Roy Hodgson – Nomadic manager
Roy Hodgson will be 73 in August and is still going strong in the world of football management as boss of Premiership club Crystal Palace.
Born in Croydon on August 9, 1947, he was a moderate player with Palace as a teenager and assisted several nonLeague clubs before moving into management in 1976, having qualified as a coach while still competing on the field.
Over the last 44 years he’s managed 16 different teams in eight countries, beginning in Sweden with Halmstads BK and following on with stints at Bristol, City, Oddevold, Orebo, FF Malmo, Neuchatel Xamax. Inter Milan, Blackburn, Grasshoppers, FC Copenhagen, Udinese, FC Viking, Fulham, Liverpool and WBA.
He guided Switzerland to the last 16 of the 1994 World Cup and qualification for Euro 1996… the country had not qualified for a major tournament since the 1960s… and in 2006 and 2007, he managed Finland, guiding them to their highest-ever FIFA ranking of 33rd place and coming close to qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in the country’s history.
He also managed the UAE and, of course, England (from May 2012 to June 2016) as well as looking after the U-21 team (2013).
A member of UEFA's technical study group at the European Championships and also of FIFA’s technical study group at the 2006 World Cup, he speaks five different languages and has worked as a TV pundit in most of the countries in which he has coached.
As at February 1 last, he had managed in almost 750 games of which some 330 had been won – giving him a approximately a 45 per-cent win record and a 63 per-cent unbeaten record.
NB: Sam Allardyce has so far managed 11 football clubs, seven in the Premiership – Bolton, Newcastle, Blackburn, West Ham, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Everton. He’s also been in charge of Limerick, Preston, Blackpool and Notts County and England!