Meet the world?s oldest football coach who has trained over 9000 players

Meet the world?s oldest football coach who has trained over 9000 players

June 1, 2010

May 31, 2010: He makes the 68-year-old Sir Alex Ferguson look like a mere beginner. At the age of 93, Ivor Powell has trained more than 9,000 players in a football career spanning 73 years. That makes him the oldest football coach in the world. But yesterday Mr Powell was looking forward to a well-earned retirement after the final whistle blew on his astonishing career.

Mr Powell, who was awarded the MBE for services to sport in 2008, was one of the finest players of his generation before turning to coaching in the 1950s.

During his playing career he was the subject of a record transfer fee of £17,500 in 1946, was capped 14 times by Wales and lined up alongside the legendary Sir Stanley Matthews.

He also met Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi when posted to India during the Second World War.

Mr Powell joined the University of Bath in 1973 and continued working there for the rest of his career, taking Team Bath to the first round of the FA Cup in 2002.

Enjoying his first day of retirement at home in Colerne, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, yesterday, the father of six and grandfather of two said: ’The game has changed so much over the years I hardly recognise the modern-day Premier League.

’It seems now that all anyone is interested in is how much a player will earn at his new club rather that what he could win. We played for the fans.’

The veteran coach, whose wife Joan died several years ago, will continue to attend training sessions for one day a week because football is ’in his blood’.

Mr Powell, who during his playing days was a tough-tackling half-back, was working down the mines when QPR spotted him playing for Bargoed, his local team in South Wales, in the 1930s.

During war service in the RAF he played as a guest for Blackpool, where he forged a long-lasting friendship with Sir Stanley, who was best man at his wedding. Mr Powell returned to QPR in 1946 but two years later was transferred to Aston Villa for a then record fee of £17,500.

He was player/manager at Port Vale and Bradford City and managed Carlisle before joining the backroom staff at Leeds United, where he worked with then manager Don Revie.

He entered the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest football coach in 2006 at the age of 90.

Courtesy: Dailymail