Magath took over in February. All the upheaval saw Fulham relegated with a team that included David Stockdale, Steve Sidwell, Aaron Hughes and Dan Burn. Bent scored six in 14 starts + 15 sub appearances.

If Bent was used to managerial change at club level, it wasn’t much better with the England national team: he played under three different managers in five years!

He had previously earned selection for his country at under 15, 16, 19 and 21 levels – he scored nine in 14 matches for the under-21s – and he was first called up to the full squad by Sven-Goran Eriksson shortly after he’d made the move from Ipswich to Charlton, although he didn’t play in a 4-1 defeat to Denmark.

“Making my Premiership debut for a new club, scoring my first brace in the Premiership and then to get the England call-up on the back of that was just a dream come true,” he told the FA website.

It was another six months before he made his full England debut, in a 2-1 win over Uruguay but he didn’t do enough to stake a claim for a place in the World Cup squad.

His next cap came as an 80th minute substitute for Joe Cole in the 3-2 defeat to Croatia in November 2007 that cost Steve McLaren his job when England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 tournament.

By the time he made his second start for England, on 14 November 2009, Fabio Capello was in charge. England lost 1-0 in a friendly to Brazil in Qatar when Bent’s teammates included Matthew Upson, Wayne Bridge and James Milner.

“Bent was struggling to make an impact as he attempted to convince Capello of his worth, not helped by a lack of service that rendered his task almost impossible,” reported the BBC’s Phil McNulty. “He had one opportunity, but could not direct a header on target from Milner’s cross.”

He didn’t make the cut for the 2010 World Cup squad but in September was back in the fold and scored his first England goal after going on as a 70th minute sub for Jermain Defoe as England beat Switzerland 3-1 in Basle.

By now at Villa, it was the first of three goals in three games (he also netted against Denmark and Wales) after which he told the Birmingham Mail: “I’d love to be No 9 for as long as possible, there are a lot of top strikers about but Fabio keeps picking me and hopefully I can keep producing the goods.

“Even when the goals weren’t going in, I always believed I was good enough to score at this level and hopefully it’s showing now. I’m finally getting my chance and getting a good run in the side. I’m delighted with it.

“It has been years since my first chance and it’s certainly been a long, long wait but it’s finally come.”

He started the 2-2 Euro 2012 qualifier with Montenegro in October 2011 and the following month was in the side that beat World Cup holders Spain 1-0 at Wembley; it was his header from Milner’s cross that rebounded off a post for Frank Lampard to nod in.

Three days later, he played what turned out to be his – and Capello’s – last game for England as a 70th minute sub for Bobby Zamora when England beat Sweden 1-0 at Wembley.

Yet another man was at the helm when it came to selection for the Euro 2012 tournament and Roy Hodgson didn’t reckon Bent had recovered sufficiently from an injury to merit inclusion.

For all the highs and lows of a lengthy playing career, nothing came close to what he suffered in front of a nation of TV quiz viewers: he scored only three points over two rounds of Celebrity Mastermind and admitted to talkSPORT listeners: “Honestly? It was probably the worst experience of my life!”

He explained: “As a footballer you get nervous before games, when you take a penalty in front of thousands of people, when you join a new club, but when you’re sitting in that chair opposite John Humphrys, it’s pitch black in there and all you can see is him, his eyes looking at you and he’s asking you questions and you just go blank.”

Loanee João Teixeira lit up a gloomy Championship season

BRIGHTON provided a handy platform on which João Teixeira could parade his undoubted talent but he was unable subsequently to nail down a regular starting spot with parent club Liverpool.

The young Portuguese midfielder impressed sufficiently on loan to the Seagulls in 2014-15 to earn the club’s Young Player of the Season award.

His time at Brighton was certainly a whole lot more successful than a loan move made to League One Brentford the previous season: a six-month arrangement was cut short in October after only two substitute appearances because the Bees couldn’t guarantee him the game time Liverpool had been expecting him to get.

Brentford move didn’t go well

It was a different story with the Seagulls although it was a shame his efforts were overshadowed by the side’s struggle to stay in the Championship and it ended prematurely for him when he suffered a broken leg.

On his return to fitness back at Liverpool, he was a frequent first team benchwarmer under Jurgen Klopp but chose to move back home to Portugal to seek regular playing time.

Liverpool paid Sporting Lisbon £830,000 in the January 2012 transfer window to take Teixeira to Anfield and it was Brendan Rodgers who gave him his Reds debut on 12 February 2014 when he was sent on as a substitute for Raheem Sterling in a 3-2 win at Fulham.

Captain Steven Gerrard told the Liverpool website at the time: “I watched this kid a couple of years ago playing for Sporting Lisbon against Liverpool at Anfield in a youth game; I could see straight away he was the best player on the pitch.

“Credit to him, he has kept working hard. He has been invited to train with the first team. He is competing, he is trying to improve and learn. He listens – I’ve just been speaking to him in the dressing room and you can see he wants to learn and listen.

“He has got respect for the other players in the dressing room. This is the start for him now; I’ve just told him that he needs to push on, keep learning and building on what he has just achieved. He deserved his debut and he made a special tackle which helped us get over the line.”

As it turned out, his next senior action came in Brighton’s Championship visit to St Andrew’s six months later when he went on as a 64th minute substitute for Kazenga LuaLua in a 1-0 defeat.

Brighton’s newly-appointed head coach, Sami Hyypiä, had returned to his old club to clinch Teixeira’s signature on a season-long loan and he told the matchday programme: “My former colleagues at Liverpool have told me he is a very bright young prospect who is held in high regard at the club at all levels.

“João is an attacking player who likes to be on the ball and do his best work in the final third of the pitch. I hope he will bring that extra edge to the team and our play – and give us an extra dimension.”

No sooner said than done because when given a starting spot three days after the Birmingham defeat, he made an immediate impact by putting Brighton ahead in the fifth minute at Elland Road and Albion went on to beat Leeds 2-0, handing Hyypiä his first win.

A joyful scorer for Brighton at Elland Road

The boss told Sky Sports: “I am grateful to them for letting João come to us and get the games he needs, but it works both ways. They can benefit too because his time with us can hopefully be a stepping stone towards Liverpool’s first team.

“He is a young player and Liverpool have a very big squad. A player of his age needs to play games to improve. We have a quality player and I am very happy to have him with us.”

The instant impact earned Teixeira the fans vote for performance of the month which gave the player the chance to take a 48-hour demonstration drive in a Porsche.

The Portuguese youngster was on the scoresheet again on his home debut for Brighton, netting the winner against Bolton in the 64th minute after Craig Mackail-Smith had cancelled out the visitors’ lead shortly before half-time.

Teixeira seized on a pass from debut-making left-back Joe Bennett to score through the legs of goalkeeper Andy Lonergan, on as a sub for Adam Bogdan, who’d been injured in a collision with Mackail-Smith.

If it looked like a corner had been turned after the season had begun with two defeats, sadly the opposite was the case and Albion went on an 11-game winless run with the players at Hyypia’s disposal seemingly baffled by how he wanted them to play.

After he and the club parted ways, and Chris Hughton begun the task of ensuring the Albion didn’t lose their Championship status, Teixeira got back on the goal trail.

He twice scored braces (in a 3-2 home win over Ipswich on 21 January and a 4-3 home win over Birmingham on 21 February).

It said it all about Albion’s close shave with relegation that his six goals in 35 games (28 starts + seven as sub) for the Seagulls made him second top scorer behind centre back Lewis Dunk’s seven that season.

Sadly, a leg break in a home game against Huddersfield Town on 14 April brought his season, and Albion career, to a premature end. Teixeira was stretchered off after a challenge by Nahki Wells that resulted in a fracture just above the ankle.

“This is a real blow to him after such a good season for the club – and we all wish him a speedy recovery and return to action,” said Hughton.

“He’s been an important player for the club this season, both before and after I came to the club, and I would like to thank him for his efforts during his time on loan here, and also Liverpool for allowing him to come.”

The player had talked of his dream to return to Liverpool and to break into the first-team.

“I came to Brighton to become more mature and get more experience, and hopefully next year I will be playing for Liverpool. That is my dream,” he told The Guardian.

He was included in the 30-man squad that went on a four-game pre-season tour in Asia and after Rodgers was sacked he was named as a non-playing sub in the 18-man squad for Klopp’s first game in charge in October 2015 (a 0-0 draw at Tottenham, when James Milner and Adam Lallana were starters).

He did start a League Cup game against Bournemouth, which was won 1-0, and he went on to make five cup appearances for Liverpool in 2015-16. He appeared only once as a sub in the Premier League and scored his only goal for the club in a 3-0 FA Cup third round win over Exeter City.

Klopp liked Teixeira

“I like João. As a person, as a footballer,” Klopp said after that game. “But of course, players like him need matches, and if you can’t get it then you have to leave.”

And that’s what he did. Although he was offered a new contract by the Reds, at the age of 23 he chose to move back to Portugal in search of regular first team football and signed for his boyhood team, Porto.

“I am from the north [of Portugal] and to wear blue and white has always been a dream for me,” he said.

“Now I can work at my club in my region and my country. I had other offers but do not want anything other than to wear blue and white.”

Born in Braga, Portugal, on 18 January 1993, Teixeira first caught the eye with his hometown club, before being snapped up by Sporting Lisbon where he continued to make progress through its youth teams. He also represented Portugal from under-16 through to under-21 level.

It was while playing for Sporting in the NextGen Series, the under-19 tournament for academy teams of Europe’s top clubs, that he played against Liverpool and caught the eye of Liverpool’s academy director, Frank McParland.

On arrival at Anfield, he was part of the under-21 set up and made 20 appearances in the inaugural Barclays Under-21 Premier League.

“I was 18, it’s hard to say no to Liverpool, it was a unique opportunity. I went and I don’t regret it,” Teixeira reflected in an interview with Portuguese sports newspaper A Bola.

“I had wonderful experiences, I played with great players, things were happening. I don’t regret going. I still played eight games, seven of them under Klopp.”

But the return home in 2016 didn’t work out for him, and after making only eight appearances for Porto during the 2016-17 season, Teixeira returned to his first club, Braga, on a season-long loan.

It was something of a surprise when in July 2018 he joined Braga’s local rivals Vitoria Guimaraes on a three-year deal, scoring 10 times in 53 appearances across two seasons.

In September 2020, he signed a two-year contract with Eredivisie Feyenoord, telling the club’s in-house channel: “I’m very happy to be here. It’s a beautiful chance for me and I’m very excited to start training and helping the team.

“Why Feyenoord? It’s a great club with a great history. I spoke with a few people in Portugal that played here and they told me the same thing: they have the greatest fans in Holland, and I’m happy to join.”

Describing himself, Teixeira said: “I’m an attacking midfielder. I like to score, I like to assist and that’s what I’ll try to do. But the main thing is to help the team.”

That help tended to be mainly from the bench, and suffering a broken foot didn’t help either, so in the second half of the 2021-22 season he returned to Portugal again to play for FC Famalicão.

When Liverpool discovered in the spring of 2024 that Feyenoord boss Arne Slot would be taking over from Klopp, Teixeira was interviewed by Reds’ fans channel The Redmen TV about what they might expect from the incoming head coach.

By then, Teixeira had already made two other moves: in June 2022, he’d moved to Qatar to play for Umm Salal where he scored five goals in 22 appearances. And 10 months later he switched to Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua. The player posts his achievements at the club to 197,000 followers on Instagram.

A hit on Instagram

‘One of the world’s best’ coached Albion’s goalkeepers

‘I’VE STARTED so I’ll Finnish’ could have summed up Antti Niemi’s season coaching Brighton’s goalkeepers.

Even though the fellow countryman who appointed the former Southampton and Fulham ‘keeper left in ignominy less than halfway through the 2014-15 season, Niemi stuck it out to the end before returning to his native Finland.

Niemi joined Albion in the summer of 2014 as part of the new backroom team put together by former Liverpool and Finland international Sami Hyypia.

“This wasn’t planned and, when Sami called me, I was working in Finland for a few years with two different clubs on a part-time basis,” he told the matchday programme. “It was a surprise.”

Seeing it as a “great opportunity” he added: “I thought about it for a couple of days, but it was not a difficult decision to make in the end. I’m obviously already familiar with the south coast.

Niemi enjoyed Albion coaching environment

“If you look at the surroundings at the training ground and the stadium, it’s a fantastic place to work each day. I seriously love the job.”

At Brighton, Niemi was responsible for the form of newly-arrived David Stockdale, emerging youngster Christian Walton and back-up ‘keeper Casper Ankergren.

Stockdale admitted it was the presence of Niemi — a former team-mate at Craven Cottage — as goalkeeping coach that was a big reason in his making the move to Sussex (as well as a chat with Bobby Zamora).

“Antti looked after me at Fulham when I first went in as a young keeper,” he said. “I know what he is about, what his training is like and what kind of person he is.”

Niemi was also the reason fellow countryman and Finland international Niki Mäenpää joined the Seagulls, although their paths ultimately didn’t cross on the training ground in Sussex because Niemi decided to return home for family reasons.

Mäenpää had been coached by Niemi back in Finland and he was first linked with the Albion when Hyypia was appointed. Although a move from Dutch second division club VVV-Venlo didn’t go through then, it eventually happened in the summer of 2015.

“Seeing as his contract is ending, he is looking forward to a new adventure and Antti has explained to him about Brighton and everything,” the player’s agent, Richinel Bryson, told The Argus.

Born on 31 May 1972 in Oulu, the northern Finnish city where there is no darkness during summer nights, Niemi remembered going to school when the temperature was –42°C one winter.

He completed compulsory military service in his homeland, explaining in a 2003 interview with The Guardian that he found life tough for much of his 11 months at a sports military school.

“I didn’t realise this at the time but, if I wasn’t in football, I would probably be in the army,” he told reporter Joe Brodkin. “I’m very patriotic. It was fun and it’s something I would have considered, although I’m too old now.

“In some ways it’s similar to what we have in the dressing room: being together and having fun, giving stick and taking stick. In the army it was a similar situation. We had something like 20 footballers in there and it was fun. Not at the time but looking back.”

Niemi began his football journey with local side Oulun Luistinseura before moving on to Rauman Pallo and then to the country’s biggest club, HJK Helsinki, where he eventually became first choice ‘keeper and made 101 appearances over four years.

He then swapped from Finland’s capital to Denmark’s fortuitously because the Finland FA president at the time had played in Denmark as a goalkeeper and FC Copenhagen asked him for a name.

“He mentioned me and everything happened in two days,” Niemi recalled in an interview with fulhamfc.com. “I was inconsistent in my first six months in Denmark but did well in my first full season.

“I learned that Rangers had sent a scout to watch someone on the pitch when we played in a league cup semi-final; it was one of those games where I just saved everything and we won. That 90 minutes made them choose to sign me, so it was all about luck really.”

That was luck he would come to rue, subsequently, though, because he had actually agreed to sign for Gordon Strachan at then Premier League Coventry City. Rangers stepped in at the last minute to clinch his signature in 1997 but it was a period of his career that would prove to be frustrating.

Andy Goram was first choice ‘keeper and Theo Snelders was also ahead of him.

He did win the Scottish League Cup (beating St Johnstone 2-1 in 1998) but he only played in one Old Firm game and that ended in a 5-1 defeat, so he didn’t have happy memories of his time at Ibrox where Walter Smith’s successor, Dick Advocaat, was unconvinced of the Finn’s ability under pressure and suggested he needed to move on to prove himself.

Highly regarded at Heart of Midlothian

He switched from Glasgow to Edinburgh to join Hearts for £350,000 in December 1999, manager Jim Jefferies telling The Herald: “Niemi is a fine keeper and is very highly regarded by everyone.”

Niemi reflected: “They were the third best team in the country behind Celtic and Rangers, but I said to myself that sometimes you have to take a step backwards to go forward.

“That was maybe the best decision that I ever made; it felt a bit of a downgrade at the time, but I wasn’t playing and I knew it would be good for me in the long run.”

In two-and-a-half years at Hearts, he became first choice and made a name for himself as a penalty stopper.

The keeper said of himself in a 2021 interview with the Edinburgh Evening News: “The biggest strength I had in my game was quick hands and quick reactions.”

Looking back on his 106 appearances for the Jam Tarts, he revealed: “Hearts have always been THE club for me.”

In an interview with CoffeeFriend.co.uk, he said: “Don’t get me wrong. I was very lucky to play in the English Premier League with Southampton and Fulham but there was something romantic about the place.

“I went there from Rangers where I was second or third keeper and suddenly got the chance to be No.1 and be a big part of the team.

“We finished third, had some European football, memorable derbies. I hope it doesn’t sound cocky but I really can’t remember too many games I let the team down.

“I loved my time there and it’s definitely one of those places I miss now and then.”

Saint Antti

It was Strachan who persuaded Niemi, by then 30, to try his luck in the Premier League at Southampton.

“My decision to move was purely on a football basis,” he said. “I hardly get any more money than I did in Scotland. I was there for five years and for two and half years I was playing regularly. Sometimes I felt I was playing against the same teams and the same players the whole time.”

Saints paid a fee of £2m to secure his services and he made his debut against Charlton Athletic, where he had spent a month on loan before his move to Hearts.

Strachan quickly installed Niemi as his preferred ‘keeper over Paul Jones and at the end of his first season with the Saints he appeared in the FA Cup final against Arsenal at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff – a game which I watched with my friend Andrew Setten, sitting in front of Geoff Hurst in the best seats in the house!

Arsenal’s Thierry Henry points things out to Niemi

With Arsenal retaining a 1-0 first half lead, Niemi unfortunately tore a calf muscle midway through the second half and, when replaced by Jones, became the first goalkeeper to be substituted in a FA Cup final.

In spite of losing to that solitary goal, Niemi didn’t want to miss the lap of appreciation and took a ride on a team-mate’s shoulders as they trooped around the stadium.

A series of injuries and a couple of operations limited him to 28 Premier League games in each of the next two seasons but in the opinion of goalkeeping coach David Coles (who once played on loan for Brighton), he was among the world’s top five ’keepers and he was the Saints player of the year in 2003-04.

“The Premiership has been every bit as good as I expected and even more,” Niemi said in that Guardian interview. “Everywhere you go it’s a full stadium and the pitches are perfect. It’s a fantastic league.

“I was making some good saves in Scottish football but the spotlight in the Premiership is so much bigger. There are so many cameras and every single game and situation is highlighted, so it’s easier to shine.”

Niemi’s reputation was certainly enhanced after he kept 17 clean sheets in his first two top flight seasons under Strachan at St Mary’s.

But he was also part of the Southampton side that was relegated in 2005, bringing to an end 27 years in English football’s top tier.

“The longer the season went on, the worse the results got and the more it started to affect the dressing room,” he told hampshirelive. “But overall, I can only look into the mirror and blame myself.

“My first two seasons at Saints were great, but during the third one, I just couldn’t get up to that standard any more. It was average at best.”

Niemi saw influential team-mates leave without being properly replaced and he said: “I remember looking around myself at the beginning of the campaign and thinking ‘things here aren’t as well as they should be’. The team had weakened and the contrast was huge.”

After the relegation, Niemi said: “I felt ashamed, simple as. It just felt embarrassing as hell.”

He stayed half a season after Saints playing in the Championship but returned to the Premier League in January 2006 when he moved to Fulham under Chris Coleman.

“Living in London was a big attraction.,” he told fulhamfc.com. “My wife was delighted to get a chance to move to West London and, as I’d played against them many times, I knew that it was a nice club too.”

Niemi switched to Craven Cottage in January 2006

A hamstring injury limited him to nine appearances in those first few months at Craven Cottage but he established himself as first choice the following season and went on to make 63 appearances before a wrist injury led to him calling it a day at the start of the 2008-09 season.

However, at the age of 37, he was persuaded to come out of retirement and followed his former Saints coach Coles to south coast rivals Portsmouth as back-up to first choice David James.

He left Pompey in March 2010 having earned around £450,000 over the course of eight months without having made an appearance, the Daily Mirror reported.

The newspaper said the Finn earned £14,000 a week during his time at Fratton Park and played just twice for the reserves and spent one Premier League match on the subs’ bench.

Having won 67 caps playing in goal for Finland, Niemi became his country’s goalkeeping coach from 2010 as well as working with the Finnish FA in developing the quality of goalkeeper coaching in the country. Alongside those responsibilities, he slotted in club goalkeeper coaching in various locations – including back at his old club HJK Helsinki, at another Finnish side, FC Honka, and the season at Brighton.

Joaquin Gómez, a coach he first met during that season with the Albion, subsequently called on his services at Finnish side HIFK in 2021.

Gómez, originally an academy coach with the Seagulls, stayed on as part of the first team management set-up having worked under Hyypia’s successor, Oscar Garcia., but then left to become head of tactical analysis at Derby County before teaming up with Nathan Jones at Luton Town, and then Stoke City.

In May 2019, on Niemi’s recommendation, he also started coaching Finland’s under 21 team. After leaving Stoke, he was assistant manager at Spanish Second Division side FC Cartagena, assistant coach at Finland’s SJK Seinäjoki and spent a season at Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia.

On persuading Niemi to join him at HIFK, Gómez said: “He’s an outstanding goalkeeping coach and will now also assist me in other areas.

“Antti is the best Finnish goalkeeper of all time, and he has done great work in coaching after his retirement from playing. At HIFK he’ll have a more versatile role than previously, as he’ll be working more with outfield players as well.”

In the summer of 2024, Gómez persuaded Niemi to join him at Greek Super League club Volos and the Finn spoke to Tribalfootball.com about those days spent in Lancing.

“I have seen a lot of passionate people in my lifetime in football but this guy is something else; he has dedicated his life to football. 

“He moved from Spain (to England) without knowing any English, he just wanted to work in English football. He was working as a waiter, he was cleaning the toilets at Brighton, he was coaching kids and eventually somebody saw that this guy is really passionate and he can coach so he got in the first team.”

Niemi continued: “He called me in the summer, he said I had a few days to decide. He is very temperamental; he is very passionate and I am the boring, steady guy who always tells him to calm down! You need that sort of personality; you don’t need a similar sort of personality as you need to balance each other out 

“He offered me the job to be the assistant manager which is different as I have always been a goalkeeping coach and I still am with the Finnish national team but I took it as a challenge, as an adventure. It is going to be a learning curve for me and I am really enjoying it so far.” 

Unfortunately, Gómez was sacked after only five league matches and his next appointment, in January 2025, was as the new coach of Indonesian Liga 1 club Borneo Samarinda.

Calderwood’s switch to promotion rivals backfired

Hughton’s not so loyal assistant

SCOTTISH international Colin Calderwood played for and managed Nottingham Forest in a lengthy playing and managerial career that has spanned a host of clubs across the country.

His 21 months as assistant manager to Chris Hughton at Brighton came to an abrupt end that drew harsh criticism at the time but thankfully didn’t hinder Albion’s upward trajectory.

Calderwood worked under Hughton at three other clubs: Newcastle United, Birmingham City and Norwich City.

The pair first met on the same A licence coaching badge course and Hughton was later a coach at Tottenham when Calderwood was a player. He then played a part in Calderwood becoming reserve team coach at White Hart Lane after his playing days were over.

Calderwood went on to become a manager in his own right at League Two Northampton Town, where he got them promotion at the end of his second season (in 2006).

Two and a half years as boss at Forest followed, during which he got them promoted from League One to the Championship. In 2007-08, his Foest side took four points off the Albion, winning 2-0 at Withdean but being held to a goalless draw at home.

Forest were promoted in second place behind champions Swansea City (Albion finished seventh) but Calderwood was sacked just before Christmas in 2008 with the side struggling in the Championship relegation zone.

When Hughton succeeded Sami Hyypiä at the start of 2015, it wasn’t long before he turned to trusted ‘lieutenant’ Calderwood to help Albion’s cause.

The no.2 had first worked with him at Newcastle in 2009 when, after relegation from the Premier League, the pair led the Magpies back to the elite as Championship champions in 2010.

Hibernian in Edinburgh lured him to try a third spell as a no.1 but, after just 13 months in charge, and only securing 12 wins from 49 matches, he was sacked. He was not out of work for long, moving later the same month to Birmingham to become Hughton’s assistant at the Championship side, where another of Hughton’s backroom team, Paul Trollope, was first team coach.

When Hughton left for Premier League Norwich in June 2012, Calderwood, Trollope and chief scout Ewan Chester (who also later joined him at Brighton) all decamped to Carrow Road. City dispensed with their services in April 2014.

Having helped steer Albion to the Championship promotion near-miss of 2015-16 (when they suffered the agonising play-off semi-finals defeat to Sheffield Wednesday), the Seagulls were well geared up to go one better the following season.

So it came as something of a shock when Calderwood quit in November 2016 to become assistant manager to Steve Bruce at promotion rivals Aston Villa.

Hughton was said to be “very disappointed” and “very surprised” by his assistant’s departure, “particularly at this stage of the season”. Albion watcher Andy Naylor reckoned that amounted to a “withering condemnation” from the normally placid manager.

In an excoriating article for the Argus, Naylor wrote: “He clearly feels let down – and he is entitled to feel that way. Is there any justification for treating Hughton the way he has?”

It emerged that the move gave Calderwood a much shorter daily commuting distance from his home in Northampton, but, even so, Naylor reckoned Hughton deserved better.

Thankfully, there was a ready-made replacement in the wings because Trollope had just lost his job at Cardiff City.

Naylor wrote: “Trollope is in the right place at the right moment to bring his promotion-winning mentality as both a player and manager into the camp. Let’s hope he demonstrates more loyalty than Calderwood.”

Perhaps it was the supreme irony that as Albion marched to promotion from the Championship the following spring, the side Calderwood had moved to only finished in 13th place – although the last-game draw at Villa stymied Albion’s chances of going up as champions.

Nevertheless, there were no bitter recriminations on Calderwood’s part. “Chris did a terrific job turning around the shape and the balance of the team,” he recalled in an interview with the Argus in January 2021.

Ahead of his subsequent club Blackpool’s visit to the Amex for a fourth round FA Cup tie (Albion won 2-1), the former assistant boss said: “We found, as I’ve found at most clubs I’ve been at, there’s a core group of players that have an appetite and an ability level that can give you a chance of success.

“When it falls into place, it is really nice to watch and it is very heart-warming and you feel justified in what you preach and practice.

“A lot of the time you are determined by the quality of the person and the player within the club. We found some really good people down there.”

Born on 20 January 1965 in Stranraer, Calderwood didn’t play professionally in Scotland, instead joining Mansfield Town as a 17-year-old in 1982.

He realised in hindsight that he learned a lot from Town’s manager at the time, the experienced Ian Greaves, and he went on to play over 100 matches for the Stags before Swindon Town boss Lou Macari signed him for £27,500 in 1985.

“Ian and Lou were the ones that built the foundations of my career,” he told the Albion matchday programme.

The centre back spent eight seasons at the County Ground and is recognised as a Swindon legend having featured in 412 matches (plus two as a sub).

At only 21, he was made club captain and, despite a difficult start, led Town to back-to-back promotions as they won the Division Four title in 1986 and overcame Gillingham in a Division Three play-off final replay in 1987.

Promotion winner with Swindon Town

Calderwood was said to be “a rock at the heart of the defence” and eventually led Town to their first promotion to the top-flight, after beating Sunderland in the play-off final at Wembley in 1990. But Swindon were demoted due an irregular payments scandal in which Calderwood was implicated: he was arrested just four weeks before the Wembley match but released the same day without charge.
Calderwood missed five months of the 1990-91 season following a horror tackle by Wolves legend Steve Bull but he returned stronger than ever and was ever present when, under Glenn Hoddle, Swindon were promoted at the end of the 1992-1993 season, beating Leicester 4-3 in the play-off final.

But instead of featuring for Swindon in the Premiership, Town’s former manager Ossie Ardiles took him to Tottenham for a fee of £1.25 million.

Playing in the top division for Spurs earned him international recognition. He made his Scotland debut aged 30 in a Euro 1996 qualifier against Russia and was a regular under Craig Brown, winning 36 caps in four years, including playing at the 1998 World Cup.

According to Spurs fan website mehstg.com (My Eyes Have Seen The Glory), Calderwood was “a solid defender, who could tackle and was good in the air, but lacked the pace and distribution skills to be a top class centre half.

“Calderwood gave Spurs a tough presence in the middle of the back four they had been missing for some time and showed that Ardiles’ judgement had been sound.”

After 198 appearances for Spurs (more than 150 in the Premier League), he left White Hart Lane in March 1999 when a £230,000 move saw him join Aston Villa under John Gregory. A year later, he switched to David Platt’s second tier Forest for £70,000.

He had only been at Forest a month when, ironically at Birmingham’s St Andrews ground, Calderwood, by then 35, suffered an injury that would ultimately force him to retire.

Forest goalkeeper Dave Beasant had already been injured in a clash with City’s Jon McCarthy earlier in the game but recovered. Calderwood wasn’t so fortunate. He ended up being stretchered off after a collision with the same player. He had fractured his leg and dislocated his ankle, causing ligament damage.

The injury overshadowed Forest’s 1-0 win and it meant he played only a handful of games at the City Ground. He later had a brief spell on loan at neighbours Notts County before calling it a day.

Calderwood initially returned to Spurs as reserve team manager before leaving for Northampton in October 2003. Spurs director of football and caretaker manager, David Pleat, said: “Colin leaves us with our very best wishes. He’s had two-and-a-half years here as a coach which I’m sure has been valuable experience.

“Colin is young, he has energy, ideas and, most importantly, ambition. This could be a terrific apprenticeship for him and everyone at the club wishes him well in his new role.”

Fast forward 15 years, and after he left Villa along with Steve Bruce in October 2018, two months later he was back in the game at League Two strugglers Cambridge United. He was given an initial 18-month contract and a year later he was given a two-year extension on his deal.

However, after a 4-0 home defeat to Salford City in January 2020 which meant Cambridge had taken only one point from their previous six games, he was sacked.

In October that year he was taken on at Blackpool as part of Neil Critchley’s managerial team and was part of the set-up that saw the Tangerines win a place in the Championship in 2021.

In June 2021 Calderwood returned to his old club Northampton as assistant manager to Jon Brady, and he told the League Two club’s website: “I have learned a lot in the years since I was last at the club and hopefully I can put all of that experience to good use.

“The situation here is similar to the situation I arrived in at Blackpool in working with a talented young manager.
“I have spoken with Jon Brady a number of times, that relationship will build quickly and I am really looking forward to working with him and the rest of the coaching staff.”

The Cobblers finished fourth in League Two and made it through to the division’s play-off semi-finals where they lost 3-1 on aggregate to Calderwood’s first club, Mansfield.

They made up for it in 2022-23 when they earned automatic promotion in third place behind Leyton Orient and Stevenage.

Nevertheless, in October 2023, Calderwood returned to Championship level as part of Russell Martin’s backroom team at Southampton.

Teaming up with Russell Martin

“First and foremost, he’s a brilliant human being. I really trust him and know him very well,” Martin told the Daily Echo. 

“We worked together at Norwich many moons ago when he was the assistant manager. I used to moan all the time to him and he had a brilliant way of being able to deal with that.

“He just has a great relationship with the players, and he’s a coach throughout my career who I’ve stayed in real constant contact with and discussed football.

“We’ve spoken a lot even when he’s not worked with me. I tried to get him at my two previous clubs and it couldn’t quite happen for various reasons.

“He’s been a manager, an assistant manager, he’s helped some young managers recently get promoted in Neil Critchley and Jon Brady, and added huge experience and value to them.”

Ince ‘disciple’ Keith Andrews helped Albion to play-offs

ONE OF BRIGHTON’S more successful season-long loan signings spent six years at Wolverhampton Wanderers having arrived as a 15-year-old from Dublin.

Keith Andrews signed on at Molineux on the same day as another Irish youngster, Robbie Keane, although he didn’t hit quite the same heights as the prolific goalscorer.

Nonetheless, Andrews eventually represented his country on no fewer than 35 occasions – not a bad achievement considering he had to wait until he was 28 before winning his first cap.

The self-styled ‘Guvnor’ Paul Ince, who Andrews had first encountered at Wolves, ultimately took the Irishman’s career onto a different level, initially when manager at MK Dons and then with Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League.

“I picked up so much from him, although probably a whole lot more when he managed me later on and I wasn’t in direct competition for a place in the team,” he said.

“I needn’t have been concerned when he came to MK, because he made me feel like a million dollars from the first conversation we had on the phone.

“He pretty much based the team around me, let me lead the dressing room like he had at Wolves, and I think that working relationship was mutually beneficial for both of us.

“He coached me and nurtured me and gave me some of his pearls of wisdom, and ultimately gave me the confidence to go and show I could become the player he felt I could become.

“Offers started coming in for me, but Incey asked me to stay, and said that if he got a job in the Premier League, he would take me with him.

“That happened with Blackburn, and I know he had to fight to get me there as the club weren’t keen on bringing in a player from League One.

“But he wanted me there, he knew what I was like and how he could trust me, and I would like to think that even though unfortunately Incey wasn’t there anywhere near as long as he would have liked, I vindicated his decision and desire to get me there.”

However, it was from Bolton Wanderers that Andrews joined the Seagulls for the 2013-14 season and he played a pivotal role – literally – taking over from the initially-injured, then transfer-seeking Liam Bridcutt as Albion’s defensive midfielder.

I covered head coach Oscar Garcia’s view of his signing in a previous blog post about the player in January 2019. Andrews featured in 35 matches for the Seagulls and scored once as Garcia steered Albion to a second successive tilt at the Championship play-offs, only for the team to lose out to Derby County in the two-legged semi-final.

Burnden Aces, a Wanderers fans website, interviewed Albion fan Chris Field to ask his opinion of Andrews and his summary was “good” but inconsistent.

Field couldn’t understand why neither Bolton nor Blackburn fans had rated the Irishman, saying:

“He’s come into our midfield and held it together fantastically well. We needed a bit more Premier League/Championship experience in our midfield and he’s fitted that bill superbly.

“Possibly he wasn’t used in the right way with Dougie Freedman’s style of football. In our free-flowing passing game, he’s fantastic in the holding role. A change of scenery has done him good.”

When Garcia quit the club after the play-offs defeat, it also marked the end of Andrews’ time with the Seagulls, although he later expressed his gratitude for the time he spent at the club.

“Although I was only at the Amex for one season, I have a lot of affection for the club as I think they try to do things in the right manner for the club to evolve with real sustainability for years to come,” he wrote in a Sky Sports blog.

“There are good people involved behind the scenes there, none more so than in the academy. Last season I worked closely with the academy manager John Morling and the development coach Ian Buckman as I was in the middle of my UEFA ‘A’ Licence, and they couldn’t have done any more to help me.

“It was a great experience to work with them as they prepared weekly and monthly schedules with the rest of the coaches and sports scientists to ensure the young lads had the best chance of developing their games, both technically and physically.”

He added: “I was amazed at the schedule a 14-year-old at the club had and a little envious to be honest as it certainly wasn’t like that in my day!”

Born in Dublin on 13 September 1980, Andrews went to Ardscoil Ris secondary school in Dublin and his football reputation grew in the schoolboys sides of Stella Maris and Elm Mount.

“Most young players are playing at quite a high level in Ireland,” Andrews told the Wolves website. “I played in the DDSL – the Dublin District Schoolboy League – and trials at English clubs became quite frequent for a lot of us.

“I must have gone on trial to about 10 or 12 clubs and then you just have to start narrowing it down to who you like, who likes you. I then started to visit Wolves more frequently and just got a good feeling about it.

“I felt very at home in Wolverhampton, I was very well looked after from the moment that I went over as an under-14 at the time. I had a few contract offers from different clubs, but Wolves just felt right and I felt the club would offer me the best chance of playing first-team football at a high level.”

Andrews reflected that he probably started out too young although he said: “I relished playing football full-time and I enjoyed the environment that I went into. I enjoyed living in Wolverhampton, I enjoyed the family I was living with; they looked after me.

“There were some tough times, some teary phone calls home, and you go through some really difficult moments, but that was all part of the journey of building your character and trying to forge a career in the professional game, which isn’t easy.”

He went through the Wolves academy alongside the likes of Keane, Matt Murray, Joleon Lescott and Lee Naylor and said it was a “proper apprenticeship” adding: “The structure must have been in a good place. It was a well-run football club with the Hayward family in charge of it.”

Appreciating the values that were drilled into him from an early age, he said the academy was where he learned how to approach the game and how to do things the right way. He then progressed under youth team coach Terry Connor before turning professional in September 1997.

He made his first team debut under Colin Lee as a substitute on 18 March 2000 in a 2-1 win at Swindon. He also went on in a 2-0 home win over Crewe but, when further openings didn’t follow, he went on loan to Oxford and scored the winner on his full league debut away at Swansea.

Under Lee’s successor, Dave Jones, in the last game of the 2000-01 season, he was Wolves’ youngest ever captain aged 21 in a 1-1 draw at home to QPR.

“I looked around the dressing room and saw some really experienced players, players whose boots I had cleaned as an apprentice, and so to be chosen as captain was a huge day in my career,” says Andrews. “The game was fairly forgetful but certainly not for me!”

Managers came and went, some giving Andrews a chance, others sending him out on loan. In 2005, after just 24 starts for Wolves, plus no fewer than 47 appearances as a sub, he moved on to Hull City, where injury blighted his only season with them.

Promotion winner at MK Dons

He then had a two-year spell with Milton Keynes Dons, where he had a productive midfield partnership with Alan Navarro, and he assumed the captaincy of Ince’s side.

In his second season, the Dons won promotion to League One; Andrews scoring the goal which secured the success. He also scored in the club’s 2-0 win over Grimsby Town in the Football League Trophy at Wembley.

Andrews was chosen in the PFA Team of the Year, won the League Two player of the Year Award and was listed 38th of FourFourTwo magazine’s top 50 Football League players.

It was in September 2008 that he followed old boss Ince to Blackburn Rovers. He stayed for three years although during his time at Ewood Park he was subjected to barracking from a small section of supporters.

Some fans didn’t believe he merited a starting berth but injuries meant he got a chance and made 37 appearances in his first season at the club, scoring four goals in Rovers’ battle for survival.

Under Sam Allardyce, an approach from Fulham to sign him in 2009 was rebuffed and he was rewarded with a new four-year deal instead. In March 2011, an Andy Cryer exclusive in the Lancashire Telegraph said Allardyce’s successor Steve Kean backed the player and still saw him as a key member of his first team squad even though the player had been sidelined by a groin injury for five months.

The player’s agent, Will Salthouse, told Cryer: “Keith loves the club. He has a contract for two more years at the club and he wants to stay. Keith is not looking to go anywhere.

“There has been interest from other clubs but Keith has not even spoken to them. The club have said they want him to stay and I can dismiss the rumours that he will be leaving.”

Nonetheless, at the start of the following season, Andrews joined Championship side Ipswich Town on a half-season loan.

Instead of moving to Suffolk permanently, on deadline day in January 2012 he joined Wolves’ Black Country rivals West Brom, under Roy Hodgson, on a six-month deal.

Into the bargain, Andrews, making his debut for West Brom, scored the fourth goal in a 5-1 rout of their neighbours that sealed the fate of Mick McCarthy’s reign in charge at Molineux.

“I joined Wolves at the age of 15 and, having then lived in the Midlands for a few years, I knew all about this derby,” Andrews told the Express & Star.

“I was a fan who had been to games and to different derbies like Celtic against Rangers, and I was well aware of games which had more significance growing up even playing schoolboy football and Gaelic football as well.

“Once I had been in Wolverhampton for a while it was made pretty clear to me that Wolves against Albion was a big deal.

“Sometimes people try to throw derbies and rivalries at you at certain clubs when they don’t really exist but Wolves and Albion is proper, it’s fierce.

“At Wolves everyone would be telling you much they hated the Baggies and how important those two games of the season were – so yes, I was well aware of it!”

Although personally delighted to score, Andrews said: “I also had a lot of friends on the Wolves team that day – Ireland team-mates – and my overriding emotion as I walked off the pitch as I looked at Mick and Terry Connor was sadness.

“I knew where Wolves were in the league, the pressure they were under, and what might happen after such a result.

“I knew Terry from the help he had given me when I was at Wolves, and while I didn’t know Mick personally, he is someone I have always looked up to and have the utmost respect for with what he has achieved in the game.

“Wolves at the time were struggling, and that was something that carried on after the decision was made for Mick to leave.”

On the expiry of his Baggies contract, Andrews joined newly relegated Bolton on a free transfer, and, although he made 26 Championship appearances, he struggled with an achilles problem and then a thigh injury which eventually required surgery.

It was Bolton’s signing of Jay Spearing from Liverpool at the start of the 2013-14 season that made him surplus to requirements for the Trotters and opened the door to him joining the Seagulls.

A year later, Andrews joined Watford on loan while Brighton struggled under Sami Hyypia but after half a season returned to MK Dons where he eventually began coaching.

He later appeared frequently on Sky Sports as a pundit and became a coach to the Republic of Ireland side under Stephen Kenny. In December 2023, he was appointed a first team coach at Sheffield United following the return of Chris Wilder to Bramall Lane.

It was tough for Gardner to grow in Sami’s barren patch

A GARY GARDNER goal ended a winless Albion run of 12 league matches under Sami Hyypia in the autumn of 2014.

Just 54 seconds of the game against Wigan Athletic on 4 November had passed when the Aston Villa loanee netted for the Albion.

He got on the end of a Sam Baldock cross to give the Albion an early lead which they managed to hold onto for the entire match, in spite of several close shaves as the former Premier League opponents tried to salvage a point.

Gardner in action for Forest with Albion’s Jiri Skalak

The game also saw the return of Elliott Bennett, on loan from Norwich City, a first match (as sub for Bennett) for Greg Halford, on loan from Nottingham Forest, and a home debut in goal for teenage stopper Christian Walton.

It wasn’t the first time Gardner had scored at the Amex, though. That had come three years earlier, on his professional debut, when on loan at Coventry City a game which saw Albion beat the Sky Blues 2-1.

Gardner was no stranger to loans away from parent club Villa: he’d already been to Coventry and Sheffield Wednesday, and after Brighton he had temporary moves to Nottingham Forest, Barnsley and Birmingham City.

Indeed by the time Albion took on Forest at the Amex on 7 February 2015, Gardner was on the opposing side as the visitors gave new boss Dougie Freeman a winning start, edging it 3-2.

Gardner’s early development had encountered major setbacks caused by two cruciate knee ligament injuries.

Although he had made his Premier League debut for Villa in the 2011-12 season, the 15 starts and five sub appearances he made for Brighton was the first real regular run of football he’d enjoyed – and he was still only 22 at the time.

He scored again for Albion only four days after that Wigan winner, when the Seagulls were held 1-1 by Blackburn Rovers at the Amex. But with the brief Hyypia reign having come to an end, his appearance in the home Boxing Day 2-2 draw against Reading was his last in a Brighton shirt.

Inigo Calderon salvaged a point with a last-minute equaliser against a Royals side who had gone 2-0 up in 26 minutes courtesy of goals from on loan striker Glenn Murray!

Gardner had been Albion’s tenth new signing of the summer back in August, following in the footsteps of Villa teammate Joe Bennett, who’d joined on a season-long loan a week earlier.

“Gary is a quality midfielder who we have been aware of for some time,” said Hyypia, who explained the club was keen to have more options in that area of the side, especially with Dale Stephens out with a long-term injury.

“More importantly, given the considerable demands of the Championship, I want to be able to rotate the squad,” he said.

“Gary has had a tough couple of seasons due to injury, but he showed during a spell with Sheffield Wednesday last season that he is over those problems. We hope this loan spell will benefit everyone: Gary, us and Aston Villa.

“He is the type of midfielder who is active and mobile, but very importantly he has real quality on the ball – and is also capable of producing things from set pieces.”

Another midfield slot opened up during his time with the Albion when fellow midfielder Andrew Crofts suffered a cruciate injury against Watford.

“I am absolutely gutted for him. Having gone through exactly the same injury as him, with the two cruciate operations, I know exactly how he is feeling,” he said. “I know he will come through this.

“He is a strong guy, a model pro and he’ll be extra determined to get back playing for the club.”

Born in Solihull on 29 June 1992, Gardner was one of six brothers, and in a programme article he said the football-daft family had divided loyalties between Villa and Birmingham.

Just as well, because both Gary and eldest brother Craig ended up with the Blues having started off at Villa. Craig made 80 league and cup appearances for Villa, but later played for Sunderland, West Brom and Birmingham, where he became technical director after his playing days ended.

Gary was on Villa’s books from the age of seven and progressed all through the ranks until Alex McLeish gave him his first team debut as a substitute in a 3-1 win away to Chelsea. He made a total of five starts and 11 appearances off the bench in that 2011-12 season.

But it wasn’t until Villa were back in the Championship in the 2016-17 season that he had his longest run of games for his parent club, making 19 starts and eight appearances off the bench.

That squad, led by former Albion centre-back Tommy Elphick, thwarted already-promoted Albion’s hopes of winning the title in the final games of the season at Villa Park when a late, speculative long-range Jack Grealish shot squirmed through David Stockdale’s grasp to gain Villa a draw.

Gardner was a non-playing sub that day and when he fell down the pecking order in 2017-18, he spent the season at Barnsley.

Gardner followed his brother to Birmingham City

After spending the entire 2018-19 season on loan at Birmingham, he then made the switch permanently (in a swap with Spaniard Jota) and has been there since.

In July 2021 he signed a new deal to extend his stay at St Andrews until June 2024.

Gardner earned international recognition at various levels and made his England under 21 debut as a substitute in a 4-1 win over Israel at Barnsley on 5 September 2011 and the following month replaced Ross Barkley as England won 2-1 in Norway.

A month later he scored twice in a 5-0 win over Iceland after going on as a sub for Jason Lowe at Colchester. Four days on, his involvement was once again off the bench when young England were beaten 2-1 by Belgium in Mons.

His last appearance was against the same opponents the following February when England exacted revenge at the Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough. In a 4-0 win, Henri Lansbury scored twice before Gardner replaced him.

His contemporaries in the side at that time included the likes of Jack Butland, Jordan Henderson and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Youth Cup winner Rohan Ince faded after a bright start

THERE WAS a time it looked like Brighton had rescued a gem of a player in Rohan Ince.

After 13 years on Chelsea’s books, he was picked up at 20 by the Seagulls and quickly earned a place in the first team.

He progressed from a development squad triallist to first-team midfielder in little over six months, getting his chance because of an injury to Liam Bridcutt, another former Chelsea youngster who had been an inspiration for his move to the Albion.

“Liam is older than me but I knew he was a good lad who was always having a laugh,” Ince told the matchday programme. “It was only later when we were training with the reserves that I played with him.

“He is doing well at Brighton and I have great respect for him because it is not easy to find that success after leaving a club like Chelsea.

“He is a great example for young Chelsea boys that have been released, and to all young footballers who don’t get offered contracts.

“Liam has shown it is not the end of the world and if you keep fighting you can get there.”

Ince knew about Brighton from his uncle, Eric Young, a centre-half who played for Brighton in the 1980s.

“When I told him I was signing for the club, he was really happy for me,” he said. “He told me it was a good club and good area to live in. He’s an accountant these days, doing really well for himself.”

Ince arrived at the club towards the end of Gus Poyet’s reign but it was under successor Oscar Garcia’s direction that he thrived. Garcia switched him from a central defender into a defensive midfield player.

“For me he is a player who will have a better professional career as a midfielder than as a defender,” said the head coach. “He positions himself well, he is very alert to second balls, he doesn’t lose possession, he can move the ball quickly.

“I think these are all physical and technical characteristics that are better suited to the midfield role.”

And Garcia demonstrated that it wasn’t always a case of either/or between Bridcutt and Ince when the pair combined successfully in a 3-1 home win over Leicester City at the Amex in early December 2013.

He told The Argus: “All good players can play together. It’s up to the manager to try to find the best position for them.

“Rohan is young but when we are watching him he seems an experienced player. He has to improve a lot of things but he wants to do it and this for me is the most important thing.”

Such was Ince’s progress that in January 2014, a year after he joined the club, he was offered a new two-and-a-half-year contract and was being touted as the natural successor to Bridcutt, who, at the end of that month, made a much-predicted move to follow Poyet to Sunderland.

“He has earned this contract with the way he has trained and played ever since I came to the club,” said Garcia. “He has an excellent attitude every day, he looks after himself and works hard in training; and we are all seeing the benefit of that with his performances on the pitch.

“It is nice for the club to reward that hard work and professionalism with this new contract and I am very pleased for him.”

Ince topped off the first of his two seasons playing in the Championship by being crowned Brighton’s Young Player of the Year. He was probably sadder than most to see Garcia depart immediately after the play-off semi-final defeat to Derby County.

He told The Argus: “I started off as a midfielder at Chelsea up until I was 16, then I was changed to a centre-back because of my height and physical attributes.

“I went back and forwards between midfield and defence in my Chelsea career but I came here as a centre-back because that’s where I thought my career would be best.

“Oscar didn’t believe that and I am happy he didn’t believe it either, because midfield is my preferred position.

“He has given me the opportunity to play first team football, in my preferred role as well, so I couldn’t be more grateful.”

After winning the Young Player of the Year award, Ince said: “The gaffer is a really calm character who doesn’t go about shouting, so is my type of person. The senior pros have also been a massive help, talking to me on the pitch and in training. I couldn’t have won this award without them all.”

Sadly, Ince’s progress seemed to peter away after Garcia left. He made only 11 starts in 26 games for Sami Hyypia, and the player told The Argus: “It was quite hard for me, quite a setback, coming off the back of a good season I had previously.

“I had to keep my head up, keep training well, not get too down or depressed about it. I felt I did that and when the opportunity came I felt I did well.”

It looked like his fortunes had changed after Chris Hughton had taken charge. He was a frequent starter under Hughton initially and the player himself felt bold enough to tell The Argus: “I feel I’ve been playing quite well recently, bringing good competition for the gaffer in the midfield area. I’m giving him quite a tough decision to drop me, in my opinion.”

Hughton clearly felt differently, though. He had already signed Beram Kayal and, in the summer of 2015, added Dale Stephens. They became Hughton’s go-to central midfield pairing.

Another promising young midfielder, Jake Forster-Caskey, found himself sent on loan to MK Dons and, on the last day of the transfer window in early 2016, after Hughton acquired the services of the experienced Steve Sidwell, Ince joined Fulham on loan until the end of the season.

At least it was still Championship level, although Ince didn’t get into Slavisa Jokanovic’s struggling side straight away. It wasn’t until 19 March he was handed a start away to Birmingham City when he obliged with a goal in a 1-1 draw.

“It was a frustrating and a confusing period,” admitted Ince in Fulham’s official matchday programme. “I could have easily given up, but I continued to train hard and kept knocking on the gaffer’s door to make sure he didn’t forget about me. It’s starting to pay off.

“He just said it was tactical why I wasn’t playing but then he decided he wanted to try something different at Birmingham. I think he wanted a more solid midfield with me and Scott Parker in there and I’ve been back in ever since. Long may it continue.”

Ince made eight starts and two sub appearances as Fulham narrowly avoided the drop.

Back at the Albion, Ince only got three first-team starts in the League Cup and was an unused sub for a handful of league games. It was no surprise, therefore, that in January 2017 he was once again sent out on loan, this time to Swindon Town, whose head coach was Luke Williams, who had been in charge of Albion’s development squad when Ince first joined the Seagulls.

Robins fans would have remembered Ince for a wonder strike for Brighton at the County Ground during a Capital One Cup tie in August 2014. It opened the scoring in a 4-2 Albion win, that went to extra-time.

Ince scored twice in 14 games in a squad with some familiar faces: Bradley Barry, Yaser Kasim, Anton Rodgers and Jonathan Obika.

As Albion began life in the Premier League, Ince once again found his only outlet for first-team football was in the League Cup and his display in a 1-0 win over Barnet proved to be a shop window.

Within days, League One Bury signed him on a season-long loan, their manager Lee Clark, saying: “Rohan is a player that has been on the radar for a while. The chairman, Alan Thompson and I went down to Brighton on Tuesday to watch him play for Brighton and he was very impressive for them.

“He will bring a presence to the team and is a very good footballer. He plays it simple and plays it effectively and I believe he will be a big player for us in every sense of the word, both in his physicality and in his play.

“He is an established Championship player and unfortunately for him, Brighton have gone to the next level. Once we found out he was available, we went for him. I am more than delighted to get him in.”

Ince made 22 appearances for Bury in what turned out to be a disastrous season for them because they finished bottom of the table and were relegated. Clark only lasted as manager until the end of October, Chris Lucketti was in charge for two months and caretaker Ryan Lowe was in the hotseat for the remainder of the season.

The loanee played his last match for Bury in April 2018 and was released by the Albion in June that year.

Let’s rewind for a moment, though. Born in Whitechapel, London, on 8 November 1992, Ince was picked up by Chelsea as a promising young player when he was only eight years old.

Football was clearly in the Ince family genes; as well as Uncle Eric, a less close relation is former England international Paul Ince, his dad’s second cousin.

Rohan progressed through Chelsea’s academy and joined the club after completing his formal education at Thamesmead School in Shepperton.

In a detailed pen picture on cfcnet.co.uk in July 2009, Philip Rolfe said: “Look at Rohan from a distance and you could mistake him for a younger John Obi Mikel. His tall, gangly stature and his head of spiky black hair brings about the comparison, and although he’s a centre-back by trade, his laid-back and composed style is very much in the mould of the Nigerian international.

“Ince has most often played in the heart of the under 16s defence alongside Danny Mills, especially in 2007-08. Previously he could also have been found in defensive midfield when Jack Saville was a regular in the under 16s team, and it’s in that position where he might be at his best.

“Much taller and stronger than most opponents his age, he can bring the ball out in the style of the much sought after footballing centre-back. At centre back his somewhat lethargic style can result in a loss of possession, and he is often found to hit a long pass rather than pick out a shorter option.

“In midfield he has more options and more freedom, but as a regular in the under-18s already, he’s honing his craft.”

In 2010, Ince was a member of Dermot Drummy’s FA Youth Cup-winning side that beat Aston Villa 3-2 on aggregate (Ben Sampayo and Anton Rodgers, who also later joined Brighton, were Chelsea subs). Ince signed professional for Chelsea in July 2010 and went on to play regularly for the reserves but didn’t make it to the first-team.

In July 2012, he signed a six-month deal to go on loan to Yeovil. But he made only one start and three substitute appearances for Gary Johnson’s side before returning to Stamford Bridge with a recurring ankle injury.

After finally leaving Chelsea in January 2013, he said: “Chelsea said they couldn’t see me breaking into the first team, which is probably true.

“It is very difficult to get into their first team because they can go out and buy the best players in the world.

“When I was told I wouldn’t get a new deal, I decided to go on a series of trials and Brighton was the club I identified as the best place to go to.

“I travelled to Bournemouth for a friendly on the second day of my trial and felt I had performed well, but then the weather had a dramatic impact on my hopes. There was loads of snow so I was limited to what I could show as we were training indoors, but from what I did show, Luke Williams liked it and extended my trial.”

On being released by Brighton, Ince played a couple of pre-season friendly matches for Charlton Athletic but he didn’t get taken on because of a knee injury. Caretaker boss Lee Bowyer told londonnewsonline: “He’s got something wrong with his knee. He came with it. How he’s been training and playing in the games I don’t know, because he’s injured.”

It led to Ince spending the whole of 2018-19 without a club trying to heal and recover his fitness. Eventually, he was taken on by League Two Cheltenham Town in July 2019, with manager Michael Duff telling the club website: “He’s had a good schooling where he’s come from at Chelsea and had 80 or 90 games for Brighton in the Championship. “When I played against him, he was the next big thing coming through. He’s been a bit unfortunate with his injury last year. We’ve done all the due diligence with regards to testing, seeing specialists, scanning — we think we’ve found a very good player.

Michael Duff greets Rohan Ince

“He’s 6’4”, powerful, but he can play as well. We’re hoping he can add physicality and quality into our midfield.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great start for Ince, when the Robins travelled to east London to take on Leyton Orient on the opening day of the season. In a mad five minutes midway through the second half, Josh Wright scored past Scott Flinders to put Orient ahead, Town striker Luke Varney saw a second yellow for alleged simulation in what the visitors contended was a clear penalty shout.

Frustrated by the decision, Ince, who’d taken a drink of water during the halt in proceedings, threw the empty plastic bottle to the sidelines, but it hit the fourth official. Referee Michael Salisbury deemed it to be violent conduct and showed him a straight red card.

“He seems to think he did it intentionally,” manager Duff explained to gloucestershirelive.co.uk afterwards. “I am not sure Rohan’s aim is that good that he can hit someone five or six yards away, walking the other way. There is not a lot I can do about that one, but I think it’s very soft, particularly after what’s gone on in the 60 minutes before that.”

To make matters worse, the FA charged Ince with breaching an FA rule and, instead of the statutory three-match ban, he was banned for five matches.

Then, just when it looked like he would return to the side in a game at Crawley, he injured his hamstring in a pre-match warm-up and had to pull-out of Cheltenham’s starting line-up.

He ended up making only nine League Two appearances and was released at the end of his one-year deal.

It was only when he linked up with fifth-tier Maidenhead United for the 2020-21 season that he finally got a decent run of games, featuring 31 times for the National League side, and helping the club finish 13th, the second-best finish in the club’s history.

In 2021 he was called up for the first time to play for the national football team of Montserrat, which is coached by Willie Donachie, the former Manchester City, Oldham and Scotland defender, who had been Joe Royle’s managerial no.2 at various clubs.

The tiny Caribbean nation, a British overseas territory of less than 5,000 inhabitants, is trying to rebuild after half the island was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1995, forcing thousands to flee to Britain. Most of the British-born semi-professionals who play for Montserrat are related to those island residents who came to the UK.

Ince featured in qualifying matches for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and scored his first goal in a 4-0 win over the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Although they did not advance from their World Cup qualifying preliminary group, the ‘Emerald Boys’ finished unbeaten with eight points and earned draws against El Salvador and Antigua and Barbuda.

On his return, for the 2021-22 season, Ince switched to another National League side, Woking, and is described on the club website as “an integral player at the base of the Woking midfield”.

Adding that he had “quickly became a firm fan favourite”, it says of him: “A tough-tackling defensive midfielder also capable of pushing further forward, he made 37 appearances during his debut season with the Cards, whilst chipping in with two goals and four assists.”