AFTER three promotions and one relegation in five years, Danny Cullip left Brighton for Sheffield United in December 2004.
Hard-up Albion needed the cash at the time and Cullip was keen to join a side who were pushing for promotion to the Premier League.
“They were a massive side and I felt that it was too good an opportunity to miss,” Cullip said in Match of My Life (knowthescorebooks.com), edited by Paul Camillin. “I felt if I didn’t take the opportunity, I would end up regretting it, and although things didn’t work out, I don’t regret it, as I would have lived the rest of my life wondering what might have happened.”
Cullip was virtually ever-present during his three months with the Blades but a clash of personalities with fiery manager Neil Warnock saw him offloaded on loan to Watford before the end of the season.
The player who had been an inspirational captain for the Seagulls has chosen not to go into detail about what happened although Warnock had plenty to say in his autobiography, ghostwritten by journalist Oliver Holt.
“At Sheffield United I bought a centre-half, Danny Cullip, with a view to him being my leader on the pitch, my captain,” he said. “I thought he was a good talker. I realised within a week he talked a better game than he played. The only answer was to get shot of him quickly.”
Cullip swerved the controversy in an Albion matchday programme interview in 2019-20, saying instead: “We won my first three games in succession and ended up taking maximum points from five of the first six games.
“It was a great start and I was really enjoying my football but then, out of the blue, Neil said he wanted to bring in another striker, Danny Webber from Watford.
“Ray Lewington, who was coach at Watford at the time and knew me from out time together at Brentford, said they would only sanction it if they could get me in return. It was going to be a permanent move but ended up being a loan as Ray was sacked the following week, which wasn’t ideal.
“My Sheffield United career was over though before it had even begun, which was so disappointing because I’d been playing well and we’d been getting results.”
Sheffield United’s Cullip gets to grips with ex- Albion teammate Guy Butters
Lee Connor on footballleagueworld.co.uk reckoned Cullip was one of the top 5 most pointless signings in Sheffield United’s history which seems a harsh assessment of a player who made 216 appearances for Brighton.
The £250,000 fee Brighton received for their captain was certainly much needed at the time and was a good return on the £50,000 they invested in signing him from Brentford for £50,000 on 13 October 1999.
Born on 17 September 1976 in Bracknell, Berkshire, Cullip was scouted by Oxford United while playing Sunday football and shone during a set of trial games. After getting into their under-16s, he then earned a two-year YTS apprenticeship where he was coached by future England manager Steve McLaren.
Oxford were managed by that redoubtable former centre half Denis Smith at the time and Cullip was given a one-year professional contract but faced stiff competition to make the breakthrough to the first team, where future Leicester City stalwart Matt Elliott was excelling.
“I went out on loan to Kettering Town in the Conference,” Cullip told fulhamfocus.com. “Gary Johnson was their manager and I learned a lot from him and played well there.”
Cullip had a trial at Shrewsbury and could have joined them or Kettering. But he chose to join then Fourth Division Fulham because his dad was a Fulham fan, he told fulhamfc.com in an April 2016 interview. Micky Adams had been newly appointed in his first managerial job and handed Cullip his league debut in the first game of the 1996-97 season.
It was a season fondly remembered by Fulham fans because they won promotion but the regime change the following year, when Mohammed Al Fayed took over, saw Adams dumped in favour of Kevin Keegan and Ray Wilkins and eventually Cullip rejoined Adams at Brentford in exchange for a £75,000 fee in February 1998.
Cullip found himself back in the basement division when the Bees were relegated and then on the treatment table for much of the season after suffering a cruciate knee ligament injury.
Having not played a first team game for 13 months because of the injury, Cullip was thrown a lifeline when Adams, by now in charge at Brighton, took him on a month’s loan in September 1999.
He impressed sufficiently for Adams to persuade chairman Dick Knight to make the transfer permanent, beginning an association with the club which continues to this day.
Cullip became a mainstay of the defence during the back-to-back promotions of 2001-02 and 2002-03 and famously scored the headed winner in a 1-0 win over Chesterfield at Withdean that clinched the third-tier championship.
Cullip took over the captaincy from Paul Rogers and recalls the “unbelievable day” he lifted the play-off final trophy at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, in 2004.
After his Blades spell was cut short, and his brief Watford loan came to an end, Cullip joined Nottingham Forest where his manager was Gary Megson. “I really liked him,” said Cullip. “He was an honest guy; what you see is what you get with him.
“Unfortunately, I missed my first pre-season with Forest due to what was ongoing at United, so I was playing catch-up with the rest of the lads and ended up suffering a hamstring injury. It was a problem that would dog me for the rest of my career.”
He was restricted to a handful of appearances in his first season with Forest but he eventually became a regular in a three-man defence alongside Wes Morgan and Ian Breckin.
Cullip in action for Forest, marking Albion’s Alex Revell
In January 2007, he was on the move again, to Queens Park Rangers, where former Albion player John Gregory was in charge. But his 18-month deal was terminated early after one of their many managerial changes saw him surplus to requirements.
With his family based in Sussex, Cullip looked for an opening in the south and spent six weeks training with Millwall before linking up with Gillingham, where he played from February 2008 to the end of the 2007-08 season.
He then played non-league with Lewes but, after a season, the hamstring injury forced him to retire.
Alongside his former Albion centre half partner Guy Butters, Cullip is now a coach with the Albion in the Community scheme.
GREAT things were expected of James Wilson after he scored two goals on his Manchester United debut.
A few months later, Wilson signed a four-year contract, with new manager Louis van Gaal describing him as “one of the brightest young English prospects”.
Wilson represented England at under 16, under 19, under 20 and under 21 levels but a career in England’s top-flight proved elusive and he is now playing for Scottish Premiership side Aberdeen.
He also scored (above) in the fifth minute of added on time to secure Albion a point in their penultimate league game at home to Derby, but when runners-up spot eluded the Seagulls courtesy of the last-game 1-1 draw at Middlesbrough, and when Albion failed to overcome Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship play-offs, Wilson returned to Old Trafford.
“I don’t want to sit around – I love playing,” said Vokes. “Brighton have a great way of playing football that is different to a lot of teams in the Championship.”
Wolves stepped in to sign him that May and he came off the bench in the opening game of the following season to score an equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Plymouth Argyle. However, 
He went on: “Our shortage of strikers was highlighted by the fact that he played the full 90 minutes in all of the first 26 league games that season, but he wasn’t just filling in. He was turning in some outstanding performances, linking up really well with Ings and both were scoring goals aplenty.”
West Ham United, under Sam Allardyce, gave Baldock a platform to take his lower-league goalscoring prowess to a higher level when they began the 2011-12 season in the Championship. But, after a bright start, he disappointed and eventually only stayed for one year of a four-year deal.
Former Albion captain, 
He couldn’t have asked for a better start when he scored five times in his first six games for the Hammers. Unfortunately, as has been the case throughout his career, he picked up an injury that sidelined him, and, in his absence, Nicky Maynard and the aforementioned Vaz Te became first choices in the forward line.
Royals boss Paul Clement told the 
“When he signed for Watford I was hoping for more of the same. All we ever got was one long range effort away to Southend in the First Round of the Coca-Cola, and a couple of seasons of strolling around the pitch preserving his hairstyle and energy for (page three model girlfriend) Maria Whitaker.”
Kennedy displays a more conventional goalscoring celebration for Birmingham
It was a ‘phone call from 
Several fans remember how he didn’t react well to observations from the terraces pointing out his shortcomings. Bladders was amused to recall: “One time, when he lazily chased a ball that went out of play, my old man told him to ‘put some bloody effort in Kennedy’. Kennedy then threatened to jump into the South Stand and smash his face in if he gave him any more lip.”
Akinbiyi was brought in to replace Emile Heskey, a real Filbert Street hero who had been sold to Liverpool for £11m. However, 
It led to Akinbiyi joining on a permanent basis, on a free transfer, and he became a cult hero with the Stoke City crowd.
THE REVENGE exacted by Frenchman Georges Santos against an opponent who had inflicted serious injuries to him sparked one of the most notorious football incidents of the modern era.
In parallel lines 