Tommy Craig facts for kids

Tommy Craig was born on November 21, 1950, in Glasgow, Scotland. He is a Scottish former football player and coach. Tommy played football for 18 years as a midfielder. He played over 100 games for teams like Sheffield Wednesday and Newcastle United in England. After his playing career, he became a coach. He has worked for many clubs, including Hibernian, Celtic, Aberdeen, Newcastle, and St Mirren.

Tommy Craig's Playing Career

Tommy Craig started his football journey at Aberdeen. In 1969, Sheffield Wednesday paid £100,000 to sign him. This was a huge amount of money at the time. It was a record for their club and also a British record for a teenage player.

Tommy scored 37 goals for Sheffield Wednesday in league games. Many of these goals came from penalty kicks. During his time there, the team faced some tough times. They were moved down to a lower league after his first full season. They continued to struggle in Division Two.

Tommy left Sheffield Wednesday in 1974 to join Newcastle United. Fans at Newcastle loved him and called him "an adopted Geordie." After Newcastle, he joined Aston Villa. However, he did not stay there for long. The manager, Ron Saunders, was making changes to build a winning team.

Tommy then moved to Swansea City, Carlisle United, and Hibernian. He played for these clubs before he decided to become a coach. Tommy also played for his country once. He was part of the Scotland team in a game against Switzerland in 1976.

Tommy Craig's Coaching Career

After he stopped playing, Tommy Craig became an assistant manager at Hibernian. He worked with manager John Blackley. When Blackley left, Tommy briefly took over as the temporary manager.

Next, he became the assistant manager to Billy McNeill at Celtic. They had a very successful time together. They won the league championship in 1988, which was a special year for Celtic. It was their 100th anniversary!

After Celtic, Tommy worked at Aberdeen as an assistant to Roy Aitken. Then, he took on an important role coaching Scotland's Under-21 team.

Tommy also spent seven years as a first-team coach at Newcastle United. He said he learned a lot about coaching from the different managers he worked with there. He left Newcastle in September 2006.

Later, John Collins chose Tommy to be his assistant at Hibernian. When Collins resigned, Tommy became the temporary manager of Hibernian for a second time. He managed four games before leaving the club. This was after Mixu Paatelainen was appointed as the new manager.

In December 2008, Tommy joined Charleroi in Belgium. He was an assistant coach to John Collins again. On November 20, 2009, Tommy was made the head coach of Charleroi. He signed a contract for a year and a half. However, he was sacked on April 14, 2010.

On July 22, 2011, St Mirren manager Danny Lennon appointed Tommy as a first-team coach. Tommy was part of the coaching team that won the 2012–13 Scottish League Cup with St Mirren. This was a big achievement for the club.

On May 13, 2014, Tommy Craig became the manager of St Mirren. This happened after Danny Lennon left the club. Right after taking the job, Tommy added two players, Jim Goodwin and Gary Teale, to his coaching team. However, Tommy was sacked in December 2014. He had been in charge for 19 matches. At that time, St Mirren was at the bottom of the Scottish Premiership. They also lost 4–0 to Inverness in the Scottish Cup.

Managerial Statistics

Here are Tommy Craig's statistics as a manager for some of the teams he led:

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Scotland U21		1993	1998
Charleroi		2009	2010	19	2	3	14	10.53
St Mirren		2014	2014	19	3	3	13	15.79

• There are no statistics currently available for his time with the Scotland U21 team.