| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Colin Dobson[1] | ||
| Date of birth | (1940-05-09)9 May 1940[2] | ||
| Place of birth | Eston, England[3] | ||
| Date of death | 16 February 2023(2023-02-16) (aged 82) | ||
| Place of death | Middlesbrough, England | ||
| Height | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)[4] | ||
| Position | Inside-forward | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1955–1957 | Sheffield Wednesday | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1957–1966 | Sheffield Wednesday | 177 | (49) |
| 1966–1972 | Huddersfield Town | 155 | (50) |
| 1972 | →Brighton & Hove Albion (loan) | 4 | (0) |
| 1972–1976 | Bristol Rovers | 62 | (4) |
| Total | 398 | (103) | |
| International career | |||
| 1961 | England U23 | 2 | (0) |
| Managerial career | |||
| 1984–1985 | West Riffa | ||
| 1985–1987 | Al Rayyan | ||
| 1994–1995 | Al Arabi | ||
| 1997 | Oman U17 | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Colin Dobson (9 May 1940 – 16 February 2023) was an English professionalfootballer who played as aninside-forward. He also had a long career incoaching and coached domestic and national teams inArabia.
Dobson began his career withSheffield Wednesday in 1961 and went on to score 52 goals in 193 games for theFirst Division club. He was sold on toHuddersfield Town for a £20,000 fee in August 1966 and helped the club to theSecond Division title in 1969–70. He wasloaned out toBrighton & Hove Albion in 1972 before joiningBristol Rovers as a player-coach in the summer. He waspromoted out of theThird Division with Rovers in 1973–74. Over 15 years in theFootball League, he scored 103 goals in 398 league appearances. He also won twocaps for theEngland under-23s.
After retiring as a player, he embarked on an extensive career in coaching andscouting. He has managed the Bahraini clubWest Riffa, Qatari clubAl Rayyan, Kuwaiti sideAl Arabi, as well as theOman under-17s. He has worked behind the scenes for Bristol Rovers,Coventry City,Port Vale,Aston Villa,Sporting Lisbon (Portugal),Gillingham,Stoke City, andWatford.
At 15, Dobson began his career atSheffield Wednesday.[3] He became a part-time professional in November 1957 and turned fully professional in 1961.[4][5] Wednesday finished the1961–62 season in sixth place in theFirst Division under the stewardship ofVic Buckingham. He scored one goal in the1961–62Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, in a 5–2 home victory overLyon; Wednesday went on to reach the quarter-finals, where they were knocked out byBarcelona after a 2–0 defeat atCamp Nou. The "Owls" again posted sixth-place finishes in1962–63 and1963–64, before slipping to eighth position in1964–65 under new bossAlan Brown. They dropped down to 17th spot in1965–66. He was not selected for the1966 FA Cup final defeat toEverton.[4] In league and cup competitions, Dobson scored 52 goals in 193 first-team appearances atHillsborough.[6]
Dobson moved on toTom Johnston'sHuddersfield Town for a £20,000 fee in August 1966.[7] He made a significant impact with 17 goals in 39 games in the1966–67 season; strike partnerTony Leighton also claimed 20 goals to help Town to a sixth-place finish in theSecond Division. Dobson finished as the club'stop-scorer with 14 goals in 47 games in the1967–68 campaign, including one in theLeague Cup semi-final defeat toArsenal atHighbury. He was then a top-scorer for a second time as he bagged 11 goals in 43 matches in the1968–69 season, as new bossIan Greaves took the "Terriers" to within ten points ofpromotion. Dobson built a successful partnership withFrank Worthington and claimed nine goals in his 33 appearances as promotion was achieved with a first-place finish in1969–70. However, he appeared just 12 times in the1970–71 campaign, claiming one goal, and departedLeeds Road at the end of the season. He also played fourThird Division games atPat Saward'sBrighton & Hove Albion in January 1972 on aloan deal that was expected to be made permanent.[7][3] However, hefractured his ankle in the last of these games, his full home debut againstWalsall on 12 February.[3]
In June 1972, Dobson signed withBristol Rovers as aplayer-coach, having been a former teammate ofmanagerDon Megson at Sheffield Wednesday.[3] He had to wait until 24 November before he made his debut for the club, in a match againstSouthend United.[4] Rovers finished fifth in the Third Division in1972–73, before winning promotion in second place in1973–74. The team avoidedrelegation by a three-point margin in1974–75 and then by a five-point margin in1975–76. He scored four goals in 63 league and cup games during his time at theEastville Stadium.[8]
Dobson won twoEngland under-23caps in 1961, making his debut as asubstitute forAlan Suddick as England beatYugoslavia 4–2 inBelgrade on 29 May; his second cap came againstRomania four days later.[3] In the summer of 1968, he was selected bythe Football Association for aCommonwealth tour of the United States, New Zealand,Malaysia and Hong Kong.[7]
Dobson was a skilful and paceyinside-forward.[4]
Dobson left Bristol Rovers to become the youthcoach atCoventry City in May 1976.[4] He acted asPort Vale's coach voluntarily from December 1983 to March 1984 to help out former teammate turned managerJohn Rudge before managingWest Riffa in Bahrain.[9] Later he became the coach of Qatari sideAl Rayyan, before returning to England to take up the youth coach position atAston Villa. He also was the youth coach at PortugueseSporting Lisbon, the youth coach and chiefscout atGillingham, a coach back at the Coventry City youth set-up, before taking up the position as first-team coach of KuwaitiAl Arabi. In September 1995, he returned to Port Vale as a temporary coach and departedVale Park again in May 1996.[9] He went on to coachOman at the1997 FIFA U-17 World Championship in Egypt. He later worked as chief scout atStoke City and was credited with the discovery ofEngland international goalkeeperBen Foster.[10] He was appointed chief scout at theBritannia Stadium in 2000 by director of football John Rudge, but left to scout forWatford in June 2005, only to return to the "Potters" by 2008.[11][12] He left the club in June 2013.[13]
Dobson died inMiddlesbrough on 16 February 2023, at age 82.[4]
| Club | Season | League | FA Cup | Other[a] | Total | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| Sheffield Wednesday | 1961–62[8] | First Division | 28 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 33 | 12 |
| 1962–63[8] | First Division | 38 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 14 | |
| 1963–64[8] | First Division | 36 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 39 | 12 | |
| 1964–65[8] | First Division | 42 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 44 | 9 | |
| 1965–66[8] | First Division | 33 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 5 | |
| Total | 177 | 49 | 11 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 193 | 52 | ||
| Huddersfield Town | 1966–67[8] | Second Division | 37 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 39 | 17 |
| 1967–68[8] | Second Division | 39 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 47 | 14 | |
| 1968–69[8] | Second Division | 39 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 43 | 11 | |
| 1969–70[8] | Second Division | 31 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 33 | 9 | |
| 1970–71[8] | First Division | 9 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 1 | |
| 1971–72[8] | First Division | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| Total | 155 | 50 | 6 | 0 | 14 | 2 | 175 | 52 | ||
| Brighton & Hove Albion (loan) | 1971–72[8] | Third Division | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Bristol Rovers | 1972–73[8] | Third Division | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1 |
| 1973–74[8] | Third Division | 39 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 45 | 1 | |
| 1974–75[8] | Second Division | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 2 | |
| 1975–76[8] | Second Division | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 0 | |
| Total | 62 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 69 | 5 | ||
| Career total | 398 | 103 | 20 | 2 | 23 | 4 | 441 | 109 | ||
Huddersfield Town
Bristol Rovers