Career
Stevens was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex, and attended Thurston Upper School in Suffolk. He joined Brighton & Hove Albion in 1977. Stevens made his debut as a 17-year-old on 15 September 1979, in the First Division as Brighton won 2–0 at home to Ipswich Town, the club which had released him as a schoolboy. A versatile defender who could also play in midfield, he made 26 appearances in his first season, scoring once, and remained a regular in the side.
In 1983, Brighton, already relegated to the Second Division, played in the FA Cup Final for the first time in their history. Losing to Manchester United 2–1 with three minutes of normal time remaining, Stevens equalised, and teammate Gordon Smith missed an easy chance to win the game at the end of extra time, remembered for the commentator's line "And Smith must score..." Brighton lost the replay 4–0, and Stevens joined Tottenham Hotspur for a fee of "about £350,000".
Stevens made his Tottenham debut at the start of the 1983-84 season, again against Ipswich, but this time was on the losing side. He was a first team regular that season, making 40 league appearances and scoring four goals, and played on the winning side in the 1984 UEFA Cup Final, scoring his penalty in the shootout against Anderlecht. He was also in the side that suffered an unlikely 3-2 defeat to Coventry City in the 1987 FA Cup Final.
He was also capped seven times by England, and was included in the squad for the 1986 World Cup squad – as, confusingly, was the unrelated Everton player Gary Stevens. He lated joked that Sir Bobby Robson picked them both to make sure he got the right one. He made two substitute appearances in the tournament. He also won eight caps for England under-21s.
Stevens left Spurs for Portsmouth in 1990 but persistent injuries forced him to retire in 1992. He had never fully recovered from a knee injury suffered in November 1988 when tackled by Vinnie Jones. The tackle was extremely reckless as Vinnie Jones slid into the back of Gary Stevens and followed through (much to the disgust of all on the pitch). At the time of the challenge, Gary Stevens was stood on the touchline and Vinnie Jones could easily have made a challenge from the side and played the ball out.
Following retirement he worked as a presenter for Sky Sports, and for Talksport radio in the UK, although he has since left the station.
He is now assistant coach at Gabala FC. .
Read more about this topic: Gary A. Stevens
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)
“The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so—concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities.”
—Jessie Bernard (20th century)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)