Chris Waddle

Chris Waddle

Personal information
Full name	Christopher Roland Waddle
Date of birth	(1960-12-14) 14 December 1960
Place of birth	Felling, England1
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Playing position	Winger
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1978–1980	Tow Law Town	?	(19)
1980–1985	Newcastle United	170	(46)
1985–1989	Tottenham Hotspur	138	(33)
1989–1992	Olympique de Marseille	107	(22)
1992–1996	Sheffield Wednesday	109	(10)
1996	Falkirk	4	(1)
1996–1997	Bradford City	25	(6)
1997	Sunderland	7	(1)
1997–1998	Burnley	32	(1)
1998	Torquay United	7	(0)
2000–2002	Worksop Town	60	(3)
2002	Glapwell	2	(0)
2002	Stocksbridge Park Steels	1	(0)
Total		662	(126)
National team
1984	England U21	1	(1)
1985–1991	England	62	(6)
Teams managed
1997–1998	Burnley
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Christopher Roland "Chris" Waddle (born 14 December 1960 in Felling, Tyne and Wear) is a former footballer from England. During his professional career he played for clubs including Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield Wednesday in England, and Olympique de Marseille in France. Waddle earned 62 caps for the England national football team between 1985 and 1991, and was a member of England's squads for the 1986 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 1988, and the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Waddle currently works as a co-commentator for ESPN's Premier League football coverage, and for BBC 5 Live.

Playing career

Early career

Waddle began his footballing career with Pelaw Juniors, moving on to Whitehouse SC, Mount Pleasant SC, HMH Printing, Pelaw SC, Leam Lane SC and Clarke Chapman before joining Tow Law Town before the start of the 1978-79 season.

Newcastle United

While working in food processing (a sausage factory), Waddle had unsuccessful trials with Sunderland and Coventry City. He joined Newcastle United in July 1980 for £1,000.

He made his Second Division debut for them in a 1–0 home win over Shrewsbury Town on 22 October 1980 and quickly established himself as an effective attacking midfielder, playing alongside Kevin Keegan and Peter Beardsley as Newcastle won promotion to the First Division at the end of 1983–84 season.

In one of his first games in the top flight, against Queen's Park Rangers at Loftus Road on 22 September 1984, Waddle scored a first half hat-trick for Newcastle, who had a 4-0 lead at half time. However, a fight back by QPR saw the game end 5-5.

He was called up for the England Under-21 side and made his full squad debut against Ireland in March 1985.

Tottenham Hotspur

After 46 goals in 170 league games for Newcastle, Waddle joined Tottenham Hotspur on 1 July 1985 for a fee of £590,000 (decided by a transfer tribunal). He scored twice on his league debut, a 4–0 home win over Watford on the opening day of the league season.

At Tottenham he played as a regular in the England team, playing in the side that reached the quarter finals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico linking up again with Beardsley. After the World Cup he enjoyed his most productive season. He won an FA Cup runners-up medal in 1987 when Spurs were beaten by Coventry, while they also finished third in the League and got to the semi-finals of the League Cup. In the same year, Waddle found himself in the pop charts, with the single "Diamond Lights" making the UK Top 20 in a duet with Spurs and England team-mate Glenn Hoddle. In 1988, he was in the England team which lost all three group games in the European Championships.

Due to the ban on English clubs in European competitions following the Heysel disaster of 1985, there was talk that Waddle would transfer to a team outside of the country.

Olympique de Marseille

On 1 July 1989, after scoring 33 times in 138 league appearances for Tottenham, Waddle moved to French club Olympique de Marseille for a fee of £4.5 million; the third highest sum ever paid for a footballer at the time. During his time in France the club were French champions three times (1990, 1991 and 1992).

Waddle started six games for England in their run to the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup. In the semi-final against West Germany, he hit the post in extra time when the teams were drawing 1–1. However, his final contribution to the game was missing a penalty in the shoot-out, hitting the ball over the bar and sending the Germans through to the final. He subsequently blamed a chance meeting with Uri Geller and Michael Jackson prior to the tournament for missing his penalty. It has been reported that Geller's parting words to Waddle were 'the higher you go, the harder you fall.' He started as a substitute in the third-place play off with Italy which England lost 2–1.

During his years at Marseille, the fans gave him the nickname : "Magic Chris" as he would watch magician Paul Daniels on VHS to combat homesickness. He was known as the successor of former Marseille player Roger Magnusson. Waddle was also voted second best OM player of the century behind Jean Pierre Papin for the club's century anniversary in 1998. Whilst at the club he again tried a pop music career, joining team mate Basile Boli in recording a song entitled We've Got a Feeling. Just a year after England's penalty shoot-out defeat in 1990, Waddle and Marseille reached the 1991 European Cup Final. Although he did not take a penalty, Waddle ended up on the losing side in a penalty shoot-out once again, after the game had ended 0–0 in normal time.

Sheffield Wednesday

Waddle returned to England in July 1992 in a £1 million move to Sheffield Wednesday, then managed by Trevor Francis. The club reached both domestic cup finals in the 1992–93 season (losing both to Arsenal – Waddle scored Wednesday's goal in the FA Cup final replay) and Waddle was voted the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year in 1993.

Despite his form he earned just one international cap under manager Graham Taylor.

In January 1996, Kevin Keegan attempted to re-sign Waddle for Newcastle United as cover for David Ginola during a suspension, but Keegan's £500,000 bid to re-sign the player who had played alongside him in the Newcastle team more than a decade earlier was rejected and Keegan was unwilling to meet manager David Pleat's £1million asking price for the 35-year-old. Around this time, Celtic, Leeds United and Sunderland were also interested in signing Waddle, but none of these transfers ever happened. Burnley also expressed an interest in appointing him as their player-manager – a role he would finally take the following year – but Waddle saw out the season at Hillsborough.

Waddle's later career at Hillsborough was marred by injuries and he was released 5 games into the 1996–97 season (when the Owls were top of the premiership and having taken young sensation Ritchie Humphreys – 4 goals in 5 games – under his wing) after being frozen out of the team by David Pleat, having played 109 games and scored 10 goals with many more assists.

Falkirk and Bradford City

He joined Falkirk in September 1996 but joined Bradford City the following month. Although short, his time at City was a success and he was a firm fans favourite. In a match away to Huddersfield Town he scored direct from a corner in a 3-3 draw live on TV. He also scored a goal in the FA Cup against Everton at Goodison Park which came second in the February 1997 Match of the Day Goal of the Month

Sunderland

He moved to Sunderland, the side he had supported as a boy, for a nominal fee of £75,000 in March 1997, but could not help Sunderland from being relegated at the end of the season, despite scoring once against Everton.

Burnley

In May 1997 he was appointed player-manager of Burnley, moving from Roker Park on a free transfer. Burnley had a disappointing season, only just avoiding relegation at the end of the season. He scored once during his spell at Burnley, the goal coming in a 2–2 draw with Bournemouth in October 1997.

Torquay United

Waddle left Burnley in the summer, and in September 1998 joined Torquay United. He played just 7 times for Torquay, before taking up a coaching job with Sheffield Wednesday. He was appointed reserve team coach in July 1999, and played for a local pub side, but left in June 2000 on the appointment of Paul Jewell as manager.

Non-league career

Following his departure from Torquay United, Waddle enjoyed two seasons with Worksop Town making 60 appearances and scoring 3 goals. His most notable appearance was in a 12–0 Northern Premier League record win against Frickley Athletic. He also had a brief spell with Glapwell and one appearance for Stocksbridge Park Steels in the Northern Premier League First Division.

England

On 26 March 1985, when still a Newcastle player, Waddle was capped at senior level by England for the first time in a 2-1 win over Republic of Ireland. He soon became a regular member of the England squad and on 16 October that year he scored his first England goal, on his tenth international appearance, in a 5-0 win over Turkey. He was in England's squad at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups as well as the 1988 European Championships. Although England were eliminated at the group stages of Euro 88 after losing all three games, they did reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1986 and the semi-finals in 1990, with Waddle missing one of England's penalties in the 1990 semi-final shootout defeat to West Germany. He won the last of his 62 England caps on 16 October 1991 in a 1-0 win over Turkey. He had scored six goals for England, the last against Scotland on 27 May 1989.

Post-football career

Waddle appeared on BBC Radio Five Live as a summariser at Premier League matches and also writes a column in The Sun newspaper.

In 2005 he was charged with attacking a man in a pub in Dore, Sheffield, however the charge was dropped for insufficient evidence.

Waddle signed a deal with Setanta Sports to commentate on all England away matches in 2008–09. Setanta's British division then went into administration and ceased broadcasting in June 2008, and as of August 2009 Waddle co-commentates for ESPN's English Premier League football coverage and is a pundit on Showsports Arabia, covering the English Premier League, from the studio in Dubai, UAE.

His cousin, Alan Waddle, played league football for Halifax Town, Liverpool, Leicester City, Swansea City, Newport County, Mansfield Town, Hartlepool United and Peterborough United.

In 2003 Thierry Henry named Waddle in his all-time Dream Team Line up.

Following England's heavy defeat to Germany in the second round of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Waddle criticised the English Football Association, claiming: "The FA sit on their backsides and do nothing tournament after tournament after tournament. Why don't they listen? Why don't they look at other countries and ask 'how do they keep producing talent?' We coach talent out of players ... We lack so many ideas and it is so frustrating. The amount of money in our league is frightening and all we do is waste it on rubbish ideas ... We kid ourselves thinking we have a chance if we keep the tempo up. We can only play one way and it is poor. You can't go on playing football and hoping to win trophies playing a hundred miles an hour and putting teams under pressure for 90 minutes. You've got to be able to play slow, slow, quick and we can't do it."

Film and television appearances

Chris was a key part of the pool of popular culture references used in the BBC comedy The Fast Show. References to, and photographs of, Chris made regular appearances during the "Chanel 9" news segment of the show.

Personal life

Waddle has one daughter, Brooke, and a son, Jack. On 29 April 2012, Jack was given a one-year first-team contract at Chesterfield.

Statistics

Club performance			League		Cup		League Cup		Continental		Total
Season	Club	League	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
England			League		FA Cup		League Cup		Europe		Total
1980–81	Newcastle United	Second Division	13	1	4	2	0	0	—		17	3
1981–82			42	7	3	1	2	0	—		47	8
1982–83			37	7	2	0	1	0	—		40	7
1983–84			42	18	1	0	2	0	—		45	18
1984–85		First Division	36	13	2	1	4	2	—		42	16
1985–86	Tottenham Hotspur	First Division	39	11	5	2	6	1	—		50	14
1986–87			39	6	6	2	9	3	—		54	11
1987–88			22	2	2	1	1	0	—		25	3
1988–89			38	14	1	0	5	0	—		44	14
France			League		Coupe de France		Coupe de la Ligue		Europe		Total
1989–90	Olympique Marseille	Division 1	37	9	5	3	—		8	1	50	12
1990–91			35	6	5	0	—		9	2	49	8
1991–92			35	7	3	0	—		3	1	41	8
England			League		FA Cup		League Cup		Europe		Total
1992–93	Sheffield Wednesday	Premier League	33	1	8	2	9	0	4	1	54	4
1993–94			19	3	1	0	6	0	—		26	3
1994–95			25	4	3	1	0	0	—		28	5
1995–96			32	2	1	0	4	0	2	1	39	3
Scotland			League		Scottish Cup		League Cup		Europe		Total
1996–97	Falkirk	Division One	4	1	0	0	0	0	—		4	1
England			League		FA Cup		League Cup		Europe		Total
1996–97	Bradford City	First Division	26	5	3	1	0	0	—		29	6
1996–97	Sunderland	Premier League	7	1	0	0	0	0	—		7	1
1997–98	Burnley	Second Division	32	1	2	0	2	1	—		36	2
1998–99	Torquay United	Third Division	7	0	0	0	0	0	—		7	0
Total	England		489	96	44	13	51	7	6	2	590	118
	France		107	22	13	3	—		20	4	149	29
	Scotland		4	1	0	0	0	0	—		4	1
Career total			600	119	57	16	51	7	26	6	734	148

International

England national team
Year	Apps	Goals
1985	11	1
1986	12	2
1987	6	1
1988	9	0
1989	10	2
1990	13	0
1991	1	0
Total	62	6

Honours

Tottenham Hotspur

• 1986–87 F.A. Cup: finalist

Olympique Marseille

• Division 1 (3): 1989–90, 1990–91, 1991–92
• 1990–91 European Cup: finalist

Sheffield Wednesday

• 1992–93 FA Cup: finalist
• 1992–93 League Cup: finalist

England

• 1990 FIFA World Cup: fourth place

Individual

• 1993 Football Writers Footballer of the Year

Bibliography

¹Dickinson, Jason; Brodie, John (2005). The Wednesday Boys: A Definitive Who's Who of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club 1880–2005. Sheffield: Pickard Communication. pp. 308. ISBN 0-9547264-9-9.

External links

• Chris Waddle photos & stats at Sporting Heroes.net
• Chris Waddle career stats at Soccerbase