Dave Hockaday

Dave Hockaday

Hockaday as manager of Forest Green Rovers.
Personal information
Full name	David Hockaday
Date of birth	(1957-11-09) 9 November 1957
Place of birth	Sedgefield, England
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Playing position	Winger / Right-back
Youth career
	Billingham Synthonia
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1975–1983	Blackpool	147	(24)
1983–1990	Swindon Town	245	(7)
1990–1993	Hull City	72	(2)
1993	→ Stoke City (loan)	7	(0)
1993–1995	Shrewsbury Town	48	(0)
1995–????	Cirencester Town
Total		519	(33)
Teams managed
2009–2013	Forest Green Rovers
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

David "Dave" Hockaday (born 9 November 1957) is an English former footballer who played for Blackpool, Hull City, Shrewsbury Town, Stoke City and Swindon Town.^[1] as a right-back.

After his playing career ended he established the first football academy in English football and has gone on to spend time as assistant manager at Watford and worked as a coach at the likes of Southampton and Leicester City. He spent four years as manager of Conference National side Forest Green Rovers.

Playing career

Blackpool

Hockaday was born in Sedgefield, County Durham, he started his career as a youth player with Billingham Synthonia. In June 1975, aged 17, he joined Blackpool, then playing in the Second Division. He made his first start for the Tangerines on 25 September 1976, in a 1–0 home loss to Chelsea. Aside from a League Cup second-round tie against Sheffield Wednesday, he sat out the entire 1977–78 campaign, but the following season he became a more regular first-team player as Blackpool slid down the leagues. He scored his first goal for the club in a 3–1 loss at Colchester United on 30 September 1978, and, later that season, scored both goals in Blackpool's 2–1 victory at Lincoln City.

Also on 30 September, this time in 1981, Hockaday was amongst the scorers in Blackpool's 7–1 rout of Halifax Town at Bloomfield Road. In his final season in Lancashire, he made 40 league appearances and scored eight goals, but was unable to prevent Blackpool from finishing fourth from bottom and needing to seek re-election. In his eight seasons at Blackpool he made over 190 first-team appearances, scoring 27 goals.^[2]

Swindon Town

In June 1983, he moved on a free transfer to fellow Fourth Division side Swindon Town. He was a solid, dependable right-back and was part of the team managed by Lou Macari that gained the Fourth Division championship in the 1985–86 season, following this with promotion to Division Two in 1986–87. In 1988–89 Swindon reached the Second Division play-offs but failed in their attempt to gain promotion to the top flight. In 1989–90 Swindon won the Second Division play-off final but Sunderland were promoted instead after the Swindon board admitted a series of financial irregularities. Swindon were initially demoted to the Third Division and replaced by Tranmere Rovers, the division's losing play-off finalists, but this decision was later reversed on appeal. In September 1990, Hockaday moved to Hull City for a fee of £50,000 having made 308 appearances for Swindon, with 11 goals.

Later career

At Hull City he was part of the side which suffered relegation from the Second Division at the end of the 1990–91 season. He played 15 times for Hull the following season and spent the end the that |1992–93 campaign on loan at Stoke City where he played seven times helping the Potters win the Division Two title. After a third season at Hull he moved on to Shrewsbury Town. He was a member of the Shrewsbury team who won the Division Three championship at the end of his first season, before he dropped out of league football, moving to Cirencester Town in 1995.

Coaching career

In 1995 he established the first football academy in the country at Cirencester. The Cirencester Football Academy was created in conjunction with the local Sixth Form College. The Academy team soon built up a nation-wide reputation by winning the National College Championship. Subsequently, his concept of a football academy has been adopted by most major clubs in England. He was head-hunted for many jobs at league clubs and universities and in 2000 joined Graham Taylor at Watford as their Under 18 coach. As Under 18 coach at Watford, Hockaday helped develop the careers of players such as Paul Robinson, Hameur Bouazza, Tommy Smith, Darren Ward, Ashley Young and Alhassan Bangura. In 2005 he was elevated to first-team coach and helped the Hornets to promotion to the Premier League in 2006 on a tiny budget with half the team home grown.

In January 2007, as Watford struggled to avoid relegation, he was sacked by manager Adrian Boothroyd and replaced by Malky Mackay allegedly after complaints by a delegation of senior players about the team's style of play^[3][4] He then joined Martin Allen at MK Dons, helping them to reach the League Two play-offs. In May 2007, Martin Allen moved to Leicester City and on 6 June it was announced that Hockaday would be joining the Leicester City coaching staff.^[5]

On 19 June 2007, it was announced that he would be joining Southampton as youth team coach replacing Georges Prost, however he was put on Gardening Leave in January 2009 and was released from his contract in May of that year.^[6][7] Hockaday again linked up with Martin Allen at his new club Cheltenham Town for a short period before leaving when John Schofield was appointed as the club's assistant manager. He has also previously assisted in coaching at Wycombe Wanderers.

Managerial career

In September 2009 Hockaday became the first team manager at Forest Green Rovers.^[8][9] His first ever first team managerial position. Hockaday led Forest Green Rovers to the third round of the FA Cup in his debut season as a manager after overcoming Bath City in the second round.^[10] Rovers were knocked out in the third round however by League Two outfit Notts County meaning Forest Green missed out on the chance to face Premier League opposition in the shape of Wigan Athletic.^[11]

His first season as manager ended with relegation from the Conference National.^[12] However, Forest Green were reinstated following Salisbury City's failure in their appeal against demotion from the Conference for financial irregularities. Hockaday was awarded a new one-year contract for the 2010–11 season.^[13] In his second season as Forest Green boss, Hockaday led the club to last day safety on goal difference, avoiding relegation to the Conference South following a final day 2–1 loss away at Tamworth.^[14]

In Hockaday's third season as Forest Green manager he led the club to a much improved 10th placed finish, narrowly missing out on the play-offs. In February 2013, Hockaday was linked for the second time in his career with the managerial post at former club Swindon Town after the departure of Paolo Di Canio however Hockaday ruled himself out of the running for the job.^[15]

His fourth season as manager of the club ended with another 10th place finish in the Conference National.

After a disappointing start to the 2013-14 season, Hockaday left Forest Green by mutual consent on 21 October 2013.^[16][17]

Career statistics

• Sourced from The English National Football Archive

Honours

Swindon Town

• Football League Fourth Division champions: 1985–86
• Football League Third Division play-off winner: 1986–87

Stoke City

• Football League Division Two champions: 1992–93

Shrewsbury Town

• Football League Division Three champions: 1993–94

References

External links

• Hornets are stirred up by their academy

• Dave Hockaday career stats at Soccerbase