Geoff Horsfield

Geoffrey Malcolm Horsfield (born 1 November 1973) is an English former professional footballer and football coach.

He made more than 300 appearances in the Football League playing as a striker.

He was a "strong and forceful" player, able to hold the ball up in order to bring other players into the game.

Horsfield made his Football League debut with Scarborough as a teenager.

Released by the club, he returned to part-time football with Halifax Town, Guiseley and Witton Albion, before a second spell at Halifax saw him help the club regain their Football League status.

He moved on to Fulham, with whom he achieved promotion to the First Division, before joining Birmingham City for a club record fee.

He continued playing football part-time, with Athersley, with Worsbrough Bridge in the Northern Counties East League, and with Football League club Scarborough, where he turned professional in July 1992.

Given his league debut in March 1993 by manager Ray McHale, he was released after playing 12 league matches and returned to bricklaying and part-time football.

After a nine-game spell with Halifax Town in 1994, he rejoined manager McHale at Guiseley, where his goals helped the club to reach third place in the Northern Premier League Premier Division in the 1994–95 season.

During the following season he moved on to Witton Albion, where he scored 6 goals in 26 appearances in all competitions.

However, he also sustained a potentially career-threatening knee injury; after making a full recovery he returned to Halifax for a fee reported as £4,000.

Horsfield made his second debut for Halifax in October 1996.

On the last day of the 1996–97 season, needing to beat Stevenage Borough to avoid relegation from the Conference, Horsfield scored the goal that clinched a 4–2 victory.

The following season, Halifax won the Conference title by a nine-point margin, thus regaining their Football League status.

Horsfield's 30 goals in 40 league games, including hat-tricks against Yeovil Town, Telford United and Hereford United, made him that season's Conference top scorer.

Together with teammate Mark Bradshaw, Horsfield was selected for England's semi-professional representative team for a match against their Dutch counterparts, but injury prevented him from playing.

In the Conference, Horsfield had still been working in the building trade while playing football part-time, but promotion to the Football League meant he had to give up his job to become a full-time footballer.

Seven goals in his first ten games in the Third Division attracted a bid from Fulham, then in the Second Division and managed by Kevin Keegan.

An initial fee of £300,000 was agreed, plus an additional £50,000 depending on appearances, and in October 1998 Horsfield joined Fulham.

A clause was also included in the contract which would allow Halifax a share of the profits from any future sale.

The remainder of his 1998–99 season produced 15 goals from 28 games as Fulham won the Second Division title by 14 clear points.

He was also named in the PFA's Second Division Team of the Year.

Though less prolific in the First Division, seven league goals and another seven in the cups still made him the club's top scorer for the 1999–2000 season.

After new manager Jean Tigana made it clear that Horsfield's aggressive style and perceived lack of pace and mobility would not fit the way he wanted his new team to play, and brought in Louis Saha as his main striker, the player agreed to join Fulham's First Division rivals Birmingham City.

In July 2000, Horsfield signed a five-year contract with Birmingham, who paid a club record fee of £2.25 million, £350,000 of which went to Halifax Town under the sell-on clause.

He was their top scorer in his first season, finding the net on twelve occasions, and his two goals in the second leg of the League Cup semi-final helped the club reach their first major final for nearly 40 years.

In the starting eleven for the final against his boyhood heroes Liverpool, Horsfield had been substituted by the time Birmingham lost in a penalty shoot-out.

He played in the final of the 2001 League Cup with Birmingham, and the following season helped them reach the Premier League.

In the 2001–02 season, Horsfield was chosen Player of the Year both by Birmingham's fans and by his teammates.

His strike partnership with Stern John proved crucial in the unbeaten run which helped Birmingham reach the First Division play-offs, and he scored the equaliser against Norwich City in the play-off final, which the club went on to win on penalties to earn promotion to the Premier League.

Horsfield had promised a donation to his first club, Athersley Rec, if he ever reached the Premiership; a few days after the play-off victory he gave them £25,000 towards improving their facilities.

Horsfield's first Premier League goal came in the September 2002 local derby defeat of Aston Villa.

After a short period at Wigan Athletic in 2003, he joined West Bromwich Albion, with whom he again won promotion to the Premier League.

In 2006, he moved to Sheffield United, but much of his time there was spent on loan to other clubs, namely Leeds United, Leicester City and Scunthorpe United.

Horsfield announced his retirement from football in 2008 after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, but after successful treatment he resumed his career, signing a six-month contract for Lincoln City in January 2009.

In July of that year he was appointed player-assistant manager at Port Vale under Micky Adams, and the following summer he took up coaching full-time, before leaving the game completely in May 2012.

In March 2013 he returned to playing football for Alvechurch.

Horsfield was born in Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire.

His father, Terry, was a coal miner, as was his grandfather.

While still a schoolboy he started playing football for a men's team, Athersley Recreation, in the Barnsley Sunday League, and had an unsuccessful trial with home-town club Barnsley F.C. On leaving school, Horsfield took a college course in bricklaying.