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Jim Smith (footballer, born 1940)

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Jim Smith (born October 17 1940) is a former English football (soccer) player and now a manager.

Playing career

Smith began his playing career in 1959, when he signed for hometown Sheffield United as a trainee. After failing to break into the first team he was transferred to Aldershot Town for the 1961-1962 season.

At the beginning of the 1965-1966 season, after scoring one goal in 74 appearances, Smith left Aldershot to join Halifax Town. He made 113 league appearances for Halifax, scoring 7 goals, before moving to Lincoln City in 1968. After a year at Lincoln in which he made 54 appearances Smith signed for non-league Boston United as player-manager.

Management career

A good start to his managerial career at Boston meant that in November 1972 Colchester United offered Smith the position of player-manager at the club.

Success came quickly as Smith guided Colchester to the Football League Fourth Division title in 1974. His performance at the club attracted the attention of bigger clubs, and in 1975 he quit the club, and hung up his boots, to join Blackburn Rovers as manager.

He led Blackburn for three years before leaving to be appointed boss of Birmingham City in 1978. Unfortunatly, Birmingham were relegated from the old Football League First Division the next year. However, Smith managed to guide Birmingham back into the top flight the next season.

In 1982 Smith parted company with the St Andrews club and joined Oxford United as manager. Taking them to the old Football League Third Division championship in 1984. The next year they were again promoted, this time into the top flight, for the first time in their history as Oxford won the old Second Division. This spectacular success led to Smith being offered the job of manager at Queen's Park Rangers, which he accepted.

In his first year at QPR, Smith took the club to the League Cup final, but they lost 3-0 to his former club Oxford. Smith continued to manage QPR until 1988 when he left to become manager of Newcastle United. However, the following year Newcastle were relegated and failure to reverse the club's fortunes led to Smith's sacking in 1991.

He quickly bounced back and was appointed manager of Portsmouth the same year. He had a fairly succesful reign at Fratton Park for four years, including reaching the FA Cup semi-finals in 1992, before leaving Pompey to take over at Derby County in 1995.

In his first full season in charge Derby came second in division one, and gained promotion to the FA Premier League.

For three seasons Derby showed impressive improvements in the Premiership, finishing 12th, 9th and 8th. However, in the next two seasons Derby narrowly avoided relegation, finishing 16th and 17th. Smith resigned at the beginning of the 2001-2002 season.

In early 2002, Smith was appointed assistant manager at Coventry City. Though results improved after he arrived, Smith was sacked, along with Coventry's entire management team, at the end of the season.

Later that year, former club Portsmouth offered Smith a position as assistant manager to Harry Redknapp. Having accepted, Smith helped Redknapp win the first division at the first attempt in 2002-2003, and has since been a major part of Pompey's consolidation process.

In November 2004, both Smith and Redknapp resigned from Portsmouth after the appointment of a 'Director of Football'. Both considered this threatened their authority and control in team matters.

Career summary

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