John Angus Paul Collins (born January 31, 1968 in Galashiels) is a former Scottish international footballer and former manager of Hibernian.

Playing career

As a youngster he played both rugby and football before turning his attention entirely to football. At youth level, Collins played for Hutchison Vale between 1980 and 1984, captaining the side for four years, before signing as a professional with Hibernian. Collins played for six seasons with the club, appearing 195 times and scoring 21 goals.

Collins signed for Celtic in 1990, becoming their first million pound player. He generally played on the left side of midfield, scoring 47 goals in 217 appearances. He is unfortunate to have played in one of Celtic's most barren spells and won only one trophy, the 1995 Scottish Cup.

Collins moved to AS Monaco in the summer of 1996 on a free transfer under the Bosman ruling. Celtic, under the direction of Fergus McCann, attempted to obtain compensation for the loss of Collins. McCann argued that the Bosman ruling did not apply to this case because AS Monaco are based in the principality of Monaco and are outside of European Union jurisdiction.

Collins won the French championship in 1997 with Monaco, who then reached the semi-final of the 1998 UEFA Champions League, defeating Manchester United in the quarter-final. Collins returned to the UK in the summer of 1998 by moving to Everton, before ending his playing career with Fulham.

Collins won 58 caps and scored 12 goals for Scotland. He played for his country at Euro 96 and the 1998 World Cup. He scored in the opening match of that World Cup, with a penalty kick against Brazil. Collins retired from international football after the aggregate defeat in the Euro 2000 playoff by England in November 1999.

International goals

Scores and results list Scotland's goal tally first.

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	February 17 1988	King Fahd Stadium, Riyadh		2-1	2-2	Friendly
2	March 27 1991	Hampden Park, Glasgow		1-0	1-1	ECQG2
3	May 19 1993	Kadriorg Staadion, Tallinn		2-0	3-0	WCQG1
4	September 8 1993	Pittodrie, Aberdeen		1-0	1-1	WCQG1
5	September 7 1994	Olympic Stadion, Helsinki		2-0	2-0	ECQG8
6	October 12 1994	Hampden Park, Glasgow		3-0	5-1	ECQG8
7	October 12 1994	Hampden Park, Glasgow		5-0	5-1	ECQG8
8	April 26 1995	Stadio Olimpico, Serravalle		1-0	2-0	ECQG8
9	October 5 1996	Stadionas Daugava, Riga		1-0	2-0	WCQG4
10	May 23 1998	Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey		1-1	2-2	Friendly
11	June 10 1998	Stade de France, Saint-Denis		1-1	1-2	WCGA
12	October 5 1999	Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow		1-0	1-0	ECQG9

After playing

After retiring from club football in 2003, Collins spent time with his family while also obtaining coaching qualifications, including the UEFA Pro licence. Collins has retained links with his former clubs. When Fulham signed a new player in 2004, John Collins introduced Collins John.

Hibs manager

On October 31, 2006 he was named as manager of Hibernian. Collins led Hibernian to their first piece of silverware in 16 years when they defeated Kilmarnock 5–1 in the Scottish League Cup Final on March 18, 2007.

Despite the League Cup victory, Collins had a major bust-up with his players later in the same season. The players strongly criticised the manager for frequently changing the team and formation. It was claimed that almost all of the first team players attended a meeting with chairman Rod Petrie in the hope of removing Collins. However, the chairman refused to yield to this pressure and gave Collins his full support. Hibs finished the season in 6th place in the Scottish Premier League.

On December 20, 2007, Collins resigned from Hibernian with immediate effect, having been recently linked to the vacant Scotland national team manager job. Hibs' board of directors and their fans were angered that Collins' decision was taken just one day after announcing his delight at the opening of the club's new training facilities. Collins had also said in October 2007 that "I never broke a contract during my playing career and I've no intention of doing so now.

The sacking of Lawrie Sanchez by English Premier League side Fulham on December 21 2007 led some to believe that Collins was being earmarked for the Fulham job. On December 28 2007, however, it was announced that Roy Hodgson had been appointed manager of Fulham. More recently John has been linked with the vacancy at West Ham United after the departure of Alan Curbishley. He was formally interviewed for the job but did not make it through to the final round of interviews.

Managerial stats

As of 20 December 2007.

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Hibernian		October 31 2006	December 20 2007	54	23	16	15	42.59

Notes

External links