Mark Hughes Profile

Mark Hughes

Leslie Ma­rk Hug­hes, born Wrex­ham, Wales, Nov­ember 1, 1963. Ma­rk Hug­hes no doubt ce­men­ted his name in­to the his­tory of Man­chester Uni­ted when he re­gistered bo­th goals for the te­am in the un­for­get­table 2–1 vic­tory over for­mer em­ploy­ers FC Bar­celona in the Euro­pean Cup Win­ners’ Cup Fi­nal at Fey­enoord Sta­dium in Rot­ter­dam on the 15th of May 1991.

An im­pos­ing and power­ful ath­lete, the pure phys­ic­al­ity of Ma­rk Hug­hes no doubt scared the liv­ing day­lights out of most of his op­pon­ents in his play­ing ca­reer. He joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted from school and de­b­uted as a re­place­ment for North­ern Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al Nor­man White­side in a 2–0 Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup Sec­ond Ro­und vic­tory ag­ainst Port Vale at Old Traf­ford on the 26th of Oct­ober 1983. He fou­nd the net for the fir­st time for The Reds in a 1-1 Lea­gue Cup Fourth Ro­und draw wi­th Ox­ford Uni­ted at Man­or Gro­und on the 30th of Nov­ember the same year, and his fir­st top flight goal ar­rived in a 2-0 win over Lei­cester City at Old Traf­ford on the 10th of Mar­ch 1984. A lav­ishly gif­ted at­tack­er wi­th a dy­nam­ic burst of pace, he fin­ished as top scor­er wi­th 25 goals in 55 fir­st te­am ap­pear­ances the fol­low­ing sea­son as well as help­ing Man­chester Uni­ted be­at How­ard Kendall´s double chas­ing Ever­ton 1–0 in the FA Cup Fi­nal on the 18th of May 1985. Famed for his fear­some shot, Hug­hes was trans­ferred to La Liga gi­ants Bar­celona for a fee in the re­gion of of £2 mil­lion in the sum­mer of 1986, but he failed to im­press and was sub­sequently loaned out to Ger­man Bundes­liga te­am Bay­ern Mu­nich in the sum­mer of 1987. As a con­sequence, he re­turned to Man­chester Uni­ted for £1.8 mil­lion two years la­ter and once ag­ain he proved to be a pro­lif­ic goalscorer. The ho­me com­ing son net­ted twice as Uni­ted drew 3–3 wi­th Ste­ve Coppell´s Crys­tal Pal­ace in the FA Cup Fi­nal on the 12th of May 1990 be­fore a goal from Lee Mar­tin in the re­play five days la­ter gave Al­ex Fer­guson his fir­st ma­jor trophy at Old Trafford.

And to top it all, Ma­rk Hug­hes bo­th of the goals for Man­chester Uni­ted ag­ainst his for­mer club Bar­celona when Al­ex Ferguson´s men won the Euro­pean Cup Win­ners’ Cup the fol­low­ing year. In front of over 43,000 people at the Fey­enoord Sta­dium, Uni­ted went ahead in the 67th min­ute when Ste­ve Bru­ce nod­ded a free-kick from Bry­an Rob­son onto Hug­hes who put the ball in­to the back of the net from clo­se ran­ge, and sev­en min­utes la­ter Sparky hit his sec­ond goal of the even­ing be­fore Ron­ald Koe­man sco­red a con­sol­a­tion for The Blaugrana wi­th a free-kick in the 79th min­ute. The trig­ger happy goal plun­der­er notched an as­ton­ish­ing 119 goals in 345 mat­ches for Uni­ted be­fore he ev­entually joi­ned for­ces wi­th Chel­sea in a £1.5 mil­lion deal at the be­gin­ning of the 1995–96 cam­paign. Whi­le at Stam­ford Bridge, he ma­naged to score 25 Lea­gue goals in 95 Pre­mier Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for The Blues be­fore he waved good­bye to West Lon­don. The Welsh­man would la­ter ap­pear for South­ampton, Ever­ton, and Black­burn Rov­ers be­fore he fi­nally an­nounced his re­tire­ment from the ga­me of foot­ball in 2002. An in­ter­na­tion­al for Wales, the leth­al fin­ish­er pulled on the fam­ous red shirt on 72 oc­ca­sions be­tween 1984 and 1999, con­trib­ut­ing 16 goals dur­ing the pro­cess. Hug­hes la­ter went to man­age sev­er­al te­ams, in­clud­ing Black­burn Rov­ers, Man­chester City, Sto­ke City, and South­ampton. Sir Al­ex Fer­guson: “Nobody tho­ught that Ma­rk Hug­hes would be­come a man­ager, nev­er in a mil­lion years, and we all tho­ught that Bry­an Rob­son was a cer­tainty to be a top man­ager.” Ma­rk Hug­hes Play­ing Ca­reer: Man­chester Uni­ted, Bar­celona, Bay­ern Mu­nich, Man­chester Uni­ted, Chel­sea, South­ampton, Ever­ton, Black­burn Rovers.

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