THE former Northampton Town manager Ian Atkins is the latest person to apply for the vacant manager's job at Oxford United.

Atkins, 43, who parted company with Northampton by mutual consent at the start of this month, has already made contact with Oxford following Malcolm Shotton's resignation last week.

As a defender, Atkins played for Shrewsbury Town, Sunderland, Birmingham City, Everton and Ipswich Town and he managed Doncaster Rovers and Colchester United before getting the Northampton job in January 1995.

He was also assistant manager to Terry Cooper at Birmingham.

At Northampton, Atkins took the Cobblers up from Division 3, via the play-offs, in 1997, and they went close to climbing straight up to Division 1, losing out in the play-offs to Grimsby Town the following season.

But they were relegated from Division 2 last year and after a disappointing start to this campaign, with the team mid-table, he left by mutual consent on October 7.

His forte is organising the defence, making his sides hard to beat, and working with limited resources.

He lives in Solihull and is currently scouting for Aston Villa.

Story date: Tuesday 02 November

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.