Martin Hunter (football coach)

Career

Hunter started his career as a teacher. At Bridgewater Hall School, part of the Stantonbury Campus in Milton Keynes, he taught Physical Education and Geography between 1979–1987.

Hunter worked as the assistant manager at Bradford City and Stoke City. He then worked for The Football Association for 13 years. Initially he was a regional director of coaching, before landing head coaching roles with the U15s, U16s and finally the U19s. As England U19 head coach Hunter worked with some current full international players such as Joe Cole, Theo Walcott and Michael Carrick during his time with the youth set-up.

Hunter holds the prestigious UEFA Pro licence. He has also used his expertise in this field to run coaching courses to help others achieve that qualification.

Hunter joined Norwich City as first-team coach on 26 June 2006. He was caretaker manager of the club during the period after Nigel Worthington's sacking and did apply for the job on a permanent basis. He lost out, however, to ex-Celtic and then West Ham United assistant manager Peter Grant who was appointed on 16 October 2006.

On 18 June 2007, Chris Hutchings said that he wanted his former colleague at Bradford City to be his assistant at Wigan Athletic. Instead he joined Watford on 25 July 2007 as the club's first team coach.

After Aidy Boothroyd's departure from Watford on 3 November 2008, Hunter had been playing an active role with caretaker manager Malky Mackay. He left the club on 24 November 2008 concurrent with the arrival of Watford's new manager Brendan Rodgers.

Hunter returned to Bradford City to assist caretaker manager Wayne Jacobs on 15 February 2010.

On 15 July 2010, Hunter was appointed Southampton's Under-21 coach. On 30 August 2010, he was drafted in as assistant caretaker for the Southampton first team on a temporary basis while the board re-evaluated the clubs' management, following the dismissal of Alan Pardew.