Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Lee Trundle lashes home for Swansea City against Carlisle at the Millennium Stadium.
Lee Trundle lashes home for Swansea City against Carlisle at the Millennium Stadium. Photograph: Lee Mills/Action Images
Lee Trundle lashes home for Swansea City against Carlisle at the Millennium Stadium. Photograph: Lee Mills/Action Images

Golden Goal: Lee Trundle for Swansea City v Carlisle United (2006)

This article is more than 6 years old

Scoring spectacular goals has never been a problem for Trundle, but his sweetest strike of all came in the Football League Trophy final in Cardiff

His showreel is teeming with tricks and flicks, feints, shoulder rolls and keepie-uppies. His showboating put bums on seats in one sense and swept supporters off their feet in another. He was a viral footballer with an innate self-confidence, a working-class hero to many. He was also the subject, in 2005, of comparisons with David Beckham after becoming the first player outside the top flight to sign an image-rights deal with then third-tier club Swansea City.

Signed on a free transfer in 2003, Lee Trundle was a poster boy striker and a football celebrity who brought Swansea glamour and goals. In 2007, Bristol City bought him for £1m and while there he would drive down Portishead high street in his Bentley, only too happy to sign schoolchildren’s maths and science books as he went. The charismatic Liverpudlian was famed, in particular for his back catalogue of flash haircuts and sumptuous strikes – more often than not from distance. “I am not the type of player that scores those tap-ins in the box, most are from outside the area” Trundle says. “My goals are usually a bit different, it’s nice to be known like that.”

Finding the net has never been a problem for Trundle. His best career tally pre-dates his professional days, when he scored 87 times in 19 matches for Huyton-based pub team, Quiet Man. Trundle, now 41, came out of retirement last year to play for Llanelli Town, managed by former Neath team-mate Andy Hill. They won the league, Cup and promotion to the Welsh Football League Division One after going the season unbeaten. Trundle played his part, scoring 51 goals in 30 matches, including nine hat-tricks – one of which came in injury-time against Abergavenny Town. In the summer, alongside Louis Carey, Barry Hayles and Jamie Cureton, he helped England to victory against Iran in the Seniors World Cup in Thailand.

Trundle, affectionately known as ‘Magic Daps’ in south Wales and beyond, is still scoring – earlier this month, he bagged four in a 6-1 win at Aberaeron. The sweetest goal of all, though, came in April 2006 for Swansea against Carlisle United in the Football League Trophy final in Cardiff.

“At the time, getting to the final of that was a big thing for us, at that level we were playing at at that time,” he says. “I went to close the keeper down, he’s kicked it against me, it’s come out to a 50-50 and Robbo [Andy Robinson] sort of nicks the ball away, and it’s come out to Leon Britton on the right-hand side. He’s then lofted a cross to the far side of the box, I’ve just taken a touch on my chest and then hit it from this really tight angle.”

Hit it he did. His ferocious low effort would arrow off the side netting and into the very corner of Keiren Westwood’s goal. “Where it went in was probably the only place I could have put it, the technique and the occasion make it my favourite goal,” he says. “When everybody asks me about it or they speak about it, they say why did I take it first time or let it drop – other people might played it a bit safe or tried to get it down to feet to get it down to cross it – but luckily for me it went in. When you try and execute something in your head and it comes off it makes it even more special.”

With the ball already well on its way, Trundle swivelled and ran back towards the touchline – with one arm aloft. Team-mates Garry Monk, Adebayo Akinfenwa, Kristian O’Leary and Alan Tate joined Trundle as he roared towards an army of watching family and friends. “I remember shouting up and it was a special moment to celebrate,” he says. “There must have been about 20 of them; my mum, step-dad, friends, and cousins – just everybody was at that game. Even though the Millennium Stadium is a massive ground I remembered seeing all their faces as clear as day.” The post-match celebrations, however, were a bit of a blur.

Swansea arrived in pinstripe black suits but it was what Trundle and Tate were pictured wearing come the full-time celebrations that landed them in hot water. Trundle pulled on a T-shirt with a cartoon of a man relieving himself on a Cardiff City shirt before waving a Welsh flag bearing the words “Fuck off, Cardiff” alongside Tate. “I was on my own on the side of the pitch when a T-shirt got thrown in front of me,” Trundle said in his biography, More Than Just Tricks. “I shoved it on for a few seconds without really paying much attention to what was on it.”

Trundle and that T-shirt. Photograph: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Both players insisted they did not intend to offend but, in reality, it only enhanced their statuses at Swansea. The police and football authorities took a dimmer view. Both players received one-match bans and missed the first match of the following season, a home defeat by Cheltenham Town. Trundle was fined a week’s wages and even received an asbo, due to the nature of the message. But before getting bogged down in apologies, Trundle remembers a special evening.

“We went back to the Morgans Hotel in Swansea. All of the team, the staff and families had a good party,” he says. “The bus journey home was brilliant, and it was not too long because we were fairly close in Cardiff. I remember seeing a load of Swansea fans through the windows, all the black and white shirts and things.”

Other notable strikes, a half-volley against Yeovil Town six months earlier, and against Crystal Palace for Bristol City, under the lights in 2008 – “a great night and one I’ll always remember” – punctuate a memorable period in his career. The latter put the Robins 90 minutes from the Premier League. These are the goals that Trundle says dictate conversations today, depending on which side of the Severn Bridge he finds himself. “We will always talk about them goals, it’s nice to hear the fans speak about it,” he says. “And it relives the memory for me as well.”

After falling out of favour at Ashton Gate, loan moves followed to Leeds United and then back to Swansea. In 2010 came a slightly left-field permanent move, when he rejected Football League clubs in favour of a move to the Welsh Premier League. “Being honest, I went to Bristol for money and I missed being away from Swansea and in the city,” he admits. “I thought I would rather be happy in my life than just accept whatever, so that is why I went to Neath.”

There, over two seasons, he rediscovered his goalscoring touch before returning to the English league pyramid, sliding downwards via Preston, Chester and Marine before retiring in 2013. Trundle returned to Swansea where he was appointed ambassador of what was now a Premier League club. Lured back in by Hill last year, today he scores goals for Llanelli. Some things never change.

@LeeTrundle10 that was naughty mate 😍 pic.twitter.com/OnG4G6AeX1

— Jordan (@JordanWebber96) December 4, 2016

“I am out and about in the community every day, and it’s the same goal, against Carlisle, every time,” he says, laughing. “We will have a different outlook on it every single time. It was only two-and-a-half minutes into the game so a lot of fans said they had only just got in and took their seat. It’s great to have made an impact on fans and for them to remember you for certain goals. Every time they tell me about it, it’s special for me.”

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed