Strachan: Gordon David (Gordon)

1989-1995 (Player Details)

Right Midfield

Born: Edinburgh: 09-02-1957

Debut v Portsmouth (h): 25-03-1989

5’6” 10st 3lb (1989)

#5 in 100 Greatest LUFC Players Ever

Outside Right in Greatest LUFC Team

Strachan enjoyed a top-level career on both sides of the border both in playing and football management careers. A pupil at Craigroyston School, he represented Edinburgh Schools and then played for Edinburgh Thistle before joining Dundee as a schoolboy in October 1971. He became Dundee’s youngest-ever Captain and was transferred to Aberdeen in November 1977 for £50,000 after scoring thirteen goals in sixty-nine League games, of which thirteen were as a substitute. He also scored twice in nineteen starts and three games from the bench in Cup and other competitions while at Dens Park. At Pittodrie he was a vital part of the team that broke the dominance of the two Glasgow sides in the 1980s. He won two Scottish League Championship medals, in 1980 and 1984, a hat-trick of Scottish Cup-winners’ medals, from 1982 to 1984, and a European Cup-Winners’ Cup medal in 1983 and the European Super Cup in the same year. He also played in the 1979 Scottish League Cup Final and was Scottish Player of the Year in 1979-80. In his career at Aberdeen he scored fifty-five goals in one hundred and seventy-five starts and eight games from the bench in the League as well as another thirty-four goals in ninety-eight starts and seven substitute appearances in Cup and European competitions. A £500,000 transfer took him to Old Trafford in August 1984 and he won an FA Cup-winners’ medal the following year. After being capped at Schoolboy, Youth and Under-Twenty-one levels, he won his first Scottish Cap in May 1980 against Northern Ireland and was a prominent figure in Scotland’s World Cup campaigns of 1982 and 1986. After being a leading light initially at Manchester, he lost form and was out of favour towards the end of his time there and after scoring thirty-three goals in the League from one hundred and fifty-five starts and five games from the bench together with another six goals in forty-five starts and three substitute appearances in Cup and other competitions, the Scottish International was signed by Leeds for £300,000, just before the transfer deadline in March 1989. His form at Leeds was good enough to earn him an international recall in October 1989 and he was the inspirational captain of United’s Second Division title-winning team in 1989-90. Anyone who thought that Strachan would lack the pace to survive in the top flight were woefully wrong as he was named Footballer of the Year in 1991 as Leeds came a very creditable fourth, and then led Leeds to the Football League Championship in the following season of 1991-92 and was awarded the OBE in the New Year’s honours of 1993. Despite several other contenders for his place on the right of United’s midfield, Strachan outlasted them all with great skill and dedication. His much publicized diet of seaweed pills and bananas helped, but he was a model professional who was being strongly tipped to take over from Howard Wilkinson as the next man in charge at Elland Road. After retiring from International football, after attaining membership of the Scotland Football Hall of Fame, with fifty caps to his credit, Strachan started to play less games because of a back injury and, in October 1994, he announced that he was going to quit at the end of the season. He actually decided to call it a day in the following January and concentrated on coaching matters at Leeds, but within two months his old boss at Old Trafford, Ron Atkinson, lured him to Coventry City in March 1995 with the promise that the copper-haired Scotsman would be his successor at Highfield Road. It was an offer that Strachan could not refuse and before the end of the season he had his boots on again, also playing in 1995-96 as Coventry just avoided relegation. He didn’t score but started thirteen times and came on as a substitute in another thirteen games and figured another six times in Cup competions, including one as a substitute. When Ron Atkinson became Coventry City's Director of Football in November 1996, Gordon Strachan was promoted to the Manager's seat. He finally retired as a player at the end of the season after making his last appearance at the age of forty, at the time a record in the English Premiership. Strachan also helped the Sky Blues pull off perhaps the most unlikely relegation survival in Premiership history. After losing their penultimate Premiership game, it looked as though their thirty-year top flight tenancy had come to an end. But thanks to a victory on the final day, a draw for Middlebrough (who had been deducted three points by the F.A) and a defeat for Sunderland, they pulled off a miracle survival. Strachan kept Coventry safe from relegation until 2001, when they finally went down after thirty-four years of top division football. He was sacked shortly after the start of the 2001-02 Division One campaign. He returned to management within weeks, taking the Manager's job at Premiership strugglers Southampton, who had sacked Manager Stuart Gray after a terrible start to their first season at the new St Mary’s Stadium. Most pundits had already written them off come Strachan's appointment in October 2001, but he turned round their Premiership fortunes and they finished eleventh in the Premiership. The Saints progressed further in 2002-03 when they finished eighth and reached the FA Cup final, where they lost 1-0 to Arsenal. In March 2004, Gordon Strachan announced his resignation as Southampton manager. He had earlier announced his intention not to renew his contract when it expired at the end of the 2003-04 season, but resigned even earlier than intended because he wanted to spend time with his family. Strachan finally returned to management on 1st June 2005, when he succeeded Martin ONeill as manager of Celtic in the SPL. After some initial disappointments, Strachan's first season was ultimately successful as he coached Celtic to victory in the Scottish League Cup and, on 5th April 2006 his side clinched the SPL title in record time and with six matches remaining. Strachan was voted Scotland’s 'Manager of the Year'. The following year Strachan restructured the team and made a series of new signings, Celtic flourished, and by mid-January 2007 held a seventeen point lead in the SPL standings and reached the last sixteen in the ECL. But they were beaten by AC Milan and missed out in a place in the quarter finals. On 22nd April 2007 Strachan guided Celtic to their forty-first League championship, and second in succession. A 2-1 victory against Kilmarnock left Celtic thirteen points clear of Rangers with four matches remaining. Later that day Strachan was recognised as the inaugural Scottish PFA Manager of the Year for 2007. Celtic also won the Scottish Cup in the same year. In the 2007-08 season, Strachan was able to lead Celtic into the second round of the Champions League again after beating AC Milan, SL Benfica ans Shaktar Donetsk. However by April there was a lot of criticism from the press and the fans after a 1-0 loss to Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup Quarter Finals and the 1-0 loss to ten man Motherwell. But Strachan was to prove the critics wrong again and after beating Rangers twice at home, on 22nd May 2008, Strachan became only the third ever Celtic manager to guide the club to three consecutive Scottish league titles. After failing to lead Celtic to another League title in the 2008/09 season, he stepped down as Manager on 25th May 2009. He won the Scottish Premier League title in three of his four seasons in charge. He took over as Manager of Middlesbrough, when he succeeded Gareth Southgate on 26th October 2009 on a four year contract. His son Gavin signed associate Schoolboy forms with Leeds in December 1994 and was part of the 1995-96 YTS intake. Although he did not progress at Leeds, he played for Coventry City and a host of other clubs mostly without success.