Chris Turner

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For the American baseball player use Chris Turner (baseball player)

Chris Turner (born September 15, 1958 in Sheffield) is an English football manager. He is currently the Director of sport at Hartlepool United after parting company with Stockport County on December 27, 2005. At the time of his departure the club were bottom of the Football League, having won only two games all season.

Born in Sheffield, he made 205 appearances for Sheffield Wednesday as a goalkeeper between 1976 and 1979, and 1988 and 1991. In between these two spells at Hillsborough, he played for Sunderland and Manchester United. He was a member of the Sunderland team that reached the final of the 1985 English League Cup (where they lost 1-0 to Norwich City) and is a confirmed lifelong Wednesday fan.

Turner is one of relatively few former goalkeepers to make the leap into football management. He started his coaching career at Leyton Orient as joint manager with John Sitton, before moving to Leicester City and later Wolves, where he was appointed youth team coach.

His first solo managerial position came at Hartlepool United in 1999. Turner took over when Hartlepool were bottom of the Football League, saved them from relegation and turned them into promotion contenders. They gained promotion at the end of the 2002-03 season but Turner had moved back to his old club Sheffield Wednesday six months before the success was achieved under his successor Mike Newell.

Meanwhile, Turner had been faced with the difficult task of saving Wednesday from sliding into the third tier of the league for the first time in a quarter of a century. The Owls improved during the final stages of the season, achieving some strong results, but a 1-1 draw with fellow strugglers Brighton (who lost their fight to stay up on the final day) condemned them to relegation. Turner was optimistic of getting the Owls back into the Premiership by 2008, but their Division Two campaign in 2003-04 was dismal. They finished 16th in the table (their worst position for nearly 30 years) and were the division's lowest scorers with 48 goals. Turner was sacked in September 2004 after a slow start to the League One campaign.

Chris Turner returned to management with another financially-insecure club, Stockport County, soon after being dismissed by debt-ridden Wednesday. County were bottom of League One at the time and survival proved too great a task for both the playing squad and Turner, and Stockport were relegated to League Two long before the end of the season. Despite a takeover by a Supporters' Trust and some promising signings, County struggled to find form in the early part of the 2005/06 season. By the end of November, Stockport had drawn eleven of their nineteen league games and won just two. December saw County in crisis, with a run of four consecutive defeats in the league, culminating in a humiliating 6-0 defeat by local rivals Macclesfield Town on Boxing Day. With Stockport now five points adrift at the bottom of the league, Chris Turner left the club by mutual consent on 27 December 2005. Following Turner's departure, former Stockport player Jim Gannon took over as manager and oversaw a remarkable recovery which saw County retain their league status in a nail-biting finish to the season.

Preceded by: Peter Eustace	Leyton Orient F.C. manager (with John Sitton) 1994-1995	Succeeded by: Pat Holland
Preceded by: Mick Tait	Hartlepool United F.C. manager 1999-2002	Succeeded by: Mike Newell
Preceded by: Terry Yorath	Sheffield Wednesday F.C. manager 2002-2004	Succeeded by: Paul Sturrock
Preceded by: Sammy McIlroy	Stockport County F.C. manager 2004-2005	Succeeded by: Jim Gannon