Royce began his career with non-League
Heybridge Swifts and after claiming the number one jersey from 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 him 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. 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 August 2007 he joined Gillingham on a free transfer, saying that he intended to see out the rest of his career at Gillingham and his performances in goal won him the Supporters' Player of the Year award for the
2007–08 season. He was first choice goalkeeper at Gillingham again in the promotion season of 2008–09 and at the beginning of the following season. He was forced out of the team by injuries sustained in a car accident in December 2009 and never regained his place from
Alan Julian. ==Coaching career==