Julian Hails (born 20 November 1967) is an English former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

and Southend United. He is a maths teacher at the St Albans High School for Girls.

Biography

Football career

Hails was studying for a maths

degree Degree may refer to: As a unit of measurement * Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement ** Degree of geographical latitude ** Degree of geographical longitude * Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathematics ...

and playing part-time at Hemel Hempstead Town, before being offered a trial at

. Part of the deal that took Hails to Fulham was that he could stay on and finish his degree. He joined Fulham permanently in 1990. He played as a right- winger for Fulham, a position his father used to play for Lincoln City, Peterborough United, Luton Town and Northampton Town. Hails made 126 appearances in all competitions scoring 13 goals, being voted as the "Player of the Season" by Fulham fans during his spell with the London club. Peter Taylor signed Hails for Southend United in early December 1994. He made 182 appearances for Southend in all competitions scoring seven goals. Hails was moved into

right-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 ...

position in September 1997, when Alvin Martin took control as the

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

. He won the "Player of the Season" award that season after a number of impressive performances. He was forced to retire in 2000, after a two-year struggle with

knee In humans and other primates, the knee joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two joints: one between the femur and tibia (tibiofemoral joint), and one between the femur and patella (patellofemoral joint). It is the largest joint in the hu ...

injuries.

Life after football

Hails has a

BSc A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

honours in Mathematical Studies. He is now a maths teacher at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, when he joined in May 2006, and has had various

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 ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

coaching roles at the school.

Personal life

Hails was born in Lincoln and is married. He now lives with his wife and 3 sons in Hertfordshire. His father,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, was also a professional footballer in the 1950s and 1960s, who played for Lincoln City, Peterborough United, Luton Town and Northampton Town.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hails, Julian 1967 births Living people Sportspeople from Lincoln, England English footballers Schoolteachers from Lincolnshire Hemel Hempstead Town F.C. players Fulham F.C. players Southend United F.C. players English Football League players Association football midfielders