Dean Spink

Dean Spink

Personal information
Full name	Dean Peter Spink
Date of birth	(1967-01-22) 22 January 1967
Place of birth	Birmingham, England
Height
Position(s)	Striker / Defender
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1988–1989	Halesowen Town
1989–1990	Aston Villa	0	(0)
1989	Scarborough	3	(2)
1990	Bury	6	(1)
1990–1997	Shrewsbury Town	273	(53)
1997–2000	Wrexham	85	(9)
1999	Shrewsbury Town	4	(0)
2000–2002	Chester City	21	(2)
2002	Telford United	3	(0)
2002–2003	Kidsgrove Athletic
2003	Colwyn Bay
Managerial career
2001–2002	Chester City (joint caretaker)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Dean Peter Spink (born 22 January 1967) is an English former professional footballer who played either as a striker or a defender. After retiring as a player he became a physiotherapist for Shrewsbury Town but is now one at Solihull Moors. He is currently the reserve manager at Alvechurch FC.

Career

Spink was born in Birmingham, and began his football career at non-league Halesowen Town before signing for First Division Aston Villa for £30,000 in 1989. He never made the grade at Villa, and spent loan spells at Scarborough and Bury before moving to Shrewsbury Town where he spent seven years. In his first year with the club he was switched from centre-forward to centre-back, and won the club's player of the year award.

He had played over 300 games for Shrewsbury before moving across the border in 1997 to local rivals Wrexham, where he spent three seasons. Whilst at Wrexham he returned to Shrewsbury on a month's loan, and when he left the Welsh club in 2000 he didn't travel too far to his next two clubs, Chester City and Telford United, who were both in the Football Conference at the time. His spell at Chester saw him have a very brief spell as joint caretaker-manager with Owen Brown and Andy Porter, between the departure of Steve Mungall in December 2001 and the arrival of Mark Wright in January 2002. He later had short spells with Kidsgrove Athletic (where he was assistant manager to Porter) and Colwyn Bay.

Personal

Since retiring Spink has ventured into nursery care and gym training, and returned to Shrewsbury initially as youth-team physiotherapist before getting promoted to first-team physio.

Honours

with Shrewsbury Town

• Football League Division Three champions: 1993–94
• Auto Windscreens Shield runners-up: 1995–96

Personal

• Voted Shrewsbury Town F.C.'s "all-time cult hero" by viewers of the BBC show Football Focus in 2004.

External links

• Dean Spink career statistics at Soccerbase