Peter Withe
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| Peter Withe | ||
| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Peter Withe | |
| Date of birth | 30 August 1951 | |
| Place of birth | Liverpool, England | |
| Playing position | Striker | |
| Senior career1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1971 1971–1972 1972–1973 1973 1973–1975 1975 1975–1976 1976–1978 1978–1980 1980–1985 1985–1989 1987 1989–1990 |
Southport Barrow Port Elizabeth City Arcadia Shepherds Wolverhampton Wanderers Portland Timbers Birmingham City Nottingham Forest Newcastle United Aston Villa Sheffield United → Birmingham City (loan) Huddersfield Town |
3 (0) 1 (0) 17 (3) 22 (17) 35 (9) 75 (28) 76 (25) 182 (74) 74 (18) 8 (2) 38 (1) |
| National team | ||
| 1981–1985 | England | 11 (1) |
| Teams managed | ||
| 1991 1998–2002 2004–2007 |
Wimbledon Thailand Indonesia |
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1 Senior club appearances and goals |
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Peter Withe (born 30 August 1951 in Liverpool, Lancashire) is a much-travelled English footballer who played as a striker, between 1971 and 1990. He has also worked as a manager, predominantly in south-east Asia.
The highlights of his career came at Aston Villa, where he was a key player in the Football League title triumph of 1980–81 and scored his side's only goal in their 1982 European Cup Final victory.
His brother, Chris, played for Bradford City.
Contents |
[edit] Playing career
During the summer of 1975, Withe spent one season in the United States as a member of the expansion Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League (NASL). The lynchpin of a strong attack, the big Liverpudlian scored 17 goals and added 7 assists in 22 games to lead the Timbers to first place in their division and a tie for the best record in the league at 16–6. The Timbers played two home play-off games in front of more than 30,000 fans each, numbers unheard of for US soccer at the time. They advanced to Soccer Bowl '75, the League Championship, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Rowdies 2–0.
Withe won the Football League First Division championship with Nottingham Forest but then left on the verge of their European Cup glory to join Newcastle United, then in the Second Division. Brian Clough, keen to raise funds to bring in Trevor Francis from Birmingham City, took the chance to quadruple his money, selling the powerful striker to Newcastle for £200,000. The Magpies were Withe's ninth club in less than eight years.
Ron Saunders took him to Aston Villa on the eve of the 1980–81 season when the Midlands club forked out £500,000 on the journeyman 29-year old striker, the club's record signing at the time but a snip considered the service he gave them over the next five years. His decision to choose Villa in that Summer of 1980 raised a few eyebrows and shocked his nearest and dearest, for amongst the seven teams chasing his signature were Everton, his boyhood side. "I had watched them as a kid. I used to sell programmes outside the ground," he remembered. "My family and friends couldn't believe it when I turned down Everton!" But the Toffees were a team in transition, and Ron Saunders sold Villa to Withe as genuine title challengers, despite the side having just finished seventh. Withe, said Saunders, was the final piece in the jigsaw and, as usual, he was right!
Withe formed a deadly and almost telepathic partnership up front with young starlet Gary Shaw, and he netted 20 times in 36 games to finish joint-top scorer in the league with Tottenham Hotspur's Steve Archibald in that first season as Aston Villa went on to win the Football League title. Withe was also the scorer of Villa's winner against Bayern Munich in the European Cup final of 1982, the most important match in the club's history. Not that it was a classic finish! "Peter says to this day he meant it," says winger Tony Morley. "But I can tell you now it came off his shin." Morley should know better than anyone. It was his drilled pass that left Withe with the simplest of opportunities (although that description does the Number 9 no justice; only the best strikers find space to have simple opportunities against defences of the quality of Bayern Munich). Withe, however, maintains there was no luck involved - even if he does admit it wasn't as sweetly-struck as many of the goals that had fired Villa to that final, and the league before it. "I told myself to concentrate 150%," he said later. "Then, just as I was about to make contact, it hit a divot and bobbled. I followed through and hit it with my shin." A moment's doubt? Apparently not. "As soon as I connected, I knew it was going in, even though it went in off the post." "If he had connected properly, the goalkeeper might have made a save but the way it bounced off his shin, he had no chance," remembers Morley. And Aston Villa became the fourth English team to win the biggest trophy in club football.
After five years, he eventually moved on to Sheffield United, in what he later described as "the biggest wrench of my career."
Capped by England 11 times, Withe scored once, and was also the first-ever English player representing Aston Villa to feature in a World Cup Finals squad (in España 82).
[edit] Managerial career
His post-playing career has been equally as well-travelled, although most of his jobs have had far more longevity about them. Brought in as assistant manager to Josef Venglos in the ill-fated attempt to replace Graham Taylor, Withe then took the reins at Wimbledon in October 1991 following Ray Harford's resignation. Withe's time in charge was not at all successful, winning only one game out of thirteen in the league, and he was replaced after just 105 days at the helm by the club's youth team coach Joe Kinnear, partly as a result of player complaints to the directors about Withe's style of man-management. In all, he lasted just four months in charge at Wimbledon but he was still respected enough to be offered the job as chief scout at Villa Park.
In 1998, the Thai FA were desperately trying to save the game in their country. It would take a fighter to do it, and everyone in football knew there were few tougher fighters than Peter Withe. "The game in Thailand was in a mess when I took over," he frankly admits. "They had been suspended by FIFA, along with Indonesia, over a Tiger Cup match which neither side wanted to win. Victory would have meant going to play Vietnam in Hanoi, somewhere they didn't want to go. Indonesia ended up winning 1-0 after an own goal."
Withe quicky turned things around, leading the side to the ASEAN Football Championship in 2000, and retaining the biennial trophy two years later. Then things turned sour - for one, or possibly both, of two reasons: footballing and fashion.
"It was because we'd lost to the United Arab Emirates and failed to qualify for the Olympics," remembers Withe. "It was never about the shorts." The shorts in question were Withe's; Vijitr Getkaew, the president of the Thai FA, suspending him for refusing to wear a suit. "I told him they were my work clothes and that I like to go on the pitch before a game to take the warm-up. The temperature is normally in the 90s - why should I wear a pair of trousers?"
In the aftermath of the dispute, Withe decided to take a break from the game, at the urging of his wife. "Kathy has always been there for me when and wherever I've needed to go for 30 years," he said. "I thought it was time we lived somewhere she wanted to." They settled on Perth; a mistake from Mrs Withe if she wanted the break to be anything other than short-lived. Her husband's reputation in the Far East was still considerable, and it isn't that far from Australia to Indonesia. There, a couple of years later and two days after Boxing Day 2004, Withe faced the biggest challenge of his career. His side were due to face Malaysia in the semi-final of the Tiger Cup - the tournament in which Withe had made his managerial reputation with Thailand. But the day was overshadowed by one of the greatest losses of human life in memory. On Boxing Day, hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were amongst the multitudes who lost their lives in the Asian Tsunami. Even more lost their homes and possessions, their family and friends. Withe was on his way to take a training session with the Indonesia side when the disaster struck. He was never in danger; "Jakarta was too far south to be hit directly," he told The Observer some weeks later. "But as news of the disaster came through things changed. People were in a state of shock and despair." In such circumstances, one realises that football is a trivial thing. "Almost every team member knew someone who had been affected. My assistant coach, Fachri Husaini, and one of my players, Ismet Sofyand, are both from Aceh and were still waiting to hear from missing relatives," Withe told the newspaper. During one teamtalk, his interpreter broke down in tears. But if the beautiful game can be trivial, it can also be healing.
"It was hard for them to think about football, but I told them it was a chance to unite the nation. It's not much, but what else could I do?" A win over two legs took Indonesia to the final against Singapore. More than 110,000 people filled the stadium, and Withe himself arranged for two giant screens outside the ground to show the action inside. He was unable to make it three titles in a row, Singapore winning on the day. But he had made something of a difference in a country that needed all the balms it could get.
[edit] Present day
Peter is now out of football altogether and lives in a house built on the Joondalup Golf Resort in Joondalup, Perth, Western Australia. Peter plays a lot of golf these days, and can often be seen walking his dog through the grounds within the resort.
Peter has a son, Jason, who has followed in his father's footsteps by becoming Aldershot Town FC youth team manager in the 2008-09 season. However, he was sacked on a mutual decision.[citation needed]
[edit] Career honours
[edit] As a player
[edit] Portland Timbers USA
Winner
- 1975 [[Division Winners|North American Soccer League]
Finalist
- 1975 [[Soccer Bowl Finalist|USA]Lost 0 - 2 Tampa Bay Rowdies]
[edit] Nottingham Forest
Winner
- 1976/77 Anglo Scottish Cup
- 1977/78 Football League Cup England
- 1977/78 1st Division
- 1978 FA Charity Shield
[edit] Aston Villa
Winner
- 1980/81 1st Division
- 1981/82 European Cup
[edit] External links
- Peter Withe career stats at Soccerbase
- The Observer Interview
- Withe looks to improve Indonesia’s fortunes
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Phil Boyer |
First Division top scorer 1980–81 (shared with Steve Archibald) |
Succeeded by Kevin Keegan |
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