John Gidman Profile

John Gid­man, born Liver­pool, Eng­land, Jan­uary 10, 1954. John Gid­man played for As­ton Vil­la, Ever­ton Man­chester Uni­ted, Man­chester City, Sto­ke City, and Dar­ling­ton dur­ing a ca­reer which spanned al­most two dec­ades. Al­though pre­vi­ously capped at U18 and U23 in­ter­na­tion­al levels, the at­tack minded de­fender on­ly ma­naged to col­lect one full cap for England.

Af­ter be­ing re­jec­ted by Liver­pool su­premo Bill Shankly, John Gid­man sig­ned wi­th As­ton Vil­la where he made his Foot­ball Lea­gue de­but in a 1-0 Sec­ond Di­vi­sion vic­tory ag­ainst Carl­isle Uni­ted at Vil­la Park on the 29th of Au­gust 1972.  The back­line corner­stone was a mem­ber of the As­ton Vil­la squad which over­came fel­low Sec­ond Di­vi­sion club Nor­wich City by 1–0 in the Lea­gue Cup Fi­nal and won pro­mo­tion back to the Fir­st Di­vi­sion in 1974-75, and he was a key play­er in the Vil­la Park si­de that won the Lea­gue Cup in 1977, beat­ing Ever­ton af­ter three mat­ches. Fol­low­ing 197 Foot­ball Lea­gue out­ings for The Vil­lains, he mo­ved on to no­ne oth­er than Ever­ton for whom he made 64 Fir­st Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances un­der Good­ison Park boss Gor­don Lee be­fore he was bro­ught to Man­chester Uni­ted by re­cently ap­poin­ted man­ager Ron Atkin­son in the sum­mer of 1981. Af­ter be­ing han­ded his Fir­st Di­vi­sion de­but for Uni­ted in a 2-1 de­feat ag­ainst Cov­entry City at High­field Road on the open­ing day of the 1981-82 cam­paign, Gid­man would en­joy some­thing of a ca­reer renais­sance un­der Atkin­son. Whi­le at Man­chester Uni­ted, the spec­tac­u­lar full back ac­cu­mu­lated a total of 120 fir­st class ap­pear­ances for the te­am and col­lec­ted FA Cup win­ners’ medals in bo­th 1983 and 1985, but des­pite play­ing for the biggest club in the coun­try he nev­er won the Lea­gue Cham­pi­on­ship dur­ing his time at Old Traf­ford. Fol­low­ing an ex­cel­lent start to the 1985-86 term, Man­chester Uni­ted en­dured a poor patch in the middle of the sea­son and Ron Atkinson´s men ef­fect­ively dropped out of the title race when they could on­ly man­age a 0-0 draw ag­ainst Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at White Hart Lane in their pen­ul­tim­ate away fix­ture of the campaign.

John Gidman´s fi­nal ap­pear­ance for Man­chester Uni­ted came in a 4-0 Fir­st Di­vi­sion tri­umph over re­leg­a­tion threat­ened Lei­cester City at Old Traf­ford on the 26th of April 1986, wi­th goals com­ing from Frank Stapleton, Ma­rk Hug­hes, Clay­ton Black­more, and Pe­ter Dav­en­port; the lat­ter scor­ing from the pen­alty spot. Af­ter hav­ing spent five sea­sons wi­th Uni­ted, Gid­man ul­ti­mately left The Reds at the front end of the 1986-87 cam­paign when he made the short jour­ney across the city of Man­chester to long­time ad­versar­ies Man­chester City. And as fate would have its way, he re­ceived his de­but for City in a 1-1 Fir­st Di­vi­sion draw ag­ainst Man­chester Uni­ted at Maine Road on the 26th of Oct­ober 1986 in a ga­me where Stapleton put the vis­it­ors ahead in the 47th min­ute of The Man­chester Der­by be­fore Mick Mc­Carthy lev­elled the score for The Light Blues just three min­utes la­ter. The com­pet­ent and com­posed de­fender would stay for two cam­paigns wi­th Man­chester City be­fore he fin­ished his ro­und ball ca­reer wi­th brief spells at fir­st Di­vi­sion Two club Sto­ke City, and then strug­gling Di­vi­sion Four si­de Dar­ling­ton. In­ter­na­tion­ally, he was giv­en his long awaited de­but for the coun­try of his bir­th by Three Li­ons boss Don Re­vie in a 5-0 Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier win ag­ainst the min­nows of Lux­em­bourg at Wemb­ley Sta­dium on the 30th of Mar­ch 1977, but in­con­sist­ency cost him a reg­u­lar spot in the te­am. Des­pite win­ning on­ly one seni­or cap for Eng­land, Gid­man was uni­ver­sally ac­claimed for be­ing a good read­er of the ball wi­th ex­cel­lent po­s­i­tion­ing sense and he was a great as­set to every si­de that he played for. John Gid­man Play­ing Ca­reer: As­ton Vil­la, Ever­ton Man­chester Uni­ted, Man­chester City, Sto­ke City, Dar­ling­ton. Play­ing Hon­ours: Eng­lish FA Cup 1983, 1985, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup 1975, 1977, Eng­lish FA Char­ity Shield 1983.

John Gidman Quickfacts

John Gid­man had a re­l­at­ively short stint as head coach of South­ern Lea­gue Mid­land Di­vi­sion out­fit King´s Lynn be­fore he ev­entually mo­ved to live in the south­ern Span­ish city of Mar­bella in 1997.

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