‘Uncle Bulgaria’ Radostin Kishishev

Brighton haven’t signed many players who have been capped 88 times by their country. One man who they did manage to snare who fell into that category proved to be quite the capture – Bulgarian midfielder Radostin Kishishev.

Actually, snare is probably the wrong word to use when describing how Kishishev found himself moving to Withdean in the summer of 2010. It was he, rather than the Albion or Gus Poyet, who initiated the deal in the first place.

The 35-year-old had been playing back in his native country, captaining Litex Lovech to the Bulgarian Cup in the 2008-09 season before following that up a year later with the Bulgarian First Professional League title. Lifting the two biggest honours back home would have seemed a fitting way for him to end his career, but Kishishev decided he wanted one more challenge.

And so he picked up the phone to his old mate Poyet. The two had worked together at The Leeds United; Poyet as assistant manager to Dennis Wise and Kishishev as an experienced head brought in on loan from firstly Charlton Athletic and then Leicester City in two separate spells at Elland Road.

It’s of course with Charlton that Kishishev made his name in English football. In 2000, Alan Curbishley plucked him from his first spell with Litex. He’d just helped the Oranges win back-to-back league titles, finally earning a £300,000 move to the Premier League with the newly promoted Addicks.

That proved to be an absolute bargain – even if Charlton fans didn’t realise it at the time. Over the next seven years, Kishishev was a virtual ever present at the Valley as Charlton established themselves as a top flight club. He played 200 times yet remarkably their fans didn’t quite take to him. It’s widely accepted that he copped more vitriol from the Valley faithful than any other player in red during their time in the Premier League.

When Curbishley left the Valley at the end of the 2005-06 season, Kishishev fell from favour and it was as Charlton’s sharp decline began that he moved to Leeds for a 10 game spell towards the end of the 2006-07 season. It was here that he made quite the impression on Poyet and although Kishishev’s arrival couldn’t prevent ‘The Champions of Europe’s’ hilarious relegation to the third tier, his signing did spark their best run of results of the season.

Wise and Poyet wanted to make him a permanent member of their Leeds squad for the 2007-08 League One campaign but a transfer embargo as the club fell into administration put paid to that. Instead, Kishishev wound up signing for Leicester, but he played just seven times for the Foxes over 18 months as they changed managers more frequently than Katie Price does husbands.

There was another brief loan spell back at Leeds during his time at the Walkers Stadium but that was an injury hit one and so he returned to Bulgaria with Litex in early 2009, probably thinking his days in English football were done. But they weren’t. There was to be one final swansong, which is where we pick up the tale.

So, back to that phone call to Poyet. Kishishev wondered if the Albion might be interested in having him over on trial and the appeal to Poyet would have been obvious.

Kishishev could bring leadership and experience to the side. He could cover three positions, being able to play as a central midfielder as well as at both right and left back.

And he was of course technically excellent, the sort of player who could set the tempo and orchestrate the passing football that was to become the League One champions’ trademark that season.

Kishishev spent the first two weeks of pre-season training with the Albion with his first appearance coming against Burgess Hill Town on July 10th. One quality showing against Ryman League Division One South opponents was all Poyet needed to convince him to offer Kishishev a deal and six days after that fixture at Leylands Park, he was signing a one-year contract.

Poyet said at the time, “”He is an excellent professional and has kept himself in superb shape throughout his career. His quality is obvious, there is no doubt about that but we had to be sure about his fitness. But he has proved that age is no barrier. That experience and quality will bring a lot to the team and will also help our younger players in their development.”

It was that last part of Poyet’s comments that proved to be the most accurate. Two months after Kishishev’s arrival, a 21-year-old holding midfielder called Liam Bridcutt was signed on a free transfer following his release by Chelsea.

Over the course of the 2010-11 season, Bridcutt would go from being a player who’d been bouncing around the lower leagues on loan for the previous three years to arguably the most important individual in Poyet’s team. The impact that Kishishev had on Bridcutt’s transformation cannot be understated.

Bridcutt became a younger, more mobile version of the Bulgarian and would go onto win back-to-back Player of the Year awards in the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, establishing himself as one of the best players in the Championship following the Albion’s promotion. Kishishev was a huge part of that.

Kishisev played his part on the pitch too. There were 36 appearances across the campaign, a couple of run outs with the captain’s armband in the FA Cup and he became a hugely popular figure along the way, an Uncle Bulgaria leading the young whippersnappers like Bridcutt, Elliott Bennett, Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood towards the League One title in such a blaze of glory.

That he contributed so much in his short spell with the Albion is even more impressive when you consider what he was going through off-the-pitch. Kishishev didn’t play a game between January 25th and March 5th after returning to Bulgaria due to family reasons. Nobody knew it at the time, but this was because his wife had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. She underwent successful chemotherapy treatment, but sadly passed away in late 2012.

By then, the Kishishevs were back in Bulgaria. Poyet had regretfully released the midfielder at the end of the season, in part to allow him to seek a return home but also because of the emergence of Bridcutt. Kishishev had taught his young apprentice everything he needed to know and now the apprentice had become the master.

We’d see many impressive performances from Bridcutt over the next two-and-a-half years before his acrimonious departure to Sunderland. But few were as good as Kishishev’s best game in a Brighton shirt, which somewhat ironically came at the Valley in front of those Charlton fans who had been so under-appreciative of what he brought to their team during his seven-year stint in south east London.

The fact that the Albion and Charlton were first and second in League One suggested this should have been a close game. Of course, it was nothing of the sort. Brighton won 4-0 and Kishishev was outstanding as he ran the show from midfield. At the end of the game, he received a raucous reception from the home support which Kishishev said made him, “very, very surprised and very happy.”

Those Addicks fans were belatedly realising just what a class act they’d had on their hands. We knew almost from day one.