Howard Wilkinson

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Howard Wilkinson (born 13 November 1943 in Sheffield) is a former English football manager.

Notts County: Working alongside a legend

Wilkinson began his coaching career at Notts County where he was taken on and tutored by County's legendary manager Jimmy Sirrel.

Sheffield Wednesday: Establishing himself at the top

From 1983 until 1988 he was the manager of Sheffield Wednesday, where he established his reputation as a manager despite never having been a successful player. His first season saw Wednesday win promotion to the First Division and they were still there when he left four years later.

Leeds United: Promotion success and title glory

Wilkinson's greatest success as a manager came after moving to Wednesday's Yorkshire rivals Leeds United in 1988, where he won promotion to the First Division in 1989 and followed this with the last championship of the old-style Football League First Division in 1992. However, his subsequent time at Leeds was less successful, and after a poor start to the 1996-97 season, he was sacked.

Spell with the F.A

Soon after leaving Leeds, Wilkinson was hired by the sport's governing body in England, the Football Association, to act as its Technical Director, overseeing coaching and other training programmes at all levels of the game.

In his position as Technical Director of the FA, he managed the England team on a caretaker basis in 1999 for a friendly against France following the sacking of Glenn Hoddle. Following this he acted for a time as the permanent coach of the England Under-21 team, controversially selecting himself to replace Hoddle's choice of manager, Peter Taylor. Wilkinson was unsuccessful in this role; inheriting a team who were unbeaten and yet to concede a goal, he lost three of his six matches in charge and was replaced by David Platt ahead of the 2000-02 campaign. He returned to the role of caretaker of the senior team in October 2000 following the departure of Hoddle's permanent successor Kevin Keegan, overseeing a 0-0 draw in a World Cup qualifying match against Finland.

Sunderland: Ill-fated comeback in management

In 2002 he left the staff of the Football Association to return to club management at Sunderland with current Burnley FC manager Steve Cotterill as his assistant. However, his time there was nothing short of a catastrophe, and he was sacked before the end of the 2002-03 season as Sunderland languished at the bottom of the FA Premier League with a then league-history-worst total of 19pts.

Bizarrely, Wilkinson has been quoted as saying his time at Sunderland was a success - he seems to be the only one who thinks so.

Short-lived comeback in China

He briefly returned to management in March 2004 taking charge of chinese club Shanghai Shenhua but left two months later due to personal reasons.

Coaching at Leicester

In October 2004, he was temporarily appointed as first team coach of Leicester City.

Wilkinson's distinction

To date, Wilkinson is the last English manager to have coached a team to the English league championship title. Since his win with Leeds in 1992, the four subsequent winning managers have been either Scottish, French or (most recently) Portuguese.

Back to Meadow Lane

In December 2004, Wilkinson returned to Notts County where he became a non-executive director.

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