Mark Wright was an excellent defender and the Liverpool club captain when they won the F.A. Cup in 1992. He was already an established England international when he arrived at Anfield, but never made quite as much of an impact as he perhaps could have due to long term injuries.
Mark was born in 1963 in Dorchester, near Oxford. Despite being born and raised in Southern England Mark has always had strong links to Merseyside through his father who was born and raised in Liverpool. Mark started his football career as a trainee at his local club Oxford United. He signed professional forms as a seventeen year old in 1980 but had to wait until the 1981/82 season to make his first team debut. He only played eleven games during that season but had made enough of a name for himself that he was signed by First Division side Southampton in March 1982.
Mark was voted the Southampton player of the year at the end of his first season during which he helped The Saints to finish in twelfth place. The following season 1983/84 was an even better one for both Southampton and Mark as he helped Southampton to finish in second place in the First Division behind the champions, Liverpool. Mark’s outstanding performances during that season also earned him his first call up to the full England side during a game against Wales in May 1984. In 1985/86 Mark helped Southampton to reach the semi finals of the F.A. Cup where they were beaten 2 – 0 by Liverpool, with Ian Rush scoring both of the goals.
In 1987 Derby County paid £760,000 to take Mark to the Baseball Ground, this was a club record fee for Southampton at that time. This was Derby’s first season back in the First Division and they paid big money to bring in proven quality players such as Mark and his Southampton and England colleague Peter Shilton. Mark was made the team captain in his first season and helped them to retain the First Division status with two consecutive mid table finishes. During Marks third season they improved a lot and were to finish in fifth spot for 1988/89.
After that good season for The Rams things began to deteriorate with behind the scenes action taking the spotlight. The chairman Robert Maxwell decided to leave and the club owed him millions of pounds. This meant that their best players would need to be sold and in the summer of 1991 Mark and Dean Saunders were both sold to Liverpool for over two million pounds each.
Despite the turmoil behind the scenes at Derby, Mark had continued to put in excellent performances which were rewarded when he was called up to the England squad for the 1990 World Cup in Italy. He was chosen to start at centre back ahead of Tony Adams who was struggling with injury. This definitely made up for Mark missing the previous World Cup in Mexico 1986 when he broke his leg just before the tournament. It was at Italia 90 when Mark scored his only goal for England. It came in a 1 – 0 victory over Egypt with a great header from a Paul Gasgoigne free kick. This was a vitally important goal as England had drawn the opening two games against Ireland and Holland and needed to win to progress into the next round of the competition.
Liverpool originally tried to sign Mark after his superb performances at the 1990 World Cup. At the time Alan Hansen was coming to the end of his career and Mark was seen as being the perfect replacement for him. Mark wanted to sign for Kenny Dalglish but was persuaded by Robert Maxwell and Derby manager Arthur Cox to stay one more year with them. At the end of that year Derby were relegated and in debt so when Liverpool, and new boss Graeme Souness, came calling again Mark finally moved to Anfield for £2.2 million.
By the time Mark made his debut for Liverpool, Hansen had retired, Glenn Hysen was on his way out and Gary Gillespie was sold to Celtic. Therefore Liverpool was desperate for a quality player at centre back and Mark was seen as the perfect choice. Most people, including Souness himself, now believe that the players were changed too quickly. Mark Wright was clearly a quality signing but Julian Dicks, Neil Ruddock and Torben Piechnik never lived up to the heights that Hansen, Gillespie and Hysen had reached. Mark was injured in only his second game in a 2 – 1 defeat away to Manchester City, but he soon bounced back and became a commanding presence in the side.
When Ronnie Whelan got injured during Mark’s first season, 1991/92, he was handed the captains arm band by Souness. This was one of the starting points for Souness losing the respect of a lot of the older players in the squad. The Liverpool tradition was that the captaincy would go to players who had been there the longest. The captain should have been somebody of the likes of Ian Rush, John Barnes or Steve Nicol. Just because Ronnie Whelan was injured there was no reason to strip him of the captaincy as somebody could have stepped in as vice-captain. Needless to say things were not good behind the scenes during this period.
Despite the team not playing well at this time Mark’s first season at Liverpool did end with probably his proudest moment in football when he lifted the F.A. Cup at Wembley. Liverpool defeated Sunderland 2 – 0 in 1992 with goals from Michael Thomas and Ian Rush. Mark got into trouble after the game because he swore clearly and loudly as he lifted the trophy into the air. In a recent interview with the Liverpool FC website Mark described the moment;
“I remember getting into trouble, though, for something I said. I had to write so many letters of apology for what I said when I lifted the cup in the air! It was the Duchess of Kent who handed me the trophy and she was a lovely lady and she looked fantastic. She actually knew all of the players and all of their backgrounds. As she gave me the trophy I apologised to her for what I was about to say. [Wright swore as he lifted the trophy] She asked me what I was going to say. I got ribbed about it for years and the Duchess said to me: 'Well, you meant it didn't you!'”
Unfortunately after the F.A. Cup Final it was almost all downhill for Mark’s playing career. He got a serious injury during the 1992/93 season and lost his place to Piechnik and the captaincy to Rush. When Souness was sacked in 1994 Mark fell out of favor with the new boss Roy Evans. During pre-season in the summer of 1994 Mark & Julian Dicks were both left at home and publicly criticized by Roy Evans for having attitude problems. Evans then paid big money to sign Phil Babb and John Scales and the writing looked to be on the wall for Mark. He was suffering again with a serious Achilles injury problem but as he got fit again Mark worked extremely hard and was rewarded with a return to the side in March 1995 against Manchester United. Mark was awarded the man of the match that day as Liverpool won 2 – 0 and he clearly won over Roy Evans. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough for him to make the squad for the 1995 League Cup Final victory over Bolton.
In the summer of 1995 John Scales was sold to Tottenham and Mark’s hard work was rewarded with a regular place back in the side. He went on to play forty one games in the 1995/96 season and earned a recall to the England squad for Euro 96. Unfortunately he was struck down by another injury and had to withdraw from the squad. This season was the last hurrah for Mark as a Liverpool player and he eventually had to retire in 1998 due to injury.
After his playing career ended Mark moved into a management career that has been littered with controversial and colorful moments. He began in 2000 with the Merseyside non-league side Southport. Mark left the club after just one season over a disagreement about whether the club should become professional or not. In 2001 he was back at Oxford Utd where he started his football career but this time it was as the manager. He was sacked after only a few months in December 2001. The official reason given was because the team was performing badly. However there was a far more sordid reason alleged throughout the press that he was actually sacked for racially abusing a black linesman.
Regardless of the dodgy headlines his departure from Oxford Utd had created, Mark was soon back in work as the manager of Chester City for the 2001/02 season. When he took over Chester City was struggling in the Conference Division but Mark did well to help them avoid relegation. The following season was a big improvement as they pushed for promotion before eventually losing a play-off semi final to Doncaster Rovers. Chester City was eventually promoted back into the Football League in 2004 by winning the Conference. Just two days before their first season back in League Two Mark resigned completely out of the blue. This time he was back in the newspapers because it was alleged he was conducting a love affair with the wife of one of his players.
His next managerial post was with Peterborough Utd in 2005 and at first everything went well. Then in January 2006 Mark was sacked and accused of making racist comments at a member of staff at the club. Mark denies this took place and a court case is currently pending. His then returned for a second spell at Chester City where he was sacked with just one game remaining of the 2006/07 season. At that point Chester City had won only three of the last twenty games. He returned for a third spell there in November 2008 and stayed until the summer of 2009 when he stepped down after the team had been relegated out of the football league and into the Conference National. Mark wasn't blamed for the relegation as the club were suffering unbelievable financial difficulties at that time and has been suffering off the field ever since.
Despite the scandals that have followed Mark Wright since his departure from Liverpool, he remains a popular figure amongst fans. His terrific performances for the side during a bad period and his captaincy that led to an F.A. Cup victory led to him being voted at number 65 in the series ‘100 Players Who Shook the Kop.’
Liverpool FC | Supporters Club | Vancouver, BC, Canada
