Dario Gradi facts for kids

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Dario Gradi

Gradi in 2010
Personal information
Full name	Dario Gradi
Date of birth	(1941-07-08) 8 July 1941 (age 84)
Place of birth	Milan, Italy
Position(s)	Defender
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1969–1970	Sutton United
1971	Tooting & Mitcham United
Managerial career
1976–1977	Sutton United
1978–1981	Wimbledon
1981	Crystal Palace
1983–2007	Crewe Alexandra
2008	Crewe Alexandra (caretaker)
2009–2011	Crewe Alexandra
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Dario Gradi (born 8 July 1941) is a famous Italian-English former football player, coach, and manager. He is best known for his long time with Crewe Alexandra. He worked there for over 36 years until October 2019. During his time, he was a manager, a director of football, and a director of their youth Academy.

Gradi started his football journey as an amateur player for clubs in the London area. He even played for the England amateur team once. After his playing days, he moved into coaching. His first big success as a manager was with Wimbledon. Later, he briefly managed Crystal Palace in 1981.

Dario Gradi had a very long first period as manager of Crewe Alexandra. This lasted for 24 years, from 1983 to 2007. In 2007, he stepped down from being the main manager. He passed the team responsibilities to Steve Holland and became the technical director. At that time, Gradi was the longest-serving manager of any English football league club. He returned to manage Crewe two more times. He finally stepped down in November 2011 to focus on helping the club's young players. He managed Crewe in a total of 1,359 first-team games.

Gradi received an MBE award in 1998 for his contributions to football. This award was later taken away in 2023.

Early Life and Playing Career

Dario Gradi was born in Milan, Italy. His father was Italian, and his mother was English. His father passed away when Dario was a young child. In 1945, when he was four years old, he moved to London with his mother after the Second World War.

He went to Glyn Grammar School in Epsom. From 1960 to 1963, he studied to become a physical education teacher at what is now Loughborough University. While there, he played for the university's top football team. After finishing his studies, he returned to teach at his old school.

Before becoming a teacher, he played as an amateur for Sutton United and Tooting & Mitcham United in the early 1960s. He played one game for England's amateur team in September 1967. He later rejoined Sutton United. He played in the FA Amateur Cup Final in April 1969 and in an FA Cup game against Leeds United in January 1970. Gradi also played for Wycombe Wanderers before they became a professional club.

Coaching Career

After teaching for a while, Gradi became a regional coach for the FA in London. Because of this, he could no longer play as an amateur. He coached at Senrab F.C. in east London. In 1971, at just 29 years old, he became an assistant coach at Chelsea.

He then had coaching jobs at Derby County from 1977 to 1978. Later, he spent two years at Leyton Orient as a youth team coach from 1981 to 1983.

Managerial Career Highlights

Sutton United Manager

Dario Gradi managed Sutton United from 1976 to 1977.

Wimbledon Manager

In January 1978, Gradi became the manager of Wimbledon. He helped the team win promotion from the Football League Fourth Division in the 1978–79 season. However, they were relegated after only one season in the Third Division.

Wimbledon was doing well and looked set to return to the Third Division. Then, in February 1981, Gradi received an offer to manage Crystal Palace. This team was struggling in the top division, the Football League First Division. The chairman of Crystal Palace, Ron Noades, had previously been at Wimbledon. He thought Gradi was the right person to help his new club avoid relegation.

Crystal Palace Manager

Gradi's time at Selhurst Park with Crystal Palace was not successful. He could not save them from being relegated. He resigned in November 1981 after a difficult start to the 1981–82 season.

Crewe Alexandra Manager

After coaching at Leyton Orient, Gradi returned to managing on 9 June 1983. He accepted an offer to manage Crewe Alexandra. This team often finished near the bottom of the Fourth Division. They had to apply to stay in the league many times to avoid dropping out.

Gradi's first signings included Mark Leonard, John Crabbe, and David Pullar. Gradi wanted to build a strong youth academy. This academy would develop young players who could be sold to other clubs. The money from these sales would then help fund the player development program. Some of his early successful player sales included Dave Waller, Gary Blissett, and Geoff Thomas. Slowly, the club began to improve.

In the 1988–89 season, after six years of steady progress, Crewe won promotion. This ended their 25 years in the lowest division of the league. Gradi then signed a very long ten-year contract with Crewe. They were relegated again two years later. But in 1994, they won promotion to Division Two. Three years after that, they reached Division One for the first time in their history.

Soon after the 1994 promotion, Gradi became the longest-serving manager in the Football League. By 2002, he was one of only two managers, along with Alex Ferguson, who had been in their job since before 1990. He later joined the club's Board of Directors.

Gradi's contract with Crewe was unique. It included a special part that gave him a percentage of the money made when a player was sold to another club.

Finding Young Talent

Dario Gradi is well-known in football for his amazing ability to find and develop young talent. He even had talks with Portugal's Benfica about their open manager position in the 1980s. In 1996, he was also considered for the role of Technical Director for FA.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Gradi helped many players start their careers. These players went on to play in top divisions and for their national teams. Some of them include David Platt, Rob Jones, Geoff Thomas, Danny Murphy, Ashley Ward, Wayne Collins, Seth Johnson, Robbie Savage, and Neil Lennon. Gradi's success continued into the 2000s. He helped players like Rob Hulse, Dean Ashton, David Vaughan, Michael O'Connor, Billy Jones, Nicky Maynard, and Ashley Westwood.

Crewe Alexandra won the PFA Bobby Moore Fair Play trophy 12 times in 15 years while Gradi was in charge. This shows how much his teams valued fair play.

End of Managerial Role

On 20 April 2007, Gradi announced that he would stop being the main first-team manager from 1 July. He became the technical director and slowly handed over duties to the new first-team coach, Steve Holland. Neil Baker remained as assistant manager. At that time, Gradi was the longest-serving manager of an English Football League club. Gradi explained his decision to the club website:

I didn't want to be a 75-year-old manager working seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. That is not healthy for the future of the club. I will probably drop dead doing the job at some point but I wanted to put that day off a bit. This is a better way to do things, to introduce this gradual transition because it will take some of the workload off me.

On 18 November 2008, Gradi took charge of Crewe's first team again as a temporary manager. This happened after a difficult start to the 2008–09 season under Steve Holland. He was in charge for just over a month before Gudjon Thordarson was announced as the new manager on Christmas Eve 2008. Gradi stayed in charge for two more games during Christmas. Thordarson took over on 29 December. After Thordarson was let go on 2 October 2009, Gradi was again made temporary manager. The club's board of directors said he would stay in this role until further notice.

After returning as manager in 2009, Gradi announced on 10 November 2011 that he had decided to step down as manager. He returned to his role as Director of Football. Gradi's assistant manager, Steve Davis, who had played for Crewe under Gradi from 1983 to 1987, was appointed as the new manager right away.

Gradi announced his retirement from all his roles at Crewe Alexandra on 7 October 2019. He was 78 years old. This ended his 36-year connection with the club.

Awards and Recognition

In January 1998, Dario Gradi was given an MBE award for his services to football. However, this award was taken away in 2023. In 2003, he was made an Honorary Freeman of the Borough of Crewe and Nantwich. In the same year, he received an honorary doctorate from Loughborough University.

In 2004, Gradi won the PFA Merit Award. He was also added to the English Football Hall of Fame for his contributions to football. In 2011, at the Football League Awards, Gradi was honored again. He won the 'Outstanding Contribution to League Football' award for his work at Crewe. A street in Crewe, Dario Gradi Drive, is named after him. The winning school in the Surrey Schools Football Association's boys under-13s competition receives the Dario Gradi Trophy.

Managerial Statistics

¹Gradi was away from his job between 22 September and 17 October 2003, because he had heart surgery. Assistant manager Neil Baker took charge of the team during this time (6 games played, 0 won, 1 drawn, 5 lost).

Honours

Individual

• League Two Manager of the Month: January 2011

See also

• List of football managers with most games
• List of longest managerial reigns in association football