John Piercy and the illness that wrecked a career

Derby County away, Wednesday 3rd November 2004. A 3-0 defeat for Mark McGhee’s Brighton rounded off a pretty terrible four days on the road for Albion supporters.

On the Saturday, 1,14 of us had made the 686 mile round trip from Sussex to the Stadium of Light. This proved to be a complete waste of time as the Seagulls rewarded that dedication by failing to have a shot on target in a 2-0 defeat to Mick McCarthy’s Sunderland. The cause wasn’t helped by McGhee’s bizarre decision to play Darren Currie as a lone strike in a 5-4-1 formation. With Leon Knight in central midfield.

Fast forward to the Wednesday and it was another 392 miles spent on the road to Pride Park. 733 of us bothered this time and McGhee did at least use an actual striker with Adam Virgo returning from suspension to lead the line. Not that it made much difference as again, the Albion were a complete nonentity as an attacking force.

Come the final whistle at Derby, sections of the Albion support had clearly had enough. You couldn’t really blame them. The thought of getting home at 2am in the morning was ghastly, the fact we’d put in a total of 1078 miles in the space of four days for a grand total of zero goals was abysmal and to top things off, George W Bush had been re-elected as President which upset a lot of people. It’s made to think he could generate so much anger when you look at who is in The Oval Office now.

The man who copped the most abuse that night was John Piercy. This was bizarre in itself given that Piercy had only entered the match in the 57th minute, replacing Dean Hammond. Derby were already 2-0 ahead and the game was done by that point.

The crime charged against Piercy? He was lazy and he was disinterested. From the away section of Pride Park, he looked like he couldn’t be bothered to be out there and that rankled with plenty of Albion fans given the money spent and distance travelled in support of the team over the previous 96 hours.

Except Piercy wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t disinterested. And he certainly did want to be out on that pitch. Brighton fans were in fact barracking a bloke trying to play through the bowel disease colitis, as we found out six days later when Piercy announced his retirement at the age of 26.

That night at Derby was a prime example of why football supporters everywhere should perhaps think twice before questioning the commitment of a player – because you never know what is going on inside their body.

In the case of Piercy, it was a hidden condition that meant he was never able to fulfil his undoubted potential. And it brought a premature end to his career.

As a 16-year-old, Piercy was one of the most promising players in Tottenham Hotspur’s academy. He made played nine times for the first team at White Hart Lane, captained the reserves and earned England caps at Under 18 and Under 20 level. He looked destined for a bright future in the game.

And then colitis struck. The disease involves inflammation and ulcers on the inside lining of the bowel, causing frequent bouts of diarrhoea mixed with blood. As a result, sufferers are left feeling completely drained of energy and continually tired – not much help for a professional footballer.

Piercy first experienced the disease at the age of 17 when on holiday in Tenerife, where he was horrifically ill. Tests on his return to England showed nothing untoward, and it was just put down to a case of eating something he disagreed with.

That was in 1996. All went quiet on the colitis front for the next seven years, although a succession of frustrating injuries plagued Piercy throughout his time with Spurs.

Despite that, he still received frequent attention from admirers. Both Micky Adams and Peter Taylor tried to bring him to Withdean before Martin Hinshelwood eventually succeeded, securing Piercy’s signature in August 2002 on a free transfer as the now 22-year-old sought the first team football which would kick start his career.

Sadly, that never happened. After only two competitive appearances, a tackle in training from Richard Carpenter put him out of action for three months. Piercy played just six times for the Albion in the 2002-03 season.

In the summer of 2003, his colitis returned in a big way. While the rest of the Albion squad were undertaking pre-season training ahead of the 2003-04 Division Two season, Piercy was visiting the toilet 20-30 times a day. With food passing straight through him, he had no energy to get around a football pitch.

Piercy ended up losing two stone in two weeks. He was ill for six weeks. Unsurprisingly, Malcolm Stuart was pretty concerned by this and so sent Piercy for test with a colitis specialist. There was no confusing the disease with eating a bit of dodgy shellfish this time and he was officially diagnosed.

The Albion and Piercy now knew what they were dealing with and so they could manage the condition better. He was prescribed Asacol tablets which kept the disease under control for a year.

That meant he was able to play 28 times as the Seagulls soared back into the second tier at the first attempt with victory over Bristol City in the Division Two play off final, scoring a penalty in the semi final shoot out win over Swindon Town.

Piercy came on for the final 12 minutes at the Millennium Stadium. He was on the pitch when Leon Knight tucked away the penalty earned by Chris Iwelumo and even had time to put in one brilliant cross that David Beckham would have been proud of which could have led to a second.

That was an example the sort of quality he could deliver. His best game in a Brighton shirt had come five months previously on Boxing Day. Knight was suspended and so McGhee gave Piercy the chance to lead the line against Wycombe Wanderers.

He duly responded by scoring two of the four goals he would manage in a Brighton shirt. The first was an absolute rocket from 25 yards, the second a poachers finish. The Albion won 4-0 and Piercy showed a glimpse of the talents that had marked him out as one to watch during his Spurs days.

If he had been able to perform as he did that day at Withdean on a regular basis, he would have been playing for a much bigger club than Brighton. McGhee knew that, which is why he frequently referred to Piercy as one of the most talented players at the club. Many Albion fans wrongly assumed that the reason he couldn’t live up to that talent was because of a questionable attitude. Little did they know.

Just weeks after helping the Albion to promotion, Piercy suffered another summer bout of colitis, his worst yet. He lost blood, had no energy and this time ended up in hospital. At one point, things got so bad that the doctors were concerned it could be fatal if the bowel ended up being perforated.

This went on for three months, well into the start of the 2004-05 campaign. By the time he was ready to attempt a return, Piercy was on steroids to try and prevent the blood loss, another set of drugs to counteract the impact that the steroids had on his bones and further medication called Pentasa which he had to take six times a day.

Given all that, it was a miracle he even made it onto the pitch at Pride Park for what turned out to be his penultimate game as a professional footballer. Even more surprising was that he managed to start three days later in a 3-1 home defeat against Crewe Alexandra.

He lasted 57 minutes of that but had to sleep for hours when he returned home. Feeling that he could no longer contribute to the team and not wanting to worsen his health anymore – wearing a colostomy bag would have been a very real prospect had he continued playing – Piercy decided to hang up his boots.

We’ll never know how could he could have been. You suspect though that if it weren’t for his illness, he could have made it in the Premier League. He probably wouldn’t have ended up at Withdean. And he certainly wouldn’t have been on the end of such abuse for a 3-0 defeat at Derby.

Football fans can be right twats some times, can’t they?