Steve Gardner (soccer player, 1958)

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Stephen David "Steve" Gardner (born October 7, 1958 ) is a retired English football player . The offensive player played in England, Sweden and the United States throughout his career.

Career

Gardner played at Ipswich Town as a youth . After he had not been able to prevail there, he joined the second division club Oldham Athletic in 1977 in the Second Division . There he scored two goals in 53 games in the following four seasons.

In January 1981 Gardner moved to the second Swedish division for Karlskrona AIF , with whom he missed promotion to the Allsvenskan at the end of his first season as fourth in the table . After a ninth place at the end of the following season, he joined the IFK Göteborg in the first division as the successor to Dan Corneliusson, who had moved to Germany . As a regular scorer in the championship finals, he led the team around Glenn Hysén , Tord Holmgren , Glenn Schiller and Thomas Wernerson into the final against Östers IF and successfully defended their title. In addition to Tommy Holmgren, he was also a goal scorer for the club in the first round of the 1983/84 European Cup in a 2-1 home win against Italian representatives AS Roma , but after a 3-0 defeat in the first leg, the club was eliminated from the competition . In the following season he played only 16 season games, since he had moved to the United States in the summer to the Dallas Sidekicks in the Major Soccer League . In what was then the highest US division, he scored three goals in 16 games by the end of the year. In November 1984 he suffered facial injuries in a car accident.

In early 1985 Gardner moved to the second Swedish league for Gothenburg local rivals GAIS . Although temporarily handicapped during the season with a foot injury, he led the club with twelve goals this season in the relegation against the Stockholm club Djurgårdens IF . After a 0-0 draw in the first leg, the second leg ended in extra time after goals from Lenna Kreivis for GAIS and Teddy Sheringham for Djurgårdens IF , and the Gothenburg team only missed promotion on penalties . As third in the table, he also missed promotion with the club the following year, before 1987 was extremely successful. On the one hand, he returned to the House of Lords at the end of the season, with seven goals in 26 games. On the other hand, he reached on the side of Ulf Johansson , Magnus Gustafsson and Tony Persson the final of the national cup , which ended, however, with a 0-2 defeat against Kalmar FF . In the first division season in 1988 he was next to the Tunisian Samir Bakaou , the American Thomas Phillips and his compatriot Allan Dodd one of the club's first foreign players in the Allsvenskan. For the club he played 19 games in the elite series, before he left the club after an eighth place in the table after 24 goals in 83 games in late 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Post War English & Scottish Football League A - Z Player's Database: "OLDHAM ATHLETIC: 1946/47 - 2011/12" (accessed November 4, 2012)
  2. ↑ kicksfan.com: "Dallas Sidekicks Players - # 20 Steve Gardner" (accessed November 4, 2012)
  3. ↑ gais.se: "Historik 1985" ( Memento of the original from November 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on November 4, 2012) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gais.se
  4. ↑ aftonbladet.se: "Importsvenskan" (accessed on November 4, 2012)
personal data
SURNAME Gardner, Steve
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gardner, Stephen David (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1958