Andy Holden

Andy Holden (born 14 September 1962 in Flint, Flintshire, Wales) is a Welsh former football player. He had playing careers at Chester City, Wigan and Oldham Athletic and was a long-serving coach at Everton between 1994 and 2013. He was a strong and powerful defender and was capped by Wales once at both full and under-21 level in 1984. He was appointed assistant coach at Hibernian in July 2014.

Career

Holden's full appearance for Wales as a substitute against Israel at the end of the 1983–84 season was remarkable as a year earlier he had been playing non-league football for Rhyl and his new Chester City team had comfortably finished bottom of Division Four. However, Holden had stood out in a poor side and he would retain his player of the season accolade the following campaign. He had made his Football League debut on 27 August 1983 for Chester in a 1–1 draw with Northampton Town.

Unfortunately, club captain Holden became dogged by injuries and he rarely featured in Chester's 1985–86 promotion campaign. He joined Wigan for £50,000 in October 1986 at a time when Chester were suffering a financial crisis and facing a winding up order. He left Chester after making exactly 100 Football League appearances for them in three and a half years, when he bagged 16 goals – an impressive strike rate for a central defender thanks to his penalty taking and ability to head in set-pieces.

Andy Holden (athlete)

John Andrew "Andy" Holden (22 October 1948 – 4 January 2014) was an English long distance runner whose athletic career peaked in the 1970s. His strongest event was the 3000 m steeplechase, a discipline at which he represented his country in the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Holden's best performance in the steeplechase was 8:26.4 in September 1972, setting a British record. His time was still in the national all-time top 20 at the time of his death 42 years later. After his track career ended, Holden switched to road racing, where he continued to race in the veteran categories for many years. His best of 28:29 for the 10 km road race is a British record for over-35s.

Biography

Holden was raised in the Lancashire town of Leyland, and represented Preston Harriers as a junior, typically in cross country. In 1968, he went to the University of Birmingham to study dentistry. While at university, he won the junior title in the 1969 English Cross Country Championships, beating future world 10,000 m record holder Dave Bedford.

Andy Holden (artist)

Andy Holden (born 1982 in Blunham, Bedfordshire, England) is an artist who works in a variety of mediums.

Exhibitions of his work have included 'Chewy Cosmos Thingly Time' (2011) at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge and 'Art Now: Andy Holden' (2010) at TATE Britain exhibiting ‘Pyramid Piece’, an enormous knitted boulder based on piece of pyramid stolen from the great pyramid of Giza which he later returned.

Other works include an adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’ for stage, performed at the ICA, London (2012) and Arnolfini, Bristol, performance lectures with his father, ornithologist Peter Holden including 'Lecture on Birdsong' at TATE Britain, a lecture on cartoon physics titled, 'Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape' and the 'Dan Cox Library for the Unfinished Concept of Thingly Time' in memory of his friend Dan Cox.

Holden has also released several records with his band Grubby Mitts and co-runs the label Lost Toys Records. In 2010 he curated a festival of Artists' Music at Wysing Arts Centre called Be Glad for the Song Has No End.