Paul Rideout (born 14 August 1964) 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 ...
and youth team coach of
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...
side
Sporting Kansas City
Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional Association football, soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and t ...
.
As a player, he was a
striker from 1980 until 2002, notably 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 ...
with
Everton where he scored the winning goal in the 1995
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 ...
final against
Manchester United
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...
at
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
. He also played in his native land for
Swindon Town
Swindon Town Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at ...
,
Aston Villa
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...
,
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
,
Notts County
Notts County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Nottingham, England. The team participate in the National League (division), National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. Founded on the 2 ...
and
Tranmere Rovers
Tranmere Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they ado ...
. During his career he also spent time in Italy, Scotland, China and the United States with
Bari
Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...
,
Rangers,
Qianwei Huandao,
Chongqing Huandao,
Shenzhen Jianlibao
Shenzhen Football Club () is a Chinese professional football club that competes in the Chinese Super League. The team is based in Shenzhen, Guangdong and their home stadium is the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre that has a seating capacity of ...
and
Kansas City Wizards
Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse and ...
. He was capped 6 times by
England U21
The England national under-21 football team, also known as England under-21s or England U21(s), is considered to be the feeder team for the England national football team.
This team is for England players aged under 21 at the start of the calen ...
, scoring one goal. He later moved into coaching and worked back with the
Kansas City Wizards
Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse and ...
across their youth academy.
Club career
Swindon Town
Rideout's career began as a 15-year-old at
Swindon Town
Swindon Town Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at ...
as their youngest ever first team player, and he finished the
1980–81 season with four goals from 16 Third Division games. He established himself as a first team player in
1981–82 by playing 35 games and scoring 14 goals, though it was not enough to save Swindon from relegation to the Fourth Division he initially decided to remain at the
County Ground to help them win promotion. After they failed to win promotion in
1982–83, despite Rideout's 20 goals in 44 games, he was transferred to First Division club Aston Villa for £200,000 by manager
Tony Barton.
Aston Villa
He scored five goals in 25 league games during his first season as a First Division player at
Villa Park
Villa Park is a football stadium in Aston, Birmingham, England, with a seating capacity of 42,682. It has been the home of Premier League side Aston Villa since 1897. The ground is less than a mile from both Witton and Aston railway stations ...
, and also helped them reach 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 ...
semi finals, though they could only manage a 10th-place finish in the league. He remained a first team player the following season under new manager
Graham Turner
Graham John Turner (born 5 October 1947) is an English former footballer who became a manager. His son Mark was also a professional footballer. He is third behind only Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger in terms of most games managed.
After a ...
, scoring 14 goals in 29 games though Villa finished mid table once again.
Bari & Southampton
Then came a transfer to Italian team Bari, where Rideout spent three years before returning to England in a £430,000 move to Southampton on 5 July 1988.
Rideout was initially a regular first team player at
The Dell, but the arrival of
Iain Dowie
Iain Dowie (born 9 January 1965) is a football manager, former professional footballer and sports television pundit.
He played as a striker from 1983 until 2001, notably in the Premier League for Southampton, Crystal Palace and West Ham Unit ...
in March 1991 cost him his place in the side after 71 league games and 19 goals, and he then dropped down a division with a nine-game loan spell at Swindon Town, where he scored once, before returning to Southampton for the
1991–92 season.
Notts County
He made four more appearances for The Saints, failing to score a goal, before he was sold to
Notts County
Notts County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Nottingham, England. The team participate in the National League (division), National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. Founded on the 2 ...
for £250,000 on 16 September 1991, just after they began their first top division season since 1984. However, they were already struggling to avoid relegation from the First Division and manager
Neil Warnock
Neil Warnock (born 1 December 1948) is an English former football manager and player. He is also a television and radio pundit. In a managerial career spanning five decades, Warnock has managed sixteen different clubs from the Premier League to ...
saw Rideout as the man to help County preserve their top flight status and gain a place in the new
FA 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 ...
which would begin
the following season. However, he lasted barely four months at
Meadow Lane
Meadow Lane Stadium is a football stadium in Nottingham, England. It is the home ground of Notts County, who have played there since it opened in 1910. The stadium was also home to Notts County Ladies F.C. from 2014 until 2017.
It currently h ...
, scoring three goals in 11 league games (his performances failed to improve County's league form and they ended the season relegated).
Rangers
He joined
Rangers for £500,000 on 10 January 1992. He scored once in 11 games, providing adequate backup for the strike partnership of
Mark Hateley
Mark Wayne Hateley (born 7 November 1961) is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker. He started his career with Coventry City F.C. in the First Division of English football. A spell followed at English Second Divisi ...
and
Ally McCoist
Alistair Murdoch McCoist, (; born 24 September 1962) is a Scottish former footballer who has since worked as a manager and TV pundit.
McCoist began his playing career with Scottish club St Johnstone before moving to English side Sunderland i ...
, as Rangers won the double of the
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) Th ...
and
SFA Cup, and played one game in the
1992–93 Scottish league season.
Everton
He returned to England in a £500,000 move to Everton on 14 August 1992 – the day before their first game in the new Premier League. Among his fellow strikers was
Mo Johnston
Maurice John Giblin Johnston (born 13 April 1963) is a Scottish football player and coach. Johnston, who played as a forward, started his senior football career with Partick Thistle in 1981. He moved to Watford in 1983, where he scored 23 leag ...
– the player whose gap he had effectively filled at Rangers just months earlier.
Rideout's first season at
Goodison Park
Goodison Park is a football stadium in the Walton area of Liverpool, England. It has been the home stadium of Premier League club Everton F.C. since its completion in 1892. Located in a residential area 2 miles (3 km) north of Liverpool ...
was something of a disappointment, as he managed just three goals in 24 games and was unable to break up the strike partnership of
Peter Beardsley
Peter Andrew Beardsley MBE (born 18 January 1961) is an English football coach and former footballer who played as a forward or midfielder between 1979 and 1999.
In 1987, he set a record transfer fee in the English game and represented his coun ...
and
Tony Cottee
Antony Richard Cottee (born 11 July 1965) is an English former professional footballer and manager who now works as a television football commentator.
As a player, he was a striker from 1982 until 2001, notably playing in the top flight of En ...
, and it was a similar story the following season (despite Beardsley's departure to
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 ...
) as he managed just 24 league appearances once again, though he did improve his goals tally to six for the
1993–94 season. It was not a good time for Everton, either, as their Premier League debut had brought them a 13th-place finish, and after going top of the Premier League by winning their first three games of the 1993–94 season, their form slumped dramatically (failing to improve after
Mike Walker succeeded
Howard Kendall
Howard Kendall (22 May 1946 – 17 October 2015) was an English footballer and manager.
Kendall joined Preston North End as an apprentice and stayed with the club when he turned professional. He was a runner-up in the 1964 FA Cup with Preston, ...
as manager in mid season) and they only narrowly avoided relegation.
The
1994–95 season was arguably the finest of Rideout's career. He scored 14 goals from 29 Premier League games as Everton overcame a 12-match winless league start to finish in a secure 15th place following Walker's dismissal in favour of
Joe Royle
Joseph Royle (born 8 April 1949) is an English football manager and former footballer. In his playing career as a striker, he debuted for Everton at the age of 16 and went on to play for Manchester City, Bristol City, Norwich City, and the ...
, and scored the only goal of the
FA Cup final
The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football ev ...
as Everton won their first major trophy since 1987 and condemned Manchester United to their first trophyless season since 1989.
With Beardsley, Cottee and Johnston now gone, Rideout now had an effective strike partner in the shape of
Duncan Ferguson and a capable deputy in
Daniel Amokachi
Daniel Owefin Amokachi (born 30 December 1972) is a Nigerian football manager and former professional footballer and a member of the dubious goals panel for the Premier League.
As a player he was a forward who notably played in the Premier Lea ...
.
The 1994–95 campaign was as good as it got for Rideout in his time at Everton, though he did score six goals in 25 league games to help them finish sixth in
1995–96.
The following season saw him restricted to a mere 10 league appearances, during which he failed to score, and at the end of the campaign he left the club.
Later career
He transferred to
Qianwei Huandao in China, where he was voted 'Best Overseas player' in the Chinese League. He then moved to the United States of America in 1998 to play for the
Kansas City Wizards
Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse and ...
from 1998–1999 before returning to the Chinese league until 2000, playing for
Shenzhen Jianlibao
Shenzhen Football Club () is a Chinese professional football club that competes in the Chinese Super League. The team is based in Shenzhen, Guangdong and their home stadium is the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre that has a seating capacity of ...
.
Rideout's last club was
Tranmere Rovers
Tranmere Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they ado ...
, where he played until May 2002, before being appointed to the club's coaching staff as an assistant with Tranmere Rovers Youth Academy. His time at Tranmere Rovers is most memorable for 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 ...
match against former club
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
, in which he scored three of four second half goals to win the game after his team had been 3–0 down at half-time,
Stuart Barlow scoring the other. However, on the league scene it was not a successful time for player and club. They were relegated in bottom place at the end of
his first season after a decade of second tier football, which had seen manager
John Aldridge
John William Aldridge (born 18 September 1958) is a former football player and manager. He was a prolific, record-breaking striker best known for his time with English club Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in M ...
forced out of his job after five years at the helm. Rideout's former Everton teammate
Dave Watson
David Watson (born 20 November 1961) is an English football manager and former professional footballer.
As a player, he was a defender from 1980 to 2001. He played his entire career for Norwich City and Everton. With the Toffees he played in ...
was then appointed manager at
Prenton Park
Prenton Park is a large outdoor seated association football stadium in Birkenhead, England. It is the home ground of Tranmere Rovers, as well as Liverpool's women and reserves teams. The ground has had several rebuilds, with the most recent o ...
, but was unable to restore Tranmere to Division One in Rideout's final season before retiring as a player.
International career
Although he did not represent the
England national football team
The England national football team has represented England in international Association football, football since the first international match in 1872. It is controlled by The Football Association (FA), the governing body for football in Engl ...
at full-level, he played several times for England at schoolboy, under-18 and under-21 level. At international level he scored over thirty goals, including a hat-trick for England schoolboys in a match lost 5-4 to Scotland at
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
.
Coaching career
Following his spell coaching at the club's academy, Rideout then returned to the United States and began coaching with the
Kansas City Wizards
Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse and ...
, managing all three of the club's youth squads. Rideout also coaches a U17 girl's teams and a U16 boys team.
Career statistics
Honours
Everton
*
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 ...
:
1994–95
*
FA Charity Shield
The Football Association Community Shield (formerly the Charity Shield) is English football's annual match contested at Wembley Stadium between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the holders of the FA Cup. If the Premier Le ...
:
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 ...
Individual
*
PFA Team of the Year
The Professional Footballers' Association Team of the Year (often called the PFA Team of the Year, or simply the Team of the Year) is an annual award given to a set of 55 footballers across the top four tiers of men's English football; the Premie ...
:
1982–83 Fourth Division
*Swindon Town Player of the Season: 1982–83
References
External links
*
Biography at Kansas City Wizards
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rideout, Paul
1964 births
Living people
Footballers from Bournemouth
English footballers
England under-21 international footballers
Everton F.C. players
Aston Villa F.C. players
Southampton F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
Sporting Kansas City players
Premier League players
Major League Soccer players
Serie A players
Serie B players
Scottish Football League players
Rangers F.C. players
Swindon Town F.C. players
S.S.C. Bari players
Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic F.C. players
English expatriate footballers
British expatriates in China
Expatriate footballers in China
Shenzhen F.C. players
English expatriate sportspeople in Italy
Expatriate footballers in Italy
Expatriate soccer players in the United States
Sporting Kansas City non-playing staff
Notts County F.C. players
Association football forwards
English expatriate sportspeople in the United States
FA Cup Final players