Steve McCall

This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help by adding relevant internal links, or by improving the article's layout. (July 2009)

Stephen McCall (born Carlisle October 15, 1960) is an English former football player. His favoured position was left back though his versatility allowed him to play in a number of positions.

Playing career

Ipswich Town

He made his name at Ipswich Town, where his greatest achievement was winning the UEFA Cup in the 1980/81 season, beating AZ Alkmaar 5-4 on aggregate, with Steve playing an influential part in his team's victory. He joined Ipswich Town in 1978 as an apprentice, being scouted from the north-west where Town legend Kevin Beattie was also born and went on to make 329 appearances for Town, standing as a record of consecutive appearances until 2001, being beaten by Goalkeeper Richard Wright. During this time he received one B cap against New Zealand. Never a goalscorer, Steve scored 11 goals in his 9 seasons at Ipswich before he was sold for £300,000 to Yorkshire side Sheffield Wednesday.

Sheffield Wednesday

His time at Sheffield Wednesday was unfortunately not so successful, as he spent much of his 4 seasons sidelined with a range of injuries, limiting his collection of appearances to only 36, scoring only 2 goals. In the midst of an unfortunate run at Wednesday, Steve achieved a childhood dream by being loaned to his home team and life long supported Carlisle United, where he spent only a few months making 6 appearances without a goal.

Plymouth Argyle

Towards the end of the 1991-92 season, Steve was sent down south, being sold to Plymouth Argyle for £25,000, where he would go on to become one of Argyle's greatest ever players, winning player of the season two years in a row in 1993 and 1994, only the second player in Argyle's history to achieve such a title (the other being Paul Mariner, one of Steve's ex-team mates). As if given a new lease of life, Steve enjoyed a period of rich form in his two occasions at Plymouth Argyle, making 275 appearances in a total of 6 years at the club. In 1995 Steve enjoyed a short rein as caretaker manager at Plymouth, being replaced by Neil Warnock.

Torquay United

Sandwiched between his two spells at Plymouth, Steve joined Torquay United for free from 12/07/1996 to 24/06/1998, joining former Plymouth team mate and manager Kevin Hodges as Torquay United's management team. In the 1997-98 season, Steve lived another childhood ambition - to play at Wembley, when Torquay played out a close fought match against Colchester United. The dream of playoff glory was short lived however, as the favourites for promotion were beaten 1-0 by a Colchester penalty. The close season saw Mick Jones - manager of Plymouth lose his job, and Hodges and McCall took the position at their former club, in a reign that lasted a further two years.

Return to Plymouth Argyle

Steve's playing career ended in 2000 at Plymouth Argyle, also seeing him lose his job at the hands of a low league position, which turned out to be another turn in his career. He appeared in the famous Jimmy Glass game against Carlisle, in which the goalkeeper scored in the 94th minute to keep Carlisle United in the Football League.^[1]

Coaching career

In 2001, Steve hooked up with former team mate and close friend George Burley as European scouting Co-Ordinator at Ipswich Town, and progressed through the ranks as initially Scout, and when Joe Royle took over, became Reserve Team Manager and First Team Coach. It is here that Steve McCall is currently working, now under the management of Roy Keane, as Chief Scout, enjoying life back at the club his career started with almost 30 years ago.

In 2006 he took part in Masters football.

Career Statistics

International

Honours

As a player

Ipswich Town

• UEFA Cup winner 1981

References

External links

• Steve McCall management career stats at Soccerbase