Kean On City

Last updated : 20 February 2008 By Covsupport
Steve Kean will be assistant to Chris Coleman as they embark on their Coventry City career.

Kean was with Cookie at Fulham and Real Sociedad and Coleman said to the CT about him:

"Steve was my coach at Fulham and Real Sociedad," he said of the Scot, who is the first of a number of new backroom appointments.

"He was a player at Celtic and played in Portugal in the top division for six years and then played at Reading back in this country before going into coaching with myself at Fulham.

"So he's got a good background and he's a very bright coach and the players will enjoy working with him.

"It is another chapter for us and we'll bring other people in eventually, but for the time being it will be me and Steve."

Kean's playing career ended prematurely with a broken leg at the age of 27 and the Glaswegian wanted to coach.

He said "I went out to play for Academica in Portugal for five years under Oliveira, and he was a fantastic coach. It was there that I first had a little insight into coaching. His way was very different.

"I went to Reading but I broke my leg and started coaching in the evenings with the young boys. I was doing anything at the club so I could get the opportunity to coach. They had a Bulgarian goalkeeper, Bobby Mihailov, who had played in the World Cup. In the first round, he had a bald head but in the second round he had a big mop of hair. He had a hair clinic back in Bulgaria and that was his way of promoting it.

"When he came to England he spoke no English, but he had played in Portugal at the same time as me, so because I speak Portuguese - albeit with a Glasgow accent - I became a goalkeeping coach."

Kean was at Reading youth academy and then left to do the same job at  Fulham before teaming up with Coleman when he was appointed as Fulham boss.


John Harbin and Frankie Bunn are under contract until the end of the season as are many of the entourage that Iain Dowie brought in. It is believed that they will stay until the end of the season and then be replaced by who Coleman wants.