Roy Hodgson returns to the world of football coaching, at the age of seventy-eight.
The former English coach took over the leadership of Bristol City, which plays in the second division, today, Friday, two years after leaving his last coaching position at Crystal Palace in the English Premier League, following a health problem, amid widespread reports of his dismissal.
Hodgson is considered one of the most respected coaches in world football, having held coaching positions around the world over the past fifty years, and among his many previous clubs is Bristol City, where he worked in the early 1980s as assistant coach, and then briefly as technical director, in his first position at the adult level in English football.
Hodgson said about assuming leadership of the team, which is ranked 16th in the English Championship League, which includes 24 teams: “I have had fruitful discussions with the board of directors, and I am very excited about this opportunity to contribute until the end of the season. We will start work immediately.”
His first match as coach will be against Charlton on April 3, and his contract extends until the end of the season.
Hodgson began his long and traveling coaching career in 1976 with Halmstad in Sweden.
Since then, he has coached prestigious clubs such as Inter Milan and Liverpool, and also led the England national team from 2012 to 2016.
Charlie Boss, Bristol City Chief Executive, said: “Roy’s appointment goes beyond just the results of the next seven games. Over the remainder of the season, he will help us establish the standards and values we need at the club to achieve future success.”
He added: “There are older managers in the world of football. Hodgson has already made history as the oldest coach in the history of the English Premier League, but he is still young compared to Ivor Powell.”
Powell, a former Wales international, entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2006 as the world’s oldest working football coach, at the age of 90. At the time, Powell was a coach at the University of Bath, where, at the age of 86, he helped a student team reach the first round of the FA Cup in 2002.
Romania’s current coach is eighty-year-old Mircea Lucescu, whose team lost in the World Cup qualifying round on Thursday.
