ONE OF BRIGHTON’S more successful season-long loan signings spent six years at Wolverhampton Wanderers having arrived as a 15-year-old from Dublin.
Keith Andrews signed on at Molineux on the same day as another Irish youngster, Robbie Keane, although he didn’t hit quite the same heights as the prolific goalscorer.
Nonetheless, Andrews eventually represented his country on no fewer than 35 occasions – not a bad achievement considering he had to wait until he was 28 before winning his first cap.
The self-styled ‘Guvnor’ Paul Ince, who Andrews had first encountered at Wolves, ultimately took the Irishman’s career onto a different level, initially when manager at MK Dons and then with Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League.
“I picked up so much from him, although probably a whole lot more when he managed me later on and I wasn’t in direct competition for a place in the team,” he said.
“I needn’t have been concerned when he came to MK, because he made me feel like a million dollars from the first conversation we had on the phone.
“He pretty much based the team around me, let me lead the dressing room like he had at Wolves, and I think that working relationship was mutually beneficial for both of us.
“He coached me and nurtured me and gave me some of his pearls of wisdom, and ultimately gave me the confidence to go and show I could become the player he felt I could become.
“Offers started coming in for me, but Incey asked me to stay, and said that if he got a job in the Premier League, he would take me with him.
“That happened with Blackburn, and I know he had to fight to get me there as the club weren’t keen on bringing in a player from League One.
“But he wanted me there, he knew what I was like and how he could trust me, and I would like to think that even though unfortunately Incey wasn’t there anywhere near as long as he would have liked, I vindicated his decision and desire to get me there.”
However, it was from Bolton Wanderers that Andrews joined the Seagulls for the 2013-14 season and he played a pivotal role – literally – taking over from the initially-injured, then transfer-seeking Liam Bridcutt as Albion’s defensive midfielder.
I covered head coach Oscar Garcia’s view of his signing in a previous blog post about the player in January 2019. Andrews featured in 35 matches for the Seagulls and scored once as Garcia steered Albion to a second successive tilt at the Championship play-offs, only for the team to lose out to Derby County in the two-legged semi-final.
Burnden Aces, a Wanderers fans website, interviewed Albion fan Chris Field to ask his opinion of Andrews and his summary was “good” but inconsistent.
Field couldn’t understand why neither Bolton nor Blackburn fans had rated the Irishman, saying:
“He’s come into our midfield and held it together fantastically well. We needed a bit more Premier League/Championship experience in our midfield and he’s fitted that bill superbly.
“Possibly he wasn’t used in the right way with Dougie Freedman’s style of football. In our free-flowing passing game, he’s fantastic in the holding role. A change of scenery has done him good.”
When Garcia quit the club after the play-offs defeat, it also marked the end of Andrews’ time with the Seagulls, although he later expressed his gratitude for the time he spent at the club.
“Although I was only at the Amex for one season, I have a lot of affection for the club as I think they try to do things in the right manner for the club to evolve with real sustainability for years to come,” he wrote in a Sky Sports blog.
“There are good people involved behind the scenes there, none more so than in the academy. Last season I worked closely with the academy manager John Morling and the development coach Ian Buckman as I was in the middle of my UEFA ‘A’ Licence, and they couldn’t have done any more to help me.
“It was a great experience to work with them as they prepared weekly and monthly schedules with the rest of the coaches and sports scientists to ensure the young lads had the best chance of developing their games, both technically and physically.”
He added: “I was amazed at the schedule a 14-year-old at the club had and a little envious to be honest as it certainly wasn’t like that in my day!”
Born in Dublin on 13 September 1980, Andrews went to Ardscoil Ris secondary school in Dublin and his football reputation grew in the schoolboys sides of Stella Maris and Elm Mount.
“Most young players are playing at quite a high level in Ireland,” Andrews told the Wolves website. “I played in the DDSL – the Dublin District Schoolboy League – and trials at English clubs became quite frequent for a lot of us.
“I must have gone on trial to about 10 or 12 clubs and then you just have to start narrowing it down to who you like, who likes you. I then started to visit Wolves more frequently and just got a good feeling about it.
“I felt very at home in Wolverhampton, I was very well looked after from the moment that I went over as an under-14 at the time. I had a few contract offers from different clubs, but Wolves just felt right and I felt the club would offer me the best chance of playing first-team football at a high level.”
Andrews reflected that he probably started out too young although he said: “I relished playing football full-time and I enjoyed the environment that I went into. I enjoyed living in Wolverhampton, I enjoyed the family I was living with; they looked after me.
“There were some tough times, some teary phone calls home, and you go through some really difficult moments, but that was all part of the journey of building your character and trying to forge a career in the professional game, which isn’t easy.”
He went through the Wolves academy alongside the likes of Keane, Matt Murray, Joleon Lescott and Lee Naylor and said it was a “proper apprenticeship” adding: “The structure must have been in a good place. It was a well-run football club with the Hayward family in charge of it.”
Appreciating the values that were drilled into him from an early age, he said the academy was where he learned how to approach the game and how to do things the right way.
He turned professional in September 1997 and made his first team debut under Colin Lee as a substitute on 18 March 2000 in a 2-1 win at Swindon. He also went on in a 2-0 home win over Crewe but, when further openings didn’t follow, he went on loan to Oxford and scored the winner on his full league debut away at Swansea.
Under Lee’s successor, Dave Jones, in the last game of the 2000-01 season, he was Wolves’ youngest ever captain aged 21 in a 1-1 draw at home to QPR.
“I looked around the dressing room and saw some really experienced players, players whose boots I had cleaned as an apprentice, and so to be chosen as captain was a huge day in my career,” says Andrews. “The game was fairly forgetful but certainly not for me!”
Managers came and went, some giving Andrews a chance, others sending him out on loan. In 2005, after just 24 starts for Wolves, plus no fewer than 47 appearances as a sub, he moved on to Hull City, where injury blighted his only season with them.
He then had a two-year spell with Milton Keynes Dons, where he had a productive midfield partnership with Alan Navarro, and he assumed the captaincy of Ince’s side.
In his second season, the Dons won promotion to League One; Andrews scoring the goal which secured the success. He also scored in the club’s 2-0 win over Grimsby Town in the Football League Trophy at Wembley.
Andrews was chosen in the PFA Team of the Year, won the League Two player of the Year Award and was listed 38th of FourFourTwo magazine’s top 50 Football League players.
It was in September 2008 that he followed old boss Ince to Blackburn Rovers. He stayed for three years although during his time at Ewood Park he was subjected to barracking from a small section of supporters.
Some fans didn’t believe he merited a starting berth but injuries meant he got a chance and made 37 appearances in his first season at the club, scoring four goals in Rovers’ battle for survival.
Under Sam Allardyce, an approach from Fulham to sign him in 2009 was rebuffed and he was rewarded with a new four-year deal instead. In March 2011, an Andy Cryer exclusive in the Lancashire Telegraph said Allardyce’s successor Steve Kean backed the player and still saw him as a key member of his first team squad even though the player had been sidelined by a groin injury for five months.
The player’s agent, Will Salthouse, told Cryer: “Keith loves the club. He has a contract for two more years at the club and he wants to stay. Keith is not looking to go anywhere.
“There has been interest from other clubs but Keith has not even spoken to them. The club have said they want him to stay and I can dismiss the rumours that he will be leaving.”
Nonetheless, at the start of the following season, Andrews joined Championship side Ipswich Town on a half-season loan.
Instead of moving to Suffolk permanently, on deadline day in January 2012 he joined Wolves’ Black Country rivals West Brom, under Roy Hodgson, on a six-month deal.
Into the bargain, Andrews, making his debut for West Brom, scored the fourth goal in a 5-1 rout of their neighbours that sealed the fate of Mick McCarthy’s reign in charge at Molineux.
“I joined Wolves at the age of 15 and, having then lived in the Midlands for a few years, I knew all about this derby,” Andrews told the Express & Star.
“I was a fan who had been to games and to different derbies like Celtic against Rangers, and I was well aware of games which had more significance growing up even playing schoolboy football and Gaelic football as well.
“Once I had been in Wolverhampton for a while it was made pretty clear to me that Wolves against Albion was a big deal.
“Sometimes people try to throw derbies and rivalries at you at certain clubs when they don’t really exist but Wolves and Albion is proper, it’s fierce.
“At Wolves everyone would be telling you much they hated the Baggies and how important those two games of the season were – so yes, I was well aware of it!”
Although personally delighted to score, Andrews said: “I also had a lot of friends on the Wolves team that day – Ireland team-mates – and my overriding emotion as I walked off the pitch as I looked at Mick and Terry Connor was sadness.
“I knew where Wolves were in the league, the pressure they were under, and what might happen after such a result.
“I knew Terry from the help he had given me when I was at Wolves, and while I didn’t know Mick personally, he is someone I have always looked up to and have the utmost respect for with what he has achieved in the game.
“Wolves at the time were struggling, and that was something that carried on after the decision was made for Mick to leave.”
On the expiry of his Baggies contract, Andrews joined newly relegated Bolton on a free transfer, and, although he made 26 Championship appearances, he struggled with an achilles problem and then a thigh injury which eventually required surgery.
It was Bolton’s signing of Jay Spearing from Liverpool at the start of the 2013-14 season that made him surplus to requirements for the Trotters and opened the door to him joining the Seagulls.
A year later, Andrews joined Watford on loan while Brighton struggled under Sami Hyypia but after half a season returned to MK Dons where he eventually began coaching.
He later appeared frequently on Sky Sports as a pundit and became a coach to the Republic of Ireland side under Stephen Kenny. In December 2023, he was appointed a first team coach at Sheffield United following the return of Chris Wilder to Bramall Lane.
In parallel lines 