Remembering Matt Beard

Chris Brookes writes an extended tribute to Matt Beard (1978-2025), the manager who won back-to-back WSL titles with Liverpool in 2013 and 2014 and returned a decade later to take the Reds out of the Championship and on to a fourth-place finish. The piece traces his career from an FA Cup win as Keith Boanas’s assistant at Charlton Athletic, through Millwall, Chelsea, Boston Breakers and West Ham United, where he reached an FA Cup final, to Bristol City, Liverpool again and finally Burnley. It notes that only Emma Hayes has managed more WSL matches, and that Liverpool’s two titles brought no prize money. Tributes and archive quotes come from Casey Stoney, Gilly Flaherty, Mia Enderby, Mel Lawley and Katie Stengel, alongside a section on his cockney rhyming slang and Jacqui Oatley’s fundraiser for his family.