Sam Allardyce

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Sam Allardyce
Personal information
Full name	Samuel Allardyce
Date of birth	October 19, 1954 (age 52)
Place of birth	Dudley, England
Position	Manager
Club information
Current club	Bolton Wanderers
Professional clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (goals)
1973-1980 1980-1981 1981-1983 1983 1983-1984 1984-1985 1985-1986 1986-1989 1989-1991 1991-1992 1992	Bolton Wanderers Sunderland Millwall Tampa Bay Rowdies Coventry City Huddersfield Town Bolton Wanderers Preston North End West Bromwich Albion Limerick Preston North End	184 (21) 25 (2) 63 (2) n/a 28 (1) 37 (0) 14 (0) 90 (2) 1 (0) n/a 3 (0)
Teams managed
1991-1992 1994-1996 1997-1999 1999-present	Limerick Blackpool Notts County Bolton Wanderers
* Professional club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Sam Allardyce (born in Dudley, West Midlands, England on October 19, 1954), sometimes affectionately known as "Big Sam", is a former professional football player and the current manager of Bolton Wanderers of the FA Premier League.

Contents 1 Early life and playing career 2 Managerial career 3 Corruption allegations 4 Managerial stats 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early life and playing career

Allardyce grew up on Dudley's Wren's Nest estate and was educated at Sycamore Green Primary School and later at Wren's Nest Secondary School. He is best remembered as a player for being part of the Bolton Wanderers side which won the Second Division title in 1977-78 and secured promotion to the First Division. He also played for Huddersfield Town, Sunderland, Coventry City, Millwall and Preston North End, whom he captained to promotion from the Fourth Division in 1986-87. He also played in the United States in the nascent North American Soccer League for the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The football team team shared facilities with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Allardyce picked up many practices used in American Football with regards training, player management and tactics. He would later utilise these innovative ideas when his career progressed to football management.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Managerial career

After retiring as a player, Allardyce was named as assistant manager to Brian Talbot at West Bromwich Albion in February 1989 - ironic as he was a supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers, one of Albion's deadliest rivals. His spell at the Hawthorns lasted two years before he and Talbot were sacked as the club slid towards the Second Division trap door for the first time.

He then took up the role of player/manager of Limerick and guided the League of Ireland team to promotion by topping the first division with a number of points to spare in 1991-92 in his only season at the club.

After his one successful season in Ireland Allardyce returned to England and to Preston North End for the start of the 1992-93 season to take up the role of coach/assistant manager under Les Chapman.Ten games into the season however Chapman was sacked and Allardyce given the role of caretaker manager.His short spell in charge was an impressive one with Preston putting in some fine performances, picking some much needed league points along the way.The clubs board though felt that Allardyce's managerial inexperience at league level worked against him and opted in December 1992 to appoint the more experienced and charismatic John Beck who in turn appointed Gary Peters as his assistant.Allardyce carried on with the club in his original coaching capacity for another 18 months but the disappointment of missing out on the Preston job spoke volumes and when in July 1994 arch rivals Blackpool offered him the managers job Allardyce jumped at the chance.

Allardyce's spell at Bloomfield Road however was a strange one for despite leading the club to their most successful season in years he was at the end of the season sacked as he failed to guide them to Division One after leading the league all season. Blackpool finished third, missing out on automatic promotion on the last day of the season, and were then beaten in the play-off semi-finals to Bradford City after winning 2-0 at home, only to lose 3-0 in the reverse leg. Allardyce was sacked that summer.

In January 1997, Sam Allardyce made his return to football as manager of Division Two basement club Notts County. He arrived too late to save them from relegation, but they won promotion at the first attempt by finishing top of Division Three at the end of the 1997-98 season. Notts County broke several club and national records, winning the title by 19 points and becoming the first post-war side to win promotion in mid-March.

He remained in charge at Meadow Lane until September 1999, when he returned to Bolton Wanderers in Division One and became their new manager. Bolton lost to Ipswich Town in the 1999-00 Division One playoffs, but had an eventful run to the FA Cup semi-finals. They went one better in 2000-01 by reaching the playoff final where they beat Preston North End 3-0 to achieve promotion to the Premiership after a three-year absence.

Bolton went top of the Premiership after gaining ten points from the first four games of the 2001-02 campaign and Sam Allardyce was even hopeful that the club could challenge for their first-ever league title. However, the Bolton squad was not strong enough to mount a sustained challenge and their safety was not ensured until the penultimate game of the season. They continued to struggle in 2002-03, avoiding relegation by just two points and one place.

After two years in the bottom half of the table, Bolton went on to substantially improve, and established themselves in the Premiership. 2003-04 saw Allardyce's side finish eighth and reach the Carling Cup final, losing 2-1 to Middlesbrough. 2004-05 saw Sam Allardyce and Bolton finish sixth, claiming their place in the next season's UEFA Cup, equal on points with 2005's UEFA Champions League victors Liverpool. In the early months of 2005-06, Allardyce once again took Bolton into the top half of the Premiership and also steered them into the knockout rounds of the UEFA Cup. Bolton eventually finished eighth that season.

In early 2006 it was confirmed that Sven-Göran Eriksson would leave the England manager's job after the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and as a successful English manager, Allardyce was touted as a major candidate for the post. Bolton confirmed that they would let him talk to the FA if they approached him. However he was never offered the job, which was eventually given to Steve McClaren.

He writes a regular column for Four Four Two magazine, on amateur football management, coaching and tactics.

[edit] Corruption allegations

This section documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

Main article: 2006 allegations of corruption in English football

On 19 September 2006 Allardyce, and his son Craig were implicated in a BBC Panorama documentary for taking "bungs" (backhanders) from agents for signing certain players. Two agents, Teni Yerima and Peter Harrison, were secretly filmed, each separately claiming that they had paid Allardyce through his son. Allardyce denies ever taking, or asking for, a bung.^[1]

The Trotters manager was implicated in an expose into the football transfer market. The programme called 'Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets' was aired on the same night that Bolton beat Walsall 3-1 in the Carling Cup, so he missed the original showing. As a result of the allegation, Allardyce refuses to speak to the BBC after a match [[1]]

[edit] Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Blackpool		July 19, 1994	May 29, 1996	102	44	35	23	43.13
Notts County		January 16, 1997	October 14, 1999	145	56	50	39	38.62
Bolton Wanderers		October 19, 1999	Present	347	143	106	98	41.21

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Sam Allardyce management career stats at Soccerbase

Preceded by: Billy Ayre	Blackpool F.C. manager 1994-1996	Succeeded by: Gary Megson
Preceded by: Colin Murphy	Notts County F.C. manager 1997-1999	Succeeded by: Jocky Scott
Preceded by: Colin Todd	Bolton Wanderers F.C. manager 1999-Present	Succeeded by: Incumbent

Bolton Wanderers F.C. - Current Squad
1 Al Habsi | 2 Hunt | 4 Nolan | 5 Méïté | 6 Speed | 7 Stelios | 8 Campo | 9 Pedersen | 11 Gardner | 12 Walker | 14 Davies | 16 Teymourian | 17 Fortune | 20 Vaz Té | 21 Diouf | 22 Jääskeläinen | 23 Tal | 24 O'Brien | 25 Faye | 26 Ben Haim | 31 Sinclair | 39 Anelka | 41 Fojut | 42 Smith | 46 Jamieson | Manager: Allardyce