Kevin Richardson (footballer)

Kevin Richardson
Personal information
Full name Kevin Richardson[1]
Date of birth (1962-12-04) 4 December 1962
Place of birth Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Height 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Playing position Midfielder
Club information
Current team
 Newcastle United (Under 18s Coach)
Youth career
– Montagu and North Fenham BC
1978–1980 Everton
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1980–1986 Everton 109 (16)
1986–1987 Watford 39 (2)
1987–1990 Arsenal 96 (5)
1990–1991 Real Sociedad 37 (0)
1991–1995 Aston Villa 141 (13)
1995–1997 Coventry City 78 (0)
1997–1998 Southampton 28 (0)
1998–2000 Barnsley 30 (0)
2000 → Blackpool (loan) 11 (1)
2000 Blackpool 9 (0)
Total 578 (40)
National team
1994 England 1 (0)

* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.


Kevin Richardson (born 4 December 1962) is an English former footballer who made more than 500 appearances in the Football League and Premier League, playing for Everton, Watford, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Coventry City, Southampton, Barnsley and Blackpool, and also spent a season in La Liga with Real Sociedad. He was capped once for England.[2][3] In October 2009 he was appointed assistant manager of Darlington.

Playing career

Richardson was born in Newcastle upon Tyne[2] where he played football for Montagu and North Fenham Boys club.[4] He joined Everton as a schoolboy in 1978 and turned professional in 1980. A versatile midfielder, the young Richardson often had to be content with deputising for the likes of Paul Bracewell, Peter Reid and Kevin Sheedy. However, he still carved out a semi-regular place, and played in the Everton teams that lost the 1984 League Cup Final to Liverpool after a replay[5] and won the FA Cup in 1984. He won a First Division winner's medal the following year. He made 113 appearances for the Toffees, scoring 16 goals.

He moved at the start of the 1986–87 season to Watford, but only spent a season there before moving on to Arsenal for £200,000.[6] Richardson succeeded Graham Rix on the Arsenal left wing, and played in the 1988 League Cup Final as Arsenal lost to Luton Town,[5] before moving over to the right for Arsenal's 1988–89 title-winning season to cover for the injured Paul Davis. Most notably, Richardson played in Arsenal's dramatic victory at Anfield where they won the title in the last minute of the last game of the season. Now a Championship winner at two different clubs, Richardson continued to be a regular the following season at Arsenal; however, he never totally got on with Gunners manager George Graham, and he was transferred to Real Sociedad for £750,000 in the summer of 1990. He made 121 appearances for Arsenal, and scored 8 goals.

Richardson's time at Real was short. He moved back to England in the summer of 1991, signing for Ron Atkinson's Aston Villa for £450,000, and was an ever-present in his first two seasons at the club.[7] Richardson became Villa's captain, and led the club to runners-up spot in the inaugural season of the Premier League and victory over Manchester United in the 1994 League Cup Final,[5] in which he won the Man of the Match award.[8] While at Villa, he also won his one and only cap for England, in a 5–0 friendly victory over Greece on 17 May 1994.[1]

Richardson followed his old boss Atkinson to Coventry City in 1995, and spent the next two-and-a-half years at the Sky Blues repeatedly fending off relegation under both Atkinson and his successor, Gordon Strachan.[9] He left Coventry in September 1997, having scored once in the League Cup against Hull City,[10] and had spells at Southampton, Barnsley[11] and finally Blackpool.[2] Richardson retired from playing in 2000, his career finishing on a low after Blackpool were relegated to Division Three in his final game.

Coaching career

After retirement, Richardson took up coaching. He became youth team manager at Sunderland, and then Carlton Palmer's assistant at Stockport County in 2001. He returned to Sunderland as reserve team coach in 2004[12] and became first team coach following the club's takeover by a consortium headed by Niall Quinn.[13] Incoming manager Roy Keane initially retained Richardson in this capacity before replacing him with former Manchester United coach Neil Bailey.[12] Richardson then went to Newcastle United's Academy as a team coach. In October 2009 he was appointed as assistant manager to Steve Staunton at Darlington.[14]

References

  1. 1 2 "Kevin Richardson". Englandstats. Retrieved 6 January 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 "Kevin Richardson". UK A–Z Transfers. Neil Brown. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  3. ↑ "Kevin Richardson". Soccerbase. Centurycomm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
  4. ↑ Lamb, Liz (14 November 2008). "Club's Generations of Goals And Glory" (reprint). Newcastle Evening Chronicle. Entrepreneur Media. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  5. 1 2 3 Fort, Didier (25 February 2001). "England – League Cup Finals 1961–2001". RSSSF. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
  6. ↑ "Kevin Richardson Arsenal FC". Football Heroes. Sporting Heroes Collections. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  7. ↑ "Kevin Richardson Aston Villa FC". Football Heroes. Sporting Heroes Collections. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  8. ↑ "Alan Hardaker Trophy Winners". The Football League. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  9. ↑ "Previous Managers". Coventry City F.C. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  10. ↑ "Coventry 2 (2) – 0 (0) Hull". Soccerbase. 20 September 1995. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  11. ↑ "Kevin Richardson Barnsley FC". Football Heroes. Sporting Heroes Collections. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  12. 1 2 Laws, Ian (29 November 2007). "Black Cats offload Richardson". Sunderland Echo. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  13. ↑ "Quinn searches for world class boss". Sunderland Echo. 25 July 2006. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  14. ↑ Wilson, Scott (5 October 2009). "Darlington appoint Staunton as manager". The Northern Echo. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Stuart Gray		 Aston Villa captain
1992–1995 		Succeeded by
Andy Townsend
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.