Steve Cotterill

Cotterill was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He started his playing career in non-League football as a forward who could play centrally or in wide positions, playing semi-professionally at clubs like Cheltenham Town, Alvechurch and Burton Albion. In 1989, he moved into professional football when signing for Wimbledon in the First Division. He made 25 appearances in four years at Wimbledon and went out on loan to Brighton & Hove Albion to recapture his fitness following a serious cruciate knee-ligament injury. Cotterill signed for Bournemouth in the summer of 1993 for the fee of £120,000. He was out of contract and this fee was set by the then Transfer Tribunal. In three years at Bournemouth he got his career back in good shape scoring 18 goals in 55 league starts for the club. While at the club he picked up three player of the season awards but had to finish his career in 1996 after another bad knee injury from which he was unable to fully recover.

Sligo Rovers

Following on from Lawrie Sanchez, Sligo Rovers appointed Cotterill for the 1996 season. He led the club to third place in the Premier Division of the League of Ireland and his side also reached the League of Ireland Cup final, where they lost on penalties to Shelbourne. Cotterill also led them into the 1996 UEFA Intertoto Cup, playing against teams such as Nantes where they earned a 3–3 draw and another creditable 0–0 draw against Dutch team, Heerenveen.

Cheltenham Town

Cotterill joined Cheltenham when they were still a non-league club and he built up a successful side which won promotion from the Southern Football League Premier Division to the Football Conference in his first full year at the club. He won the FA Trophy in 1998, beating Southport 1–0 in the final, and Cheltenham finished second in the Conference the same year, their first season in that league. Cheltenham won the Conference and with it promotion to the Football League the following year. His first two seasons in the Third Division saw them finish in the top half. In 2001–02, the club reached the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time in its history, ended only by a 1–0 away defeat to West Bromwich Albion and including the defeat of Cotterill's future club Burnley. He twice won the prestigious award of Manager of the Year during his tenure. Cotterill took Cheltenham into the Second Division that season, following a play-off victory over Rushden & Diamonds at the…

As a player

Cotterill was 11 when his father died. His mother died when she was 56 and he was 38. He then adopted a strict fitness regime because "all my family had gone and I made a decision that I am hanging around. I want to live to a grand old age". In 2019, he had surgery to replace a ruptured disc in his neck. During 2021, Cotterill was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary with severe COVID-19 symptoms compounded by emphysema and a punctured lung. In an interview with the BBC he described being '...frightened to go to sleep in case I didn't wake up'.