Dave Jones (footballer, born 1956)

This article is about the football manager. For the California politician and Assembly member, see Dave Jones (politician).

Dave Jones

Personal information
Full name	David Ronald Jones
Position(s)	Full back
Team information
Current team	Cardiff City (Manager)

David (Dave) Ronald Jones (born 17 August 1956 in Liverpool, Lancashire) is an English football manager currently in charge of Cardiff City.

Playing career

Like most professional managers in the game, Dave Jones enjoyed a career as a player in his early years. He started his professional career with Everton in his home town of Liverpool. He played as a defender with the team for seven years, during which time he represented the English national team at youth and under-21 level.

He left Everton to play for Coventry City in 1981 for a transfer fee of £275,000 - after three seasons he picked up a knee injury which threatened to end his football career.

After recovering from this injury, he played two further seasons for Seiko in Hong Kong and one season for Preston North End before retiring.

After retiring from professional football he went on to become assistant manager at Southport where he also made 2 appearances as a player.

Managerial career

Dave Jones started his managerial career as assistant manager to Bryan Griffiths at Southport in 1986-87 before they both left and took up identical roles at Mossley A.F.C. for the 1988-89 season. In July 1990, he joined Stockport County as a manager for their youth team and took over as first-team manager from Danny Bergara in March 1995. He took the team into the First Division (now the Championship) from an automatic promotion place in 1997. He also took the club to the semi finals of what was then the Coca Cola Cup where they were narrowly defeated by Middlesbrough, 2-1 on aggregate despite an impressive win at the Riverside Stadium. During the same cup run Stockport County also defeated Sheffield United, Blackburn Rovers, Southampton and West Ham United, all of whom were in higher divisions than the club at the time. Dave was born in the same year as Paul Sturrock and George Burley

Southampton

This promotion brought him to the attention of Southampton, who offered him a contract to manage their Premiership team. His reign during the 1999–2000 season was rocked by his arrest on charges of child abuse during his employment as a care worker in the late 1980s.

The case put tremendous strain on the manager, who was forced to defend his case on Merseyside whilst managing a team based over two hundred miles away on the south coast. In January 2000, Southampton decided to suspend him on full pay until the case was resolved with Glenn Hoddle taking over his managerial duties.

When the case eventually came to court, it was thrown out in its first week - the judge recording a not guilty verdict and commenting that the case should have never reached the trial stage.

Southampton paid off the remainder of Jones' contract and he was free to leave the club - Jones contended that this amounted to unfair dismissal and took the case to industrial tribunal but their decision was upheld.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

He took over at Wolves in January 2001 and guided the team to a 12th place finish. In the 2001–02 season Wolves won six games out of six in February to earn Jones the Division One Manager of the Month award, and on 12 March they sat in 2nd place, with an 11 points lead over their arch-rivals and nearest challengers West Bromwich Albion. However they managed to lose their promotion place by the end of the season and were then beaten by Norwich City in the playoff semi finals. He took the team to a playoff in the 2002-03 season - from which Wolves won a place in the Premiership, returning to top level play for the first time in 19 years. However, the team did not prove strong enough to stay at that level of play and were relegated to the Championship just one season later.

Following a poor run of form at the start of their first season back in the Championship, Dave Jones was sacked by Wolves on 1 November 2004 and the following year took up the position at Cardiff City, replacing Lennie Lawrence in May 2005.

Cardiff City

During Jones' first season in charge of Cardiff City, they achieved a respectable 11th place in the Championship. Re-building over the summer of 2006, Jones forged a talented side who found themselves at the top of the Championship. However, after a strong start, poor form later in the season led to Cardiff City finishing the season in 13th.

On 29 September 2007 Jones was sent from the dugout and into the stands during a league match against Barnsley after criticising referee Phil Dowd over a penalty decision. He was formally charged with misconduct on 2 October. Jones countered by claiming that, "I was angry with the referee because I think he was the only person in the stadium that didn't think it was a penalty. He didn't make a big call."

He also complained that Dowd ordered him into a section of the stadium containing Barnsley fans and feared that his safety had been put at risk. He stated that, "To send me the stand is crazy because he's then endangering me by sending me through the crowd, who are just going to abuse me"

He faced an FAW hearing about the incident and was found guilty resulting in a two-match touchline ban, which he served in the Championship match against Plymouth Argyle and the third round FA Cup tie against Chasetown.

On 9 March 2008 Jones led Cardiff to their first FA Cup semi-final tie since 1927 after beating Premiership side Middlesbrough 2-0 in the quarter-finals. On 6 April Cardiff City beat Barnsley 1-0 at Wembley Stadium to book an FA Cup Final place against Portsmouth. Cardiff City lost the Final, played on 17 May 2008, with the only goal of the game being scored by Nwankwo Kanu for Portsmouth, after 37 minutes play.

The start of the 2008-09 season saw veterans Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Robbie Fowler and Trevor Sinclair released and the sales of some of the team's biggest assets in Glenn Loovens and Aaron Ramsey. Despite this Jones brought in several new faces and by November Cardiff found themselves in a play-off spot, earning Jones the Championship manager of the month for October.

Honours

Stockport County

• Automatic Promotion to Football League Championship 1996-1997

Wolverhampton Wanderers

• Promotion via Playoffs to The Premier League 2002-2003

Cardiff City

• FA Cup finalist: 2008

Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Stockport County		1 August 1995	23 June 1997	117	57	28	32	48.71
Southampton		23 June 1997	27 January 2000	113	37	54	22	32.74
Wolverhampton Wanderers		3 January 2001	1 November 2004	187	75	60	52	40.10
Cardiff City		25 May 2005	Present	184	72	59	53	39.13

As at 28 December 2008

External links

• Dave Jones management career statistics at Soccerbase
• Dave Jones - Coventry City FC - Football-Heroes.net