John Scales

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John Scales
Personnel
Surname John Robert Scales
birthday 4th July 1966
place of birth Harrogate ,  England
size 1.88 m
position Defense (central)
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1984-1985 Leeds United 0 0(0)
1985-1987 Bristol Rovers 72 0(2)
1987-1994 Wimbledon FC 240 (11)
1994-1996 Liverpool FC 65 0(2)
1996-2000 Tottenham Hotspur 33 0(0)
2000-2001 Ipswich Town 2 0(0)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1994 England B 2 0(1)
1995 England 3 0(0)
1 Only league games are given.

John Robert Scales (born July 4, 1966 in Harrogate ) is a retired English football player . The defender was part of the "Crazy Gang" of Wimbledon FC , which won the FA Cup in 1998 before later winning the league cup with Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur .

Athletic career

Club career

Scales' professional football career began with Leeds United in August 1984 . There he did not prevail and after the end of the 1984/85 season moved one league down to the third division Bristol Rovers . There Scales made his debut on September 7, 1985 against Newport County and in the course of the 1985/86 season he captured a regular place in the team. He benefited from the fact that the club was suffering from injury concerns and financial difficulties that had made it necessary to sell previous service providers. After a total of two years in Bristol, he moved to the first division club Wimbledon .

In the notorious Crazy Gang of Wimbledon FC, which was feared as a rough team, Scales fell in immediately as one of the first obligations of the new coach Bobby Gould . In the unexpected final victory in the FA Cup against the favored Liverpool FC, he helped by substituting for Terry Gibson to save the 1-0 over time. In the first year of Wimbledon Scales was primarily used in the two full-back positions, before he was then pulled into the center of defense to replace Eric Young there. As a tall player who also had a certain basic speed, Scales was considered reliable, constant and dangerous for goals, especially in set pieces . Scales stayed with the club until September 1994 before moving to Liverpool for £ 3.5million.

Rumors of a Liverpool move had existed in previous years and coach Roy Evans also insisted that Scales' physical approach would fit defensive partners like the robust Neil Ruddock and the recently signed Phil Babb (mostly in the middle or on the right side of the trio). Since Scales looked comparatively cleared up and had good technique, comparisons were made with Alan Hansen . Scales only partially lived up to these expectations. Although he helped to stabilize the previously somewhat holey defense, he mostly left the build-up of the game from the defensive to his teammates, to whom he usually fit after winning duels. In a little more than two years he scored four competitive goals, all of them with a header after standard situations. After winning the league cup in his first year, his self-confidence began to suffer from a series of wounds and so Liverpool let Sales move on to Tottenham Hotspur for £ 2.6million in December 1996 .

At the "Spurs" he met coach Gerry Francis again, under whom Scales had already played at the Bristol Rovers. This second meeting, however, was not a lucky star. Plagued by injuries, he did not get beyond the status of a supplementary player in a team that had little defensive stability. A rare highlight was his goal on November 10, 1998 against the ex-club from Liverpool in the league cup , which Tottenham won later. He missed the final itself due to a calf injury he sustained in February 1999. A year later, in July 2000, Scales moved to Ipswich Town for free within the Premier League . There he completed only four more competitive games before his professional football career ended.

English national team

After Scales had made a name for himself as a long-time regular at Wimbledon FC, he got his first probation opportunities in the English national team after moving to Liverpool under Terry Venables in summer 1995 at the Umbro Cup . Alongside other tall defensive players such as David Unsworth , Colin Cooper and ex-Wimbledon team-mate Warren Barton , Scales was the only one of the named to play in all three games (a 2-1 win over Japan, a 3 : 3 draw against Sweden and a 1: 3 defeat against Brazil). Although he showed solid performances, he had not convinced Venables enough, so that from now on he came to no more international match. Although he was nominated in 1997 by Glenn Hoddle in the English squad for the Tournoi de France , but remained there without use.

Title / Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hugman, Barry J .: Premier League: The Players - A Complete Guide to Every Player 1992-93 . Tony Williams Publishing, 1992, ISBN 978-1-869833-15-2 , pp. 299 .
  2. ↑ "John SCALES - Liverpool FC - Biography of his three seasons at Anfield." (Sporting Heroes)
  3. ^ "Newcastle to target Clark" (The Guardian)
  4. ↑ John SCALES - England - English Caps 1995 (Sporting Heroes)
personal data
SURNAME Scales, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scales, John Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrogate