George Michael R. Parris (born 11 September 1964) is an English former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

or defender for

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium ...

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

, and

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

Early life

Parris was born in Barking,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. He played district, county and national football for Redbridge, Greater London, and England Under 15 as a schoolboy. He was invited to train at

when he was 13 and signed as an apprentice in July 1981 when he left Seven Kings High school.

Career

West Ham United

Parris turned professional the following year in September 1982. A lengthy spell of

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

football followed before he made his First Division debut in the final match of the 1984–85 season at home against

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

in May 1985. He made a handful of appearances in the first half of the 1985–86 season, then replaced the injured

Steve Walford Stephen Joseph Walford (born 5 January 1958) is an English former football player and manager. He played as a defender for clubs such as Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Norwich City, West Ham United, and West Bromwich Albion. After his playin ...

at left-back and impressed as the West Ham won 11 of their last 14 games to finish third in the table. Parris made 48 league and cup games appearances in the 1986–87 season. The arrival of left-back

Tommy McQueen Thomas Feeney McQueen (born 1 April 1963) is a Scottish former footballer who played as a defender. His primary position was full back. McQueen began his career with Clyde, making over 100 appearances in all competitions, before moving to ...

in March 1987 saw Parris move briefly to midfield but he returned to the left-back position for much of the 1987–88 season until the arrival of

Julian Dicks Julian Andrew Dicks (born 8 August 1968) is an English football coach and former footballer who is assistant manager of EFL Championship side Watford. Playing from 1985 until 2002, he was a defender, notably in the Premier League for West Ha ...

in March 1988, whose form led to Parris playing at right-back or midfield for most of the rest of his career at West Ham. He made 32 league and cup appearance in the 1988–89 season as West Ham reached the semi-finals of the

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

but were relegated to Division Two, and 49 league and cup appearances in the 1989–90 season as West Ham again reached the semi-finals of the League Cup. He made 55 league and cup appearances in the 1990–91 season, returning to left-back when Julian Dicks suffered a severe knee injury in October 1990, scoring in four successive games in January 1991 and helping West Ham to promotion back to the First Division and to the semi-finals of the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competit ...

. His performances that season saw him voted as runner-up to Ludek Miklosko as 'Hammer of the Year'. Parris made only 27 league and cup appearances in the 1991–92 season; he suffered a knee injury against

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa P ...

on Boxing Day that required surgery, and then collapsed during his comeback game against

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

in March 1992 with a suspected heart-related problem. He returned to the first team in the opening game of the

1992–93 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 ''Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since th ...

season against Barnsley and made 18 league and cup appearances before

made an offer for him in March 1993. Parris had made 300 first-team appearances for West Ham, scoring 20 goals. In April 1995, after he had left the club, Parris was granted a

testimonial In promotion and advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a person's written or spoken statement extolling the virtue of a product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whe ...

by West Ham. Played in front of only 1,382 fans a West Ham team lost 3–2 to

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn professio ...

at The

Boleyn Ground The Boleyn Ground, often referred to as Upton Park, was a football stadium located in Upton Park, east London. It was the home of West Ham United from 1904 to 2016, and was briefly used by Charlton Athletic in the early 1990s during their year ...

Birmingham City

Parris joined Birmingham City in March 1993 for a fee of £100,000, where he was made captain. Injuries and a change of manager in November 1993 saw him fall out of favour and he spent the 1994–95 season on loan at

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings w ...

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

and

before being released. Parris had made 42 league and cup appearances for Birmingham City.

Brighton and Hove Albion

After a trial with Stoke and a short spell with

Norrköping Norrköping (; ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Link� ...

in Sweden, Parris signed a permanent deal with Brighton in September 1995 and stayed for two seasons. He was made captain and made 63 first-team appearances before being released on a free transfer in May 1997. He was best remembered for an impudent goal against

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers Football Club are a professional football club in Bristol, England. They compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play home matches at the Memorial Stadium in Horfield, they have been ...

in October 1995 when he came from behind the Rovers goalkeeper as he released the ball to dispossess him and score.

Later career

After leaving Brighton, Parris played one league game on a non-contract basis for

Southend Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

and also played for non-league clubs

Kettering Town Kettering Town Football Club is a football club based in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, England. They are currently members of and play at Latimer Park in Burton Latimer. Kettering were the first club to wear sponsorship on their shirts ...

St Leonards St Leonards may refer to: Places Australia * St Leonards, New South Wales **St Leonards railway station *St Leonards, Tasmania, suburb of Launceston * St Leonards, Victoria Canada * St. Leonard's, Newfoundland and Labrador New Zealand *St ...

, where he was also assistant manager, and Shoreham, where he was player-manager. After retiring from playing, he worked as a part-time activities organiser at the

Ovingdean Hall School Ovingdean Hall School (OHS) was a special day and boarding secondary school for the severely and profoundly deaf children and young people including those with additional special needs. It closed in July 2010. The former school's site is in a r ...

for deaf children in Sussex, and went on to work as a sports coach at the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

. In April 2008 he was appointed manager of

Sussex County League The Macron Southern Combination Football League is a football league broadly covering the counties of East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey and South West London, England. The league consists of eight divisions – three for first teams (Premier D ...

club

Whitehawk Whitehawk is a suburb in the east of Brighton, England, south of Bevendean and north of Brighton Marina. The area is a large, modern housing estate built in a downland dry valley historically known as Whitehawk Bottom. The estate was origin ...

. As of 2012, Parris was also operating a soccer coaching school based in Brighton. In April 2016, Parris was appointed interim manager of

Brighton & Hove Albion Women Brighton & Hove Albion Women Football Club is an English women's football club affiliated with Brighton & Hove Albion. The club currently compete in the Women's Super League and the first team play at the Broadfield Stadium, home of Crawley ...

. He agreed to remain in post for the

FA WSL Spring Series The FA WSL Spring Series was an interim edition of the FA WSL between the sixth and seventh full seasons. The Spring Series ran from February to May 2017 to bridge the gap from the 2016 FA WSL season which ran from March to September as a summer t ...

, before standing down to be replaced by

Hope Powell Hope Patricia Powell, CBE (born 8 December 1966) is an English former international footballer and former women's first-team manager of Brighton & Hove Albion. She was the coach of the England women's national football team and the Great Brit ...

Autobiography

In 2005 his autobiography, "''My Name is George...I am a Compulsive Gambler''" was published. During his playing days Parris became addicted to gambling, amassing debts, after leaving West Ham to join Birmingham City.

References

;General * * * * ;Specific

External links

*
George Parris
at westhamstats.info {{DEFAULTSORT:Parris, George 1964 births Living people Footballers from Barking, London English footballers Association football midfielders West Ham United F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Brentford F.C. players Bristol City F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players IFK Norrköping players Southend United F.C. players Kettering Town F.C. players St. Leonards F.C. players Shoreham F.C. players People associated with the University of Sussex English Football League players Allsvenskan players English autobiographers Black British sportspeople England youth international footballers English expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Sweden English football managers Shoreham F.C. managers Whitehawk F.C. managers