John Sheridan (footballer)

For other people named John Sheridan, see John Sheridan (disambiguation).

John Sheridan

Personal information
Full name	John Joseph Sheridan
Date of birth	1 October 1964 (1964-10-01)
Place of birth	Stretford, England
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Chesterfield (manager)
Youth career
	Manchester City
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1981–1982	Manchester City	0	(0)
1982–1989	Leeds United	230	(47)
1989	Nottingham Forest	0	(0)
1989–1996	Sheffield Wednesday	199	(25)
1996	→ Birmingham City (loan)	2	(0)
1996	→ Bolton Wanderers (loan)	6	(3)
1996–1998	Bolton Wanderers	33	(0)
1998	Doncaster Rovers	7	(0)
1998–2004	Oldham Athletic	144	(14)
Total		621	(89)
National team
1985–1987	Republic of Ireland U21	2	(0)
1988–1995	Republic of Ireland	34	(5)
1994	Republic of Ireland B	1	(0)
Teams managed
2001	Oldham Athletic (co-caretaker)
2003–2004	Oldham Athletic (caretaker)
2006–2009	Oldham Athletic
2009–	Chesterfield
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

John Joseph Sheridan (born 1 October 1964) is a former English-born Republic of Ireland international footballer, currently manager of League One side Chesterfield. He is also the brother of Barrow manager and former footballer Darren Sheridan.

After not making any appearances for Manchester City, he began his football career at Leeds United in the 1982–83 season. During his time at Sheffield Wednesday, he scored the winning goal in the 1991 Football League Cup Final in a 1–0 victory over Manchester United.

Playing career

Club career

Born in Stretford, Manchester, Lancashire in 1964, Sheridan signed for Leeds United on leaving school in July 1981 and made his debut for them in the Football League Second Division on 20 November 1982 in a goalless home draw with Middlesbrough. He appeared 27 times in the league that season, scoring twice. He was rarely out of the side at Elland Road, and was a hugely popular player with the fans.[1] His best season with the club was the 1986–87 season, when Leeds reached the semi finals of the FA Cup and finished fourth in the Second Division-–their highest finish since relegation from the First Division in 1982. He scored 15 goals in the league, but Leeds were beaten in the FA Cup semi-finals by eventual trophy winners Coventry City and lost the Second Division promotion/First Division relegation playoff final to Charlton Athletic, and therefore stayed in the Second Division.[2]

However, he remained loyal to the club until 3 August 1989, when after seven years in the Leeds first team (during which he played 230 league games and scored 47 goals) he fell out with manager Howard Wilkinson (who succeeded Billy Bremner the previous autumn) and joined First Division giants Nottingham Forest for £650,000.

However, he made only one appearance for Forest (in a League Cup tie against Huddersfield) before joining Sheffield Wednesday on 3 November 1989. It was with Sheffield Wednesday that Sheridan played arguably the best football of his career, scoring 33 goals in 243 appearances. Sheridan will always be remembered by Wednesday faithful for his "rocket" goal in their 1–0 win over Manchester United in the 1991 Football League Cup Final. He also helped the Owls win promotion that season, while they were managed by Ron Atkinson (ironically a former Manchester United manager). Atkinson then departed to Aston Villa in June 1991 and veteran player Trevor Francis took over as manager. Sheridan remained a key part of the team under Francis, helping them finish third in the league in 1992, reach both domestic cup finals in 1993 (where they were beaten 2–1 by Arsenal in both finals) and also reached the League Cup semi finals in the 1993–94 season.

However, Francis was sacked at the end of the 1994–95 season and new manager David Pleat picked Sheridan less often than Atkinson and Francis had. He played just 17 times in the 1995–96 campaign, and made his final two appearances for the Owls early in the 1996–97 season.[3]

Sheridan himself says that he supported Manchester City despite growing up in Stretford.

He was loaned to Birmingham City for a four-match spell in the autumn of 1996 (where he once again played under Trevor Francis) before finally exiting Hillsborough on 13 November 1996 in a £180,000 move to Division One leaders Bolton Wanderers.

He played 20 times for the Trotters in 1996–97 season and scored twice as they were promoted to the FA Premier League as Division One champions with 100 goals and 98 points. He played 12 times in the 1997–98 season, as his side were relegated on the last day of the season.[4]

He then made a surprise move to Doncaster Rovers, the club who had just been relegated from the Football League to the Conference. He made eight appearances in the 1998–99 before making a Football League comeback with Division Two side Oldham Athletic, where he would remain for the rest of his playing career. Over six seasons, he played 114 games and scored 14 league goals as the Latics managed to avoid falling into Division Three but never quite made it to Division One, the closest they came being a playoff semi-final defeat in the 2002–03 season. Sheridan finally hung up his boots at the end of the 2003–04 season, a few months short of his 40th birthday.

International career

Sheridan also won 34 caps for the Republic of Ireland, scoring five times. He also scored the 100th Irish international goal at Lansdowne Road in 1994 against Bolivia.

Sheridan was part of the squad that travelled to Euro 88 but didn't feature in any of Ireland's three games. Sheridan was also part of two world cup squads in 1990 and 1994. He played just one game as a substitute in 1990 but started in all 4 matches in 1994 including a 1–0 win over Italy in the opening game in which Sheridan hit the bar. Ireland won thanks to a goal from Ray Houghton.

In Qualifying Sheridan scored one goal against Spain but as a result of goal difference this was actually an important goal despite Ireland losing 3–1. Had Ireland lost 3–0 they wouldn't have qualified.

Managerial career

Oldham Athletic

Following the departure of Iain Dowie to Crystal Palace in late 2003, Sheridan took over the coaching of the Oldham first team, along with fellow-veteran David Eyres, before they were both replaced by Brian Talbot. On 1 June 2006, Talbot's successor, Ronnie Moore, was himself shown the door, and Sheridan stepped in to fill in the manager's position on a permanent basis.

On 7 December 2006, Sheridan was named Football League One Manager of the Month. He guided Oldham to sixth place in League One in 2006–07, and their promotion challenge was ended in the play-off semifinals by eventual winners Blackpool.

They finished eighth the following season, but had made a far more convincing bid for promotion during the 2008–09 season. On 9 March 2009, reports surfaced of a fight involving players and Sheridan at a racetrack, which Sheridan reported as being "overblown." Despite the incidents, Sheridan remained with the club for the next game, a 6–2 loss to Milton Keynes Dons. The following day, following a talk between Sheridan and Oldham managing director Simon Corney, Sheridan agreed to leave the club. He was immediately replaced with former Oldham manager Joe Royle. Sheridan later admitted that a series of poor results had led to his departure from Oldham.

Chesterfield

On 9 June 2009, after much deliberation, Sheridan was named as manager of Chesterfield in League Two. Signing a three-year contract with the club, he brought assistant Tommy Wright and goalkeeper Mark Crossley along with him.

Sheridan's second season with the club saw him bringing in his own players, and on 22 April 2011 a draw between Torquay United and Wycombe Wanderers saw Chesterfield promoted without even kicking a ball into the nPower League 1. On the 7 May 2011 Chesterfield were confirmed as Champions of League 2 after a 3-1 victory over play-off contenders Gillingham on the last game of the season.

Career statistics

Playing statistics

Club	Years	League		FA Cup		League Cup		Total
		Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
Manchester City	1981–1982	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Leeds United	1982–1989	230	47	18	3	24	3	272	53
Nottingham Forest	1989	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0
Sheffield Wednesday	1989–1996	199	25	20	3	24	3	243	31
Birmingham City	1996	2	0	0	0	2	0	4	0
Bolton Wanderers	1996	6	3	0	0	1	0	7	3
Bolton Wanderers	1996–1998	33	0	2	0	1	0	36	0
Doncaster Rovers	1998	7	0	0	0	0	0	7	0
Oldham Athletic	1998–2004	144	14	15	2	4	0	163	16
Total		621	89	55	8	57	6	733	103

Managerial statistics

As of 6 March 2012

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Oldham Athletic		31 October 2001	7 November 2001	&100000000000000010000001	&100000000000000000000000	&100000000000000010000001	&100000000000000000000000	&0&100000000000000000000000.00
Oldham Athletic		20 December 2003	10 March 2004	&1000000000000001200000012	&100000000000000020000002	&100000000000000060000006	&100000000000000040000004	&1000000000000001667000016.67
Oldham Athletic		1 June 2006	15 March 2009	&10000000000000151000000151	&1000000000000006100000061	&1000000000000004300000043	&1000000000000004700000047	&1000000000000004039999940.40
Chesterfield		9 June 2009	present	&10000000000000144000000144	&1000000000000005900000059	&1000000000000003400000034	&1000000000000005100000051	&1000000000000004096999940.97
Total				&10000000000000308000000308	&10000000000000122000000122	&1000000000000008400000084	&10000000000000102000000102	&1000000000000003960999939.61

Honours

Sheffield Wednesday

• Football League Cup: 1991

Bolton Wanderers

• First Division: 1996–97

External links

• John Sheridan career stats at Soccerbase
• John Sheridan management career stats at Soccerbase