Football Icons: Teddy Sheringham
Edward Paul Sheringham, known by most as Teddy Sheringham, is another football icon.
He played mostly as a second striker in a long and eventful professional career.
Early career
He began his career at Millwall, where he scored 111 goals between 1983 and 1991. The forward is the club's second all-time leading scorer. He eventually left to join First Division Nottingham Forest. A year later, Sheringham scored Forest's first-ever Premiership goal.
Move to Tottenham
Not long after that goal for Forest, he was signed by Tottenham Hotspur. Sheringham had a great start to his career at the club by being the Premiership's top goalscorer in its inaugural season, scoring 22 goals. His strike partners at White Hart Lane included Gordon Durie, Ronny Rosenthal, Jürgen Klinsmann and finally Chris Armstrong.
In 1993–94, he was the Spurs top scorer with 14 Premiership goals but only played in just 19 games due to injury. In that campaign, they finished 15th.
The following season was better. He helped Spurs finish seventh in the Premiership and reach the semi-final of the FA Cup. They just missed out on European football for the 1995–96 season. Jürgen Klinsmann partnered with him during this campaign was later quoted as claiming that Sheringham was the most intelligent strike partner he had ever had.
Premier League news (eurosuperfootball.blogspot.com)
Sheringham was hugely popular with the Tottenham fans. However, despite his prolific strike rate by the end of the 1996–97 season, he was 31 years old and had yet to win a major trophy in a career. This campaign had so far spanned 15 years. Many pundits considered him likely to finish his career without major honours.
Success at last for Teddy
After five seasons at Spurs, Sheringham joined Manchester United. This would be a memorable time for the forward. In the 1997/1998 campaign, United and Sherringham won the Charity Shield, but that would be the only success in his first twelve months. Things would get better though for United, even if they didn't always work out perfect for the individual.
During United's historic 1998/1999 season, they won a Treble consisting of the Premier League. FA Cup and UEFA Champions League. Teddy only scored 5 goals, but 2 of these were very important. He scored United's 1st goal in a 2-0 FA Cup final over Newcastle, then a late equaliser in the Champions League final over Bayern Munich
A special page dedicated to the FA Cup (eurosuperfootball.blogspot.com)
During the following campaign, United won the Premier League again alongside the Intercontinental Cup. In his final season at Old Trafford, the forward had his best individual season. Scoring 21 goals in 43 appearances, he won the PFA Players' Player of the Year and FWA Footballer of the Year awards alongside another Premier League title.
Later career
After leaving Manchester United at the end of the 2000–01 season, Sheringham re-joined Tottenham Hotspur, where he was a losing finalist in the 2001–02 Football League Cup. He spent one season at Portsmouth, scoring the club's first Premier League goal, before joining West Ham United. He helped the Hammers gain promotion from the 2004–05 Football League Championship. The following season he appeared for them in the 2006 FA Cup Final.
Sixteen years ago today we signed our 2005 Hammer of the Year Teddy Sheringham ❤️ pic.twitter.com/QcSBOsKz4j
— West Ham United (@WestHam) July 14, 2020
He holds the record as the oldest outfield player to appear in a Premier League match and the oldest player to score in a league match. He retired from competitive football at the end of the 2007–08 season with Colchester United, at the age of 42
International career
He was something of a late developer on the international scene, Sheringham did not win his first England cap until the age of 27 in 1993. Under the reign of manager Terry Venables, Sheringham came to be the preferred strike partner for Alan Shearer.
During this time, England had many strikers with the likes of Andy Cole, Ian Wright, Robbie Fowler and Les Ferdinand all battling to partner Shearer in the England team.
He was eventually capped 51 times for the England national football team and scored 11 times. He played in the 1998 and 2002 FIFA World Cups. The highlight with England was reaching the semi-final of Euro 96.
