On this day, in 1956 Ricky Sbragia was born. He played for several teams and even scored against Liverpool once, after his playing days were over he went into management. He coached Manchester United and Scotland’s youth sides, but more importantly he was the manager of us and saved us from relegation.
Ricky was initially part of the youth set up at Rangers but he made his start in senior football at Birmingham City. He made a handful of appearances before going out on loan to Morton. After his loan he ended up transferring to Walsall in a bid for more game time.
He spent a couple of seasons at Walsall and gained promotion into the Third Division of English football, finishing second to gain automatic promotion. He was then bought by fellow Third Division side Blackpool for £35,000.
Sbragia didn’t spend too much time with The Seasiders however, after 22 appearances he moved to York City. The club he would end his career with after playing over 150 times. Which included a goal against Liverpool in the Cup.
He finished his career on loan at Darlington but he didn’t rack up many appearances before hanging up his boots.
The management route was the next step, he wound up at Manchester United’s youth setup, where he nurtured a young Mag slayer, Kieran Richardson.
In 2007 he came to Wearside as a coach, working as a part of Roy Keane’s coaching staff, following Keano’s resignation Ricky stepped up and became the interim coach. Sbragia’s first game in charge of the Lads saw us lose to his former side Manchester United, we then went on to thrash West Brom 4-0 and Hull 4-1. Ricky was soon after appointed as the permanent manager of the club on an 18 month contract.
Ricky kept us up that season, we secured safety on the final day of the season thanks to Borough and the Mags. We lost our last game of the season, we actually only picked up one point in our final five games, but thanks to Newcastle losing to Villa and Borough losing to West Ham we found ourselves two points above the drop.
After securing safety, whilst laughing at the Mags going down, Sbragia decided to take a step back from managing the club. He turned to a scouting role for a few years before leaving to work for his nation’s youth side.
He spent some time managing several of the younger sides for Scotland, ranging from the Under-17 squad up to the Under-21 side. Before retiring he went back to Manchester United but he remains a fan of the Lads to this day. He definitely remembers the amazing fanbase we have, as he once reacted to our story saying “Not surprised” when we announced that the club had sold 40 thousand tickets for our play-off match against Sheffield Wednesday!
