Ray Wilkins
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Ray Wilkins
executive
Personal Information
Born Rayford Wilkins, Jr., on August 9, 1951, in Waco, TX; son of Rayford Sr. and Loyce Wilkins; married Lorena (a corporate executive), July 1, 1978; children: Donovan Campbell
Education: University of Texas, BA, 1974; University of Pittsburgh, Management Program for Executives, 1987.
Career
Southwestern Bell, management trainee, 1974; Southwestern Bell , various positions in customer service, marketing, and in the comptroller's office, 1970s-90s; Southwestern Bell, regional president, 1996-97; SBC Communications, president, Business Communications Services, 1997-99; Southwestern Bell, president and CEO, 1999; SBC Pacific Bell/SBC Nevada Bell, president and chief executive officer, 2000-02; SBC Pacific Bell/SBC Nevada Bell, group president for sales and marketing, May 2002-.
Life's Work
Ray Wilkins's career blossomed at SBC Communications, Inc., as the company expanded over the years. Serving as group president for marketing and sales for the telecommunications giant in 2004, this Texas native began his career with the company when it was still Southwestern Bell, the local telephone company. Though his job certainly required him to keep up with changing communications technology in order to serve the voice and data needs of millions of business and residential customers across 13 states, Wilkins remained committed to making SBC a first-rate service provider. "I'm not a technology junkie," he told San Antonio Express-News Sanford Nowlin. "I'm a customer junkie. If you're going to succeed you have to start with the customer and work backwards."
Rayford Wilkins was born on August 9, 1951, in Waco, Texas. He pursued a college education by studying business administration at the University of Texas. Before earning his degree in 1974, he worked a series of retail jobs to help defray his college-tuition costs. Just after graduating, he was hired by Southwestern Bell into its manager trainee program in Houston, at a time when the company was the only local telephone service provider. These local utilities, usually known by their states' names, were part of the AT&T (American Telegraph and Telephone) corporate family, but a lengthy legal challenge forced the companies to split into separate, independently owned regional "Baby Bells" in 1984. Southwestern Bell became one of these, and Wilkins rose through the ranks at its Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio offices. He held a management position in customer service and another with the marketing department, and also worked in the comptroller's office as well. In 1987, he completed the Management Program for Executives at the University of Pittsburgh.
Wilkins was posted to Southwestern Bell company offices in St. Louis, Missouri, in the early 1990s, and was named a regional president in the summer of 1996 for Kansas City. In that position, he oversaw telecommunications sales and service for western Missouri and all of Kansas, and was the top-ranking local executive for the company. The 1996 Telecommunications Act gave Southwestern Bell and the other Baby Bells permission to become national phone-service providers, and Southwestern Bell began moving into larger territory. In 1998 it became SBC Communications when it acquired Ameritech and Pacific Bell, two other Baby Bells. By then Wilkins was serving as president of the company's Business Communications Services in San Antonio, which handled accounts for some three million non-residential customers.
In 1999, Wilkins was made president and CEO of Southwestern Bell, the remaining local phone-service provider, and a year later moved to California to take over as president and chief executive officer of SBC Pacific Bell/SBC Nevada Bell. He became the first locally-based president in charge of operations, marketing, customer service, and network services since the takeover. From its headquarters in San Ramon, California, SBC PacBell served as the leading phone company for California, but was suffering from several customer-service related issues. The company's new high-speed Internet connection service, the Digital Subscriber Line, or DSL, was an offering that was plagued with problems in the first year of its launch. It was a potentially grievous public-relations disaster in the high-tech nexus that stretched from San Francisco to Silicon Valley, and new and waiting customers were irate. Wilkins moved quickly to find and fix the problems, and managed to slice the wait-time for DSL installation from 26 days to six. Determined to improve customer service, he visited the call centers often to boost morale. There were other issues as well: at the time, Californians were logging record numbers of complaints with the FCC over SBC/PacBell service, and the company was also heavily fined for using misleading marketing strategies.
In the next few years, Wilkins helped SBC/PacBell weather a recession and the sinking of the dotcom boom by cutting expenses and hiring new employees only when absolutely necessary. Resorting to such belt-tightening measures would help avoid layoffs, he told Black Enterprise writer Alan Hughes. It was crucial to "recognize the signs, and take action," Wilkins explained, as opposed to the company finding itself, "in a situation where they have to do something drastic and dramatic. And that hurts people."
Wilkins's excellent track record brought him another promotion, this one in May of 2002 to group president for sales and marketing at SBC. This meant that he and his wife, Lorena, would return to San Antonio, where they had lived for several years. His task was to reinvigorate marketing strategies and lure new customers in each of the thirteen states where SBC operates. Wilkins's wife is also a longtime SBC executive, and his stepson is also with the company in Houston.
In his spare time, Wilkins likes to golf and is a collector of sports memorabilia, but he has also been active in a number of local and civic groups in each of the cities that he has called home over the years. These include the Carver Academy in San Antonio, for which he has served on the board of directors, and the San Francisco YMCA. Vintage Foster, a publisher who had worked with Wilkins on a San Francisco-area scholarship program, told the San Antonio Express-News's Nowlin that he was impressed with Wilkins's generosity and help when Foster was setting up the East Bay Leadership Foundation. "Ray gave me a $50,000 check for the foundation," Foster told Nowlin. "And the next words out of his mouth were, 'Who else do you need me to call?' He's not the kind of guy who just writes a check and moves on. He helped take (the foundation) from concept to fruition. There's very little ego involved with Ray. With him, something's either a good idea or it isn't."
Awards
Minority Supplier Council, CEO of the Year, 1997; National Eagle Leadership Institute, Eagle Award, 1997; Waco Independent School District, Distinguished Alumnus, 2000.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Black Enterprise, March 2002, p. 30.
- St. Louis Business Journal, March 10, 1997, p. 3.
- San Antonio Express-News, July 27, 2002, p. 1D.
- San Francisco Business Times, December 29, 2000, p. 27; September 15, 2000, p. 10; September 22, 2000, p. 8.
- San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 2001, p. B1.
- "Rayford Wilkins, Jr.," SBC-Investor Relations, www.sbc.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5687 (September 8, 2004).
— Carol Brennan
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Ray Wilkins
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Ray Wilkins
For other people of the same name, see Raymond Wilkins.
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Raymond Colin Wilkins | ||
| Date of birth | 14 September 1956 | ||
| Place of birth | Hillingdon, London, England | ||
| Height | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) | ||
| Playing position | Midfielder | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1973–1979 | Chelsea | 179 | (30) |
| 1979–1984 | Manchester United | 160 | (7) |
| 1984–1987 | Milan | 73 | (2) |
| 1987 | Paris St. Germain | 13 | (0) |
| 1987–1989 | Rangers | 70 | (2) |
| 1989–1994 | Queens Park Rangers | 155 | (8) |
| 1994 | Crystal Palace | 1 | (0) |
| 1994–1996 | Queens Park Rangers | 21 | (0) |
| 1996 | Wycombe Wanderers | 1 | (0) |
| 1996–1997 | Hibernian | 16 | (0) |
| 1997 | Millwall | 3 | (0) |
| 1997 | Leyton Orient | 3 | (0) |
| National team | |||
| 1976 | England U21 | 1 | (0) |
| 1976–1986 | England | 84 | (3[1]) |
| Teams managed | |||
| 1994–1996 | Queens Park Rangers | ||
| 1997–1998 | Fulham | ||
| 2000 | Chelsea (caretaker) | ||
| 2004–2005 | Millwall (co-manager) | ||
| 2009 | Chelsea (caretaker) | ||
| 2009–2010 | Chelsea (assistant first-team coach) | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals). |
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Raymond Colin Wilkins MBE (born 14 September 1956 in Hillingdon, Middlesex), commonly known as Ray Wilkins, is an English former footballer and at present a television pundit. Most recently, he was assistant manager of Chelsea.
He was a key midfielder for the England national football team during the 1980s, and enjoyed success at various clubs including Chelsea, Manchester United, Milan, Queens Park Rangers and Rangers.
He is the son of professional footballer George Wilkins and the brother of Graham George Wilkins (born 28 June 1955 in Hillingdon) former professional footballer who played in the Football League as a full back for Chelsea, Brentford and Southend United, former Brighton & Hove Albion manager and player Dean Wilkins, Stephen Wilkins, signed by Chelsea and Brentford, but did not make any first-team appearances for either team and he went on to play for a number of non-league teams, including Dagenham and Hayes.
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Contents
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Player
Wilkins started his career with Senrab in Wanstead Flats.[2] [3]
Chelsea
Wilkins, nicknamed Butch from childhood, made his name in the 1970s with boyhood club Chelsea, whom he joined as an apprentice, progressing to his first team debut against Norwich City at the age of 17 on 26 October 1973 as a substitute in a 3-0 home league win.[4]
His brothers Graham and Stephen also joined Chelsea around this time, though they did not achieve the same heights in the game as Ray.
Wilkins made sporadic further appearances for the rest of that season before establishing himself as a fixture in the side the following year, although he was unable to save Chelsea from relegation that season.
In 1975, following the club's relegation and the departure of many established players, an 18-year old Wilkins was handed the captaincy of Chelsea by new manager Eddie McCreadie, taking it from long-time Blues captain Ron Harris. He took to the role well, maintaining it for four years. He emerged as Chelsea's key player of that period, leading a team of mainly young players to promotion again in 1976–77 and, in the next season, consolidation of their place in the First Division. Ray's rapid success, along with his "dark good looks", also saw Wilkins becoming a regular pin-up feature in British teenybopper magazines.[5] Maligned in some quarters for supposedly "negative" play (he was deemed more likely to pass a ball sideways rather than forwards – which earned him semi-affectionate nicknames like Squareball Wilkins and The Crab), Wilkins, nevertheless, became one of his country's most sought-after players.
The sudden departure of manager Eddie McCreadie proved to be a blow to Chelsea's performance, and they were relegated in 1978–79. Shortly afterwards debt-ridden Chelsea accepted an offer of £800,000 from Manchester United and Wilkins headed north.
Manchester United
Ray Wilkins' first season with Manchester United was uneventful, with domestic honours continuing to elude him. He scored his first goal for United in a 4-0 victory against Stoke City in 1979. In 1983 he scored in the FA Cup final, to put Manchester United 2–1 up against Brighton and Hove Albion. The game ended 2–2 after extra-time.
Wilkins got his winners' medal after United won the replay 4–0.
A.C. Milan
A year after collecting an FA Cup winner's medal, United accepted an offer of £1.5 million from Italian giants Milan. Wilkins and his family settled quickly in Italy and Milan reached the final of the Coppa Italia in 1985, but it wasn't a successful era for the Italian club.
Paris St. Germain
Wilkins left A.C. Milan in 1987 to join French outfit Paris Saint-Germain, with whom he stayed only four months.
Rangers
On leaving Paris, Wilkins joined Rangers for a transfer fee of £250,000. During his time with Rangers he won the Scottish league title in 1989 and the Scottish League Cup. He also scored a memorable goal in an Old Firm derby against Celtic. Such was his enjoyment of his time at Rangers, and the fans' love for him, Wilkins was reduced to tears after his final game with the club.
Queens Park Rangers
Next stop for Wilkins was London, when he joined Queens Park Rangers, after his family decided that a decade away from home was long enough.
Wilkins spent four years with QPR. In the early 1990s, there was media speculation that he would rejoin Manchester United (now managed by Alex Ferguson), but this never happened. He remained at Loftus Road until the summer of 1994.
Crystal Palace
In 1994, Wilkins accepted an offer to become player-coach of London club Crystal Palace, who had been promoted to the Premier League under manager Alan Smith. However, Ray broke his left foot on his debut for the club, and did not play a competitive game for them again. On recovery from the injury, he accepted an offer from QPR to become their new player-manager after Gerry Francis left in November 1994.
Return to Queens Park Rangers
His appearances during his spell as player-manager of QPR were less frequent. In his first season they did reasonably well, finishing eighth in the Premier League and reaching the FA Cup quarter-finals. But leading goalscorer Les Ferdinand was sold to Newcastle United in the 1995 close season and Wilkins failed to find a suitable successor. A shortage of goals cost QPR their Premier League status and they were relegated in second from bottom place (19th) at the end of 1995–96.
Wilkins left QPR at the start of the 1996–97 season after the club was bought by media tycoon Chris Wright following the relegation from the FA Premier League.
England
Wilkins was called up to play for England for the first time in 1976 by coach Don Revie and quickly made his debut against Italy during a mini-tournament in the U.S.. He was to become a permanent fixture in England squads for a decade to come.
He achieved one of his career highs after helping England qualify for the 1980 European Championships in Italy – the first tournament England had reached for a decade.
During a group game against Belgium, Wilkins scored a memorable goal when he lobbed the whole Belgian defence and, in one movement, latched on to the ball (thereby breaching the Belgians' obvious offside trap) and delivered a second lob, this time over the head of the goalkeeper and into the net to put England ahead. The Belgians swiftly equalised and a disappointing England failed to make progress from their group.
Wilkins was a fixture in the England squad through a successful campaign to qualify for the 1982 World Cup in Spain, which England exited at the second group stage. Over the season 1983/84, Wilkins continued to play for England under new coach Bobby Robson but the team failed to qualify for the 1984 European Championships.
Despite moving to Italy, to join A.C. Milan, Wilkins remained an England regular and he was chosen for the squad which qualified for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. He played in the opening defeat against Portugal but didn't last the full 90 minutes in the next group game against Morocco, after receiving a red card for the first and only time in his career, which made him the first England player to be sent off in a World Cup finals game. In disagreeing with a decision made by the referee, Wilkins threw the ball towards the direction of official and "unintentionally" hit him with it.
He was suspended for the next two games and was not reinstated by the time the quarter final against Argentina came round, a game which England lost 2–1.
Wilkins made his 84th and final England appearance in November 1986. He had scored three international goals and had been captain on ten occasions.
Retirement
After QPR, there followed spells at Wycombe Wanderers, Hibernian, Millwall, and Leyton Orient before he finally retired from playing at the end of the 1996-97 season.
Coach
Fulham; Chelsea; Watford; Millwall
In 1997, Wilkins became the manager of Fulham, with former England teammate Kevin Keegan as "Chief Operating Officer" under him. Wilkins managed to take the big-spending side to the Second Division play-offs, but was sacked by chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed before the first game took place after Fulham lost the last three games of the regular season. Kevin Keegan, who replaced Wilkins, failed in his bid to guide the side through the play-offs that season. The two, once close England team-mates, have had frosty relations since.
After leaving Fulham, Wilkins worked as a coach at Chelsea and Watford under Gianluca Vialli, on both occasions being sacked along with Vialli (in September 2000 and July 2002 respectively). He spent the next year working mainly as a pundit before joining Millwall as assistant manager to Dennis Wise in October 2003. Wilkins left the club along with Wise in May 2005, but returned in a consultancy role from March to October 2006.
England U-21
From 2004 on Wilkins was assistant coach to Peter Taylor with the England under 21's until Peter left in early 2007. Wilkins was not retained by incoming head coach Stuart Pearce.
Return to Chelsea
In September 2008, Ray Wilkins was appointed assistant first team coach to Luiz Felipe Scolari at Chelsea, following Steve Clarke's departure to West Ham United. In February 2009, following Scolari's shock sacking,[6] Wilkins was appointed as Chelsea's caretaker manager for the Fifth round FA Cup tie with Watford.[7] Chelsea won the game 3–1, through a Nicolas Anelka hat trick, with the club's new manager Guus Hiddink watching from the stands.[8][9] When Carlo Ancelotti took over as Chelsea manager, on 1 July 2009, Wilkins was appointed assistant manager. Chelsea won the Community Shield two months after the new management took over and went on to win both the 2009/10 Premier League title and the F.A. Cup, securing the double, the first in the club's history.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that Wilkins' contract with Chelsea "would not be renewed" and that he was to leave the club "with immediate effect".[10] On 1 December 2010, Wilkins reached what he described as a "harmonious conclusion" with Chelsea following his unexpected departure from Stamford Bridge. While appearing as a guest on Sky Sports Champions League coverage on 7 December 2010, Wilkins claimed that Chelsea still have not given him a reason for his sacking.[11]
Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti, who was to be sacked in turn at the end of the 2010/2011 season, wrote about Wilkins, in his autobiographical book The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius: "Ray is one of those select few, always present, noble in spirit, a real blue-blood, Chelsea flows in his veins ... without him we wouldn't have won a thing."[12]
Media
Wilkins appears as a commentator for Sky Sports, particularly on their Champions League coverage. Since the departure of Andy Gray from the broadcaster in January 2011, he has also been given the role of co-commentator on a number of high profile Premier League and Champions League matches.
Personal Life
In 2012 he was charged with drink driving after being stopped by police returning home from a youth player awards ceremony in Bournemouth.[13]
Statistics
Manager
| Team | Country | From | To | Record | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | D | L | Win % | |||||
| QPR |  |
15 November 1994 | 4 September 1996 | 80 | 31 | 13 | 36 | 38.75 | |
| Fulham | |
25 September 1997 | 7 May 1998 | 44 | 21 | 8 | 15 | 47.73 | |
| Chelsea (caretaker) | |
13 September 2000 | 17 September 2000 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 | |
| Chelsea (caretaker) | |
9 February 2009 | 15 February 2009 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 | |
| Total | 126 | 54 | 21 | 51 | 42.86 | ||||
- As of 14 February 2009
Honours
Player
- Manchester United
- FA Cup (1): 1982–83
- FA Charity Shield (1): 1983
- Rangers
International
- Rous Cup (1): 1986
- British Home Championship (3): 1978, 1982, 1983
Assistant Manager
- Chelsea
- Premier League (1): 2009–10
- FA Cup (1): 2010
- FA Community Shield (1): 2009
References
- ^ Arnhold, Matthias; Mamrud, Roberto (29 January 2009). "England – Record International Players". RSSSF. http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/eng-recintlp.html. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ Matt Barlow (7 May 2010). "Ledley King just had an instinct that smacked of Bobby Moore | Mail Online". London: Dailymail.co.uk. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1274107/Ledley-King-just-instinct-smacked-Bobby-Moore.html. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
- ^ Wilkins, Ray (19 April 2011). "Ex-Senrab player Ray Wilkins: They were masters at honing technique". www.dailymail.co.uk. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1378252/Ray-Wilkins-Senrab-masters-honing-technique.html. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Old boys' profiles" ChelseaFC.com
- ^ "Scolari sacked as Chelsea manager". BBC Sport. 9 February 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/7879638.stm. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ "No split at Chelsea, says Wilkins". BBC Sport. 13 February 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/7888199.stm. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ "Watford 1–3 Chelsea". BBC Sport. 14 February 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/fa_cup/7872201.stm. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ "Wilkins warns of Chelsea threat". BBC Sport. 14 February 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7890917.stm. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ Ashdown, John. "Ray Wilkins leaves Chelsea with immediate effect", The Guardian, 11 November 2010
- ^ "Ray Wilkins resolves Chelsea dispute", ESPN Soccernet, 1 Decemver 2010
- ^ "Mystery over Wilkins departure from Chelsea" ESPN Soccernet, 11 November 2010
- ^ "Former England captain pulled over after 95 mile trip from children's award ceremony" Daily Mail 9 May 2012
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