Gary Newbon: Sky Blues favourite on to Shaw thing with school

At Palace, Richard played with Gareth Southgate, and he was in the management team when Lee Carsley was the Sky Blues' coach

Former Coventry City stalwart, on and off the pitch, Richard Shaw is opening a football school at the end of the month in Lutterworth. More on that later.

As a player, Shaw had an excellent career at Crystal Palace and Coventry. At the former he played in the 1990 FA Cup final and both legs of a losing Football League Cup semi-final with Liverpool, as well as an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United.

Famously, he was also the red card victim of Manchester United’s Eric Cantona at Selhurst Park in January 1995, which led to the Frenchman attempting a king fu kick at a heckling Palace fan.

Then he had 11 years, from 1995 to 2006, as a talented centre-half with City. He describes the 1997-2000 period as the best of his playing career. He loved playing for the Sky Blues managers Ron Atkinson and then Gordon Strachan.

He next played for Millwall before taking up coaching at several clubs including Palace and Coventry.

At Palace, Richard played with Gareth Southgate, and he was in the management team when Lee Carsley was the Sky Blues’ coach. He rates both very highly in their England roles.

Of Carsley, Shaw says he is a brilliant coach and that no-one should have any doubts about his ability. It does not surprise Shaw that Carsley is in with a good chance of landing the England job.

In that 1990 FA Cup final against Manchester United, the match finished 3-3 after extra time. Shaw was left back and Andy Thorn centre-half. They both played in the replay at Wembley five days later which United won 1-0. Years later, Shaw was assistant manager to Thorn at the Sky Blues.

Shaw, now 56, was born in Brentford and came through the youth system at Palace. He was 18 in 1987 when he broke into the first team.

The Cantona incident came when the Frenchman tried to get onto a long clearance from United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel. Cantona was obstructed by Shaw who had been marking him out of the game. Cantona retaliated by kicking Shaw and was sent off.

As he walked off, he was insulted by a Palace supporter called Matthew Simmons and Cantona, seeing red again, took off launching the kick followed by a series of punches!

Shaw stayed at Selhurst Park until November 1995 when the then-Sky Blues manager Ron Atkinson signed him for just under £1 million. He played consistently well in defence. He had been named player of the year at Palace and that accolade was repeated at Coventry more than once.

Atkinson described Shaw to me as a very dogged defender. He was particularly good at man marking and took responsibility for eliminating the opposition’s best strikers. Atkinson added that Richard was a great professional who trained hard and that he was a great credit to both the club and himself on the way that he conducted himself.

Although he was not Atkinson’s captain, Big Ron felt that Richard had leadership qualities. Atkinson also revealed that he was close to signing Shaw’s defensive partner at Palace, Chris Coleman. But Coventry beat the then-reigning champions Blackburn Rovers 5-1 and the Rovers manager Ray Harford was so worried about his defence he nipped in and signed Coleman.

I was always impressed with Shaw’s performances and attitude when covering Sky Blues matches for ITV and visions of him and his hairstyle readily spring to mind.

Shaw was so loved by Coventry City and their supporters that his testimonial match against Celtic in April 2006 was a big success. He then moved back to South London, to Millwall, and they became the third club where he was named player of the season.

He also became caretaker player-manager for a short while but moved back to Coventry to become assistant to manager Thorn. After the Sky Blues had drawn their opening three games in League One, Thorn was sacked and Shaw became caretaker manager alongside first team coach Carsley. In his first game in charge, Coventry beat Birmingham in the League Cup.

However, Mark Robins became permanent manager four weeks later. Shaw returned to Palace as an Under-23s coach and his last post was assistant Under-23 coach at Watford.

Next month, Shaw is to open an exciting new football school at Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This is primarily to teach the fundamental football skills to kids ranging from six years old to 12, but he intends to extend this to older players.

I have no doubts Shaw will make an excellent tutor. In total, he played 699 first team games and coached young players at the clubs already mentioned. If you are interested in booking a spot for your children to attend these sessions, call him on his business mobile: 07776 815485.

Don’t miss my Tuesday comment column in association with Utilita Energy in the Birmingham Mail and Coventry Telegraph.