Paul Agnew

Name: Paul Agnew
Born: 15 August 1965, Lisburn
Height: 5.09 ft
Weight: 10.07 st
Position: Left-Back

Representative Honours: Northern Ireland: 1 Under-23 Cap (1990), 11 Youth Caps, Schoolboy Caps.
Club Honours: (with Grimsby) Football League Division Four Runner-Up 1989/90.

Club Career:
Club................ --Seasons-- Signed --Fee-- --League-- -FA Cup- -FL Cup- -Other-
Lisburn Youths
Coventry City............................ Trial
Manchester United ....................... Trial
Bolton Wanderers ................. 1980 ..Youth
Cliftonville.................... Aug-82 ..Youth
Grimsby Town........ 83/84-94/95 Feb-84 £ 4,000 219(23)/ 3 23(1)/ 0 17(1)/ 0 12(2)/0
West Bromwich Albion 94/95-96/97 Feb-95 £65,000 .38 (1)/ 1 .0(1)/ 0 .1(0)/ 0
Ilkeston Town....... 97/98...... Aug-97 ...Free (Southern League)
Swansea City........ 97/98...... Sep-97 ...Free ..7 (0)/ 0
Wisbech Town.................... Nov-97 ...Free (Southern League)
Racing Club Warwick............. Feb-99 ...Free (Southern League)
Totals................................. £69,000 264(24)/ 4 23(2)/ 0 18(1)/ 0 12(2)/0

Biography:
Raised on a farm near Lisburn, Paul “Aggy” Agnew impressed on the football field from a young age. He attracted the attentions of a number of English clubs before signing associate schoolboy forms with Bolton and earning schoolboy caps as a contemporary of the likes of Norman Whiteside and Alan McDonald. Back in the Irish League with Cliftonville, Agnew continued to impress with Northern Ireland’s youth team and earned the attentions of Chris Nicholl, then assistant manager at Grimsby Town. He arrived at Blundell Park in November 1983 for a trial, signing as a professional the following February. He remained with the Mariners for over a decade.

Although his early seasons with Grimsby were stifled by a succession of niggling injuries, Agnew found himself usefully employed at both left-back and centre-back. Although he scored only three goals for Grimsby, Agnew is fondly remembered for his equalising strike against Scunthorpe during the 1989/90 campaign that saw promotion from the Fourth Division. At the end of that season he was rewarded with an Under-23 cap, coming of the bench for Linfield’s Noel Bailie in a 3-2 defeat by the Republic of Ireland at Shamrock Rovers, Portadown. That same month he played for a “full” Northern Ireland side that faced Spurs in Danny Blanchflower’s testimonial – that was a close as he came to a Full cap.

From such a high spot Agnew was to suffer a frustrating following campaign. While Grimsby won a second successive promotion he was struck down with hamstring and ankle injuries, limiting him to just seven appearances. Still he was an integral part of Alan Buckley’s side that solidified itself in the second tier of English football, and when his manager departed for West Brom in October 1994, Agnew soon followed. He took the captain’s armband shortly after arriving at the Hawthorns, though he was continually troubled by injuries. After forty-one games for the Throstles, plus a dozen for the reserves, Agnew was released at the end of the 1996/97 season.

From there on Agnew drifted into non-League football around the Midlands, a brief spell with Third Division Swansea aside. He held the position of Director of Football at Whittingham FC (a midlands based youth club with links to West Brom) and coached with Sutton Coldfield College’s Football Academy. Outside of football he worked as a driving instructor and with a CCTV company.

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