DAVID WEIR had something of a meteoric rise to the top football role at Brighton.
Weir, a former Rangers, Everton and Scotland international, became the club’s new technical director in May 2022 having only been appointed assistant technical director in January. He stepped up to the top job in an interim capacity only a month later after Dan Ashworth quit (and was put on ‘gardening leave’ before joining Newcastle).
Previously Weir had been pathway development manager, keeping tabs on players sent out on loan. When Weir’s appointment to the top role was confirmed, chairman Tony Bloom told the club website: “During his recent role as acting technical director he has used his experience, knowledge and ability in supporting both Graham Potter and the men’s first-team, as we secured a record top-flight finish, and to Hope Powell and the women’s first-team.
“In that time he has already further enhanced an already excellent working relationship with both Paul Barber and me, as well as our executive team responsible for the running of the club. David will oversee all football operations; including recruitment, analysis, medical and player welfare, across both the men’s and women’s set-up.”
Weir didn’t have long in the role before he was having to help Bloom and deputy chairman and chief executive Paul Barber find a new head coach following Potter’s defection to Chelsea. Weir found himself facing the media when Roberto De Zerbi was unveiled as Potter’s replacement.
However, as Barber said at the time of Weir’s appointment: “It is well known by Everton, Rangers and Scotland fans that David was a leader on the pitch. He has continued to show those qualities off the pitch and has quickly settled into the role.”
When the pathway development manager job was created, who better to entrust the care and progress of promising youngsters than a father of four who played more than 600 matches at the highest level in both the English and Scottish leagues, not to mention 69 games for his country.
Weir had a 20-year playing career, and was still playing for Scotland aged 40, after starting out with his hometown club Falkirk. He was at the heart of Everton’s defence for seven years, including several as captain.
“David has an excellent playing and coaching CV, has excellent contacts throughout the football world and is hugely respected within the industry,” Albion’s head of recruitment, Paul Winstanley, said at the time of his appointment.
“With an increasing number of our younger players going out on loan, this is a particular area in which we feel it is important for us to develop.
“David will be responsible for working with those players individually and collectively, during pre-season and throughout their loan spells to help their footballing development, with the aim of assisting with their graduation to long term first-team football.”
Weir told the matchday programme: “As a former manager and coach, I know the pitfalls that come with loan moves and so I put procedures in place to make sure our players gain the most from their time away from the club.
“It’s also important that we send our players to work with coaches who will enhance their experience – I think a loan move is more about sending them to the right coach rather than any particular club.”
One of the many aspects Weir keeps an eye on is how a player adapts outside the cosseted Brighton bubble.
“The loan process, to a lower league club for instance, should make them appreciate how good they’ve got it here and provide the motivation for them to want to succeed at our club.
“They will have to adapt to new surroundings, maybe bringing their own food, washing their kit or finding a gym to work out in. They have to grow up quickly but I’m available to support and help.”
Weir knows himself what it is like being far from home while trying to get your career started. He went to the United States on a scholarship deal, at Indiana’s University of Evansville, between 1988 and 1991.
Born in Falkirk on 10 May 1970, when the centre back returned to the UK he linked up with his hometown team, playing 134 matches over four seasons, before being transferred to Edinburgh side Hearts.
He was in the 1998 Scottish Cup-winning Hearts side (they beat Rangers 2-1) and featured in a total of 116 games before Everton took him to England in February 1999 for a £250,000 fee.
He was signed by Walter Smith and spent seven seasons with the club as a player, during which time he was club captain under both Smith and his successor, David Moyes.
“I spent ten years in total at Everton, so they will always be a club that means a lot to me,” said Weir. “It’s just a special club for me and one that provided me with many happy memories.”
Everton fan website toffeeweb.com summed him up thus: “Weir brought all the essentials of a great defender: big, strong, good in the air and a hard tackler, he had also shown that he was good at attacking, scoring important goals and taking set pieces.”
Weir cited the 2004-05 season when Everton finished fourth and qualified for the Champions League as one of his highlights.
“It was a team that worked hard for each other, and we had that never-say-die attitude that came from the manager (David Moyes),” he pointed out.
Weir played alongside the likes of Wayne Rooney, Duncan Ferguson, Mikel Arteta and Paul Gascoigne during his time at Goodison Park, and he went back after his playing days were over to coach the academy and reserve teams.
Weir had returned to Scotland in 2007 and, while silverware eluded him on Merseyside, he made up for it in Glasgow, where he won the Scottish Premier League title three times, the Scottish Cup twice and the League Cup on three occasions. A personal high came in 2010 when he was the SFWA Footballer of the Year and the Scottish Premier League Player of the Year.
The previous year he had taken over the Rangers captaincy from Barry Ferguson and in 2011 he became the first player to be inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame while still playing.
Weir was first selected for Scotland in 1997 and was in Craig Brown’s squad for the 1998 World Cup in France. He only scored once – in a World Cup qualifier versus Latvia at Hampden Park in 2001. He retired from international football in 2002, when Berti Vogts was the coach, but had a change of heart and returned when his old club boss Walter Smith took charge two years later.
It was in a Euro 2012 qualifying game in 2010 that Weir became the oldest player to play for his country. His 69 caps make him the nation’s seventh-most capped player.
He finally hung up his boots in May 2012 at the age of 42 and returned to Everton as an academy coach. A year later, he took over as manager of third tier Sheffield United but his tenure lasted only 13 games after a disastrous start in which only the opening game was won.
Undeterred, he became Mark Warburton’s assistant manager at Brentford and, after winning promotion to the Championship in their first season and securing a fifth-placed finish in their second season, the pair left the club after a management restructure.
In the summer of 2015, Warburton took charge of Rangers with Weir as his assistant, and after their departure from Ibrox in early 2017, they joined forces at Nottingham Forest in the Championship.
Warburton, Weir and director of football Frank McParland were all appointed towards the end of Fawaz Al Hasawi’s ownership of the club – two months before a takeover by Greek shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis – and lasted only nine months at the City Ground.
It was in July 2018 that Brighton took on Weir to guide the club’s loanees.
Amongst his cohort were his own son, Jensen, who went on loan to League One Cambridge United in 2021-22. The England under 20 international then joined Morecambe for the 2022-23 season.
On 20 December 2021, according to Mail Online, Everton held talks with Weir senior about him rejoining the club in a player development role at Goodison Park, but nothing came of it.
A month later, Albion announced Weir had been promoted to become the club’s assistant technical director, supporting Dan Ashworth.
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