Stuart Baxter

Stuart William Baxter (born 16 August 1953) is an English-Scottish football coach and former player who is the manager of Swedish club Helsingborg.

Born in England of Scottish parentage, and brought up in both countries, Baxter played professionally for a number of clubs in England, Scotland, Australia, Sweden and in the United States.

He has previously managed clubs in Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Japan, South Africa, Turkey and India.

In international football, he has managed South Africa twice as well as Finland and the England under-19 team.

Stuart Baxter was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, on 16 August 1953.

His Scottish father, Bill Baxter, was a professional footballer then playing for Wolverhampton Wanderers and later for Aston Villa.

Stuart initially grew up in England, while his father was coaching at Aston Villa, before the family moved to Scotland, where Bill had managerial jobs with East Fife and Raith Rovers.

During this time, Stuart was educated at Buckhaven High School in Fife.

As a result of his background, Baxter is variously described as being English, Scottish or an Anglo-Scot in the media; he has commented on his identity, saying, "If I'm mentioned for a job in Scotland, they call me a Scot. If I'm mentioned for a job in England, they call me an Englishman. I call myself a European".

He has also described himself as "a mongrel" and "proud to be British, although I feel more European".

Baxter began his playing career with Preston North End in 1973.

He joined Scottish club Dundee United in October 1975, but was released the following month after playing only for the reserve team.

He then returned to England with Stockport County.

Baxter then moved to Australia, Sweden and the United States respectively with South Melbourne FC, Helsingborgs IF and San Diego Sockers.

While playing for South Melbourne, Baxter was called up to train with the Australia national team, and played for Australia in unofficial matches against a Queensland XI and Partizan Belgrade in 1979.

As he had not obtained Australian citizenship, he had to be withdrawn from the squad to play against New Zealand when the match was classified as an official international.

Baxter returned to Scandinavia to begin his coaching career; he worked with Örebro SK's youth team.

His playing career ended in 1983.

In 1986, he was appointed manager of minor Norwegian side IF Skarp.

The following year he landed a larger managerial role with Portuguese team Vitória de Setúbal before returning to Sweden for a three-year stint at Halmstads BK between 1988 and 1991.

In his first year with Halmstad he guided them to promotion to the Allsvenskan but the club was relegated at the end of his tenure.

Baxter moved to Japan to first coach Sanfrecce Hiroshima, between 1992 and 1994, and then Vissel Kobe, in 1997.

He took over as manager of Kobe only days after an earthquake caused devastation in the city and spent two weeks living in a makeshift caravan in the club car park.

In 1998, Baxter was bought back to Sweden by AIK, where he guided them to the Swedish championship.

Having qualified for the UEFA Champions League, Baxter took AIK into the group stages where the Swedish champions played against some of Europe's largest teams, such as Barcelona, Arsenal and Fiorentina.

Unsurprisingly, AIK finished bottom of the group.

After two years, he moved to Norwegian side Lyn Oslo.

Baxter was hired by the Football Association to coach the England Under-19 team in 2002.

After two years, he was hired as South Africa's manager.

As guests of the 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup, he led South Africa to the Quarter Finals before being eliminated via a penalty shootout by Panama'''.

''' By autumn 2005, he quit this role having failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup.

He later had another short spell at Vissel Kobe before moving back to Helsingborg, this time as manager in 2006.

He took the Swedish side past the group stages of the UEFA Cup in 2007 but he resigned at the end of the year.

At the beginning of 2008, Baxter was appointed manager of Finland national team on a two-year contract.

In January 2009 it was announced that he had signed an extended contract that would keep him in charge of the Finland team through the 2012 European Championships campaign.

In June 2010, Baxter was strongly linked with a possible director of football position at Celtic to work alongside new manager Neil Lennon, however these hopes came to nothing as Celtic were unable to agree a settlement for Baxter's services with the Football Association of Finland.

During the autumn of 2010, the Finland national team lost important matches against Moldova and Hungary, which led to widespread hopes for Baxter's resignation made public by the national team supporters, the media and the country's leading football pundits.

It turned out, too, that Baxter had failed to establish communicative relationships with some of the key players in the squad, favouring certain players instead.

Baxter, however, refused to resign, attacking journalists for not understanding football well enough in order to evaluate his performance as a manager.

The Football Association of Finland did not sack Baxter either, citing, e.g., financial reasons.