Steve Bleasdale

Steve Bleasdale (born 23 June 1959) is a former English football coach. He has managed Bangor City,^[1][2] Leigh Genesis and Football League side Peterborough United.^[3][4]

Bleasdale has often worked alongside former England footballer Mark Wright having worked with him as a coach at Oxford United,^[5] Southport,^[6] Peterborough United and twice as assistant at Chester City.

Bleasdale is best known for appearing in the fly-on-the-wall documentary Big Ron Manager while he was manager at Peterborough.

Career[]

Steve's playing career was cut short by a knee injury. His early coaching roles saw him work at Preston North End and Everton where he coached the Under 14s and 16s respectively. He also ran soccer schools in the Liverpool area and has worked for the FA as on coaching programmes aimed at young coaches.

In 2000, Bleasdale worked as youth team coach at Southport while Mark Wright was first team manager.^[7] In 2001, Bleasdale was assistant manager to Wright at Oxford United.^[8] He later joined Chester City as first team coach under Wright and was then promoted as Wright's assistant manager in July 2002.^[9] They won promotion from the Football Conference in 2003-04. He was brought to the Posh again by Wright when he was appointed manager in the close season of 2005, after a spell as manager of Leigh RMI during the 2004–05 season.

Peterborough United and Big Ron Manager documentary[]

Peterborough manager Mark Wright was sacked in January 2006 which led to Bleasdale being appointed caretaker manager until the end of the season. After an excellent start, winning five of his first seven games in charge and taking the club to being close to the automatic promotion places,^[10] the club suffered a downturn in form with only one win in seven games.

Bleasdale's time at Peterborough was notable due to the capacity of Ron Atkinson who had been brought to the club in a "Football Troubleshooting" capacity by Sky Television who were making a documentary called Big Ron Manager. Bleasdale infamously quit an hour before Posh's game with Macclesfield Town due to Director Of Football Barry Fry selecting the team and inferring that Bleasdale was out of his depth as manager.^[11][12]

The documentary is regarded as a low point in the history of Peterborough United^[13] due to the inhouse fighting and chaos behind the scenes at the club. As a result, Bleasdale has often been mocked for how he was portrayed in the documentary - in particular, for giving a team talk where he shouted "when it's a battle, you f***ing battle" at his players.^[14]

Reflecting on his time at Peterborough, Bleasdale was critical of Atkinson and believed the documentary wasn't edited fairly.^[15][16]

Later career[]

Due to his reputation from the documentary, Bleasdale struggled to gain employment in football.^[17]

On 14 November 2008, Bleasdale again joined Mark Wright as assistant at Chester City.^[18] However, on 21 February 2009, it was announced he had left the club, due to unspecified reasons, described by Wright as "there are a few things we’re not happy about and we’ll just have to get on with it. There are some things behind the scenes which I feel very, very let down about and which I’m not prepared to elaborate on at this time."^{[19] [20]}

Coaching badges[]

Bleasdale has obtained both the UEFA A and Pro licences, which makes him one of the highest qualified coaches in the English football pyramid outside of the Premier League.^[21]

Personal life[]

He now works a wedding photographer and owns his own business called Capture Your Moments.^[22]

Managerial statistics[]

References[]