Brighton once completed one of football's most bizarre signings by handing a playing contract to recently-sacked manager
05.06.26, 08:00 Updated 04.06.26, 19:35 4 Minute Read
Felix May
Footballers often filter into management and coaching roles at the end of their playing careers. What is far less common, however, is that once the boots are put away for the tactics board, they then come back out of the cupboard. That’s the bizarre story of Phil Stant: the player turned manager, turned player once more.
Stant kicked off his career with Reading as a teenager, playing four times and scoring twice. However, military service called in 1982, so the 18-year-old’s momentum as a player halted as he went off to serve in the Falklands.
The Englishman was part of operations in the South Atlantic before joining the SAS and later branching into the bomb disposal unit. Whilst on duty, Stant saw things that most people would struggle to overcome. His resilience, though, could not be overstated, later saying how the day he witnessed an aerial attack at Port Pleasant was ‘the day I grew up’.
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Felix May