Newcastle United have added Robbie Stockdale to the backroom staff after making a key appointment behind the scenes.
The former Middlesbrough, Scotland and Hull City midfielder will join the club as an assistant to Diarmuid O’Carroll with the Under-21s. The 45-year-old has left his post at Barrow to join Newcastle’s second string.
Stockdale has had stints as assistant at West Brom, Grimsby and MK Dons and been a manager at Grimsby and Sunderland as caretaker. O’Carroll’s vision has been clear on Tyneside since being appointed, he said last year: “The club speaks for itself in terms of the size, stature and fanbase. It’s a really exciting time now as well with the ownership and everything that is planned going forward.”
Stockdale will also dovetail with Steve Harper at the Academy, Harper said: “The Academy is a cornerstone of our sporting strategy, and Diarmuid’s role is a crucial one in preparing players for the next significant step in their development journeys.”
Stockdale has amassed a wealth of experience during the formative years of his coaching career, working across youth and men’s coaching.
Reflecting on his stint at Sunderland, Stockdale said: “I had some not so great players and attitudes who were refusing to play, but I had nowhere to go with that as there was no-one above me. But I had some really top ones as well – John O’Shea, it was going to be his last game for the club – and people like that who did things properly. I’ll always be thankful for that, because it made my week a lot of easier.”
Stockdale won five caps for Scotland after graduating as a player from Middlesbrough’s faced academy. Once he had hung his boots up, he began coaching with Grimsby. In August 2012, Stockdale swapped the youth setup at Grimsby for the youth setup at Sunderland, working alongside Craig Liddle with the club’s under-18’s side.
He was appointed assistant manager of the first team on a temporary basis, following the sacking of Paolo Di Canio in 2013, and he then succeeded Kevin Ball as the Black Cats’ under-21 coach in the 2014/15 season.
Stockdale presided over an impressive run of form while in charge of the under-21’s and guided them to the top of the Premier League at one stage of the 2015/16 season.
His work was enough to convince Sam Allardyce to appoint him as a first-team coach, with ‘Big Sam’ even predicting that Stockdale possessed all of the ingredients to become a successful manager in the future.
He was put in caretaker charge of the team in November 2017 after Simon Grayson’s departure as manager, and then again when Chris Coleman was sacked in 2018 as he guided the team to a 3–0 home victory against Championship winners Wolves. After leaving Sunderland, he has had coaching jobs at Hibernian, and with Allardyce at West Brom, a spell as manager at Rochdale, before coaching jobs as part of Stephen Clemence’s staff at Gillingham and Barrow.
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