David Wetherall

David Wetherall
Personnel
birthday	March 14, 1971
place of birth	Sheffield ,  England
size	191 cm
position	Central defender
Juniors
Years	station
	Middlewood Rovers
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1989-1991	Sheffield Wednesday	0 0(0)
1991-1999	Leeds United	202 (12)
1999-2008	Bradford City	304 (18)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
2003	Bradford City (interim)
2007	Bradford City (interim)
1 Only league games are given.

David Wetherall (born March 14, 1971 in Sheffield ) is a former English football player . The center -back made 250 competitive appearances for Leeds United in the 1990s before moving to Bradford City in 1999 , where he played another 330 games and was also available to the club in various coaching functions until the summer of 2011.

Athletic career

First steps (until 1991)

Wetheralls way into professional football was not mapped out from the beginning, because more than many peers who it as he had done in the English student national team, he enrolled after the visit of junior colleges in the age of 19 to study chemistry at the University of Sheffield , a . At almost the same time, the former school selection captain joined Sheffield Wednesday . There his missions were limited to the club's own U-19 youth team, but by winning the bronze medal at the Universiade in Sheffield in 1991, he successfully represented the British student team. Wednesday ex-coach Howard Wilkinson , who was now under contract with Leeds United , guided the young defender and teammate Jon Newsome, who was only six months older, to his new club in order to build them up as a future defensive pair.

Leeds United (1991-1999)

Although Wetherall did not appear again in the 1991/92 championship season after his substitute debut against Arsenal (2-2), he was no later than the 1993/94 season after David Batty's departure and the subsequent changes in the team with 32 league games regular players - he also scored his first goal in the Premier League on February 19, 1994 against Liverpool (2-0). While Newsome left the club for Norwich City in the summer of 1994 , Wetherall solidified his status in Leeds. He benefited from his size and headball strength in a direct duel with opposing central strikers and, in addition to outstanding performances in the 1994/95 season against John Fashanu and ex-Leeds colleague Lee Chapman , he was increasingly dangerous in his own set pieces. The downside in his game were frequent difficulties against smaller and more agile strikers, which became clear at times in the following 1995/96 season. With the engagement of Richard Jobson in October 1995 the problems seemed to lessen again, but before the new duo could settle in more intensively, this prevented a serious injury at Jobson. After changing coach to George Graham in the 1996/97 season, Wetherall retained his position in the team for the time being, but when, in addition to the less constant performances on the defensive, he increasingly lost the danger of set pieces, he lost his regular place to the Dutchman Robert Molenaar . The answer came in the subsequent 1997/98 season, when Wetherall not only regained his place, but also scored important goals, such as the 1-0 win against Manchester United , and the club during David's absence Hopkin represented as the team captain. This led to Wetherall in Leeds signing a new contract that ran until the summer of 2002.

Nevertheless, Wetherall's engagement in Leeds came to an early end after just one more year. Responsible for this was that the new coach David O'Leary used to occupy the defense center primarily with Lucas Radebe and the 18-year-old Jonathan Woodgate . Although Wetherall's performance continued to show few deficits, especially after the injury-related failures of Molenaar and Martin Hiden , he decided to move due to the deteriorated prospects and at the end of June 1999 he joined the first division promoted Bradford City for 1.4 million pounds .

Bradford City (1999-2008)

Equipped with a lavish five-year contract, Wetherall formed the new central defense of Bradford City with Andy O'Brien and was "permanently present" with 38 league games. In addition, with his header goal on the last day of the match to the 1-0 win against Liverpool, he not only helped significantly in the fight for relegation , but also ensured that opponents Liverpool missed the Champions League place in favor of his former club from Leeds . Bradford City supporters then voted him internally the best player of the season. How important Wetherall had become for the club was demonstrated by its frequent absence in the subsequent 2000/01 season. A groin injury in November 2000 put him out of action until February 2001 and further problems in the groin area let him sit out the last eight games of the season. The "Bantams" finally conceded 70 goals against most of all clubs and were relegated from bottom of the table in the second division. Since the injury worries were no less in the 2001/02 season, he went into the care of a Danish specialist and only returned permanently in March 2002 for the remaining games. The 2002/03 season took a similar course, when hip and thigh problems only allowed Wetherall to come into play before the turn of the year, before he started an uninterrupted series of 17 matches from the end of February 2003, occasionally on the right outside in addition to his central defender position was found.

On Easter Sunday 2004, Wetherall ended his two-year peat sluggishness and had meanwhile become an influential and dormant pole in Bradford City's defensive network again. Further proof of the great importance for the team was his interim assumption of the coaching role for a game; in addition, as Bradford's representative in the PFA players' union, he took on an important role as a contact person for teammates when the club opened another bankruptcy procedure. In the end, Bradford City was relegated to the third division, with the club only winning one game during a ten-week knee injury from Wetherall. As team captain, Wetherall led the team in its first third division season 2004/05 to a midfield position and missed only one game, largely injury-free. In the following year he was not absent from any league encounter and his fallback goal on March 25, 2006 at FC Walsall was particularly spectacular , which made it 2-2 after the initial 2-2 deficit. After the departure of coach Colin Todd , he temporarily took over the coaching position again until the end of the 2006/07 season in February 2007 and took himself out of the team in the first three games under his own direction, before trying to combine both functions - Wetherall called this constellation later, however, as "not ideal". This was followed by a final professional season in 2007/08, during which Wetherall exceeded the 300-league game limit for Bradford and then moved to the club's coaching staff. There he was primarily in charge of the reserve team and, from the summer of 2009, after Chris Casper's departure, he combined this with a managerial role in youth work. He stated that he had actively decided against becoming a head coach in professional football due to the daily pressure. When Peter Taylor succeeded Stuart McCall in February 2010 and brought his own kotrainer with him, Wetherall limited himself to the junior activities. In February 2011, after Taylor's departure, he was briefly once again assistant to Peter Jackson , before he took on a senior position at the Football League in the field of youth development in the summer of 2011 .

social commitment

Wetherall is an ambassador for Show Racism the Red Card .

Web links

• David Wetherall in the soccerbase.com database
• Statistical data from the Post War English & Scottish Football League A - Z Player's Database
• Profile at Bradford City

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1995-96 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1995, ISBN 0-09-180854-5 , pp. 230 .
2. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1996-97 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1996, ISBN 1-85291-571-4 , pp. 257 .
3. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1997-98 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1997, ISBN 1-85291-581-1 , pp. 287 .
4. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1998-99 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1998, ISBN 1-85291-588-9 , pp. 322 .
5. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1999-2000 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 1999, ISBN 1-85291-607-9 , pp. 316 .
6. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 2000-2001 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2000, ISBN 1-85291-626-5 , pp. 337 .
7. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 2001-2002 Official PFA Footballers Factfile . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2001, ISBN 0-946531-34-X , pp. 323 .
8. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2002/2003 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2002, ISBN 1-85291-648-6 , pp. 434 f .
9. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2003/2004 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2003, ISBN 1-85291-651-6 , pp. 448 .
10. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2004/2005 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2004, ISBN 1-85291-660-5 , pp. 430 .
11. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2005/2006 . Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2005, ISBN 1-85291-662-1 , pp. 431 .
12. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2006-07 . Mainstream Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-84596-111-0 , pp. 432 .
13. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2007-08 . Mainstream Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84596-246-3 , pp. 431 f .
14. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2008-09 . Mainstream Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84596-324-8 , pp. 435 .
15. ↑ "It was an offer I couldn't refuse, says Bradford City hero David Wetherall" (Telegraph & Argus)
16. ↑ Show Racism the Red Card-Show Racism the Red Card Patrons ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.