Paul Agnew (soccer player)

Paul Agnew
Personnel
birthday	August 15, 1965
place of birth	Lisburn ,  Northern Ireland
position	External defense (left)
Juniors
Years	station
	Lisburn Youths
1980-1982	Bolton Wanderers
1982-1984	Cliftonville FC
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
0000-1984	Cliftonville FC
1984-1995	Grimsby Town	242 (3)
1995-1997	West Bromwich Albion	39 (1)
1997	Ilkeston Town
1997	Swansea City	7 (0)
1997-1999	Wisbech Town
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
	Northern Ireland pupil
	Northern Ireland Youth	11 (?)
1990	Northern Ireland U23	1 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Paul Agnew (born August 15, 1965 in Lisburn ) is a former Northern Irish football player . The left full-back played most of his professional career, which lasted from 1984 to 1997, at Grimsby Town , in total he played 287 games in the divisions of the Football League .

Career

Agnew grew up on a farm near Moira and played in Lisburn youth football before joining the Bolton Wanderers as a student after trial training at Coventry City and Manchester United , but in 1982 at the latest he returned to Northern Ireland in the youth division of Cliftonville FC . After he had noticed Chris Nicholl , assistant coach of the English second division club Grimsby Town , during a training camp of the Northern Irish national junior team in Lilleshall in 1983, he came to Grimsby in November 1983 for a test training and finally received a professional contract in February 1984, the transfer fee was 4,000 £, which increased to £ 15,000 through various bonus payments.

Agnew came on the penultimate match day of the second division season 1983/84 in a 1: 2 defeat at Oldham Athletic to his competitive debut for Grimsby Town, with the reserve team, from which Gary Lund , Andy Moore and Gary Henshaw made their professional debut, he won the championship of the Northern Intermediate League . In the following two seasons, although 28 league games followed, the position of left full-back was mostly still occupied by Dean Crombie . Agnew was part of the team that failed in the quarterfinals of the League Cup 1984/85 in the quarterfinals of Norwich City . After coach Mike Lyons had relied on Bobby Cumming on the left defense at the beginning of the 1986/87 season , Agnew moved into the starting line-up after a mixed start to the season at the end of September and was henceforth mostly a member of the starting line-up. Although the club was in 8th place in the table in March 1987 and calculated their chances of promotion, a series of only two points from ten games made sure that they fell back to the penultimate place in the table and relegated to the third division . There, too, he was part of the regular team under the new coach Bobby Roberts , the newly assembled squad did not succeed in establishing a division lower and ended up in a relegation zone again at the end of the season, as third from bottom they were relegated directly to the fourth division .

After two relegations in a row, Alan Buckley took over the coaching post, under which the club returned to sporting success. In the 1988/89 FA Cup they beat Wolverhampton Wanderers (leaders in the third division), Rotherham United (leaders in the fourth division), Middlesbrough FC (first division) and Reading FC (third division) in the fourth round in the replay . The end came in front of 7000 fans who had traveled with them in the round of 16, when they lost 3-1 after defending champions FC Wimbledon after a 1-0 lead . 1990 succeeded under Buckley as a runner-up to return to the third division, a year later with an almost unchanged squad the march through to the second division. Agnew could hardly take part in the second promotion, due to injury he only came to seven missions; Recurring injury problems with thighs and ankles limited his playing times under Buckley anyway. In the following three second division seasons (1991-1994) completed the left-back with an offensive urge in competition with Kevin Jobling and later Gary Croft each about half of the season games, was sometimes called up in central defense or midfield. After the departure of coach Buckley to league rivals West Bromwich Albion in October 1994, Agnew played in the episode, partly due to injury, neither under interim trainer John Cockerill nor under Brian Laws nor a role.

After eleven years and 296 competitive games (3 goals) for Grimsby, he was brought to West Bromwich by Buckley in February 1995, the transfer fee is said to have been £ 65,000. He was soon troubled by injury problems as a team captain. So he injured his knee badly against Luton Town in October 1995 and was out for the rest of the season. In the 1996/97 season he came again to 23 competitive appearances for West Brom, but his contract was not extended by the club.

He continued his football career in the Southern League at Ilkeston Town , where his former teammate Keith Alexander held the coaching post. After six missions at the start of the season, he left Ilkeston in September 1997 again to play in the fourth division third division at the Welsh club Swansea City without a contract . Under Jan Mølby , Agnew came to some missions in the following weeks on a contractless basis. After Mølby's dismissal, he was also placed under interim coach Micky Adams , but a point was not won until the end of October, in his seventh and last starting eleven and at the same time the first game of the new coach Alan Cork (3-0 against Doncaster Rovers ). In early November 1997 his affiliation with Swansea ended and in December 1997 he joined Wisbech Town in the Southern League at the end of his career . At Wisbech he played alongside his longtime Grimsby teammate Gary Childs , who accompanied the post of player -coach .

Agnew was represented in Northern Irish school and junior selections, among others at the side of Norman Whiteside and Alan McDonald , in May 1990 he completed a game for the U23 national team against Ireland. However , it was not enough for Agnew to play a competitive game for the Northern Irish national team . In April 1993 he was called up in place of the injured Steve Morrow in the squad for the World Cup qualifier against Spain in Seville , but missed the leap into the matchday squad. His only appearance for the Northern Irish national team had Agnew on May 1, 1990 on the occasion of a charity game for Danny Blanchflower , in the game against Tottenham Hotspur he came on as a substitute.

After his professional career, Agnew earned his living as a driving instructor and employee at a company for video surveillance systems . He is also a longtime youth coach at Whittington Soccer Center of Whittington FC , an amateur club near Lichfield .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paul's career before cash - McQuillan . In: Belfast Telegraph , November 28, 1983, p. 18.  (paid link)
2. ↑ Dave Wherry: The Grimsby Town Story: 1878-2008 . Yore Publications, Harefield 2008, ISBN 978-0-9557889-3-2 , pp. 95 .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Colin Jones: Swansea Town / City FC - The First Comprehensive Player A-Y . Cyhoeddwyr Dinefwr Publishers, Llandybie 2005, ISBN 978-1-902638-75-1 , pp. 2 .
4. ↑ Dave Wherry: The Grimsby Town Story: 1878-2008 . Yore Publications, Harefield 2008, ISBN 978-0-9557889-3-2 , pp. 101 f .
5. ^ Rob Briggs & Dave Wherry: Mariner Men: Grimsby Town Who's Who 1892–2007 . Yore Publications, Harefield 2011, ISBN 978-0-9552949-8-3 , pp. 4th f .
6. ↑ cf. Season overviews in Dave Wherry: The Grimsby Town Story: 1878-2008 . Yore Publications, Harefield 2008, ISBN 978-0-9557889-3-2 , pp. 303 ff .
7. ↑ SIDE STORY… . In: Sunday Life , March 5, 1995, p. 71  (paid link)
8. ^ Tony Matthews: albion - The Official Encyclopaedia of West Bromwich Albion . Britespot Publishing, Cradley Heath 2002, ISBN 978-1-904103-16-5 , pp. 15 .
9. ↑ Irish duo create big little problem! . In: Evening Herald (Dublin) , October 20, 1995, p. 78.  (link with costs)
10. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1997-98 Official PFA Footballers' Factfile . Queen Anne Press, Harpenden 1997, ISBN 1-85291-581-1 , pp. 10 .
11. ↑ ilsonfootball.co.uk: Player Biographies - A , accessed March 1, 2020
12. ↑ Barry J. Hugman (Ed.): The 1998-99 Official PFA Footballers' Factfile . Queen Anne Press, Harpenden 1998, ISBN 1-85291-588-9 , pp. 10 .
13. ↑ nifootball.blogspot.com: Paul Agnew (April 19, 2008) , accessed March 1, 2020
14. ↑ whittingtonfc.org: Meet The Team , accessed on March 1, 2020