“Justin Fashanu came to Brighton and we thought he was brilliant”

Plenty has been written about Justin Fashanu, but there is one quote buried deep within the internet that perhaps best sums up the strapping centre forward during his time at Brighton.

“He was the kind of player you couldn’t stand because you thought he was dirty, then he comes to play for you and you think he’s brilliant.”

Before he rocked up at the Goldstone for a fee of £115,000 in the summer of 1985, Albion fans really couldn’t stand him. That was understandable as virtually every time the Seagulls came up against Fashanu, someone would end up getting hurt.

When making his name at Norwich City, Fashanu broke the nose of Brighton defender Andy Rollings as the Canaries won 4-2 at the Goldstone in October 1979. Rollings went onto swing a punch at Fashanu, earning a red card in the process in what proved to be his penultimate appearance in the stripes.

Then there was the game in August 1984 when Brighton beat Notts County 2-1 and Justin Fashanu was involved in incidents which resulted in the Albion’s central defenders Eric Young and Jeff Clarke both being hospitalised .

Given all that, his arrival was greeted with an air of suspicion. Even Chris Cattlin had his concerns before committing to sign Fashanu from Notts County, to the point where the Brighton boss actually invited the striker to move in with him for four nights to try and establish whether Justin Fashanu’s reputation for trouble was justified.

Cattlin said at the time: “Justin had a reputation of being a bit of a problem player with his other clubs but that is all in the past. In my dealings with him I’ve found him to be a smashing person and the sort of player our supporters will take to.”

Cattlin was right – supporters did take to him, although unfortunately we never really got the chance to see him in action. Fashanu managed just 20 appearances and two goals for the Albion as two knee injuries forced him to retire after only one season at the Goldstone and at the age of just 25.

Fashanu had arrived with question marks over a longstanding left knee issue which had become further complicated when a wound become infected towards the end of his time with Notts County. But in the end, it was actually his right knee that forced him to quit the game in the summer of 1986.

At the time, it looked like being a sad end to a career which had promised much. Little did anybody know that it was only really the beginning of the Fashanu story.

He’d first burst onto the scene as an outstanding prospect with Norwich. The son of a Nigerian barrister, Justin and his brother John – he of football and AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGA fame – were placed in a Barnardo’s home before being taken in by foster parents from Norfolk.

Fashanu grew up there an intelligent, articulate man who was extremely gifted at both football and boxing. He burst into the Norwich first team as a teenager and hit 40 goals in 103 games for the Canaries.

Many of them were spectacular – and none more so than the goal he will always be associated with. It came against the might of Liverpool in a rare televised game in 1980 and saw Fashanu hit a self-assisted volley on the turn that arrowed straight into the stanchion from outside the box.

Fashanu’s form at Carrow Road persuaded Brian Clough to pay £1 million to take Fashanu to Nottingham Forest in the summer of 1980, making him the first ever black player to fetch a seven figure fee.

On the pitch, his time at the City Ground did not go well and he was sold across the River Trent to Notts County for £150,000 two-and-a-half years later – and just a few months after he’d scored one of England Under 21s goals in their 5-4 aggregate European Championship final win over West Germany.

Off the pitch at Forest, Fashanu became a born again Christian as well as realising that he was gay. Clough was never the most tolerant of men and he reacted to the news of his striker’s sexuality by suspending him. Fashanu turned up at training nonetheless, before suffering the ignominy of being escorted away by the police.

After 20 goals in 64 games for County and that successful trial as Cattlin’s housemate, Fashanu secured his move to the Goldstone. Cattlin said he believed that Fashanu could rediscover his Norwich form on the south coast and push for full England honours.

Fashanu turned down Oxford United, Chelsea, Birmingham City, Reading, Manchester City and a return to Norwich too make the move, describing it as the most important of his career before adding, “I only took this step after a good deal of thought and prayer. I am convinced Chris Cattlin can get the very best out of me.”

Injury ruined all that. But for a man who spent his entire life battling, Fashanu wasn’t about to give up when retirement was forced upon him. He fought his way back to fitness in the United States with North American Soccer League clubs Los Angeles Heat and the Edmonton Brickmen.

Fashanu returned to England with two substitute appearances for Manchester City in October 1989. He had trials with West Ham United, Ipswich Town, Leyton Orient and Newcastle United before dropping into non league circles.

Then, in October 1990, he came out as gay in an interview with The Sun under the headline “£1m Football Star: I AM GAY.” The fact that we are now nearly 30 years on and Fashanu remains the only man to have been openly gay during his playing career tells you how extraordinarily brave he was to come out, let alone that he did so in the far less enlightened 1990s when homophobia was worn as a badge of honour.

Fashanu’s own brother John has spoken of offering his sibling £75,000 not to go public with his sexuality. Fashanu spoke of even larger sums for his silence.

Needless to say, he suffered quite the backlash from football supporters after coming out, despite which he went onto become a player/assistant manager with some success at Torquay United between December 1991 and January 1993.

By the time Fashanu retired for good in 1997, he had represented 22 different professional clubs in England, Scotland, Australia, the US, Canada, Sweden and New Zealand.

Given his experience as a number two at Torquay and having taken on a couple of managerial roles in America, it looked like coaching could provide a new vocation – providing of course that there was a club out there who could put aside their prejudices to appoint him.

Sadly, it was not to be. On May 2nd 1998, Fashanu’s body was found in a garage in east London. He had hung himself, leaving behind a suicide note which read, “I wish that I was more of a good son, brother, uncle and friend. But I tried my best this seems to be a really hard world.”

“I hope that Jesus, that I love, welcomes me home. I will at last find peace. Being gay and a personality is so hard but everybody has it hard at the moment so I can’t complain about that. I want to die rather than put my friends and family through any more unhappiness.”

Forget that quote we opened with – it is not just fans of the clubs who Fashanu represented who think he is brilliant. The whole footballing world can see that he was a pioneer who was taken from us far too soon.

As Brighton supporters, we might never have seen the best of Justin Fashanu on the pitch. That did not mean that he wasn’t popular. “They love tough-guy Fashanu” ran the headline in one article a few months into his Albion career. Little did we know just how much we would go onto love him once he was gone.