Simon Ernest Royce (born 9 September 1971) is an English football coach and former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who is goalkeeping coach at

Leyton Orient Leyton Orient Football Club is a professional football club based in Leyton, East London, England, who compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They are the second oldest football club in London to play at a professio ...

, As a player he was a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

who played in the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

for

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...

and

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

, although he spent the rest of his career in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

with notable spells at

Southend United Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Southend are known as ...

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...

and Gillingham. He also played for

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

and

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1885, it is nicknam ...

. Since taking up coaching he has been registered as a back-up player for both

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

and back with Gillingham.

Playing career

Royce began his career with non-League Heybridge Swifts and after claiming the number one jersey off long standing Albie Bridge while still a teenager soon attracted the interest of many Football League sides. He joined

for a £35,000 fee in October 1991 and became the first Heybridge player to be sold to a professional club. He spent a few seasons as understudy to

Paul Sansome Paul Eric Sansome (born 6 October 1961) is an English former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He made more than 150 appearances in the Football League for Millwall and more than 300 for Southend United. Football career Sansom ...

before finally establishing himself as the Shrimpers' first choice and a fans' favourite – he played in the successful Southend side in the mid 1990s under

Barry Fry Barry Francis Fry (born 7 April 1945) is an English former football player and manager. A winger, Fry was an apprentice at Manchester United in his youth, and had brief spells with Bolton Wanderers, Luton Town and Leyton Orient, before he reti ...

and later

Peter Taylor Peter Taylor may refer to: Arts * Peter Taylor (writer) (1917–1994), American author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction * Peter Taylor (film editor) (1922–1997), English film editor, winner of an Academy Award for Film Editing Politic ...

before

manager

Alan Curbishley Llewellyn Charles "Alan" Curbishley (born 8 November 1957) is an English former football player and manager. He played as a midfielder for West Ham United, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, Charlton Athletic and Brighton & Hove Albion and has worke ...

snapped him up on a free transfer. Despite some strong performances in the Premier League, including many clean sheets resulting in setting a post-war club record, injury prevented Royce from establishing himself as regularly as he would have liked and, after the arrival of

Dean Kiely Dean Laurence Kiely (born 10 October 1970) is a former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is the goalkeeping coach at Premier League club Crystal Palace and the Republic of Ireland national team. Born in England, he won elev ...

, he rejoined former boss Peter Taylor at

. Some good early form resulted with speculation about an England call-up for new manager Sven-Goran Eriksson's initial squad, however this never materialised and further injuries prevented Royce from making as many first team appearances as he possibly could. A second spell at Charlton followed before he moved into the lower tiers of the Football League with

(on loan),

(on loan) and

(on loan) again teaming up with Peter Taylor. During a

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

vs QPR game, he was attacked by a Stoke fan. Royce joined Gillingham in April 2007 as an emergency loan signing after the Kent team were left with no fit goalkeepers for their final three matches of the season, making his debut for Gillingham in the 3–2 home win over

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

on 21 April 2007. In August 2007 he joined Gillingham on a free transfer, saying that he intended to see out the rest of his career at Gillingham and his performances in goal won him the Supporters' Player of the Year award for the 2007–08 season. He was first choice goalkeeper at Gillingham again in the promotion season of 2008–09 and at the beginning of the following season. He was forced out of the team by injuries sustained in a car accident in December 2009 and never regained his place from

Alan Julian Alan John Julian (born 11 March 1983) is a professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for National League South club Hampton & Richmond Borough. Julian started his career at Brentford, progressing through the club's academy and makin ...

Coaching career

His Gillingham contract expired at the end of that season and although he had been offered a goalkeeper/coach role at Gillingham, he opted in June 2010 to take up the role at

, where he remained until the end of the 2017–18 season. He returned to Gillingham as a goalkeeping coach in June 2019 and was listed on the bench against

Oxford United Oxford United Football Club is a professional football club in the city of Oxford, England. The team plays in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The chairman is Grant Ferguson, the manager is Karl Robinson and t ...

due to an injury to second-choice keeper

Joe Walsh Joseph Fidler Walsh (born November 20, 1947) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In a career spanning over five decades, he has been a member of three successful rock bands: the James Gang, Eagles, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr B ...

. He is also one of the oldest players to appear in a football video game as an active footballer when he appeared in ''

FIFA 20 ''FIFA 20'' is a football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts as part of the ''FIFA'' series. It is the 27th installment in the series and was released on 27 September 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nint ...

'', making his first appearance in the series since '' FIFA 11''. The Kent side announced in June 2020 that Royce would be released when his contract expired the following month. In 2021 Royce joined

as goalkeeping coach under

Kenny Jackett Kenneth Francis Jackett (born 5 January 1962) is a former professional football player and manager, who is currently Director of Football at club Gillingham. A skilful left-footed player, able to play in defence or midfield, Jackett was cappe ...

Career statistics

Honours

Gillingham *

Football League Two play-offs The EFL League Two play-offs are a series of play-off matches contested by the association football teams finishing from fourth to seventh in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. They are part of the annual Engli ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

Individual * Gillingham Player of the Season: 2007–08 * Southend United Player of the Season: 1995–96

References

External links

*
Simon Royce
at premierleague.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Royce, Simon 1971 births Living people Footballers from Forest Gate English footballers Association football goalkeepers Heybridge Swifts F.C. players Southend United F.C. players Charlton Athletic F.C. players Leicester City F.C. players Luton Town F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Manchester City F.C. players Queens Park Rangers F.C. players Gillingham F.C. players Brentford F.C. players English Football League players Premier League players Brentford F.C. non-playing staff Gillingham F.C. non-playing staff Leyton Orient F.C. non-playing staff Association football goalkeeping coaches