Frank Stapleton Profile

Fran­cis An­thony Stapleton, born Dub­lin, Re­pub­lic of Ire­land, Ju­ly 10, 1956. An ag­gress­ive and phys­ic­al centre for­ward blessed wi­th a fe­ro­cious work rate, Frank Stapleton was bro­ught to Man­chester Uni­ted from bit­ter ad­versar­ies Ar­senal at the be­gin­ning of the 1981-82 sea­son and pro­ceeded to play a total of 288 fir­st class mat­ches for the Old Traf­ford te­am dur­ing his six-year stay in Manchester.

Frank Stapleton star­ted out wi­th Ar­senal as an ap­pren­tice af­ter ini­tially be­ing turned down by Man­chester Uni­ted. The Dub­liner was then han­ded his Fir­st Di­vi­sion de­but by man­ager Ber­tie Mee in a 1-1 draw ag­ainst Sto­ke City at High­bury on the 29th of Mar­ch 1975, and sco­red his fir­st Foot­ball Lea­gue goal for The Gun­ners in a 1-1 draw at ho­me to Lei­cester City on the 6th of Septem­ber the same year. Con­stantly im­prov­ing foot­balling skills, the bat­ter­ing ram stri­ker was Arsenal´s top scor­er in 1977-78, 1978-79, and 1979-80, and he help­ed the North Lon­doners reach three FA Cup Fi­nals, in­clud­ing the FA Cup Fi­nal in 1979 when he ma­naged to score one of the goals in the 3-2 tri­umph ag­ainst no­ne oth­er than Man­chester Uni­ted. Af­ter re­gis­ter­ing a cred­it­able 75 goals in 225 Lea­gue Di­vi­sion One ga­mes for Ar­senal, Stapleton made a sur­prise move to, and once ag­ain, no­ne oth­er than Man­chester Uni­ted for a tribunal trans­fer fee of £900,000 in the sum­mer of 1981. Need­less to say really, the trans­fer did not go down very well wi­th the High­bury faith­ful, and he was ac­cused of be­ing greedy. The Ir­ish­man, who was Ron Atkin­son’s fir­st ma­jor sign­ing at Uni­ted af­ter he had taken over the head coach­ing reigns at Old Traf­ford at the end of the 1980-81 cam­paign, qui­ckly settled down at the Man­chester club, how­ever, and was a reg­u­lar mem­ber of the fir­st te­am for the next six sea­sons. Strong and de­cept­ively quick for a such a big man, he was giv­en his Fir­st Di­vi­sion de­but for Man­chester Uni­ted by “Big Ron” in a 2-1 de­feat ag­ainst Cov­entry City at High­field Road on the open­ing day of the 1981-82 cam­paign and his fir­st goal for The Reds ar­rived in a 2-1 top-flight loss to Ips­wich To­wn at Old Traf­ford on the 5th of Septem­ber 1981.

Stapleton bag­ged the equal­iser in a 1-1 draw wi­th As­ton Vil­la at Vil­la Park on the 12th of Septem­ber and net­ted the open­er in a 2-0 win ag­ainst Middles­brough at Old Traf­ford ten days la­ter. On the 30th of Septem­ber, he re­gistered the win­ner in a 1-0 vic­tory at ho­me to Leeds Uni­ted and re­cor­ded his fifth goal of the sea­son in a 5-0 ho­me win over Wolver­hampton Wan­derers on the fir­st Sat­urday of Oct­ober. He sco­red his fir­st brace for Man­chester Uni­ted in a 5-1 de­moli­tion of Sun­der­land at Roker Park on the 7th of Nov­ember and ad­ded the sec­ond goal in a 2-0 tri­umph over Brighton and Hove Al­bion at Old Traf­ford on the 28th of the same month be­fore hit­ting one of the goals in a 3-2 loss ag­ainst South­ampton at The Dell the fol­low­ing week. Stapleton´s fir­st goal of 1982 came in a 1-0 win over Ever­ton at Old Traf­ford on the 6th Jan­uary and he ad­ded an­oth­er to his tally when he con­ver­ted from the pen­alty spot in a 3-0 win ag­ainst Sto­ke City at Vic­tor­ia Gro­und on the 23rd of the same month. He sco­red in a 3-1 tri­umph over Fir­st Di­vi­sion new­comers Notts Coun­ty at Mea­dow Lane on the 20th of Mar­ch and then net­ted the win­ning goal in a tightly con­tested 1-0 vic­tory over Not­ting­ham For­est at City Gro­und on the 5th of May. In total, Stapleton amassed 13 goals in 44 ap­pear­ances in all com­pet­i­tions in 1981-82, but his fir­st sea­son wi­th Man­chester Uni­ted ended with­out win­ning a trophy as they could on­ly man­age a third po­s­i­tion fin­ish in the Fir­st Di­vi­sion and en­dured early exits in bo­th do­mest­ic cups.

Stapleton con­tin­ued wi­th strong per­form­ances in the 1982-83 cam­paign and sco­red the third goal in a 3-0 sea­son-open­ing win over Birm­ing­ham City at Old Traf­ford. He hit his fir­st brace of the cam­paign in a 2-2 draw wi­th Man­chester City at Old Traf­ford on the 23rd of Oct­ober and a net­ted a con­sol­a­tion goal in 2-1 de­feat to As­ton Vil­la at Vil­la Park four weeks la­ter. As the sea­son un­fol­ded, he sco­red the sec­ond goal in a 4-0 ho­me vic­tory ag­ainst Notts Coun­ty on the 11th of Dec­ember and re­gistered a brace in a 3-1 tri­umph at ho­me to As­ton Vil­la on New Year´s Day 1983. Af­ter grabbing the equal­iser in a 1-1 draw to Ips­wich To­wn at Port­man Road on the 5th of Feb­ruary, he re­cor­ded a brace in a 2-1 suc­cess ag­ainst Man­chester City at Maine Road on the 5th of Mar­ch and bag­ged the win­ner in a 2-1 vic­tory over West Ham Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford on the 22nd of the same month. Wi­th the cam­paign ap­proach­ing its end, he sco­red the open­er in a 3-0 tri­umph at ho­me to Cov­entry City on the 2nd of April and notched the win­ning goal in a 2-1 ho­me vic­tory ag­ainst re­leg­a­tion can­did­ates Swansea City on the 7th of May. And two days la­ter he sco­red the last goal of a 3-0 ho­me win over Luton To­wn, tak­ing his total sea­son tally to 14 goals from 41 Fir­st Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances. Man­chester Uni­ted once ag­ain fin­ished third in the Di­vi­sion One ta­ble, but won the FA Cup by out­classing a dis­pir­ited Brighton and Hove Al­bion si­de 4-0 in the re­play af­ter the two te­ams had played out a 2-2 draw at Wemb­ley Sta­dium. In the fir­st fi­nal, which was a highly en­ter­tain­ing and closely con­tested af­fair, Stapleton would write his name in­to the foot­ball his­tory books by be­com­ing the fir­st ever play­er to score for two dif­fer­ent clubs in FA Cup Fi­nals. Re­gard­ing the Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup, known as the Milk Cup for spon­sor­ship reas­ons, Atkinson´s Uni­ted ma­naged to reach the fi­nal at Wemb­ley, on­ly to suf­fer a bit­ter 2-1 de­feat at the hands of North West rivals Liverpool.

Man­chester Uni­ted star­ted the 1983-84 cam­paign on a pos­it­ive note wi­th a 2-0 Char­ity Shield tri­umph ag­ainst reign­ing Foot­ball Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Liver­pool at Wemb­ley where Bry­an Rob­son sco­red bo­th goals for the FA Cup hold­ers. Stapleton bag­ged his fir­st goal of the term in a 3-1 suc­cess ag­ainst Fir­st Di­vi­sion new boys Queens Park Ran­gers at Old Traf­ford on the 27th of Au­gust and made the score-sheet in a 3-2 vic­tory over for­mer em­ploy­er Ar­senal at High­bury on the 6th of Septem­ber. He pro­duced the on­ly goal in a fully de­served 1-0 tri­umph ag­ainst Liver­pool at An­field on the 24th of the same month and grabbed one of the goals in an in­cred­ible 3-3 draw wi­th Nor­wich City at Car­row Road sev­en days la­ter. Wi­th the sea­son well un­der way, the hit-man notched a fir­st-ha­lf double in a crush­ing and em­phat­ic 3-0 ho­me vic­tory ag­ainst new­ly pro­moted and re­leg­a­tion threat­ened Wolver­hampton Wan­derers on the 29th of Oct­ober and got him­self a hat-trick either si­de of ha­lf-time in an equally im­press­ive 4-1 tri­umph at ho­me to Wat­ford on the 19th of November.

How­ever, Stapleton´s fruit­ful scor­ing run came to a halt and he re­cor­ded just four more top-flight goals for the re­mainder of the cam­paign. In a sea­son which began wi­th so much prom­ise, Man­chester Uni­ted on­ly ma­naged to win two of their fi­nal ten mat­ches and, af­ter top­ping the ta­ble in Mar­ch, they ended fourth in the stand­ings wi­th 74 points gain­ed from 42 fix­tures. The Man­cuni­ans were also dis­ap­point­ing in the do­mest­ic cup com­pet­i­tions as they suf­fered a shock exit in the FA Cup Third Ro­und to Third Di­vi­sion Bourne­mouth and were kicked out of the Lea­gue Cup by Ox­ford Uni­ted, an­oth­er Di­vi­sion Three si­de, in the fourth ro­und of the tour­na­ment. Uni­ted fared much bet­ter in the UEFA Euro­pean Cup Win­ners´ Cup, tho­ugh, where they made it all the way to the semi-fi­nals be­fore they were elim­in­ated by even­tu­al win­ners Ju­ventus. In the 1984-85 cam­paign, Stapleton clocked up nine goals in 36 ap­pear­ances in all com­pet­i­tions as Man­chester Uni­ted fin­ished fourth in the stand­ings for the sec­ond time in a row and won the FA Cup af­ter beat­ing al­ready crow­ned Fir­st Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­ons Ever­ton 1-0 at Wemb­ley. He ac­cu­mu­lated a total of nine goals in the 1985-86 sea­son where Uni­ted fin­ished fourth in the ta­ble for the the third year run­ning, but when Al­ex Fer­guson suc­ceeded Atkin­son partly in­to the 1986-87 cam­paign it be­came ap­par­ent that he no longer had a fu­ture at Old Trafford.

Fol­low­ing 60 Fir­st Di­vi­sion goals in 223 fir­st te­am ap­pear­ances for Man­chester Uni­ted, Frank Stapleton would ul­ti­mately leave Man­chester at the end of the dis­mal 1986-87 sea­son. Now at the wrong si­de of 30, he tried his luck at Dutch Ere­divis­ie gi­ants AFC Ajax and was giv­en his com­pet­it­ive de­but for The Am­s­ter­dam­mers by for­mer Neth­er­lands in­ter­na­tion­al Jo­han Cruy­ff in a 1-0 top-flight win over Roda JC Kerkrade at De Meer Sta­di­on on the 12th of Au­gust 1987. He also played in a 2-1 Ere­divis­ie suc­cess ag­ainst AZ Al­k­maar at Al­k­maarder­hout four days la­ter, but he struggled to find his goal scor­ing form and he was soon shipped out on loan to Bel­gian Fir­st Di­vi­sion out­fit RSC An­der­lecht. The vet­er­an at­tack­er was also loaned out to Ro­bert Max­well owned Der­by Coun­ty for whom he net­ted once in 10 Fir­st Di­vi­sion out­ings for The Rams in the sec­ond part of the 1987-88 cam­paign. From there, the still power­ful per­former went on to play for Le Havre where he re­gistered five goals in 18 French Sec­ond Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances for The Sky and Navy Blues in the 1988-89 sea­son. There fol­lowed moves to Black­burn Rov­ers, Alder­shot, and Hud­dersfield To­wn be­fore the foot­balling nomad sig­ned wi­th Third Di­vi­sion te­am Brad­ford City in early Dec­ember 1991. Af­ter be­ing sacked as play­er-man­ager at Val­ley Parade at the end of the 1993-94 cam­paign, he agreed to join Foot­ball Lea­gue Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Brighton and Hove Al­bion where his fin­ished off his pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball ca­reer partly in­to the 1994-95 season.

An in­ter­na­tion­al for the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land, Stapleton col­lec­ted a grand total of 71 seni­or caps for The Boys in Green, con­trib­ut­ing 20 hits dur­ing the pro­cess. Show­ing his true green col­ours, he was so com­mit­ted to his na­tive coun­try that he ac­tu­ally in­sisted on an in­ter­na­tion­al re­lease clause in all his club con­tracts. Con­ceiv­ably the best head­er of a ball ever to pull on the fam­ous green shirt of his na­tion, the af­fable front­man was also widely known for his stra­tegic think­ing and ac­cur­ate passing. He made his in­ter­na­tion­al de­but for his home­land in an ac­tion-packed and en­thralling 3-3 friendly draw ag­ainst Tur­key at the Ank­ara 19 May­is Sta­dium on the 13th of Oct­ober 1976, scor­ing one of the goals. The Re­pub­lic of Ire­land began the bet­ter and took an early lead when Stapleton nod­ded ho­me a free-kick from play­er-man­ager Johnny Giles af­ter just three min­utes. The Ir­ish con­tin­ued their raids for­ward and had their sec­ond goal of the night when Ger­ry Da­ly fou­nd the tar­get in the 14th min­ute of the fix­ture, but the Turks turned the mat­ch ar­ound thro­ugh goals from Cemil Tur­an, Isa Er­turk, and Cemil Tur­an on 51, 65, and 71 min­utes re­spect­ively. Then, wi­th on­ly ten min­utes left,  Joe Wa­ters, also a de­butant, grabbed a late equal­iser for the vis­it­ors to make the fi­nal sco­reline read 3-3.

On the 25th of May 1978, Stapleton notched the open­er in an­oth­er en­ter­tain­ing 3-3 draw, this time ag­ainst Den­mark in an Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship Quali­fier at Idraett­s­parken in Copen­ha­gen. He kept up his scor­ing surge and fou­nd the back of the goal in a con­vin­cing 3-0 Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship Quali­fier tri­umph ag­ainst Dobro­mir Tashkov´s Bul­garia at Lans­downe Road in Dub­lin on the 17th of Oct­ober 1979, net­ting in the 83rd min­ute. He re­mained in fa­vour un­der new Re­pub­lic of Ire­land man­ager Eoin Hand and re­gistered the fifth goal in a com­pre­hens­ive 6-0 Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier vic­tory over un­fan­cied Cyprus at Lans­downe Road on the 19th of Nov­ember 1980 be­fore find­ing the net once in a 3-1 friendly tri­umph over the Re­pub­lic of Czecho­slovakia in Dub­lin on the 29th of April 1981. He then sco­red a late equal­iser in a 2-2 Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier draw ag­ainst the Neth­er­lands at Feyenoord´s De Kuip Sta­dium in Rot­ter­dam on the 9th of Septem­ber and also pro­duced a goal in a tough-fou­ght 3-2 Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier win over Fran­ce at Lans­downe Road on the 14th of October.

Sup­por­ted by an en­thu­si­ast­ic ho­me crowd of 54,000 people, the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land went ahead ag­ainst Fran­ce in the fifth min­ute of the tie when Phil­ippe Mahut sent a cross by Mi­chael Robin­son in­to the back of his own net, but on­ly four min­utes la­ter Les Bleus ma­naged to level the score as Bruno Bel­lone ham­mered a fierce shot from the edge of the eight­een-yard box pa­st Seamus Mc­Don­agh and in­to the goal. Rolling up their sleeves, the boys in green shirts threw them­selves for­ward ag­ain and re­gained their lead af­ter twenty-five min­utes of pul­sating play as Stapleton be­at Jean Castaneda wi­th a clo­se ran­ge ef­fort af­ter col­lect­ing a cut-back pass from Da­vid O´Leary. The Ir­ish con­tin­ued their at­tack­ing in­tens­ity and Robin­son ad­ded a third goal for the ho­me si­de five min­utes be­fore the break fol­low­ing a hope­less back­pass by Ger­ard Jan­vi­on. The French­men re­duced the ar­rears as Michel Plat­ini sco­red wi­th sev­en min­utes left on the watch of the Swedish ref­er­ee Rolf Eriks­son, but the host held the vis­it­ors at bay un­til the fi­nal whistle her­al­ded a well-earned victory.

Con­firm­ing his scor­ing abil­ity, he net­ted the fir­st goal in a 2-0 Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship Quali­fier suc­cess over Ice­land at Lans­downe Road on the 13th of Oct­ober 1982 and hit a sec­ond-ha­lf brace in a thrill­ing 3-3 Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship Quali­fier draw wi­th Spain in Dub­lin on the 17th of Nov­ember to bring his in­ter­na­tion­al tally to 10 goals. Fol­low­ing a win­ning goal in a 1-0 Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship Quali­fier vic­tory over the min­nows of Malta at the Na­tion­al Sta­dium in Ta’ Qali on the 30th of Mar­ch 1983, Stapleton sco­red one of the goals in a re­sound­ing 8-0 tri­umph in the re­verse en­counter at Lans­downe Road on the 16th of Nov­ember. The goals kept com­ing and he net­ted the open­er in a 3-0 Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier win over Switzer­land in Dub­lin on the 2nd of June 1985 and then an­oth­er open­ing goal in a 4-1 Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier de­feat ag­ainst Den­mark in Copen­ha­gen on the 13th of Nov­ember. He also hit the win­ner in a 1-0 vic­tory ag­ainst the Re­pub­lic of Czecho­slovakia at Laugar­dalsvollur Sta­dium in Reyk­javik in the Ice­land Tri­an­gu­lar Tour­na­ment on the 27th of May 1986.

Frank Stapleton con­trib­uted an 18th-min­ute goal as the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land, who were now ma­naged by for­mer Middles­brough, Shef­field Wed­nesday, and New­castle Uni­ted su­premo Jack­ie Charl­ton, opened their Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign wi­th a tough-fou­ght and well-earned 2–2 draw ag­ainst Bel­gi­um at Hey­sel Sta­dium in Brus­sels on the 10th of Septem­ber 1986. He re­gistered a con­sol­a­tion in an un­for­tu­nate 2–1 de­feat ag­ainst Bul­garia at Levski Sta­dium in Sofia on the 1st of April 1987 and then re­cor­ded a fir­st-ha­lf goal in a 2-1 vic­tory over Lux­em­bourg at Lans­downe Road on the 9th of Septem­ber. And as things ev­entually turned out, he would skip­per the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land to the 1988 Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship in West Ger­many where he ap­peared in all of their mat­ches, in­clud­ing the 1-0 tri­umph ag­ainst his­tor­ic­al ad­versar­ies Eng­land at Neck­ar­sta­di­on in Stut­tgart. Af­ter pro­du­cing the open­er in a 1-1 friendly draw wi­th West Ger­many at Lans­downe Road on the 6th of Septem­ber 1989, he roun­ded off his in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer in trade­mark style by notch­ing the fi­nal goal in a 3–0 friendly win over the min­nows of Malta at the Na­tion­al Sta­dium on the 2nd of June 1990. Stapleton trav­elled wi­th Charlton´s Re­pub­lic of Ire­land Ire­land squad to the 1990 Wor­ld Cup Fi­nals in Italy, but he was not a reg­u­lar mem­ber. Frank Stapleton Play­ing Ca­reer: Ar­senal, Man­chester Uni­ted, AFC Ajax, RSC An­der­lecht, Der­by Coun­ty, Le Havre, Black­burn Rov­ers, Alder­shot, Hud­dersfield To­wn, Brad­ford City, Brighton and Hove Al­bion. Play­ing Hon­ours: Eng­lish FA Cup 1979, 1983, 1985, Eng­lish FA Char­ity Shield 1983.

Frank Stapleton Quickfacts

Frank Stapleton had a short stint as head coach of Ma­jor Lea­gue Soc­cer out­fit New Eng­land Re­volu­tion in 1996. Un­for­tu­nately, The Revs missed out on the Ma­jor Lea­gue Soc­cer playoffs.

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