Weir back at Everton after taking up coaching role

Published on Wednesday 22 February 2012 00:00

Former Rangers skipper David Weir returned to Everton as a coach yesterday and was immediately pushed into action for the Goodison Park side’s reserve team against Liverpool.

The 41 year-old Weir had only agreed a deal with Everton to help Alan Stubbs run the reserve team a few hours earlier. By the afternoon he was marshalling the Everton defence in the so-called ‘mini-Merseyside derby’, which ended 1-1.

Weir made more than 250 appearances for Everton between 1999 and 2007. Although he has been re-registered as a player, Weir has ruled out adding to his total of first-team games at the club. He only played one competitive game for Rangers this season before agreeing to end his Ibrox contract early in January, after five successful years at Ibrox. He has, however, described the return to Everton as being like “coming home”.

Weir joined the Goodison Park club from Hearts and enjoyed a good relationship with the fans. Although he was most recently training with Sheffield United, a coaching role with Everton has been in the pipeline for a while.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to be playing 90 minutes immediately upon coming back here,” Weir admitted yesterday. “But I’m always happy to help out and I enjoyed it. I am happy to help the young players and hopefully they can learn and get better and become Everton players.

“I am just concentrating on this [coaching] at the minute and enjoying it and trying to help out. Hopefully I can help the young lads accelerate their learning and also pick up some coaching experience – that is the primary aim.”

“It is great to be back,” Weir added. “It feels like coming home again. I had five great years in Glasgow and loved every minute of it but it is nice to be back and even after only a short time it already feels like home. The manager has always said there was a role here for me when I finally decided to come back.”

Weir’s recruitment further enhances the impression of the club’s training academy at Finch Farm as a ‘Little Scotland’. His former Everton team-mate, Duncan Ferguson, is also on the coaching staff at the club having returned from a Majorcan exile in the summer, while another Scot, Alan Irvine, is in charge of the club’s successful youth academy. David Moyes, meanwhile, is the club’s much respected manager.

“He [Weir] will help out Alan Stubbs with the reserves and he will also play in the occasional reserve game to help support some of those younger players coming through,” said Moyes yesterday. “It will be good to have him around the place.”

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