Ray Mathias

Ray Mathias

Personal information
Full name	Raymond Mathias
Date of birth	(1946-12-13) 13 December 1946
Place of birth	Liverpool, England
Height
Position(s)	Full back
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1964–1985	Tranmere Rovers	567	(6)
Managerial career
1986–1989	Wigan Athletic
1998–1999	Wigan Athletic
2001	Tranmere Rovers (caretaker)
2002–2003	Tranmere Rovers
2004	Chester City (caretaker)
2011	Stockport County (Interim Manager)
2011	Stockport County
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Raymond "Ray" Mathias (born 13 December 1946) is an English football coach and former player. He has spent most of his career in the lower leagues of English football. Mathias played for Tranmere Rovers between 1964and 1985, and remains their record appearance holder having played 637 games for the club. After his retirement he spent three years as manager of Wigan Athletic, briefly returning to the role for the 1998–99 season; between these two spells he returned to Tranmere as a coach, and later managed the side before moving on to Chester City in a caretaker role. He was appointed interim manager of Stockport County on 9 March 2011 until the end of the season, when County were relegated from the Football League for the first time in 106 years. Owing in part to an impressive home record, Mathias was appointed full-time County manager in May 2011, but departed just two weeks later following the takeover of the club by Tony Evans.

Career

Playing

Born in Liverpool, Mathias spent his entire playing career with Tranmere Rovers from 1964 to 1985 and earning two testimonials in the process; a true one-club man, making 567 Football League appearances. His most notable achievement being winning promotion from the Fourth Division in the 1975–76 season. He made 637 appearances for Tranmere in all competitions, a club record.

Coaching

After retiring from playing, Mathias joined the coaching staff at Wigan Athletic and spent three years in charge of the Latics from 1986–89. The highlight of this spell was leading Wigan to the FA Cup quarter-finals in 1987. He later returned to Tranmere as a coach but then returned to Wigan as manager for the 1998–99 season; despite leading the club to victory in the Football League Trophy final at Wembley and the Second Division play-offs he lost his job shortly afterwards.

After once again becoming part of the managerial set-up at Tranmere and spells as caretaker manager, he was finally handed the reins on a permanent basis in 2002 but sacked a year later. Mathias then had an unsuccessful caretaker spell at Chester City in 2004 and briefly worked as assistant manager at Bury in 2005. In October 2006 he was appointed as assistant manager to Paul Ince at League Two strugglers Macclesfield Town. The pair were able to guide the Silkmen to an unlikely survival before moving to Milton Keynes Dons where they achieved more success, winning the League Two championship and the Football League Trophy. They subsequently moved on to top-flight team Blackburn Rovers in June 2008.

On 18 December 2008 Mathias was relieved of his duties along with Archie Knox following the sacking of Paul Ince and the subsequent arrival of Sam Allardyce as the new Rovers manager. On 4 February 2011 he joined Stockport County as Technical Advisor to Peter Ward and Alan Lord.

Mathias was appointed manager of Stockport County on 9 March 2011 until the end of the season, with Peter Ward and Alan Lord stepping back to coaching roles. Mathias then became the first manager in Stockport County history to relegate the club from the Football League.

On 25 May 2011 Ray was given the Manager's job at Stockport County on a full-time basis "After a lengthy process during which we interviewed a number of high calibre applicants for the role" according to Chief Exec Graham Shaw. However, he was dismissed from the position in favour of Dietmar Hamann on 5 July 2011, and subsequently left the club.

Honours

Player

• Football League Fourth Division Promotion: 1

1975–76

Coach

• Football League Trophy: 2

1998–99, 2007–08

• Football League Two Winner: 1

2007–08

Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				P	W	D	L	Win %
Wigan Athletic		1 June 1986	15 March 1989	142	59	50	33	41.55
Wigan Athletic		4 August 1998	21 May 1999	62	32	17	13	51.61
Tranmere Rovers		18 March 2001	7 May 2001	11	1	7	3	09.09
Tranmere Rovers		1 August 2002	29 September 2003	66	29	19	18	43.94
Chester City		6 August 2004	30 August 2004	6	0	4	2	00.00
Stockport County		1 March 2011	5 July 2011	13	3	6	4	23.08
Total				297	123	101	73	41.41

See also

• List of one-club men

External links

• Ray Mathias management career statistics at Soccerbase