Wally Downes

Wally Downes

Personal information
Full name	Wally Downes
Team information
Current team	Reading (coach)

Wally Downes (born 9 June 1961) is an English former football player and manager. He is currently a first team coach at Reading.

Downes started out as an apprentice with Wimbledon and was one of the instigators of the Crazy Gang spirit at the club as it rose from the Fourth to the First Division inside a decade. He made almost 200 league appearances for Wimbledon.

Forced to retire through injury, Downes took a coaching position at Crystal Palace before joining Brentford as assistant to Steve Coppell. When Coppell left Brentford in June 2002, Downes was appointed manager. He led the club to a mid-table finish in the Second Division in 2002-03, but was sacked in March 2004 with the club near the bottom of the table and facing relegation.

He then rejoined his former boss Coppell at Reading, initially on a casual basis, but quickly proved himself invaluable, and took on the job of coaching Reading's defence. As a result, Downes was a major reason for Reading's impressive defensive display in the 2005-06 Championship season, where Reading had the best defensive statistics in the entire English football pyramid, and were promoted to the Premier League with a record 106 points.

$wallyisthebest$==External links==

• Wally Downes management career statistics at Soccerbase
• Wally Downes profile at the League Managers Association web site