Alan Cork

Infobox Football biography


playername = Alan Cork
fullname = Alan Graham Cork
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1959|3|4
cityofbirth = Derby
countryofbirth = England
height =
nickname =
currentclub = Bolton Wanderers (Reserve Team Coach)
position = Forward
youthyears =
youthclubs =
years = 1977-1978
1977
1978-1992
1992-1994
1994-1995
clubs = Derby County
→ Lincoln City (loan)
Wimbledon
Sheffield United
Fulham
caps(goals) = 000 00(0)
005 00(0)
430 (145)
054 00(7)
015 00(3)
nationalyears =
nationalteam =
nationalcaps(goals) =
manageryears = 1997-1998
2000-2002
managerclubs = Swansea City
Cardiff City

Alan Cork (born 4 March 1959) is an English former professional football player. He played as a striker for several clubs, most notably Wimbledon and is currently a coach at Bolton Wanderers.

Cork started his career at Derby County. However, despite a loan spell at Lincoln City, Cork failed to break into the Derby first team and was subsequently sold to Wimbledon in 1977, who were playing in Division Four at the time.Cork's contribution to the team helped Wimbledon climb the football league pyramid and eventually gained them entry into the First Division, playing in every division of the Football League in the process. Cork also played sixty minutes of Wimbledon's famous FA Cup triumph over Liverpool in 1988.

He spent several more seasons with the club in the top flight before being sold to Sheffield United in 1992, having spent 15 years at Wimbledon.

He spent two-and-a-half seasons with Sheffield United, including two full seasons in the newly rebranded FA Premier League before being sold on to Fulham in late 1994. In September 1997, he moved on to Swansea City as assistant manager to Micky Adams. Adams stepped down within two weeks of taking over, and Cork took over for the rest of the season without achieving much success. But many of the players from that period went on to feature in the Swansea side that won the Division Three title under John Hollins two years later.

Cork returned to management in October 2000 with Cardiff City, and guided them to promotion as Division Three runners-up seven months later. Despite this, Cork was never very popular with the supporters, and he was fired the following season in February 2002, [cite news
date=2002-02-17
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/cardiff_city/1825843.stm
title=Cork resigns from Cardiff City
publisher=BBC Sport
accessdate=2007-08-30] after a run of results that left Cardiff very much adrift of the Division Two automatic promotion places. This was despite him leading Cardiff to a famous FA Cup third round win over then Premiership leaders Leeds United some six weeks earlier.

In the summer of 2002 Cork joined Leicester City as assistant manager to Micky Adams. [cite news
date=2002-06-28
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/leicester_city/2071860.stm
title=Cork joins Foxes
publisher=BBC Sport
accessdate=2007-08-30] In his first full season he helped them achieve promotion to the Premiership, despite the club spending much of the season in receivership with huge debts. Leicester were saved by a takeover deal but their top flight comeback lasted just one season. He followed Adams out of the Walkers Stadium exit door in October 2004.

In November 2007 he was employed as a scout by Premier League side Bolton Wanderers who where looking for a number of ex-professionals to lead their recruitment drive lead by former Everton manager Colin Harvey. In July 2008 he was appointed to the Bolton backroom team full time when taking up the role of Reserve Team Manager.

Trivia

* Famously grew a beard, and refused to shave until Sheffield United's FA Cup run of 1992-93 had ended. The cup run lasted four months, as the Blades made it all the way to the semi-finals.
* During Cork's entire career, no transfer fee was ever paid for him.
* His son Jack is a highly-rated youth player for Chelsea
* Cork is a member of the Wimbledon Old Players Association. Cork scored on his Wimbledon Masters XI debut v a Chelsea Legends XI in a charity fixture at Kingsmeadow.
* He has 3 children, the eldest Kayleigh, then Chelsea reserve player Jack and youngest son Archie.

Honours

Wimbledon
* F.A. Cup winner - 1988

References