Gary Lineker
Gary Winston Lineker is an English sports broadcaster and former professional footballer who played as a striker. Regarded as one of the best players of his generation and one of England's greatest players, Lineker is the only player to have been the top goalscorer in England with three clubs: Leicester City, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur. He also played for Barcelona in Spain, and won 80 caps for England. His media career began with the BBC, where he presented the flagship football programme Match of the Day from 1999 until 2025, the longest tenure of any MOTD presenter. Lineker was also the BBC's lead presenter for live football matches, including coverage of international tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup. He has also worked for Al Jazeera Sports, Eredivisie Live, NBC Sports Network, and BT Sport's coverage of the UEFA Champions League.
Lineker began his football career at Leicester City in 1978, and finished as the First Division's joint top goalscorer in 1984–85. He then moved to league champions Everton, where he won both the PFA Players' Player of the Year and FWA Footballer of the Year awards in his debut season, before moving to Spanish club Barcelona, where he won the 1987–88 Copa del Rey and the 1989 European Cup Winners' Cup. He joined Tottenham Hotspur in 1989, and won his second FWA Footballer of the Year and the FA Cup, his only major trophy in English football. Lineker's final club was Nagoya Grampus Eight; he retired in 1994 after two seasons at the Japanese side.
Lineker made his England debut in 1984, earning 80 caps and scoring 48 goals over an eight-year international career, which made him England's second-highest goalscorer on his retirement. He remains England's fourth-highest scorer, behind Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney and Bobby Charlton, and his goals-to-games ratio remains one of the best for the country. His six goals in the 1986 World Cup made him the tournament's top scorer, receiving the Golden Boot, and he came second in the 1986 Ballon d'Or. Lineker was again integral to England's progress to the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup, scoring another four goals. He still holds England's record for goals in the World Cup.
Lineker never received a yellow or red card during his career, and he also never won a top-flight league title. He was honoured in 1990 with the FIFA Fair Play Award. In a senior career which spanned 16 years and 654 competitive games, Lineker scored a total of 331 goals, including 283 goals at club level. After his retirement from football he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame. A keen supporter of Leicester City, he led a consortium in 2002 that invested in his old club, saving it from bankruptcy, and was appointed honorary vice-president.
Early life
Gary Winston Lineker was born on 30 November 1960 in Leicester, the son of Margaret P. and Barry Lineker. He was given his middle name in honour of Winston Churchill, with whom he shares a birthday. He has one brother, Wayne, who is two years his junior. Lineker grew up with his family in the city, playing football with Wayne. Their father was a greengrocer, as were their grandfather William and great-grandfather George, in Leicester. Barry Lineker ran Lineker's fruit and veg stall in Leicester Market, and as a child and a young player Gary regularly helped out on the stall. Lineker, who is white, received racial abuse as a child for his dark features.Lineker first attended Caldecote Road School, Braunstone in Leicester. He then went to the City of Leicester Boys' Grammar School on Downing Drive in Evington, owing to his preference for football rather than rugby, which was the main sport of most schools near his home. Lineker was equally talented at both football and cricket. From the ages of 11 to 16 he captained the Leicestershire Schools cricket team, and had felt that he had a higher chance of succeeding at it rather than football. He later stated on They Think It's All Over that as a teenager he idolised former England captain David Gower, who was playing for Leicestershire at the time. During his youth he played for Aylestone Park Youth, later becoming the club's president.
Lineker left school with four O Levels. One of his teachers wrote on his report card that he "concentrates too much on football" and that he would "never make a living at that". He then joined the youth academy at Leicester City in 1976.
Club career
Leicester City
Lineker began his career at his hometown club Leicester City after leaving school in 1977, turning professional in the 1978–79 season and making his senior debut on New Year's Day 1979 in a 2–0 win at Filbert Street over Oldham Athletic in the Second Division. He earned a Second Division title medal a year later with 19 appearances, but played just nine league games in 1980–81 as Leicester went straight back down.Lineker became a regular player in 1981–82, scoring 19 goals in all competitions that season. Although Leicester missed out on promotion, they reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, and clinched promotion a year later as Lineker scored 26 times in the Second Division. In 1983–84, he enjoyed regular First Division action for the first time and was the division's second-highest scorer with 22 goals, although Leicester finished in 15th place. He was the First Division's joint top scorer in 1984–85 with 24 goals, and was enjoying a prolific partnership with Alan Smith. By this stage he was attracting the attention of bigger clubs, and a move from Filbert Street was looking certain.
Everton
In the 1985 close season, defending league champions Everton signed Lineker for £800,000; he scored 40 goals in 57 games for his new team in the 1985–86 season. Lineker's first game for Everton happened to be away to Leicester City; at half time, he walked into the Leicester dressing room by mistake. He was again the First Division's leading goalscorer, this time with 30 goals, and helped Everton finish second in the league. While at Everton, they reached the FA Cup final for the third consecutive year but lost 3–1 to Liverpool, despite Lineker giving them an early lead when he outpaced Alan Hansen to score. Liverpool had also pipped Everton to the title by just two points. "I was only on Merseyside a short time, nine or 10 months in total really, but it was still a happy time personally, while professionally it was one of the most successful periods of my career", he says. "I still have an affinity towards Everton."Lineker scored three hat-tricks for Everton; at home to Birmingham City in a 4–1 league win on 31 August 1985, at home to Manchester City in a 4–0 win on 11 February 1986, and then in the penultimate league game of the season on 3 May 1986, when they kept their title hopes alive with a 6–1 home win over Southampton. On his final league appearance, he scored twice in a 3–1 home win over West Ham United whose own title hopes had just disappeared. Lineker and his colleagues were denied title glory as Liverpool also won their final league game of the season at Chelsea. Lineker has said since retiring from football that this Everton team was the best club side he ever played in.
Barcelona
After winning the Golden Boot at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico there were many courters for Lineker across Europe. Barcelona at the time were managed by fellow Englishman Terry Venables, who had arrived in 1984, and who had already brought in Scottish striker Steve Archibald to great effect, and was to also bring in Manchester United and Wales striker Mark Hughes. Lineker was signed by Barcelona for £2.8 million. Barcelona would give Lineker his first chance of European football, as Leicester had never qualified for Europe while he played for them, and Everton were denied a place in the European Cup for 1985–86 due to the ban on English clubs in European competitions following the Heysel disaster.Barcelona had won the '84-85 La Liga title in Venables first season at the club, and the 1986 Copa de la Liga the following season but had lost 2 other finals, so there was great anticipation of success at the Camp Nou for Lineker. He made his Barcelona debut against Racing Santander, scoring twice. Barcelona led the league for much of the '86-87 season, until a pair of losses against Real Zaragoza and Sporting Gijon gave advantage to Real Madrid. Two further losses to the same team cemented Barcelona's second place finish. Lineker ultimately had scored 20 goals in 40 league games during his first season, including a hat-trick in a 3–2 win over archrivals Real Madrid to make him somewhat of a cult hero. However the club had crashed out of the Copa del Rey at the first hurdle, and suffered a shock defeat to Dundee United in the '87 UEFA Cup where Lineker hadn't scored any goals in 8 appearances.
For the '87-88 season hopes were still high for the club, but following three back to back losses at the start of the season Terry Venables was fired and Luis Aragonés brought in to replace him as manager. Linekers form remained strong, and he helped the club recover some form and scored a double against Real Madrid in a 4-1 win in the December, but he finished the season with only 16 goals in 35 league games as the club finished 6th, however he had contributed a little more to the cup efforts as the club won the 1988 Copa del Rey, but failed again at the Quarter Finals of the UEFA Cup.
In the summer, the club endured a tumultuous off season that culminated in the "Hesperia Mutiny" that saw a large number of players and coaches fired after protesting pay and conditions at the club. In the aftermath Barcelona moved to sign former player for the club during their last most successful era, and current Ajax manager Johan Cruyff. The club set about rebuilding its team, retaining only a skeleton of the squad that had finished '87-88 in 6th place - including Lineker. The impact of Cruyff was immediate. Barcelona became a much more attacking side, and finished the season '88-89 season in a much improved 2nd place. However Lineker lost his favoured position at centre forward to new signing Julio Salinas, and saw himself pushed out wide right for most of the season resulting in both the lowest goal output and appearances in the league of Lineker's career as a starter. The club won 1989 European Cup Winners' Cup final where Lineker fared better than previous seasons, scoring four times in 8 outings.
As the season came to an end, Barcelona was seeking to raise much needed funds for Cruyff and to free up the "foreigner" spot in the squad to continue his rebuilding project at the club, while Lineker was desperate to find first team opportunities in his favoured position.
With 42 goals in 103 La Liga appearances, Lineker had become the highest scoring British player in the competition's history, this was later surpassed by Gareth Bale in March 2016.