Recalling Corbett, the converted right-back who reached the Brewers' top 10

Quiet man Andy had a testimonial after 10 years then ended his career to cycle around the world

If older Burton Albion fans were asked to name the players who formed the top 10 in the club’s all-time appearances list, names like Darren Stride, Aaron Webster, Phil Annable, Nick Goodwin and Nigel Simms – the top five – would trip off the tongue quickly.

Mick Fletcher, Andy Harrison, Simon Redfern and Allan Davies might well be offered up next, although Terry Finney, with 434 appearances from 1959 to 1971 might not be so obvious.

Yet one of those 10, Fletcher, was eased out of the top 10 at the end of the 2011-12 season by a man whose name you might be surprised is in there.

That man is Andy Corbett, who slipped past Fletcher’s 365 appearances into the top 10 on the last day of the 2010-11 season, a 2-1 defeat at home to Barnet. He added 12 more appearances the following season, Gary Rowett’s first full season in charge, before bowing out fully fit at the age of 31.

He had had a month on loan at Hereford United that spring and probably would not have been offered another year but he finished with a testimonial, at which Webster, John McGrath and Nathan Stanton also took their last bows as Brewers, against Derby County which finished 8-8.

Corbett was always a bit different, a quiet, albeit unfailingly polite man for whom football, you sensed, was not his all-consuming passion. A man with an impressively honed physique, he continued to work as a fitness trainer for most of his career and still does now, with his own company, Group Fit Training.

But when football was finished, he and his brother set off to cycle 35,000 miles around the world - not your average footballer’s first steps in retirement. They achieved it in two years.

Corbett’s, was with no disrespect to him at all, an unusual football career, not least for its longevity with the Brewers. He was signed as a striker from Nuneaton Borough by Nigel Clough and came with a reputation. He had banged in 25 goals in 42 games for Solihull Borough, then five in 12 for Nuneaton.

But, in the Conference, he did not find goals so easy to come by and, as he struggled to make an impact in his early games, it began to look as if he might have stepped up a level too far. He scored only one goal in 25 appearances in his first season.

There followed another twist of fate. On August 21, 2004, right-back Terry Henshaw, who made exactly 300 appearances for the club, broke his leg after only 12 minutes.

Nigel Clough’s managerial career is dotted with occasions when he has seen something in a player that has made him suggest a change of position and Corbett was asked to stand in at right-back. Although there were still occasional games up front, those were more as a stand-in when someone else was injured. Corbett took to the role so well that he was named player of the year at the end of that season, the last player to receive that accolade at Eton Park.

Again he had scored one goal and both of those had come against Leigh Genesis. How can I put this without sounding rude? Corbett did not always look a natural right-back. Sometimes, a ball up the line would slide out of play, bringing groans from the stands. Sometimes he would look all at sea against a tricky winger. Torquay United’s Danny Stevens frequently terrorised him.

But Corbett always kept going. Sometimes there was an attempt to replace him with a more natural right-back. Sometimes he was asked to fill in up front again. Whichever, he just kept on bouncing back and keeping his place. He must have been a manager’s dream, in much the same way that Lucas Akins has been since he joined the club, a player who always turned up as fit as he could possibly be and got on with his job without complaint.

A Corbett booking was a rarity, too. None in either of his first two seasons, a total of four in his next three seasons and – what? – a red card in the 2005-06 season. It was for handball on the line in a 3-0 defeat away to Scarborough.

Corbett was a bit of a monster in 2011-12. He was booked in each of the first three League Two games on his way to piling up six bookings and a sending off. That one, against Hereford United, was for tripping teenage midfielder Tom Barkhuizen, now starring for Preston North End, although Ross Atkins saved Barkhuizen’s penalty.

Perhaps the moment most fans will remember from Corbett’s time with Burton, though, is a vital, albeit fortunate, goal he scored in the run-in to the Conference title season in 2008-09.

Histon were the visitors to the Pirelli Stadium, still chasing the play-offs themselves and the Brewers desperately needed a performance to cling on to some of the lead at the top of the table that had been eroded by a run of five defeats in nine matches.

That day, they got one. They were a goal up through Aaron Webster but living nervously when, after 53 minutes, Darren Stride had a header blocked on the line and the ball was cleared to Corbett on the right touchline. He hoofed a speculative cross – and watched it sail into the top corner of the net.

Ryan Austin, thrust unusually into an attacking midfield role from the bench, then scored his first goal for the club with the aplomb of a seasoned striker and the Brewers won 3-1 to leave themselves needing two points from three games to guarantee the title. I wrote at the time that the job was as good as done but, as we now know. Albion contrived to lose their last three games before winning the title anyway.

After the last game, away to Torquay, in the after-match euphoria, I sought Corbett out for an interview, partly because he so rarely gave them, partly because I felt he had played such a big role, over a period of time. He sat in the deserted home end, just taking it all in, and, because he was Andy Corbett, he was still polite but he couldn’t find many words to describe what had happened. Perhaps quite a lot of us couldn’t.

No matter. Corbett’s place in the Brewers’ history was secure. That he would go to sneak into the top 10 in the all-time appearances list is still a surprise but, quite possibly, something that will never be taken away from him, although Akins sits on 274, 134 behind Corbett and two behind Clive Arthur, in 20th place overall.