David Wetherall

David Wetherall (born 14 March 1971) is an English football coach and former professional footballer, who is an academy strategic advisor at Huddersfield Town.

As a player, he was a central defender, he played most of his career in the Premier League for Leeds United and Bradford City.

He started his playing career with Sheffield Wednesday but having failed to make an appearance, he transferred to Leeds and made more than 200 appearances.

After this he joined Bradford City for a then club-record fee of £1.4 million and played every minute of every match in his first season for the club and scored the decisive goal which kept the club in the premier league on the final day of the season.

Wetherall was born in Sheffield, he supported Sheffield Wednesday as a child, He was capped by England at schoolboy level, and in 1989, when he left school, he signed for Wednesday under the management of Howard Wilkinson.

Wetherall had attended Rotherham sixth form college where he achieved four A-levels at grade A, and chose to study for his BSc in chemistry at the University of Sheffield, so that he could live at home with his parents and combine his education with playing for Sheffield Wednesday's reserve team.

In 1990, he was part of a British squad which travelled to Italy for the world student five-a-side football championship, and represented Great Britain as they won the association football bronze medal at the 1991 World Student Games hosted in Sheffield.

Wilkinson, by then Leeds United manager, returned to his former club in July 1991 to sign two young centre-backs, Jon Newsome first and Wetherall a few days later, for a combined fee of £275,000.

The 20-year-old Wetherall's first season at Leeds was the final year of his degree course, so he played for the reserves while training part-time.

He made a brief debut in the First Division, on 3 September 1991 at Elland Road as a late substitute against Arsenal; Leeds went on to win the 1991–92 league title.

He remembers it as "With 20 minutes to go, we were 2–1 down and I was on the touchline ready to go on, then Lee Chapman scored and the gaffer (Howard Wilkinson) told me to sit down again. But he threw me on for the last two minutes. I always tell people that made the difference in winning the title!"

As his teammates took the league trophy on a celebratory open top bus tour, Wetherall chose to revise for his examinations, a decision he came to regret, because "those experiences don't come around that often".

Though the revision bore fruit: he graduated with first-class honours.

He graduated with a first-class honours degree in 1992, becoming the first Premier League player to achieve such a qualification.

Wetherall made his first start for Leeds in the newly formed Premier League in September 1992 against Southampton, scored his first goal for the club the following March to secure a draw at home to Chelsea and finished the 1992–93 season with 13 league appearances.

He "noticed a massive difference in [his] fitness coming in full-time after just having two blasts a week."

In the 1993–94 season, he established himself as a regular first-team player.

The following season, he scored in a 2–1 defeat of defending champions Manchester United, and continued his knack of scoring vital goals with a last-minute equaliser to avoid an embarrassing defeat by Walsall of Division Three in the 1995 FA Cup.

In the replay, he scored for both Leeds and Walsall, the own goal taking the match into extra time.

Leeds finished in fifth place in the league, and Wetherall was chosen manager Wilkinson's player of the season.

Wilkinson also singled him out for praise for his performance in a 3–0 UEFA Cup first-round win against AS Monaco in Monaco in September 1995, though they were heavily defeated by PSV Eindhoven in the next round.

Wetherall played in the League Cup Final in 1996, his first major final, but Leeds were outclassed, beaten 3–0 by Aston Villa.

In the 1996–97 season, Wetherall played less regularly as new manager George Graham experimented with defensive combinations, though by the following season he had re-established himself in the starting eleven, sometimes acting as captain, and signed a new five-year contract.

On 27 September 1997, he scored in the 1–0 victory over arch-rivals Manchester United when Roy Keane's knee was badly injured in the act of fouling Alfie Haaland, who then accused Keane of feigning injury.

Keane later took revenge on Haaland during a Manchester derby and said to Haaland as he lay on the ground: "And don't ever stand over me again sneering about fake injuries, and tell your pal Wetherall there's some for him as well."

Later that season Wetherall was among the Leeds travelling party who escaped unhurt as their aircraft crash-landed after an engine caught fire on takeoff.

When David O'Leary replaced Graham as manager it became clear that his centre-back pairing of choice would be Lucas Radebe and the 18-year-old Jonathan Woodgate, so Wetherall decided to leave Leeds for a club where he could play regular first-team football.

A transfer to nearby Huddersfield Town fell through after terms had been agreed, and the player's reluctance to move house while wife Caroline was heavily pregnant with their second son caused him to reject an offer from Southampton.

After eight years with Leeds, having scored 18 goals from 250 games in all competitions, he accepted an offer from fellow West Yorkshire club Bradford City.

Bradford City signed Wetherall for a club record £1.4 million, to give experience to a side who had just been promoted to the Premier League.

Wetherall was aged just 28, but manager Paul Jewell had made a number of signings aged over 30, prompting journalists to call his team "Dad's Army".

Bradford won their first game 1–0 with a last-minute goal at Middlesbrough scored by Dean Saunders who started a celebration pouring scorn at the club's cynics.

Wetherall's first goal for Bradford was in a League Cup game at Reading before he scored again in the following round as Bradford were knocked out by Barnsley.

His first league goal came in a 2–0 win against Newcastle United on 18 December.

Wetherall missed only two cup game for Bradford City during his first season, and was the only player in the Premier League to have played every minute of the league season.

His partnership with the emerging Andy O'Brien in central defence was the front line in Bradford's survival attempt.

Wetherall became the team captain, later finishing his playing career at the end of the 2007–08 season.

He had two spells as caretaker manager of Bradford City, and was an integral part of club's coaching setup following his retirement as a player.

He left Bradford in June 2011 after 12 years with the club to take up a position with the Football League.

He was inducted into Show Racism The Red Card's hall of fame for his involvement in their anti-racism campaign.