Peter Withe

Peter Withe (born 30 August, 1951, Liverpool) is a much-travelled English centre forward, playing between 1971 and 1988.

His lengthy resume takes in spells at:
*Southport (1971);
*Barrow (1971);
*Port Elizabeth City (South Africa) (1972);
*Arcadia Shepards (South Africa) (1973);
*Wolverhampton Wanderers (1973-75);
*Portland Timbers (NASL) (1975);
*Birmingham City (1975-76);
*Nottingham Forest (1976-78);
*Newcastle United (1978-80);
*Aston Villa (1980-85);
*Sheffield United (1985-88).

He won the Championship with Nottingham Forest but then left on the verge of their European Cup glory to join then-2nd division side Newcastle United. Ron Saunders took him to Aston Villa on the eve of the 1980/81 season for a fee of £500,000, the club's record signing at the time but a snip considered the service he gave them over the next five years. He scored 20 goals in Aston Villa's last championship winning season 1980/81. Also the scorer of Aston Villa's winner against Bayern Munich in the European Cup final of 1982. Capped by England 11 times, scoring once, and was the first English Aston Villa player to feature in a World Cup squad (Spain 1982).

During the summer of 1975, he spent one season in the United States as a member of the expansion Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League (NASL). The focal point of a strong offense, Withe scored 17 goals and added 7 assists in 22 games to lead the Timbers to first place in their division and a tie for the best record in the league at 16-6. The Timbers played two home playoff games in front of more than 30,000 fans each, numbers unheard of for US soccer at the time. They advanced to Soccer Bowl '75, the league championship, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Rowdies 2-0.

Withe went into management and, after propelling the Thailand national team towards some success, is currently manager of Indonesia.

He also had a brief spell as manager of Wimbledon, being promoted from position of first team coach in October 1991 following Ray Harford's resignation. Withe's time in charge was not a successful one, winning only one game out of thirteen in the league and he was replaced after just 105 days at the helm by the youth team coach Joe Kinnear.