Profile of Dave Jones on Famous Like Me

Dave Jones (born August 17, 1956 in Liverpool) is an English football manager currently in charge of Cardiff City F.C.

Playing career

Like most professional managers in the game, he enjoyed a career as a player in his early years. He started his professional career with Everton F.C. in his home town of Liverpool. He played as a defender with the team for seven years, during which time he represented the English national team at youth and under-21 level.

He left Everton to play for Coventry City F.C. in 1981 for a transfer fee of £ 275,000 - after three seasons, he picked up a knee injury which threatened to end his football career.

After recovering from this injury, he played two further seasons for Seiko F.C. and one season for Preston North End F.C. before retiring.

Managerial career

In July 1990, he joined Stockport County F.C. as a manager for their youth team and took over as first-team manager from Danny Bergara in March 1995. He took the team into the First Division (now the Championship) from an automatic promotion place in 1997.

Trouble at Southampton

This promotion brought him to the attention of Southampton F.C., who offered him a contract to manage their Premiership team. His reign during the 1999/2000 season was rocked by his arrest on charges of child abuse during his employment as a care worker in the late 1980s.

The case put tremendous strain on the manager, who was forced to defend his case back on Merseyside whilst managing a team based several hundred miles away on the south coat. In January 2000, Southampton decided to suspend him on full pay until the case was resolved, Glenn Hoddle taking over his managerial duties.

When the case eventually came to court, it was thrown out in its first week - the judge recording a not guilty verdict and commenting that the case should have never reached the trial stage.

Jones leaves Southampton

Southampton paid off the remainder of Jones' contract and he was free to leave the club - Jones contended that this amounted to unfair dismissal and took the case to industrial tribunal but their decision was upheld.

He took over at Wolves in January 2001 and finished 12th. In the 2001/2 season took them to a clear 11 point lead over their arch-rivals West Bromwich Albion F.C. but managed to lose their promotion place by the end of the season. He took the team to a playoff in the 2002/3 season - from which Wolves won a place in the Premiership, returning to top level play for the first time in 19 years. However, the team did not prove strong enough to stay at that level of play and were relegated to the Championship just one season later.

Following a poor run of form at the start of their first season back in the Championship, Dave Jones was sacked by Wolves on November 1, 2004 and the following year took up the position at Cardiff City.

External link

• Dave Jones' managerial record

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