George Burley

George Elder Burley (born 3 June 1956) is a Scottish former football player and manager.

He had a professional career spanning 21 years as a player, making 628 league appearances and earning 11 Scotland caps.

He joined Ipswich Town in 1972 as an apprentice and made his senior debut against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 1973, being given the job of marking George Best.

His most successful spell came while at Ipswich Town making 394 senior appearances, and being part of the squad that won the FA Cup and UEFA Cup in 1978 and 1981 respectively.

In 1978, he was a member of the Ipswich side which upset the odds to defeat Arsenal 1–0 in the FA Cup final.

However, in 1981 injury forced him out of Ipswich's UEFA Cup final triumph over AZ Alkmaar.

Town missed out on the First Division title on the last day of the season, finishing runners-up to Aston Villa.

In 1985, he joined Sunderland after making 500 appearances for Ipswich, and was part of the Sunderland team that slipped into the Third Division in 1987, only to win promotion a year later.

He played for Gillingham in the 1988–89 season, but was unable to prevent them from being relegated to the Fourth Division.

He moved back to Scotland in 1989 to play for Motherwell.

Burley received eleven Scotland caps.

Burley's managerial career began in 1990 with Ayr United and has since spent spells at seven different clubs, including an eight-year spell back at Ipswich Town as manager, which included a promotion to the Premier League and guiding the club to a fifth place league finish at that level.

Burley joined Ayr United as a player-manager in 1991, succeeding Ally MacLeod.

In his first season, he took United to the B&Q Centenary Cup Final and again reached the final of the competition (by then renamed the B&Q Challenge Cup) the following season.

However, he did not succeed in taking Ayr back to the Premier League and was dismissed in 1993 for adverse results with the side's place in the First Division in serious jeopardy.

Burley moved briefly to Falkirk in 1993 as a player before returning to Motherwell as player-coach.

In June 1994 Burley returned to East Anglia as player-manager of Colchester United.

He played seven first team games and managed the club for 20 matches, 8 of which they won, before returning to Ipswich Town in December.

Burley was appointed manager at his former club, with Dale Roberts as his assistant, having had talks with Town without Colchester knowing and so compensation was duly paid.

He made his playing return for Ipswich, ten years after his last game for the club in a match against Motherwell in 1995 although didn't feature again as a player.

During an eight-year reign he took Ipswich to three play-offs semi finals before finally winning promotion to the Premier League on the fourth attempt via the play-offs at Wembley beating Barnsley 4–2.

The following season, he guided the club to fifth place and qualification for the UEFA Cup.

This earned him the 2000–01 Premier League Manager of the Season award.

Relegation the following season saw Burley's side struggling at the foot of Football League First Division and his contract was terminated by mutual agreement in 2002.

In November 2002, Burley was on the verge of taking over as Stoke City manager, but he had a late change of heart and declined the offer.

In 2003, Burley became interim manager of Derby County while permanent manager John Gregory was suspended.

Burley managed to halt Derby's alarming slide towards the relegation zone of the First Division (just one season after relegation from the Premier League) and kept the club up comfortably.

Burley was then appointed manager permanently when Gregory was sacked.

The following season (2003–04) was often a struggle, with Derby actually finishing two places lower than the season before, but there were signs of improvement.

This showed through in the 2004–05 season when, despite spending no money on new players, Burley transformed Derby from relegation contenders to a fourth-place finish and play-off semi-finalists.

However, things were not as happy as they seemed on the surface with Burley's relationship with director of football Murdo Mackay and the club's board (who sold star player Tom Huddlestone without informing Burley) being very strained.

After days of speculation and mudslinging, Burley announced his resignation from Derby in June 2005.

Burley was appointed manager of Heart of Midlothian on 30 June 2005.

On 24 January 2008 he was appointed manager of the Scotland national team.

He was sacked on 16 November 2009, following a 3–0 defeat to Wales.

His nephew, Craig, is also a former Scotland international footballer.

Burley was born in Cumnock, East Ayrshire.

Burley again applied for the job in 2012, losing out to Mick McCarthy.

He was later critical of how the club was being run, in 2017, following the club's lowest finishing in nearly 60 years, stating that:"The tradition of this club, with what Alf Ramsey, Bobby Robson and even myself achieved shouldn't be forgotten. Right now, Ipswich should be contesting for the top six in the Championship every year at the very least – that's where I think they should be. I was at the club for 21 years as a player and manager and the standard never dropped below that. That's the level Ipswich Town should be endeavouring to be at again. That's where they should expect to be. It's that type of club.When I took over in 1994 the first thing I said was I wanted to take the club back into Europe and we did that."

Burley again showed interest in the Ipswich job following Mick McCarthy's exit in 2018, but he again lost out in favour of Paul Hurst.