‘I signed Bobby Zamora without watching him play’

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Former manager on signing man who fired us into the Championship.

2025-06-11T06:00+01:00

Bobby Zamora scored 51 goals across two spells with Albion.

Back to back promotions and a brilliant playing career might not have happened for Bobby Zamora had Micky Adams not taken a punt on the striker.

The former Albion manager revealed in the Official Brighton & Hove Albion Podcast that it was only the need for a big forward that prompted him to take the then 19-year-old on loan for the last three months of the 1999/2000 season.

“The God's honest truth about Bobby is that we needed a big centre forward and I'd rung around everywhere,” Adams explained. “I'd been everywhere because I was doing the scouting as well while I was at the club – we didn't have scouts all around the country. We had probably one or two, but if we wanted to look at players then I went out and did it. But Bobby Zamora was somebody I took without seeing play.

“I rang up Ian Holloway at Bristol Rovers and said, ‘Ian, have you got a big centre forward’, he said, ‘Mick, we've got this young, gangly lad, he's just been at Bath and scored a few goals. He's come back, but he's not going to get in my team’. I asked how much is he on and he said he's on about £130 a week.

"I said send him down and I took him blind. He came in and wow. The rest is history.”

Bobby’s transfer would be made permanent that summer for £100,000, and his goals would fire us to back-to-back promotions from the fourth tier up to the second.

Adams says it was Bobby’s combination of ability and mentality that got him all the way to the top, and saw him go on to score 190 goals in professional football.

“I love him. He was very, very clever. They said about Bobby Zamora, ‘he scored goals in the second division, but I'm not sure he's going to score them in the first’, he went into the first division and scored goals. Then he went into the Premier League and scored goals and in Europe too.

Micky Adams enjoyed promotion with Albion in 2001. 📷 by Bennett Dean.

“The one thing about Bobby was when I pointed the finger at him at half-time or at the end of a game he didn't sulk. If you wanted more from him he'd give it to you.

"They were a hardened group and without a shadow of a doubt it made him better. He had a lot of growing up to do but he was intelligent. He knew where to run.

“Paul Watson for instance, could put a set-piece on a tanner. Bobby would make his runs and Paul would pick him out. Bobby was a very, very intelligent footballer.”