Former Birmingham City and Fulham star lands first managerial job at 38

Former Birmingham City goalkeeper David Stockdale has been given his first permanent role in football management.

The 38-year-old recently took charge of Blyth Spartans on a caretaker basis following the departure of Nolberto Solano and has now been confirmed on as their new permanent boss.

Stockdale oversaw a 1-0 win against Workington in the the league and guided them to the second qualifying round of the FA Cup after defeating Campion in a replay. He will will now be tasked of steering them away from the relegation zone in the Non League Premier which is the seventh tier of English football.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” said Stockdale to the official club website.

“A lot of hard work has gone into this for the last 10 to 14 days, to like say the interview I did about bringing one team together and when I say one team it’s the whole club as we want the fans to come along with us.

“Again it could be the old rollercoaster cliche but things are starting to develop and I’m really happy where the lads are starting off and I’ve just said to them tonight that this is the start as we want the feeling from Workington every week.”

Since taking on the reins, Stockdale has dipped his toes in to the transfer market and recruited former Birmingham City and Wolves utility man Greg Halford. Halford is more remembered for his time at Wolves having spent a year of his career at Molineux, but had a brief spell at St Andrew's in 2015/16, making three appearances when Gary Rowett was in charge.

As for Stockdale, he was contracted to Birmingham City from 2017 to 2020, and joined having helped Brighton & Hove Albion win promotion to the Premier League. He made 36 appearances in his first campaign, and played under both Harry Redknapp and Steve Cotterill, but fell out of favour under Garry Monk.

For the rest of his time at Birmingham he was limited to one appearance in the Carabao Cup, and then had loan spells at Southend United, Wycombe Wanderers and Coventry City. He signed for Wycombe permanently and then later went on to play for Stevenage, Sheffield Wednesday, and York City. He was the director of football at York last season but was released in the summer.

The other former clubs in Stockdale's career include Fulham, where he played for them 52 times with 39 appearances coming in the Premier League. He was loaned out to Rotherham United, leicester City, Plymouth Argyle, Ipswich Town, and Hull City too.