Steve Sidwell announces retirement from football
Former Brighton and Hove Albion midfielder Steve Sidwell has officially announced his retirement from football.
Sidwell revealed the news while appearing on Sky Sports programme The Debate alongside Liam Rosenior, who also retired at the end of last season.
Both Sidwell and Rosenior originally said that they had wanted to continue playing following their release by the Albion. Rosenior has since taken up a coaching role with Simon Rusk’s under 23 squad.
Sidwell didn’t kick a ball in anger last season as a troublesome back injury ruled him out for the entire Premier League campaign and has now forced his retirement. He had made 37 appearances in all competitions in 2016-17, helping the Albion to promotion to the top flight along the way.
That was Sidwell’s second spell with the club. The first had come when he was just 18 years old some 14 years previously when Steve Coppell bought him in on-loan from Arsenal. He scored five times in 12 appearances from central midfield, including netting two goals in the final 90 seconds of Burnley’s visit to Withdean in December 2002 to turn a 2-0 defeat into a 2-2 draw.
That sort of form eventually sparked a bidding war between the Albion and Reading for his services. Sidwell chose to make the Madjeski Stadium his home rather than Withdean which turned out to be a pretty shrewd move as he helped Reading to promotion to the top flight for the first time in their history as the Biscuitment tore up every Championship record going in 2005-06.
He later moved to Chelsea, Aston Villa, Fulham and Stoke City and it was from the Bet365 Stadium that Sidwell returned to the Albion, initially on-loan for the second half of the 2015-16 season as the Albion tried to reunite the entire 2002-03 squad, having already bought back Bobby Zamora along with Nathan Jones and Ben Roberts to the coaching staff. This plan was cruelly foiled as nobody could could locate Graham Barrett, Tony Rougier or Andy Petterson.
No matter, Chris Hughton was clearly impressed by his contribution in 19 appearances as the Albion suffered their annual play off semi final heartache and bought him to the Amex on a permanent deal that summer.
Sidwell’s experience was invaluable, especially when Beram Kayal was ruled out for a significant chunk of the campaign and he even managed to weigh in with one of the best goals ever scored by a Brighton player when netting with an audacious effort from inside his own half away at Bristol City.
That was arguably his greatest moment in an Albion shirt and endeared him the supporters forever more. He retires having played over 500 career games and his final contribution to Brighton stands at 68 games and seven goals.
Sidwell hasn’t revealed what his future plans will be but much like Rosenior, he seems a measured and intelligent individual who you suspect would make a great coach. His appearance on The Debate was impressive enough to suggest he’d make an excellent pundit as well.
Should all else fail, he could probably make a living shagging Brighton supporters wives as the song suggests. We certainly wouldn’t begrudge him that after his contribution to where the Albion are now.
