Garry Birtles Failed To Deliver

Garry Birtles

Born in Not­ting­ham, Garry Birtles made his league debut for Not­ting­ham Forest in a 2–0 win at home to Hull City in March 1977. Birtles soon estab­lished him­self in the first team and the free scor­ing for­ward pro­ceeded to win the League Cup Final as well as the European Cup Final with the club in 1979. He won another European Cup winner’s medal the fol­low­ing cam­paign as Brian Clough´s play­ers beat Ham­burg 1–0 in the final.

Garry Birtles was even­tu­ally pur­chased by Manchester United for a fee of £1.25 mil­lion in the autumn of 1980 and he made his first league appear­ance for the club in a nar­row 2–1 tri­umph against Stoke City at Vic­toria Ground in Octo­ber 1980. Unfor­tu­nately, the striker failed to ful­fil his obvi­ous poten­tial with Manchester United and he returned to play for old club Not­ting­ham Forest two years later. The hir­sute player then moved to crosstown rivals Notts County on a free trans­fer at the end of the 1986–87 sea­son before he finally fin­ished his pro­fes­sional career with Grimsby Town in 1991. Garry Birtles made his inter­na­tional senior debut for Eng­land as a sub­sti­tute in a 3–1 vic­tory against Argen­tina at Wemb­ley in May 1980 and went on to col­lect a total of three senior full caps for his country.

Manchester United Books