In charge of the shakers from 1990 – 1995..
Born and raised in Manchester, Walsh was snapped up as a 17 year old by Bolton Wanderers F.C. He made his debut as an 18 year old and quickly established a reputation as a no-nonsense defender with incredible bravery and attitude. This was rewarded by his manager Ian Greaves who made him captain. This was no mean feat in a team that included characters such as Peter Reid, Sam Allardyce and Frank Worthington.
Walsh stayed with Bolton from 1974-1981. During this time he made 169 league appearances (8 as sub), scored 4 goals, and in 1978 led the club to the top flight as champions of the old second division, after narrowly missing promotion the season before.
In 1981, Walsh was snapped up by Howard Kendall at Everton for £90,000 plus Jim McDonagh. Walsh was one of Howard Kendall’s famous ‘magnificent seven’ signings. He later took up loan spells at Norwich City and Burnley.
In 1983 he was offered the opportunity to play in Florida for George Best’s old team Fort Lauderdale Strikers. The club went bust within a season though and Walsh was quickly back home. Next stop was Manchester City but within four months he signed for Blackpool where he went on to give a further 144 league appearances.
Walsh followed his Blackpool manager Sam Ellis to Bury as the first team coach. Upon Ellis’ departure to Maine Road to join Peter Reid as his assistant, Walsh took up the reins as manager in September 1990.
His time as manager lasted five years, during which he took the club to the play-offs three times, including the club’s first appearance at Wembley. All this was during a time where the club had financial problems and players were sold to keep the club afloat. Just five games after losing in the Wembley play-off final, Walsh was sacked as the Chairman became impatient despite the club having little finances to improve the team.
After a brief spell of taking Barrow to the top of their division, Walsh’s old Everton team mate Steve McMahon asked Walsh to join him at Swindon Town as his assistant in 1997. Walsh also stayed on to assist Jimmy Quinn after McMahon’s resignation late in 1998.
After being made redundant by Swindon Town, he became Peter Reid’s Chief Scout at Sunderland. In 2003 he had a brief spell as manager of Southport F.C. where, despite being in the top half of the table upon his arrival, they suffered relegation out of the Conference, only slipping in to the relegation places on the last day of the season after a defeat away at Stevenage Borough. After a successful start to the season, Southport went on a long win less streak which saw them fall from top spot to the brink of not qualifying for the newly formed Conference North league, this was something deemed unthinkable for the Southport board who left with no decision but to sack Walsh and replace him with Liam Watson in an attempt to secure qualification. In 2004, Walsh was then asked back to Swindon Town as Andy King’s assistant, but and decided to retire from the game a year later, and is now running a restaurant in Javea, Spain.
