Chris Coleman (footballer)

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Personal information
Chris Coleman
Full name	Christopher Coleman
Date of birth	June 10, 1970 (age 36)
Place of birth	Swansea, Wales
Nickname	Captain Cookie, Cookie, Hot Coles
Playing position	Manager (former Defender)
Club information
Current club	Fulham
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1987-1991 1991-1995 1995-1997 1997-2002	Swansea City Crystal Palace Blackburn Rovers Fulham	160 (2) 154 (13) 028 (0) 136 (8)
National team
	Wales	031 (4)
Teams managed
2003-	Fulham
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Chris Coleman (born 10 June 1970, Swansea, Wales) is a football manager and former footballer. As a player, he usually played in defence while also occasionally making a mark as a forward. His most significant achievements include winning 32 caps for Wales and attaining a very respectable ninth place finish in the Premier League as the manager of Fulham, who had been tipped for relegation, in 2004. It was the club's highest ever league finish.

In his playing days at Fulham, Coleman was nicknamed "Cookie Monster". The nickname "Cookie" still continues onto this day, with chants like "Cookie Coleman's Black 'n' White Army" heard frequently.

He is married with four children, and currently lives near Outwood, Surrey.

1 Career overview
- 1.1 Playing
- 1.2 Managing
2 Career in depth
3 Trivia
4 Managerial stats
5 External links

[edit] Career overview

[edit] Playing

and

Wales: 32 caps and 4 goals

[edit] Managing

March 2003 - present: Fulham (including two months as temporary manager)

[edit] Career in depth

[edit] Early life

Coleman was born in Swansea, but actually grew up in and around Gloucester. The first professional team he was contracted to was Man City, aged 16, although he later left them to join Swansea.

[edit] At Swansea

Having been born in the City, Coleman made his first professional appearance for the club aged 17, in 1987. After making nearly 200 appearances for the South Wales club, he was recognised as a good talent and moved on after four years.

[edit] At Crystal Palace

After spending four years with his hometown club, Crystal Palace deemed him good enough to be worthy of a transfer of around a quarter of a million pounds - a reasonable figure for a 21-year old in the pre-Premiership days. After making 143 appearances, scoring 16 goals in that period - a 1 in 9 record explained by the fact that manager Steve Coppell often used Coleman as a makeshift centre forward, he had attracted enough attention to move into the big time with Blackburn Rovers. The major lowlight of this period was relegation from the Premiership, but he did obtain his first cap for Wales while contracted to Palace.

In 2005, Palace supporters voted 'Cookie' (as they called him) into their Centenary XI.

[edit] At Blackburn

Having played so well in his five year period at Palace, a hefty 2.8 million pounds were paid for him by a revolutionary Blackburn team: the first to buy players en masse. Blackburn lost the Premiership title they had won in 1995, and finished seventh. Coleman made 28 Premiership appearances over his season-and-a-half at the club, and when he found himself out of the starting line-up too often (not helped by a persistent Achilles injury), he took the brave gamble to further his career by dropping two divisions to join Fulham.

[edit] At Fulham

Wealthy businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed had invested heavily in Fulham Football Club, and Kevin Keegan, the manager he hired to lead Fulham's charge to the Premiership, was able to persuade Coleman to drop down to Division Two, for a divisional record fee of over two million pounds.

Having played his first game at Brentford in January 1998, Coleman was quickly given the post of club captain, and "Captain Cookie" (a nickname no-one can really explain) was soon a fan's favourite, leading Fulham to promotion to Division One, in a record-breaking season. He was consistent throughout the club's mediocre first season there, and his position as club captain was re-affirmed by Jean Tigana, who was appointed manager of the club in summer 2000. As the club rolled towards an impressive promotion to the Premiership, Coleman was left behind after a car crash in Surrey in January 2001 broke his leg just days before a much hyped FA Cup tie against Manchester United.

All the well-wishing fans were unable to ensure a speedy recovery, and it was only after a reserve fixture in March 2002 that he finally realised he would never play again - although this was hardly surprising because at one point it looked possible he might not walk again. He was persuaded to join Fulham's coaching staff by Tigana in October 2002, and he could never have guessed where this would lead.

In March 2003 Tigana left Fulham, two months before the pre-arranged date. With no obvious candidates to succeed him, many big names were mentioned in the press such as Radomir Antić, before Mohamed Al-Fayed appointed Coleman on a part time basis. The support of the Fulham faithful saw him saving the club from relegation, and almost inevitably being appointed full-time manager, the youngest in the Premiership at the time, in the close season.

In his first season, Coleman did well, re-igniting the Fulham team to a 9th place finish in the league (their best ever), and in the process helping Louis Saha re-construct his career to the extent that a big move to Manchester United came in January 2004 for the French striker. In the (2004-05 season) Fulham finished 13th, but with the support of the fans he should remain in his current job for a while yet, despite speculation linking him to the Welsh National Team.

[edit] Trivia

A picture of Coleman was inexplicably given the caption Stuart Franklin in the programme for a Port Vale versus Fulham game, which spawned 'The Stuart Franklin Column' , in a short-lived fanzine called Where Were We When We Were Skint?.
In another interesting bit of editing, he was in 2005 deemed by the Charlton programme to "have the look of the celebrity chef about him".

[edit] Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
Team	Nat	From	To	G	W	L	D	Win %
Fulham		April 17, 2003	Present	169	61	67	41	36.09

[edit] External links

Preceded by Andy Thorn	Crystal Palace F.C. Player of The Year 1994	Succeeded by Richard Shaw
Preceded by Jean Tigana	Fulham F.C. Manager May 2003-Present	Succeeded by Incumbent

Fulham F.C. - Current Squad
2 Volz \| 3 Bocanegra \| 4 Queudrue \| 5 Christanval \| 6 Knight \| 7 Rosenior \| 8 Brown \| 9 Helguson \| 11 Montella \| 12 Laštůvka \| 13 Radzinski \| 14 Bouba Diop \| 15 John \| 16 Jensen \| 17 Elliott \| 19 Pearce \| 20 McBride \| 21 Bullard \| 22 Routledge \| 23 Dempsey \| 24 Pembridge \| 25 Davies \| 26 Collins \| 27 Elrich \| 28 Milsom \| 29 Niemi \| 32 Omozusi \| 37 Smertin \| Manager: Coleman

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