Stephen Charles Frail (born 10 August 1969) is a Scottish
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...
coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
St Johnstone
St Johnstone Football Club is a professional association football club in Perth, Scotland which is a member of the Scottish Premiership for the 2022–23 season. The club's name is derived from St John's Toun ''aka'' Saint Johnstoun – an old ...
and Greenock Morton. Returning to Hearts as a coach, he was in charge of the first team between 2007 and 2008, partially alongside
Anatoliy Korobochka
Anatoliy Vasylyovych Korobochka (russian: Анатолий Васильевич Коробочка) (born 5 January 1955 in Simferopol, USSR, now Ukraine) is a former midfielder, and was formerly the Director of Football at Heart of Midlothian ...
.
Playing career
Frail began his career with
Archie Knox
Archibald Knox (born 1 May 1947) is a Scottish football player and coach. He was most recently the assistant manager of Aberdeen until leaving the club in March 2013.
Knox worked with Alex Ferguson as an assistant manager at Aberdeen and Ma ...
's Dundee in 1985, gradually developing into a first-team player by the end of the decade. He helped the Dens Park side to victory in the inaugural
Scottish Challenge Cup
The Scottish Professional Football League Challenge Cup,1990–91, however his progress was hindered by a serious
knee
In humans and other primates, the knee joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two joints: one between the femur and tibia (tibiofemoral joint), and one between the femur and patella (patellofemoral joint). It is the largest joint in the hu ...
ligament
A ligament is the fibrous connective tissue that connects bones to other bones. It is also known as ''articular ligament'', ''articular larua'', ''fibrous ligament'', or ''true ligament''. Other ligaments in the body include the:
* Peritoneal ...
injury, causing him to miss almost an entire season.,
Frail joined Hearts in a £130,000 deal in March 1994 and his form during the 1994–95 season as a right wingback led to media speculation of a call-up to the Scottish national side. Injury continued to hinder him though and in an away match at Dundee United on 21 March 1995 he suffered similar knee ligament damage to that he sustained while with Dundee. He missed the entire 1995–96 season and upon his return to fitness found his previous role in the team taken by
Gary Locke
Gary Faye Locke (born January 21, 1950) is an American politician and diplomat serving as the interim president of Bellevue College, the largest of the institutions that make up the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system. Locke serv ...
.
Unable to maintain a permanent position in the team he filled-in as a defensive midfielder when required as well as deputising for Locke but left
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
for Merseyside when Tranmere Rovers paid £90,000 for his services in January 1998.
Following a familiar pattern, Frail's time with Tranmere was decimated by injuries and he made less than 30 total appearances during his two seasons with the club. He is best remembered for his involvement in a controversial incident in an
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 ...
tie with
Sunderland
Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
, when a bureaucratic mix-up resulted in him being substituted on for Clint Hill who, unbeknown to Frail, had just been sent-off for a second bookable offence. After several minutes of commotion another player left the field to ensure Tranmere didn't avoid their punishment.
Frail returned to Scotland with
St Johnstone
St Johnstone Football Club is a professional association football club in Perth, Scotland which is a member of the Scottish Premiership for the 2022–23 season. The club's name is derived from St John's Toun ''aka'' Saint Johnstoun – an old ...
in 2000, signed for a second time by his former Hearts manager Sandy Clark. After a single season in
Perth
Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...
he moved to
Greenock
Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh of barony, burgh within the Counties of Scotland, historic ...
While at Morton, Frail began to become involved in coaching, firstly under
Peter Cormack
Peter Barr Cormack (born 17 July 1946) is a Scottish former international football player and manager. His greatest success was with Liverpool in the early 1970s, for whom he played 178 times, winning two league championships, one FA Cup and ...
then former teammate at Hearts Dave McPherson. He retired from his playing role at the end of the 2001–02 season and became a full-time assistant to Morton's third manager within the year, John McCormack. McCormack was sacked in 2004, and Frail and the rest of the coaching staff left with him. Later that year, after attending Hearts
UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, cla ...
tie with Sporting Braga, he was invited to join their coaching staff by then manager Craig Levein. Initially coach of the under-19 side, he was promoted to become assistant coach when
John McGlynn
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
left to manage Raith Rovers in 2006.
Frail, along with sporting director Anatoly Korobochka, took temporary charge of Hearts' first team in March 2007 after the departure of Valdas Ivanauskas. It was confirmed in June 2007 that Frail and Korobochka would take charge of the Jambos for the 2007–08 season with Bulgarian Angel Chervenkov coming in as assistant, though it was left ambiguous which one of the pair had responsibility for team selection. After poor form, which saw Hearts drop to tenth in the SPL, Frail was promoted to caretaker manager in January 2008 as the club planned to appoint a new permanent manager. It was announced Frail will be replaced as manager at the end of the 2007/08 season.
In April 2009, Frail was appointed a coach at Celtic, working with their reserve and youth teams. He left this position on 1 September 2015.
After leaving Celtic, Frail worked with the Scotland U16 team and scouted for Bolton Wanderers before the Irish Football Association appointed him to be full-time manager of the Northern Ireland Under 19 and Under 17 teams in August 2016. Frail returned to Scotland in July 2020, becoming assistant manager at Dundee United.
In June 2021, Frail left Dundee United.