| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | John David Schofield | ||
| Date of birth | 16 May 1965 | ||
| Place of birth | Barnsley, England | ||
| Playing position | Midfielder | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| Woolley Miners Welfare | |||
| Shepshed Charterhouse | |||
| Matlock Town | |||
| 1987–1988 | Gainsborough Trinity | ? | |
| 1988–1994 | Lincoln City | 231 | (11) |
| 1994–1997 | Doncaster Rovers | 110 | (12) |
| 1997–1999 | Mansfield Town | 86 | (0) |
| 1999–2000 | Hull City | 25 | (0) |
| 2000–2001 | Lincoln City | 19 | (0) |
| Teams managed | |||
| 2006–2007 | Lincoln City | ||
| 2009 | Walsall (caretaker) | ||
| 2009 | Cheltenham Town (caretaker) | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals). | |||
John David Schofield (born 16 May 1965) is an English football manager and former player. He was manager of Lincoln City between May 2006 and October 2007 and was assistant manager of Walsall before leaving, following a brief stint as caretaker manager. He was assistant manager at Cheltenham Town, where he briefly served as caretaker manager due to Martin Allen being put on gardening leave, and in 2010 he was appointed as Coach at Cambridge United FC.
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A combative midfield player, John Schofield began his career in the non-League ranks, combining this with his job as an apprentice-trained motor mechanic. As a teenager, he had spent a season with Huddersfield Town's reserve side before joining the then Northern Counties East League side Woolley Miners Welfare who were based in the village of Woolley Colliery.
He then moved up the non-league pyramid, joining first Shepshed Charterhouse and then Matlock Town. In March 1988 he joined Gainsborough Trinity.
The then Lincoln City manager Colin Murphy soon spotted his talents and a fee of £10,000 was enough to secure his services. Schofield quickly established himself in the Lincoln team and would go on to make 231 league appearances, scoring 11 times, in his first spell at the club and later be voted as number 47 in Lincoln's list of 100 league legends.
Despite a successful 1993/94 season with Lincoln when he was both club captain and supporters' `Player of the Season', the 1994/95 season found Schofield out of favour with the newly installed Lincoln manager Sam Ellis and in November 1994 moved on to join Doncaster Rovers.
He spent three seasons with Doncaster before departing to Mansfield Town and then Hull City.
Schofield returned to Lincoln City in June 2000 to take up the post of Head of Youth Development.[1] With Lincoln beginning to struggle financially, Schofield was also called upon as a player, making a further 19 league appearances before he finally wound his playing career down.
He is a UEFA 'A' licence holder, Schofield made impressive progress with Lincoln's youth set-up with a number of promising players, such as Lee Frecklington, either making the first team squad or being sold to higher level clubs such as Jack Hobbs who was sold to Liverpool and Scott Loach who moved on to Watford.
Schofield's good work was rewarded with an increasing role with the first team and he was appointed First Team Coach prior to the start of the 2005/06. The departure of Keith Alexander as Lincoln's manager in the summer of 2006 saw him appointed as Head Coach with John Deehan appointed as Director of Football.
The 2006/07 season started extremely promisingly for Lincoln with a new found commitment to attacking passing football which saw them top the table in October 2006 and be amongst the leading scorers in the league. However, Lincoln's form fell away in 2007 and rather than pushing for automatic promotion they were, for the fifth season running, forced to settle for a place in the play-offs where they were soundly beaten by Bristol Rovers. The initial promising start however was rewarded when he signed a new two-year deal with the club in April 2006.[2] while in June 2006 this was extended to three years and his title upgraded to Manager.[3]
The poor form exhibited by Lincoln in the second-half of the 2006/07 season has, sadly, been continued in the 2007/08 season and this was met with increasing unease by the Lincoln supporters with a feeling that Schofield has neglected the defence of the squad in favour of his attacking strategy. Schofield was sacked by Lincoln on 15 October 2007.[4] In February 2008 he began coaching at Scunthorpe United[5] where he helped carried out extra training sessions for players not involved in the first team before departing at the end of the season.[6] In June 2008 he was appointed first-team coach at Walsall. Schofield was then appointed manager on a caretaker basis after Jimmy Mullen was sacked on January 10, 2009. Schofield was then relieved of his duties after being in charge for just one match, a 1-0 defeat away to Peterborough Utd. New manager Chris Hutchings brought in his own right hand man in ex Walsall player Martin O'Connor.[7] Schofield was appointed as assistant manager at Cheltenham Town until the end of the season.
On 6 July 2010 he joined Cambridge United on a trial basis to assist manager Martin Ling with the club's pre-season preparations.[8] Having impressed, he joined the club on a two-year contract to become first team coach.[9] Following a run of four successive defeats, culminating in a 4-0 defeat at Bath City on 29 January 2011, on 1 February 2011 he and Ling departed the club.[10] Schofield has been highly linked with the vacant managers position at Blue Square North side Boston United after joint managers Rob Scott and Paul Hurst resigned. He lives in the area and is understood to be considering a return to management.
| Team | Nat | From | To | Record | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | D | L | Win % | ||||
| Lincoln City | 24 May 2006 | 15 October 2007 | 64 | 23 | 14 | 27 | 36.0 | |
| Walsall (caretaker) | 10 January 2009 | 20 January 2009 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | |
| Cheltenham Town (caretaker) | 20 October 2009 | 22 December 2009 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 11.1 | |
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