Chris Fairclough

Chris Fairclough
Brian Clough and Chris Fairclough
Personnel
Surname	Courtney Huw Fairclough
birthday	April 12, 1964
place of birth	Nottingham ,  England
position	Central defender
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1981-1987	Nottingham Forest	107 0(1)
1987-1989	Tottenham Hotspur	60 0(5)
1989	→  Leeds United  (loan)	3 0(0)
1989-1995	Leeds United	189 (21)
1995-1998	Bolton Wanderers	90 0(8)
1998-1999	Notts County	16 0(1)
1999	→  York City  (loan)	11 0(0)
1999-2001	York city	26 0(0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1984-1988	England U-21	7 0(1)
1 Only league games are given.

Courtney "Chris" Huw Fairclough (born April 12, 1964 in Nottingham ) is a former English football player . The defender won the English championship with Leeds United in 1991/92 .

Athletic career

Nottingham Forest (1981-1987)

Chris Fairclough started his playing career in 1981 with his hometown club Nottingham Forest . Forest had experienced the most successful period in the club's history in the previous years under coach Brian Clough . After the championship in the 1977/78 season , two titles in the European Cup followed in 1979 and 1980 . He made his debut on December 2, 1981 in the League Cup against Tranmere Rovers . In the league he remained without use. In the 1982/83 season he made the breakthrough in the championship and came to 15 missions. Together with established players such as Viv Anderson , Steve Hodge , John Robertson and Hans van Breukelen , he reached a fifth place in the table and thus qualified for the UEFA Cup 1983/84 . The following year turned out to be the most successful year for Fairclough in his time at Forest. In the Football League First Division 1983/84 was a third place at the end of the season behind the champions Liverpool FC and the vice FC Southampton to book. In the UEFA Cup, the team from Nottingham only narrowly failed in the quarter-finals after dubious referee decisions against the Belgian representative RSC Anderlecht . Fairclough came to 31 league appearances and seven international appearances. The appearance in the UEFA Cup 1984/85 was not permanent, Forest failed in the first round at Club Bruges and in the league the club only achieved a ninth place. In the 1986/87 season he completed again 27 league games, but then decided to change clubs.

Tottenham Hotspur (1987-1989)

Fairclough moved to Tottenham Hotspur in June 1987 for £ 387,000 . Tottenham had narrowly missed the FA Cup title the year before by losing to Coventry City in the final and also took third place in the championship. However, the team around Clive Allen , Chris Waddle and Osvaldo Ardiles could not hold this level and finished in a disappointing thirteenth place in the table in 1987/88. Terry Venables had replaced David Pleat as coach at the beginning of the season and thus celebrated a bad debut. In the season 1988/89 the team reached the sixth place. Fairclough missed some games due to an injury and moved to Leeds United on loan in March 1989 .

Leeds United (1989-1995)

When the loan period expired, Leeds signed him at the start of the 1989/90 season for £ 500,000 from Tottenham. Under coach Howard Wilkinson , the team, which played in the second division since 1982, was promoted to the first division. There the team built on the performances of the previous season and played their way to fourth place in the Football League First Division 1990/91 . The team around Fairclough, Gary McAllister , Gordon Strachan , Steve Hodge and Éric Cantona experienced an increase in the 1991/92 season by winning the English championship. Leeds had last achieved this 18 years ago. Chris Fairclough stayed with the club even after the introduction of the Premier League , but there the team was unable to cope with the double burden of international games and only reached 17th place in the table. In the UEFA Champions League 1992/93 , which is also new under this name , the team failed after First round success with a replay against VfB Stuttgart ( Christoph Daum had used four foreigners in the second leg), in the second round at Glasgow Rangers and thus missed the group stage. After two fifth places in the Premier League in 1993/94 and 1994/95 , Chris Fairclough moved to the Bolton Wanderers in 1995 .

Bolton Wanderers (1995-1998)

Due to the great competition in his old team, his regular place had been endangered and so he preferred a change to the less ambitious club from Bolton . The transfer fee was again £ 500,000. The club had been promoted to the Premier League the year before under Bruce Rioch . Rioch then moved to Arsenal , his successor was Roy McFarland . After a bad season, Colin Todd took over the coaching post in January 1996 , with whom Fairclough had played for two years at Nottingham Forest. Todd also failed to lead the team from relegation places and so Bolton was relegated to the second division last at the end of the season. However, the stay in the second division was not long-term, the team rather managed to rise again after an excellent season as the first in the table. After Chris Fairclough had achieved the second promotion to the first division, he was not spared in the 1997/98 Premier League to relegate for the second time with his team. At the age of 34, he then returned to his hometown Nottingham, but this time to the Notts County club, which was less successful than Nottingham Forest . After only a short stay in the third division, he changed clubs for the last time in 1999 and went to the lower class club York City . There he ended his playing career in 2001.

After the playing career

Chris Fairclough remained loyal to football even after he ended his playing career and is currently active as assistant coach of the second team for his former club Nottingham Forest , after initially working as a youth coach at the club.

title

• English champions: 1992 (with Leeds United)

Web links

• Page at Nottingham Forest
• Player statistics at sporting-heroes.com
• Chris Fairclough in the soccerbase.com database
• Ranked 56th in the poll for Leeds United's 100 Best Players of All Time