Paul Kitson (31 May 1956 – 25 August 2005) was an English footballer who played and coached professionally with both indoor and outdoor

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

teams in Canada and the United States.

Player

Kitson began his career with

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 ...

in England before moving to the United States. He played in Baltimore Blasts from 1983 to 1986, where he won two championships, before being traded to the LA Lazers. On 6 March 1987, the

Los Angeles Lazers The Los Angeles Lazers were an indoor soccer team that played in the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) from 1982 to 1989. History Jerry Buss, the owner of California Sports, the parent company of the Los Angeles Lakers, Kings and Strings of Tea ...

traded Kitson to the Cleveland Force for

Chris Chueden Christopher Hoyer Chueden (born 18 February 1961 in British Columbia) is a Canadian retired soccer player who earned six caps for the national team in 1986, scoring one goal in the process. In 1979, Chueden was on the Canadian U-20 team at th ...

. He spent the next two seasons with the Force. In 1990, he played for the

New Jersey Eagles The New Jersey Eagles were an American soccer team founded in 1987 as the Cosmopolitan Eagles. In 1988, they entered the third American Soccer League as the New Jersey Eagles. They folded following the 1990 American Professional Soccer League s ...

in the

American Professional Soccer League The American Professional Soccer League (APSL) was a professional men's soccer league with teams from the United States and later Canada. It was formed in 1990 by the merger of the third American Soccer League with the Western Soccer League. It ...

Coach

Kitson began his coaching career with the Montreal Impact in 1997. Under his leadership the Impact it to the playoffs both seasons, but the team closed at the end of the 1998 season. On 14 May 1999, the

Maryland Mania Maryland Mania was a soccer club based in Baltimore Maryland that competed in the A-League for one year, in 1999. The Mania's original home was UMBC Stadium in Catonsville, but they club relocated to Anne Arundel Community College midway through ...

of the

USL A-League 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 ...

hired Kitson. In 2001, Kitson was appointed the head coach for Canadian Professional Soccer League expansion side the

Brampton Hitmen Brampton ( or ) is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Brampton is a city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a lower-tier municipality within Peel Region. The city has a population of 656,480 as of the 2021 Census, making it the ...

. Throughout the season the Hitmen performed poorly without recording a single victory, which resulted in Kitson departing from his post on 25 July 2001.

Death

Kitson died on August 25, 2005, after collapsing from coaching a youth team.

References

External links

Kitson Obituary

1956 births 2005 deaths Footballers from Greater London English men's footballers Men's association football defenders New York Apollo players New York United players Chicago Horizons players New York Arrows players Baltimore Blast (1980–1992) players Los Angeles Lazers players Cleveland Force (original MISL) players New Jersey Eagles players Denver Thunder players Arizona Sandsharks players Detroit Rockers players Philadelphia KiXX players Detroit Neon players Toronto Shooting Stars players Montreal Impact (1992–2011) players Maryland Mania players American Professional Soccer League players American Soccer League (1933–1983) players Continental Indoor Soccer League players Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–1992) players National Professional Soccer League (1984–2001) players A-League (1995–2004) players English expatriate men's footballers English expatriate sportspeople in the United States English expatriate sportspeople in Canada Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States Expatriate men's soccer players in Canada English football managers Montreal Impact (1992–2011) coaches National Professional Soccer League (1984–2001) coaches USL First Division coaches Canadian Soccer League (1998–present) coaches English expatriate football managers Expatriate soccer coaches in Canada Expatriate soccer coaches in the United States English emigrants to the United States {{England-footy-midfielder-1950s-stub