John Alexander Beck (born 25 May 1954) is an English former footballer and manager. As a player, he made nearly 500 English Football League appearances for five clubs between 1972 and 1989.
As a manager, he had a highly successful spell in charge of Cambridge United in the early 1990s, when he guided the club to two successive promotions and two successive quarter-final appearances in the FA Cup. Beck took the club from the Fourth Division to the Second and very nearly to the new Premier League at the end of the 1991–92 season, where they ended their campaign fifth in the Second Division, their highest ever league finish..
In 2010, he was appointed manager of Conference National club Histon, but resigned two games into the 2010–11 season.
Playing career
Beck started his playing career at Queens Park Rangers signing in May 1972 and made his debut in the 3–1 win against Leyton Orient in December 1972. Beck was unable to hold down a regular place in the immensely successful QPR side of the mid-1970s, competing with England captain Gerry Francis and Scottish international Don Masson for the creative midfield role. In 1976, the year that QPR finished second to Liverpool in the First Division, he moved to Coventry City after playing 40 league games for Rangers, scoring once. The 1977–78 season saw John Beck playing in what was arguably Coventry's most exciting top-flight team of all time. Gordon Milne's side containing Tommy Hutchison, Mick Ferguson, Ian Wallace, Terry Yorath, Graham Oakey, Bobby McDonald and Jim Blyth played scintillating attacking football that swept many teams aside, often by large margins of victory, although they failed to win any silverware or qualify for the UEFA Cup.
He later played for Fulham, AFC Bournemouth and finally joined Cambridge United in July 1986.
Managerial career
Beck's career was ended by injury in 1989, and he was appointed assistant manager at Cambridge. Following the resignation of Chris Turner he was appointed manager January 1990, with Cambridge mid table in the Fourth Division. In his first season United won the Fourth Division playoffs, and reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup – a rare achievement for a Fourth Division side. The following season (1990–91) they won the Third Division title after an excellent finish to the season saw them climb from 10th to top in less than three months, and they repeated the feat of reaching the FA Cup quarter-finals. During the Summer, Beck turned down the opportunity to manage Leicester City, saying he wanted to take the club all the way to the First Division. In fact he very nearly achieved this, as in 1991–92 they finished 5th in the Second Division, the highest position ever achieved by the club, but lost to Leicester City in the play-off semi-finals, ending their hopes of a third successive promotion (something which has still yet to be achieved in the English Football League) and denying them the chance of becoming Premier League founder members.
Beck's long ball playing style, despite its success, was heavily criticised in the media, and by fans and managers of other clubs, particularly Glenn Hoddle then of Swindon Town. Their style of play was similar to that of Wimbledon, who had climbed from the Fourth Division to the First in four seasons leading up to 1986, staying there for 14 years and winning an FA Cup just two seasons after promotion.
However, he remained popular with United fans for the success that he brought the club. He also oversaw many unorthodox developments at the club, including the tactical repositioning of the away team dugout, ensuring the grass around the corner area was longer so as to slow the ball down when played in that part of the pitch, and the practice of throwing buckets of cold water over players before a match.
The club made a poor start to the 1992–93 season, and Beck was dismissed in October 1992, marking the start of a sharp decline for the club; Cambridge ended the season relegated from the new Division One and just two years after that they fell into Division Three. That summer, he had sold top scorer Dion Dublin to Manchester United for £1million – although the player spent just two seasons at Old Trafford, he played top flight football for more than a decade and was capped four times by England. Other successful players to appear under Beck at Cambridge included striker Steve Claridge (who scored Leicester City's promotion-clinching goal in the 1996 Division One playoff final and the winning goal in their League Cup triumph a year later), and defenders Alan Kimble (who played seven seasons in the Premier League after joining Wimbledon) and Gary Rowett (who went on to play for four clubs in the Premier League).