Stuart McCall
Andrew Stuart Murray McCall is a professional football coach and former player. He is currently assistant manager of Preston North End.
McCall played in a total of 763 league games and in 40 full international matches for Scotland during his playing career.
McCall started his career with Bradford City, where he made his first-team debut in 1982. He played six seasons at Valley Parade, during which time he won the Division Three championship, a title which was overshadowed by the Bradford City stadium fire when 56 people died and in which his father Andy was injured. After missing out on promotion in 1987–88, McCall moved to Everton, for whom he scored twice but finished on the losing side in the 1989 FA Cup Final. In 1991, he moved to Rangers, with whom he spent seven seasons and won five league titles, three Scottish Cups and two Scottish League Cups. McCall returned to Bradford City as captain to take them into the top division of English football for the first time in 77 years. After four seasons he moved to Sheffield United, where he retired as a player in 2005.
Born and raised in England, McCall qualified to play for Scotland through his Scottish father. He won 40 international caps and scored one goal in the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. He also played in two European Championships but his international career ended after he was left out of the 1998 World Cup squad.
McCall was part of the coaching staff during his second playing spell at Bradford City, briefly serving as caretaker-player manager in 2000. He continued his coaching at Sheffield United and was assistant manager to Neil Warnock until May 2007, when he returned to Bradford City as their manager. He spent two and a half seasons in charge of Bradford City, leaving in February 2010. Just before the end of 2010, he was appointed Motherwell manager. He stayed at Fir Park for four years, helping the club finish second in the league twice. After a poor start to the 2014–15 season, he resigned in November 2014. McCall was appointed manager of Rangers in March 2015, but left the club at the end of a short-term contract.
McCall returned to Bradford City for a second spell as manager in June 2016. The team reached the play-off final in his first season, but this was lost and he was sacked in February 2018. After a short spell with Scunthorpe United, McCall was appointed Bradford manager for a third time in February 2020.
Early and personal life
Stuart McCall was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to Scottish parents Andy, a former professional footballer, and Jean McCall. He was the couple's third child after Leslie and Janette, who were 20 and 15 respectively when Stuart was born. The family home was close to Leeds United's Elland Road ground where McCall would spend many Saturday afternoons watching United, dreaming of following his father and playing for Leeds, even after the family moved to Wortley.McCall played football for Upper Wortley Primary School and Thornhill Middle School, even scoring a winning goal for the latter in a cup final when he came on as a substitute with his arm in a sling. While McCall also played table tennis as a schoolboy, football was a focus, and he captained the Leeds under-11 boys team and played for other Leeds representative sides.
McCall's parents split and he made up for his size when he moved to one of Leeds' toughest estates and played for pub sides by the age of 14. He moved schools to Harrington High and also played for local young sides Pudsey Juniors, Holbeck and later Farsley Celtic. McCall thought he had missed his chance of playing professionally after a string of other players were signed by professional clubs, until Farsley played Bradford City's junior side in a friendly and he impressed coach Bryan Edwards enough to be asked for a trial.
His son Craig was also a footballer.
Playing career
Club career
Bradford City
McCall was signed by George Mulhall in 1980 from Farsley Celtic on his 16th birthday, before becoming one of the club's two apprentices in June 1981. Mulhall's successor, Roy McFarland, gave McCall his first-team debut at Reading on 28 August 1982 – the opening day of the 1982–83 season – when he deputised for Ces Podd at right back. He had played just six league games by 29 January 1983 when he made the first of 134 consecutive league appearances, all in midfield under new manager Trevor Cherry. City finished 12th in Division Three that season. The following season City struggled to make up for the absence of Bobby Campbell, who had left to join Derby County, and won just one of their first fifteen games, until Cherry bought Campbell back from Derby, and City won a record ten consecutive games on their way to a seventh-place finish.During the summer of 1984, Cherry made the two key signings of central defender Dave Evans and right winger John Hendrie to build on the previous season's high finish. McCall was an integral part of the team as City won the Division Three championship in 1984–85, during which he scored eight goals as one of two ever-present players. The title was assured in the penultimate game when McCall scored the second goal in a 2–0 victory over Bolton Wanderers. The league title was paraded before the final game of the season on 11 May 1985 at home to Lincoln City. However, the club's title was overshadowed when 56 people died in the Bradford City stadium fire when the Valley Parade ground's main stand caught fire after 40 minutes of play, during which McCall's father, who was with other family members, was badly injured. After the fire, McCall, still in his kit, spent several hours driving from the ground to his sister's house, then to Bradford Royal Infirmary and Pinderfields Hospital trying to find his father. His father had suffered severe burns and needed skin grafts on his hands and head and was in hospital for several weeks.
For the following 19 months, the club played games away from Valley Parade. Cherry and the players became a close-knit team, attending funerals of the victims and other engagements in the months that followed, and the club's 13th-place finish in Division Two in 1985–86 was hailed a major achievement. During Bradford's time away from Valley Parade, McCall also turned his back on Leeds United, the team he had supported as a child, after their fans set fire to a chip van at Odsal Stadium. McCall became club captain in November 1986, aged just 21, after Peter Jackson moved to Newcastle United. Under Cherry's replacement, Terry Dolan, the club held off any relegation threats to finish tenth in 1986–87. Like Jackson, McCall and Hendrie were both keen to move to a Division One club, but they agreed in 1987 to stay for one final season.
Dolan brought in Paul Tomlinson, Brian Mitchell and Lee Sinnott in a bid to help McCall and Hendrie realise their dreams with City. They mounted a promotion challenge in 1987–88 and were top for much of the season until they faltered in the New Year. When promotion was missed initially by one point on the last day of the season after a 3–2 defeat against Ipswich Town and then through play-off defeat to Middlesbrough, McCall left the club, signing for Everton for £850,000 in June 1988. He had played 238 league games for the club, scoring 37 goals, and in total played 285 games, scoring 46 goals. McCall was later outspoken in his autobiography, The Real McCall, about City's failure to strengthen the side to secure promotion.
His departure was soured when he was forced to go to the Football League with a Professional Footballers' Association representative to win £8,327.15 of an unpaid signing-on fee.
Everton
McCall joined Everton at a time when its former triumphant side of the mid-1980s had broken up, following the ban on English sides competing in Europe, which marked the start of a period of underachievement at Goodison Park. His Everton debut came in a 4–0 victory over Newcastle United on 27 August 1988 against his former teammate Hendrie, who was making his debut for Newcastle. McCall also returned to Valley Parade for a League Cup tie, but his Everton side were knocked out by Bradford 3–1 on 14 December 1988. He started 29 league games in 1988–89 as well as another four substitute appearances, but failed to score in the league. He was also a substitute in the 1989 FA Cup Final when he scored Everton's stoppage time equaliser in the Merseyside derby against Liverpool to take the game into extra-time. He scored another equaliser during extra-time, but Liverpool's own substitute Ian Rush also scored two to secure a 3–2 victory for Liverpool.McCall made a second appearance in an Everton shirt at Valley Parade, when he was invited by former teammate Mark Ellis to bring a side for his testimonial. In three seasons at Everton, McCall played 103 league games as well as earned his first caps with Scotland but he failed to lift any trophies as the club finished eighth, sixth and ninth in the league. Apart from the FA Cup final defeat in 1989, the closest he came to winning a trophy at Everton was in the 1989–90 season, when Everton topped the league in late autumn and remained in contention for the title for most of the rest of the season until disappointing form in the run-in saw them finish sixth.
Rangers
In the summer of 1991, McCall signed for Scottish club Rangers for £1.2 million. Rangers had just won their third successive Scottish Premier Division title.Under newly appointed manager Walter Smith, McCall ended up playing in the final six of the club's nine successive Scottish league titles, and with Rangers also winning a string of cup competitions during that time, McCall picked up a total of ten major trophies north of the border. In his first season at Ibrox, Rangers won the league and cup double, before they achieved greater success in 1992–93, winning both cups 2–1 against Aberdeen and coming nine points ahead of Aberdeen in the league. McCall also enjoyed European success that season when the Glasgow club narrowly missed out on an appearance in the UEFA Champions League 1992–93 final, coming second in the semi-final group stage to eventual winners Olympique de Marseille. Citing the reason for their success as the spirit which Smith instilled in the team, McCall later said: "It was an incredible season. We won the domestic Treble, we went 44 games unbeaten and we did not lose a single game in Europe. And, though we said we would do it again next year, we all knew it was unrepeatable." He placed fourth for the SFWA award in 1993.
In 1993–94, Rangers added another Scottish League Cup title along with the league championship, but lost 1–0 in the final of the Scottish Cup to Dundee United, surprisingly being denied a second successive treble. The following season saw Rangers win the league by their greatest margin as they finished 15 points ahead of Motherwell, but they failed to reach the final of either of the domestic cups. Although their winning margin was reduced to four points, from city rivals Celtic, in 1995–96, Rangers' points tally of 87 was a record-high total.
McCall played in his fourth Scottish Cup final as Rangers defeated Hearts 5–1. His Rangers side again pushed Celtic into second place in 1996–97 and defeated Hearts 4–3 in the Scottish League Cup. But with the club chasing an unprecedented 10th straight title in 1997–98 they had to settle for the runners-up position, with Celtic winning the league by two points on the final day of the season. McCall was substituted in the Scottish Cup final defeat to Hearts as Rangers went the season without picking up a single title for the first season in McCall's time at the club.
In February 2008, McCall became the 71st inductee into the Rangers hall of fame. McCall's former teammate and Rangers assistant manager Ally McCoist presented him with the award.