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 lea ...

who is goalkeeping coach at

Leyton Orient Leyton Orient Football Club, commonly referred to as Orient, is a professional association football club based in Leyton, Waltham Forest, London, England. The team compete in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. ...

. As a player he was a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), 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 i ...

who played in the

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

for

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is a professional association football club based in Charlton, south-east London, England. The team compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system. Their home ground is ...

and

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

, although he spent the rest of his career in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

with notable spells at

Southend United Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, which competes in the National League, the fifth level of English football. The team are known as "The Shrimpers", a reference ...

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional association football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English f ...

and Gillingham. He also played for

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, commonly referred to as Brighton, is a professional football club based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Their home gr ...

Manchester City Manchester City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the English football league system, top flight of Football in England, English footbal ...

and

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club from Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The club currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "The Hatters", L ...

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

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West (London sub region), West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the River Thames, Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has dive ...

and back with Gillingham.

Playing career

Royce began his career with non-League

Heybridge Swifts Heybridge Swifts Football Club is a football club based in Heybridge, near Maldon, Essex, England. They are currently members of the and play at Scraley Road. History The club was established in 1880 as Heybridge Football Club. After joining t ...

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 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. An inside forward, Fry scored a goal for England Schoolboys in front of nearly 100,000 supporters at Wembley and was seen as the best player in the team. H ...

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. He became ma ...

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 association football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. The team competes in the , the second level of the English football league system. Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, the cl ...

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 , the third tier of the English football league system. Vale are named after the valley of ports on the Trent and Mersey Canal ...

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.

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 association football, football club based in Oxford, England. The club compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football league system, English football. Founded as Headingto ...

due to an injury to second-choice keeper

Joe Walsh Joseph Fidler Walsh (born Joseph Woodward Fidler; November 20, 1947) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Best known as a member of the rock band Eagles (band), Eagles, his five-decade career includes solo work and stints in other ...

. 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 ''FIFA 11'', titled ''FIFA Soccer 11'' in North America, is a football simulation video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts worldwide under the EA Sports label. It was released on 28 September 2010 in North America, 30 Se ...

''. 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 an English football manager and former player who played for Watford. He was most recently director of football at club Gillingham. A skilful left-footed player, able to play in defence or midf ...

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 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

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

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Royce, Simon 1971 births Living people Footballers from the London Borough of Newham People from Forest Gate English men's footballers Men's 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