Michael Colin "Mike" Newell (born 27 January 1965) is an English football manager and former player. He was a member of the Blackburn Rovers team which won the Premier League in 1995, and totalled £3,585,000 in transfer fees over the duration of his career.^[1] On October 18, 2009, Newell parted company with League Two Grimsby Town after one year in charge.

[edit] Playing career

Newell represented 13 different clubs in his career, playing a total of 530 league games and scoring 120 goals. While playing for Blackburn against Rosenborg in the 1995–96 season, Newell scored the fastest-ever hat-trick in the UEFA Champions League, netting his three goals in a spell of only nine minutes. This was a "Perfect Hat-Trick", meaning he scored the goals with his right foot, left foot and head.

Newell was released by both Liverpool and Crewe Alexandra as a youngster, finally finding form at Wigan Athletic. After a brief period at Wigan, Newell went to Luton Town. After another successful time he moved on to Leicester City in 1987.

He established himself as a highly competent goalscorer at Filbert Street, but was unable to secure promotion to the First Division and joined Everton for £1.1million in 1989, just four years after Everton had signed another high scoring striker - Gary Lineker - from the East Midlands club.

Whereas Lineker had developed into a world class goalscorer after moving from Leicester to Everton (along with subsequent clubs FC Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur, Newell's form at Goodison Park was less spectacular as he formed a three-man strikeforce with Graeme Sharp and Tony Cottee, and with three strikers in the first eleven there was little pressure on any of them to score 20 or 30 goals a season. However, the three-man strikeforce was looking like a success as they spearheaded Everton to the top of the league in late autumn of 1989 and were starting to look like serious title contenders for perhaps the first time since Howard Kendall's departure as manager in June 1987, but Everton were unable to maintain this impressive form and dipped to sixth place in the final table. Newell had managed seven goals that season from 26 league appearances.

1990-91 began terribly for Everton. By 31 October 1990, they were a lowly 18th in the league and had endured their worst ever start to a league campaign - battling relegation exactly a year since they had led the league and looked good bets for the title. Manager Colin Harvey paid for this nightmare start to the season with his job, only to rejoin Everton a week later when Howard Kendall began his second spell as manager and appointed Harvey as his assistant in the old manager/coach partnership that had brought so much success from 1981 to 1987. Newell initially remained in favour under Kendall, scoring seven goals again that season, one of them in a 2-0 win over Manchester United on 2 March 1991 in a game best remembered for being the debut of a 17-year-old United winger called Ryan Giggs.

Despite the arrival of Peter Beardsley from Liverpool for the 1991-92 season, Newell managed to make 13 league appearances for Everton (scoring once) before his £1.1million transfer to Second Division promotion challengers Blackburn Rovers, now managed by former Liverpool player and manager Kenny Dalglish and bankrolled by the wealth of owner Jack Walker. He broke his leg soon afterwards, and Blackburn went from being Second Division leaders to having to win their final game of the season to achieve a playoff place, but Newell was fit for the playoffs and after helping them overcome Derby County in the semi-finals, he scored the penalty in their 1-0 playoff final win over his former club Leicester City at Wembley Stadium as they sealed a place in the new FA Premier League and ended their 26-year absence from the top flight of English football.

In 1992-93, Newell was Blackburn's second highest goalscorer with 13 league goals as they finished fourth in the Premier League. They had looked like championship contenders for much of the season, but Newell lacked the much-needed support up front after late December when strike partner Alan Shearer suffered a serious knee injury and missed the rest of the season. However, he managed just 6 goals in 28 games in 1993-94, battling it out with Kevin Gallacher for the role of Shearer's strike partner as Blackburn finished second. The following season, the arrival of Chris Sutton restricted him to just two Premier League starts (and nine substitute appearances) in 1994–95, when Blackburn were league champions for the first time in 81 years. However, he did narrowly meet the requirement of 10 league appearances for a title medal.

Newell scored the 1,000th goal of the Premier League era during Blackburn's 3–1 win at Nottingham Forest in April 1993, Newell also holds the record for the fastest Hat Trick in Champions League History after scoring 3 goals in 9 minutes for Blackburn against Rosenborg B.K in the 1995-96 season .

However, this spell proved to be unsuccessful, and was the beginning of a five year spell at seven different clubs. Newell left Birmingham to join West Ham United on loan in December 1996, before a similar spell at Bradford City in March 1997. Before he was loaned to West Ham, Birmingham had accepted a £750,000 bid from Bolton Wanderers for Newell, but he was unable to agree a contract and the transfer fell through.

In the summer of 1997, Newell moved to Aberdeen before drifting back into the English leagues with Crewe, Doncaster Rovers and finally Blackpool. He retired from playing in May 2001, going out on a high as Blackpool celebrated promotion as Division Three playoff winners.

[edit] Managerial career

[edit] Hartlepool United

Newell replaced Chris Turner as manager of Hartlepool United during the 2002–03 season, when Hartlepool were top of Division Three. After horrendous away form, the club lost a 16 point lead it held, though promotion as runners-up was still sealed. After this, and many personal differences between Newell and the board at Hartlepool, Newell's contract was not renewed in the summer of 2003, and he was replaced by Neale Cooper.

[edit] Luton Town

Shortly after leaving Hartlepool, he was appointed manager of Luton Town by controversial chairman John Gurney, who, having just purchased the club, sacked the popular management team of Joe Kinnear and Mick Harford. It was reported that Newell won a Pop Idol-style poll to become manager^[2] but he was offered and signed a contract before the "results" were announced. Shortly after taking over, the club went into administrative receivership which saw a several players leave the club. Despite this, Newell succeeded in taking the club near the play-offs of Division Two.

The following season, Luton became the first ever champions of the newly-named League One, winning 98 points and gaining promotion to the Championship. Newell guided Luton to further success in the 2005–06 season, which saw Luton finish 10th in the Championship – their highest finish since they relegated from the top flight in 1992. Luton also became one of only two clubs to defeat runaway champions Reading. Newell was linked with jobs at several larger clubs, such as Leicester City,^[3] but remained at Luton and later signed a four-year contract.^[4]

Newell's relationship with Luton turned sour after a poor start to the 2006–07 season, in which he criticised chairman Bill Tomlins' running of the club.^[5] After a number of players departed in the summer of 2006, and then more in January 2007, the club was in a relegation battle. Newell was sacked by Luton in March 2007 after criticising the club's board for not investing enough money into the club.^[6]

[edit] Grimsby Town

Mike Newell was unveiled as the new manager of Grimsby Town at a press conference on 6 October 2008, signing a three and a half year contract at Blundell Park. Grimsby were just two places above the League Two relegation zone at the time and one of only two senior clubs in England without a victory, with only the three sides who had been docked points below them in the table.^[7] Newell's first game was a league match at home to top of the table Wycombe Wanderers, which ended in a 1–1 draw after Grimsby had led for most of the match.^[8]. He recorded his and Grimsby's first victory of the season in his ninth game in charge, a 2–0 victory at Bury on 15 November.^[9]. Newell was given time and money by the Grimsby board to avoid relegation, a feat accomplished with some shrewd deals in the transfer market. His ability to attract a seemingly higher pedigree of player paid off, and the Mariners avoided relegation by four points.

For 2009-10, Newell was given funds to sign former loanees Peter Sweeney, Barry Conlon, Joe Widdowson and Adrian Forbes. He bolstered the ranks further with midfielder Michael Leary, striker Chris Jones and Sunderland goalkeeper Nick Colgan. The Mariners also turned down a lucrative offer from Peterborough United for captain Ryan Bennett.

Supporters were optimistic that Grimsby Town could have a successful season. However, the club only gained 10 points from their opening 13 games. A 0-2 home defeat to Rochdale on 17th October 2009 dropped the Mariners into the League Two relegation zone. Newell was dismissed the following day, despite chairman John Fenty's assertion a week earlier that certain under-performing players would be shown the door before Newell.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Corruption allegations

Newell caused a huge stir in the footballing world, when he claimed that corruption was rife in transfer deals. In particular, he claimed that he had been offered "bungs" or bribes by football agents and agreed to name the offending parties when called upon by the FA. ^[10] As a result, an enquiry was launched by the FA and was headed by Lord Stevens, a former Metropolitan Police commissioner^[11]. On 20 December 2006, Stevens presented his preliminary report, which found that, although the level of corruption within English football was not a high as had been anticipated, there were several causes for concern.^[12] 17 transfer deals were still subject to further scrutiny.

[edit] Female match officials

Following a match against Queens Park Rangers on 11 November 2006 Newell criticised female assistant referee, Amy Rayner, using sexist comments, and later apologised. He also criticised the chairman of Luton Town FC, Bill Tomlins. For this he was reprimanded by his club, which publicly dissociated itself from the comments concerning Rayner.^[13]

[edit] Foreign players

Following a match against West Bromwich Albion on 12 January 2007 Newell criticised the influence of foreign players in English game, stating that it was "going soft."^[14] This was after an incident in which Luton midfielder David Bell appeared to be fouled, play continued and West Brom went on to not only equalize minutes before the end, but to claim a last gasp winner to leave Luton empty handed.

[edit] Honours

As a player

Blackburn Rovers

• Football League Second Division play off winner 1991-92
• FA Premier League winner 1994-95

Wigan Athletic

• Freight Rover Trophy: Winners Medal
  • 1984/85

As a manager

Luton Town

• Football League One: Championship, promoted
  • 2004/05

Hartlepool United

• Football League Two: Runners-up, promoted
  • 2002/03

[edit] Managerial statistics

Updated to 18 October 2009

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Hartlepool United		21 November 2002	30 May 2003	29	13	9	7	44.82
Luton Town		23 June 2003	15 March 2007	200	83	49	68	41.50
Grimsby Town		6 October 2008	18 October 2009	53	13	11	29	24.53

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Mike Newell career stats at Soccerbase
• Mike Newell management career stats at Soccerbase
• The Story of the board that sacked Newell and its fall from grace