Dean Saunders - Appointed Wrexham Manager

Dean Saunders - I won't rest until Wrexham FC are back in league

New Wrexham FC boss Dean Saunders has said he will not rest until the club is back in the Football League. Read

Dean Saunders new boss of Wrexham FC

Dean Saunders is the new boss at Wrexham FC. Read

Thu 02 Oct 2008

Dean Saunders - Profile

Career

Dean Nicholas Saunders (born 21 June 1964 in Swansea) is a former Welsh footballer who played as a striker in a professional career which lasted from 1982 until 2001. He is manager of Wrexham.

He is probably best known for playing for Aston Villa. However he also played for Swansea City, Cardiff City(on loan), Brighton, Oxford United, Derby County, Liverpool, Galatasaray, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United, Benfica and Bradford City. He also won 75 caps for Wales.

Saunders began his career with Swansea City, where his father Roy had been a player and coach, signing as an apprentice on leaving school in 1980. He played almost 50 games for Swansea, signing as a professional in 1982 and turning out for them in the two seasons in which they completed two successive relegations that pushed the club from the First Division to the Third.

During his time at the club was loaned out to Welsh rivals Cardiff City. He joined Brighton & Hove Albion on a free transfer for the 1984–85 season and remained there until February 1987, when he was snapped up by First Division strugglers Oxford United. Saunders immediately settled into the Oxford squad and his goals helped them avoid relegation at the end of the 1986-87 season. But his efforts were not enough to save Oxford from going down in bottom place at the end of the 1987–88 season. Saunders began the 1988–89 season still in the Second Division, but was soon sold to Derby County for £1million and Oxford manager Mark Lawrenson was later sacked by the club's board after he complained to them about selling Saunders.

Saunders made his Derby County debut on 29 October 1988 against Wimbledon in a First Division fixture at the Baseball Ground. He made an impressive start at his new club scoring twice in his first game. In his first season at his new club he scored 14 goals. His goals helped Derby finish an impressive fifth in the 1988–89 First Division table—their highest finish since they were league champions in 1975—but they were unable to compete in the UEFA Cup due to the ban on English teams in European competition following the Heysel Disaster of 1985.

He scored 17 league goals in the 1990–91 season but Derby still went down in bottom place with just five league wins all season. Derby's relegation saw most of the country's top clubs queue up in their bid to capture his services, and Everton were favourites to sign him. But Saunders ended up at Liverpool, who paid a then English record fee of £2.9million as Ian Rush's new strike-partner following the departures of David Speedie and Peter Beardsley.

In 1991–92, Saunders partnered Ian Rush (also his strike partner for Wales) in a formidable strikerforce backed by young Steve McManaman which saw the club win the FA Cup for the fifth time in its history in manager Graeme Souness's first full season in charge. In September 1992, Saunders was transferred to Aston Villa for £2.5million and was an instant hit with the Villa Park faithful. He developed a strong partnership with Dalian Atkinson and the pair's goals guided Villa to an impressive runners-up finish in the first season of the Premier League. Although Villa's league form slipped in 1993–94 and they finished 10th, Saunders scored twice in the League Cup final to secure victory over Manchester United at Wembley, securing a second successive UEFA Cup campaign for the midlanders.

Saunders hit the target 15 times in the 1994–95 season but Villa came one place short of relegation—two years after they came one place short of the league title.

As part of new Villa manager Brian Little's rebuilding programme, which resulted in most of the Ron Atkinson era of players being sold, Saunders was off-loaded to Turkish club Galatasaray and old Liverpool manager Graeme Souness. In fact, according to Shelley Webb's book Footballers' Wives, the first Saunders' wife Helen knew of the move was when she went to Turkey with him one weekend, to find that by Monday he'd signed for the Istanbul club and this was her new home.

Saunders spent one season at Galatasaray, before he returned to the Premiership with Nottingham Forest in 1996. His only season at the City Ground was a disappointment with a shortage of goals which contributed to Forest's relegation. After another spell abroad with Benfica (again under Souness), he joined Sheffield United in Division One, where he remained for two years before moving back to the Premier League with newly promoted Bradford City. He remained at Bradford for two years until he finally hung up his boots in the 2000–01 season.

International

Dean Saunders was one of the Welsh national side's most prolific goalscorers. He made his Welsh debut as a 21-year-old against the Republic of Ireland in 1986. He was capped 75 times and scored a creditable 22 goals, putting him fourth on the all time Wales list behind Ian Rush, Ivor Allchurch and Trevor Ford. No Welsh fan will ever forget his goal which secured a famous 1-0 win over the mighty Brazil in Cardiff in 1991. He won the last of his 75 caps as a replacement in the World Cup qualifier against the Ukraine on the 28 March 2001, a few months short of his 37th birthday. Saunders is rated alongside the likes of Ian Rush and Mark Hughes when Welsh fans discuss who the greatest Welsh striker of all time was.

Coaching

He initially became a coach at Bradford after his retirement, and then moved to Newcastle United F.C. in 2004, initially as strikers coach, and then first-team coach under old boss Graeme Souness. Whilst at Newcastle, he became famous for his "Dean Saunders mime show" where he stood at the touchline and made random hand signals to players which to most were undecipherable. Many at St James commented that it was like watching a game of charades. Souness was sacked on 2 February 2006 due to a run of poor results, and his entire backroom team including Saunders were also replaced. Saunders started the Certificate in Football Management course at the University of Warwick Business School in June 2007.^[1]

In June 2007, Saunders was appointed assistant manager to John Toshack for the Wales national football team.

Management

On 2 October 2008, Saunders took over as manager of Conference National side Wrexham, taking over from Brian Little to become the side's fourth manager in 22 months. He has been allowed to combine the role with his position as assistant manager of Wales.^[2]

2001-2008

At the start of the 21st century the club was dogged with many problems off the pitch, including the chairman, Alex Hamilton, attempting to get the club evicted from the stadium so that he could use and sell it for his own development purposes^{[citation needed]} – the saga involved the sale of the Racecourse Ground to a separate company owned by Hamilton immediately after he became the club's chairman. In the summer of 2004 Hamilton gave the club a year's notice to quit the ground.

The club's fans developed an affinity with the fans of fellow football league club Brighton & Hove Albion, who themselves had managed to successfully depose their chairman and keep control of their stadium after he had sold the ground for development purposes in almost the same circumstances.

On 3 December 2004 the club was placed in financial administration by the High Court in Manchester as the club owed £2,600,000, including £800,000 which was owed to the Inland Revenue in unpaid taxes. Wrexham became the first League club to suffer a ten-point deduction under the new rule for being placed in Administration, dropping them from the middle of the League One table to the relegation zone after the point deduction, and subsequently condemned Wrexham to relegation.

Despite their financial troubles, Wrexham went on to win the 2004-05 LDV Vans Trophy by defeating Southend United 2-0 after extra time, in Wrexham's first appearance in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. It was Southend's second consecutive defeat in the LDV Vans Trophy final. The winning goals were scored by Juan Ugarte and Darren Ferguson as Wrexham ran out winners in front of over 20,000 Wrexham fans.

Wrexham still retained an outside chance of escaping the drop in the 2004-05 season following an end-of-season winning streak; however, their faint hopes of staying up were ended with a 2-1 home loss to Brentford on 3 May 2005. The 10-point deduction proved decisive in determining Wrexham's fate, as the club finished with 43 points compared to 20th-placed Milton Keynes Dons' 51 - a net points tally of 53 after deduction, which had condemned them to relegation.

In October 2005, Birmingham High Court decided that Mr Hamilton's company CrucialMove had improperly acquired the freehold of the ground and the decision went against him. Mr Hamilton then took this to the Appeal Court in London and it ruled on 14 March 2006 that the stadium must remain in the hands of the club's administrators. On 30 April 2006 the Administrators reached an agreement with local car dealer Neville Dickens, subject to agreement by the shareholders and creditors (which was achieved on 30 May), for Mr Dickens to take over control of the club and all its assets. Had the club still been in Administration by the 3 June then Wrexham would have automatically been expelled from the League because of their financial situation.

Wrexham Football Club (2006) Ltd is the name of the "phoenix" company that took over the assets of the old Wrexham Association Football Club Limited - technically, the club is no longer known as Wrexham Association Football Club due to the takeover of the club by Neville Dickens and Geoff Moss and their associates; this is reflected on new merchandise, although most fans will still refer to it as "Wrexham AFC".

The 2006/07 season started well for Wrexham, as they went 8 games unbeaten, with included a 4-1 away win against Championship side Sheffield Wednesday and were in the play-off places after the addition of numerous new faces. Unfortunately they were beaten in a shock 5-0 defeat at Accrington Stanley on 13th September 2006, then followed by a 5-2 defeat at Stockport County. Both of these teams were struggling at the foot of the table when these defeats happened, and Wrexham never fully recovered from them. This would begin the start of a long relegation battle for Wrexham. Denis Smith was sacked along with his assistant Kevin Russell on 11 January 2007 with Wrexham in the bottom half of the division and after a poor run of results and was replaced by coach Brian Carey. Wrexham finished 19th in League Two and on 51 points after an impressive late run of form which saw them win 4 out of their last 5 games, which included defeating local rivals Shrewsbury in the last ever derby match at Gay Meadow. Wrexham's league status was saved on the last day of the season with a vital 3-1 victory on 5 May 2007 over Boston United at home which sent their opponents down to the Conference and ensured that Wrexham would stay in the Football League.

Expectations were high for the 2007/08 season, as there had been the signings of players such as Anthony Williams, Richard Hope, Michael Proctor, Silvio Spann and Eifion Williams and a push for promotion was expected by the fans after the disappointment of last season. But the season started badly, with only three wins and 10 points by the middle of November and Wrexham rooted to the bottom of the table.

Brian Carey was finally sacked after Wrexham crashed out of the FA Cup in the First Round following a 4-1 defeat against Peterborough United. On 6 November 2007 Wrexham Football Club released a statement saying that the club were looking for an "experienced senior manager" to work alongside the current Racecourse staff. On 15 November 2007, Brian Little was named as Wrexham's new manager and the replacement to Brian Carey, who took the role of assistant manager.

After a promising start to his reign, a run of 7 straight league defeats and a humiliating 4-2 defeat in the Welsh Cup at the hands of Llanelli FC, forced Little to ring the changes and brought in 11 players in the January transfer window to attempt to change Wrexham's fortunes. In terms of the backstage staff, he brought in former Port Vale boss Martin Foyle as first-team coach and several members of staff were told that they had no future at The Racecourse. With the new players introduced Wrexham went a run of six matches unbeaten, which included victories against promotion candidates Darlington FC and the MK Dons and a 0-0 draw against Peterborough United. However, in the final months of the season many of Little's new players had become injured and Wrexham suffered several defeats against fellow strugglers in the league and were also defeated 3-0 in a derby match against Shrewsbury Town. Wrexham were finally relegated following a 2-0 defeat away at Hereford United, losing the club its 87 year stay in the Football League.

Brian Little immediately began his rebuilding programme as he told 22 players that they no longer had a future at the Racecourse, which included 5 players that had been put on the transfer list and the remaining players were released by the club and left to be snapped up on free transfers, and only 11 players remained untouched, with Steve Evans and Matt Done being the only out-of-contract players that were offered new deals. Steve Evans signed a new two-year deal and Matt Done opted to move to Herefore United

Neil Roberts was also offered a new deal which was not made public but the money was not enough and even though he held on for another week, Wrexham refused to give him what he wanted and then he left along with Danny Williams, Josh Johnson and Jamie Reed and signed for Rhyl F.C. who play in the League Of Wales.

He has ripped up last year's relegation squad with 16 players either released or not having their loan spells renewed. The include ex-Wales strikers Neil Roberts and Chris Llewellyn. In their place, Little has assembled a squad with a vast amount of non-league experience to try and boost the club's chances. New midfielder Tom Kearney (Halifax Town, free) is one of the names being tipped for the Wrexham captaincy and joining him coming in are: Up Front; Jefferson Louis (Mansfield Town, free) and Simon Brown (Mansfield Town, free), Midfield Shaun Whalley (Accrington Stanley, free), Defence: Kyle Critchell (Weymouth, free), Nat Brown (Lincoln City, free) and Darran Kempson (Shrewsbury, free).

The 2007/2008 season started well, with a 5-0 home victory against Stevenage Borough, the title favourites in the eyes of the bookies. however, a run of porr results followed, with Wrexham being left in the mid-table battle, only four points above the relegation zone and only keeping two clean sheets all season. Following a 3-0 home defeat against Rushden and Diamonds, and fans calling for his dismissal, Little left Wrexham by mutual consent. Since then,

Dean Saunders has taken over the management of Wrexham 02/10/08

The current players at Wrexham F.C. are the worst ever in the clubs history and will need to be replaced or we will face another relegation. I hear you laugh when I say that, but believe me, I have been going to watch them for over 30 years and this lot Brian Little has assembled are absolutely useless. Unless you have watched them, you won`t really know how bad they are. They are not fit to wear the shirt, and that`s exactly what the fans sang in Brian Little`s last game as manager of Wreham Fc when we lost 3-0 at home to Rushden and Dianmond.

The pictures below are one season before we actually got relegated out of
the football league for first time in our history.

5 May 2007: Ryan Valentine scores the goal against Boston that keeps Wrexham in the Football League

The Mold Road Stand and Kop

5 May 2007: Scoreboard showing the final score of game that kept Wrexham in the Football League and condemned Boston United to the Conference

Thu 02 Oct 2008

Martin To Leave The Racecourse

Wed 01 Oct 2008

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