Paul Ince
Paul Emerson Carlyle Ince is an English professional football manager and former player who was most recently manager of Reading. A midfielder, Ince played professionally from 1986 to 2007, starting his career with West Ham United and later representing Manchester United, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Swindon Town and Macclesfield Town in England, as well as Inter Milan in Italy. With a combined total of 271 league appearances for the two, Ince is one of the few players, especially in the Premier League era, to have represented both of arch rivals Liverpool and Manchester United.
Ince spent the majority of his playing career at the highest level; after breaking through with his boyhood club West Ham United in the Second Division, he joined Manchester United in 1989, where he won the Premier League twice, the FA Cup twice and the Football League Cup once during his six-year spell at Old Trafford. After falling out with manager Alex Ferguson, Ince was sold to Inter Milan of Serie A in 1995, where he was a runner-up in the 1997 UEFA Cup. After two years in Italy, Ince returned to the Premier League with Liverpool, later also representing Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the top flight.
Ince was capped 53 times by the England national team, scoring two goals. He played at UEFA Euro 1996, the 1998 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2000, and became the first black player to captain England.
After a spell as player-coach of Swindon, he retired from playing while player-manager of Macclesfield Town in 2007. He went on to manage Milton Keynes Dons, Blackburn Rovers, Notts County and Blackpool. His son Tom is also a footballer.
Club career
West Ham United
Paul Emerson Carlyle Ince was born in Ilford, Greater London. He grew up as a West Ham United supporter. He was spotted playing, aged 12, by West Ham manager John Lyall around the time that the club was in the Second Division and achieved a surprise FA Cup final triumph over Arsenal.Ince signed for the Hammers as a trainee, aged 14. Lyall helped Ince through troubled school times eventually signing him as a YTS trainee, on leaving school, in 1984. He is a product of the West Ham youth team and made his debut in English football on 30 November 1986 against Newcastle United in the First Division. He became a regular player in 1987–88, proving himself to have all-round qualities of pace, stamina, uncompromising tackling and good passing ability. He also packed a powerful shot, and was awarded with England under-21 honours to go with the youth caps he acquired as an apprentice. He firmly established himself as the successor in West Ham's midfield for the veteran Billy Bonds, who retired at the end of the 1987–88 season. Unfortunately for Ince, West Ham were not enjoying one of their best spells when he broke into the team. Despite having won the FA Cup in 1980 and finished third in the league in 1986, they had failed to sustain their challenge for major honours and finished 15th in 1987 and 16th in 1988, and worse was to follow.
In August 1988, an eventful season for Ince began. In a struggling West Ham side, he shot to national recognition with two stunning goals in a shock 4–1 win over defending league champions Liverpool in the League Cup, and continued to score goals as the Hammers reached the semi-finals while having real trouble finding any form in the League. West Ham lost to Luton Town in the semi-finals and, despite frequent displays of individual brilliance from Ince, were relegated at the end of the season, which cost manager John Lyall his job after 15 years at the helm.
Manchester United
Ince played just once in the Second Division the following season before completing a highly controversial transfer to Manchester United for £1 million. Ince had been photographed in a Manchester United kit long before the transfer was complete, which appeared in the Daily Express. Ince received abuse from West Ham United fans for many years afterwards. The initial move was postponed after he failed a medical, but was quickly completed on 14 September 1989 after he later received the all-clear.In an article in Four Four Two magazine, Ince said:
"I spoke to Alex Ferguson and the deal was close to being done. I then went on holiday, and my agent at the time, Ambrose Mendy, said it wasn't worth me coming back to do a picture in a United shirt when the deal was completed, so I should do one before I left, and it would be released when the deal was announced. Lawrence Luster of the Daily Star took the picture and put in the library. Soon after, their sister paper, the Daily Express, were looking for a picture of me playing for West Ham, and found the one of me in the United shirt in the pile. They published it and all hell broke loose. "I came back from holiday to discover West Ham fans were going mad. It wasn't really my fault. I was only a kid, I did what my agent told me to do, then took all the crap for it."
Ince eventually made his Manchester United debut in a 5–1 win over Millwall, although his next game for United came in a 5–1 Manchester derby defeat by Manchester City. Ince became a strong presence in the United midfield alongside Bryan Robson and Neil Webb, although the first season of this midfield partnership saw Robson and in particular Webb miss many games due to injury.
United won the FA Cup in his first season, defeating Crystal Palace 1–0 in a replay at Wembley after initially drawing 3–3. In both of these games, Ince was selected at right-back in favour of Viv Anderson, with his favoured central midfield position being occupied by Mike Phelan. Ince was man of the match for the replay.
Over the next four seasons, Robson's United career gradually wound down until he finally left to manage Middlesbrough in 1994. During this time, Ince found himself playing alongside several other different central midfielders, including Mike Phelan, Neil Webb and Darren Ferguson. One of his best games came in February 1994, when he scored in a 2–2 away draw with former club West Ham in the Premier League.
Ince won his second winners' medal when Manchester United defeated Barcelona in the final of the European Cup Winners Cup in Rotterdam in 1991, and received his third another year later when United beat Nottingham Forest in the 1992 League Cup final.
Manchester United continued to dominate the domestic game in 1993–94, enjoying an almost unbroken lead of the Premier League throughout the season, and Ince was the midfield general in the side which won the "double" of league and FA Cup in 1994. A year later Manchester United went to West Ham on the last day of the season, needing a win to retain their Premier League crown. They could only draw the game and Blackburn Rovers took the title. Ince's next game saw them lose the FA Cup final to Everton, leaving United without a major trophy for the first time in six seasons.
In June 1995, Ferguson sold Ince to Inter Milan for £7.5 million – at the time one of the biggest fees involving an English club- and a three-year deal of a reputedly £2 million annual salary. Ferguson had long sustained a tempestuous relationship with Ince, labelling him a "bottler" and a "big-time Charlie". Ince's nickname, The Guvnor, also rankled with Ferguson, who once berated him by saying, "There's only one guvnor around here, Incey, and it ain't you". Many fans saw this as the prime reason for Ince being sold, rather than on footballing or economic grounds.
While at United, Ince won two Premier League title medals as well as two FA Cup winner's medals and one winner's medal each in the European Cup Winners' Cup and Football League Cup. He had also collected runners-up medals in the League Cup twice and the FA Cup once.
Inter Milan
In the 1995–96 season, Inter failed to challenge for a 14th scudetto, finishing seventh in Serie A. Ince, though, had a successful first season, playing in all but four of Inter's league matches and performing well after a slow start which had started speculation that he could be on his way back to the Premier League as early as the November transfer window - with Arsenal and Newcastle United both reported to be interested. However, he would remain in Milan for two seasons.The next year, Ince had another successful season with the nerazzurri, scoring 6 times in 24 matches in the championship – in which Inter finished third – and also playing his part in Inter's run through to the UEFA Cup Final. Ince scored in the third round second-leg match away to Boavista as Inter swept all before them before meeting Schalke 04 in the final. Ince was suspended for the away first-leg as Inter lost 1–0 but he returned to the line-up for the home match which the Italians won 1–0 thanks to a goal from Iván Zamorano. Schalke won 4–1 in the resulting penalty shoot-out.
Ince was offered a new, improved contract by club president Massimo Moratti, despite having two and a half years left on his current contract. Due to family reasons he was unable to accept the contract and returned to England with Liverpool.
Liverpool
In July 1997, Ince returned to England, joining Manchester United's rivals Liverpool. His new club's fans were divided over his links to United. In his first season at Anfield, he equalised in a 1–1 Merseyside Derby draw at home to Everton on 23 February 1998, and on 6 May he scored twice in a 4–0 win over newly crowned league champions Arsenal to secure third place. He equalised in a 2–2 comeback draw against United, who nonetheless won the treble.According to Graeme Le Saux's autobiography, Ince's homophobic taunting and Le Saux's reaction during a 1997 match between Liverpool and Chelsea resulted in a long-running coolness between the two players. Ince won no honours in his two seasons with Liverpool, and remarked on his teammates "I just felt they were good players, but just wanted to go out all the time, and I just thought that wasn't the way. I thought they needed that professionalism on the pitch"; these players were dubbed the "Spice Boys" by the tabloid media for their off-field issues. He fell out with Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier in the summer of 1999, when he attempted to sign Marc-Vivien Foé without consulting him.