Paul Telfer (footballer)

For other people named Paul Telfer, see Paul Telfer (disambiguation).

Paul Norman Telfer (born 21 October 1971) is a Scottish football coach and former professional footballer.

Paul Telfer

Personal information
Full name	Paul Norman Telfer[1]
Date of birth	(1971-10-21) 21 October 1971 (age 53)
Place of birth	Edinburgh, Scotland
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Position(s)	Right-back
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1988–1995	Luton Town	144	(19)
1995–2001	Coventry City	191	(6)
2001–2005	Southampton	127	(1)
2005–2007	Celtic	57	(1)
2007	AFC Bournemouth	18	(0)
2008–2009	Leeds United	14	(0)
2009	Slough Town	1	(0)
2011–2014	Sutton United	46	(1)
Total		598	(28)
International career
1993	Scotland U21	3	(0)
1994–1995	Scotland B	2	(0)
2000	Scotland	1	(0)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Telfer made over 300 league appearances in the Premier League for Coventry City and Southampton between 1995 and 2005. He previously played over 150 times for Luton Town. In 2005, he signed for Scottish Premier League side Celtic where he made 57 appearances in two seasons in his native country. He later went on to feature for AFC Bournemouth and Leeds United before finishing his career with non-league side Slough Town in 2009. He was capped once by Scotland in 2000, having previously been capped at U21 and B team level.

In 2011, he joined the coaching staff at Sutton United and also agreed to make a return to the playing side of the game. He has also had a spell with North American Soccer League team Indy Eleven as assistant coach.

Club career

Luton Town

Telfer was born in Edinburgh, but began his career at Luton Town as a right-sided midfielder. He made over 150 competitive first team appearances for Luton including 144 league games.

In November 1992, Telfer and then Luton teammate Darren Salton were involved in a head on car crash in Bedfordshire. Telfer, the driver of the car, suffered only minor injuries and went on to make a full recovery. Salton spent seven days on a life support machine and a further two and half weeks in a coma. Salton was forced to quit football following the accident. A 51-year-old female passenger in the other car was killed.^[2]

Coventry City

In the summer of 1995, he was signed by manager Ron Atkinson for Coventry City, where he began his long association with Gordon Strachan, who at the time was player-coach at the club, and later became manager. While at Coventry, Telfer won his only senior Scotland cap. Selected by Craig Brown he played in Scotland's 2–0 friendly defeat against France on 29 March 2000 at Hampden Park.

Southampton

In October 2001, shortly after Coventry's relegation from the Premiership, Telfer joined Southampton, who had appointed Strachan as manager just over a month earlier. At Southampton, Telfer was converted from midfielder to right-back, and was a member of the side that reached the 2003 FA Cup Final. He scored once during his spell at Southampton, in a 3–1 win over Newcastle in May 2002.^[3]

Celtic

In 2005, Strachan became manager at Celtic, and again made Telfer one of his first signings. Telfer played just under two years at Parkhead, where he won two Scottish League championships and scored once in the league against Aberdeen.^[4] However, his family had difficulty settling in Glasgow, and on 3 December 2006, Telfer announced he would not renew his contract with Celtic because he wished to spend more time with his family in Winchester.^[5] On 2 April 2007, Telfer brought forward his retirement and officially left Celtic to be with his family in England.^[6]

AFC Bournemouth

On 13 July 2007, Telfer came out of retirement, signing a one-year contract with League One side AFC Bournemouth.^[7][8] On 12 December 2007, Telfer cancelled his contract with Bournemouth to help their financial problems. A few days earlier, he had been ruled out for the season with a foot injury that required surgery and retired again.

Leeds United

On 8 August 2008, Telfer came out of retirement for a second time and joined Leeds United on a non-contract basis after initially training with Leeds to keep fitness. He signed a one-year deal with the club at the end of August. Impressing his former teammate Gary McAlliser who was managing Leeds at the time. Telfer was expected to act as cover for right back Frazer Richardson.^[9]

But after some poor performances by Leeds' centre backs, Telfer found himself playing in an unfamiliar centre back role after impressing for Leeds in the position in a League Cup game against Crystal Palace. Telfer at first put in some assured performances, but as the season went on Leeds became very vulnerable, with Telfer's lack of pace being exposed. Most notably in injury time against Huddersfield Town after Leeds conceded a goal, where Telfer's lack of pace was badly exposed. Gary McAllister was sacked in December, and new manager Simon Grayson left Telfer out of all of his first team squads during his first month at the club. On 2 February 2009, his contract was cancelled by mutual consent with Telfer saying he didn't want Leeds to spend money paying his wages whilst he wasn't going to play.^[10]

Slough Town and Sutton United

In April 2009, Telfer signed for non-league Slough Town,^[11] but failed to appear in the 2009–10 season.^[12] In the 2011 close-season, it was announced that Telfer would be joining Sutton United in a player/coach capacity.^[13]

International career

Telfer was capped once by Scotland, in a friendly match with France in March 2000.^[14] He also represented Scotland at the under-21 and B team levels.

Coaching career

In May 2014, Telfer joined the North American Soccer League team Indy Eleven as an assistant coach working under head coach Juergen Sommer who was a teammate during his time at Luton Town F.C.^[15] On 2 June 2015, Telfer was released from the coaching staff of Indy Eleven along with Sommer^[16][17]

Personal life

Telfer is a nephew of Eamonn Bannon, who also played for Scotland.^[18]

Career statistics

Appearances and goals by club, season and competition ^{[19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]}

Club	Season	League			FA Cup		League Cup		Other		Total
		Division	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
Luton Town
	1990–91	First Division	1	0	0	0	0	0	—		1	0
	1991–92	First Division	20	1	1	0	2	0	1[a]	1	24	2
	1992–93	First Division	32	2	2	1	0	0	—		34	3
	1993–94	First Division	45	7	7	1	1	0	1[b]	0	54	8
	1994–95	First Division	46	9	4	0	2	0	—		52	9
	Total		144	19	14	2	5	0	2	1	165	22
Coventry City
	1995–96	Premier League	31	1	3	1	4	0	—		38	2
	1996–97	Premier League	34	0	4	0	4	2	—		42	2
	1997–98	Premier League	33	3	4	2	2	0	—		39	5
	1998–99	Premier League	32	2	3	1	2	0	—		37	3
	1999–2000	Premier League	30	0	3	0	1	0	—		34	0
	2000–01	Premier League	31	0	2	0	2	0	—		35	0
	Total		191	6	19	4	15	2	0	0	225	12
Southampton
	2001–02	Premier League	28	1	1	0	1	0	—		30	1
	2002–03	Premier League	32	0	6	0	1	0	—		39	0
	2003–04	Premier League	37	0	1	0	3	0	2[c]	0	43	0
	2004–05	Premier League	30	0	4	0	2	0	—		36	0
	Total		127	1	12	0	7	0	2	0	148	1
Celtic
	2005–06	Scottish Premier League	36	1	1	0	3	0	2[d]	0	42	0
	2006–07	Scottish Premier League	21	0	2	0	2	0	6[d]	0	31	0
	Total		57	1	3	0	5	0	8	0	73	1
Bournemouth	2007–08	League One	18	0	3	0	0	0	3[e]	0	24	0
Leeds United	2008–09	League One	14	0	2	0	2	0	—		18	0
Slough Town	2008–09	Division One South & West	1	0	0	0	—		—		1	0
Sutton United
	2011–12	Conference South	28	1	4	0	—		2[f]	0	34	1
	2012–13	Conference South	13	0	0	0	—		1[g]	0	14	0
	2013–14	Conference South	5	0	0	0	—		—		5	0
	Total		46	1	4	0	0	0	3	0	53	1
Career total			598	28	57	6	34	0	18	1	707	37

1. Appearances in Full Members' Cup
2. Appearances in Anglo-Italian Cup
3. Appearances in UEFA Europa League
4. Appearances in UEFA Champions League
5. Appearances in EFL Trophy
6. Appearances in Conference South play-offs
7. Appearances in FA Trophy

Honours

Southampton

• FA Cup runner-up: 2003

Celtic

• Scottish Premier League: 2006, 2007
• Scottish League Cup: 2006

References

1. "Paul Telfer". Barry Hugman's Footballers. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
2. "Young Scotland football player fights for life". The Herald, Scotland. 28 November 1992. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
3. "Dyer World Cup doubt". BBC Sport. 11 May 2002. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
4. "Aberdeen 1–3 Celtic". BBC Sport. 2 December 2005. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
5. "Telfer to quit Celtic in summer". BBC. 3 December 2006. Retrieved 13 December 2006. My contract is up and, even if there was an offer of another year, I won't be staying...I feel fit enough to play on, but my family couldn't settle and are already back down south. So, if a club came in, I'd look at that.
6. "Telfer brings forward Celtic exit". BBC Sport. 2 April 2007. Retrieved 2 April 2007.
7. "Telfer agrees deal with Cherries". BBC Sport. 13 June 2007. Retrieved 13 June 2007.
8. "Telfer Joins Bond Revolution". afcb.premiumtv.co.uk. 13 June 2007. Retrieved 13 June 2007.
9. "Paul Telfer". Archived from the original on 19 March 2023.
10. "Telfer departs". Leeds United FC. 2 February 2009. Archived from the original on 21 September 2012. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
11. "Bateman goes Wild as four sign on". 2 April 2009. Retrieved 3 April 2009.
12. "Slough Town Appearances 0910". Slough Town FC. Archived from the original on 31 January 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
13. Moody, Graham (4 May 2011). "Scotland International joins Sutton Coaching Staff". Sutton Guardian. Retrieved 28 May 2011.
14. Paul Telfer at the Scottish Football Association
15. "Indy Eleven/Coaching Staff/Paul Telfer". Indy Eleven. May 2014. Archived from the original on 18 July 2014. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
16. "Regan in as Interim Head Coach". Indy Eleven. June 2015. Archived from the original on 7 July 2015. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
17. Tait, Chris (19 June 2015). "Paul Telfer reflects on nearly landing the Inverness job when he was pipped by John Hughes". The Herald. Herald & Times Group. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
18. Dempster, Martin (16 June 2009). "Golf: No keeping Telfer away from Capital scene". Edinburgh Evening News. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
19. "Paul Telfer career appearances". soccerbase.com. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
20. "Paul Telfer career appearances". premierleague.com. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
21. "Paul Telfer career appearances". 11v11.com. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
22. "Paul Telfer Sutton United appearances". livesoccertv.com. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
23. "Paul Telfer Luton Town appearances". hattersheritage.co.uk. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
24. "Paul Telfer Slough Town appearance". sloughtownfc.net. Retrieved 22 September 2022.

External links

• Paul Telfer at Soccerbase
• Feature in The Scotsman
• Scotland U21 stats at Fitbastats
• Scotland B stats at Fitbastats