Frank Stapleton
Dublin born Frank Stapleton was a centre forward best known for his especially good ability to head the ball. He started his career with Arsenal in 1972 as an apprentice, after being turned down by Manchester United. He made his first team debut in 1975 against Stoke City where he would go on to form a potent striking partnership with Malcolm Macdonald at the Gunners; the two scored 46 goals between them in 1976-77. He was Arsenal’s top scorer for the three following seasons, and helped the Gunners reach a trio of FA Cup finals and scored 108 goals in 300 appearances in total during his time at Highbury. Frank moved to Manchester United in 1981 for £900,000 (a fee set by tribunal after the two clubs could not agree) and would help United win the 1983 and 1985 FA Cups.
Frank left United in 1987, after scoring 78 goals in 365 matches for the Old Trafford club. He went on to play for Ajax Amsterdam, before returning to England with Derby County and later Blackburn Rovers. Frank became player-manager of Bradford City, where he spent three seasons, and later went to the United States to coach Major League Soccer side New England Revolution. Internationally, he won 71 caps for the Republic of Ireland, scoring a then record 20 goals.
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Lee Dixon
Lee Dixon is one of the greatest defenders in Arsenals history, playing over 600 games in a 14 year spell. The legendary right back won every domestic honour in the English game in the course of his 20-year footballing career.
Lee began his career at Burnley before spells at Chester, Bury and Stoke. His big break was being signed in January 1988 by George Graham, who paid £400,000 to take him to Highbury. Here he was to become part of the legendary Arsenal back four alongside Tony Adams, Steve Bould and Nigel Winterburn who, for over a decade, provided the backbone that led the Gunners to a number of successes. In over 14 years at the club he won two Football League Championship and two Premiership winners’ medals - the latter won as part of the 1998 and 2002 Double years.
International Career
Lee made his England international debut in April 1990 in a World Cup warm-up game against Czechoslovakia. He went on to win another 21 caps for his country.
Current
Lee joined the BBC in 2004 as a pundit on Match of the Day, Football Focus and Match Of The Day 2 and is now one of the most respected former players in the media.
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Dean Saunders
Dean Saunders is a former professional football player with a wealth of stories about his lengthy and varied career which saw him play for many clubs. During his football career, Dean started out at Swansea City, before joining Cardiff City on loan before a permanent move to Brighton. He later joined Oxford United, Derby County, Liverpool, Galatasary, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United, Benfica and Bradford City. He is currently Wrexham Manager as well as assistant manager to Wales’s manager John Toshack and is appearing regularly on TV and radio as a match summariser.
Dean played in over 700 games and scored a total of 254 goals. He was capped by Wales on 75 occasions, scoring 22 goals for his country. After retiring from football in 2001 he became a coach and then moved on to Newcastle United in 2004 initially as strikers coach, and then first team coach under old boss Graeme Souness. He left Newcastle in 2006 and took his coaching badges and was appointed assistant manger of Wales in June 2007.
He was one of the Welsh national side’s most prolific scorers. Made his debut as a 21 year old against Ireland in 1986, no Welsh fan will ever forget his goal which secured a famous 1-0 win over Brazil in Cardiff in 1991. He won the last of his caps against Ukraine in 2001 just a few months short of his 37th birthday.
Dean is building a very good reputation as an after dinner speaker, he comes very highly rated and above all enjoys doing the events.
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Andy Sinton
Andy Sinton was only 16 when he made his Football League debut for Cambridge.
He was signed by Brentford in 1985 for just £25,000, but they netted £350,000 for him when he moved to QPR four years later.
Andy went on to play 160 league games and score 22 goals at the London club before moving to Sheffield Wednesday for a then-club record £2.75m in August 1993.
He spent two and a half years at Hillsborough but returned to London early in 1996 to link up with former Rangers boss Gerry Francis at Tottenham Hotspur.
He made his last Premiership appearance for Tottenham in 1999 before spending three years with Wolverhampton Wanderers and then signing for non-league Burton Albion in August 2002.
Andy was appointed manager of Hampshire side Fleet Town in 2005, having spent the previous season as the club’s football development officer. In May 2010, Andy was appointed manager of Bluesquare North side, AFC Telford United.
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Clubs
Cambridge United
Brentford
QPR
Sheffield Wednesday
Tottenham Hotspu
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Honours
Worthington Cup Winner with Tottenham
Over 750 career appearances
Over 100 career goals
International Honours
England Schoolboy
England B
Full England International gaining 12 Caps
Member of the 1992 European Championship Squad in Swede
Lee Sharpe
Lee started his career at Torquay United, and after just 16 first team games he was snapped up by Manchester United for a fee of £2000,00, which was a record at the time for a YTS player.
He played a vital role in his first season at Old Trafford in the 1990- 1991 season, helping United to success in the European Cup Winners Cup, and scored a memorable hat-trick away at Arsenal in the League Cup. During eight year at Old Trafford, he scored nearly 40 goals in 265 matches.
Lee was transferred to Leeds United for a fee of 4.5 million prior to the 1996/97 season, making him their record signing, but unfortunately injury restricted him to very few appearances. He had a loan spell at Sampdoria, then followed a permanent move to Bradford City, where he initially helped them to promotion to the Premier League, and the following season they preserved their status in the top flight. A loan spell then followed to Portsmouth, followed by brief spells at Grimsby Town, Exeter City and Grindavik in Iceland, but he then had to curtail his career due to injury at the early age of just 32.
Since his retirement, Lee has developed a career within television, and has appeared on Score, Football Focus and Match of the Day 2 both as a live studio guest and as a features reporter. He was a celebrity contestant on Dancing on Ice, Celebrity Love Island and Celebrity Wrestling, was a co-host for Junior Gladiators and a reporter on Footballers Wives. He also appeared in Ant & Dec’s Saturday night takeaway as part of Team Dec. In 2008 he appeared on Channel 5’s Superstars as a member of Sir Steven Redgraves winning team
Lee has quickly established a reputation as a very good after dinner speaker. He brings his fun outlook on life to the after dinner circuit with numerous stories from the world of football and television, about the characters and personalities he has worked with.
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Dwight Yorke
Nicknamed ‘The Smiling Assassin’ Dwight was born on November 3, 1971 in Canaan, Trinidad and Tobago, and went on to become one of the Premier Leagues great characters. He famously won the 1999 Champions League and three successive Premiership titles in a four-year spell at Manchester United.
Dwight was first selected to play for the Trinidad and Tobago national side in 1989, and was captain of the team in the 2006 World Cup Finals in Germany, in total he gained around 70 caps scoring over 20 goals.
His professional career began with Aston Villa in 1989 and he was a part of the team that clinched the League Cup in 1994 and 1996. During his 9 year tenure with the Villa, he made 231 appearances and scored 97 goals. He played a crucial role as a striker for Aston Villa and emerged as the club’s top-scorer (1994-95, 1995-96, and 1996-97). He also won the Player of the Year award for the 1996-97 season.
Dwight then signed for Manchester United for a fee of £12.6 million in August 1998. He played a pivotal role and emerged as the top league goal scorer for the 1998-1999 season. During his time at Old Trafford as well as winning the consecutive Premier League titles and Champions League, he also lifted the FA Cup, the Intercontinental Cup and was a UEFA Super Cup runner-up title in 1999.
He moved onto Blackburn Rovers in 2002 for a fee of £2 million and was the top-scorer for the season, before switching to Birmingham City in 2004, where scoring on his debut made him an instant favourite among the club’s fans. He was then signed by Sydney FC in 2005 where he was made captain. He led the team to victory in the inaugural A-League Grand Final match versus Central Coast Mariners in March 2006 with a Man of The Match performance. Dwight’s image and name were used by the Football Federations Australia (FFA) to promote the A-League’s second season.
In August 2006, Dwight signed for Sunderland for £200,000, and was part of the side that lifted the Football League Championship in the 2006-07 season.
Dwight Yorke has many awards and recognitions to his credit including, the Trinidad & Tobago Footballer of the Year (2005, 2006), the Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary’s Award (2005), the Trinidad & Tobago Olympic Committee Sports Personality of the Year (1998) and Humming Bird Medal Silver (1993). He also won the English Premier League Golden Boot Award for scoring 18 goals in the 1998-99 season.
The Dwight Yorke Stadium in Bacolet, Tobago, was named in his honour, and he was made a Sports Ambassador for his country owing to his great display in the 2006 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. Apart from playing football, Dwight has a great passion for cricket.
Dean Windass
Dean retired from football in October 2009 at the age of 40, after a prolonged career spanning 20 years, that saw him make over 700 appearances scoring more than 200 goals and playing for 9 clubs.
Peter Shilton
England goalkeeping legend Peter Shilton is his country’s most capped player of all time, amassing an amazing 125 appearances for his country. His career began at Leicester City in 1966, where he was the youngest player to play for Leicester City at the tender age of16 - taking over from the equally legendary Gordon Banks.
Throughout an unbelievable career spanning 30 years, he played for 11 clubs, accumulating a record 1,005 League appearances.
In 1977, Peter signed for Brian Cloughs newly promoted Nottingham Forest, who then went on to shock the footballing world by winning the league title on their return to the top flight. More success followed on an International stage as Peter was a huge influence in Forest then winning two successive European Cups.
In Peters record 125 International appearances, he helped England to 66 wins, and amazingly was still playing at the age of 40 at The 1990 World Cup Semi Finals.
Infamously, one of the best remembered moments in his International career came in 1986 when he became the victim of Maradona’s cheating ‘hand of God’ goal!
During his extinguished career Peter was voted the PFA player of the year and also received both the MBE and OBE for his services to football. In 1990 following his retirement, Peter was awarded the Order of Merit by the PFA.
Peter has now established a new career for himself as an a hugely popular and experienced speaker, comfortable in addressing both corporate and sporting audiences alike. He is also a mad keen golfer and is available for corporate golf days in addition to numerous other personal appearance opportunities.
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Dave Bassett
Dave Bassett is a highly experienced and successful manager who boasts seven promotions in his eight-club career.
A member of The League Managers Associations prestigious 1,000 game club, Bassett sprang to prominence as the boss who lifted Wimbledon from basement to big time, an achievement that bordered on the miraculous.
He went on to further promotions with Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest, also reaching play-off finals at Crystal Palace and Barnsley.
The scale of the likeable Londoner’s success at Wimbledon - who had been a League club for only four years when he took charge in 1981 - is almost incomprehensible. The Dons were in the top flight five years later after promotions in ‘83 - as champions of the old Fourth Division - ‘84 and ‘86. It was still largely Dave’s rags-to-riches side - featuring the famous “Crazy Gang” - who won the FA Cup in 1988, the year after he left Plough Lane, beating Liverpool at Wembley.
After a brief interlude with Watford, the irrepressible character known to his friends as “Harry”, resumed his winning ways at Sheffield United in 1988. He could not prevent a struggling team being relegated to the third tier, but restored the Blades to the top flight in two consecutive leaps.
Surpassing even those promotions of ‘89 and ‘90 was the fact that Bassett’s low budget team remained in the Premiership until 1994 when they were relegated in a dramatic last-day twist. The promotions in 89 and 90 make Bassett the last manager to achieve back to back promotions to the top league.
After leaving Bramall Lane the following year, Bassett made an instant impact at Crystal Palace with a run to the play-off final and went on to win a first-season promotion as manager of Nottingham Forest who returned to the Premier League as champions in 1998.
Another play-off final appearance followed at Barnsley in 2000. Bassett has since had two spells in charge of Leicester and been assistant manager of Southampton and Leeds United.
He is consistently in demand as a television pundit and a speaker on motivational techniques, besides being a long-serving member of the LMA’s management committee.
In the history of Association Football in England covering over 125 years, only three managers have guided the same team from the lowest division, to the highest rung of the game; Dave Bowen with Northampton Town, Graham Taylor with Watford and Bassett with Wimbledon.
Kenny Sansom
Kenny Samsom was born in Camberwell south london on 26th September 1958.
Kenny first started playing football when he was 10 years old. It was on a green, on the Brandon Estate off of the Walworth Road where he lived as youngster.
Within five years, Kenny found himself playing for his country at the age of 15 at Wembley, for the England Schoolboys and was still not realising or thinking about becoming a professional footballer at that time. People around soon realised his talent, and many clubs were very interested in signing him as an apprentice. QPR, Tottenham, Arsenal, Leeds to name a few. After discussions with his family Kenny chose Crystal Palace. Within 2 years found himself playing for the first team.
After 3 great seasons at Palace playing 9 full England internationals there became major interest from Arsenal Football club.
Kenny finally made the move in August 1980. He Successfully played at Arsenal for eight and a half years. Collecting another 77 full England caps making a grand total of 86, making Kenny 8th capped player for England of all time. Plus making Kenny the most capped full back in England’s history.
After leaving Arsenal in 1988 Kenny played for 3 or 4 other clubs including Newcastle, QPR, Coventry and brief spells at Everton and Brentford.
Kenny was very fortunate to play with some great players i.e. Jim Cannon, Vince Hilaire, David O’leary, Pat Jennings, Graham Rix, Ray Wilkins, Bryan Robson, Peter Beardsley, Tony Adams, Peter Shilton, Glen Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Gary Lineker, and many more. Also some great managers too. Including Terry Venables, George Graham, Don Howe, Bobby Robson, Ron Greenwood to name a few!
INTERNATIONAL HONOURS
England Schoolboys, England Youth, England Under 21′S, England B.
Plus 86 times England International.
League/ Cup plus international over 700 appearances in total.
Phew! what an achievement!
Now Kenny actively works in the Media/ TV / Radio and at the Emirates Stadium at Arsenal Football Club.
Also likes to do after dinner speaking and Q & A evenings Kenny really enjoys mixing with the fans.
