Peter Ramage

Peter Iain Ramage (born 22 November 1983) is an English football coach and former player who is currently an assistant coach for the Newcastle United U23 team.

Ramage began his career with Newcastle United as an academy player before progressing to the first team.

Born in Ashington, England, Ramage is the son of Iain Ramage, a former semi-professional rugby union player and international SRU referee, who was an assistant referee at both the 1999 and 2003 World Cup.

He grew up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England, but moved to the Newcastle area at the age of twelve and attended Valley Gardens Middle School and Whitley Bay High School.

As a youngster, Ramage was with Cramlington Juniors, the local boys' club, and then joined the Newcastle United academy, playing alongside his Valley Gardens schoolmate Steven Taylor.

Growing up, he reflected on his childhood, saying: "When I started playing football he ran one of the junior teams I played for along with one of the other lads' dads. He didn't pressure me into playing rugby because he was a top player himself. But he's encouraged me, as have the rest of my family, but my dad's been the main one. I enjoy going. I love watching rugby and I love watching my dad. It's good to get away from football some time. When I was about 4 years old. It's just where I'm from. All I did was play football. My parents were strict of me to do my education and I was good at it. But I wanted to play football full time."

Ramage also grew up supporting Newcastle United.

Ramage is married to his wife, Tanisha and has two children.

Ramage played in the same youth team as Taylor, Michael Chopra and Adam Rundle under Alan Irvine, before later being coached by former Newcastle players Kenny Wharton and Peter Beardsley.

He would later partner Taylor in central defence when they broke into the first team.

In the reserve team he was coached by another former United player, Tommy Craig.

In March 2003, Ramage won the Jackie Milburn Trophy, given each year to the rising star of north-east football.

He worked his way through Newcastle's youth system and captained the Newcastle reserve side before making his breakthrough to the first team squad.

At the end of the 2004–05 season, Ramage went on to make five appearances in all competitions.

Ramage made his first team debut as a substitute in Newcastle's UEFA Cup round-of-16 match second leg against Olympiacos on 16 March 2005, winning 4–0, as the club won 7–1 on aggregate to the next round.

His first league start at Old Trafford in the 2–1 defeat to Manchester United on 24 April 2005.

He followed this up with several first team starts due to injuries to other defenders in the Newcastle squad.

On 1 June 2005, he signed a three–year contract with the club, keeping him until 2008.

At the start of the 2005–06 season, Ramage found himself out of the starting eleven for Newcastle United in the first two months to the season.

He made his first appearance of the season against rivals, Sunderland on 23 October 2005 and helped the club win 3–2.

After the match, manager Graeme Souness said about the player: "Now Ramage has to show he can too. It's always pleasing when a young player comes through the ranks. We now know Ramage can play anywhere across the back four. Prior to Sunderland we didn't know if he could play at left-back – now we know."

Ramage helped Newcastle United keep three consecutive clean sheets between 26 October 2005 and 5 November 2005.

However, Ramage was eventually lost his first team place by April, due to his errors and was demoted to the substitute bench for the rest of the 2005–06 season.

At the end of the 2005–06 season, he was a first team regular in appearing in twenty-nine games in all competitions.

Following this, the injury to teammate Stephen Carr allowed him to play a larger number of games for the club, as he made a good impression on both Graeme Souness and Glenn Roeder, who replaced Souness as manager in early 2006.

In early–January, Ramage suffered a shoulder injury, which was considered to be serious at first, but he quickly made a full recovery.

Ramage then helped Newcastle United keep four clean sheets out of the club's five matches between 4 February 2006 and 25 February 2006.

It came after when his form began to falter, including giving away a goal, losing 2–1 against Manchester United on 13 March 2006.

Reflecting on his performance, local newspaper The Northern Echo said: "A centre-back by trade but solved the Magpies right-back problem by proving to be more than your average stop gap."

Ahead of the 2006–07 season, Ramage was linked with a move to newly promoted Premier League side Watford, but Newcastle United manager Roeder said he wanted to keep him at the club.

He made his first appearance of the season as a late substitute, coming against FK Ventspils in the first leg of the UEFA Cup second qualifying round, as Newcastle United won 1–0.

After being dropped in the first two league matches of the season, Ramage made his first start, playing in the left–back position, and conceded a goal, in a 2–1 loss against Fulham on 9 September 2006.

In the summer of 2008, he moved to London side Queens Park Rangers, thus ending his twelve-year association with Newcastle United.

In 2011–12, Ramage spent time on loan at Championship clubs Crystal Palace and Birmingham City before joining Crystal Palace on a permanent contract in 2012.

After Palace were promoted to the Premier League, Ramage joined Championship club Barnsley on loan in September 2013.

On 3 October 2014 Ramage again joined Barnsley on a three-month loan.

In May 2015, Ramage was released by Crystal Palace.

He spent the 2015 Indian Super League season with Kerala Blasters before returning to England where he signed for Coventry City.

Ramage moved to America, where he signed for Phoenix Rising and spent two years at the club.

Ramage then announced his retirement from professional football and returned to England, where he moved to coaching.