Brian Little (footballer)

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Brian Little
Personal information
Full name	Brian Little
Date of birth	23 November 1953
Place of birth	Newcastle, England
Nickname	Little Brian
Professional clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (goals)
1970-1979	Aston Villa	247 (60)
National team
1975	England	1 (0)
Teams managed
1986 1989-1991 1991-1994 1994-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000 2000-2002 2003-2006	Wolverhampton Wanderers Darlington Leicester City Aston Villa Stoke City West Bromwich Albion Hull City Tranmere Rovers
* Professional club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Brian Little (born on 25 November 1953, Horden, County Durham) is an English football player and manager.

[edit] Playing career with Aston Villa

On leaving school in 1970 he signed for Aston Villa which had just been relegated to the Third Division for the first time in its history. He progressed through the youth ranks, winning an FA Youth Cup winners' medal along the way. He made 247 appearances for the club and scored 60 goals, and made one full international appearance for England in 1975. At club level Aston Villa was the only team he ever played for, and he was in their League Cup-winning teams of 1975 and 1977 as well helping the club climb from the Third to First Division in the early part of the decade. His playing career came to a halt in 1979 when he retired at the age of 26 due to a knee injury. The injury was discovered when Little was undergoing a medical at Villa's local rivals Birmingham City. This meant his intended transfer there was cancelled. He was a flamboyant forward who formed a particularly prolific partnership with Andy Gray, and is regarded as an all-time great at Villa Park.

[edit] Coaching and Managerial Career

Although his playing career was over, Brian Little remained on the Aston Villa payroll as youth team coach. When manager Tony Barton was sacked in the summer of 1984, Little's contract was also terminated and he became first-team coach of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

When Little arrived at Wolverhampton Wanderers, the club was in the middle of three consecutive relegations and by 1986 was in the Fourth Division for the first time, with huge debts. When manager John Barnwell resigned, Little became manager on a temporary basis but resigned in late September to be replaced by Graham Turner, who had been sacked as Aston Villa manager earlier that month.

Shortly after leaving the Molineux club, Little was recruited as a first team coach by Middlesbrough manager Bruce Rioch. Like Wolves, Middlesbrough were a financially troubled club and had narrowly escaped bankruptcy. Brian Little was an important part of the club's coaching staff as Middlesbrough pulled themselves together and with two successive promotions they were in the First Division for the 1988-89 season. The season ended in relegation for Middlesbrough but in February Brian Little left the Ayresome Park coaching staff and became manager of Darlington, who were bottom of the Football League in the Fourth Division. He was unable to prevent them from getting relegated to the GM Vauxhall Conference but got them promoted back into the League at the first time of asking. 1990-91 brought more success for Brian Little and Darlington as they won the Fourth Division championship.

By this time, bigger clubs were taking an interest in the 37-year-old and in June 1991 Leicester City appointed him as their replacement for Gordon Lee. The Foxes had just avoided relegation to the Third Division for the first time in their history and Little was seen as the right man to turn the club's fortunes around.

At the end of 1991-92, Leicester City came fourth in the Second Division and qualified for the promotion playoffs, the winners of which would secure a place in the new FA Premier League. They overcame Cambridge United in the semi-finals after an impressive 6-1 aggregate victory and were drawn with Blackburn Rovers in the final at Wembley. But their promotion hopes were dashed when Blackburn striker Mike Newell (a former Leicester player) scored a penalty which took the Lancashire side into the new super league.

At the end of the 1992-93 season, Leicester City qualified for the promotion playoffs again in the new Division One. They overcame Portsmouth in the semifinals but in the final were 3-0 down at half time to Swindon Town. In the second half they clawed back to bring the scoreline to 3-3 but then Swindon defender Paul Bodin scored a penalty and the Wiltshire side won promotion to the top division for the first time.

In 1993-94, however, Leicester City made it third time lucky in the playoffs and Brian Little's hard work finally paid off with a 2-1 win in the Division One playoff final against East Midlands rivals Derby County. But Leicester's first Premier League season was a difficult season and they were relegated in second from bottom place, with just six league wins all season. Brian Little, however, had earned his dream move back to Aston Villa as manager in November 1994 to replace Ron Atkinson.

Eighteen months earlier, Aston Villa had finished runners-up in the first Premier League. Now they were near the foot of the division and staring relegation in its face. Previously excellent players like Mark Bosnich, Earl Barrett, Shaun Teale, Ray Houghton, Garry Parker, Dalian Atkinson and Dean Saunders were starting to lose their flair. But a 1-1 draw with doomed Norwich on the last day of the season meant that Brian Little had been successful in his bid to keep Villa in the Premiership. Now it was time for him to build a new team so Villa could take on the best once again.

In the place of the fading stars came a whole set of new players in the Villa line-up. Young players like Mark Bosnich and Ugo Ehiogu were now getting more first team chances, but Villa also made a large number of new signings between November 1994 and August 1995, including Gary Charles, Ian Taylor, Mark Draper and Savo Milošević. The new look Villa team gelled well, and 1995-96 was the most successful season at Villa Park in years. The club finished fourth in the Premiership, reached the FA Cup semi finals and won the League Cup with a 3-0 win over Leeds at Wembley. Trinidad and Tobago striker Dwight Yorke had now firmly established himself as a world-class goalscorer.

Aston Villa qualified for the 1996-97 UEFA Cup and although they were knocked out at the first stage by Swedish part-timers Helsingborg, they qualified for the 1997-98 competition after finishing fifth in the Premiership.

In February 1998 Brian Little resigned after just over three years as Aston Villa manager, with the club now in the bottom half of the Premiership. But the club's next manager John Gregory turned results around and they finished high enough for a UEFA Cup place.

Little, meanwhile, was appointed manager of Stoke City in May 1998. The Staffordshire club had ended their first season at the new Britannia Stadium with relegation from Division One, and were looking for a new manager to put the club back on track. Brian Little seemed the right man after all the success he had enjoyed in turning around the fortunes of Darlington, Leicester City and Aston Villa. And by the middle of the 1998-99 season he looked to be delivering the goods: Stoke looked to be well on course for automatic promotion back to Division One. But a drastic loss of form in the second half of the season meant that Stoke did not finish high enough to even qualify for the Division Two playoffs. So Brian Little handed in his resignation and left Stoke.

Before the 1999-2000 season was underway, Brian Little was back in employment as manager of West Bromwich Albion, who were languishing in Division One and had been outside the top division since 1986. He brought in Italian midfielder Enzo Maresca, who gave some excellent performances, but the rest of the team did not have the same effect and in January 2000 Maresca was transferred to Juventus for £4 million as Albion battled against relegation. Little was sacked in March 2000 after just eight months in charge and replaced by Gary Megson, who saved Albion from relegation at the expense of their near neighbours Walsall.

In April 2000, just one month after leaving The Hawthorns, Brian Little was appointed manager of Division Three strugglers Hull City. The Tigers were hit by huge debts and following a dispute with landlord David Lloyd they were locked out of Boothferry Park for one game and had to play over the river at Grimsby Town's Blundell Park. By the end of the 2000-01 season, Hull City had been saved from closure by new owner Adam Pearson, and the club's future looked brighter. They reached the Division Three playoffs and lost to eventual winners Blackpool in the semi finals, but the club was glad to be in existence at all at the end of Brian Little's first season.

By February 2002 Hull City looked well on course for automatic promotion from Division Three. But Brian Little dropped a bombshell on the club by announcing his immediate resignation, and under his successor Jan Mølby the club's fortunes slipped dramatically and they could not even finish high enough for a playoff place.

In October 2003 Brian Little made a return to football management with Division Two (now League One) side Tranmere Rovers and his first season with the Merseyside club was a success. When he took over they were battling against relegation. But by the end of the season they had climbed up to eighth place and had reached the quarter finals of the F.A. Cup, giving a lot of hope for the club's future. In his first full season as manager, Brian Little guided Tranmere to a third-place finish in League One but they lost in the playoffs to miss out on promotion.

Tranmere began 2005-06 as League One promotion favourites, but at the turn of 2006 they were facing a relegation battle. The club only avoided relegation with one game to go and, due to the club's poor finishing position in League One, Little resigned on May 5.

Brian Little since leaving Tranmere, has taken it easy, but recently put his name forward for the vacant Aston Villa manager's job, saying that he would be able to cope under notorious Villa chairman Doug Ellis. He was unsuccessful in his attempt and is currently looking round for work.

[edit] External links

• Managerial Statistics at soccerbase.com
• Playing & Managerial Statistics at astonvilla.dk

Preceded by: Sammy Chapman	Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. Manager 1986 (caretaker)	Succeeded by: Graham Turner
Preceded by: David Booth	Darlington F.C. Manager 1989-1991	Succeeded by: Frank Gray
Preceded by: Gordon Lee (caretaker)	Leicester City F.C. Manager 1991-1994	Succeeded by: Kevin MacDonald (caretaker)
Preceded by: Ron Atkinson	Aston Villa F.C. Manager 1994-1998	Succeeded by: John Gregory
Preceded by: Alan Durban (caretaker)	Stoke City F.C. Manager 1998-1999	Succeeded by: Gary Megson
Preceded by: John Gorman & Cyrille Regis (caretakers)	West Bromwich Albion F.C. Manager 1999-2000	Succeeded by: Allan Evans & Cyrille Regis (caretakers)
Preceded by: Billy Russell (caretaker)	Hull City F.C. Manager 2000-2002	Succeeded by: Billy Russell (caretaker)
Preceded by: John McMahon (caretaker)	Tranmere Rovers F.C. Manager 2003-2006	Succeeded by: Ronnie Moore