The Wanderer - issue 119 - http://www.wwisc.co.uk/

Steve Brown. Another Wycombe legend, ‘Brownie’ got a late equaliser against Wimbledon,
but was harshly sent off at Leicester. After ten years at the club and over 400 appearances,
Brown retired in 2004, but a few months later was back at the club after being appointed
assistant manager alongside Keith Ryan. The pair left in June 2007 and in July Brown was
appointed academy manager at QPR, a post he held until 2009. He headed to south east
Asia, running the Indonesian U16 side and coaching on Vietnamese reality TV show ‘Soccer
Prince’. Back in Britain, he worked as an academy scout for Everton, an academy auditor
and in talent identification for Adidas. He later became Head of regional talent identification
for the FA, before joining MK Dons as head of academy coaching. He is now lead talent
identification coordinator for Arsenal and head of greens at Buckingham Golf Club
Matt Brady. A young left winger signed from non-league Boreham Wood in 1999, Brady got
off to a good start at Adams Park, scoring on his full debut away at Preston North End. He
played in both Third Round games against Grimsby before starting the Fourth Round match
with Wolves, but never realised his full potential and after just five more appearances was
released at the end of the season. In 2005 he set up bespoke personal assistant/concierge
service Limelight Access Lifestyle, based in Clerkenwell, London, which boasts a number of
Premiership and International footballers among its many celebrity clients.
Roy Essandoh. The unemployed Irish-Ghanaian journeyman striker who became a Chairboys
hero. Essandoh was out of work, having played in Scotland, Austria, Finland and the English
non-league (without much success) when his agent saw Lawrie Sanchez’s Teletext plea for a
fit, non-cup-tied striker. The rest is history, the sub’s 90 th minute header earning Wycombe
a place in the Semi-Finals and Essandoh front page fame around the world. It was the only
goal ever scored for the club. Essandoh was released that summer and went on to enjoy a
nomadic career in non-league, turning out for eleven different clubs over the next decade,
before retiring in 2012 after a season with Bury Town. With diplomas in sports conditioning
and sports massage therapy, Essandoh now works in Chesterton, Cambridge as a personal
trainer, strength and conditioning coach and sports therapist.
Lawrie Sanchez. After overseeing Wycombe’s FA Cup success, great things were expected
from the young manager, but the following season saw Wycombe finish 11th. With crowds
falling and key players leaving to cut costs, Wycombe fell to an 18th place finish in 2002/03
and after a dreadful start to 2003/04, Sanchez was fired and replaced by John Gorman. He
was named Northern Ireland manager the following year and oversaw a huge improvement
that saw them leap almost 100 places to 27 th in the FIFA rankings, and get a famous 1-0 win
over England. In April 2007 he joined Premiership strugglers Fulham, steering them to safety
thanks to a 1-0 win over Liverpool on the penultimate day of the season, but was sacked in
December after a poor start. After a long time out the game, he joined Barnet in April 2011
as a football consultant, the Bees narrowly escaping relegation from the Football League.
Sanchez took over as manager that summer, but Barnet continued to struggle and Sanchez
was sacked with three games remaining. In November 2013 he took over Greek Superleague
side Apollon Smyrni, but left after they were relegated at the end of the season. In 2020 he
graduated from Salford University as a Master of Business Administration and now works as
a football consultant in Reading, occasionally appearing on TV as a pundit.
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