Kevin Drinkell
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Kevin Smith Drinkell | ||
| Date of birth | 18 June 1960 | ||
| Place of birth | Grimsby, England | ||
| Playing position | Centre forward | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1976–1984 | Grimsby Town | 272 | (89) |
| 1985–1988 | Norwich City | 121 | (50) |
| 1988–1989 | Rangers | 36 | (12) |
| 1989–1991 | Coventry City | 41 | (5) |
| 1991 | → Birmingham City (loan) | 5 | (2) |
| 1992–1994 | Falkirk | 55 | (13) |
| 1994–1995 | Stirling Albion | 21 | (3) |
| Teams managed | |||
| 1994–1998 | Stirling Albion | ||
| 1998–2000 | Montrose | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. |
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Kevin Smith Drinkell (born 18 June 1960) is an English former professional footballer and football manager. He was a striker, noted for his aerial ability and the number of headed goals he scored as a result.
Drinkell began his career with hometown club Grimsby Town where he scored 89 goals in 272 games. His goals got him noticed by other clubs and in 1985 Norwich City manager Ken Brown signed him for a fee of £90,000. Norwich were rebuilding their squad after relegation from the first division and had looked set to sign striker Trevor Senior from Reading, however when he opted to stay with the Royals they turned their attention to Drinkell. The fee was set by a Football League tribunal and the figure angered Grimsby, who considered his value to be much higher.
Drinkell quickly proved that Norwich had indeed got a bargain. In his first season at Carrow Road he scored 22 league goals as Norwich won the Second Division championship. With Norwich being Football League Cup holders, Drinkell would also have experienced UEFA Cup action that season had it not been for the ban on English clubs in European competitions arising from the Heysel disaster in May 1985.
It won him the Golden Boot for being the division's top scorer as well as the first of two consecutive Norwich City player of the year awards. His goalscoring form continued in the First Division. His most memorable goal for Norwich – by popular consensus among supporters – came in a match against Liverpool on 11 April 1987 at Carrow Road. Liverpool were reigning league champions and were looking to regain the title. The score was 1–1 late in the game, when Drinkell picked up the ball at the edge of the area and hit a fierce shot from a difficult angle past Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar. It ended one of the most famous statistics in football, as it was the first time that Liverpool had lost a league match in which Ian Rush had scored. Norwich finished fifth that season, but Drinkell and his colleagues were once again denied the chance of UEFA Cup action, as UEFA voted for the ban on English clubs in European competitions to continue for at least another season. He added a further 12 league goals in 1987–88, though Norwich finished in the bottom half of the table this time – a decline in form which had seen manager Ken Brown dismissed in favour of coach Dave Stringer in December 1987.
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