Life after Brighton – what happened to the Albion’s League One title winning side?

Brighton and Hove Albion and Burnley had between them at the Amex on Saturday the three strikers who fired the Seagulls to the League One title in the 2010-11 season (sorry Fran Sandaza, we’re not counting you).

Glenn Murray of course is in his second spell at the Albion which has proven to be even more successful than his first while Burnley have both Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood on their books. Lewis Dunk was also part of the Albion squad that season as a teenage back-up defender.

With the three men who plundered 53 goals between them that season all meeting again, it got us thinking about just how good that side Gus Poyet put together was. Along with Murray, Barnes and Wood, another five of the squad have gone onto play Premier League football.

Really, that shouldn’t be surprising. This was a group of players who had promotion sewn up with five games to go, the title with four left to play and who delivered some of the most memorable moments in the Albion’s history such as winning eight consecutive games in one calendar month and stunning away victories at Charlton Athletic and Peterborough United.

We know about Murray, Barnes, Wood and Dunk, but what happened to the rest of the Class of 2011? Here’s what.

Casper Ankergren
Remained at the Albion as a player for a further six seasons in which he made 32 appearances to go with the 46 games he played in 2010-11. Now on Ben Roberts coaching team, he has single-handedly kept the coffee shops of Hove going over the last eight years at the same time as giving hope that anyone who gets through a pack of 20 Marlboro Light a day can make it as a professional footballer.

Peter Brezovan
Sexy Pete enjoyed a brief run as number one in the second half of the 2011-12 season, which makes it all the more remarkable that we nearly made the play-offs that year given that he was more known for his handsome Slovakian looks than his goalkeeping ability. Released at the end of the 2013-14 campaign, he had brief spells with Tranmere Rovers and Southport before retiring. In 2015, he released “Tired and Sleepy”, a single in which he sings and plays guitar – and we’ve only gone and bloody found it! Click here to listen

Inigo Calderon
He had secured club legend status by the time he left the Albion in the summer of 2016 after 232 appearances and 19 goals. Voted the clubs Player of the Season in 2014-15, he is currently without a club having last played for Indian Super League side Chennaiyin after a season in Cypurs with Αnorthosis Famagusta.

Marcos Painter
One of those players who was clearly too good for League One but too slow for the Championship. The left back was the only player to start every league game in 2010-11. He struggled following promotion and was gradually phased out before eventually being released in the summer of 2013. He spent the next season at Portsmouth and is now a coach at Birmingham City, the club at which he started his career.

Gordon Greer
The captain remained with the Albion until the summer of 2016, racking up 234 appearances for the club and earning enough money to have at least three hair transplants during his time on the south coast. He showed he was still a Brighton man at heart by getting himself sent off when playing for Blackburn Rovers against us in the 2016-17 season, presenting the Albion with three big points in the quest for promotion to the Premier League. Greer retired back in October following the end of his second spell with Kilmarnock.

Adam El-Abd
The Albion’s Player of the Season in the League One campaign, he was a regular when not injured until a combination of an unfortunately timed suspension and the arrival of Matthew Upson saw him lose his place in the side in March 2013. He wasn’t able to dislodge either Upson or Gordon Greer after that, eventually moving to Bristol City. He’s been something of a journeyman since then, going onto play for Bury, Swindon Town, Gillingham, Shrewsbury Town and his current club Wycombe Wanderers who he captained to promotion from League Two last season.

Tommy Elphick
The defender ruptured his Achilles tendon in the final game of the 2010-11 season at Notts County and would never play for the Albion in a competitive game again. He was sold to Bournemouth in the summer of 2012 and captained them on their “fairy tale” rise from League One to the top, flight before moving to Aston Villa for £3,000,000 in 2016. He is currently on-loan a season long-loan from the Villains to Hull City.

Lewis Dunk
Whatever happened to that teenage defender who played a few games as fourth choice centre back that season?

Liam Bridcutt
He had the world at his feet when winning back-to-back Player of the Season awards in 2011-12 and 2012-13 before getting ideas a bit above his station, forcing through a move to Sunderland to work with Poyet again. Whether Poyet’s approach for the midfielder was entirely legal we’ll probably never know, but it hasn’t quite worked out how he planned as a disappointing spell at the Stadium of Light was followed by time spent at The Leeds United and Nottingham Forest, for whom he scored his first goal in SEVEN YEARS against Cardiff City last season – the last time he was on the score sheet being in the Albion’s 4-3 win over Dagenham & Redbridge which secured promotion.

Radostin Kishishev
The classy Bulgarian left at the end of the League One title winning campaign having passed on his sizable knowledge to Bridcutt. He returned to his first club Chernomorets Burgas in his native Bulgaria for one final season before retiring and has since gone onto manage Vereya, PFC Burgas and Neftochimic Burgas. He can now be found back at Chernomorets as under 19s manager.

Gary Dicker
Another to have appeared in every league game, he left the Albion in the summer of 2013 after 154 games. Spells with Rochdale, Crawley Town and Carlisle United followed and he is at Kilmarnock. We don’t remember him being a particularly dirty player but over the course of the last two seasons he has picked up an extremely commendable 14 yellow and two red cards from 53 games.

Matt Sparrow
Scored twice on his Albion debut at Swindon Town in the opening game of the campaign but he never seemed to earn the trust of Poyet over the next two seasons, despite clearly being one of the more talented members of the squad. His Brighton career effectively ended when, in his first game back from suspension after a red card against Leicester City, he got sent off again at Nottingham Forest. After leaving the Albion, he played for Crawley, Scunthorpe United, Cheltenham Town, Lincoln and Gainsborough Trinity and can now be found in Australia turning out for Joondalup United. The WeAreBrighton.com team will always have a soft spot for Sparrow as he would often find the time to stop for a brief chat whenever we saw him in Hassocks on a Sunday morning after an Albion game, despite the fact that we were quite clearly still pissed from the previous day.

Augustin Battipiedi
One of two Argentinian’s that Poyet signed while on his summer holiday. He played for Dover Athletic under former Albion striker Nicky Forster following his release and was last heard of turning out in Italy for Imperia.

Elliott Bennett
One of the most popular members of the 2010-11 side, even after he handed in a transfer request to try and force through a move to Norwich City in January of that season, he played in every league game of the title winning campaign. He did eventually get his dream move to Carrow Road that summer to play Premier League football, since when he returned to the Albion briefly on-loan in the final days of Sami Hyypia’s reign of target. He now plays in the Championship with Blackburn Rovers.

Kazenga LuaLua
The flying winger showed his finest form in the 2010-11 season, scoring four goals in 11 games and genuinely looking unplayable before breaking a leg away at Hartlepool United. Poyet signed him permanently in the summer of 2011 but a combination of injuries and discipline problems meant that he never fulfilled his undoubted potential. Highlights on the discipline front included being fined two weeks wages for performing doughnuts in his car in the Bennett’s Field Car Park and ending up in court for throwing a girls phone down a drain on West Street. He was relegated to League One with Sunderland last season and is now at Luton Town.

Craig Noone
Noone arrived in January of the title winning season but had quite the impact, scoring twice in 23 games. He earned a move to Cardiff City in August 2012 for whom he would go onto play in the Premier League, allowing the media to bust out the story about him working on Steven Gerrard’s roof around 75 times in the 2013-14 season. He now plays for Championship strugglers Bolton Wanderers.

Cristian Baz
The other Argentinian that Poyet picked up on his vacation. What has happened to him is even less clear than his compatriot Battipiedi. There is a Cristian Baz on Soundcloud but before you get overexcited and think we could have TWO musical artists from one title winning squad, this bloke is some long haired Gothic gimp from Spain, not a former footballer from Buenos Aries.

Glenn Murray
He’s doing alright, isn’t he?

Ashley Barnes
Divided opinion among the Albion fan base right up until he was sold to Burnley in January 2014, which was hardly surprising given he was capable of being a quality player one week and then deliberately tripping over a referee the next. You can’t argue with what he has done since moving to Turf Moor though where he has gained the popularity that was never quote forthcoming during his spell in Sussex.

Chris Wood
It’s easy to forget that the New Zealander was just 19-years-old when we signed him on loan from West Bromwich Albion. He looked raw but with plenty of potential in that 2010-11 season, which made it all the more surprising we never seriously went back in for him. The goals have since flowed for Birmingham City, Bristol City, Millwall, Leicester City, The Leeds United and now Burnley.

Fran Sandaza
The forgotten/ignored member of the Albion’s League One strike force. The Spaniard scored four times in 19 games mainly from the bench before being released at the end of the campaign. St Johnstone, Rangers, Lugo, Girona, FC Tokyo, Al Ahli, Qingdao Huanghai and Alcorcón have been his subsequent destinations. He’s had some interesting moments since leaving, namely being caught drink driving the wrong way down a one way street in Scotland and being duped into discussing a move away from Rangers by a hoax telephone call which resulted in his release from the club. He also ran in the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Grand Nationals but was unable to complete the Aintree Course.