The Alex Gilbey Story: As Told by his Former Teammates
Aaron O’Connor lets out a slight gasp as I reel off Alex Gilbey’s Newport statistics. A teammate of Gilbey’s while the Charlton midfielder was on loan in Wales, O’Connor can’t quite believe he only arrived at Spytty Park for the final 12 matches of a memorable season.
“Alex became part of the group really quickly,” O’Connor explains. “It was like he had been with us all season. Even hearing you say he came in March…I’m surprised. I thought it was a lot earlier. In my head, I’m thinking he must have come around Christmas or earlier. To hear he only spent a couple of months with us threw me a little bit. It just shows how he integrated with the group straight away.”
Gilbey joined his local academy set-up at Colchester United in 2007 and quickly moved up the youth system ladder before getting his first taste of professional football in October 2012. Despite his rapid rise, there was a feeling around Colchester that Gilbey wasn’t quite ready. Like many talented youngsters before him, he needed a loan move to truly prove his credentials.
O’Connor has seen many of these bright-eyed teens throughout an 18-year career, but something about Gilbey was immediately different.
“He was only 19 when he came to Newport. We were challenging for the playoffs, but we’d had a tough season. We had limited numbers, so players played a lot of games. We went through a stage of bringing players in to help our numbers, but obviously they have to be of a certain quality. A lot of players we brought in and tried didn’t quite fit the bill.
“Then we brought Alex in and you could tell straight away, even though he was young, you could tell he was A, good enough, and B, had a hunger. We had had a few kids come and not really be up to scratch and I thought it was going to be another one of them. But from the first day he trained you could tell he had a bit of quality about him.
“He had that hunger and desire you want in young lads coming through. You get a lot of young lads these days who already think they’ve made it. He was the total opposite. He was always willing to learn and listen to Justin (Edinburgh). He played a big part in us getting promoted that year. He played well in the final as well.”
Newport lost just one of their last 12 matches after Gilbey arrived at the club as the Dagenham native made eight appearances. By the time the playoffs came around, Gilbey was a regular, winning Man of the Match in the semi-final second leg before playing the full 90 minutes of his side’s 2–0 victory against Wrexham to earn promotion to the Football League.
After the “dream come true” at Wembley, Gilbey returned to Essex desperate to nail down a place in Colchester’s starting XI after a valuable introduction to men’s football. Gilbey has always played with the determination of someone with a point to prove, but for those watching on, it was clear from the off he was destined to be as crucial for Joe Dunne as he had been for Edinburgh the season before.
James Bransgrove, a goalkeeper who joined Colchester on trial in the summer of 2013, had a similar reaction to O’Connor when he first laid eyes on Gilbey, still just 19 years old.
“I first met Alex when I was on trial, joining in with first team training. You immediately think ‘oh this guy’s a good player’ and then after, you start talking to a few players and I asked ‘how old is he?’ They were like ‘oh he’s 19’. I just thought ‘wow, ok!’ At the time he had played very few first team games, but he immediately showed that he stands out from the crowd.”
Captain of his youth team before earning spells with the armband at both Colchester and MK Dons, Gilbey has always stood out from the crowd. Nothing showcases that further than his quite absurd “Player of the Year” success rate. Of six professional seasons with more than 20 appearances, Gilbey has been awarded his club’s Player of the Year three times while also winning Young Player of the Year with Colchester in 2015.
Only twice has Gilbey not grabbed an end-of-season award. It’s a wonderful statistic, but more so, it’s a reflection of Gilbey’s impact on his side, both in terms of footballing ability as well as his less tangible qualities.
“Some people are built as leaders,” O’Connor says of Gilbey’s natural influence. “I remember hearing someone at Chelsea say John Terry was like that from 12 years old; screaming and shouting at teammates, dragging people about. Some people are just like that. Even as a 19-year old he (Gilbey) came in and wasn’t afraid to tell people, he wasn’t shy. He has that natural leadership quality.
“Sometimes it’s not even vocal, he leads with his performances as well. There were tough games down the stretch for us at Newport and you need to see people getting stuck in and leading, vocally, and with their performances. You need them to lead on the pitch. And he did that. I think that was another reason he played so much; he turned into a man really quickly. It didn’t feel like you were playing with a 19-year old kid, it felt like you were playing with someone who understood the game and wasn’t scared to come up against anyone in midfield. He led by example with his performances and with his voice as well. Even at that age.”
“He has that kind of influence with the way he plays. He motivates people with his effort and his work ethic, his willingness to get stuck in, his talking. It drives people on. It hasn’t surprised me to see him wearing the armband at big clubs. Winning player of the seasons, that hasn’t surprised me either; he’s got loads of quality.”
Bransgrove recalls a similar magnetism in Gilbey during his time at Colchester. “I went on trial for the U23s but as a goalkeeper, you sometimes train with the first team,” Bransgrove explains. “For him to be training with the first team, every day was impressive. It wasn’t even as if players weren’t giving him the ball. I immediately thought this guy seems like an established first team player, even before I knew who he was. Being a teammate of his for 3/4 years, he was captain for a lot of that time, guaranteed starter, he’s a very good player. The fact he’s gone on to play for MK Dons, Wigan, and now Charlton has just backed that up.”
Peter Pawlett, a teammate of Gilbey’s during his time at MK Dons echoes the thoughts of O’Connor and Bransgrove as to the midfielder’s influence.
“I remember he signed about six weeks after me. A couple of games into the season. He gave the boys a boost (when he arrived). He was a great lad to have about the changing room. He was very positive, always full of energy. I got on with him very well.
“He was a good leader. Dean Lewington was captain, but Alex kind of took the role over when Dean wasn’t there. He had those leadership qualities and his good positive frame of mind rubbed off on all his teammates.”
Despite collecting more than 250 professional appearances at the age of 25, it hasn’t always been as easy for Gilbey as it may have seemed from the outside. In fact, his hugely successful first foray into professional football at Newport started in the worst possible way when he was hooked after 57 minutes of a 0–0 draw with Dartford, leading to a dressing down by manager Justin Edinburgh.
“He got brought off because he backed out of a couple of tackles,” O’Connor explains. “Justin was kind of harsh with him. Justin made a real statement and said ‘I know you’ve got it in you, but you can’t be backing out of tackles if you’re going to play for me.’ I think it was a little bit of a kick in the arse for Alex, but he didn’t sulk about it. He took it on board. He knew what he needed to do and that’s testament to him. A lot of young lads would have crumbled in that situation. But he took it on board and forced his way into the team.”
Faced with a real test of his character, Gilbey passed with flying colours to become a firm favourite of Edinburgh’s, helping his side earn promotion just weeks after the inauspicious start. Three years later he tackled potentially an even greater challenge when his move to Wigan ended with just 20 total appearances and four months out through injury.
Again though, as with Edinburgh’s stern criticism, the momentary setback proved to be just that. A momentary setback. A move to MK Dons helped revitalise his form and before long Gilbey was playing the best football of his career. His first season at MK was curtailed by a serious knee injury, but even that ended up a minor speed-bump as he managed to recover more than six months ahead of schedule to play 39 games in his second season while winning MK Dons Player of the Year as his side were promoted to League One. Another Player of the Year award followed last season.
Staunch resilience is surely one of the attributes that drew Lee Bowyer to Gilbey and it’s also something his teammates have noticed throughout his career.
“No, it didn’t,” Pawlett responds when asked if Gilbey’s time at Wigan affected his form during his early days in Milton Keynes. “He always had a positive frame of mind about everything. He didn’t let things get him down. Just one of these boys who keeps going and keeps going. If people knocked him down, he’d get up and keep going again. He wouldn’t let it affect his confidence. That was one of his best traits, definitely.”
“When you go on loan somewhere, when you go on trial, all eyes are on you,” O’Connor says. “It can be daunting. Everyone wants to see why you’re there and why you’ve been brought in. It just adds to the pressure. Tough for him, coming in at that age, but he took it all in his stride. His time at Newport is proof of what can happen if you knuckle down and really give it 110%. Ultimately it’s down to the player himself and it’s a credit to Alex, to be fair.”
In terms of Gilbey’s footballing ability and style of play, a few themes continuously crop up. Energy is a word that all three former teammates use.
“He has great pace, he can get the ball from deep, drive forward, and take the team up the pitch,” Pawlett adds.
“I remember him being an all-action midfielder,” O’Connor recalls. “He would cover a lot of grass. He was determined in terms of winning his physical battles no matter who he was coming up against. He would dominate his opponents. Everyone he played against would know they were in a game. Good with the ball as well, he rarely gives the ball away.
“I can see his game has changed a little bit since his time at Newport. The thing I didn’t really see, which he has developed, is his goalscoring. He’s added that to his game.”
“You see a lot of players that say they’re specifically a number 4,” Bransgrove says. ‘Oh I sit in front of the back four and break it up’ or a number 10, ‘I just play off the centre-forwards,’ whereas Alex can do both. Good on both sides of the halfway line. I remember him always wanting the ball, good technically, good passer. He can get around the pitch, does lots of running. Good general all-round midfielder. You don’t play for the likes of MK, Wigan, and Charlton if you’re not good. He ticks all the boxes.”
A driving force from midfield, Gilbey has always been a central component of his team, off the pitch as much as on it.
Gilbey may have only arrived at The Valley in August, but first team physiotherapist Adam Coe says players and staff have already been impressed with Charlton’s newest signing. “I’ve spent a few days with Alex and I can see that he is an extremely professional and ambitious player,” Coe explains. “He has already gelled extremely well with the team, staff included.”
Gilbey’s quick integration would come as no surprise to O’Connor who remembers a particularly friendly personality from his time at Newport.
“I’ve come across people who treat football as work,” O’Connor says. “They come in, keep to themselves, do their job on the pitch, and leave. But a lot of football is camaraderie and togetherness. And if you want to be successful and win things you need to have that camaraderie as a group. You need to be able to laugh. But you also have to know when to be serious. And Alex was always like that. He was always as much a part of the laughing and joking with the boys, but when it came to training, when it was time to get serious, he was the first one to do things properly and demand it from other people. Having him in and around the squad is a manager’s dream.”
Pawlett meanwhile, also highlighted Gilbey’s personality as a major strength of his. “He’s very loud. Always a bit of a joker. He was great to have in the dressing room, all the boys seemed to connect with him very well.
“He had that switch though. Yeah, he would have a laugh, but when things got serious he would switch onto another kind of character.”
Gilbey made his Charlton debut from the bench during Saturday’s 3–1 victory against Swindon Town in the Carabao Cup and the early signs were certainly promising. Entering the game on the hour mark, Gilbey helped his side overcome Jonny Smith’s equaliser to earn a place in the second round. The brief cameo flashed signs of the all-action midfielder his former teammates raved about. The ease on the ball, the tackling, and the energy were all evident to see.
Charlton need Gilbey to become equally influential with his new team as he was at his previous clubs. Really though, there’s no reason to think he won’t excel in SE7. As O’Connor puts it simply; “Charlton have got themselves a very good player.”
