Simon Tracey

Simon Peter Tracey (born 9 December 1967 in Woolwich) is an English former professional football player who played as a goalkeeper. He is now goalkeeping coach at Carlisle United.

Playing career

Tracey played most of his professional career at Sheffield United. He started out as a goalkeeper at Wimbledon in 1985. He made his debut in a 2-1 loss to Liverpool in the Charity Shield in 1988 after Dave Beasant, the hero of the FA Cup Final win that gave Wimbledon their place in the match, had been sold to Newcastle United. He kept his place for the first League game of the season but did not perform well in a 5-1 defeat and was dropped and replaced with Ron Green and, subsequently, Hans Segers. He was sold on to Sheffield United in 1988 for £75,000. He was an ever-present in United's promotion season of 1989-90 and remained first-choice in Division One.

Tracey played 382 games for Sheffield United until 2003. His games were limited by the arrival of Alan Kelly in the summer of 1992 for the first season of the new FA Premier League. During this time he had loan spells at several clubs, including Manchester City, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest and his old team Wimbledon. His playing days came to an end when he suffered an injury during pre-season to the 2002-2003 season and once recovered, summer signing Paddy Kenny had cemented his place in the first team. This led to Tracey retiring from football. One of his three appearances for Manchester City came in November 1994 in a 5-0 loss to rivals Manchester Utd, the worst losing margin for City in a Manchester Derby.

The loan spell that he spent at Norwich City during the 1994-95 season was a nightmare for Tracey. He made three appearances - in the first he ran mindlessly out of his area allowing Coventry to score an easy goal, in the second he was stretchered off with an injury and in the third he let in five goals in an FA Cup tie at Everton. In 2000 when he played at Norwich for Sheffield United he made a similar charge from his area that allowed Norwich striker Craig Bellamy to score. In 1995 he had a short spell on loan at Nottingham Forest but did not play for the first team, then played one game back at Wimbledon in a 4-1 defeat to Forest.

Coaching career

Tracey began his goalkeeper coaching career in 2004 at Rotherham United F.C., replacing previous coach Graham Brown. His position lasted until October 2009, when he joined Mark Robins, John Breckin and Nick Daws at Barnsley.

External links

• Profile of Simon Tracey
• Simon Tracey career statistics at Soccerbase
• Career Information at Flown from the Nest