“We’ve basically paid Kevin McLeod to drink beer and eat crap for 30 months”

Kevin McLeod. Who do you think of when you hear that name? To the majority of Brits, it’s the bald bloke who presents Grand Designs. But to fans of six English professional football clubs, it’s a left winger with a questionable attitude who never made the most of his talents.

To us, the real Kevin McLeod doesn’t visit houses that feature ridiculous designs. No, the real Kevin McLeod ate too much. He drank too much.

He once stole the keys to a young player’s 4×4 and parked it on the middle of the Albion’s training pitch, padlocked between two goals so that it couldn’t be moved. And very occasionally, he’d turn up on a football pitch.

It was this eating, drinking and general not-giving-a-shit approach to life as a professional football that ultimately meant he didn’t fulfil his potential.

McLeod was a born-and-bred Evertonian, a Scouser who grew up on the Gwladys Street End at Goodison Park. He was part of a Toffees youth team that contained future Everton legends Leon Osman and Tony Hibbert, alongside whom he lifted the FA Reserve Premier League Northern Section title in 2001.

David Moyes gave McLeod his Everton debut as a 20-year-old in September 2000 but he made just five substitute appearances for his boyhood club over the course of the next two-and-a-half-years before joining QPR in March 2003 in search of first team football.

McLeod thrived at Loftus Road. Whereas Moyes was the strict disciplinarian who wanted his players rigidly drilled and more organised than a vegan BBQ, QPR had Ian Holloway at the helm.

He didn’t care what McLeod got up to, as long as he delivered crosses for Kevin Gallen and Paul Furlong. McLeod scored twice in 12 games as QPR went all the way to the Division Two playoff final where they were beaten 1-0 by Cardiff City, but his form hadn’t gone unnoticed – not least by Everton.

In the summer of 2003, Moyes handed McLeod a new one-year deal to stay at Goodison Park. But he’d been bitten by the bug of playing regularly and when QPR came in with a £250,000 in August he decided to become a Rangers player with the ink barely dry on that fresh Everton contract.

It was bad timing on McLeod’s part. The 2003-04 season ended up being the campaign when Moyes decided to turn to Everton’s young, homegrown players.

A 16-year-old kid by the name of Wayne Rooney was thrust into the first team and Osman and Hibbert also began to establish themselves as regulars.

While McLeod’s old youth team colleagues were now being rewarded for their patience with first team opportunities in the Premier League, he was slaving away trying to get QPR out of the third tier.

Would things have been different had McLeod bide his team? Could he have become a hero of the Gwladys Street End, rather than a lower league journeyman? He seems to think.

Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, McLeod said, “I’m not one to cry over spilt milk, but I look at Ossie and Hibbo and wonder if I should have stayed around for another season and just played for the reserves at Goodison. At the time, all I wanted was competitive football.”

Not that his time at QPR was a disaster. McLeod helped Rangers to promotion as Division Two runners up in 2003-04, the same season that Brighton went up through the play offs.

He struggled at Championship level and soon moved onto Swansea City midway through the 2004-05 season, making it personal back-to-back promotions as the Swans were promoted out of League Two with a third placed finish.

McLeod began the 2005-06 season in the form of his life, scoring seven goals in the first six games. Swansea subsequently rewarded him with a new contract, which he repaid them for by failing to net another goal for the club. By March, he was on the transfer list for ‘a breach of club discipline’ which Wikipedia rather wonderfully lists in brackets as (unacceptable drinking sessions).

So desperate were Swansea to get rid of him that they waived a transfer fee to allow him to join Colchester United on a free transfer in August 2006.

It was during McLeod’s time at Layer Road that he first crossed paths with Micky Adams. With Adams’ well-known transfer policy of only ever signing players he has worked with before, it came as little surprise when the new Brighton boss made McLeod the second signing of his second spell at the Albion.

At the time, it seemed like quite the coup. McLeod had turned down a new contract at Colchester – then a bigger club than us – to move to Withdean.

Adams was delighted with his new man, saying, “He can deliver crosses and he offers a goal threat. At this level he’s going to be a terrific signing for us.”

Dean White was gushing too, telling the press that McLeod “could have a big season for us.” Little did we know that the only things big McLeod would contribute during his time with the Albion would be a growing belly and a massive bar bill.

The hype looked justified when he scored from 25 yards after just 75 seconds of his debut in a pre-season friendly against Worthing.

McLeod showed glimpses of his talent in competitive games too, none more so than when he hit a 30 yard rocket to eliminated Northampton Town from Paint Pot in September 2008.

In the first 45 minutes of the first game of the campaign away at Crewe Alexandra, he put in more crosses than the entire Albion team had managed in the final six games of the previous season under Dean Wilkins.

But that was about as good as it got. Over the course of two-and-a-half years, McLeod played just 36 times and scored only twice. On the rare occasions that he wasn’t injured, he was too fat and unfit to play.

Adams, Russell Slade and Gus Poyet all gave him first team opportunities, but he was never bothered enough to take them. It says much when his biggest contribution during his time at the Albion is that aforementioned story about the 4×4, as told by Jim McNulty.

“One day, while one particular group was away training in the gym, Macca took the car keys from the pants of one of the young lads in the changing room and decided to drive his brand new 4×4 straight onto the training pitches, over the grass and locked it between two goals.”

“The goals would get chained up so he pushed two goals over the top of this lad’s BMW and locked them together. It was hilarious watching the lad trying to unlock them from his car.”

By the time February 2010 came around, McLeod was driving his own car away from the Albion for the final time after Poyet followed in Swansea’s footsteps and tore up his contract, allowing him to join Wycombe Wanderers on a free.

Not content with having taking the piss by picking up a pay cheque for 30 months which was duly spent in The White House in Ditchling, McLeod further endeared himself to Seagulls supporters by saying upon his arrival at Adams Park that Wycombe had a better squad, a better ground and would have no problem avoiding relegation out of League One.

Some of the responses to those comments on North Stand Chat are an absolute joy to read and show the esteem in which McLeod was held down here in Sussex.

“The carvery at the Sportsman have lost a dependable regular”, “I can’t remember him getting too much abuse, which is a shame really as he certainly deserved it”, “It’s only a better stadium for him because the gates are wider” and best of all, “He was like a tub of fucking lard with no control, no nothing. Good riddance to the piece of shite.”

McLeod was wrong about Wycombe’s survival hopes as well. They ended the campaign in 22nd place, five points adrift of safety. With League Two calling, McLeod was released in the summer which brought his career to an end at the age of 29 and after 238 games.

One of the other NSC posts in praise of McLeod’s contribution to the Albion complained that he was “Barrel chested, ill-physiqued and more like a poor pub player than a professional footballer.”

Ironically, that is exactly what McLeod became. He can now be found turning out for a team called Marquis in the Colchester & District Sunday Football League, helping them to a third placed finish last season.

Since signing for Marquis, McLeod is said to have continued to perform to a high standard. He is also said to enjoy the post-match entertainment, which presumably means a Sunday session and a lot of unhealthy food.

A man after our own hearts. And a million times better than that other Kevin McLeod off the telly.