Kevin Mark Phillips (born 25 July 1973) is an English former professional footballer who was most recently the head coach of club AFC Fylde.
A striker, Phillips started his career with Southampton but failed to make the first team and was released. He then signed for non-League side Baldock Town where he impressed, earning a move to Watford in 1994. In 1997, Phillips signed for First Division club Sunderland. In his first season he scored 35 goals in all competitions, the most goals in a season for a Sunderland player since the Second World War as well as being the league's top goalscorer. Phillips scored 23 goals in 26 league games in the following season as Sunderland were crowned champions of the First Division. He received his first call up to the England national team in 1999. In the 1999–2000 season, Phillips scored 30 Premier League goals to earn himself a place in the PFA Team of the Year. This goal tally earned him the Golden Boot award as well as the European Golden Shoe. He was the first Englishman to have won the award. Phillips was named in the squad for UEFA Euro 2000 although he made no appearances at the finals. He made his eighth and final appearance for England in 2002. Phillips spent a further three seasons with the Wearside club, making 235 appearances and scoring 130 goals before departing for Southampton in 2003 following Sunderland's relegation.
After two seasons with Southampton and one with Aston Villa, Phillips signed for Championship club West Bromwich Albion. In his second season with West Brom, Phillips was a member of the team that won the league with him being named as the Championship Player of the Season. In 2008, he signed for fellow West Midlands club Birmingham City where he won the League Cup in his third season. He spent two seasons with Championship club Blackpool before moving to Crystal Palace initially on loan. With Palace, Phillips scored the winning penalty in the play-off final against his former club Watford to earn promotion to the Premier League. In January 2014, Phillips signed for Leicester City who won the Championship title. He retired at the end of the 2013–14 season.
He began his coaching career with his last club Leicester City as their assistant first team coach. After other coaching roles with Derby County and Stoke City, he began his managerial career with South Shields. With South Shields, he won the Northern Premier League title in his second season before leaving at the end of the season. In January 2024, he was confirmed as the new manager of Hartlepool United.
Club career
Early career Phillips was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. He started his footballing career as a trainee with Southampton, where he spent six years, four as a schoolboy, before being taken on as an apprentice in 1989. As a youth, Phillips was considered to be too small to play up front and was played at right back, in which position he made two reserve team appearances in 1990. He failed to make the grade at Southampton and was released by manager Chris Nicholl, and returned to Hertfordshire where he signed for non-League semi-professional side Baldock Town in the summer of 1991.
At Baldock Town, he was initially played as a defender until an injury crisis resulted in manager Ian Allinson playing Phillips as a striker, scoring twice in his first match in his new role. He was signed by Watford in December 1994 for an initial £10,000, plus four additional payments of £5,000.
Watford Phillips established himself in the squad during the second half of the 1994–95 season, and played regularly before suffering a foot injury in March 1996, initially diagnosed as a hairline fracture and later discovered to be a hole in a ligament in his foot, that kept him out for a year. Watford were relegated from Division One in 1995–96, and by the time Phillips returned to the team, they were in the top half of Division Two, and went on to finish 13th. In July 1997, Phillips signed for Sunderland for a fee of £325,000, potentially rising to more than £600,000.
Sunderland
Phillips signed for Sunderland just after their relegation from the Premiership. Fifteen matches into the Division One season, the club were in mid-table and Phillips had four goals. In the remainder of the season, Phillips set or equalled club records by scoring in seven consecutive matches and in nine consecutive home matches, became the first Sunderland player since Brian Clough in 1961–62 to score 30 goals in a season, and finished the campaign with 35 goals in all competitions, the most by any Sunderland player in one season since the Second World War. His tally included a four-goal haul in the third round of the FA Cup at Rotherham United and two goals in the play-off campaign. After scoring Sunderland's second goal in the play-off final, Phillips was substituted after 73 minutes with an injury, so missed the remainder of the 4–4 draw with Charlton Athletic which Sunderland lost 7–6 on penalties. Phillips later described the final as his "most disappointing day in football", but also as the best match he had ever played in.
Phillips scored eight goals in the opening weeks of the 1998–99 season as Sunderland reached the top of the Division One table. A broken toe sustained in a League Cup tie against Chester City in mid-September kept him out for nearly four months, but his goalscoring resumed immediately upon his return, with a "screaming volley" away to Queens Park Rangers. Promotion was confirmed in April as Phillips scored four of Sunderland's five goals in an away game against Bury, and he ended the season with 23 goals from only 26 league games, and 25 goals in all competitions. His form earned him an international call-up for England, and he made his debut in the starting eleven in a friendly against Hungary.
In the run-up to the start of the 1999–2000 FA Premier League season, pundit Rodney Marsh predicted that Phillips would struggle to get more than five or six goals at the higher level. Forming a potent "little and large" strike pairing with veteran target-man Niall Quinn, Phillips scored his sixth goal on 18 September – the first of a hat-trick against Derby County – and was named Premier League Player of the Month for October. His goal tally was 20 by mid-January and 30 by the season's end, a total that earned him not only the Premier League Golden Boot but also the European Golden Shoe award – he was the first Englishman to have won the latter and held the distinction until Harry Kane won the honour in 2024 – and with a 14-goal return from Quinn contributed to Sunderland's seventh-place finish, just missing out on a UEFA Cup place.
In January 2001, Phillips scored his 104th goal for Sunderland, breaking the club's post-war goalscoring record. As the season wore on, Phillips suffered both a lack of form and disciplinary problems: he scored only once between mid-January and May, and came in for criticism from fans and local press. He finished the season with 18 goals in all competitions, 14 in the league, as Sunderland again finished seventh and missed out on UEFA Cup qualification.
Phillips' goals contribution to Sunderland's 2001–02 season fell to 13, of which 11 came in the league. He relinquished his penalty-taking duties, after three consecutive spot-kicks were saved, but his goal on the final day of the season, in a 1–1 draw with Derby County, was enough to ensure 17th place and Premier League survival. He played the last months of the campaign despite a groin problem which required surgery over the 2002 close season.
Amid interest from clubs including Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, Phillips "pledged his future" to Sunderland ahead of the 2002–03 season, though he later confirmed he had submitted a transfer request in August. Manager Peter Reid brought in strikers Tore André Flo and Marcus Stewart, and warned Phillips he was no longer an automatic first choice. Phillips in fact started 32 of the 38 league matches, but scored only 6 goals as the club were relegated with just four wins and what were then Premier League record lows of 19 points and 21 goals. A second transfer request was rejected in January, but at the end of the season Phillips confirmed that the club's need to reduce its expenditure in light of relegation meant that he would be leaving. He had played in 235 matches for Sunderland, and scored 130 goals at an average of better than a goal every two games.
Southampton In August 2003, following Sunderland's relegation from the Premier League, Phillips moved to the south coast to join Southampton for a fee of £3.25 million, with Phillips signing a four-year contract, while taking a substantial cut in his salary.
He made his debut on 16 August, coming on as a substitute away to Leicester City and scoring with a long-range strike in a 2–2 draw. His next goal came at White Hart Lane on 20 September when the ball ricocheted in off him from an attempted clearance by Tottenham Hotspur's Anthony Gardner. This was followed in mid-week by the equalising goal in a 1–1 draw with Steaua Bucharest in the UEFA Cup First round. On the following Saturday, Phillips was sent off in the final minute of a bad-tempered 1–0 defeat to Middlesbrough, after he kicked out at Boro defender Franck Queudrue.
Phillips then failed to score for over three months until his fourth goal of the season came in a 2–1 victory over Leeds United on 17 January 2004. There then followed a rich run of form with Phillips netting ten further goals in the final four months of the season including two goals in the matches at Manchester United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Manchester City. Phillips ended the 2003–04 season with 13 goals in total, from 37 appearances.
In March 2004, manager Gordon Strachan had resigned to be replaced by Paul Sturrock who was dismissed shortly after the start of the 2004–05 season, to be replaced in turn by Steve Wigley who spent just three months in charge before the arrival of Harry Redknapp from local rivals Portsmouth in December. Phillips had now played under four managers within a year.
Despite the frequent changes in manager, Phillips continued to score regularly in his partnership with new signing Peter Crouch. He managed ten league goals in 2004–05, including two in a 3–3 draw with Fulham on 5 January. Despite Phillips's goals, the club finished at the bottom of the table and were relegated after 27 years in the top flight. On 29 June 2005, Phillips departed from Southampton after two years and 22 league goals to join Aston Villa in a £1 million deal.
Aston Villa Phillips signed a two-year contract with Premier League club Aston Villa for a fee of £1 million on 29 June 2005. He scored just four minutes into his Villa debut, and then returned from injury to seal Villa's first Premier League defeat of local rivals Birmingham City in seven attempts. Phillips shared front-man duties with Juan Pablo Ángel and fellow new signing Milan Baroš, but illness and further injuries disrupted his season, in which he contributed only five goals. He began the 2006–07 season with Villa, but on 22 August, he signed for West Bromwich Albion of the Championship for a £700,000 fee.
West Bromwich Albion
Phillips joined West Bromwich Albion despite strong interest from Sunderland, where his former strike partner Niall Quinn had recently become both chairman and manager. He cited a reluctance to move his family and home for a third time in three years as a major factor in his decision. He scored 22 goals in his first season with West Brom, including two hat-tricks, one in a 5–1 win at Ipswich Town and the second in a 7–0 defeat of Barnsley on the final day of the regular season that confirmed Albion's place in the play-offs. Phillips scored twice in the first leg of the play-off semi-final against Wolverhampton Wanderers, and headed the only goal of the second leg to ensure their progression to the final, in which they lost 1–0 to Derby County.