David Alexander Robertson BEM (born 17 October 1968) is a former Scottish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player and coach, who is currently the manager of

Scottish League One The Scottish League One, known as cinch League One for sponsorship reasons, is the third tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish League One was e ...

club

Peterhead Peterhead (; gd, Ceann Phàdraig, sco, Peterheid ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is Aberdeenshire's biggest settlement (the city of Aberdeen itself not being a part of the district), with a population of 18,537 at the 2011 Census. ...

. Robertson played as a

left back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, Rangers,

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road S ...

, Montrose and represented

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Since retiring as a player, he has managed

Elgin City Elgin City Football Club (also known as City or The Black and Whites) is a professional senior football club based in Elgin, Moray. Elgin was founded in 1893 and originally played their football in the Highland Football League. The club was g ...

, Montrose,

Phoenix FC Phoenix FC was an American professional soccer team based in Phoenix. The team was a member of the USL Professional Division, the third tier of the American Soccer Pyramid. The team's colors were red and white. History On June 18, 2012, BDR Spo ...

and most recently

I-League The I-League (known as Hero I-League for sponsorship ties with Hero MotoCorp) is the second-tier men's professional football competition of the Indian football league system. It is currently contested by 12 clubs across the country with the w ...

club Real Kashmir, before being appointed manager of

in November 2022.

Playing career

Robertson began playing football with Deeside Boys Club (now Banks O' Dee FC) before he started his football career by signing an "s" form with local club Aberdeen, where he won the

Scottish Youth Cup The Scottish Youth Cup (also known as the SFA Youth Cup) is an annual Scottish football competition run by the Scottish Football Association for under-18 teams,

alongside Joe Miller, Paul Wright and Stevie Gray. After becoming a first team regular aged 17, he won a

Scottish League Cup The Scottish League Cup (also known as the Viaplay Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League Cup in existen ...

winner's medal against Rangers in

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

and a

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

against

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

in a match which ended with a thrilling

penalty shoot out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pen ...

(9–8, Robertson scoring his kick). Robertson moved to Rangers for £970,000 in 1991. With the Ibrox club, he helped the club to the last six of their joint-record nine

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

titles in a row, as well as adding three more Scottish Cups and three more League Cups to his collection. He only received one red card during his spell, for a brutal bodycheck on his friend Joe Miller in the opening minutes of the

Old Firm The Old Firm is the collective name for the Scottish football clubs Celtic and Rangers, which are both based in Glasgow. The two clubs are by far the most successful and popular in Scotland, and the rivalry between them has become deeply em ...

1992 Scottish Cup semi-final, which broke the Celtic winger's ribs (Miller played on, Rangers still won the match with ten men and Robertson appeared in the final after suspension). During his time at the ''Gers'', he won three caps for

. After exactly 250 games for Rangers, Robertson signed for

in 1997 for £500,000, but recurring injury problems curtailed his spell in England and he played only 26 league matches in four years at

Elland Road Elland Road is a football stadium in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, which has been the home of Premier League club Leeds United since the club's formation in 1919. The stadium is the 14th largest football stadium in England. The g ...

(all in the first season). Robertson retired from football in 2001 but was back playing in 2002 when he was appointed player/assistant manager of

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km south ...

club Montrose. He scored his first and only goal for Montrose in a 3–2 defeat at

Cowdenbeath Cowdenbeath (; sco, Coudenbeith) is a town and burgh in west Fife, Scotland. It is north-east of Dunfermline and north of the capital, Edinburgh. The town grew up around the extensive coalfields of the area and became a police burgh in 18 ...

in the

. His playing career with Montrose was cut short, however, due to one of his Achilles tendons snapping during a match against

Greenock Morton Greenock Morton Football Club is a Scottish professional football club, which plays in the Scottish Championship. The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs. Morton was renamed Green ...

in the same year.

Coaching career

In September 2006, Robertson was appointed manager of Montrose but he resigned just four months later. He moved to

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

and worked as a director of boy's coaching at the Sereno Soccer Club. Robertson was head coach of

USL Pro The USL Championship (USLC) is a professional men's soccer league in the United States that began its inaugural season in 2011. The USL is sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer) as a Division II league since 2017, pl ...

club

in 2013.

Real Kashmir

In January 2017 Robertson was appointed as the head coach of Indian

I-League 2nd Division I-League 2, previously known as I-League 2nd Division and officially known as or Hero I-League 2 (for sponsorship ties with Hero MotoCorp), is an Indian men's professional football league. It is the 3rd tier of Indian football, behind Indian ...

side Real Kashmir. Under his tenure Real Kashmir won the promotion to Indian top flight football, thus becoming the first team from

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

to be promoted to the I-League. Robertson also signed his son

Mason Mason may refer to: Occupations * Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces * Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cut ...

to play for the club. Robertson's management of Real Kashmir was featured in two documentaries made for

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: ''BBC Alba'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. It is one of the four BBC national regions, together with the BBC English Regions, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Ireland. I ...

, ''Real Kashmir FC'' and ''Return to Real Kashmir FC'', which won best documentary at Scottish BAFTAs, the UK Broadcast awards, and the European Sports Awards in Rotterdam where it additionally won the best director award for its director Greg Clark. He was awarded the

British Empire Medal The British Empire Medal (BEM; formerly British Empire Medal for Meritorious Service) is a British and Commonwealth award for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown. The current honour was created in 1922 to ...

(BEM) in the

2021 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours for 2021 are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded ...

for services to the community in Kashmir and UK-India relations. He left the club in September, and was succeeded by

Mehrajuddin Wadoo Mehrajuddin Wadoo (born 12 February 1984) is an Indian professional manager and former footballer. He is the current head coach of I-League club Mohammedan. During his playing days, Wadoo played for clubs such as Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Sal ...

Peterhead

On 29 November 2022, Robertson was named as the new manager of

club

, marking his first managerial role in Scotland in 15 years.

Statistics

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player

;Aberdeen *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1989–90 *

: 1989–90 ;Rangers *

Scottish Premier Division The Scottish Football League Premier Division was, from 1975 until 1998, the top division of the Scottish Football League and the entire Scottish football league system. It lay above the Scottish Football League First, Second and (from 1994) ...

(6): 1991–92, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1996–97 *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1991–92, 1992–93, 1995–96 *

: 1992–93, 1993–94, 1996–97

Manager

;

North of Scotland Cup The North of Scotland Cup is a knock-out tournament, knock-out tournament for association football, football teams in membership of the North of Scotland Football Association. The teams involved are based in the Highland, Highlands and Moray an ...

: 2003–04 ; Real Kashmir *

: 2017–18 *

IFA Shield The IFA Shield is an annual football competition organized by the Indian Football Association. The IFA is the governing body of football in the state of West Bengal, came into existence in 1893. Named after the association, the IFA Shield tourn ...

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

References

External links

* *
Profile and stats at ''AFC Heritage Trust''David Robertson
at

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

Profile at ''Post War English & Scottish Football League A-Z Players Transfer Database''Profile at ''Sporting-Heroes.net''Profile at ''Leeds United FC History''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robertson, David Living people 1968 births Footballers from Aberdeen Scottish footballers Scotland international footballers Scotland B international footballers Scottish football managers Aberdeen F.C. players Banks O' Dee F.C. players Elgin City F.C. managers Rangers F.C. players Leeds United F.C. players Montrose F.C. players Montrose F.C. managers Premier League players Scottish Football League players Association football fullbacks Scottish Football League representative players Scotland under-21 international footballers Scottish Football League managers Scottish expatriate football managers Expatriate soccer managers in the United States Scottish expatriate sportspeople in the United States Scottish expatriate sportspeople in India Expatriate football managers in India Real Kashmir FC managers Peterhead F.C. managers Scottish Professional Football League managers Recipients of the British Empire Medal