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Leeds United and Brighton do not exactly have an illustrious shared history. Both clubs can say they were managed by Brian Clough during the least successful spell of Old Big ‘Ead’s career. Other than that, the list of players to appear for Leeds and Brighton is dominated by lower league loanees. Ben White is an obvious standout. Ian Westlake and Billy Paynter less so.
Seb Carole is another player on that list, signing for Leeds from Brighton in 2006 before returning to the South Coast three years later via a short spell at Darlington. Carole was relegated to League One with both Leeds and Brighton, but can at least claim to be part of the cult United team that immediately erased the fifteen point deduction at the start of 2007/08. His involvement was a testament to Carole proving Dennis Wise wrong. Upon taking over at Leeds, Wise had written Carole off as “French and a little bit lazy”.
“The 2007/08 season, when Leeds reached the play-off final, was the best time of my career,” Carole told Planet Football in 2018. “The spirit we had in the squad and the relationship we had with the supporters was amazing. The squad was like a family and we used to go in early to training and not rush back as we were happy to be together, eating lunch and enjoying each other’s company.”
Carole remains in Yorkshire to this day — his son, Keenan, plays for Leeds Under-21s — and he ended his playing career appearing for local non-league clubs Guiseley, Harrogate, Bradford Park Avenue, Tadcaster and Knaresborough.
Despite embracing Yorkshire and England as his home, Carole is still learning about some of the delicacies. Appearing on the Only Football Fans podcast a couple of years ago, he was asked by Leeds fan Terry whether he had ever tried Marmite. Carole admitted he had never had it, asking, “Is it nice? Is it good?” Well, Seb, that’s kinda the USP: you either love it or you hate it.
Carole promised to try it and was as good as his word, filming himself tasting Marmite for the first time later that day. The method was controversial — who tears off a piece of (very lightly toasted) toast to add a bit of spread? Even if he didn’t want much, he could have just spread the Marmite on a small corner of the slice.
I’m not sure what Carole was expecting, but even the consistency of the spread inspires an, “Oh wow! Ahhh, no way, man.” Like all good clickbait, I’ll leave you to watch the video yourself and discover his verdict. But if the history of Leeds United and Brighton has given us just one thing to be thankful for, it’s that we might never have found out whether Carole loves or hates Marmite without each other.
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