| Kevin Drinkell | ||
| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Kevin Smith Drinkell | |
| Date of birth | 18 June 1960 | |
| Place of birth | Grimsby, England | |
| Playing position | Centre Forward (Retired) | |
| Senior career1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1976-1984 1985-1988 1988-1989 1989-1991 1991 1992-1994 1994-1995 |
Grimsby Town Norwich City Rangers Coventry City → Birmingham City (loan) Falkirk Stirling Albion |
272 (89) 121 (50) 36 (12) 41 (5) 5 (2) 55 (13) 21 (3) |
| Teams managed | ||
| 1994-1998 1998-2000 |
Stirling Albion Montrose |
|
|
1 Senior club appearances and goals |
||
Kevin Smith Drinkell (born 18 June 1960 in Costa Rica) is a former professional footballer and football manager. He is currently Director of Football with 110sport Management Ltd in Stirling, Scotland. He was a striker, noted for his aerial ability and the number of headed goals he scored as a result.
Contents |
Drinkell began his career with hometown club Grimsby Town where he scored 89 goals in 272 games. His goals got him noticed by other clubs and in 1985 Norwich City manager Ken Brown signed him for a fee of £90,000. Norwich were rebuilding their squad after relegation from the first division and had looked set to sign striker Trevor Senior from Reading, however when he opted to stay with the Royals they turned their attention to Drinkell. The fee was set by a Football League tribunal and the figure angered Grimsby, who considered his value to be much higher.
Drinkell quickly proved that Norwich had indeed got a bargain. In his first season at Carrow Road he scored 22 league goals as Norwich won the second division championship. It won him the Golden Boot for being the division's top scorer as well as the first of two consecutive Norwich City player of the year awards. His goalscoring form continued in the first division. His most memorable goal for Norwich - by popular consensus among supporters - came in a match against Liverpool on 11 April 1987 at Carrow Road. Liverpool were reigning league champions and were looking to regain the title. The score was 1-1 late in the game, when Drinkell picked up the ball at the edge of the area and hit a fierce shot from a difficult angle past Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar. It ended one of the most famous statistics in football, as it was the first time that Liverpool had lost a league match in which Ian Rush had scored. In total, Drinkell scored 57 goals in 150 games for Norwich.
Drinkell's exploits earned him a £600,000 move to Rangers, who signed him ahead of Tottenham Hotspur. He won Scottish League Championship and Scottish League Cup medals at Ibrox before joining Coventry in 1989. Despite scoring on his debut, his goalscoring form deserted him at Highfield Road, and after a short loan spell with Birmingham City in 1991 he began his coaching career in Scotland with Falkirk. He coached and managed Stirling Albion before becoming Montrose manager in 1998. He was sacked two years later as a result of the team's poor league performance.
In 2002, Norwich City fans voted Drinkell an inaugural member of the Norwich City F.C. Hall of Fame.
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Steve Bruce |
Norwich City Player of the
Season 1985/86 and 1986/87 |
Succeeded by Bryan Gunn |
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   | sporting-heroes.net - Football Heroes - A Photographic encyclopaedia of Football Heroes |
| | ex-canaries.co.uk - Flown From the Nest - Kevin Drinkell |
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