DAVID GONZÁLEZ might well have been an experienced international goalkeeper but conceding a soft goal on his debut didn’t go down well with the Albion faithful.
Brighton fans were a whole lot happier when the same player shipped five AGAINST the Seagulls four months later.
Columbian González, who’d spent two years as a Manchester City back-up ‘keeper, only played twice for the Seagulls during a short-term deal in 2012.
After signing him in January that year, manager Gus Poyet finally gave him a chance at the end of the season after Peter Brezovan had conceded six in a thrashing at West Ham. González was one of six changes to the line-up that had capitulated at the Boleyn Ground.
But, against Watford at the Amex three days later, there were only six minutes on the clock when the Colombian saw Sean Murray’s cracker of a free-kick sail over him into the net.
When González did make a routine save, supporters in the North Stand greeted it with sarcastic applause, which incensed Poyet. In his post-match interview with the Argus, he said: “If David had let a goal in through his legs I wouldn’t agree but I would understand that sometimes we take the mickey out of somebody, but it wasn’t like that so they need to be careful.
“I don’t like it because they are being unfair to an unbelievable group of players who are bringing plenty of joy to this football club and attacking any single person is attacking the whole club.”
The ‘keeper’s debut hadn’t got much better when Troy Deeney put Watford 2-0 up with a penalty a minute before half-time. Thankfully Albion hit back in the second half and forced a draw with goals from captain Inigo Calderon and former Hornet Will Buckley.
Ironically, the Watford ‘keeper that night, Tomasz Kuszczak, was brought in by Poyet that summer and González ended up at Barnsley – the side he made his only other Albion appearance against in the last game of the season.
González keeps goal for Albion at Barnsleyand, below, sees five go past him when playing FOR the Tykes at the Amex at the start of the next season
At least he didn’t concede at Oakwell, although the 0-0 bore draw was a dire spectacle: a typical end-of-season encounter.
Almost the only things of note were that Barnsley included a young John Stones in their line-up together with David Button in goal and former Albion flop Craig Davies was up front.
In one of those strange quirks of football, González was back at the Amex at the end of August having been drafted in by the Tykes to cover a goalkeeping injury crisis.
It was not a happy return. As the Yorkshire Post reported: “Brighton were 2-0 up after only 14 minutes, with goals from Ashley Barnes and former England defender (Wayne) Bridge, with Barnsley goalkeeper David González at fault on both occasions.”
González dropped a free-kick by Craig Noone for Barnes to tap in after three minutes and the Colombian was “simply a bystander” when Bridge beat him to his left with a low drive from 25 yards. It was Bridge’s first league goal for nine years.
Ashley Barnes wheels away after scoring past Albion’s former ‘keeper
Barnsley pulled a goal back with a 36th-minute penalty from Davies after Andrew Crofts fouled Jacob Mellis, but Craig Mackail-Smith got the final touch on Barnes’s shot a minute later.
Mackail-Smith scored again four minutes after half-time with a close-range header and Barnes made it 5-1 10 minutes from time, slotting home Kazenga LuaLua’s cross.
Barnsley boss Keith Hill said afterwards: “We had 12 players out but I have no excuses whatsoever. It was inept and I include myself in that. The opposition were excellent and it could have been up to 10-1.”
Born in Medellín on 20 July 1982, González began his career at his hometown club Independiente Medellín and he played more games for them than any other club he subsequently joined (he returned for a four-year spell between 2015-19). And in June 2022 he was appointed their manager.
González also had two separate spells with another Columbian side, Deportivo Cali (he ended his playing career with them in 2020) and left South America for Turkey in 2007, spending two seasons with Çaykur Rizespor.
After failing to make an impression with Argentinian side Club Atlético Huracán he had a successful trial at Manchester City in late 2009 during Roberto Mancini’s reign. He wasn’t named in their 2010-11 Premier League squad but he was the reserve side’s regular ‘keeper until, in the second half of the season, he was sent on loan to Leeds, where he remained back-up behind Kasper Schmeichel and Shane Higgs.
He was unlucky not to get a chance back at City when he sustained an injury at the same time as Shay Given and no.2 Stuart Taylor. Marton Fulop was brought in on loan from Sunderland instead.
At the start of the following season, González was sent on a six-month loan arrangement to Aberdeen, where he hoped his performances would catch Mancini’s eye.
“I want to have a good spell at Aberdeen and to show Mancini that I should be considered for the team,” he told the Daily Record. “But Man City have so much money they can go out and buy just about any player they want.
“The way things are going they will become the best team in the world and I see that happening sooner than a lot of people think.”
The goalkeeper featured in 14 games for the Scottish Premier League club when first choice Jamie Langfield was sidelined following a seizure. On his return to Manchester, his contract was terminated by mutual consent and the free agent was taken on by Brighton, where Poyet had just dropped Casper Ankergren and installed Brezovan as his first choice ‘keeper.
Poyet told seagulls.co.uk: “David is an international with an excellent pedigree, playing over 300 senior games at the top level in South America, Turkey and Scotland. He has won the league in Colombia and has been capped by the national team.
“The idea is for David to compete with Peter and Casper to be first choice. Peter has come in recently and done very well, and is currently number one, but it’s now up to both David and Casper to put pressure on him to be first choice.”
That mauling at the Amex in August 2012 was one of only three Championship games González played for Barnsley and in Albion’s matchday programme he had admitted he saw his time with the Tykes as a shop window.
“I want people to come and have a look, to see what I’m capable of, but nothing else has been said really,” he said. “I’m just here for the time being while the boys are out with injury and suspension, so I’m just going to enjoy it and try to do the best I can.” Oops!
The following year he moved back to Columbia, initially playing for Deportivo Pasto, then Águilas Doradas before returning to Independiente Medellín in 2015.
DANISH goalkeeper Casper Ankergren earned the League One player of the month award four times – twice with Leeds United and twice with Brighton.
When the Yorkshire club dumped him after he’d played 143 games for them, Gus Poyet, his former assistant manager at Elland Road, gave him the chance to revive his English football career. He spent seven years as a player at Brighton and between 2017 and 2021 assisted Ben Roberts with coaching Albion’s goalkeepers.
The Dane was only truly Albion no.1 for a season and a half, and fans were often divided about his capabilities. But his ability with the ball at his feet suited the way Poyet wanted the Albion to play, and as a coach chimes perfectly with the expectations placed on today’s Albion goalkeepers.
“He really is key to the way we pass it out from the back,” observed ‘Murraymint’ on North Stand Chat, noting his ball playing and vision for a pass as “excellent”.
Ankergren himself explained in a podcast on the club website in 2020: “I was always quite comfortable with the ball at my feet, probably because I played outfield as a kid.
“At Leeds I wasn’t supposed to play it to the centre backs but under Gus you had to play it short; he would go mental if you didn’t. That was his philosophy. I’ve always been a big fan of possession-based football.”
On the eve of the 2010-11 season, Poyet’s goalkeeping options were narrowed when first-choice Peter Brezovan was nursing a wrist injury and he wasn’t happy to start the campaign with either of the inexperienced understudies, Michael Poke or Mitch Walker.
Poyet told the club’s official website: “Goalkeeper is a key position in the team, and with Brezovan injured, we wanted to bring some experience to that position.
“Casper brings that experience and has played at this level and higher. I have worked with him at Leeds United, and know exactly what he is capable of, he also knows what it takes to get promoted from League One.”
Ankergren hadn’t even had time to get to know his new teammates when he made his Albion debut in a 2-1 win in the season-opener away to Swindon Town the day after signing.
Unfortunately, he didn’t cover himself in glory on his home debut when a mistimed punch helped Rochdale to get a last-gasp equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Withdean.
The ’keeper admitted he later hid himself away in his Jury’s Inn hotel feeling dreadful about the mistake. “I was devastated, but that’s football. As a keeper you can do well for 90 minutes but if you cock up in the 91st minute that’s all people remember you for,” he said in a matchday programme article. “It’s part of the game as a goalkeeper and you have to accept it.”
He certainly made up for it to the extent that he won the first of two nPower League One Player of the Month awards that season for his displays the following month, when he only conceded once in five matches as Albion secured 13 out of 15 points.
Ankergren won the award again in March 2011 when the Seagulls won eight matches out of eight – with six clean sheets for Ankergren – to consolidate their gallop towards the League One title.
In April 2011, Ankergren, speaking at the PFA awards in London, said: “He [Gus] was asking us to be perfect and although there’s no such thing in football, we were close, the way we did it, the way we played – he’s very, very pleased. He couldn’t ask for much more, I think.
“At the beginning of the season I had a chat with him and he said he thought a top six finish would be possible. But no, we finished first – an amazing season.”
The promotion with Brighton was more personally satisfying for Ankergren because he was involved from the beginning to the end of the season.
“I played a lot of games for Leeds last season when we went up but I didn’t play the last eight or nine games and that was a big blow for me,” he said. “I’ve played every game in the league this season and obviously it’s great, that’s what you want to do as a footballer; you want to play every game and win and achieve something.”
He was in goal for the memorable first Amex league fixture against Doncaster and kept the shirt for the first 15 games of the 2011-12 Championship season. But after a seven-game winless run, Steve Harper came in on loan from Newcastle United.
When Harper returned to the North East, he got back in the side for seven more matches, but after four successive defeats in December, Poyet rang the changes for the New Year’s Day match at home to Southampton. Brezovan started in Albion’s surprise 3-0 win and stayed in goal through to the end of the season.
Fan Bradley Stratton later observed: “Brighton’s return to the Championship at the Amex highlighted the need for another change in goal. Ankergren and Brezovan, whilst competent in League One, were regularly found out at the higher level.
“They inspired little confidence in fans, and there was no doubt Poyet would use the summer window in 2012 to bring in a new man who could galvanise the Albion back line and restore confidence to a defence that had conceded six goals at both West Ham and Liverpool that year.”
After Tomasz Kuszczak arrived to become the senior goalkeeper, Ankergren’s first team action in 2012-13 was limited to four starts plus one as a sub.
Two of those were in the FA Cup against Premier League opposition. The third round FA Cup win over Newcastle United was his first appearance in the first team for 13 months and he said: “Although I have not been playing for the first team, I’ve always trained as hard as ever because you never know what’s round the corner and you want to push the other keepers hard, so I was ready. It’s still hard to be thrown straight back into action because you need to play regularly to get into the rhythm of things, but I was pretty happy with my performance against Newcastle.”
And there was nothing he could do to prevent Theo Walcott’s late deflected winner as Arsenal won the fourth round tie 3-2 at the Amex, when Leo Ulloa scored on his debut.
As if to emphasise his point about memorable howlers, one of his two league games that season was at Nottingham Forest, when he fumbled a last-minute equaliser at the City Ground, allowing Henri Lansbury’s long-range effort to earn the home side a point in a 2-2 draw.
Poyet was quick to sympathise with the goalkeeper and said: “To begin with I thought the shot must have taken a deflection but when I’ve seen it again I nearly killed myself!
“When you are a keeper you pay the price and Casper has done that today. He was having a very, very good game, making two or three good saves, coming for crosses and kicking very well. And in training he will save 1,000 shots like that, but we wanted him to save it today.
“Goalkeeper is a terrible position to play but we lose together and we win together – at least we got a point.”
In Oscar Garcia’s only season in charge, Ankergren played only two first team matches but he was kept on under Sami Hyypia and, with the arrival of David Stockdale and the emergence of youngster Christian Walton limiting his likely involvement even further, he made just the one appearance in the 2014-15 season, in Albion’s 4-2 League Cup win away to Swindon Town.
He confessed on the podcast that he struggled to get his head round the situation and contemplated quitting the game but was talked out of it by goalkeeping coach Andy Beasley.
With the arrival of Niki Maenpaa as back-up to Stockdale, Ankergren could have been forgiven for thinking his chances of ever playing first team football again had gone, but in a bizarre set of circumstances during a FA Cup tie at Lincoln City on 28 January 2017, Ankergren had to come off the bench in the 56th minute when Maenpaa went off injured.
The Finn had injured his shoulder in the melee that resulted after Glenn Murray had committed a foul in the penalty area and the first thing Ankergren had to do was to face the resultant penalty, which was scored.
Five minutes later he was picking the ball out of the back of the net again after inexperienced Chelsea loanee Fikayo Tomori had skewed a shot past the beleaguered ‘keeper. To rub salt in the wound, Albion lost 3-1, enabling City to reach the last 16 of the competition for the first time in their 115-year history. The consolation for Albion, of course, was that they were able to concentrate on the league, and they went on finally to win promotion to the elite level they’d left in 1983.
That promotion signalled the end of Ankergren’s playing days but the start of a career as a goalkeeping coach which he admitted in the podcast he’s enjoying immensely.
Born in the Danish coastal seaport of Køge on 9 November 1979, Ankergren played football with his mates from an early age on a pitch close to his home. He also played handball in the winter – it’s a big sport in Denmark – and it got to the point where he had to decide which one to pursue seriously because his parents said he couldn’t do both. He chose football because he enjoyed it a bit more, although he reckoned the hand-eye coordination involved in handball was an asset as he pursued his career as a goalkeeper.
When he started out playing organised football with Solrød FC, he switched from centre half to midfielder to striker and only went in goal when their keeper got injured.
He was only 12 when he was signed by his hometown’s local professional club, HB Køge. Before he became a full professional, he worked for a pizzeria delivering pizzas and at an after-school club. After leaving school, he continued his education at college for a further two years because he wanted to be a policeman if football didn’t work out.
But having broken into the Køge first team, he caught the attention of Brondby, who were probably the biggest club in Denmark at the time.
He joined them in May 2000 and started full-time the following January. “It was a big, big step for me,” he told the podcast. “I didn’t really enjoy it at first. It was a bigger step than I expected it to be.”
Their first-choice keeper, Morgens Krogh, had won Euro ‘92 with the national team so it was tough to compete with him. But the youngster made his debut when Krogh was injured and eventually took the no.1 spot. As well as winning one championship, he topped it by winning the league and cup double in 2005-06.
Ankergren also gained experience playing in the Europa League against teams like Locomotiv Moscow, Espanol and Palermo.
Shortly after he signed a new three-year contract with Brondby, unbeknown to him they signed Stephan Andersen from Charlton Athletic, and Ankergren wasn’t assured he’d still be first choice. “I’d had enough and wanted to try something different so while I was away with the national team (the B side) in Asia, I got a call from my agent saying Leeds were interested.”
Ankergren just missed out on a full international cap, although he was on the bench for games against Luxembourg and the Czech Repubic. He did win a handful of under 21 caps, and he said: “I’ve represented my country at various junior levels and remember making my under 16 debut against England. On the other side that days was Wes Brown and Michael Owen – you could tell both would have successful careers. Owen looked something special and he scored against me in a 4-1 defeat. I didn’t have my best game.”
Ankergren joined Leeds on loan initially, making his debut aged 27 in a 2-1 home win over Crystal Palace on 19 February 2007. Although it panned out to be one of the most turbulent times in the club’s history, Ankergren found life at Leeds more relaxed under Dennis Wise and Poyet than he had in Denmark.
His 14 games at the bottom of the Championship couldn’t halt the slide towards relegation which was confirmed emphatically with a points deduction when the club went into administration.
“I saved a couple of penalties early on, which won over the fans, including an important one against fellow strugglers Luton,” he said. He denied Dean Morgan from 12 yards with only four minutes left of a tense afternoon, and he told a supporter’s blog: “There were a few minutes, plus stoppage time to go against Luton so I had to stay focused as they were down there with us, so the win was vital.
“I had also saved a penalty away at Cardiff City but unfortunately we still lost the game.”
After signing on permanently, Ankergren was first choice as Leeds acclimatised to third tier football in 2007-08. He made 54 appearances in all competitions and, having conceded only one goal in five league games in September 2007, won his first League One Player of the Month award.
It wasn’t always plain sailing at Elland Road, though, and he was sad to see Poyet depart to become assistant manager to Juande Ramos at Spurs in November 2007, followed early in the new year by Wise, who became director of football at Newcastle.
“Gus was really, really respected up in Leeds. It was a big loss when he went to Tottenham – we really missed him, but I kept in touch after he left,” said Ankergren.
“I liked his style. If you do well, he’ll let you know – but if you don’t do well, he’ll also let you know. There’s none of this going behind your back; he’ll say it to your face, which is what I like.”
He also felt a sense of loss with Wise’s departure. “It was a massive disappointment for me personally,” he said. “Wisey is a good man, he had given me the chance to play in England and I will always be grateful to him.”
In March 2008, the goalkeeper faced an “improper conduct” charge brought by the FA for allegedly throwing a missile into the crowd at the County Ground, Swindon. He was fined £750 but not banned.
Gary McAllister was installed as manager and steered the club to the end of season play-offs against Doncaster Rovers and, despite some important saves by Ankergren, they lost. “I don’t know why but we never turned up at Wembley,” said Ankergren. “It was a strange feeling which let me flat, and it took a long time to get over that. We came so near, yet so far.”
Ankergren admitted to sheridan-dictates.com that he did not particularly enjoy the 2008-09 season. “It appeared that McAllister didn’t know his best team. I was in the side one week then the next he would pick Dave Lucas. Goalkeepers need games to stay sharp and focused and the thought of being dropped played on me and I did not perform to the standards I expected from myself.
“McAllister had been an outstanding midfielder but he was a League One manager with a League One squad. I think he expected too much from a group who didn’t have the ability that he had been blessed with as a player.
“The atmosphere was not great around the club and I thought that McAllister made some very strange decisions.
“Although I did not have any real issues with the manager, I have to be honest and say that I was not too disappointed when he was sacked and Simon Grayson was brought in.”
Grayson’s reign started on Boxing Day 2008 and he put Ankergren back into his team to play Leicester City. Leeds had fallen into mid-table but turned things around to earn a place in the play offs against Millwall who won the two-legged semi-final.
“Looking back, could we handle the favourites tag?” Ankergren asked. “It was another horrible feeling, but we were all determined to come back for pre-season training and go one better.”
However, although Lucas had left the club, Ankergren faced new competition in Shane Higgs and Grayson went with him at the start of the 2009-10 season.
But when Higgs was injured at MK Dons on 26 September 2009, Ankergren appeared as a substitute and eventually won his place back, even though United brought in Frank Fielding and David Martin as loan goalkeepers, and he had the feeling Grayson didn’t really rate him.
Ankergren re-established himself with a string of impressive performances and clean sheets andwas the last line of defence in a memorable 1-0 FA Cup third round win for Leeds at Old Trafford in January 2010, including pulling off a terrific save to deny Danny Welbeck.
He was also in goal against Spurs in the next round when it took a replay at Elland Road before the north London club finally won through.
However, the beginning of the end of his time at Elland Road came when he made a mistake in a 2-0 home defeat against Millwall on 22 March 2010, and he didn’t return to the side for the remaining nine games as they went on to win promotion to the Championship as runners up behind Norwich City.
“I remember sitting with Paul Dickov in the dressing room having a beer and reflecting on what we had achieved,” Ankergren told sheridan-dictates.com. “We went over to the Centenary Pavilion for the end of season dinner and on to a nightclub, It was a great night but deep down I knew that I had played my last game for the club as my contract was up.”
Ironically, his replacement at Leeds was fellow Dane, Kasper Schmeichel, son of Ankergren’s goalkeeping idol, Peter, who also played for Brondby before going on to achieve fame at Manchester United.
Ankergren’s 11-year association with the Seagulls came to an end in September 2021 when he returned to his home country as head goalkeeping coach at Brondby.
Pictures from various online sources, matchday programmes and the Argus
In parallel lines 