HINDSIGHT is a wonderful thing but few would disagree that Sami Hyypia’s reign as Albion manager was doomed almost from the start.
Inexperienced boss Hyypia had barely got his feet under the table at the Amex before former Liverpool assistant manager, Sammy Lee, pulled the rug from under his proposed new regime.
Hyypia, not unreasonably, had thought the former no.2 to Rafa Benitez would bring vital experience to his backroom team because the Albion position was only the former Reds central defender’s second managerial job.
Hyypia had only been in post three weeks, so, it would be fair to say, Lee’s decision must have been a hammer blow – especially as his first choice for no.2 said ‘no’ too! Jan Moritze Lichte, who’d been at Bayer Leverkusen when Hyypia made his managerial bow – which lasted only nine months – had already declined to join him in the UK for “personal reasons”.
Thus, Hyypia had to rely on two of previous boss Oscar Garcia’s coaching staff, Nathan Jones and Joaquin Gomez, to assist on the coaching side, although his fellow countryman, Antti Niemi, did accept the offer to become goalkeeping coach.
On the playing side, there had been a large turnover of personnel in the wake of Garcia’s departure – and, it emerged, the players coming in weren’t being signed by Hyypia but were the picks of head of football operations, David Burke.
It was always going to be a tough ask to replace Leonardo Ulloa up front – and journeyman Chris O’Grady certainly didn’t provide an answer.
There was a sense of excitement when Hyypia’s Liverpool links saw the arrival on loan of Joao Teixeira, but the number of players only at the club on a temporary basis should have been something of a wake-up call.
The permanent signing of one-time West Ham forward Sam Baldock looked like a sound investment – he’d hit the net regularly enough at Bristol City in the division below – but he found goals hard to come by at the higher level.
As if to highlight the player upheaval and shaky managerial team foundations, Albion lost the first two games of the season, single goal defeats at home to Sheffield Wednesday and away to Birmingham City.
If a 2-0 win away to Leeds United followed by a 2-1 home win over Bolton suggested a corner had been turned, Albion then went on an 11-game winless run.
If he hadn’t been aware beforehand, Hyypia would have quickly realised the calibre of player Burke provided him with fell way short of what was required if the side were going to repeat the previous two seasons’ achievement of finishing in the play-off positions.
Not only was there a lack of consistency in personnel on the pitch, those who were selected appeared to be confused as to exactly how Hyypia wanted them to play.
Andy Naylor tried to analyse Hyypia’s philosophy early on in the season, reporting: “We have already seen 4-1-2-3, 4-1-2-2-1, 4-4-1-1. Hyypia is combining Southern European technical accomplishment in possession and mobility with a more Northern European tempo and directness.
“The width is provided by advanced full-backs, the chances for a narrower strike force by the players who like to operate, in modern coaching speak, ‘between the lines’, exploiting pockets of space in the area dividing the opposition defence and midfield.”
The theory might well have been sound but the practice was found wanting.
Having won only one game in 18 matches, and after only six months in charge, Hyypia resigned shortly before Christmas.
At his last home game in charge – a 1-0 defeat to Millwall – the Albion faithful demonstrated they’d had enough, calling for him to go and, in the North Stand, unfurling a banner making that message loud and clear.
Hyypia himself admitted the atmosphere had been tough to handle but, in an interview with the Argus, had vowed to turn things round.
It was an unseemly end for someone who as a player had been rated one of the best defenders ever to pull on a Liverpool shirt. But Hyypia was by no means alone in not being able to continue the prowess he’d shown on the playing side into management.
Liverpoolway.co.uk charts the player’s career succinctly; a Gerard Houllier signing in 1999, over the course of a decade he collected winners medals across several competitions: the Champions League, the FA Cup (twice), the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup (twice), the League Cup (twice) and the Charity Shield.
Born on 7 October 1973 in Porvoo, Finland, Hyypia’s football career blossomed with now dissolved Kuusankosken Kumu before switching to MyPa, where he stayed four years, helping them to win the Finnish Cup in 1992 and 1995. He moved to Holland to play for Willem II for four years where for a time his defensive partner was Jaap Staam, who subsequently played for Manchester United. Liverpool signed Hyypia for £2.6m in 1999, ironically following up a tip from a TV cameraman!
After being capped 27 times by Finland under 21s, he earned his first full cap in 1992 and, with 105 caps for Finland, he is second only to Jari Litmanen as his country’s highest capped player.
After his Liverpool playing days came to an end, Hyypia went to play in the Bundesliga for Bayer Leverkusen and two years later joined the club’s coaching staff.
In a rather unusual arrangement, Hyypia and former under19s coach Sascha Lewandoski jointly replaced Robin Dutt as head coach but Hyypia took sole charge in June 2013. He was sacked in April 2014.
After his brief time in charge of Brighton, it was another eight months before he found another head coach role, this time taking charge of FC Zurich in August 2015. But with the club heading for relegation in May 2016, he was sacked.
The Finn has yet to re-appear in the dugout, although he has pulled on his boots again to play for a Liverpool Legends side. It remains to be seen whether he’ll give coaching or management another go, although he told BT Sport in February 2019: “I will coach and manage again one day but not yet. I get some enquiries quite regularly, but nothing has yet been that interesting I would jump into it.”
He added: “I wouldn’t change any decision to go so quickly into coaching. A lot of people said I made a mistake going into it so early, but I learned a lot.
“You learn a lot more from the bad moments than the good moments. Those years when things were not going my way, I learned so much and I am much better and more ready now.”
Steve Foster challenges Spurs’ Steve Archibald at White Hart Lane
LEGEND is overused far too much in football circles but, in some circumstances, it is justified. That applies to Steve Foster.
He played 800 games in a 21-year career which included nine years with Brighton in two separate spells.
His performances in the top-flight for Brighton led him to play for England at the 1982 World Cup and he lifted the League Cup in 1988 as the captain of Luton Town.
He might have enjoyed a longer spell at Aston Villa if the European Cup-winning manager who signed him hadn’t been unceremoniously dumped by ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis.
Foster became – and, to older fans, still is – synonymous with Brighton & Hove Albion, and football followers the world over could readily identify the captain with the white headband.
In several interviews over the years, he has explained how the distinctive headpiece was actually a piece of padded white towel designed to protect a forehead split open in collisions with centre forwards Andy Gray and Justin Fashanu.
I wonder if physio Mike Yaxley’s wife Sharon, who made up the dressing before every game, realised at the time the key role she played in helping to make Foster one of the most identifiable characters in football.
Foster’s illustrious career is warmly documented in Spencer Vignes’ excellent 2007 book A Few Good Men (Breedon Books Publishing), featuring an interview with the player himself and those who played with him.
For example, Gerry Ryan told Vignes: “Fozzie was a huge player with a huge personality, a real leader and deceptively quick for a big man.
“When he played against the best, like Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish, he was the best. People talk about giving 100 per cent, but Fozzie gave 150 per cent in everything he did, and I mean off the field as well.”
Gordon Smith added: “He was a fantastic person, great fun and a terrific centre half.”
Vignes himself observed: “Steve’s willingness to put his neck on the line for the cause earned him hero status among the fans, together with the complete respect of the dressing room.”
Unsurprisingly, Foster pulls no punches in describing the various characters and events surrounding his colourful career, for instance describing Chris Cattlin as “definitely the wrong man. I told him the truth and what I thought of him.” And, of predecessor Jimmy Melia: “When Jimmy took over it was more like a circus than a football club.”
Foster said the two biggest influences on his career were Frank Burrows, the manager of his first club, Portsmouth, who taught him about balance as the key to strength on the pitch, and Brian Horton, the dynamic midfield driving force he succeeded as Albion captain.
“He shouted and screamed for 90 minutes to help us get results, and to keep everyone on their toes,” said Foster. “If he made a mistake, 10 other people would shout and scream at him, and he would take it. When I was captain at Brighton, and my other clubs, that’s how I tried to be.”
Such a recognisable figure as Albion’s centre-half
Fortunately, sufficient archive film footage remains for fans of different generations to see what a dominant force Foster was at the heart of Brighton’s defence, while I retain plenty of now-yellowing cuttings from the numerous columns of newsprint he filled during his pomp.
Born on 24 September 1957 in Portsmouth, Foster went to St Swithin’s Junior School before moving on to St John’s College. A centre-forward in the early days, he played for the Portsmouth Schools under-12s side but it was Southampton who took him on as an associate schoolboy.
He played in the same youth team as Steve Williams and Nick Holmes, who both went on to have long careers.
But Saints boss Lawrie McMenemy let Foster go at 16, urging him to go elsewhere and prove him wrong. After Foster won his first England cap, McMenemy sent him a congratulatory telegram. “That was class, nothing but class,” Foster told Vignes.
Southampton’s loss was Portsmouth’s gain, courtesy of a tip off from local schoolteacher Harry Bourne to Pompey youth team coach Ray Crawford (who’d previously held a similar role under Pat Saward at Brighton). Bourne ran the Portsmouth and Hampshire schools teams.
Crawford describes in his excellent autobiography Curse of the Jungle Boy (PB Publishing 2007) how he called at the family’s house in Gladys Avenue, Portsmouth, but Foster’s mother was at a works disco at the local Allders store. Wasting no time, he immediately went in pursuit and, against a backdrop of deafening music and flashing lights, shouted above the din that they were interested in signing her son.
Foster called the club the following day and he was invited to play in a youth team game for Portsmouth – against Southampton! “I scored twice because I was playing as a centre-forward then, and they ended up offering me an apprenticeship on £5 per week which was my entry into the professional game,” said Foster.
Reg Tyrell, a respected former chief scout from Crawford’s time at Ipswich, watched the young striker in a youth team training game and declared: “That no.9, he’s no centre-forward but he’d make a good number 5.” A few weeks’ later, manager Ron Tindall’s successor, Ian St John (later Saint and Greavsie TV show partner of Jimmy Greaves), gave Foster his debut as a centre half!
Foster played more than 100 games during Pompey’s slide down through the divisions, and, at 21, had developed something of a fiery reputation. But Brighton boss Alan Mullery saw him as “big and brave, strong in the tackle and good in the air” providing “much-needed stability at the back” as the Seagulls began their first adventure into the top-flight of English football in 1979. He was signed for £150,000.
A couple of disciplinary issues in the early days of the new season looked like proving the doubters right to have warned Mullery off signing him, but an injury to first choice centre back Andy Rollings forced the manager to backtrack on a temporary ban he’d handed out. Foster made the most of his reprieve and never looked back.
By the end of a season in which the side grew collectively Foster was named Player of the Year and he earned international recognition, gaining an England under 21 cap as a substitute for Terry Butcher in a 1-0 defeat against East Germany in Jena on 23 April 1980 (Peter Ward was playing up front).
While the 1980-81 season saw Albion struggle and flirt with relegation, Foster’s tussles with some of the top strikers in the game saw his reputation grow, and he even chipped in with a vital goal in the final home game of the season against Leeds.
When Horton and Mullery departed at the end of that season, Foster took over the captaincy under new boss Mike Bailey, and, even though fans didn’t much like the way Bailey set up his side, Foster thrived with the emphasis on defence first.
England boss Ron Greenwood, who lived in Hove, was in the process of shaping his squad for the 1992 World Cup in Spain and, with injuries affecting some of the other centre backs in contention, Foster was given a chance to prove himself.
I can remember travelling to Wembley on 23 February 1982 to watch him make his debut against Northern Ireland, a game England won 4-0 courtesy of goals from Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan, Bryan Robson and Glenn Hoddle.
I had been to the stadium 10 years before to watch another Albion player – Willie Irvine – make his international comeback in a 1-0 win for the Irish, but it was something special – and rare – to see a Brighton player line up for England.
To break through to the senior team in a World Cup year was a notable achievement, although, by his own admission, he accepted his good fortune directly correlated to injuries ruling out other players.
Although the record books show Foster earned three caps, in fact he represented the country four times that year.
A month after his debut against Northern Ireland, on 23 March, Foster played for an England XI in Bilbao against Athletic Bilbao. The game finished 1-1 with Keegan scoring for England. It didn’t qualify for a cap because it was a testimonial match for retiring Bilbao player Txetxu Rojo, but Greenwood used the fixture to familiarise the players with what was the venue for England’s opening round matches at the World Cup.
Foster also featured in a 2-0 friendly win over the Netherlands (goals by Tony Woodcock and Graham Rix) on 25 May as Greenwood continued to assess his options.
Foster (circled) in Ron Greenwood’s 1982 World Cup squad
When it was clear neither Alvin Martin nor Dave Watson would be fit for the tournament in Spain, Foster was selected as back-up to first choice centre back pairing Terry Butcher and Phil Thompson. Ahead of the third group match, Greenwood didn’t want to risk a ban for the already-booked Butcher, so Foster played alongside Thompson and England won 1-0 against Kuwait; Trevor Francis getting the England goal.
When England didn’t progress past the second phase, Greenwood’s spell as boss came to an end and he was replaced by Bobby Robson who, for his first game in charge, partnered Russell Osman with Butcher – both having played under him at Ipswich Town.
Foster didn’t play for England again.
Much has been written already about the 1982-83 season and Albion’s path to the FA Cup Final. Foster demonstrated real heroism in the semi-final at Highbury, playing through the pain of a septic elbow, and, memorably, towards the end of the game, launched into an overhead kick to clear a goal-bound shot to safety (pictured above).
History records Foster being suspended for the Cup Final – a well-documented appeal to the High Court against a two-game ban for accumulated bookings couldn’t get the decision reversed – but, as is often the case in football, his misfortune presented a golden opportunity for stand-in Gary Stevens who capped a man-of-the-match performance with the equalising goal. What he did that day persuaded Spurs to sign him.
Foster, of course, eventually got his Wembley chance in the replay but with a rampant Manchester United running out easy 4-0 winners, their fans also rather cruelly derided the Albion skipper with the chant I can still hear ringing around Wembley that evening: “Stevie Foster, Stevie Foster, what a difference you have made!”
In truth the whole defence lacked balance in the replay because manager Melia had elected to fill the right-back berth vacated by injury to Chris Ramsey with the left-footed Steve Gatting. He figured Stevens couldn’t be moved from the centre where he had performed so well on the Saturday, but it was a mistake, especially as Stevens had often played right back previously.
The relegation that went in tandem with Albion’s Wembley loss sparked the beginning of a big clear-out of the best players. First to go was Stevens, closely followed by Michael Robinson.
It wasn’t until the following March that Foster followed them through the exit, although, according to Foster, he might have gone sooner – even though he didn’t want to leave; a point he made clear in an interview with Match Weekly shortly after he signed for Villa for £150,000.
“I never wanted to move,” he said. “I had nearly seven years of my contract to run at Brighton and would have quite happily played out my career there. It’s a great little club.
“But economies dictated otherwise and, although manager Chris Cattlin wanted to keep me, he was under pressure to sell me and help ease the club’s financial problems.
“It was a wrench to leave Brighton because the club has treated me tremendously well and I’ve had some great times there – not least the FA Cup run last season.”
Cattlin had a slightly different take about the transaction in his matchday programme notes. “I feel that Steve Foster has been a fine player during his four-and-a-half years at the Goldstone, but I felt that the time was right and the offer good enough to let him go,” he said.
“I hope the move will benefit both Steve and the club. I hope it rejuvenates his career because he has been unlucky with injuries this season. It gives me breathing space for Eric Young to develop and it will also allow me to strengthen other positions if necessary.”
In a rather oblique reference to the need to get rid of high-earning players, Cattlin added in another matchday programme article: “Certain players have left Brighton in moves which I feel are important for our future. Salaries and bonuses of individual players are confidential and obviously I cannot disclose details, but the moves I have made I am certain are right.”
He added: “I can’t explain all the matters that have been considered but I will once again emphasise that we are building for the future and every move I make in the transfer market is being made with this in mind.”
Foster revealed that Villa boss Tony Barton, a former coach at Foster’s first club, Portsmouth, had tried to sign him twice before, but the clubs hadn’t been able to agree on a fee. Eventually, the transfer saw defender Mark Jones (who’d made seven top-flight appearances for Villa that season) move in the opposite direction, in addition to a £150,000 fee.
Barton wanted Foster to tighten up a leaky defence, to fill the position previously occupied by former European Cup winning centre-half Ken McNaught, who had moved to West Brom.
The relatively inexperienced Brendan Ormsby had been playing alongside McNaught’s former partner, Allan Evans, and the signing of Foster put his nose well and truly out of joint. “It’s obvious that I’m just going to be used as cover for Steve Foster or Allan Evans now and so it’s probably in my best interests to try and find another club,” he told Match Weekly.
As it turned out, it was Barton who was ousted; Ormsby stayed, and new manager Graham Turner decreed it would be Foster who was the odd one out. But I jump ahead too soon.
Foster’s arrival at Villa Park as featured on a matchday programme cover
A picture of Foster being introduced to the Villa faithful appeared on the front cover of the programme for the 17 March home game against Nottingham Forest although he didn’t make his Villa debut until 14 April 1984, away to Leicester City, which ended in a 2-0 defeat.
Foster made seven appearances by the end of the season and he got on the scoresheet in only his third game, netting together with future Albion player Dennis Mortimer, in a 2-1 win over Watford on 21 April.
Villa finished the season in 10th place but it wasn’t good enough for the erratic chairman Ellis. Suddenly Foster found the man who signed him had been sacked, and the side Barton had led to European Cup success was gradually dismantled.
To the astonishment of the Villa faithful, Barton was succeeded by former Shrewsbury Town boss Turner.
Foster played 10 games under the new boss, and scored twice, once in a 4-2 win over Chelsea on 15 September and then again the following Saturday in a 3-3 draw away to Watford.
He’d started the season alongside Evans but Turner then offered a way back to Ormsby. While Foster played a couple of games alongside Ormsby, Turner preferred Evans and Ormsby together, making the new man surplus to requirements.
His last game for Villa was away to Everton on 13 October and the following month he was sold to Luton for £70,000 – less than half the fee Villa had paid for him eight months earlier. Foster simply put it down to his face not fitting with the new man.
It was a completely different story with Luton boss David Pleat and Foster’s time at Kenilworth Road coincided with the club’s most successful period in their history, even though Pleat left to manage Spurs.
Alongside representing his country, Foster said the best moment of his career was captaining the Hatters as they won the League Cup (then sponsored by Littlewoods) at Wembley in 1988 with a 3-2 win over Arsenal, his former Brighton teammate Danny Wilson scoring one of their goals (Brian Stein got the other two).
They reached the final of the same competition the following year too, but on that occasion lost 3-1 to Nottingham Forest. By then Foster was assistant manager to Ray Harford, and it looked like he was on a path to become a boss in his own right.
But that summer, when his old Albion captain, Horton, who had taken over from Mark Lawrenson as the manager of Oxford United, asked him to join him as a player at the Manor Ground, he was unable to resist and a new chapter in his career began.
It meant a drop down a division but Foster accepted the challenge and went on to play more than 100 games for United, many being quite a struggle as the side fought for survival at the foot of the second tier.
In the autumn of 1991, injury sidelined Foster from the U’s team and he believed it could have been the end of his career.
However, when the following summer he was contemplating whether or not to retire, he gave Brighton boss Barry Lloyd a call and asked if he could keep his fitness going by joining in pre-season training with the Seagulls.
Lloyd could see that the former skipper was still able to perform and, although the club was in a downward spiral, Foster seized the opportunity to extend his career and help out his old side.
Another veteran of that side, Clive Walker, told Vignes for A Few Good Men: “Fozzie might not have been so mobile then but his positional sense was absolutely brilliant, as was his ability in the air.”
Foster said: “Funnily enough during that second period I played probably some of my best football. I had to because of the position the club was in. There was no money so you had to pull out all the stops.”
Foster continued to play after Lloyd had departed, and he vented his anger publicly about the off-field shenanigans new boss Liam Brady was having to operate under.
Foster eventually called it a day at the end of the 1995-96 season, saddened at the club’s plight. He was granted a testimonial match against Sheffield Wednesday, played as a pre-season friendly in July 1996. Throughout Foster’s career he had continued to live in Hove and he retains his affection for the Albion to this day.
During his second spell at the club, Foster was the PFA rep and he had to deal with the heartbreak of telling the parents of a young player (Billly Logan) that an ankle injury was going to end his career. The youngster got just £1,500 compensation.
As a result, after his own playing days were over, Foster set up an insurance business (Pro-Secure) which continues to this day, making sure players are properly covered and get suitably recompensed if things don’t turn out as they’d hoped.
Although Foster hasn’t always been popular with the Albion’s hierarchy (courtesy of suggested involvement in potential takeovers), his association with the club hasn’t dimmed and Seagulls fans of two generations took him to their hearts for his on-field performances and leadership spanning a total of 332 games.
• Pictures from my scrapbook, the Albion matchday programme over several seasons, and some online sources.
FORMER Burnley manager Steve Cotterill hasn’t always been popular during a nomadic football career that’s taken him the length and breadth of the country.
But he made a lasting connection with Brighton fans after impressing during an all-too-brief playing spell in 1992.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and, whenever we’ve gone there, I’ve always had a great reception from their supporters. They’ve been terrific,” he wrote in his programme notes prior to a Cheltenham v Brighton fixture.
Injury curtailed Cotterill’s playing career – he endured 18 knee operations – but he made up for it by taking charge of nine different clubs over a period spanning more than 20 years.
His three years and seven months keeping Burnley in the second tier while seeing key players sold or injured was largely recognised as a decent achievement in the circumstances. Many of his other appointments were a lot shorter, and at times acrimonious.
Starting out as a player on the non-league circuit, it was Cotterill’s prolific scoring for Burton Albion (44 goals in 74 games) that prompted Wimbledon to snap him up in 1989.
Unfortunately, he sustained a serious cruciate ligament knee injury that halted his progress with the Dons and Albion boss Barry Lloyd gave him a lifeline to try to resurrect his career with the Seagulls.
Against a backdrop of financial instability, Lloyd had struggled to find adequate replacements for the prolific Mike Small and John Byrne in the 1991-92 season. Mark Gall, signed from Maidstone, offered a glimmer of hope, but Raphael Meade and Mark Farrington were disappointing to say the least, and Albion had been relegated back to the third tier a year after being one game from winning their place back amongst the elite in a play-off final against Notts County.
As the 1992-93 season got under way, Gall was unavailable due to a knee injury that eventually forced him to retire, Meade had departed and questions continued over Farrington, so Lloyd turned to loan signings Cotterill and Paul Moulden from Oldham Athletic.
It looked like he’d cracked it as the pair combined well and started scoring goals. Indeed, Cotterill scored four in 11 games, which was a promising start. Unfortunately, parent club Wimbledon wanted the sort of fee for him that cash-strapped Albion couldn’t afford, so he returned to south west London and eventually moved on to Bournemouth the following summer for £80,000.
In an interview with the Argus in October 2016, Moulden told Brian Owen: “One of the reasons I loved playing for Brighton was Mr Banter himself, Steve Cotterill. We met up like we had never been apart. I’d start the banter and he’d finish it or vice versa.
“We destroyed many a centre-half partnership during that three months. I was gutted to leave. I mean that very sincerely – absolutely gutted. I couldn’t believe nobody would have bought me and Steve as a pairing.
“We were both out of favour with our clubs and we hit it off so well. But it wasn’t to be – at Brighton or at any club.”
Born in Cheltenham on 20 July 1964, Cotterill’s injury-ravaged playing career came to a close at Dean Court. He’d won the player of the year title three times and scored 18 goals in 55 starts for the Cherries, but another knee injury finally put paid to his playing career, and he turned his attention to managing.
His first assignment was in Ireland where he succeeded his former Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez at League of Ireland’s Sligo Rovers. But his hometown club Cheltenham Town offered him a management opening back in England in 1997, and he steered them from Southern League football into the Conference and then into the bottom tier of the Football League. He twice won the Manager of the Year title and earned another promotion, to the third tier, via a play-off final victory over Rushden & Diamonds.
After leaving Cheltenham, Cotterill had a controversial five-month, 13 game stay as Stoke City boss at the start of the 2002-03 season before quitting to join Sunderland as Howard Wilkinson’s no.2. In May 2020, Cotterill endeavoured to explain to the Stoke Sentinel the circumstances surrounding his tenure, and the board interference regarding players.
The stay on Wearside was also short lived, with the pair being dismissed after only 27 games in March 2003.
The collapse of ITV Digital coincided with Cotterill taking over from Stan Ternent as Burnley manager in the summer of 2004. When he joined, they had only eight players on the books and, despite reassurances to the contrary, within six months Robbie Blake and Richard Chaplow, who he’d hoped to build a team around, had been sold.
When Blake’s replacement Ade Akinbiyi started scoring on a regular basis, he too was sold, and when he returned to the club later, he wasn’t the same player in front of goal.
Even after Cotterill had left, Burnley directors acknowledged the platform he’d provided for their eventual elevation to the Premier League under Owen Coyle.
The excellent uptheclarets.com, summed up his time at Turf Moor, thus: “He kept us in the second tier of English football for three years and that, looking back, was some achievement in, at times, difficult financial circumstances.”
It probably said something about the Championship that when Cotterill finally departed Turf Moor in the autumn of 2007, he’d been its longest serving manager at three years and seven months.
The following year, Cotterill was offered the opportunity to try his hand in America with Minnesota Thunder but work permit issues meant it never materialised. He didn’t resurface in the English game until 2010, when he enjoyed a short but successful reign – five months in charge of Notts County. He took charge on 23 February 2010 and they were crowned League Two champions on 27 April. A month later Cotterill was on his way, appointed in June 2010 as the manager of Portsmouth.
He helped to stabilise the then Championship club against a background of financial troubles and other clubs began to cast eyes on his achievements. The persistence of Nottingham Forest finally paid off and he moved there in October 2011, but a change of ownership of the club spelled the end of his time by the Trent.
He was out of the game for six months but in January 2013 accepted Harry Redknapp’s offer to join the coaching team at Queens Park Rangers until the end of the season.
He turned down the chance to stay in post the following season and in December 2013 took charge of League One Bristol City, signing another three-and-a-half-year contract.
In his second season at Ashton Gate, he steered City to promotion from League One as champions and they won the Football League Trophy. It earned Cotterill the League One Manager of the Year award.
As with other times in his career, Cotterill found his club’s better players were sold, ultimately weakening the squads he was in charge of. For example, when Sam Baldock moved from Bristol City to Brighton. Cotterill told bcfc.com: “He was a very good captain and very good goalscorer; we were sorry to see him go…that happens in football.”
Ultimately, as City struggled to attain the same level of success in the Championship as they’d experienced in the division below, Cotterill was sacked in January 2016.
Perhaps to prove the point about Cotterill not always being everybody’s cup of tea, former Albion defender Adam El-Abd vented his feelings in September 2020, explaining why he fell out of love with football following a bust-up with the manager only a short time after he moved to Bristol City.
With only three matches of the 2016-17 season left to play, Cotterill once again was grateful to Redknapp, by now manager at Birmingham City, and he joined him there as first team coach.
He subsequently left in the close season in the hope of landing a manager’s role in his own right. Ironically, that opportunity arose back at St Andrews when Redknapp was sacked in October 2017.
Cotterill told The Sun’s Graham Hill how he felt he had mellowed after 20 years in the hotseat at various clubs, although, at the time, he probably didn’t expect to be out of work again five months later.
After leaving Birmingham in March 2018, Cotterill ruptured a disc in his neck while trying to keep fit but in an interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk declared himself fit and ready for the next challenge.
That challenge emerged in November 2020 when Cotterill took charge of League One Shrewsbury Town but he faced a bigger fight – to his health – after contracting Covid-19 and he was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary, spending some time in intensive care, suffering badly from the virus and pneumonia. He was released from hospital in March 2021 to recover at home.
He left the Shrews job in June 2023 and was out of work until January 2024, when he took charge of Forest Green Rovers.
He was unable to stave off relegation from the Football League, but he rebuilt the side during the summer of 2024 to push for promotion back to League Two. When Southend United visited The New Lawn on 15 March 2025, the 2-2 draw was Cotterill’s 1,000th game as a manager. At the time, Rovers were joint-second in the National League.
In parallel lines 