Keith Blunt

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Keith Blunt ( 1939 - August 12, 2016 ) was an English football coach . While he was most of the time in the youth field, he looked after two Northern European clubs in the top league in the early 1980s, Malmö FF and Viking Stavanger .

Career

In 1977, the English and physical education teacher Blunt, who had previously worked for Plymouth Argyle from 1973 in particular in youth work, took over as coach at Sutton United . Under his leadership, the club playing in the Isthmian League won the Anglo-Italian Cup with a 2-1 final win over Calcio Chieti , with Blunt being temporarily replaced by his assistant coach Barrie Williams due to teaching activities .

In the spring of 1980, Blunt took over from his compatriot Bob Houghton as head coach at the Swedish first division club Malmö FF. In his debut year , he narrowly missed winning the league title; Malmö was runner-up with two points behind Östers IF . Last but not least, the two defeats in the direct duels with the eventual champions were also decisive. With the team around team captain Roland Andersson , Ingemar Erlandsson , Anders Palmér and Roy Andersson , he was unable to build on this success in the following seasons: After finishing fifth in the 1981 season , Malmö qualified for fourth place in the championship the following year the finals played for the first time, but the club failed in the semi-finals at eventual champions IFK Göteborg . The following season Tord Grip took over as head coach.

In early 1984, Blunt took over the Norwegian club Viking Stavanger. During the season he was replaced by Svein Kvia , who led the club to the runner-up. Blunt returned to England, where he was subsequently the youth coach and temporarily assistant coach of Terry Venables at Tottenham Hotspur . In 1988 he moved to Gillingham FC as assistant to Keith Burkinshaw , but was fired together with the latter in the spring of 1989. He later took over the management of the Football Association's youth academy in Lilleshall and coached the England U-16 national team. In 1998 he went to China, where he was temporarily responsible for the U-19 and U-23 national teams and later worked in the youth division of the third division club Shanghai Coerver 2000 .

Individual evidence

  1. Death report ( memento of the original from May 12, 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. (English), accessed on August 14, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.suttonunited.net
  2. thenonleaguefootballpaper.com: "Sutton United - Anglo-Italian Cup Winners 1979" (accessed on May 14, 2014)
  3. a b independent.co.uk: "Football: School for youth to survive adult apathy" (accessed on May 14, 2014)
  4. chinadaily.com.cn: "Teaching an obsession" (accessed on May 14, 2014)