Simon Ernest Royce (born 9 September 1971) is an English football coach and former professional footballer who is goalkeeping coach at Leyton Orient. As a player he was a goalkeeper who played in the Premier League for Charlton Athletic and Leicester City, although he spent the rest of his career in the Football League with notable spells at Southend United, Queens Park Rangers and Gillingham. He also played for Brighton & Hove Albion, Manchester City and Luton Town. Since taking up coaching he has been registered as a back-up player for both Brentford and back with Gillingham. Playing career Royce began his career with non-League Heybridge Swifts and after claiming the number one jersey off long standing Albie Bridge while still a teenager soon attracted the interest of many Football League sides. He joined Southend United for a £35,000 fee in October 1991 and became the first Heybridge player to be sold to a professional club. He spent a few seasons as understudy to Paul Sansome before finally establishing himself as the Shrimpers' first choice and a fans' favourite – he played in the successful Southend side in the mid 1990s under Barry Fry and later Peter Taylor before Charlton Athletic manager Alan Curbishley snapped him up on a free transfer. Despite some strong performances in the Premier League, including many clean sheets resulting in setting a post-war club record, injury prevented Royce from establishing himself as regularly as he would have liked and, after the arrival of Dean Kiely, he rejoined former boss Peter Taylor at Leicester City. Some good early form resulted with speculation about an England call-up for new manager Sven-Goran Eriksson's initial squad, however this never materialised and further injuries prevented Royce from making as many first team appearances as he possibly could. A second spell at Charlton followed before he moved into the lower tiers of the Football League with Queens Park Rangers, Manchester City (on loan), Luton Town (on loan) and Brighton & Hove Albion (on loan) again teaming up with Peter Taylor. During a Stoke City vs QPR game, he was attacked by a Stoke fan. Royce joined Gillingham in April 2007 as an emergency loan signing after the Kent team were left with no fit goalkeepers for their final three matches of the season, making his debut for Gillingham in the 3–2 home win over Port Vale on 21 April 2007. In