Joe Kinnear

Personal information
Full name	Joseph Oliver Edward Kinnear
Date of birth	27 December 1946 (1946-12-27) (age 62)
Place of birth	Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Playing position	Defender
Youth career
1964–1965	St. Albans City
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1965–1975	Tottenham Hotspur	196	(2)
1975–1976	Brighton & Hove Albion	16	(1)
Total		212	(3)
National team
1967–1975	Republic of Ireland	26	(0[1])
Teams managed
1978	Al-Sharjah
1983	Al-Shabab (assistant manager)
1984	India
1987	Nepal
1989	Doncaster Rovers (caretaker)
1992–1999	Wimbledon
2001–2003	Luton Town
2004	Nottingham Forest
2008–2009	Newcastle United
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Joseph Oliver Edward "Joe" Kinnear^[2] (born 27 December 1946) is a professional football manager and former player. He was most recently the manager of Newcastle United.

Kinnear played as a defender, spending the majority of his career — ten seasons — with Tottenham Hotspur. With Tottenham he won the FA Cup, the Football League Cup twice, the FA Community Shield and the UEFA Cup.

Kinnear was born in Dublin, moving to Watford, England at the age of seven. He was capped 26 times for the Republic of Ireland national football team.

[edit] Early life

Joe Kinnear moved to England at the age of seven. His father died when he was young and his mother brought up five children on a council estate in Watford. ^[3]

[edit] Club career

Kinnear first made an impression as a player with St Albans City. His talent as a defender was quickly recognised and in 1963 he moved to Tottenham Hotspur where he spent ten years, playing in the 1967 FA Cup final against Chelsea, a game Tottenham won 2-1. Kinnear made almost 200 league appearances for Tottenham, chipping in with two league goals. He won four major honours during his time at the club: the FA Cup in 1967; the UEFA Cup in 1972 and the Football League Cup on two occasions (in 1971 and 1973). In 1975, he moved to Brighton, where he made 16 appearances before retiring at the relatively young age of 30.

[edit] International career

Kinnear was capped 26 times by the Republic of Ireland. This stretch did not include any goalscoring. His debut came in the 2-1 defeat by Turkey on 22 February 1967.^[4]

[edit] Management

[edit] Asia

After his retirement from football in 1977, Kinnear spent five years in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates managing Sharjah and Al-Shabab (alongside Dave Mackay),^[5] also spending time coaching in Malaysia^[6]. He spent three months coaching India^[5] and one year coaching Nepal,^[7] later returning to England to assist Mackay at Doncaster Rovers.

[edit] Wimbledon

Kinnear briefly took charge of Doncaster after Mackay's departure in 1989 but was replaced by Billy Bremner after a consortium completed their takeover of the club.^[5] Kinnear was appointed reserve team manager of Wimbledon later that year before being appointed manager at the club following Peter Withe's dismissal in January 1992. Kinnear led the Dons to a 6th place finish in the Premier League in the 1993-94 season. The next season Kinnear continued to defy the odds and Wimbledon finished 9th in the league. The achievements are made even more respectable considering the Dons had no home of their own and had a small transfer budget.

It was reported that Kinnear turned down the chance to replace Jack Charlton as manager of the Republic of Ireland national team in 1996. Kinnear then guided Wimbledon to semi-finals in both of the major domestic cup competitions in 1997 as well as finishing 8th in the Premier League. Kinnear continued in his role as Wimbledon until he suffered a heart attack before a league game against Sheffield Wednesday in March 1999. He stood down in June of that year and as was replaced at Wimbledon by Egil Olsen.^[5][8] Wimbledon were relegated from the Premier League in the following season.

[edit] Luton Town

Before returning to football management with Luton Town, Kinnear was a front runner to replace Martin O'Neill at Leicester City,^[9] and also considered taking over the struggling Sheffield Wednesday.^[10] Instead, Kinnear would be briefly involved as Director of Football at Oxford United during the 2000-01 season.^[11] In January 2001 he resigned, reportedly, due to poor health.^[11] Kinnear's lack of input at Oxford is seen as the real reason behind his move away.^[10] Just a few weeks later he was handed a similar role at Luton Town,^[11] who were battling against relegation from what was then the Second Division, as were Oxford. On arrival, Kinnear demoted then-manager Lil Fuccillo and appointed himself manager of the team.

He could not save the club from relegation, despite purchasing striker Steve Howard for £50,000 on transfer deadline day. In the summer of 2001, Kinnear released the majority of the relegated squad, and brought in a number of his own men over the course of the season, including future captains Kevin Nicholls and Chris Coyne, along with winger Jean-Louis Valois. The team stormed to promotion under Kinnear's guidance, finishing runners-up to Plymouth Argyle in the Hatters' first promotion in 20 years.

The next season was disappointing for the Hatters, as they were expected to compete for promotion, but in the end they only managed a 9th place finish. In May 2003 the club was sold to a consortium, led by John Gurney,^[12] and Kinnear and his assistant Mick Harford were then sacked,^[12] in mysterious circumstances^[13] which involved an employee of Northampton Town being the person who signed the letters which dismissed both Kinnear and Harford.

[edit] Nottingham Forest

Kinnear was out of work until Nottingham Forest offered him the manager's job in February 2004,^[14] taking over from Paul Hart.^[14] Forest were in the bottom third of the league table when he took over, but he would have an immediate impact on the club.^[15] Kinnear was able to get the club up to 14th position by the end of the 2003-04 season. The following season began with talk of promotion,^[16] but would go badly for Forest and Kinnear, with just four wins from the first 23 games in the league that year. A 3–0 defeat to rivals Derby County at Pride Park,^[17] signaled the end for Kinnear, with his resignation coming on 16 December 2004.^[17][18] Nottingham Forest were 22nd in the Football League Championship table following Kinnear's departure, the club appointed Mick Harford to take over as interim manager. Forest would ultimately be relegated at the end of the season, after Gary Megson had been appointed as the full time replacement to Kinnear.

[edit] Newcastle United

Kinnear was without a club following his departure from Nottingham Forest for almost four years, though there were rumours about joining several clubs during this time including QPR.^[19] On 26 September 2008, Kinnear was named as the interim manager of Premier League side Newcastle United until the end of October, following the resignation of Kevin Keegan.^[20] This initial one month period was extended for an additional month, keeping Kinnear at St. James' Park until the end of December.^[21][22]

On 2 October 2008, after a controversial start to his tenure at Newcastle, he launched a verbal tirade at the Daily Mirror's journalist Simon Bird calling him a "cunt".^[23][24] He swore 52 times in the interview with Bird and other members of the media. Later in the interview, he announced that he would no longer deal with the national media while he was Newcastle manager, and that he would only speak to local newspapers from then on, with first team coach Chris Hughton handling all other interviews.

Kinnear's first two games in charge, against Everton and Manchester City, both ended as 2–2 draws. Kinnear's first win at Newcastle was against West Brom. Newcastle won the match 2–1, with the first goal coming from Joey Barton, who was making his first starting appearance for Newcastle since being released from prison during the summer.^[25] He then followed this up with a surprise win against fifth placed Aston Villa to lift Newcastle off the foot of the table and out of the relegation zone. Two goals from Obafemi Martins secured the 2–0 victory.

On 31 October 2008, Kinnear stated that November 22 would be D-Day with regards to the sale of Newcastle United and his position as manager.^[26] This turned out to be untrue, as Kinnear was confirmed as being in charge for another month after Newcastle's 0–0 draw with Chelsea.^[27] On 28 November, Kinnear was named as the permanent manager of Newcastle until the end of the 2008–09 season.^[28]

Kinnear continued his event filled season in charge by getting sent off on 6 December after a confrontation with referee Mike Riley during a 2–2 draw with Stoke City, having being up by two goals for most of the match.^[29] After that disappointing draw with Stoke they followed with wins against Portsmouth and Tottenham Hotspur, which was Newcastle's sixth consecutive league victory against the North London team.^{[citation needed]}

Following a disappointing 5–1 defeat to Liverpool on 28 December, Kinnear re-affirmed his belief that the Newcastle squad lacked strength in depth - with the manager having fielded a makeshift side due to injuries and suspensions resulting from the 2–1 Boxing Day defeat to Wigan - and stated that he was looking to improve the side with transfers in the January window.^[30] In January, Kinnear secured the signings of Peter Lovenkrands, Kevin Nolan and Ryan Taylor. The latter had been signed in a part exchanged deal with Charles N'Zogbia. N'Zogbia had frequently stated in the press, via his agent, that he wished to leave. The final straw came after Kinnear misprounced N'Zogbia's name during an interview in which he called him 'insomnia'. N'Zogbia stated that he no longer wished to play for Newcastle as long as Kinnear was the manager. Shay Given was also sold to Manchester City. On 7 February 2009, Kinnear was taken to hospital after feeling ill, hours before Newcastle's clash with West Brom. The club stated that it was just precautionary and that Chris Hughton would take the team. Newcastle won 3–2, their first win since Christmas. It was later announced he would need a heart bypass operation.^[31] and that Alan Shearer would take over the managerial role for the remainder of the season. Joe Kinnear's contract officially expired at Newcastle on 30 May 2009.^[32] On Friday 14 August on the 3 Legends radio show it was announced that Kinnear would be re-appointed as the club's manager the following Monday, this already after Kinnear himself declared Mike Ashley had approached him to return but was unable to immediately because of his medical condition.

[edit] Statistics

[edit] Player

^{[33] [34]}

[edit] Manager

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Al-Sharjah
Al-Shabab
India
Nepal		1987	1987	11	6	3	2	54.55
Doncaster Rovers		1989	1989
Wimbledon		19 January 1992	30 May 1999	364	130	109	125	35.71
Luton Town		8 February 2001	23 May 2003	122	56	28	38	45.90
Nottingham Forest		10 February 2004	16 December 2004	44	15	15	14	34.09
Newcastle United		26 September 2008	1 April 2009	26	5	10	11	19.23

As of 4 March 2009.^[35]

[edit] Honours

[edit] Player

Tottenham Hotspur

• FA Cup
  • Winner (1): 1967
• Football League Cup
  • Winner (2): 1971, 1973
• FA Community Shield
  • Winner (1): 1967 (shared)
• UEFA Cup
  • Winner (1): 1972

[edit] Manager

Nepal

• South Asian Games
  • Runner-up (1): 1987

Luton Town

• Division Three
  • Runner-up: 2001–02

Wimbledon

• LMA Manager of the Year
  • 1994

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Joe Kinnear career stats at Soccerbase
• Joe Kinnear management career stats at Soccerbase
• Joe Kinnear archive at BBC Sport
• Joe Kinnear Photo Gallery at Football365.com