Dave Jones

David Ronald Jones (born 17 August 1956) is an English former footballer and manager who was most recently the manager of Hartlepool United.

Jones played for Everton, Coventry and Preston North End as a defender.

He left Everton to play for Coventry City in 1979 for a transfer fee of £275,000 – after three seasons he picked up a knee injury which threatened to end his football career.

After recovering from this injury, he played two further seasons for Seiko in Hong Kong and one season for Preston North End before retiring.

Jones first went to Hong Kong on 2 April 1981 on loan from Coventry City for the remainder of the season, teammate Jim Hagan had already settled in the squad.

At the end of the season, Seiko won the league championship for the third time in a row as well as the Hong Kong FA Cup.

After his release from Coventry City, Jones joined Seiko on a permanent basis at the start of the 1982–83 season, playing 22 games for Seiko during the season, including a friendly with a "Brazil Stars Team" on 12 December 1982, the game ended 0–0 and was decided by penalties.

Jones took and scored a penalty, but Seiko went on to lose 3–2.

He was also selected in the squad of Hong Kong League XI, led by Dutch coach George Knobel, to face French side Monaco on 9 January 1982, which ended in a 1–0 win for the Hong Kong League XI.

After retiring from professional football he went on to become assistant manager to Bryan Griffiths at Southport, where he also made two appearances as a player, before they both left and took up identical roles at Mossley for the 1988–89 season.

He made two appearances for Mossley whilst at the club.

In July 1990, he joined Stockport County as a manager for their youth team and took over as first-team manager from Danny Bergara in March 1995.

In 1995, he became the manager of Stockport County, guiding the team to a League Cup semi-final and automatic promotion to the second tier of English football in 1997.

He took the team into the First Division from an automatic promotion place in 1997.

He also took the club to the semi-finals of the League Cup where they were narrowly defeated 2–1 on aggregate by Middlesbrough despite an impressive win at the Riverside Stadium.

During the same cup run, Stockport also defeated Sheffield United, Blackburn Rovers, Southampton and West Ham United, all of whom were in higher divisions than the club at the time.

This promotion brought him to the attention of Southampton, who offered him a contract to manage their Premier League team.

His reign during the 1999–2000 season was rocked by his arrest on charges of child abuse during his employment as a care worker in the late 1980s.

The case put tremendous strain on Jones, who was forced to defend his case on Merseyside whilst managing a team based over 200 miles away on the south coast.

He left Stockport to become the manager of Southampton in the Premier League, where he stayed for over 100 games until he was suspended by the club in January 2000, after his arrest on charges of child abuse.

When the case came to court, the judge recorded a not guilty verdict.

Jones later spoke of his bitterness about the handling of the case and claimed it was the cause of his father's death, who had died shortly after the allegations became public.

In January 2000, Southampton decided to suspend him on full pay until the case was resolved, with Glenn Hoddle taking over his managerial duties.

When the case eventually came to court, it was thrown out in its first week, with the judge recording a not guilty verdict and commenting that the case "should have never reached the trial stage".

Southampton paid off the remainder of Jones' contract and he left the club.

Jones contended that this amounted to unfair dismissal and took the case to industrial tribunal, but Southampton's decision was upheld.

In 2001, Jones became the manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers, guiding the club to promotion to the Premier League in the 2002–03 season, though they were relegated the following season and he was dismissed by Wolves in November 2004.

Jones took over at Wolverhampton Wanderers, signing a three-year contract on 3 January 2001.

The summer of 2001 saw Jones undertake a large overhaul of the playing squad in the pursuit of promotion.

Jones had a six-year spell in charge of Cardiff City between 2005 and 2011.

They reached the FA Cup final in 2008, losing 1–0 to Portsmouth.

Cardiff lost the 2010 Championship Play-off Final 3–2 against Blackpool.

After failing to achieve promotion with Cardiff, losing to Reading the following season in a play-off semi-final, Jones was dismissed by the club on 30 May 2011.

He was appointed manager of Sheffield Wednesday on 1 March 2012, guiding the club to finishing second in League One, thus gaining automatic promotion to the Championship.

The side were then sitting 12th in the First Division, after a poor first half to the season under Colin Lee.

Results continued to remain indifferent though and the side eventually finished 12th.

Jones was dismissed by Wednesday in December 2013.

After a three-year absence from management, he was appointed manager at Hartlepool United in January 2017.

Jones started his professional career with Everton in his home city of Liverpool.

He played as a defender with the team for seven years, during which time he represented England at youth and under-21 level.