Liam Sean Daish (born 23 September 1968) is a football coach, manager and former professional player who was appointed academy manager at

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 ...

in 2022. Daish was a

centre-half In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

who played in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is admi ...

Cambridge United Cambridge United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Cambridge, England. They compete in EFL League one , the 3rd tier of the English football league system. The club is based at the Abbey Stadium on N ...

and

, in the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

for

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. The club is nicknamed the ...

, and in

non-league football Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is s ...

for Barnet and

Havant & Waterlooville Havant & Waterlooville Football Club is a professional football club based in Havant, Hampshire, England. The club participates in the National League South, the sixth tier of English football, after relegation from the National League in the 2 ...

. Born in England, he was

capped In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

five times at senior level by the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

, for which he qualified by descent. After his playing career was shortened by a knee injury in 2002, he continued his football career as a manager and coach. He had spells as manager of Havant & Waterlooville, Welling United (on a caretaker basis), Ebbsfleet United and Nuneaton Town, and coached for five years in Portsmouth's academy before joining Birmingham City as academy manager.

Playing career

Daish was born in

, Hampshire, and began his career with his hometown club

Portsmouth F.C. Portsmouth Football Club is a professional football club based in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, which compete in . They are also known as ''Pompey'', a local nickname used by both HMNB Portsmouth and the city of Portsmouth; the ''Pompey'' nick ...

However, he only made one appearance for the club's first team before he was released in 1988. He went in search of first-team football, which he found at

. While at Cambridge, Daish helped the club to successive promotions from the Fourth to the Second Division. He also made his international debut for the

, on 19 February 1992 at home to

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, while Cambridge were pushing for a third successive promotion. However, they fell in the playoffs and were relegated a year later. The quality of his performances for Cambridge United inspired

Barry Fry Barry Francis Fry (born 7 April 1945) is an English former football player and manager. A winger, Fry was an apprentice at Manchester United in his youth, and had brief spells with Bolton Wanderers, Luton Town and Leyton Orient, before he r ...

to sign him for

for a fee of £50,000 in January 1994. Daish spent just over two years at St Andrew's, making nearly 100 appearances in all competitions. He captained the side to the Division Two championship in 1994–95 and to victory in the 1995 Football League Trophy Final at

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

. Fry, who managed him throughout his spell at Birmingham, once said of Daish that if a squadron of

F-111 The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production variants of the F-111 had roles that included ground attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons ...

s attacked the Birmingham penalty area he would attempt to head them away. On 10 December 1994, Daish – then Birmingham City captain under Fry – scored a goal against Chester to make it 0–4. In the ensuing celebrations, some Blues fan threw a toy trumpet onto the pitch, which Daish proceeded to play. Although he was not sent off, the referee booked him, taking his season's points tally to 41 which resulted in a three-match ban. Fry was not amused: "I know the referee has directives to adhere to, but to get banned through being booked for that seems a bit harsh." In February 1996, Daish joined

for a fee of £1.5 million. He made an immediate impact, bolstering Coventry's shaky defence and improving their form overall. However, in the four seasons that he spent at Coventry, Daish was never a regular in the first team (he played in only 34 games for the Sky Blues). This was the result of a severe knee ligament injury which eventually forced his retirement from the professional game after two years on the sidelines. Daish joined

non-league Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is s ...

in 1999, going on to make 157 appearances (1 as substitute) in league and cup competitions, scoring 15 goals, before his playing career was finally ended by a knee injury sustained in October 2002.

Managerial career

In April 2000, Daish took on a joint-manager role alongside Mick Jenkins at Havant & Waterlooville after Billy Gilbert stood down. He spent three-and-a-half years in this role, during which time he took the club to the semi-final of the

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The compet ...

in 2003, before being sacked in January 2004 following a string of bad results. Following this, he joined Welling United as a coach. For a time, following the dismissal of Paul Parker, Daish served as caretaker-manager of Welling but did not get the job full-time, despite leading the side to three wins and a draw in his four games in charge. Daish left Welling in February 2005 to become manager of Gravesend & Northfleet, which in May 2007 was renamed Ebbsfleet United, and he oversaw the club's move to a full-time playing squad. Daish led Ebbsfleet United to a 1–0 victory in the

2008 FA Trophy Final The 2008 FA Trophy Final was the 39th final of the Football Association's cup competition for levels 5–8 of the English football league system. It was contested by Ebbsfleet United and Torquay United on 10 May 2008 at Wembley Stadium in Lond ...

, and for two seasons running made the Fleet a contender for the Conference National play-offs. His profile was raised by the takeover of Ebbsfleet by

MyFootballClub MyFootballClub is an English Industrial and Provident Society that sought, starting in August 2007, to recruit at least 50,000 football enthusiasts from across the world to purchase an English association football club. MyFootballClub's premis ...

, although the website's initial boasts that its members – and not Daish – would pick the team had as of 22 May 2010 yet to come to fruition. Daish left Ebbsfleet by mutual consent after discussions with new owners and eight years in charge on 17 May 2013. Daish joined

Conference Premier The National League, known as the Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of the National League System and fifth-highest of the overall English football league system. It is the highest league that is semi-profess ...

club Nuneaton Town on 22 September 2014 as first-team manager, and left at the end of the season following the team's relegation. He worked for Portsmouth's football academy from 2017 to 2022. In November 2022, he was appointed manager of Birmingham City's academy.

Career statistics

Honours

Cambridge United * Third Division: 1990–91 * Fourth Division promotion: 1989–90 Birmingham City * Second Division: 1994–95 *

Football League Trophy The English Football League Trophy, known for sponsorship purposes as the Papa Johns Trophy after restaurant chain Papa John's Pizza, is an annual English association football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL Leag ...

: 1994–95 Ebbsfleet United *

: 2007–08 Individual *

PFA Team of the Year The Professional Footballers' Association Team of the Year (often called the PFA Team of the Year, or simply the Team of the Year) is an annual award given to a set of 55 footballers across the top four tiers of men's English football; the Premi ...

: 1994–95 Second Division

References

External links