John Robert Scales (born 4 July 1966) 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 as a

central defender 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 ...

from 1984 to 2001. He notably played in the

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 ...

for

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...

and

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...

as well as playing 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 ...

for

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers Football Club are a professional football club in Bristol, England. They compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play home matches at the Memorial Stadium in Horfield, they have been c ...

. He was capped three times by

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Club career

Bristol Rovers

Scales started his career at

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 ...

and

before earning a move to

in July 1987.

Wimbledon

Scales became part of the Wimbledon '' Crazy Gang'' that graced the top flight of English football and that won the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

in the famous 1988 final against future club Liverpool. He played as a substitute in the final, though unusually playing as a forward after coming on for striker Terry Gibson. He made his debut for the club in a 1–0 First Division defeat to

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...

, who had just appointed former Wimbledon boss

Dave Bassett David Thomas Bassett (born 4 September 1944 in Stanmore) is an English football manager and a former player. During his career he has managed Wimbledon, Watford, Sheffield United, Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest, Barnsley, Leicester City and ...

as their new manager, on 15 August 1987. He was soon a regular member of the side, and over the next seven years would make 240 league appearances for the club, scoring 11 goals, including five in the 1988–89 season.

Liverpool

Scales made a £3.5 million transfer to

in September 1994. He says that the highlight of his time there was his three England

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

and the game at

Anfield Anfield is a football stadium in Anfield, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, which has a seating capacity of 53,394, making it the seventh largest football stadium in England. It has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since their formation in 1892. ...

when they beat

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...

4–3 in April 1996. Scales has said that although the Liverpool team he was in had the talent to win the

they lacked the focus and discipline needed to be champions, though they did win the

Football League Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...

against

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

in his first season there and were

finalists The final of a competition is the match or round in which the winner of the entire event is decided. In sports competitions following a Single-elimination tournament, knockout system, where only two individuals or teams compete in each match, the f ...

a year later, finishing fourth and then third in the Premier League.

Tottenham Hotspur

In 1996, Liverpool accepted offers from

and

for Scales, who decided to again join up with ''Spurs'' manager Gerry Francis who he had played for whilst at

. Scales had a disappointing time at Tottenham Hotspur due to injuries, being in and out of the team and the instability of the club. He scored once during his time at Tottenham with his goal coming, coincidentally, against former club Liverpool in the

1998–99 Football League Cup The 1998–99 Football League Cup (known as the Worthington Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the 39th staging of the Football League Cup, a knockout competition for England's top 92 football clubs. The competition began on 11 August 1998, and en ...

, which Tottenham went on to win. However, he missed the

1999 Football League Cup Final The 1999 Football League Cup Final was played between Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City, at Wembley on Sunday, 21 March 1999. Tottenham won the game, and their third League Cup, with an injury-time diving header from Allan Nielsen after a cro ...

with a calf injury that he picked up in February 1999.

Ipswich Town

In July 2000, Scales signed for new promoted

but made only two Premier League appearances before succumbing to injury and was released in the summer of 2001.

International career

Scales won three caps for the England national team in 1995. All his appearances came in the

Umbro Cup The Umbro Cup was a friendly international football competition, which took place in June 1995 in England. The trophy was sponsored by the sports brand Umbro, the manufacturers of England's kit. Host nation England, Sweden, Japan and world ch ...

, starting games against

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, and came on as a substitute in the 80th minute against

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. He was also a member of England's squad for Le Tournoi de France but did not play.

Coaching career

Scales was England coach for the Danone Nations Cup in 2007. Later in his career, Scales went on to coach the England Beach Soccer team.

Personal life

As a schoolboy, Scales attended Rossett School from 1978 to 1983. Scales is a member of the Wimbledon Old Players Association and has played for the AFC Wimbledon Masters XI. Scales was featured on the

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

series ''Where are they now?'', he is now a company chairman with an events management company "Be Sport". His company organises tournaments for schools. He has also co-commentated on football matches for

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...

Honours

Wimbledon *

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

* Charity Shield: runner-up

Liverpool * FA Cup: runner-up

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

Tottenham Hotspur * League Cup:

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

England *

: runner-up

References

External links

*
Profile at LFCHistory.net
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Scales, John 1966 births Living people Sportspeople from Harrogate Bristol Rovers F.C. players Association football defenders English footballers England international footballers England B international footballers Premier League players Liverpool F.C. players Tottenham Hotspur F.C. players Wimbledon F.C. players Ipswich Town F.C. players Leeds United F.C. players FA Cup Final players