Richard Gough (soccer player, 1962)

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Richard Gough
Personnel
Surname Charles Richard Gough
birthday April 5, 1962
place of birth Stockholm ,  Sweden
position Defender
Juniors
Years station
Wits University
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1980-1986 Dundee United 165 (23)
1986-1987 Tottenham Hotspur 65 0(0)
1987-1997 Glasgow Rangers 294 (25)
1997 Kansas City Wizards 17 0(0)
1997-1998 Glasgow Rangers 24 0(1)
1998-1999 San Jose Clash 19 0(2)
1999 →  Nottingham Forest  (loan) 7 0(0)
1999-2001 Everton FC 38 0(1)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1983-1993 Scotland 61 0(6)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
2004-2005 Livingston FC
1 Only league games are given.

Charles Richard Gough (born April 5, 1962 in Stockholm ) is a former Scottish football player . As a right full-back and later central defender , he won nine Scottish championships in a row with the Glasgow Rangers in the late 1980s and 1990s, and between 1983 and 1993 played a total of 61 international matches for the " Bravehearts ".

Athletic career

Richard Gough was born in Stockholm as the son of Scottish ex-soccer player Charlie Gough and a Swede and grew up mostly in South Africa. At the local Wits University in Johannesburg his footballing skills matured and so he tried early to start a professional sports career in Great Britain. A trial training session at the Scottish top club Glasgow Rangers did not bring the desired result and it looked like he should find a place at Charlton Athletic - where his father had also played. It did not come to that either; instead, he signed his first professional contract in 1980 with the up-and-coming Scottish club Dundee United .

Earlier in his career, Gough was not yet the later often vaunted "tower in the battle" in the defense , but he held alongside the central defense stretching Paul Hegarty and David Narey the position of the right full-back - on the defending side opposite Maurice Malpas . Under coach Jim McLean , Gough was part of the most successful defensive series in Dundee United history in the first half of the 1980s; together, the club won the Scottish championship for the first time in 1983 and also attracted attention in European Cup competitions (including Gough's entry into the semi-finals of the European Cups ). Despite the respectable successes in the six years in Dundee, in which the phalanx of the big clubs from Glasgow could at times be severely disrupted, Gough, unlike Hegarty, Narey and Malpas, did not find his lasting happiness here. Gough, who had not wanted to return to Dundee during the turn of the year 1981/82 after a South African home vacation, saw himself more as a central defender and since he could not displace Hegarty and Narey in this regard, he asked for a transfer clearance. For 750,000 pounds, he finally moved to the English club Tottenham Hotspur in August 1986 .

Gough's stay in London for more than a year was not a failure. He led the "Spurs" under coach David Pleat in 1987 as captain in the final of the FA Cup against Coventry City (2-3 a . V. ), but in October of the same year he moved back to Scotland, where he seven years after Failed attempt in the trial training now hired by the Glasgow Rangers. With the "Gers" he was the first million (pound) transfer in the club's history and with the associated pressure of expectation, the headball and duel-strong Gough coped well straight away. After his debut in the unpopular right-back position against former club Dundee United, he played his way into the hearts of his own supporters with his first goal in the game against rival Celtic Glasgow . Under coach Graeme Souness and later Walter Smith Gough won nine Scottish championships in a row from 1989 to 1997, which at the same time only succeeded teammates Ally McCoist and Ian Ferguson . Gough, who had risen to become the undisputed leader within the team, also won seven of the nine titles as captain after the departure of Terry Butcher in 1990. The climax of this time rich in success, which brought three Scottish Cup and six league cup victories in addition to the championship titles, was the triple season 1992/93, in which Gough first played the " Battle of Britain " in sensational Champions League games English champions Leeds United won and narrowly missed the final behind Olympique Marseille in the group stage despite a total of ten unbeaten games in the competition ; Overall, the Rangers did not leave the field as a loser in 44 games in a row this season.

"The team drinks together and wins together."

- Richard Gough on the Glasgow Rangers' recipe for success in the 1992/93 season

A personal highlight for Gough was also his election as Scotland's Footballer of the Year by local journalists in 1989 - three years earlier he had already been awarded the same honor by means of a fellow player award. From 1997 Gough played a number of games in the Major League Soccer (MLS), where he first moved to the Kansas City Wizards and from 1998 to San José Clash . Although he mostly only appeared there during the European season breaks, he was part of the All-Star team of the MLS in 1997 after 17 league games for the Wizards . In Glasgow he completed one last (moderately successful) season in 1997/98 before he moved to Everton via the detour San José and Nottingham Forest (as a loan player between March and May 1999) . In Liverpool, Gough played under his ex-Rangers coach and mentor Walter Smith until 2001 for two last professional years before he let his active career end.

At the end of November 2004, Gough took his first head coach in the highest Scottish league and led Livingston FC to relegation. However, this episode ended with his dismissal in May 2005 due to disagreements with the club owner over the transfer budget. The Scottish association SFA later fined Livingston FC £ 15,000 for irregularities in signing Moroccan Hassan Kachloul during Gough's tenure.

Scottish national team

On March 30, 1983 Gough made his debut for Scotland against Switzerland (2-2) in a European Championship qualifier and on the side of team captain Graeme Souness , who later brought him as a coach to the Glasgow Rangers. By 1993 he had completed 61 internationals - eight of them as captain - and Gough was represented in three final tournaments (two World Championships ( 1986 in Mexico , 1990 in Italy ) and one European Championship ( 1992 in Sweden )), but all of them ended in the first group stage .

After critical remarks in the direction of the coaching team Andy Roxburgh and Craig Brown , Gough's career with the Scottish national team ended prematurely in 1993.

Achievements / titles

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ barryhugmansfootballers.com: Profile Richard Gough , accessed June 25, 2020
  2. ↑ "Dundee United A - Z (G)" ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2007 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. (Dundee United FC) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dundeeunitedfc.co.uk
  3. ↑ "Livi fined over Kachloul signing" (BBC Sport)
personal data
SURNAME Gough, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gough, Charles Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION scottish soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockholm