A soccer coach at 78: Roy Hodgson hired by Bristol City to extend 50-year managerial career

By Canadian Press on March 27, 2026.

Roy Hodgson is back in soccer management — at the age of 78.

The former England coach took charge of second-tier Bristol City on Friday, two years after leaving his last managerial job at Crystal Palace in the Premier League after falling ill amid widespread reports he was getting fired.

Hodgson is one of the most respected coaches in soccer, having held posts around the world for the last 50 years. One of his many former clubs is Bristol City, where he worked in the early 1980s as assistant manager and then, briefly, as manager for his first senior role in English soccer.

“I have had great conversations with the board and I am really excited by the opportunity to help until the end of the season,” Hodgson said about taking over a team in 16th place in the 24-team Championship. “We will get straight to work.”

His first game in charge will be at Charlton on April 3 and he has a contract until the end of the season.

Hodgson’s first job in his long, itinerant coaching career was in 1976 with Halmstad in Sweden.

He has since taken charge of high-profile clubs such as Inter Milan and Liverpool, and led England from 2012-16.

“Roy’s appointment is about more than the results of the next seven games,” Bristol City chief executive Charlie Boss said. “Over the remainder of the season he will help us set the standards and values at the club that we will need to be successful going forwards.”

There have been older soccer coaches

Hodgson has already made history as the oldest-ever Premier League manager, but he’s young compared to Ivor Powell.

Powell, a former Wales international, earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records in 2006 for being the world’s oldest working soccer coach, when he was aged 90. At that time, Powell was a coach at the University of Bath — a team of students he helped, when aged 86, to lead to the first round of the FA Cup in 2002.

Also, Romania’s current coach is 80-year-old Mircea Lucescu, whose team lost in the World Cup qualification playoffs on Thursday.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Steve Douglas, The Associated Press