West Ham United
Which team did Julian Dicks play for from 1988 to 1993?
Julian Dicks Julian Andrew Dicks ( born 8 August 1968 ) is an English football coach and manager and former professional footballer and professional golfer . He was most recently first-team coach at West Bromwich Albion . Playing from 1985 until 2002 , he was a defender , notably in the Premier League for West Ham United and Liverpool . He was voted West Hams player of the year four times between 1990 and 1997 . He also played in the Football League for Birmingham City where he started his footballing career , ending it in 2002 in non-league football with Canvey Island . He became manager of Wivenhoe Town in 2009 , before moving to Grays Athletic later that year . He was capped by both the England U21 and England B sides . He was known as a hard man adopting the nickname of The Terminator . He was a tough tackler with a strong shot in regular demand as a penalty and free-kick taker . Dicks had a reputation for poor on-field discipline which brought him to the attention of referees , the press and footballing authorities . Early life . Dicks was born in Keynsham Hospital , Bristol to mother , Carol and father Ron who worked as a fork-lift truck driver for Courage Brewery . Ron played non-league football with Keynsham Town , Welton Rovers , Frome Town and Shepton Mallet whom he would also go on to manage . Dicks attended Novers Lane Primary School , in Knowle , Bristol and Merrywood Boys Secondary School also in Knowle . At age 11 he was watched by former Tottenham Hotspur manager , Bill Nicholson who was scouting for West Ham United , but was turned down as he was not quick enough . At age 13 he was spotted playing by Ron Veal who was scouting for Aston Villa . Veal recommended him to Villa manager , Ron Saunders , however Saunders lost his job at Villa on 9 February 1982 . When he was appointed as manager of Birmingham City nine days later , Veal also changed his employer . Saunders was impressed when he watched Dicks play and he was offered a footballing apprenticeship with Birmingham City in 1982 when Dicks turned 14 . Career . Birmingham City . He started his footballing career at Birmingham City , aged 14 , having moved from his home in Bristol . Playing as an apprentice he worked his way through the youth and reserve set-ups before making his debut in 1985 in a 2–0 away defeat to Chelsea . In 1988 , he was signed by manager John Lyall for West Ham United , for £300,000 , giving him the chance of First Division football that Birminghams relegation in 1986 had denied him . Although Dicks had been booked 33 times and sent-off once in all competitions , in his four seasons with Birmingham City , Lyall identified potential in the player enthusing There was a great touch there . I wouldnt have signed just a physical player . West Ham United . Dicks made his debut for West Ham on 2 April 1988 in a Division One game against Sheffield Wednesday . West Ham lost the game 2–1 . He would go on to make eight appearances in the 1987-88 season , his first season with West Ham . The following season , he became a regular player and first choice left back for The Hammers , starting the first game of the season , a 4–0 away defeat to Southampton and playing 34 of a possible 38 games that season . The season also saw his first goal for the club in a 2–1 defeat at Highbury to Arsenal . It was a poor season for West Ham who were relegated to Division Two having finished one place off the bottom of the league in 19th place with 38 points . Relegation had seen the sacking of manager John Lyall and the appointment of Scot , Lou Macari . The new manager and Dicks exhibited a poor working relationship from the outset . Despite this , and with West Ham now playing second-tier football , Dicks retained his left back position and became their regular penalty taker following the exit of former first choice taker , Ray Stewart . Dicks became well known for his penalties . During his West Ham career he scored 35 , missing four . His first penalty success came on 23 September 1989 proving to be the only goal in a win against Watford . A future regular captain of the West Ham side , this season also saw his first captaincy , in a League Cup game on 19 September 1989 against his former club , Birmingham City , with manager Macari telling him Im making you captain today and Im making you penalty taker too . Dicks was often cautioned and sent off by referees . His first red-card was in a match versus Wimbledon in the Football League Cup in the 1989–90 season . It was an infamous encounter which included an on-pitch brawl between the opposing players . The fighting was sparked by a two-footed tackle by Wimbledon player , Dennis Wise on Dicks . Six players were booked with the game being described as a disgrace to football by journalist , Brian Woolnough . West Ham finished 7th in a season which saw the departure of Lou Macari and the appointment of former player , Billy Bonds as manager . Dicks and Bonds both had reputations as hard men and quarrelled frequently . Injury . The 1990-91 season saw the start of Dicks injury problems . On 13 October 1990 , playing in a game against Bristol City at Ashton Gate , Dicks hit a dip on the edge of the pitch , his foot going over the edge resulting in a loss of feeling in his left leg . He continued to play but after the game he could barely walk . Against the medical assessment of John Green , who was soon to take over as club physiotherapist , he was told to crash-on and in the words of manager Bonds if the knee goes , it goes . Green believed Dicks was in need of an operation on his knee cartilage . He was picked to play in the next game , against Swindon Town but lasted only 38 minutes . He played again in the next game on 24 October 1990 , against Blackburn Rovers but again had to be substituted . A knee operation followed and he would not play again until 21 December 1991 by which time West Ham had been promoted back to the First Division . Another relegation and promotion . He played in the second half of the 1991–92 season . Despite his presence , the team finished bottom of the First Division and missed out on the first season of the Premier League . The 1992–93 season was an eventful one for Dicks , mainly for the wrong reasons . He was sent off three times and picked up a string of bookings which saw him miss significant periods of the season and he was subsequently stripped of the captaincy by manager Bonds . His first dismissal came after he threw his elbow into the face of Newcastle United player Franz Carr . There had been no friction between the two players with Dicks saying of the incident Not to this day do I know why I did it . I had it in my mind that I was going to elbow him , and that was it — bang! . Only four games passed before he was dismissed again . In a game against Wolverhampton Wanderers , Dicks clashed with Paul Birch and Steve Bull before being sent-off , with Billy Bonds having to stop him attacking Birch who was still on the ground . Barely three months passed before his third dismissal of the season . In January 1993 after two bad fouls on Derby County midfielder Ted McMinn he was sent-off , having to be escorted from the pitch by teammate Clive Allen . Despite his disciplinary problems he earned a Division One runners-up medal as West Ham reached the Premier League . Despite his dismissals he played 34 league games of a possible 46 in the promotion season , scoring eleven goals , placing third in the list of highest goal scorers for that season behind only Clive Allen and Trevor Morley . Premier League and Liverpool transfer . Now playing in the Premier League for the first time , West Ham struggled in their first seven games . New signing Simon Webster had a long-term injury having had his leg broken by Dicks in a training session accident . Fellow new signee Dale Gordon had failed to make the impression on the side his transfer had intended . In a move engineered by West Hams then-Assistant Manager Harry Redknapp , Dicks was transferred in order to bring in new players . Liverpool manager Graeme Souness , on the recommendation of Redknapp , watched Dicks play in a West Ham match against Swindon Town on 11 September 1993 . Souness thought Dicks to be my kind of player and signed him for Liverpool that week in a swap deal which involved David Burrows and Mike Marsh moving to West Ham . Extra money received by West Ham from the transfer was used by Redknapp to buy veteran striker , Lee Chapman . Dicks signing had been part of an effort by Souness to toughen up the Liverpool team as he had planned to pair him with fellow hard man , Neil Ruddock . Dicks debut on 18 September came in a high-profile game against local rivals , Everton at Goodison Park . In an eventful game , Liverpool lost 2–0 . Former West Ham players , Mark Ward and Tony Cottee scored with Dicks mistake on the ball allowing Cottee to control it and score . The game was also memorable for the on-pitch fighting of Liverpool teammates Steve McManaman and Bruce Grobbelaar . By now a regular in the Liverpool side , Dicks scored his opening goal , a shot from 25 yards , in a 3–0 away win against Oldham Athletic in January 1994 . His discipline had also improved and he had yet to be booked whilst in Liverpool colours . Unfortunately for Dicks , Souness was proving to be an unpopular manager . He had dropped fans favourites Ian Rush and John Barnes to the reserve team due to perceived under performance and he had tried to integrate too many young and inexperienced players . In February 1994 after a shock FA Cup loss to Bristol City , a game in which Dicks did not play , the fans were calling for him to resign . Souness left Liverpool after three years in charge , in February 1994 . He was replaced by Roy Evans who had always disliked Dicks and his style of play . Working under Souness he had kept his opinions to himself . Now with Evans as Liverpool manager Dicks found himself out of favour . Dicks and Evans and his assistants Ronnie Moran and Steve Heighway , disagreed over training methods , Dicks fitness ( they considered him to be overweight ) and diet . Evans banished him to play with the reserve and to train with 15- and 16-year-olds . He played for Liverpool on 7 May 1994 in a 2–1 away defeat to Aston Villa . It proved to be his last first-team game for the club . The pre-season of the 1994-95 season started badly for Liverpool and for Dicks . Picked to play in a friendly game against Bolton Wanderers at Burnden Park on 26 July 1994 , Liverpool lost 4–1 . Evans was again critical of Dicks performance in the defeat ; tired of such criticism he asked for a move from the club . He had played 28 games for Liverpool in all competitions , scoring three goals , although Dicks has the honour of being the last Liverpool player to score in front of the standing Spion Kop at Anfield in a 1–0 win against Ipswich Town near the end of the 1993–94 season . His Liverpool career lasted only 13 months , a short time considering his former manager Souness had said of Dicks , if I was to pick the best 11 players Ive ever worked with , hed be one of them . Return to West Ham . On re-signing Dicks , manager Harry Redknapp commented that he believed that his chairman thought he was off his rocker because Dicks was considerably heavier than when he had departed for Liverpool a year earlier . His first game in his second spell for the Hammers , on 22 October 1994 , saw a 2–0 home win against Southampton and , in keeping with his reputation , Dicks was booked . Dicks played a major part in helping to keep West Ham in the Premier League in 1994–95 scoring five goals . The 1995–96 saw him equal highest goalscorer , with Tony Cottee , for West Ham in the Premier with ten league goals . This season also included a game as goalkeeper in a game against Everton on 19 December 1995 . Dicks took over the goalkeepers gloves after regular keeper , Ludek Miklosko had been sent-off for a foul on Daniel Amokachi . He let in two goals as Everton won 3–0 . He was named Man of the Match . In 1996–97 he scored twice in a crucial London derby against Tottenham Hotspur on 24 February 1997 at The Boleyn Ground that West Ham won 4–3 . Before the game West Ham had not won in nine games . The game signified the start of a fight back against relegation from the Premier League . West Ham had been in 18th place before the game but would go on the finish 14th at the end of the season . Another knee injury resulted in him missing the entire 1997–98 season . He did return to action in the 1998–99 season and West Ham finished fifth to qualify for the UEFA Cup , but his injury problems failed to go away and he was restricted to just nine Premier League games . West Ham then terminated his contract and he retired from professional football after a 14-year career , 11 years of which had been spent at West Ham . In two spells at West Ham , he had played 315 competitive games and scored 64 goals , many of them penalties . His final appearance for the club came against Arsenal on 6 February 1999 , with his final goal coming in the FA Cup against Swansea City on 2 January 1999 . In 2000 Dicks was granted a testimonial match by West Ham . On 13 August 2000 a West Ham eleven took on Spanish side Athletic Bilbao at the Boleyn Ground . The game was marred by a 17 player brawl in which West Ham player Igor Stimac was booked for a bad tackle and the West Ham captain for the day , Paolo Di Canio , slapped several Spanish players in the face . West Ham manager Harry Redknapp was ordered to remove Di Canio for the pitch to defuse the tension . Bilbao coach , Txetxu Rojo , was ordered to remove player Joseba Etxeberria for a similar reason . Bilbao won the game 2-1 Dicks received £200,000 from the game . Canvey Island . In 2001 , he made a brief return to football after signing for non-League Canvey Island . Only ten days after signing for Canvey Island , he was involved in an FA Cup shock . Playing against Football League side Wigan Athletic in the first round of the competition , Canvey turned-out 1-0 winners . The success continued in the next round . Again facing Football League opposition in Northampton Town , Canvey won 1–0 with a goal from Neil Gregory with a goal instigated with a move by Dicks . International career . Dicks made his debut for the England under-21 team in Lausanne , Switzerland in a friendly game against the Switzerland under-21 team on 28 May 1988 . The game finished 1–1 with the England goal being scored by Paul Gascoigne . Dicks performance convinced manager Dave Sexton to call him into the squad for the 1988 Toulon Tournament . He played in Englands first game of the competition against the Mexico under-21 team in the Stade Mayol in Toulon on 5 June 1988 . He was sent-off for a foul on a Mexican player . Undeterred by his sending-off , after missing one game through suspension , Sexton picked Dicks to play in the semi-final against the Morocco under-21 team and for the final against the France under-21 team which England lost 4–2 . Four years later , in 1992 , Dicks was called in to the England B team . He played only two games for the side ; a 1–0 win in the Stadion Střelecký ostrov stadium , Budweis , Czechoslovakia against the Czechoslovakia team and a 1–1 draw in the Luzhniki Stadium , Moscow against the CIS team . In 1995 England first team manager , Terry Venables , was putting together a squad to compete in Euro96 in England . Dicks performances had earlier given rise to journalists to call for his inclusion in the squad . Two further disciplinary events ended such calls . On 11 September 1995 he was booked for stamping on the head of Chelseas John Spencer in a 3–1 home defeat for West Ham . Spencer required eight stitches in his head . On 16 September 1995 at Highbury he was dismissed for the eighth time in his career for a foul on Arsenals Ian Wright . The two incidents coming so close together caused the media to focus on the incident involving John Spencer . TV pundit Andy Gray and politician , radio journalist and Chelsea supporter , David Mellor called for FA to get involved . The game had been televised live on Sky TV and a recording of it was provided to the match referee , Robbie Hart who had booked Dicks during the game . The Sun newspaper ran a full back-page on the incident with several pictures of the challenge and of blood on Spencers face . Mellors radio program , 606 , had focused so intently on the clash that combined with The Suns coverage , public focus was sufficient for Dicks daughters to be attacked at their school in Essex . The FA considered the video evidence provided and a report from referee Hart and Dicks was given a three-match ban . This ban put in doubt any future involvement in England squads due to concerns over his indiscipline and he was not called into the Euro 96 squad . In 1997 with Glenn Hoddle now manager of England , Dicks met , by chance , his assistant , John Gorman whilst on holiday . Dicks claims Gorman had told him he would stand a better chance of being picked if he had grown his hair . Dicks frequently shaved his head sporting a skinhead hairstyle . Gorman also said that Dicks had been a candidate for selection for a game against Mexico in 1997 . By this time Dicks had said he no longer wished to be considered for international selection . Coaching career . Wivenhoe Town . Dicks returned to football on 5 January 2009 when he was appointed manager of Eastern Counties League side Wivenhoe Town , but left the club shortly after the end of that season by mutual consent . Grays Athletic . Conference National club Grays Athletic announced Dicks as their new manager in mid-September 2009 . In his first season at Grays , he was relegated from the Conference , whilst the club voluntarily dropped three levels to the Isthmian League Division One North . After finishing 10th in the following season , Dicks left Grays by mutual consent in May 2011 . Sealand . Dicks took take charge of the Sealand side at the Tynwald Hill International Football Tournament on the Isle of Man in July 2013 . West Ham United Ladies . On 19 June 2014 , Dicks was appointed as a new manager of the West Ham United Ladies . His first competitive game was against Spurs Ladies . He helped to improve the team from their 10th-place finish that season and then to a sixth-placed finish in the 2014–15 season , along with a London FA Capital Womens Cup Final date against Charlton Athletic Ladies which West Ham ladies lost 5–0 . West Ham United . On 29 June 2015 , Dicks was appointed first-team coach for his former team , West Ham United , under new manager and former teammate , Slaven Bilić . In June 2016 , Dicks signed a contract to keep him on the coaching staff at West Ham for a further two years . When Bilić was sacked by West Ham in November 2017 , Dicks also left the club . Heybridge Swifts . On 4 October 2018 , Dicks was appointed manager of Heybridge Swifts . His first two games as manager , against Mildenhall Town and Bury Town , resulted in wins for The Swifts . In May 2019 , Heybridge Swifts won the 2018–19 Isthmian League Division One North play-off final against rivals Maldon & Tiptree , however were ineligible for promotion due to changes to the non-league pyramid system , leading Dicks to label the decision as ridiculous . He left Heybridge to again work for Slaven Bilić , at West Bromwich Albion . West Bromwich Albion . In July 2019 , he joined the coaching staff at West Bromwich Albion . On 16 December 2020 , following Bilićs sacking , Dicks left West Brom too . Heybridge Swifts return . On 28 March 2021 , Dicks return to Heybridge Swifts as manager , from 1 July 2021 , was announced by the club . Personal life . Dicks met his wife Kay in 1985 and they married in 1988 . They had twin daughters Jessica and Katie in December 1988 . The couple were married for 13 years until divorcing in 2001 . His brother , Grantley is also a former footballer and coach . After retiring as a footballer , Dicks took up golf and soon turned professional , but was forced to give this career up due to his knee injury and the realisation that he did not have the ability to win tournaments . He went on to run the Shepherd and Dog Public House in Langham , near Colchester , Essex . Acting career . In 2014 , he made a cameo appearance in the spoof football violence film The Hooligan Factory . External links . - Liverpool F.C . profile