Elite career eluded Darren Hughes after cup-winning start

Hughes DARREN Hughes won the FA Youth Cup with Everton but it was lower down the league where he built a long career which included a season with second tier Brighton & Hove Albion.

Born in Prescot on Merseyside on 6 October 1965, left-back Hughes played for Everton in two successive FA Youth Cup finals.

He was on the losing side against Norwich City in 1983 (when among his Everton teammates was centre forward Mark Farrington, who later proved to be a disastrous signing for Barry Lloyd’s Brighton).

The tie went to a third game after it was 5-5 on aggregate over the first two legs. The Canaries won the decider 1-0 at Goodison Park. The following year, Hughes was a scorer, and collected a winners’ medal, as Everton beat Stoke City 4-2 on aggregate.

Meanwhile, the young Hughes had broken into Everton’s first team as an understudy to stalwart John Bailey, making his Everton debut two days after Christmas in 1983.

Unfortunately, the game ended in a 3-0 defeat away to Wolverhampton Wanderers, for whom former Albion winger Tony Towner was playing.

It wasn’t until May 1985 that Hughes next got a first team opportunity, featuring in a 4-1 defeat to Coventry City at Highfield Road and a 2-0 defeat to Luton Town – manager Howard Kendall resting some of the first-choice players after the League title had already been won and ahead of the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final against Rapid Vienna.

With the experienced Bailey and Pat Van Den Hauwe in front of Hughes in the pecking order, Kendall gave the youngster a free transfer at the end of the season, and he joined Second Division Shrewsbury Town, where he made 46 appearances.

Hughes played against Albion for Shrewsbury at Gay Meadow on 16 September 1986, and, two weeks’ later, Alan Mullery, back in charge of the Seagulls for a second spell, signed the 21-year-old for a £30,000 fee.

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Not for the first time, hard-up Albion had devised a scheme to raise transfer funds from supporters, and the money for the purchase of Hughes came from the Lifeline fund which also helped Mullery to buy goalkeeper John Keeley for £1,500 from non-league Chelmsford and striker Gary Rowell, from Middlesbrough.

Hughes made his Albion debut in a 3-0 defeat at home to Birmingham in the Full Members Cup on 1 October 1986 and his first league match came in a 1—0 home win over Stoke City three days later.

“I was quite happy at Shrewsbury,” Hughes told matchday programme interviewer, Tony Norman. “But when the manager told me Brighton were interested in signing me I thought it would be another step up the ladder. It’s a bigger club with better prospects and it’s a nice town as well.”

The single lad, whose parents were living in Widnes, moved into digs in Hove run by Val and Dave Tillson. He was later joined there by Kevan Brown, another new signing, from Southampton.

Hughes said away from football he enjoyed golf and had played rounds with Steve Penney, Dean Saunders and Steve Gatting.

Brown, in a similar programme feature, said Hughes had been a big help in him settling into his new surroundings. “He has been showing me around the area and we’ve become good friends,” he said. “I’m glad I wasn’t put in a hotel on my own.”

Unfortunately for Hughes, life on the pitch didn’t go quite according to plan.

Mullery was somewhat controversially sacked on 5 January 1987 and, although Hughes played 16 games under successor Lloyd, those games yielded only two wins and the Albion finished the season rock bottom of the division.

The only consolation for Hughes was scoring in a 2-0 home win over Crystal Palace on 20 April. His final appearance in a Seagulls shirt came in a 1-0 home defeat to Leeds when he was subbed off in favour of youngster David Gipp.

Having played only 29 games, mostly in midfield, for Brighton, Hughes joined Third Division Port Vale in September 1987, initially on loan, before a £5,000 fee made the deal permanent.

It must have given him some satisfaction to score for his new employer in a 2-0 win against Brighton that very same month.

Hughes spent seven years with the Valiants, helping them to win promotion from the Third Division in 1989, making a total of 222 appearances, mainly as a left back.

His time with Vale was punctuated by two bad injuries – a hernia and a ruptured thigh muscle – and they released him in February 1994.

However, he gradually managed to restore his fitness and in 1995, between January and November, he played 22 games for Third Division Northampton Town.

He then moved to Exeter City, at the time managed by former goalkeeper Peter Fox, where he made a total of 67 appearances before leaving the West Country club at the end of the 1996-97 season.

He ended his career in non-league football with Morecambe and Newcastle Town but could look back on a total of 388 league and cup appearances for six clubs over a 14-year career.

After his playing days were over, according to Where Are They Now? he set up a construction business.

D hughes by tony gordon

Pictures: matchday programme.

Steve Coppell not the first ex-Man U player to quit the manager’s chair

coppell crop STEVE Coppell was not the first former Manchester United player I saw become manager of Brighton. More than 30 years previously Busby Babe Freddie Goodwin had been at the helm when my Albion-watching passion began.

Unfortunately, there was a parallel in their outcomes: both were wooed by better opportunities elsewhere (Goodwin to Birmingham; Coppell to Reading). One other parallel to record, though, is that each of their successors (Pat Saward and Mark McGhee) got Albion promoted.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but, if Coppell hadn’t been jet lagged the first time chairman Dick Knight interviewed him for the Brighton job, the 2002-03 season may have panned out differently…and Kolo Touré, a future Premier League winner with Arsenal and Manchester City, might have spent a season helping the Seagulls to retain their recently-won second tier status. Let me explain.

Coppell had been out of the country in Thailand during the summer of 2002 and, although Knight wanted to interview him with a view to appointing him as Peter Taylor’s successor, when the meeting in London eventually came about, Coppell began to nod off with the effects of his long-distance travel.

A frustrated Knight, under pressure on several fronts that summer (as told in his autobiography Mad Man: From the Gutter to the Stars, the Ad Man who saved Brighton) left him to it and took the decision to appoint third choice Martin Hinshelwood instead. (Knight had also considered German Winfried Schäfer, who had just managed Cameroon at the World Cup, but his poor command of English went against him).

As the opening to the season drew closer, Knight went with Hinshelwood to watch an Arsenal under 23 side in a friendly at Barnet. He was running the rule over Steve Sidwell with a view to taking him on a season-long loan but the stand-out player who caught his eye was Touré, and Albion’s cheeky chairman said he’d take the pair of them.

To his delight, Arsène Wenger and Liam Brady agreed…but astonishingly Hinshelwood said they weren’t needed because, in his opinion, they weren’t any better than Albion’s own youngsters, who he had been coaching, and who he was now intending to blood in the first team. An incredulous Knight kept schtum, believing he needed to support his new manager.

When they started the season with a 3-1 win at Burnley, it seemed maybe Hinshelwood had a point. But, after a disastrous run of 12 defeats, leading to the inevitable sacking of Hinshelwood, Knight reverted to Plan A and succeeded in attracting Coppell to manage the side.

He then swiftly went back to Arsenal to secure the loan services of Sidwell (who’d played for Coppell at Brentford the previous season). But he was too late as far as Touré was concerned. He’d already played his way into first team contention for the Gunners and was no longer available.

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With Albion at the foot of the table, Coppell had a rocky start at the helm of the Seagulls, including an embarrassing 5-0 defeat to Palace, but he quickly brought in some quality players such as Dean Blackwell and Simon Rodger, and, together with Bobby Zamora up front and the busy Sidwell in midfield, they put together some decent results that dared to suggest a great escape was possible.

Albion notched up some surprise results, including a 1-0 Boxing Day win at Norwich and a 4-1 home win over Wolves, who ended up in the play-offs. There was also a memorable 2-2 draw at Ipswich, a 4-0 home win over Watford and a 2-1 win at Reading, most notable for a rare appearance and goal from former Premiership striker Paul Kitson, who had been injured for much of the season.

Sadly, it wasn’t quite enough to keep the Seagulls in the division and they went down second from bottom, five points adrift of 21^st placed Stoke City.

The following season was in its infancy when West Ham decided to sack Glenn Roeder as their boss. The Hammers were determined to replace him with Reading’s Alan Pardew; and Reading, once they realised their fight to keep Pardew was fruitless, turned to third tier Albion’s Coppell as his replacement.

Chairman Knight knew Reading could offer Coppell the opportunities that were still some way in the distance if he’d stayed at the Albion, so he did the next best thing which was to get a healthy sum in compensation which went a long way to funding that season’s wage bill.

Knight was a big fan of Coppell and admired his meticulous preparation for games through in-depth viewing of opponents.

In an interview with The Guardian, Knight said: “He is probably the most analytical mind brought to football management for many a year. His preparations are detailed to the point of fastidious. His briefings are second to none. He spent hours with the video in the afternoons breaking down moves in slow-mo to work out how the opposition operate. He is very perceptive.”

Knight added: “People say he’s cold and uncaring, but he came to one of our marches on the seafront to campaign about the new stadium at Falmer long after he left for Reading. That’s Steve. He left a big impression on us.”

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Coppell left the Albion with a 36.7 per cent win ratio over his 49 games in charge, just over three percentage points behind his first spell as Palace manager, but higher than his other three spells at Selhurst.

To avoid this blog post turning into War and Peace, I’m not going to cover the whole of Coppell’s career but, in the circumstances, it is worth touching on how he came to be a star on the wing for Manchester United and England.

The Liverpool lad went to the same Quarry Bank Grammar School that produced Joe Royle and Beatle John Lennon, but head teacher William Pobjoy ensured football mad Coppell stuck to his studies.

It didn’t deter Coppell from having a trial with Liverpool and playing for an Everton junior side a couple of nights a week. But both rejected him as too small and his dad Jim told playupliverpool.com: “He lost faith in ever becoming a footballer and took up golf and became quite good.” He still played football for a local side but that was just for pleasure.

A Tranmere Rovers scout made several approaches but Steve wasn’t interested, and decided he was going to go to Liverpool University to take a degree in economics and social history.

Ron Yeats, the famous colossus around who Bill Shankly built his Liverpool team in the 1960s, became Tranmere manager in the early 1970s. He remembered of Coppell: “We signed him so he could combine it with university.”

Around the same time, Coppell shot up from 4ft 11in to 5ft 7in in a year, and went on to play 38 times for Tranmere, scoring 10 goals.

Word reached Manchester United boss Tommy Docherty who paid a £35,000 fee to take him to Old Trafford. He was playing for United in the old second division while still completing the third year of his degree course. United’s deal with Tranmere had it built in that they’d pay an extra £20,000 if Coppell made it to 50 appearances. They paid it after only two games, such was the impact Docherty knew he was going to have.

Indeed, he went on to make 373 appearances for United and scored 70 goals; and the 207 games he played between 1977 and 1981 broke the record for the most consecutive appearances for an outfield Manchester United player, and still stands to this day.

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He played in three FA Cup Finals for United, in 1976, 1977 and 1979, only ending up with a winners’ medal when Liverpool were beaten 2-1 in 1977.

Coppell was still at United in 1983, and had been United’s top scorer on the way to the Milk Cup Final that season, but he was recovering from a cartilage operation on his damaged left knee so was unable to play in the FA Cup Final against Brighton.

He told Match magazine: “I was always fighting a losing battle against time to get fit for the final. In my heart of hearts, I knew when I had the cartilage operation that five weeks wasn’t enough time to get fit for a match of this importance. I was struggling to make it from the off.”

Coppell told Amy Lawrence of The Guardian: “’I had nine wonderful years there and I still remember running on at Old Trafford for the first time. It was a real heart-in-the-mouth moment, an incredible experience for a 19-year-old whose biggest crowd before then was probably about 5,000.”

He also won 42 caps for England and Sir Trevor Booking, one of his contemporaries in the England team, spoke in glowing terms about Coppell the player in his book My Life in Football (Simon & Schuster, 2014).

“He was a winger at a time when wingers were unfashionable,” he said. “He had the pace to reach a 30-yard pass, the skill to wriggle past a defender and send over the perfect cross. But he also had the energy to run back and provide cover for his defensive team-mates down the right flank that set him apart from so many other wingers at that time.

“When his team lost possession, Steve didn’t hang about on the flank waiting for someone to win it back. He wanted to win it back himself. He was involved all the time – a quality that is a prerequisite for today’s wide players.”

Coppell made his England debut under Ron Greenwood against Italy at Wembley in 1977 in a very exciting line-up that saw him play on the right, Peter Barnes on the left, and Bob Latchford and Kevin Keegan as a twin strikeforce. It was a favoured foursome for Greenwood and when they all played together against Scotland in 1979, Coppell, Keegan and Barnes all scored in a 3-1 win.

It was while on England duty that Coppell picked up the injury that would eventually lead to a premature end to his career. Brooking recalled: “A tackle by the Hungarian József Tóth at Wembley in November 1981 damaged his knee and although he played on for a year or so more, the knee condition worsened.

“He was able to play in the first four games of the 1982 World Cup but the problem flared up after the goalless draw with West Germany and he had to miss the decisive match against Spain.”

From 2016, Coppell spent three years as a manager in India. Amongst the players he worked with at Kerala Blasters (owned by cricketing great Sachin Tendulkar) in 2016-17 was Aaron Hughes, who had a season with Albion.

The following season Coppell became the first head coach of newly-formed Jamshedpur, owned by Tata Steel, and for the 2018-19 season he took charge of Indian Super League club ATK, once part-owned by Atletico Madrid. Among its owners were former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly.

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Boyhood Brighton fan Simon Rodger’s 11 seasons at Palace

S Rodger v Ivor Ingimarsson SHOREHAM-born Simon Rodger was a boyhood Brighton fan but spent the bulk of his professional playing career with arch rivals Crystal Palace.

It was only at the end of his career he finally got the chance to play for the Seagulls having been rescued from football’s scrapheap by the man who had given him his chance with Palace.

Rodger in fact was on Albion’s books as a youngster and a report appeared in a matchday programme when, as a 14-year-old, he won a Soccer Skills competition run by Bobby Charlton Schools in association with The Trustee Savings Bank.

“Simon has been training with our own youngsters for two years but he is a guest today at Manchester United, where he will be seeing the match between United and Ipswich at Old Trafford,” the programme reported.

young Rodger He didn’t progress through the levels at Brighton, though, and instead joined non-league Bognor Regis Town as an apprentice in 1989. Palace manager Alan Smith snapped him up from there for £1,000 in 1990.

It was Smith’s successor in the managerial chair, Steve Coppell, who gave Rodger his first team debut in 1993 away to Sheffield Wednesday. Although that game ended in a 4-1 defeat, Rodger was part of the side who went on to secure the Division One title in 1994.

Gordon Law on holmesdale.net summed up his Palace contribution thus: “His workrate, professionalism and unsung, gritty, performances in the midfield engine room contributed to Palace’s success in the 1990s. He was never one of the club’s high earners and missed out on lucrative signing-on fees to stay in SE25.”

He did leave Selhurst Park temporarily in the mid 90s, though, having fallen out with Coppell’s successor, Dave Bassett. He went on loan to Manchester City for three months in 1996 and to Stoke for a month in 1997.

When Coppell returned to Palace, so did Rodger and was part of the 1997 promotion-winning squad.

His Palace career came to an end after 11 seasons and 328 games – all in the top two divisions – when manager Trevor Francis released him aged 31 in 2002.

It was a worrying time for a lot of players because the collapse of ITV Digital meant football finance was in a state of flux and clubs didn’t have the money to retain large squads.

Rodger had earned decent money from football and also had the financial cushion of being married to QVC TV presenter Alison Young, but she talked about her husband’s concerns in an interview with football reporter Matt Hughes.

After Brighton’s disastrous run of 11 defeats under Martin Hinshelwood during the early part of the 2002-03 season, ex-Palace boss Coppell was brought in by Dick Knight and Rodger, together with Dean Blackwell from Wimbledon, were among his first recruits to try to salvage the season.

He came off the bench in Coppell’s second game in charge, when Albion were thumped 5-0 at Selhurst Park, but the following week he scored on his home debut against Bradford City on 2 November 2002, a volley which wearebrighton.com described as the best goal of the season.

Later the same month he scored again, along with on-loan Steve Sidwell, away at Preston North End, as the Seagulls clawed back to draw 2-2 having gone 2-0 down.

Rodger talked about the shock of his Palace departure in an interview with The Guardian in January 2003, but said: “I’m just grateful to be back in professional football with Brighton, doing something that I love.”

Rodger had become a regular in the side but, despite a sterling effort in the latter part of the season, relegation was confirmed following a 2-2 draw away to Grimsby Town.

The defensive midfielder began the following season in the third tier but the league cup tie away to Middlesbrough at the Riverside in September 2003 was the last of his 38 games for Brighton.

He was stretchered off early in the second half following a tackle by current England manager Gareth Southgate and never recovered sufficiently to resume his professional career.

Albion physio Malcolm Stuart said Rodger couldn’t have worked harder to try to return to his previous level of fitness. However, he explained that the player had developed a rare growth on a skin graft called Cyclops Legion and, although it had been cut away, it returned. Stuart said it wasn’t felt fair to put him through a fourth operation.

Captain Danny Cullip told the matchday programme: “We’ve seen Simon working in the gym to get back, and he’s been working his socks off. We’re gutted for him after he fought hard to get back; he’s a very good footballer and a really nice lad.”

After his playing days ended, Rodger became a private hire chauffeur.

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Main picture (top) shows Rodger putting in a slide tackle on Ivar Ingimarsson, who later joined Albion on loan from Wolves. Also (above), from the Argus, after scoring away at Preston.

Goals dried up at Brighton for Pompey favourite Alan Biley

1 150th goal v Leeds (1-1) ALAN BILEY was a fans favourite at all six English league clubs he played for but the prolific goalscoring that made his name at Cambridge United and Portsmouth wasn’t replicated at Everton or Brighton.

His spiky, long blond hair reflected his devotion to singer Rod Stewart and, on the pitch, the way he wore his football shirt outside his shorts, clutched the cuffs, and saluted a goal with a raised forefinger was a tribute to Scottish footballing legend Denis Law, another of his heroes, .

Biley was quite the hero at Portsmouth, with a goalscoring record of more than a goal every other game, having been signed by Bobby Campbell in 1982.

But when he fell out of favour with Campbell’s successor, Alan Ball, Brighton’s Chris Cattlin stepped in and paid £50,000 to take the striker along the coast in March 1985.

Within a month of the move, he was back at Fratton Park in Albion’s colours for an Easter Saturday south coast derby when honours were even in a 1-1 draw.

Biley had made his Seagulls debut as a substitute for Frank Worthington in a 0-0 draw away to Barnsley, then got his first start the following game (another goalless draw, at home to Oxford) and kept his place to the end of the season.

The first of four goals during that spell came in a 2-0 win at home to Oldham, and the goal he scored in a 1-1 home draw with Leeds on 20 April was his 150^th in league football (top picture). Although Albion finished with three wins, it wasn’t enough to reach the promotion places, and they finished sixth.

Biley made a great start to the 1985-86 campaign, scoring against First Division Nottingham Forest in a remarkable 5-1 pre-season friendly win, and then in the opening league fixture, a 2-2 home draw with Grimsby Town.

However, competition for places in Albion’s forward line had intensified. In addition to Terry Connor, £1m man Justin Fashanu arrived together with Dean Saunders, on a free transfer from Swansea, (Saunders went on to be named player of the season).

With the much-derided Mick Ferguson also managing a brief purple patch of scoring, it meant Biley struggled to hold down a regular spot, making 24 starts plus three appearances as a sub, and only managing to add three more goals to that season’s opener.

Cattlin’s dismissal as boss, to be replaced by the returning Alan Mullery, also spelled the end of Biley’s time at the club. He initially went back to Cambridge on loan, then tried his luck with New York Express in the States, had a spell in Greece before ending up in Ireland, playing for Waterford who were managed by his old Everton teammate, Andy King. He ended up back at Cambridge on a non-contract basis in November 1988 and made three more appearances for United before hanging up his boots.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Born in Leighton Buzzard on 26 February 1957, Biley was spotted by nearby Luton Town at the tender age of 10 and signed schoolboy forms aged 12. He was then offered an apprenticeship and professional forms as he worked his way through the different levels. But financial issues hit the club and when their chief scout left to link up with Cambridge, he recommended Biley to manager Ron Atkinson, and in 1975 he made the move to Fourth Division United.

Biley netted a total of 82 in 185 games as United rose from the Fourth Division to the Second between 1975 and 1979, when his eye for goal caught the attention of First Division Derby County, who paid £450,000 for his services.

Biley continued to find the net regularly in the top flight, scoring nine in 18 games for the Rams, but he couldn’t prevent them from being relegated. He stuck with them in the 1980-81 season and scored 10 playing in the second tier but was sidelined through injury for several months.

He recounted recently how he fell out with manager Colin Addison and there was talk of him being sold to West Brom, where his old boss Atkinson had moved, but instead, in July 1981, he became new Everton manager Howard Kendall’s first signing for a £300,000 fee. Everton fans who go back that far refer to the Magnificent Seven – because that’s how many players Kendall signed in a short space of time.

Biley EVE Biley was an instant hit, scoring on his Everton debut as Birmingham City were beaten 3-1. He scored again in his next game away to Leeds, but things quickly started to go wrong for him, as he explained in great detail to Everton fan website bluekipper.com.

“I was always appreciative of the Evertonians’ footballing knowledge and the support and gusto, particularly through the tough times,” said Biley. “They were very loyal through the tough times, and they are a different class.

“I would like to think they took to me but my only big regret was that I wasn’t there long enough to enjoy them.”

By October, Kendall had dropped his new signing and Biley was mystified.

“Years later, as I look back at it, I wasn’t Howard Kendall’s cup of tea. Whatever that was, I can’t put my finger on it because history tells you what I was and what I did and where I played, and he had a different opinion of that.

“I would have loved him to have had the faith in me he had in lots of other players.”

Eventually his lack of involvement in first team action saw him go out on loan to struggling Stoke City and in eight games he helped them to retain their status in the top division, but hopes of a permanent move fell through.

Instead he departed Goodison Park with just 18 appearances (plus three as sub) and three goals to his name and dropped down to the Third Division with Portsmouth.

The Pompey faithful had already had a taste of what they could expect when, at Christmas 1977, as a 20-year-old playing for Cambridge, Biley had scored twice for table-topping Cambridge at Fratton Park.

And, sure enough, when paired up front with Billy Rafferty, he became an instant hit and the duo scored 40 between them as Pompey won promotion. Biley’s performances earned him a place in the PFA select XI that included Gillingham’s Steve Bruce and Micky Adams, Portsmouth colleague Neil Webb and Kerry Dixon, then of Reading.

The following season saw Biley gain a new strike partner in the shape of Mark Hateley, who would go on to earn England international recognition. However, a series of 10 home defeats put paid to their promotion hopes and Campbell was sacked on the coach on the way back from the season’s penultimate game at Derby. In the final game of the season, with Alan Ball in temporary charge, Biley hit a hat-trick in a 5-0 demolition of Swansea.

Ball was installed as manager and Biley was very much a part of the side that began the 1984-85 season. He played in 22 games and came off the bench twice, scoring a total of 13 goals before Ball mysteriously sold him to Brighton in March.

Biley’s heart never left Fratton Park, though, and in 2015 he told Neil Allen, the author of a book Played Up Pompey: “Pompey was – and still is – my club.

“Pompey was a three-year box in time and if I could possibly open that box again and recover moments, a day even, then I would die happy. I fell in love with the club and it has never gone away.”

Biley has revelled in many opportunities to reminisce about his playing days, attending numerous reunions and enjoying all the memories.

In June 2017, he got together with other former players to talk about his goalscoring days at Cambridge and in October 2017, broadcaster and Albion fan Peter Brackley helped a number of former Pompey players, including Biley, recall a famous occasion when a fan ran on the pitch dressed as Santa Claus and, after the disruption, Biley scored two late goals to win a dramatic cup tie against Oxford.

But in all my research for this piece, I could find no loving references to his time with the Albion, although five years ago the excellent thegoldstonewrap.com brought together some footage of some of his best moments.

After his playing days were over, he moved back to his Bedfordshire roots and got involved in non-league football with various sides in and around the Home Counties, alongside running his own gym in Biggleswade.

Pictures from the Albion programme / Evening Argus and various online sources.

Booed on his Burnley debut, Gifton Noel-Williams was the centre forward Brighton craved

GNW Dack FOR ALMOST the whole of Championship seasons 2004-05 and 2005-06, Albion manager Mark McGhee spoke about how the side desperately needed an old-fashioned hold-up centre forward.

In the first season, he converted defender Adam Virgo to the role with some degree of success, but after Virgo’s summer 2005 departure to Celtic, the problem returned, in spite of the occasional promise of the inexperienced Colin Kazim-Richards.

It wasn’t until March 2006 that McGhee finally landed his man in the shape of 6’ 3” Gifton Noel-Williams, on loan to the end of the season from Burnley.

The omens were good when he made his debut against Luton on 25 March because he had scored on his debut for both Burnley and previous club Stoke City. Sure enough, he did it again, netting with a brave diving header from an Adam Hinshelwood cross after 18 minutes.

It demonstrated only too emphatically what Albion had been missing for so long.

Unfortunately a glaring miss by midfielder Dean Hammond saw the chance to go 2-0 up squandered and Luton went straight back down the other end and equalised when ‘keeper Wayne Henderson could only parry Warren Feeney’s shot and the rebound went into the open net off on-loan defender Paul McShane running back.

Luton were destined to join Albion and Leeds as the fall-guys from the division but they hung on that afternoon on a quagmire of a pitch to earn a point.

GNW BHA Gary Hart came close to nicking it for the Albion with a volley that struck a post but the points were shared, which was no good for either side.

McGhee was philosophical after the game, recognising it would “take something astonishing” for Albion to stay up with only six games remaining. It would. They didn’t.

Nevertheless, before the inevitable happened, Noel-Williams scored again – on Easter Saturday 2006.

Brittle old Ipswich, with Joe Royle in charge, stood in the way of Albion notching some desperately needed points, but somehow I just fancied their chances that day and I made a late decision only on the morning of the match to travel up to Ipswich with my son Rhys.

Wearing the all-burgundy away strip, Albion had a new-found confidence in their play thanks to the arrival of Noel-Williams, who, after scoring against Luton, had got an assist by laying on a goal for Paul Reid in a 2-0 win at Millwall two weeks before.

McGhee made an interesting choice in playing Hart at right back rather than Reid, who slotted in ahead instead. The decision was justified when Hart’s strong challenge on Alan Lee midway inside the Albion half enabled Hammond to release Kazim-Richards down the right.

He crossed into the left back area, where the lurking Noel-Williams seemed to have acres of space to turn on the cross and drive the ball home from ten yards. Photographer Simon Dack captured the goal celebration for the front page of the Sports Argus (below).

GNW Ips If that delight was not enough, teenage defender Joel Lynch made sure our trip was a memorable one by scoring his first-ever goal for the club.

Albion, never wanting to make life too easy for themselves or their fans, allowed Ipswich to pull a goal back when Lee flicked on from former Seagull Darren Currie’s cross for substitute Nicky Forster – a future £75,000 signing for Albion – to score. But thankfully it was too late for Ipswich to salvage anything from the game.

It was all to turn pear-shaped on the Easter Monday at home to Sheffield Wednesday, but for a couple of days at least the Great Escape still seemed a possibility.

Nevertheless, Noel-Williams seemed to enjoy his brief time with the Seagulls, telling Andy Naylor in The Argus: “I like the way the team plays football. They play my type of football.

“It is not only in the air for me to flick it on, they get the ball on the deck and want to knock it about a bit as well. That suits me, that’s what I like.

“The manager hasn’t asked me to be tearing around the pitch, he’s asked me just to use my movement and get into the channels when I have to. I appreciate that, so I’m enjoying my football, and, when I’m enjoying my football, I think I’m not a bad player.”

The downside of not having played regularly at Burnley was a lack of match fitness, and he admitted: “I play all right for maybe the first hour and then that’s it, my legs are gone.”

Certainly a fascinating character, Noel-Williams was still only 26 when he pitched up at the Albion, and was already a father of six children.

But how did he end up at Brighton?

An article on the excellent Burnley supporters website,claretsmad.co.uk, gives a great insight into the background. Published in June 2013, Tony Scholes wrote: “There was heavy criticism of his signing and he was booed by his own fans during his league debut for us at Crewe on the opening day of the 2005-06 season.

“He was one of Steve Cotterill’s five summer signings during that 2005 summer, and the plan was to partner him up front with his old Stoke City team mate Ade Akinbiyi, a partnership people were quick to say hadn’t worked when they had played together for Stoke.”

Scholes continued: “He must have wondered what he’d come to when he was roundly booed in that first match of the season at Crewe. He scored our equaliser, then hit the woodwork in the last minute which would have earned us a point.”

A week later, he missed a penalty against Coventry, and, even though he scored in a home draw against Derby, the poor start to the season saw Cotterill tinker with the line-up, and he lost his place.

He was then a peripheral figure and, just before the end of the loan window in March, Cotterill, who had once been on loan to Brighton himself, loaned him to struggling Albion.

Burnley fans thought they had seen the last of him but, despite being placed on the transfer list, and missing the club’s pre-season trip to Italy, he was still a Burnley player when the season began.

Then, remarkably, he went from zero to hero during the space of a few days in September. When he came on as a substitute against Colchester, yet again he was met by a chorus of boos from the Burnley faithful.

Scholes said: “The booing that greeted him was shameful. How he could go on and play in those circumstances is hard to believe, but he did and by the end of the game he’d turned those boos to cheers. We lost, but he’d played well.

“Three days later we went 2-0 down against Barnsley and he was brought on to replace the injured Alan Mahon. This was without doubt Gifton’s night. He never turned in a better performance for Burnley, and after Jon Harley pulled one back to give us hope, he scored a hat trick as we ran out 4-2 winners.”

Taken off the transfer list, over the next couple of months he became one of the most influential players in the side as Burnley climbed to third in the table.

Sadly, it didn’t last. The team and player’s form dipped from November.

“As the results went against us, the rumblings of discontent about him were being heard in the stands again,” said Scholes.

Meanwhile, Akinbiyi returned to the club which further reduced the chances of his former strike partner getting games. As the January transfer window came to a close, Noel-Williams was sold to Real Murcia in Spain for £50,000.

“Burnley fans will remember him as a player who struggled with pace and movement, a player who didn’t score enough goals, and a player they just loved to criticise,” said Scholes.

How different it all was from the early promise he had shown when blooded in the Watford first team at the tender age of 16.

Born in Islington on 21 January 1980 to Jamaican parents, the young Noel-Williams played for district and county representative sides and Carl Dixon, a coach at his local Sunday side Apex Arvensdale, recommended him to Watford.

When he played in a national cup final fo Islington and Camden at Highbury, he scored a hat-trick in front of the Sky Sports TV cameras and Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea all took an interest in him but he stuck with Watfod, and it paid off when, in 1996, Kenny Jackett gave him his first team debut at just 16.

A serious knee injury sustained in a tackle by Sunderland’s Paul Butler in 1999 put him out of the game for the best part of 18 months and he subsequently developed rheumatoid arthritis in both knees.

In an interview with itv.com on 4 April 2016, the striker revealed how he might never have had a career at all if it hadn’t been for former Watford chairman Elton John.

GNW Wat He was told he would have to give up the game, but Watford’s pop icon chairman was living in America at the time and saw an article about a drug that could save his career. He contacted Graham Taylor and they paid for him to get the necessary treatment.

The injury and illness came just as Noel-Williams had received a call-up to the England Under-21 squad. At 18, he had been playing in junior England teams alongside Michael Owen and Michael Bridges.

Noel-Williams told interviewer Will Unwin: “Even though I had rheumatoid arthritis I was still able to play at Championship level and abroad.”

After seven years and 33 goals in 169 appearances for Watford, Noel-Williams signed for Stoke City; Tony Pulis taking him on a Bosman free transfer in 2003.

Across two seasons, he scored 23 goals in 88 games for The Potters banishing all thoughts that he wasn’t fit to play.

Then, in 2005, he joined Burnley because he was encouraged to by his former Stoke teammate, Akinbiyi (another striker who had impressed on loan from Norwich to Brighton earlier in his career, when he scored four times in seven games).

As an aside, Akinbiyi had distinctly mixed fortunes throughout his career and after he completed a £600,000 move to Burnley was sent off on his debut within two minutes for head butting Sunderland’s George McCartney!

But back to Noel-Williams, who told itv.com: “I did not want to go to Burnley, to be honest. What happened was that Tony Pulis left Stoke at the end of the season, he went to Plymouth – so as he was leaving and a new manager coming in, I didn’t want to stay at Stoke.

“Ade Akinbiyi was at Burnley at the time and he was with me at Stoke so he kept phoning me, saying ‘come to Burnley, they want us to play up front together’, so that’s why I went to Burnley, but then six months later Ade left to go to Sheffield United, so my time at Burnley crashed a little bit and that’s why I didn’t stay there for so long.”

Noel-Williams said he didn’t really see eye-to-eye with Cotterill, which hastened his departure to Spain.

The Spanish lifestyle suited him but his game time was restricted mainly to substitute appearances and when Real Murcia were promoted he was told he would not be guaranteed a place.

So he switched to Elche, where he said he enjoyed his football but they didn’t pay him for a year because of financial issues. He ended up having to take action via FIFA to get the money he was owed, and left after just one season.

His old Watford mentor, Jackett, gave him a short-term contract with Millwall, but he played just the one game whilst Tresor Kandol and Neil Harris were unavailable. On 5^th November 2008, he signed for Yeovil Town on a month’s loan.

He played eight times for Yeovil, the last coming on the Saturday before Christmas. But 2009 saw him once again without a club and on 8^th January it was confirmed that he was signing a two-year deal with American USL club Austin Aztex, a club managed by former Burnley boss Adrian Heath.

He was released at the end of the 2009 season and signed for American fourth-tier side DFW Tornados (based in Dallas).

After he packed up playing in 2010, he became a coach at the Brentwood Christian School in Austin, Texas.

He returned to the UK and linked up with his former Watford teammate Allan Smart at Daventry Town and subsequently had various coaching and managing roles with non-league sides – Northwood, Burnham and Codicote. In November 2017, he was sacked after Hertfordshire-based Codicote, who play in the 10^th tier of English football, lost 12 of their first 14 league matches.

1 GN-W Argus 2 GN-W Argus main 3 G N-W PA (watford)

Pictures published by The Argus show THAT diving header to score on his Albion debut, and a study in determination to get to the ball. Also a Press Association image of a youthful Gifton in Watford colours.

Man City legend Joe Corrigan played the clown in Brighton

BRIGHTON fans often enter into a debate about the best goalkeeper ever to play for the club.

Although he was past his best when he joined the Seagulls, former England international Joe Corrigan would certainly be a contender.

Corrigan was, quite literally, at 6’4” a giant among goalkeepers and a colossus for Manchester City at the highest level before a second tier spell with Brighton towards the end of his playing career.

He subsequently became a top goalkeeping coach and amongst the ‘keepers he worked with was another former Seagulls favourite, Tomasz Kuszczak, when at West Brom.

After taking over from Harry Dowd, Corrigan was a near permanent fixture in goal for Manchester City between 1970 and 1983, winning a European Cup Winners’ Cup medal at the end of his debut season.

But for his career coinciding with Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence, he would surely have won more than the nine England caps he accumulated.

In total Corrigan made 592 appearances for City, a club record for a goalkeeper, and he was City’s Player of the Year three times.

In 1983, at the age of 34, Corrigan was sold to American club Seattle Sounders for £30,000, but he stayed in the US only a few months, and, in September that year, returned to England with Brighton.

Unfortunately for Joe it was at that turbulent time when, although Jimmy Melia was still the manager, chairman Mike Bamber had installed Chris Cattlin as first team coach behind Melia’s back.

Within a matter of weeks of the 1983-84 season starting, Melia was fired and Cattlin took over.

Corrigan was not impressed. In his 2008 autobiography (Big Joe, The Joe Corrigan Story) he declared Cattlin “the worst manager I’d ever played under” although he described his teammates as “a terrific bunch of lads” and he seemed to enjoy a decent social life on the south coast (pictured below for the matchday programme by Tony Norman, tucking into candy floss on the pier).

corrigan candy For instance, at the annual players Christmas ‘do’ – if the account in Jimmy Case’s autobiography is anything to go by.

Corrigan became big pals with Case during his time at Brighton and the Scouse midfield favourite recounts in Hard Case (John Blake Publishing), a time the players went out on their Christmas ‘bash’ in Brighton wearing fancy dress.

Corrigan wore white tights and a tutu and at one point stood in the middle of the road directing traffic while his teammates crossed – beckoning cars facing a red light to go and stopping cars that were on a green light. “I am still not sure how he survived that incident without having his collar felt,” said Case.

“Joe is a big, soft lad with a heart of gold but he has a painful way of showing it.”

One of his party pieces was to catch people off guard with a short jab in the ribs or arm. One playful punch landed on physio Mike Yaxley broke two of his ribs!

Case described Joe as “a star performer on the pitch and a bloody clown off it”.

Corrigan played 36 times for the Seagulls, including performing heroics in the famous 2-0 1984 FA Cup win over Liverpool, when goals by Terry Connor and Gerry Ryan meant the Seagulls dumped the mighty reds out of the cup two years in succession (following the 2-1 win at Anfield during the 1983 run to the cup final).

Sadly, as revealed in Big Joe, The Joe Corrigan Story, his time with Brighton ended on a sour note and when Cattlin opted for Perry Digweed as his first choice ‘keeper for the 1984-85 season, it all turned publicly ugly.

The club fined Corrigan for speaking out of turn to the press but Corrigan successfully got the fine overturned thanks to help from the PFA.

Under a heading ‘Truth’ Cattlin wrote in his matchday programme notes: “Our club made the papers this week for the wrong reasons, when a Football League tribunal upheld an appeal by Joe Corrigan against a club fine imposed upon him recently.

“Obviously I must accept the decision of the tribunal, just as I expect my players to accept a referee’s decision on the field. However, my dispute with Joe was not about his right to say anything to the press, but simply about what he said.

“At this club I don’t mind players speaking to the press in a responsible manner. I must though reiterate that I don’t want them slagging the staff, fellow players, fellow managers or the club.”

As it became clear he would never play for Brighton again, he went out on loan to Stoke City and Norwich but then back in Brighton Reserves sustained an injury to his neck that ended his career.

Corrigan retired from playing and initially helped to run a haulage business back in Manchester. But the lure of goalkeeping drew him into coaching at a number of clubs: City, Barnsley, Bradford, Tranmere and Stoke all on a part-time basis. Most notably, though, he spent 10 years at Liverpool, until the arrival of Rafa Benitez, then had spells at Celtic, Middlesbrough and West Brom.

The seeds for that part of his career were sown at Brighton, courtesy of John Jackson, the former Crystal Palace goalkeeper, who used to coach the Albion ‘keepers once a week.

Corrigan told the Manchester City matchday programme on 29 September 2018: “I got talking to him and it inspired me to look into doing something similar. So it was down to Brighton indirectly that I moved into the next phase of my career.”

When at 60 in 2009 he brought down the curtain on a 42-year career in the game, Tony Mowbray, manager of West Brom at the time, told the Birmingham Mail’s Chris Lepkowski: “Joe has been a pleasure to work with. His knowledge and experience have been a big help to me and I’ll be sorry to see him go.

“He’s a great character, a true gentleman and everyone at the club wishes him a long and happy retirement.”

Corrigan told the Mail: “Everyone says you know when the time is right to retire – and I feel this is mine.

“I’ve had just over four great years at this club and want to say a massive thank you to the Albion fans, who have always been very supportive of me and made me feel really welcome.

“The staff and players – particularly the keepers – have also been a pleasure to work with.

“Ironically, my final home game here will be against Liverpool, a club where I spent ten happy years, and we went to City two weeks ago, which obviously is always a special occasion for me.”

In the 2025 New Year’s honours list, Corrigan received an MBE for services to charitable fundraising.

2 Joe diving 3 Joe shouting 4 JC w GR SG EY

Pictures from my scrapbook show Corrigan punching clear of Chelsea’s David Webb, diving headlong to deny Chelsea’s Keith Weller, letting his teammates know his thoughts, and in an Albion squad line-up alongside Eric Young and behind Gerry Ryan and Steve Gatting.

J Cor sept 18

Joe pictured in the Man City matchday programme in September 2018.

Flying winger Tony ‘Tiger’ Towner immortalised in children’s TV programme

2-towner-takes-on-argus IF ART is the sincerest form of flattery, Tony Towner can count himself amongst the privileged few to be forever remembered on film.

That it was done by two of Rotherham United’s most ardent celebrity fans is neither here nor there – it’s not everyone who can say their prowess has been portrayed in an episode of Chucklevision.

Towner and fellow Millers hero Ronnie Moore were at the centre of a classic knockabout episode of the children’s TV series in which Rotherham supporters Paul and Barry Chuckle constantly get involved in slapstick scrapes.

In Football Heroes, made in 1996, the Chuckle Brothers meet Towner and Moore (actors playing them rather than the footballers themselves!) on their way to a game and accidentally end up with their invitation cards to play in a veterans match, leading to them ending up on the pitch.

*Towner earned plaudits for his Rotherham performances in this Shoot magazine feature – pipping one Danny Wilson!*

It was Towner and Moore’s starring performances in the Rotherham side that won promotion from the old Division 3 as champions in 1980-81 that earned them cult status.

Over three seasons, Towner appeared over 100 times for the Millers and even all these years later is still remembered with affection.

Take, for example, comments made on the Millers Mad website a couple of years ago. Ivor Hardy said: “Tony (Tiger) Towner was one of the best and most talented footballers ever to play for us.

“He was instrumental in us winning the league in 80/81, along with doing the double over our near neighbours Sheffield United in the same season.

“We were lucky to get the services of Towner and Seasman from Millwall, and only did so because the Lions were in financial turmoil that season and had to get some money in fast. He will always be a legend with the older fans, along with team mates Seasman, Moore, Fern, Breckin, Mountford etc.

“Tiger gave us some great memories.”

Meanwhile, kevthemaltbymiller said: “Great player for us, very tricky winger with lightning pace. Happy memories.” And sawmiller added: “Tiger was a super player – good winger who created a real buzz in the crowd when he got the ball and ran at players.”

Towner himself considered his time at Rotherham to have been his best playing days. In an Albion matchday programme article, he told Roy Chuter: “They were probably my best years, my most consistent, anyway. I was 26, 27 years old – at my peak. I had three tremendous years.”

Initially playing under Sunderland’s 1973 FA Cup Final hero Ian Porterfield, he also enjoyed working with the former Liverpool legend Emlyn Hughes, when he took over as manager.

Brighton fans also have good memories of the local boy made good. Sussex youngsters making the grade with the Albion have been pretty few and far between over the years, but Towner and defender/midfielder Steve Piper were two who did it in the 1970s.

In Albion’s 1972-73 season in the second tier, Piper had already been blooded in the first team in the November. Towner signed professional on 29 December 1972 and, with Albion having been knocked out of the FA Cup by Chelsea in the third round, manager Pat Saward arranged a friendly against Stoke City on fourth round day, 3 February 1973 (Stoke had been beaten 3-2 by Man City) and gave Towner his first team debut in a 2-0 defeat at the Goldstone.

The following Saturday he made his league debut aged just 17 at home to Luton Town. Albion went into the game having suffered 14 defeats on the trot (12 in the league plus the games against Chelsea and Stoke) and, rooted to the bottom of the table, relegation was inevitable.

Saward gave the side a shake-up, dropping three established players – goalkeeper Brian Powney in favour of loan signing Tommy Hughes from Aston Villa, right back Graham Howell (to the bench), and experienced striker Barry Bridges.

Piper made only his sixth first team appearance and he was joined by winger Towner and forward Pat Hilton. It was Towner’s brilliant display on the wing that really caught the eye as Albion finally mustered a win, beating the Hatters 2-0.

Towner kept the shirt until the end of the season and it was the launchpad for a 15-year professional career in which he made over 400 appearances. After that Luton debut, he scored his first goal in a 2-1 home win against Huddersfield on 10 March.

“I was an Albion fan as a kid, in Bevendean, and I joined them straight from school at 15, as an apprentice,” he said. “I already had the ‘Tiger’ nickname when I got into the team in 1973 – I think it was one of Alan Duffy‘s. I must have tackled him a bit too hard in training, or something. Tiger was a great nickname, and I loved it.”

One of the few survivors of the great Brian Clough cull of the playing staff in 1974, Towner was a speedy, skilful winger who could put in terrific crosses for his teammates. The fact he was a local lad endeared him greatly to the crowd.

In five years, he had plenty of challengers for his place. In the early days, Gerry Fell competed for the wide berth and later Eric Potts, but Towner still managed 171 games (+ 12 as sub) for the Albion and scored 25 goals.

“Gerry was the opposite of me, though still a winger – he had loads of pace, though not too much skill,” Towner recalled. “He’d knock the ball ahead of him and run past the defender to get it, a bit like Stuart Storer. I’d try to trick my way past.”

In John Vinicombe’s end of season assessment of Peter Taylor’s first season in sole charge (1974-75), he said: “It is with no disrespect to Taylor that I suggest that the three most consistent players were those he inherited – O’Sullivan, Towner and Piper.

“Towards the end, Towner tailed off a little but he struck up an intuitive partnership with Fred Binney.”

In fact Towner was third highest in the squad for appearances that season, playing 47 games in total plus four as sub and with 10 goals was second highest goalscorer behind Binney.

It was the arrival of Gerry Ryan from Derby in September 1978, which finally prompted his departure. George Petchey, who later joined Chris Cattlin’s backroom team at the Goldstone, took him to Millwall for £65,000.

Unfortunately, while Brighton won promotion to Division 1 in 1979, Millwall went the opposite way out of Division 2, and Towner found himself back in the third tier.

After 68 appearances for the Lions, in 1980 he was sold to Rotherham along with teammate John Seasman for a combined fee of £165,000.

Towner scored once for Rotherham’s near neighbours Sheffield United in a 10-game loan spell in 1983 and although he had missed out on Brighton’s eventual elevation to the top tier, he managed it with Wolves in 1983-84 having been signed by the Black Country side for £80,000.

He then joined Charlton Athletic but in the 1985-86 season was loaned to Rochdale where he once again linked up with his former Rotherham teammates, Moore and Seasman. He made five appearances for Rochdale and MikeMCSG on clarkechroniclersfootballers.blogspot.co.uk recalls: “He came on as sub in a home game and made an instantly good impression by beating the full back with his first touch.

“He went on to play a blinder in the draw at Halifax on Boxing Day. Unfortunately Tony didn’t want to uproot to the North and couldn’t be persuaded to make his stay permanent. When Cambridge came in with an offer he signed for them instead although he only made eight appearances for them in total.”

Towner’s final Albion appearance had been in a 4-1 defeat away to Leicester in September 1978 but his final appearance at the Goldstone came in a memorable FA Cup 3^rd round tie on 4 January 1992.

Albion beat then Southern League Crawley 5-0 and Towner earned a rousing reception from the 18,031 packed into the Goldstone when, at the age of 36, he came on as a substitute for the visitors.

Crawley were one of several non-league clubs he played for: he also turned out for Gravesend, Fisher Athletic, Lewes, Newhaven and Saltdean.

Interestingly, Towner reflected: “I could definitely have played for a few more years at league level, and perhaps I should’ve done. I’d got a bit disillusioned with it though.”

After his playing days ended, Towner ran his own Brighton-based removals business and watched the Albion as a fan. In October 2015, Brian Owen interviewed him for an Argus piece ahead of a game against Cardiff when former Albion winger Craig Noone was in opposition.

Towner reckoned Albion made a mistake letting him go but added: “It’s good to see Brighton making good use of wingers.

“That’s the way I was brought up, using the wide men.

“It’s all right having midfield men or attack-minded full-backs. But what gets the crowd on its feet is a winger going past the full-back and crossing.

“You can have all the formations you like but, if you see a winger getting past his full-back, it excites people.”

Tony Towner certainly came into that category.

Pictures mainly shot by Evening Argus photographers and then reproduced in the Albion matchday programmes show a happy Towner congratulated by manager Pat Saward after his league debut, in familiar pose taking on a full back, getting in a trademark cross, in full flight on the wing, and finally on a Wolves album sticker.

Key building blocks for Steve Sidwell’s Premiership future

seagull-sid WHEN a flame-haired midfield player called Steve Sidwell joined the Albion on loan from Arsenal in 2002, it wasn’t the first – or last – time he would link up with manager Steve Coppell.

Coppell had organised a similar arrangement the season before when he was in charge at Second Division Brentford, and Sidwell played 30 times for the Bees.

When Coppell acquired his services for the bottom-of-the-second-tier Seagulls, it was instantly apparent that here was a talent destined to perform on a much bigger stage. In a 12-game spell, he scored five goals. They were the building blocks of a career that saw him go on to play in the Premiership for 11 seasons, and against Huddersfield in early 2017 made his 500^th career appearance.

So many things are easy in hindsight but presumably if Albion had already been playing at a new stadium at Falmer, Sidwell may have stuck with the Albion rather than moving on to Reading where the Madejski Stadium was already a reality.

In the Royals matchday programme for the Reading v Albion Championship clash in 2005-06, cover boy Siddy was interviewed at great length and recalled his time with Brighton with fondness.

“It was the first time I had played at this level – before then I had been in Arsenal’s youth team and on loan at Brentford in the Second Division – so I was grateful for that opportunity,” he said. “The best description of my time there would be ‘short but sweet’.

“The fans at Brighton were fantastic, especially away from home,” he continued. “”At the time we were bottom of the league and battling against relegation, but they still turned up every week and always backed us.”

Sidwell recounted how it was during that time that he forged his long term friendship with Bobby Zamora and he also spoke of how he played in the same Colliers Wood Sunday football team as fellow midfielder Alexis Nicolas.

Eleven months after Sidwell went to Reading, Coppell made the same choice and enjoyed the best of Sidwell as his scintillating partnership with James Harper in the centre of midfield helped to take Reading out of the Championship and into the Premiership.

Let’s just go back to the 2002-03 season, though, and recall the impact Sidwell made in Brighton’s valiant effort to defy the relegation odds.

A disastrous run of 12 defeats in the first part of the season had dumped Albion at the foot of the table and manager Martin Hinshelwood had been replaced by Coppell, who rung the changes and started turning round the fortunes on the pitch.

Sidwell came in from Arsenal and scored the first of his five goals in a 2-2 draw away to Preston. He scored the only goal of the game in a Boxing Day win at Norwich and two days later scored both the goals in a 2-2 home draw with Burnley (celebrating in this Argus picture below).

Siddy youthful One of my favourite memories came at Highfield Road, Coventry, on January 11 2003 when Albion probably deserved to win but had to settle for a point in a 0-0 draw. Before the kick off, Albion fans were chanting his name during the warm-up, urging him to stay, because there had been speculation linking him with moves to other clubs.

Sidwell’s performance that day was acknowledged by no less an authority than the Scotland midfield maestro Gary McAllister, who was player-manager of Coventry at the time.

McAllister told the press after the game: “I was very impressed with Brighton. They passed it well. The front two were always a threat to us, joined by Steve Sidwell creating in the middle of the park and the two guys wide.

“Brighton were as good a side as we have seen at Highfield Road this season.”

Two days later, the Argus was reporting on the clubs interested in signing the promising youngster, including Stoke and Reading. Coppell told them: “What will be will be. I personally think the level of his performance will almost demand Arsenal not letting him go because he has done so well.

“Alternatively, they are going to move him on and take what money they can now. There will, I’m sure, be a lot of people in for him.

“He just wants to play football. I think the more we take these kind of decisions off his shoulders and just let him turn up and play then we are going to get the best out of him.”

siddy arse Sidwell, who was out of contract at Arsenal at the end of the season, said: “Stoke put a bid into Arsenal. I went up there and it’s a great set-up and a fantastic club but we will see what happens.”

Interesting then, that the Potters did eventually get their man several years later.

However, in 2003 Reading was his destination and he spent four and a half years with them, helping them to win promotion from the Championship and playing in their debut Premier League season.

In July 2007, at the end of his contract, Sidwell moved on a free transfer to Chelsea, the team he’d supported as a boy. “People think that because I was with Arsenal from the age of nine to 20 that I support them, but I’ve always been Chelsea. I was born in Tooting, my mum and dad are from Tooting Bec and Balham, so I was born into a Chelsea-supporting family,” he said in an Albion matchday programme article.

So, he said it was a “no-brainer” to go there. “I was joining a club that had won back-to-back titles under a manager who was a breath of fresh air in the game and I’d be playing and training with some of the best players in the world.”

Screen Shot 2021-04-23 at 07.31.27

The wealth of talent meant competition for places at Stamford Bridge restricted Sidwell’s game time, although he did clock up 25 games for the Blues. With the benefit of hindsight, he said: “It was the right move, it just came at the wrong time. I was only 24 so it came too soon. I’d only had one season of Premier LEague football under my belt and wasn’t quite ready for such a big jump from Reading.

“Maybe if I’d gone to Newcastle or West Ham (they’d both been interested) for a couple of years and played really well there, then I would have been better equipped but, like I said, when Chelsea comes knocking you don’t turn the opportunity down.”

He added that off-field issues, such as Mourinho leaving in the September to be replaced by Avram Grant, caused unrest amongst the players. But he added: “In hindsight, I wished I’d stayed another six months because Luiz Felipe Scolari came in and you never know what might have happened then.”

However, in the summer of 2008, in search of more regular playing time, he moved on to Aston Villa on a three-year deal. His time at Villa Park was often interrupted by injury and he made 64 appearances in two and a half years before Mark Hughes ended up signing him twice – for Fulham and Stoke City.

In 2011, Sidwell returned to London and scored 17 goals in 115 appearances over three and a half years, before leaving Craven Cottage when Fulham were relegated from the Premiership in 2014. “I went there on the back of their Europa League run and they were still riding the crest of a wave,” he said in an Albion matchday programme article. He reckoned he played the best football of his career there and said: “In my first year we finished eighth in the Premier League.

“When I first went there, our home record was phenomenal. It didn’t matter who came to the Cottage, we always thought we would get the win. In the season we got relegated, it was surprising how quickly that mentality had changed.”

siddystoke Hughes took him on a free transfer to Stoke but he managed only 13 appearances so jumped at the chance once again to link up with his old pal Zamora to join Albion on loan in early 2016 to supplement their efforts to get promoted from the Championship.

Although the form of Beram Kayal and Dale Stephens meant he struggled to nail down a regular spot, he was a great option to bring off the bench and memorably got the last-gasp winner in a televised away match at Nottingham Forest. “When I was getting taped up, I said to the bench I was going to score, it was just fate,” he said. “I managed to pop up with the goal, and it was a great feeling to see the ball hit the back of the net and you could see from the celebrations what it meant to us all.” Screen Shot 2021-04-04 at 17.19.48

I was in the away end that evening and despite a persistent Nottingham drizzle making the post-match walk back to my hotel pretty unpleasant, I dried off in the company of some other Albion followers in the hotel bar and reflected on a great skin-of-the-teeth win.

As we know, Siddy signed permanently in the summer of 2016, and has had a lot more game time this season. I was also fortunate to be at Ashton Gate on Bonfire Night that year when he scored that magnificent long range effort from inside the centre circle.

Footnote: I didn’t have to join in the last line of the Stevie Sidwell song….because I’m already in possession of similarly-coloured locks. We gingers have to stick together!

sidwell-reading

Pictures show the young Sidwell in Brighton’s away kit in 2002-03, as he appeared in the Coventry programme, and a portrait from Reading’s programme for the 10 December 2005 game v Brighton.

In parallel lines

Memories from 55 years following Brighton & Hove Albion

Tag: Stoke City