Mike Speight is a former English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 footballer who had a long spell with Sheffield United and later had a five–month caretaker manager stint at Chester City

Chester City F.C.

Chester City Football Club was an English football team from Chester. The club was founded as Chester F.C., and joined the Football League in 1931, spending most of their time in the lower divisions. They changed their name to Chester City in 1983. Chester won their first league title in 2004, the...

 in 1984–85

1984-85 in English football

The 1984–85 season was the 105th season of competitive football in England.-Bradford City disaster:56 spectators died and more than 200 were injured when a fire ripped through the Main Stand at Valley Parade during Bradford City's Third Division fixture with Lincoln City on 11 May...

.

Playing career

A midfielder, Speight made 199 Football League appearances for Sheffield United after signing full professional forms in 1969. One of the highlights of this spell was being part of the England B

England B national football team

England B is a secondary football team run occasionally as support for the England national football team. At times they have played other nations' full teams; they have also played matches against 'B' teams from other football associations...

 side on their tour of Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 and Oceania

Oceania

Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...

. He left after a testimonial in 1980 for Blackburn Rovers for a reported £60,000, having rejected the chance to join Bobby Robson's

Bobby Robson

Sir Robert William "Bobby" Robson, CBE was an English footballer and manager, who coached seven European clubs and the England national team during his career....

 Ipswich Town

Ipswich Town F.C.

Ipswich Town Football Club are an English professional football team based in Ipswich, Suffolk. As of 2011, they play in the Football League Championship, having last appeared in the Premier League in 2001–02....

 side two years earlier. He made 51 league appearances for Rovers before moving on to Grimsby Town in the summer of 1982. After a further 40 league appearances, Speight moved on again two years later.

Managerial career

In August 1984 Speight joined Chester as player–coach as he sought to achieve his ambition of managing a Football League

The Football League

The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...

 club by the age of 35. The sacking of manager John McGrath four months later meant Speight achieved his ambition as he become caretaker–manager, a role he held until the end of the season. Speight instilled new belief in the side as it pulled away from the bottom of Division Four, with new signing Stuart Rimmer

Stuart Rimmer

Stuart Rimmer is an English former footballer who is Chester City's record goalscorer. He scored 134 league goals in two spells for Chester, and also represented seven other clubs during his professional career....

 from Everton proving a prolific capture.

Despite the impressive run of results, Speight had to stand aside in July 1985 when former Wigan Athletic manager Harry McNally was appointed the new Chester boss. Speight had earlier in the year been announced as manager, but he had not signed a contract and had been openly critical of the way the club operated, saying it was "run on an amateur level right through the place".

Speight continued playing for the club in the early weeks of the 1985-86

1985-86 in English football

The 1985–86 season was the 106th season of competitive football in England.- First Division :The championship crown went to Liverpool for the 16th time in their history at the end of their first season under the management of Kenny Dalglish, but they had to fight off some very stiff competition to...

 season but he began looking for new opportunities and took up a management post in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 midway through the campaign, after a brief spell with Rhyl

Rhyl F.C.

Rhyl Football Club is a Welsh football club, playing in the Cymru Alliance.The club was founded in 1882 and the team plays its home matches at Belle Vue, Rhyl, which can accommodate 3,000 spectators.- History :Few clubs in the Welsh Premier League have as distinguished a past as Rhyl's...

.

He still lives in Norway, where he has been head coach at several clubs, including Sogndal, Moss

Moss F.K.

Moss Fotballklubb is a Norwegian football club, founded on August 28, 1906. They currently play in the Fair Play ligaen, the third highest division in the Norwegian football league system. They played in the Norwegian Premier League between 1937-1939, 1953-1954, 1977-1985 , 1987-1990 , 1996 and...

, Sprint/Jeløy and Mjøndalen. On 23 November 2007, he was appointed offensive coach at Vålerenga.