My time with Brighton was a special period in my career and my life. It was a childhood dream to have played in the Premier League – to do that with Brighton and achieve the things we did and the way we achieved them together with the supporters there, we definitely created some very special moments that I will remember for a very long time.
I’ve got a few standout memories from my time with the club; the penalty save against Stoke City in my first season, the Wayne Rooney penalty save and the win against Manchester United at home to keep us in the Premier League. The Millwall FA Cup game was special and doing the double over Arsenal. There’s a few memorable saves, but it’s the moments as a team that are the standouts.
I want to say goodbye and thanks to the supporters for all the memories that we shared. They’re the ones who make it special with the atmosphere; they were always our 12th player. They are paramount to the success the club has had – we go through all the emotions with them, thankfully in my time we had a lot of good moments and those moments of ecstasy wouldn’t be what they were without the difficult moments in which the fans always stuck by us and we overcame.
“I look in the mirror knowing I’m at ease with the fact that I gave everything I had to the club. It didn’t always go to plan, but I look back and think I was able to make a contribution to the club and its success. I will miss living around the town and will always continue to support the club and keep any eye on how they’re doing.
The saying is the bigger the challenge, the better the triumph. We faced the challenge of staying in the league each year and we did that as a collective. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to contribute to that, I have now got those life long memories that I can tell friends, and hopefully one day children and grandchildren!
I would say it was a rubbish time working with Ben Roberts and Casper Ankergren because I know they get a kick out of banter. But honestly, working as part of that goalkeepers union alongside Nikki Mäenpää and Tim Krul when I first joined, they were fantastic role models, and were good blokes. Throughout my time at the club I knew I couldn’t drop my level because the competition I had meant that somebody was ready to take my spot.
I’ve worked with David Button and Jason Steele more recently, as well as the young goalkeepers who have come through like Robert Sanchez and Christian Walton, but Ben and Casper always did a fantastic job of managing the group, making sure the dynamic was right. Those two made sure we always had the right tools to ensure we could perform at our best, to hopefully contribute to a team victory, managing our training, all the way down to the finest detail. They are some of the best I have worked with in my career and I will miss working with them.
Rob Sanchez has come in and done a really good job, contributing to the team in a really good way. He has matured a lot as a goalkeeper. When I first met him he was really young and he hadn’t had a lot of first team exposure, he was raw like I was when I was that age. Under Ben’s guidance he has come on leaps and bounds. He had a few loan spells out and is now doing it at the highest level. There is such a tightknit group, I wouldn’t have been able to have the contribution I had without the likes of Shane Duffy, Lewis Dunk, Bruno Saltor and many others. I am sure that sort of environment has helped Rob, that confidence that he can go out and contribute. Credit to Rob, there’s no hard feelings between me and him at all, he was there supporting me when I was playing. It was a disappointment to lose the starting spot as we all want to play, but I have no hard feelings towards Rob and hope he does the region proud from here on out.
Finally, I want to give a special thanks to Ben Roberts. The difference is made in the detail. Ben goes above and beyond to prepare the goalkeepers that he’s got, but he’s also aware of what is out there in the goalkeeping world no matter what the age or place they are from, he has a really good knowledge. He saw something in me that he felt could help the team and I know he pushed hard to get me in, and then pushed me everyday to get the best out of me, I have to give my thanks to him for making the dream and opportunity a reality. He went to great lengths to do that.
Thanks for the memories everyone.