Tag: Sligo Rovers

Steve Cotterill hit the goal trail at Brighton and Bournemouth

STEVE COTTERILL, who made a lasting connection with Brighton fans after impressing during an all-too-brief spell in 1992, saw his injury-plagued playing career come to a juddering halt at Bournemouth.

Cotterill today is back where it all began managing his hometown club, Cheltenham Town, but back in the day he was an old school bustling centre forward who began to get his career back on track with Barry Lloyd’s cash-strapped Seagulls.

The West Country striker, affectionately nicknamed Wurzel (after TV character Wurzel Gummidge) by Albion veteran Steve Foster (back with the club he left in 1984) because of the distinctive Gloucestershire burr when he spoke, was desperate to get back playing regular league football after spending 14 months sidelined with an anterior cruciate ligament injury to his knee while playing for Wimbledon, who were just about to compete in the inaugural season of the Premier League.

“When Brighton asked for me on loan, I desperately wanted the chance to show what I could do,” he said. “I think that Martin Hinshelwood (Lloyd’s deputy) was impressed when he saw me a couple of years ago in a tournament at Arundel.”

Wimbledon didn’t tend to loan players out but manager Joe Kinnear, a former Brighton player himself back in the 1970s, agreed for Cotterill to make the move to try to regain his fitness.

Lloyd was managing on a shoestring after Albion had been relegated back to the third tier having missed out on leaving the second tier in the opposite direction the year before when losing the play-off final at Wembley to Neil Warnock’s Notts County.

He’d been forced to sell the prolific striking duo of Mike Small, to West Ham, and John Byrne, to Sunderland, and their replacements had been a huge disappointment.

Mark Gall, signed from Maidstone, offered a glimmer of hope, but one-time Arsenal striker Raphael Meade and former Everton trainee Mark Farrington failed to convince.

As the 1992-93 season got under way, Gall was unavailable due to a knee injury that eventually forced him to retire, Meade had departed and questions continued over Farrington, so Lloyd opened the season with loan signings Cotterill and Paul Moulden (who’d been at Bournemouth for seven months after leaving Manchester City) from Oldham Athletic (also in the Premier League that season), where he was surplus to requirements.

Each were on the scoresheet in Albion’s opening day 3-2 defeat at Leyton Orient and Cotterill scored again in a home 2-1 win over Bolton Wanderers and an away 3-2 win at Exeter City.

It looked like Lloyd had cracked it as the pair combined well and also enjoyed their partnership, as Moulden told Brian Owen in an interview with the Argus in October 2016. “One of the reasons I loved playing for Brighton was Mr Banter himself, Steve Cotterill. We met up like we had never been apart. I’d start the banter and he’d finish it or vice versa.

“We destroyed many a centre-half partnership during that three months. I was gutted to leave. I mean that very sincerely – absolutely gutted. I couldn’t believe nobody would have bought me and Steve as a pairing.

“We were both out of favour with our clubs and we hit it off so well. But it wasn’t to be – at Brighton or at any club.”

Cotterill had certainly hinted at making the move more permanent, saying in a programme interview: “I am glad to be playing again and scoring the odd goal. Who knows what may happen from here?”

A somewhat unusual programme shot of Cotterill enjoying a spot of gardening

He signed off by scoring the only goal of the game that beat Wigan Athletic at the Goldstone.

Unfortunately, parent club Wimbledon, playing in the inaugural season of the Premier League, wanted the sort of fee for Cotterill that, at the time, Albion couldn’t afford.

He’d scored four times in 11 matches – and on his return to the Dons promptly scored both of their goals in a 2-2 draw away to Southampton. But with John Fashanu and Dean Holdsworth ahead of him, he managed just a handful of games for the Dons.

He did get a start ahead of Holdsworth at home to Liverpool in January 1993 and scored the Dons second goal (Fashanu scored a penalty in the first half) as the Reds were put to the sword 2-0 at Selhurst Park (where Wimbledon played home games at the time).

Cotterill added to his Dons goal tally the following month, in the second minute of added on time in a fifth round FA Cup tie at Spurs, but it was simply a consolation as the home side ran out 3-2 winners. Cotterill had replaced Roger Joseph for the second half.

In the summer of 1993, Bournemouth found the £80,000 that Wimbledon wanted for Cotterill and he signed for the Cherries under manager Tony Pulis.

Pulis paired Cotterill with Steve Fletcher, who eventually went on to become a Cherries legend after a slow start. Fletcher spoke highly of his former teammate when interviewed by Neil Perrett for the Bournemouth Echo in March 2010.

In their first season together, their fortunes were quite contrasting. Cotterill scored 14 goals and was crowned supporters’ Player of the Year while Fletcher endured a second barren year following a £30,000 move from Hartlepool.

Cotterill in action for Bournemouth against Burnley in 1993. Photo: Paul Collins.

“Steve took me under his wing,” recalled Fletcher. “My first couple of years were hard. I started playing alongside Efan Ekoku and was a lone striker after he had been sold.

“I was young and needed someone to come in and help me out. Steve had experience of playing at a higher level with Wimbledon and was happy to pass it on.

“He used to sit me down and we would talk through things. He would back me up in the paper and I remember him jumping to my defence when someone criticised me at a fans’ forum.

“Things like that stick in your mind. I had moved down from Hartlepool and it was tough. Steve really looked after me during those early years and it is something I’ve always appreciated. I’ve kept in touch ever since.”

It was during their second season together that their fortunes reversed. Cotterill’s career was prematurely cut short following a serious knee injury sustained against Chester City in September 1994, with only 10 games of the season played. Fletcher went on to be crowned Player of the Year.

Cotterill said: “I had a good time at Bournemouth, but unfortunately my lasting memory was my last game.

“Snapping my cruciate ligament was the thing I remember because it was the last thing I did and it’s the thing that lives with me. I still remember doing it and it’s a bad memory really, but I did have some good times there and it’s a great part of the world.”

Pulis was succeeded by former player Mel Machin and in that campaign’s team photo there were two teammates who had played for Brighton in Gary Chivers and Kevin ‘Rooster’ Russell and two who would do so in the future: Mark Morris and Warren Aspinall.

Cotterill recalled in a 2023 interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk: “I know Rooster very well. I played with him at Bournemouth and he’s a great guy and a good coach.

“I liked him when I played with him because he used to stick crosses on a sixpence for me. I remember scoring a few goals from his crosses.”

Born in Cheltenham on 20 July 1964, Cotterill’s first football was played at primary school but his secondary school years were spent at rugby-playing Arle Comprehensive so it was a relief to resume the game he loved for the then semi-professional Cheltenham Town youth team.

He progressed to the reserves and first team of what at the time was a Southern League Premier Division club before his friend Tim Harris, assistant manager at Alvechurch, persuaded him to switch clubs, while he was working full time for a builder’s merchant.

“I must have impressed there because they cashed in and sold me for £4,000 to Burton Albion,” he recalled in a matchday programme interview.

His progress for the side who a dozen years earlier had unearthed the talent of Peter Ward saw him net 44 goals in 74 games for the Brewers between 1987 and 1989

“I have a great affection for Burton Albion and for all those people that work there and I’ll never forget my time there,” he said in a 2018 interview after his Birmingham side played his old club in the FA Cup.

Such a prolific scoring rate caught the eye of Bobby Gould, whose Wimbledon side were punching way above their weight in the old First Division, and the previous season had achieved an historic FA Cup win over Liverpool.

Wimbledon reportedly paid more than £100,000 to take him to south London and he recalled: “I scored on my league debut on 29 April 1989 in a 4-0 win against Newcastle and I thought I was on my way.

“But I didn’t get much of a look-in in the following season and then, when Ray Harford took over, I played a few games before I suffered a horrendous knee injury.”

Cotterill was out for 14 months and only managed a couple of reserve games towards the end of the 1991-92 season, before making the temporary move to Brighton.

Interesting to note in an Albion programme interview with him during his loan spell that he ended it by saying: “I want to stay in the game and I’d like to become a coach or manager.”

He certainly did that and what he did in those capacities is a story in itself. His first assignment was in Ireland where he succeeded his former Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez at League of Ireland’s Sligo Rovers.

But his hometown club Cheltenham Town offered him a management opening back in England in 1997, and he steered them from Southern League football into the Conference and then into the bottom tier of the Football League. He twice won the Manager of the Year title and earned another promotion, to the third tier, via a play-off final victory over Rushden & Diamonds.

After management and coaching posts at 12 clubs in various parts of the country, he returned to Cheltenham after a 23-year absence in September 2025 and was subject of an extensive feature on Sky Sports hailing his messianic return at the age of 61.

In between, he managed Stoke, Burnley, Notts County, Portsmouth, Nottingham Forest, Bristol City, Birmingham, Shrewsbury Town and Forest Green Rovers.

A brief stay in the Potteries

He cut short his tenure at Stoke in the autumn of 2002 after just 13 games to become assistant manager at Sunderland under Howard Wilkinson, but their stay on Wearside was also short lived, the pair being dismissed after only 27 games in March 2003.

Before taking up the Burnley post, Cotterill was briefly a coach under Micky Adams at Leicester and he was twice a coach under Harry Redknapp: at Birmingham, before taking over as manager, then again at QPR for the second half of the 2012-13 season.

Cotterill has certainly been on the wrong end of some trigger-happy club owners over the years but one of the toughest challenges he’s faced during his long career was during his time as boss of League One Shrewsbury during the Covid-19 pandemic. He was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary, spending time in intensive care, suffering badly from the virus and pneumonia.

Cotterill left the Shrews job in June 2023 and was out of work until January 2024, when he took charge of Forest Green Rovers.

He was unable to stave off relegation from the Football League, but he rebuilt the side during the summer of 2024 to push for promotion back to League Two. When Southend United visited The New Lawn in the National League on 15 March 2025, the 2-2 draw was Cotterill’s 1,000th game as a manager.

Now back at Whaddon Road, he’s steered the Robins clear of the bottom-of-the-league spot they occupied when he returned.

A manager of the month award shortly after his return to Cheltenham

At his first game back, a banner in the stands referenced the return of the king, and Cotterill declared: “I felt the whole of Cheltenham behind me that day. Not that I have not felt it since too, by the way, because they have been incredible ever since I have been back.

“Even when I was at other clubs, this club has always been important to me. It is my hometown.”

Nonetheless, the Albion has always occupied a soft spot, as he once wrote in his programme notes prior to a Cheltenham v Brighton fixture: “I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and, whenever we’ve gone there, I’ve always had a great reception from their supporters. They’ve been terrific.”

Ex-Clarets boss Steve Cotterill not always ‘Mr Popular’

FORMER Burnley manager Steve Cotterill hasn’t always been popular during a nomadic football career that’s taken him the length and breadth of the country.

But he made a lasting connection with Brighton fans after impressing during an all-too-brief playing spell in 1992.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and, whenever we’ve gone there, I’ve always had a great reception from their supporters. They’ve been terrific,” he wrote in his programme notes prior to a Cheltenham v Brighton fixture.

Injury curtailed Cotterill’s playing career – he endured 18 knee operations – but he made up for it by taking charge of nine different clubs over a period spanning more than 20 years.

His three years and seven months keeping Burnley in the second tier while seeing key players sold or injured was largely recognised as a decent achievement in the circumstances. Many of his other appointments were a lot shorter, and at times acrimonious.

Starting out as a player on the non-league circuit, it was Cotterill’s prolific scoring for Burton Albion (44 goals in 74 games) that prompted Wimbledon to snap him up in 1989.

Unfortunately, he sustained a serious cruciate ligament knee injury that halted his progress with the Dons and Albion boss Barry Lloyd gave him a lifeline to try to resurrect his career with the Seagulls.

Against a backdrop of financial instability, Lloyd had struggled to find adequate replacements for the prolific Mike Small and John Byrne in the 1991-92 season. Mark Gall, signed from Maidstone, offered a glimmer of hope, but Raphael Meade and Mark Farrington were disappointing to say the least, and Albion had been relegated back to the third tier a year after being one game from winning their place back amongst the elite in a play-off final against Notts County.

As the 1992-93 season got under way, Gall was unavailable due to a knee injury that eventually forced him to retire, Meade had departed and questions continued over Farrington, so Lloyd turned to loan signings Cotterill and Paul Moulden from Oldham Athletic.

It looked like he’d cracked it as the pair combined well and started scoring goals. Indeed, Cotterill scored four in 11 games, which was a promising start. Unfortunately, parent club Wimbledon wanted the sort of fee for him that cash-strapped Albion couldn’t afford, so he returned to south west London and eventually moved on to Bournemouth the following summer for £80,000.

In an interview with the Argus in October 2016, Moulden told Brian Owen: “One of the reasons I loved playing for Brighton was Mr Banter himself, Steve Cotterill. We met up like we had never been apart. I’d start the banter and he’d finish it or vice versa.

“We destroyed many a centre-half partnership during that three months. I was gutted to leave. I mean that very sincerely – absolutely gutted. I couldn’t believe nobody would have bought me and Steve as a pairing.

“We were both out of favour with our clubs and we hit it off so well. But it wasn’t to be – at Brighton or at any club.”

Born in Cheltenham on 20 July 1964, Cotterill’s injury-ravaged playing career came to a close at Dean Court. He’d won the player of the year title three times and scored 18 goals in 55 starts for the Cherries, but another knee injury finally put paid to his playing career, and he turned his attention to managing.

His first assignment was in Ireland where he succeeded his former Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez at League of Ireland’s Sligo Rovers. But his hometown club Cheltenham Town offered him a management opening back in England in 1997, and he steered them from Southern League football into the Conference and then into the bottom tier of the Football League. He twice won the Manager of the Year title and earned another promotion, to the third tier, via a play-off final victory over Rushden & Diamonds.

After leaving Cheltenham, Cotterill had a controversial five-month, 13 game stay as Stoke City boss at the start of the 2002-03 season before quitting to join Sunderland as Howard Wilkinson’s no.2. In May 2020, Cotterill endeavoured to explain to the Stoke Sentinel the circumstances surrounding his tenure, and the board interference regarding players.

The stay on Wearside was also short lived, with the pair being dismissed after only 27 games in March 2003.

The collapse of ITV Digital coincided with Cotterill taking over from Stan Ternent as Burnley manager in the summer of 2004. When he joined, they had only eight players on the books and, despite reassurances to the contrary, within six months Robbie Blake and Richard Chaplow, who he’d hoped to build a team around, had been sold.

When Blake’s replacement Ade Akinbiyi started scoring on a regular basis, he too was sold, and when he returned to the club later, he wasn’t the same player in front of goal.

Even after Cotterill had left, Burnley directors acknowledged the platform he’d provided for their eventual elevation to the Premier League under Owen Coyle.

The excellent uptheclarets.com, summed up his time at Turf Moor, thus: “He kept us in the second tier of English football for three years and that, looking back, was some achievement in, at times, difficult financial circumstances.”

It probably said something about the Championship that when Cotterill finally departed Turf Moor in the autumn of 2007, he’d been its longest serving manager at three years and seven months.

The following year, Cotterill was offered the opportunity to try his hand in America with Minnesota Thunder but work permit issues meant it never materialised. He didn’t resurface in the English game until 2010, when he enjoyed a short but successful reign – five months in charge of Notts County. He took charge on 23 February 2010 and they were crowned League Two champions on 27 April. A month later Cotterill was on his way, appointed in June 2010 as the manager of Portsmouth.

He helped to stabilise the then Championship club against a background of financial troubles and other clubs began to cast eyes on his achievements. The persistence of Nottingham Forest finally paid off and he moved there in October 2011, but a change of ownership of the club spelled the end of his time by the Trent.

In July 2012, he was only nine months into a three-and-a-half-year contract at Nottingham Forest when the owning Al-Hasawi family decided to relieve him of his duties and go in a different direction.

He was out of the game for six months but in January 2013 accepted Harry Redknapp’s offer to join the coaching team at Queens Park Rangers until the end of the season.

He turned down the chance to stay in post the following season and in December 2013 took charge of League One Bristol City, signing another three-and-a-half-year contract.

In his second season at Ashton Gate, he steered City to promotion from League One as champions and they won the Football League Trophy. It earned Cotterill the League One Manager of the Year award.

As with other times in his career, Cotterill found his club’s better players were sold, ultimately weakening the squads he was in charge of. For example, when Sam Baldock moved from Bristol City to Brighton. Cotterill told bcfc.com: “He was a very good captain and very good goalscorer; we were sorry to see him go…that happens in football.”

Ultimately, as City struggled to attain the same level of success in the Championship as they’d experienced in the division below, Cotterill was sacked in January 2016.

Perhaps to prove the point about Cotterill not always being everybody’s cup of tea, former Albion defender Adam El-Abd vented his feelings in September 2020, explaining why he fell out of love with football following a bust-up with the manager only a short time after he moved to Bristol City.

With only three matches of the 2016-17 season left to play, Cotterill once again was grateful to Redknapp, by now manager at Birmingham City, and he joined him there as first team coach.

He subsequently left in the close season in the hope of landing a manager’s role in his own right. Ironically, that opportunity arose back at St Andrews when Redknapp was sacked in October 2017.

Cotterill told The Sun’s Graham Hill how he felt he had mellowed after 20 years in the hotseat at various clubs, although, at the time, he probably didn’t expect to be out of work again five months later.

After leaving Birmingham in March 2018, Cotterill ruptured a disc in his neck while trying to keep fit but in an interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk declared himself fit and ready for the next challenge.

That challenge emerged in November 2020 when Cotterill took charge of League One Shrewsbury Town but he faced a bigger fight – to his health – after contracting Covid-19 and he was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary, spending some time in intensive care, suffering badly from the virus and pneumonia. He was released from hospital in March 2021 to recover at home.

He left the Shrews job in June 2023 and was out of work until January 2024, when he took charge of Forest Green Rovers.

He was unable to stave off relegation from the Football League, but he rebuilt the side during the summer of 2024 to push for promotion back to League Two. When Southend United visited The New Lawn on 15 March 2025, the 2-2 draw was Cotterill’s 1,000th game as a manager. At the time, Rovers were joint-second in the National League.

Chelsea starlet Barry Bridges a Brighton record signing

5-bridges-in-stripesENGLAND international Barry Bridges was once Brighton & Hove Albion’s record signing for the princely sum of £28,000.

Much of his career ran in parallel with Bert Murray. Both young stars at Chelsea in the early to mid-60s, they were transferred to Birmingham City in 1966 and joined the Albion in the early 1970s.

Norfolk-born Bridges had come to the attention of Chelsea while playing for local side Norwich & Norfolk Boys and had a dream debut in 1959 at just 17, scoring in a local derby against West Ham. It was in the 1961-62 season that he established himself in the Chelsea first team, Jimmy Greaves having been transferred to AC Milan.

In what turned out to be  superb 1964-65 season for him and the club, he scored 27 goals in 42 appearances for Chelsea and collected a League Cup winners’ medal when they beat Leicester City 3-2 over two legs.

It was in May 1966 when Tommy Docherty started breaking up his squad and Bridges left Chelsea for Birmingham having scored 93 goals in 205 league appearances for the London club.

Bridges went one better than Murray and earned full England international honours. Four caps in fact. He was just a few days short of his 24th birthday when he made his debut in a 2-2 draw with Scotland at Wembley in April 1965.

bb-england-w-sir-a

Bridges pictured with Sir Alf Ramsey, Jack Charlton and Nobby Stiles while on England international duty.

He kept the no.9 shirt in the next two games, played in May, a 1-0 win over Hungary at Wembley and was the scorer of England’s goal in a 1-1 draw away to Yugoslavia. His fourth and final game was in a 3-2 friendly defeat against Austria in October 1965. Injury prevented him staking a claim for a place in the 1966 World Cup squad.

In 1971, Bridges went on an end-of-season tour to Australia with an English FA squad that also included Peter Grummitt (then of Sheffield Wednesday) and Dennis Mortimer (of Coventry at the time). The squad went to Dublin first to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the FA of Ireland, drawing 1-1 with the Republic, before heading Down Under where they won all nine of the matches they played in various locations across a month.

BridgesChels

Birmingham paid a then club record fee of £55,000 to acquire Bridges and in two seasons in the West Midlands he scored 46 goals in 104 outings.

Interviewed by bcfc.com in 2014, Bridges said: “What persuaded me to join Birmingham more than anything was the chairman, Clifford Coombs. He was a great guy and wanted to put the club back on its feet. He told me that I was going to be his first signing and he really wanted me to join.”

In his first season he helped Blues to a League Cup semi-final – ironically against Queens Park Rangers – the club he would move to next.

In August 1968, a £50,000 deal saw him move to Loftus Road, where he was part of a strong forward line playing alongside Frank Clarke and the flamboyant Rodney Marsh with his old Chelsea teammate Terry Venables pulling the strings in midfield.

Unfortunately the campaign ended in relegation from the old First Division but in 1969-70 he linked up well alongside Marsh and Clarke and scored 24 goals in all competitions.

Bridges QPR

QPR decided to cash in on him and sold him to Millwall in 1970 and in 1972 he was part of a Millwall side who only narrowly missed promotion to the top division. The Lions were already celebrating promotion on the pitch at The Den when news came through that in fact promotion rivals Birmingham had beaten Sheffield Wednesday to go up, contrary to a rumour that had been circulating in the ground that they’d been losing.

“The four supporters who had been chairing me on their shoulders dropped me. Everyone was stunned, and we had to troop off the pitch all bitterly disappointed and choked,” said Bridges. “I desperately wanted to play First Division football again and so did the rest of the lads. We were all sick.”

When Pat Saward signed him for Brighton in September 1972, it was evident from the start that this was a player who had played at the highest level.

Unfortunately, although Bridges could easily cope at that level, others either didn’t step up or the new players didn’t gel – arguably Saward made too many changes – but, whatever the reason, Brighton couldn’t stop losing and were left floundering at the foot of the table.

Bridges made his debut in a 1-1 draw away to Aston Villa but it was another four matches before he got his first goal, ironically against his old club Millwall, in a 3-1 defeat at home.

Bridges seldom had the same partner up front, early on playing with Willie Irvine, on other occasions with Ken Beamish and later with Lammie Robertson after Saward brought him in from Halifax in exchange for Irvine.

My abiding impression of him was that he appeared to be too good for the rest of the team. His speed of thought was often way ahead of the rest so he would put passes into areas where he would expect a teammate to be, only to be disappointed that they hadn’t read it, so he was made to look wasteful.

One of the few moments of pleasure for Bridges in what was otherwise a season of doom and gloom was the prospect of a FA Cup third round tie against Chelsea at the Goldstone in January 1973. Bridges was in great demand for pre-match interviews in view of his past association with the London club.

“It’s a tremendous draw for the club and a dream draw for Bert Murray and myself who both started our careers at Chelsea,” Bridges told Goal magazine. “Personally it will be nice to see most of the Chelsea lads again. I grew up with Peter Bonetti, Ron Harris and Ossie (Peter Osgood).”

Bridges hoped a good performance in the Cup would help to reinvigorate the lacklustre league form and said: “It’s a crying shame that we’re struggling because the facilities here are second to none. Obviously we need to start getting results now before it’s too late. A win against Chelsea could be just the boost we need to get out of trouble in the league.”

As it turned out, not only did the game end in defeat (2-0) for the Albion but it drew national headlines for all the wrong reasons – ‘day of shame’ for example – as Harris and Brighton left back George Ley were sent off, five were booked and the mood on the pitch led to fighting on the terraces with 25 people arrested.

However, Albion’s fortunes did eventually improve – although it was without Bridges, who in the final few games of the season was restricted to appearances off the bench.

Back in the third division, Bridges was restored to the starting line-up and scored in the opening game in a 1-1 draw at Rochdale.

He was part of the team Brian Clough and Peter Taylor inherited in October and, after they secured their first win courtesy of Pat Hilton’s goal in a 1-0 win away to Walsall, Bridges told the press: “I did more running about in this game than I had in the previous 10 matches.

“I’m 32 now, but with this chap geeing me up I reckon I can go on playing for several more years. We were a bit on edge before the game and the first thing he told us was to relax. Afterwards he told us he was pleased with the effort we showed and we can work from here and go places.

“Though I was sorry to see Pat Saward go – he was a great coach – I think Brian’s got what it takes to make us a good side. He’s just what the club have been waiting for.”

But three games later, as one of the team humiliated in a 4-0 home FA Cup defeat to Walton & Hersham at the end of November, Bridges was unceremoniously dropped and didn’t play again for the first team until February.

Although he then had a run in the team, scoring six times in a 17-game spell, he was among twelve players Clough and Taylor offloaded at the end of the season.

That brought down the curtain on his league career but he continued playing – initially in South Africa with Johannesburg side Highlands Park and then in Ireland – where when player-manager of St Patrick’s Athletic he also gave game time to another former Brighton striker, Neil Martin. He also managed Sligo Rovers before returning to his native Norfolk to manage non league sides Kings Lynn and Dereham Town.

In 2013, the QPR programme caught up with him to discover he was living in Norwich close to where he was brought up, and still getting along to watch matches.

1-england-bridges2-chelsea-bridges4-bridges-in-hoopsB Bridges Btn GOALBarry Bridges (Lions)Barry Bridges (Millwall yellow)

  • Pictures from my scrapbook show Barry in his England and Chelsea days, in Millwall’s white and change yellow shirts, in QPR’s familiar hoops, and in the Albion stripes.