Chris Waddle

Early career

Waddle began his footballing career with Pelaw Juniors, moving on to Whitehouse SC, Mount Pleasant SC, HMH Printing, Pelaw SC, Leam Lane SC and Clarke Chapman before joining Tow Law Town before the start of the 1978–79 season.

Newcastle United

While working in food processing (a seasoning factory), Waddle had unsuccessful trials with Sunderland and Coventry City. He joined Newcastle United as a 19-year-old in July 1980 for £1,000. He made his Second Division debut for them in a 1–0 home win over Shrewsbury Town on 22 October 1980 and quickly established himself as an effective attacking midfielder, playing alongside Kevin Keegan and Peter Beardsley as Newcastle won promotion to the First Division at the end of 1983–84 season. In one of his first games in the top flight, against Queen's Park Rangers at Loftus Road on 22 September 1984, Waddle scored a first half hat-trick for Newcastle, who had a 4–0 lead at half time. However, a fight back by QPR saw the game end 5–5.

Tottenham Hotspur

After 46 goals in 170 league games for Newcastle, Waddle joined Tottenham Hotspur on 1 July 1985 for a fee of £590,000 (decided by a transfer tribunal). He scored twice on his league debut, a 4–0 home win over Watford on the opening day of the league season, although Spurs had a disappointing season where they finished tenth a year after finishing third, resulting in the dismissal of Peter Shreeves as manager and the appointment of David Pleat from…

Despite being in his 25th year, he was called up for the England Under-21 side and made his full squad debut against Ireland in March 1985. On 26 March 1985, when still a Newcastle player, Waddle was capped at senior level by Bobby Robson's England for the first time in a 2–1 win over Republic of Ireland. He soon became a regular member of the England squad and on 16 October that year he scored his first England goal, on his tenth international appearance, in a 5–0 win over Turkey. Waddle was in England's squad at the 1986 and 1990 FIFA World Cup as well as UEFA Euro 1988. Although England were eliminated at the group stages of Euro 88 after losing all three games, they did reach the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup and the semi-finals in 1990. Waddle had an eventful match in the semi-final against West Germany, which ended in defeat on a penalty shootout. Waddle hit the post with a shot in extra time, which could have been the winning goal, but then missed the decisive penalty in the shootout defeat as he put it inches over the bar. He says he only took the fifth penalty because Paul Gascoigne, who had been suspended from playing in the next game if England progressed, was too upset to take it. He subsequently blamed a chance meeting with Uri Geller and Michael Jackson prior to the tournament for missing his penalty. Waddle's performances in the 1990 World Cup were described as "superb" by Rob Bagchi, writing for The Guardian in 2010. He won the last of his 62 England…

In 1987, Waddle recorded the song "Diamond Lights" in a duet with Spurs and England teammate Glenn Hoddle. The song reached number 12 in the UK singles chart in May of that year and the pair appeared on Top of the Pops. Whilst at Marseille he joined teammate Basile Boli in recording a song entitled We've Got a Feeling. Despite spending the 1997–98 season as a manager, Waddle never returned to the coaching side of the game following his retirement and became a TV football pundit, commentator and sports newspaper writer. He previously worked for Setanta Sports and ESPN, he currently works as an analyst for BBC Radio Five Live's Premier League football coverage. Waddle appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live as a summariser at Premier League matches and also writes a column in The Sun newspaper. Waddle signed a deal with Setanta Sports to commentate on all England away matches in 2008–09. Waddle then went on to co-commentate for ESPN's English Premier League football coverage and is a pundit on Showsports Arabia, covering the English Premier League, from the studio in Dubai, UAE. Following England's heavy defeat to Germany in the second round of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Waddle criticised the English Football Association, claiming: "The FA sit on their backsides and do nothing tournament after tournament after tournament. Why don't they listen? Why don't they look at other countries and ask 'how do they keep producing talent?' We coach talent out of players ... We lack so many ideas and it…

Waddle has one daughter, Brooke, and a son called Jack. On 29 April 2012, Jack was given a one-year first-team contract at Chesterfield. His cousin, Alan Waddle, played league football for Halifax Town, Liverpool, Leicester City, Swansea City, Newport County, Mansfield Town, Hartlepool United and Peterborough United. In 2005, he was arrested following claims he was involved in a brawl in a pub in Dore, Sheffield.