Brian Kidd - Management and Coaching Career

Management and Coaching Career

After management posts at Barrow and Preston North End, he was involved in coaching young players before being brought back to Manchester United as a youth team coach by Alex Ferguson in 1988 and over the next three years helped bring through a host of talented players like Ryan Giggs and Darren Ferguson. When Ferguson's assistant Archie Knox moved to a similar capacity at Glasgow Rangers in the 1991 close season, Kidd was promoted to the role of assistant manager and helped Ferguson guide United to a Football League Cup win in 1992, the Premier League title in 1993, the double in 1994 and again in 1996, as well as another Premier League title in 1997.

Kidd left United to take charge at Blackburn Rovers in December 1998. Despite a promising start which saw him voted Premier League Manager of the Month and having also spent nearly £20 million on new players in his first four months in charge, he was unable to save them from being relegated from the Premier League (just four years after being champions) and Kidd was dismissed on 3 November 1999 with Rovers standing 19th in Division One.

In 1999, a rift developed between Kidd and Alex Ferguson after Kidd was strongly criticised in Ferguson's autobiography 'Managing My Life'. Ferguson was angered that when Kidd was assistant manager at Manchester United he had questioned United's signing of striker Dwight Yorke. Ferguson criticised Kidd's footballing judgement and wrote in his book: "I saw Brian Kidd as a complex person, often quite insecure, particularly about his health." Kidd was upset at Ferguson's attack on him and responded by saying: "I believe Walt Disney is trying to buy the film rights to his book as a sequel to Fantasia."

Kidd moved to Leeds United in May 2000 as youth coach but was promoted to act as Head Coach in March 2001 under David O'Leary then Terry Venables. He left Leeds in May 2003 after Peter Reid was appointed manager.

Meanwhile, Kidd was named as assistant to England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson in January 2003. He was forced to end this role in May 2004, just weeks before Euro 2004, due to undergoing surgery for prostate cancer. Kidd had recovered by February 2006.

In August 2006, former United player Roy Keane was appointed manager of Sunderland and there were rumours that Kidd would join him as assistant manager at the Stadium of Light, but this never happened. He instead accepted an offer to work as assistant to Neil Warnock at Sheffield United a few months after their promotion to the Premier League. After the Blades were relegated and Warnock resigned, Kidd remained at Bramall Lane under new manager Bryan Robson (another former Manchester United player) but left the club after Robson departed in February 2008.

On 11 February 2009, Kidd was appointed as the assistant to caretaker manager Paul Hart at Premier League side Portsmouth. He stayed until August, when he rejected a new contract offer.

Kidd became Technical Development Manager at Manchester City in September 2009, before becoming assistant manager to new boss Roberto Mancini on 19 December 2009, following the sacking of manager Mark Hughes.

In 2011, Kidd said that he was willing to give Alex Ferguson "the benefit of the doubt" in the dispute that the two men had in the late 1990s. Kidd revealed that although there was no phone call from Ferguson when he was fighting prostate cancer in 2004, he was now speaking to Ferguson after matches again.