Alan Stubbs (born 6 October 1971) is an English football manager and former professional footballer.
As a player he was a centre-back who played top flight football for every club he played for. He played in the Premier League with Bolton Wanderers, Everton, Sunderland and Derby County as well as a five-year spell in the Scottish Premiership with Celtic. He was capped once at England B level.
Following retirement in 2008 through a knee injury, Stubbs then worked as a coach for Everton, and started his management career with Hibernian in 2014. He led Hibernian to a Scottish Cup victory in 2016, then had a brief tenure at Rotherham United. After working as a pundit for BT Sport, he was manager at St Mirren for 3 months in 2018.
Club career
Bolton Wanderers
Born in Kirkby, Lancashire, Stubbs started his career at Bolton Wanderers, turning professional in 1990 when they were members of the Football League Third Division. He played 23 league games that season but it was a disappointing first season at Burnden Park for Stubbs as his side missed out on automatic promotion on goal difference and were beaten by Tranmere Rovers in the playoff final. He remained a regular player in 1991–92 but this campaign brought further frustration as Bolton finished 13th in the Third Division and manager Phil Neal was dismissed to make way for Bruce Rioch.
Stubbs remained part of Rioch's plans as Bolton began 1992–93 in the new Division Two (following the creation of the FA Premier League and the renumbering of the three remaining Football League divisions) and scored twice in 42 league appearances as they sealed promotion as runners-up. He became club captain soon afterwards and in 1994–95 led them through their best season in years where they reached Wembley twice. The first visit to Wembley came in March, where they reached the Football League Cup final for the first time in their history, only to lose 2–1 to Liverpool. The return to Wembley for the Division One playoff final two months later was a happier occasion for Stubbs and his colleagues, though for 75 minutes it looked as though it would be another disappointment as Bolton trailed 2–0 to Reading in the contest for a place in the Premier League. But a remarkable turnaround saw them drawing 2–2 after 90 minutes to force extra time, and they went on to win 4–3 and return to the top flight for the first time since 1980.
Before the start of the season, Bolton manager Bruce Rioch departed to Arsenal and attempted to bring Stubbs with him, but this was unsuccessful.
Stubbs remained with Bolton throughout their 1995–96 campaign, their first in the top flight for 16 years, which was mostly spent in the bottom two places of the table and ended with them being relegated in bottom place.
Celtic
He joined Celtic on 10 July 1996 for £4 million, a record signing for Celtic and at the time the second biggest sale for Bolton. The deal became subject of scrutiny from FIFA, who initially fined Celtic £41,000 and Stubbs £28,000 for the use of unlicensed agents during the transfer. These fines were later reduced to £22,000 and £18,000 respectively on appeal.
His first season at Celtic, 1996–97, saw him play regularly but Stubbs did little to justify his expensive transfer fee as Rangers clinched their ninth successive Scottish League championship.
The following season (1997–98 season) saw a new manager, Wim Jansen, in charge at Celtic and a new partner in central defence alongside Stubbs, Danish international Marc Rieper. Both these factors saw an upturn in Stubbs' fortunes at Celtic, and his pairing with Rieper in defence made Celtic a much more formidable obstacle to rivals Rangers. After an initial shaky start to the season, Celtic began to find their form and Stubbs picked up his first winner's medal on 30 November 1997 with Celtic beating Dundee United 3–0 in the Scottish League Cup Final.
Stubbs is probably best remembered for his injury time goal 11 days earlier (19 November 1997) in a 1–1 draw with Rangers, which kept Rangers lead in the league at the time over Celtic to a recoverable 4 points. Many believe that this was the most important goal of the season for Celtic; they would later go on to overtake Rangers in the league and win the Scottish Premier Division that season, their first league title since 1988, and prevent Rangers from securing a record-breaking 10 league titles in a row.