“Gordon Greer is fantastic; he looks like a rock star turning up at a testimonial”
Gus Poyet tells a story about signing Gordon Greer for Brighton & Hove Albion from Swindon Town in the summer of 2010 for £250,000.
At the time, Poyet was weighing up who to make his captain for the 2010-11 season. Andrew Crofts had been sold to Norwich City, Nicky Forster released to Brentford and Adam Virgo was on his way to Yeovil Town.
According to Gus, somebody at the Albion tried to give him a piece of advice. They said that at Brighton, the captain was either the most experienced player or the longest serving player. That was how it was done.
Poyet had already ignored that particular rulebook when handing Crofts the armband when taking charge for the first time away at Southampton in November 2009.
This time, Gus decided to go one step further and completely rewrite the rules, announcing Gordon Greer as the new captain of Brighton & Hove Albion before Greer had even kicked a ball in the stripes.
Quite what the member of staff who gave Poyet his opinion made of that we will never know, but it proved to be a spectacular decision from Poyet.
Over the next six years, Greer captained Brighton 234 times, which we suspect is a club record. Leading the Albion to the League One title means he is one of only three men to captain the club to a Football League championship after Paul Rogers (twice) and Glen Wilson. There were three top six finishes in the second tier in Greer’s time at the club under three different managers.
The success that came under Greer’s captaincy and the sustained period of time it came over is pretty much unmatched by any other Brighton skipper.
Brian Horton and Bruno are perhaps just ahead of him in the rankings for leading the Albion into the top flight, but Greer isn’t far behind. Which makes it astounding that some Brighton fans never really took to Gordon Greer.
Me, I was hooked from the moment he signed. Here was Poyet, bringing in a centre back who couldn’t actually play in the first game of the 2010-11 season because he was suspended.
Greer’s crime? Earning a straight red while Swindon captain in their play off semi final against Charlton Athletic for a two footed horror tackle, denying himself the chance to lead the Robins out at Wembley.
Swindon lost that final under the arch to Millwall. Would they have won promotion with Greer on the pitch? Nobody will ever know and Greer wasn’t going to stick around to repair the damage, instead becoming Poyet’s biggest cash signing of 2010. The £250,000 seemed big at the time, but Greer repaid every penny and some.
Swindon fans spent most of the summer criticising Greer for taking a “sideways step” and saying he lacked ambition. A year later, Greer had a League One winners medal and was getting ready to become the first man to lead Brighton out at the Amex. Swindon meanwhile were preparing for life in League Two following relegation.
Sadly for Greer, he didn’t get the chance to play in front of the County Ground crowd who now despised him. Swindon away was the Albion’s first game of the season with Greer watching from the stands as he served the second game of his suspension. Matt Sparrow scored twice in a 2-1 win as Brighton got what would be an incredible season off to an impressive start.
Greer was finally available for selection when Rochdale drew 2-2 at Withdean in the opening home game of the season a week later.
Fans of ridiculous moments will fully appreciate Greer’s efforts against ‘Dale. The newly appointed Brighton captain lasted 51 minutes of his home debut before getting sent off for smashing an elbow into the face of Anthony Elding in an off-the-ball incident. Cue another three game ban and one the flairest first appearances in Albion history.
By the time Greer had served his latest suspension, his wife had given birth. Greer then had to undergo an epidural on a troublesome back which plagued him throughout his career.
As a result, he didn’t start another game for nearly two months, eventually returning in October 2010 away at Charlton Athletic with Brighton already sitting top of League One.
Greer’s inclusion at the Valley that day wasn’t without controversy. Adam El-Abd and Tommy Elphick had performed superbly in Greer’s absence, and Elphick certainly didn’t deserve to be dropped – especially for the biggest game of the season against a Charlton side sitting one place below the Albion. There was even a feeling that Poyet was being unnecessarily risky by including Greer.
90 minutes later and nobody was questioning the decision. The inclusion of Gordon Greer had somehow taken Brighton onto an even higher level as they walloped their closest pursuers 4-0.
Peterborough United took over second spot from the Addicks and two weeks later, the Albion hammered them 3-0 at London Road.
With Greer in the team, Brighton found it even easier to play the football Poyet wanted. Greer was normally the man who would collect possession from Casper Ankergren. From there, he had a range of passing that would allow him to play pinpoint passes short, medium or long.
If you ever wonder how Lewis Dunk became so good on the ball (albeit it at a higher level), then spending the first six years of his career playing and training alongside Greer probably played its part.
Before Greer, you had to go back to the 1970s to find a proper ball playing centre back in the stripes. Brighton’s idea of a cultured defender went as far as Danny Cullip screaming “LET’S ‘AVE A WINNER” or shouting “PETHICK YOU F**KING UGLY BASTARD” at random intervals when things got quiet at Withdean. For an entire generation, Greer was something completely different to what we were used to.
From that day at Charlton on Saturday 16th October 2010 right the way through to Tuesday 12th January 2016 when he limped off in a 2-0 defeat away at Rotherham United, Greer was one of the first names on the Brighton team sheet.
So good was his form for the Albion that in 2013, he became a regular in Gordon Strachan’s Scotland squad. Greer was 32 at the time, making him the oldest player to make his debut for the Tartan Army since Ronnie Simpson in the 1960s.
Why did it take Scotland so long to offer Greer international recognition? His somewhat nomadic career may not have helped.
Prior to joining Brighton, Gordon Greer rattled through spells with Clyde, Blackburn Rovers, Stockport County, Kilmarnock, Doncaster Rovers and Swindon. Of those clubs, he only played more than 50 times for Killi, during which he made a couple of Scotland B appearances.
Greer never gave up on the dream of representing his country though and that must have made it all the sweeter when the opportunity finally arrived.
Most players would have written off their chances by the time they hit their 30s, but Greer kept plugging away, helped by the fact he played some of the best football of his career as Brighton pushed for the Premier League under Poyet, Oscar Garcia and then Chris Hughton.
He should have won more than his 11 caps. In his finest performance in a Tartan Army shirt, Greer marked Robert Lewandowski out of the game as Scotland drew 2-2 away in Poland in 2014.
Strachan said afterwards, “Gordon Greer is fantastic. He looks nothing like a footballer; he looks like a rock star turning up at a testimonial game. And he’s absolutely fantastic.”
Being fantastic on the pitch wasn’t the only reason to love Greer. Another was because he exhibited exactly the sort of passion that you would expect from a fiery son of Glasgow.
There were countless photos of him roaring at a packed Brighton away end with his arms outstretched, like a real life version of Brave Heart following another three points on the road.
Somebody even photoshopped the decapitated head of Glenn Murray into one such image, leaving Greer looking like he had ripped Murray’s head from his body for the crime of joining Crystal Palace.
If memes had existed in 2011 or Murray had not returned to the Albion and restored his reputation, it would probably be the most used Brighton-related meme in history.
Sometimes, his long range passing went astray. When it did, you could guarantee that Greer would have his hand in the air and his head bowed in repentance.
Lord knows why, but I always loved that sight. Especially as you knew that Greer’s next Hollywood pass would almost certainly come off.
Then there was his hair, which become the stuff of Albion legend in its own right. Every time May rolled around and Brighton had completed a long, hard season, Greer’s hair would be noticeably thinned at the front and contain a large 50 pence bald patch at the back.
Come August when the new campaign got under way, he would miraculously have a full head and luscious locks again. This happened every summer for five years.
It got to the point where seeing Greer’s summer hair transplant become as big a highlight at the dawn of a new season as signing a striker or the release of a new kit.
Greer might have been able to replace his hair every year, but there was little he could do when age caught up with him and two younger pretenders overtook the Brighton captain in Chris Hughton’s defensive pecking order.
He had been in good form in the 2015-16 season up until injury struck against Rotherham in January. Brighton were flying high in the table and Greer had forged excellent partnerships with Uwe Hunemeier and then when Hunemeier was ruled out, Lewis Dunk.
Connor Goldson came in for Greer after the trip to the New York Stadium and so impressive was the summer signing from Shrewsbury Town that Greer played just three more times in the second half of the campaign – the final game away at Middlesbrough and the first leg of the play off semi final against Sheffield Wednesday with Dunk suspended and then the second leg with Goldson injured.
Greer was 35 by now and Hughton had his eye on younger defenders. The Albion captain was released at the end of the 2015-16 season.
That made it all the more disappointing that Brighton failed to win promotion that year – lifting the play off trophy at Wembley would have been the perfect send off for Greer.
Instead, he was back at Blackburn Rovers when his successor Bruno led the Albion to the top flight in the 2016-17 season, ironically signed as a replacement for the Brighton-bound Shane Duffy.
Greer had one more year left in him after that, spending 2017-18 with Kilmarnock before retiring after a 529 game professional career.
Poyet giving Gordon Greer the captaincy back in 2010 may not have been the done thing, but Brighton rewarding loyal servants and former greats with jobs once they have hung up their boots very much is.
Greer now works as a senior scout for the Albion, helping to identify players who could follow in his footsteps at the Amex. If those he does find turn out to be half as good as he was, then they will have quite the career – if not the rock star looks and the beautiful hair.
