Zamora

[albion4life]

I've heard some rumors that brighton are trying to get Zamora back to the club is this true?

Is there a chance that we will ever get him back?

Zamora

 

[Insider]

Rumours are not true. As much as Bobby loves the club, he is not going to swap the Premiership for League 1. In a recent piece in the programme Bobby did however say he would love to end his career with the Albion, so who knows.

 

[Insider]

The source of these rumours may well be this interview in the programme:

It is now five and a half years since Bobby Zamora departed the Albion. Having just suffered a very cruel final-day relegation at Grimsby, Albion were on their way down – but Zamora's star was still in the ascendancy. A £1.5m move to Spurs followed, and since Zamora has moved onto West Ham and this summer switched to Fulham for £4.8m, and he has proved a huge hit with the Craven Cottage faithful... but in these parts he will always be remembered for being plucked from relative obscurity and going on to hit 83 goals in three seasons with the club.
Cast your mind back to February 1999. Albion were lacking a front man, having just lost out on Lorenzo Pinamonte. He’d impressed while on loan from Bristol City, but recalled to Ashton Gate, he was immediately sold on, to Brentford. Albion had a void to fill, and Micky filled it by bringing in Zamora on loan from Bristol Rovers. He scored on his debut against Plymouth and although he was a little bit raw, his talent shone through as he went onto score a total of six goals in six games.
“I didn't know too much about the club ahead of my loan switch,” explained Zamora. “Earlier that season I had gone on loan to Bath City and I scored eight goals in six games, and they wanted me to stay on, but I didn’t really want to because I wanted to push on a bit. So I stayed at Bristol Rovers for a couple of months and then the opportunity to join Brighton came along. I was told they wanted to take me on loan and it was a chance to play some regular first-team football.
“I said yes straight away. It was ideal for me really. I didn’t really know much about the club but I went down there and it was brilliant from day one. I remember turning up for my first day at the Falmer training ground and Charlie Oatway saying, “Right, let’s see what you have got,” and that stands out because I thought straight away that he was quite funny.
“I was only 18 years old and I didn’t really know too much about the club or any of the players. I knew names and I’d heard of Micky Adams, but I didn’t really know too many faces. It was a whole new world - but it was a brilliant new world. It was so much fun for me to come in and straight away and to be made so welcome. It made things so much easier and I scored six in six – including a hat-trick at Chester City. The Brighton fans took to me straight away and the month was a huge success.”
It’s fair to say, having seen him head back to Bristol Rovers, most Albion fans felt they had seen the last of Zamora. Too good for the basement, surely he would soon be in Rovers’ first-team. However at that time the Gas had a wealth of forward talent: Nathan Ellington, Jason Roberts, Jamie Cureton... would a raw 18-year-old get much of a look in ahead of that trio?
“I went back to Bristol and Rovers told me that they wanted me back and we would see how I got on – but I didn’t get used much. I was quite lucky that the youth coach Phil Bater was a good guy who had always looked out for me, as much as the club. He told me that Brighton had put an offer in for me and that Ian Holloway wanted to see me. I think he had already had a chat with the manager and told me that he didn’t want me to go – but also said that it was a chance for me to play football at Brighton and that if I wanted to go then I should just tell him that. After that chat I just thought “Yes, I’ll go for it.”
"Ian Holloway is quite a character – but he is also quite a tough bloke, particularly if you are a young player coming through. As a young pro it was quite hard and I found it hard to say too much to him at all. Phil picked up on this and said: “I’m going to come in with you, so you can say what you want to say and not be scared. You get one chance and you need to bite the bullet and tell him. So I went in there and told him that I wanted to go and Olly said, “No, I don’t want you to go. I think you will play a few games here for us this season.” But then Phil did me a favour by stepping up and saying: “I don’t want you to do that; it is out of order, you should let him go. He’s not going to get many games here – you know that.” In the end Olly said, “Okay, fair enough. If that is what you want then I will let you go.”
"Brighton paid £100,000 for me. Looking back, it was a lot of money for someone with my limited experience and it was a big gamble for Micky and the club to take. I am grateful they did – but at the time, without wanting to sound blasé, I don’t think it really meant that much to me. All my mates who I had grown up playing football with in London –John Terry, Jay-Lloyd Samuel, Ledley King and Paul Koncesky – were all playing in the Premiership and on wages of around £12,000 a week and so in that context £100,000 did not seem that big a deal to me.
“I now realise, knowing the club, knowing the division and knowing the football, to Brighton it was a huge sum – but I don’t think the money thing ever really came into my head. To me it wasn’t millions and it did not seem a lot of money. Looking back now it was a lot of money. I was young and naïve about the transfer business and club finances and so I didn’t really think about it at all. It only really sunk in half-way through the first season that Micky had spent a lot of money and that it was a big deal – but by then it wasn’t a burden because I was scoring goals.
“I had a great relationship with Micky. He was the first manager to give me the chance to play regular football and he was desperate for me to do well. He took the gamble and so it was on his head, so I guess he would have been very pleased that I came good and scored a few goals early in my Brighton career. It wasn’t long before a lot of clubs were interested and while I was never tapped up, there are always ways for clubs to let a player know they are interested and there were intimations that I could get a lot more money – five or six times what Brighton were paying me at the time – but I wasn’t really interested in that. The thought of moving was never in my head. I never once banged on Micky’s door for more money. I just wanted to stay at Brighton and wasn’t interested in a sideways move just for a few more quid.
“At the end of the first season, we won the first of the back-to-back championships and that was just awesome really. For me to play my first season, score a lot of goals and then be part of the team that won the championship was incredible. We were playing football in a brilliant style as well. We weren’t one of those teams that just bangs it and we had a great understanding as a team. We all knew when someone had the ball exactly where they were going to put it. Every player knew exactly where the other one would be and I had a particularly good understanding with Paul Watson.
“Whenever Watto got the ball I knew precisely where I needed to run to and he knew where to deliver it to. It was just such a great connection: Watto has an absolutely wonderful left foot and it made my job as a striker so much easier when you get deliveries like that. Even now, having spent a few seasons playing in the Premiership, I don’t think I have come across anybody with a better left foot than Watto’s. In the current Fulham team there isn’t anybody with a better delivery than Watto at his peak. I was very lucky to have played in the same team as him: he created numerous goals for me; not only with his deliveries but with his intelligent play as well.”
Albion followed that championship with another 12 months later, although buy then Micky Adams had left for Leicester City, with Peter Taylor installed as boss at Brighton. “Some people say Peter just inherited Micky’s team, but you still have to manage the players. If Peter had wanted to, he could have brought his own men in but he kept the lads that were here and carried on where Micky left off. Yes, we were Micky’s players but he still had a lot to do. He kept the lads motivated and he did that extremely well as can be seen by the fact that we won the championship.”
Since leaving Zamora has played three
“I love the club though and I didn’t want to leave and just go anywhere for any old sake, which is why I was never interested in going to Wigan Athletic or Cardiff City at a time when they were in the same division as Brighton – but when the move to Spurs came along, it was too good an opportunity to turn down and while things didn’t work out, I enjoyed my time at Tottenham.
“Glenn Hoddle had signed me and then he got sacked not long afterwards. David Pleat took charge and I we didn’t really see eye-to-eye, but the lads there and the club were brilliant and I learned so much from my time there. I took a chance by stepping back down to the Championship with West Ham – but it was the opportunity of playing regular football again that was the pull for me. Losing in the play-off final was a down, but then a year later I got the winning goal in the final and that was a dream come true for me.
“I also left West Ham because you can only sit on the bench or twiddle your thumbs in the stand for so long. You want to be playing football and you miss that. After the buzz of going out Saturday after Saturday and winning with Brighton, playing well week-in, week-out, it is hard when you are not playing every week. I am loving my time at Fulham – largely because I am playing every week again – but one day I would love to go back to Brighton and play for the Albion again. I always tell my mates that I will go back there one day, but when I do come back Dick Knight will need to make sure there is a decent team behind me, just as there was the first time!”