30 Facts About Howard Wilkinson

1.

Howard Wilkinson was born on 13 November 1943 and is an English former footballer and manager.

2.

Howard Wilkinson won the First Division championship in 1992 with Leeds United, the final season before the creation of the Premier League.

3.

Howard Wilkinson later had spells as caretaker manager of the England senior and U21 teams.

4.

Howard Wilkinson is currently the chairman of the League Managers Association.

5.

Howard Wilkinson won two more Northern Premier League titles as manager.

6.

Howard Wilkinson played 30 matches for the club, scoring one goal.

7.

Howard Wilkinson has a degree in education from what is Sheffield Hallam University, where he graduated from in 1975.

8.

Howard Wilkinson began his full-time coaching career in December 1979 at Notts County when he was appointed a coach.

9.

Howard Wilkinson was taken on and tutored by County's manager Jimmy Sirrel.

10.

In June 1983, Howard Wilkinson dropped down a division to become manager of Sheffield Wednesday, where he established his reputation as a manager despite never having been a big-name player.

11.

Howard Wilkinson soon drilled discipline into a lacklustre squad and earned the affectionate nickname "Sergeant Wilko", a play on the old TV character Sergeant Bilko.

12.

Howard Wilkinson helped players who had come up through the youth team, Gary Speed and David Batty, to mature to the new level of football.

13.

Howard Wilkinson felt further improvement was required on the squad and brought in Rod Wallace, Tony Dorigo and Steve Hodge finalising his best squad with Eric Cantona in February 1992.

14.

Howard Wilkinson was instrumental in the opening of Leeds' first modern academy and training facility at Thorp Arch in 1994 known as The Grange, named after Barcelona's La Masia, translated in English as The Farmhouse.

15.

In December 1999, Howard Wilkinson revealed that Arsenal had made an approach for him during the summer of 1995, when they were searching for a successor to George Graham, who had been sacked for accepting an illegal payment three years earlier.

16.

However, when Howard Wilkinson turned down the approach, Lee then turned to Frank Clark, who had resigned as Nottingham Forest manager.

17.

Four months after leaving Leeds, in January 1997, Howard 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.

18.

Whilst at Leeds, Howard Wilkinson had developed a ten-year plan to create an "English La Masia" at Thorp Arch.

19.

Howard Wilkinson based the plans for the National Football Centre on the French system at Clairefontaine which nurtured the 1998 World Cup and 2000 European Championship winners.

20.

In 1997 Howard Wilkinson published the Charter for Quality which was the basis for which all English academies were to train future stars.

21.

Howard Wilkinson was unsuccessful in this role; despite inheriting a team who were unbeaten and yet to concede a goal, he lost three of his six matches in charge.

22.

Howard Wilkinson resigned from the post in June 2001, to be replaced by David Platt.

23.

Howard Wilkinson is said to have snapped and asked him what qualified him, as a mere reporter, to question professionals in this way.

24.

Howard Wilkinson briefly returned to management in March 2004, taking charge of Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua on a short-term contract, but left two months later due to personal reasons.

25.

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

26.

Howard Wilkinson held a coaching role as technical director from June 2006 until September 2007 when he left the club altogether.

27.

On 9 January 2009, Howard Wilkinson was confirmed as the new Technical Adviser of Sheffield Wednesday Upon the resignation of Lee Strafford on 17 May 2010, Howard Wilkinson became the interim chairman of the club.

28.

Howard Wilkinson stayed on at Wednesday in a non-executive directorial role, until he resigned in early 2011.

29.

Howard Wilkinson is currently the assistant manager of the Manchester City EDS squad.

30.

Howard Wilkinson was a PE teacher at Abbeydale Grange school, Sheffield, whilst playing semi-professional football for Boston United.