Harry McNally
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Harold McNally | ||
| Date of birth | 7 July 1936 | ||
| Place of birth | Doncaster, England | ||
| Date of death | 12 December 2004 (aged 68) | ||
| Place of death | Chester, England | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| Skelmersdale United | |||
| Teams managed | |||
| 1978–1979 | Southport | ||
| 1983–1985 | Wigan Athletic | ||
| 1985–1992 | Chester City | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. | |||
Harry McNally (7 July 1936 – 12 December 2004) was an English football player, coach and manager, noted for his spells as manager of Wigan Athletic and Chester City.
Unusually for a Football League manager, McNally's playing career was spent as an amateur at Skelmersdale United. Upon retirement as a player, he became coach at the club and later served as manager at Southport in their first season in non-league football and was a member of coaching staff at Altrincham as Football League clubs began to take note of his achievements.
McNally was a stonemason by trade, and the son of a miner.
He joined Wigan as a coach in 1981, becoming assistant manager the following year. The club's manager, Larry Lloyd quit to become the manager of Notts County at the end of the 1982–83 season, and at about the same time, owner Ken Bates pulled his investment out of the club, forcing the sale of most of the first team. McNally was appointed manager and rebuilt the squad with youth players and lower–league signings (one of them being Paul Jewell, who would eventually steer the club into the Premier League as manager), leading the side to a creditable 13th-place finish the following season. He ended up having to sell his new squad at the end of the season to alleviate the continuing financial problems, forcing another rebuild. The following season was not as successful, and McNally resigned in February 1985. A few months after McNally's departure, Wigan won the Associate Members Cup at Wembley Stadium, thanks largely to the squad McNally had put together.
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