Tommy Elphick: The greatest graduate from the Brighton Class of 2006

Whilst the Albion will happily pay millions of pounds for teenagers to sit in their academy these days, things were very different back in the Withdean Years. Good Brighton youth teams came along rarely and so when they did, everyone used to get giddy with excitement – especially when that side was as good as the Class of 2006, whose greatest graduate would go onto be Tommy Elphick.

Under the management of Dean Wilkins, Brighton Under 18s went all the way to the quarter finals of the FA Youth Cup in the 2005-06 season.

They knocked Brendan Rodgers’ Chelsea out in the fourth round on a famous night when over 4,000 Albion fans turned up at Withdean with the club only expecting a half-full North Stand, followed that up by eliminating Blackburn Rovers before exiting at the hands of Newcastle United in the last eight.

So many of the players in that side were tipped for big things. Joe Gatting was an absolute goal machine at youth and reserve team level and already a first team regular by the time the Albion’s FA Cup run got into full swing. Joel Lynch had become Mark McGhee’s number one at left back in the senior set up.

Goalkeepers Richard Martin and John Sullivan were involved in international set ups. Tommy Fraser was the captain (just do not mention his famous grandfather).

Wes Fogden was highly rated and Sam Rents represented the new breed of attacking full backs who were just starting to appear in the lower leagues of English football.

Once Wilkins succeeded McGhee as manager seven months after his youth team’s cup run had come to an end, he promoted many of his young charges into the senior set up.

Over the course of the 2006-07 season, Gatting, Lynch, Fraser and Rents all became mainstays of the side with Sullivan sitting on the bench as backup to Michel Kuipers once Wayne Henderson was sold to Preston North End in January.

Plenty of opportunities, but none bizarrely for Elphick. He remained on the side lines throughout nearly all of 2006-07 as Wilkins afforded him no real chance to stake a first team claim. Elphick had to bide his time.

The wait proved to be worth it for both player and club however, as Tommy Elphick would go onto become the biggest success story of that much-vaunted Brighton & Hove Albion youth team despite his later start in senior football compared to most of his teammates.

McGhee had actually been the man to hand Elphick his first team debut, introducing him as a second half substitute in a 5-1 defeat at Reading in December 2005.

Tommy’s brother Gary was sent off at the Madjeski Stadium on his own full debut that day, making it quite an afternoon for the Elphick family.

It would be 18 months from that battering in Berkshire until Tommy Elphick received his first Brighton start. Wilkins finally saw fit to chuck him into the side towards the end of 2006-07 and he instantly impressed as one of the few bright lights in a 2-0 Withdean defeat against Doncaster Rovers.

It was fairly obvious from that Doncaster game that Brighton had a talent on their hands, certainly compared to some of Elphick’s youth team comrades.

Fraser tried hard but spent most matches looking like a headless chicken, Gatting could not bring his prolific form into League One football for love nor money and Rents too struggled with the step up.

Lynch looked good, at least until he was shipped off to Nottingham Forest after Wilkins’ successor Micky Adams somehow concluded that Colin Hawkins was a better defender.

Quite how Lynch and Elphick did not become a long-term Brighton centre back partnership will forever remain one of the greatest Albion mysteries of all time, along with what happened to the FA Cup Final money and were Michael Owen and Tony Bloom really good friends?

Elphick continued into 20007-08 where he had left off at the end of the previous campaign, becoming one of the first names on the team sheet.

After making 42 appearances in all competitions, he was voted a deserved winner of the Albion’s Player of the Season Award – the first youth team graduate to win the accolade since Ian Chapman 12 years earlier.

2008-09 saw Elphick play 45 times as one of the few shining lights in a side that largely struggled until Russell Slade got his hands on it.

Elphick then missed just one league game in 2009-10 as the Master of the Great Escape Slade made way for the King of Revolution Gus Poyet.

His continued used under Poyet was something of a surprise as he was never the most comfortable player with the ball at his feet, which meant that many assumed his days would be numbered in Gus’ progressive style of play. Those assumptions could not have been more wrong.

What Elphick lacked in passing skills, he more than made up for in commitment, attitude and leadership – so much so that Poyet even considered making Elphick club captain in the summer of 2010 when Andrew Crofts departed for Norwich City.

That honour instead went to Gordon Greer, a £250,000 capture from Swindon Town. Elphick was again written off upon Greer’s arrival, as it seemed likely that the new signing would partner Adam El-Abd as Poyet’s first choice centre back partnership.

El-Abd had undergone an astonishing transformation under Poyet from a bloke who was good for at least one goal costing cock up a month to a League One version of Franz Beckenbauer.

Elphick’s own reinvention was not quite as dramatic, but there was a notable improvement in what he did with the ball at his feet following pre-season under Poyet’s watchful eye in 2010.

And whilst Greer and El-Abd were indeed Poyet’s preferred option, injuries, suspension and new-born babies meant that Elphick ended up playing 27 League One games in the title winning season.

That Brighton had a third choice centre back who could slot in so seamlessly and would have been an automatic starter in virtually every other team in the division was one of the major reasons why the Albion were able to romp to first spot.

Elphick never complained about spending what was a lot of time on the bench for a player of his quality. It was this professionalism coupled with him being a Brighton born-and-bred boy who clearly loved living the dream of playing for his hometown club that made him so popular with the Albion faithful.

Between 2007 and 2011, there was always something quite comforting about drunkenly rocking up to an away game at 2.55pm and seeing Elphick going through his pre-game ritual of pressing his head against the post and talking to it, as if in prayer.

Albion fans had to suffer their fair share of shit on the road in that period, often served up by players who were neither good, nor cared for the club.

Jason Jarrett, Chris Birchall, Craig Davies, Kevin McLeod… the list goes on. With Elphick in the side though, you know that he would give it everything and rarely put a foot wrong. Even when getting turned over 3-0 on a Tuesday night in Walsall, he never let the Albion down.

What Tommy Elphick deserved more than most Brighton players was the chance to play for the Albion at the Amex. Unfortunately, injury denied him that opportunity.

Little we did know when Elphick was stretchered off with a serious knee injury in the final game of the 2010-11 season on a cabbage patch of a pitch at Notts County that we would never see him in the stripes again.

Elphick would not kick a ball for 14 months. At times, he feared he would never play again. By the time he was fit to return, a certain Lewis Dunk had emerged to challenge Greer and El-Abd for their spots in Poyet’s Albion side, a team by now good enough to be pushing for promotion to the Premier League.

Fourth choice centre back was not a role befitting a man like Elphick, especially after everything he had gone through to get back on the pitch.

When Plucky Little Bournemouth came in for him, the opportunity to play regular football in League One was too good to turn down.

Almost immediately, Eddie Howe made him captain of the Cherries and League One soon turned into the Championship which soon turned into the Premier League.

Elphick overtook Brighton to reach the top flight two years before the Albion made it there, dragging Bournemouth up with him. Nobody deserved such a rise more than him.

Again though, injuries struck and Elphick only played 12 times in the Premier League for Bournemouth in the 2015-16 season, scoring once.

He went onto represent Aston Villa, Reading, Hull City and Huddersfield Town, ending his career having made 401 appearances and scoring 17 times.

The last time Brighton fans saw Tommy Elphick the player was on the final day of the 2016-17 campaign away at Villa. David Stockdale had just let Jack Grealish’s shot spill through his legs to cost Chris Hughton’s side the Championship title with only minutes of the season remaining.

Elphick had come on for the final 25, replacing Jordan Amavi in a tactical reshuffle following Nathan Baker’s red card. As Albion fans waited to salute their players at the end of the game, Villa were embarking on their own lap of honour around a half-full Villa Park.

As they traipsed past the away end, the entire Brighton section burst into a loud chorus of “There’s only one Tommy Elphick.”

Here we were, supposed to be thanking the current Albion squad for their efforts in winning promotion to the Premier League (even if the manner of losing the title was still very sore) and yet it was Elphick having love showered upon him. That tells you how much of a favourite he was.

No other member of Wilkins’ Class of 2006 who had promised so much would have received that sort of reception 11 years after their FA Youth Cup heroics placed so much expectation on their shoulders.

Elphick was the best of the bunch and a man who, were it not for the injury which forced him along the south coast to Bournemouth, would have played many more times for Brighton than the 174 appearances he did manage.

That leaves a sense of unfinished business when it comes to Elphick and Brighton. As a club who have no qualms in handing out coaching roles to former players who have shown an aptitude for management, let us hope that Tommy is next on Dan Ashworth’s list.

All those million pound teenagers could do a lot worse than learn from Elphick.