Maurice Ross

For the judge, see Maurice A. Ross.

Maurice Ross

Personal information
Full name	Maurice Alexander Ross [1]
Date of birth	(1981-02-03) 3 February 1981 (age 43)
Place of birth	Dundee, Scotland
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s)	Right back
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
2000–2005	Rangers	78	(2)
2005–2006	Sheffield Wednesday	1	(0)
2005–2006	→ Wolverhampton Wanderers (loan)	4	(0)
2006	Wolverhampton Wanderers	14	(0)
2006–2007	Millwall	15	(0)
2007–2008	Viking	31	(0)
2009	Kocaelispor	10	(0)
2009–2010	Aberdeen	6	(0)
2010	Beijing Guoan	14	(0)
2011	Motherwell	6	(0)
2011–2012	Livingston	8	(0)
2012–2013	FK Vidar	13	(0)
Total		196	(2)
International career
2002–2003	Scotland [2]	13	(0)
Managerial career
2013–2015	Sola FK
2015–2016	Egersunds IK
2016–2017	TB/FC Suðuroy/Royn
2017–2018	Víkingur
2021	Notts County (assistant)
2021–2023	Cowdenbeath
2023–	Fleetwood Town (assistant)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Maurice Alexander Ross (born 3 February 1981) is a Scottish football coach and a former player who is the assistant head coach at Fleetwood Town.

Ross made his first senior appearance in professional football in February 2000 and played for eleven different clubs: Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Millwall, Viking, Kocaelispor, Aberdeen, Beijing Guoan, Motherwell, Livingston and FK Vidar. In his time with Rangers he won all the domestic honours in Scotland. He played predominantly at right back and was capped by the Scotland national team 13 times.

Playing career

Club

Ross joined Rangers as a trainee and made his senior debut in a 7–1 defeat of home town team Dundee, in February 2000. He captained the Rangers Under-21s to a reserve league championship win during 2000–01 but it was not until the 2002–03 season, under Alex McLeish, that he established himself on the first team. A highlight was scoring the opening goal of the 2005 Scottish League Cup Final.

Despite signing a four-year deal with Rangers in 2003, by August 2005 Ross had fallen out of favour at Rangers and was given a free transfer and moved on to Sheffield Wednesday. However the transfer did not prove to be a success as Ross only made two appearances for Wednesday and was later loaned to Wolves after only two months. ^[3] In January 2006, Wolves made the loan into a permanent deal and Ross signed a six-month contract but he was released by Wolves at the end of that contract. Ross secured a new club at Millwall in the summer of 2006 and featured in the starting eleven for the first five games before being dropped to the bench after a string of poor performances. ^[4]

In March 2007 Ross was signed by Viking from Stavanger, Norway. Ross agreed a three-year contract with Viking until the end of the Norwegian season late in 2009 but instead joined Turkish Super League side Kocaelispor in early February 2009. After Kocaelispor secured their league status that season but Ross, along with four other players, had their contracts terminated. On 12 October 2009, it was announced that Ross had asked the then Aberdeen manager Mark McGhee if he could use the facilities at Pittodrie, in order to gain fitness and ultimately a deal with another club. He signed a short-term deal with the Dons until January. ^[5] Ross made it clear his intention was to move abroad during the winter transfer window and on 11 January 2010 it was announced that he signed for Chinese club Beijing Guoan. It was confirmed on 10 February 2010 that he joined the defending champions of Chinese Super League. ^[6] Ross scored his first goal for the club in a 3–1 defeat to Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma in the 2010 AFC Champions League.

On 1 April 2011, it was revealed that Ross had signed a contract with Scottish Premier League side Motherwell until the end of the season. ^[7] Ross then was released by the Fir Park club on 1 June 2011. ^[8] On 13 October 2011 Ross signed for Livingston until January 2012. ^[9]

International

Berti Vogts gave him a call up to the Scotland team after making just a few appearances for Rangers. Ross made his international debut against South Korea in 2002, and went on to feature in the team in the campaign to qualify for Euro 2004.

Coaching career

After this third spell in Scottish football, Ross returned to Norway, initially to play and later coach, with FK Vidar and Sola FK respectively. ^[10] He has since managed Norwegian club Egersunds IK, ^[11] and Faroese clubs TB/FC Suðuroy/Royn ^[12] and Víkingur.

On 24 January 2019, Ross re-joined Motherwell in a youth coaching capacity. ^[13] Ross left Motherwell after the appointment of Graham Alexander as their manager. ^[14]

Ross was appointed assistant manager of Notts County in March 2021. ^[14] However, he spent only two months at the club, resigning from his post in May 2021 after making a racist remark about Dutch Notts County winger, Enzio Boldewijn. ^[15] Ross made a full public apology for making the "clumsy, insensitive analogy". ^[16]

In November 2021 Ross became the manager of Scottish League Two club Cowdenbeath. ^[17] Despite signing several new players for the struggling Blue Brazil, the club ultimately finished bottom of League Two. The club was then relegated after a comfortable play-off defeat over two legs to Lowland League champions Bonnyrigg Rose. ^[18] Ross opted to remain in charge at Central Park for the club's maiden Lowland League campaign, which got off to a horror start with the club earning just one point from its first five matches.^{[ citation needed ]} Going into mid-August, pressure grew on Ross after the club's third loss against a youth team in just six games, a 3-0 Challenge Cup defeat to Kilmarnock B.^{[ citation needed ]}

On 31 December 2023, he became assistant head coach to Charlie Adam at EFL League One side Fleetwood Town. ^[19]

Career statistics

Club

Sources: ^{[20] [21]}

Club	Season	League		Cup		League Cup		Continental		Total
		Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
Rangers	1999–2000	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
	2000–01	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
	2001–02	21	0	4	0	1	0	3	0	29	0
	2002–03	20	1	2	0	4	0	1	0	27	1
	2003–04	20	1	1	0	3	0	6	0	30	1
	2004–05	14	0	0	0	2	1	3	0	19	1
	2005–06	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
	Total	78	2	7	0	10	1	13	0	108	3
Sheffield Wednesday	2005–06	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	2	0
Wolverhampton Wanderers	2005–06	18	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	19	0
Millwall	2006–07	15	0	3	0	2	0	0	0	20	0
Viking	2007	17	0	4	0	–		–		21	0
	2008	14	0	3	0	–		4	0	21	0
	Total	31	0	7	0	–		4	0	42	0
Kocaelispor	2008–09	10	0	–		–		–		10	0
Aberdeen	2009–10	6	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	7	0
Beijing Guoan	2010	14	0	–		–		–		14	0
Motherwell	2011	6	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	7	0
Livingston	2011–12	8	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	8	0
Career total		187	2	20	0	13	1	17	0	237	3

International

Appearances and goals by national team and year ^[2]

National team	Year	Apps	Goals
Scotland	2002	8	0
	2003	5	0
Total		13	0

Managerial record

As of match played 20 July 2022

Managerial record by team and tenure

Team	Nat	From	To	Record					Ref.
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Cowdenbeath		2 November 2021	present	31	6	5	20	019.35
Career Total				31	6	5	20	019.35	—

• Scottish statistics only.

Honours

Player

Rangers

• Scottish Premier League: 2002–03, 2004–05
• Scottish Cup: 2001–02, 2002–03
• Scottish League Cup: 2002–03, 2004–05

Manager

FK Sola

• 3. divisjon: 2014 ^{[22] [23]}
• 4. divisjon: 2013 ^{[22] [23]}

Víkingur Gøta

• Faroe Islands Super Cup: 2018 ^{[22] [24]}

References

1. "Maurice Ross". Barry Hugman's Footballers. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
2. Maurice Ross at the Scottish Football Association
3. "Sky Sports | Sport News". Home.skysports.com. Retrieved 4 November 2009.^{[ permanent dead link ]}
4. "MAURICE ALEXANDER ROSS". Soccerway. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
5. "Ross agrees contract at Pittodrie". BBC Sport. 21 October 2009. Retrieved 4 November 2009.
6. "国安正式签约莫莱斯·罗斯". Beijing Guoan F.C. Official Website. 10 February 2010. Archived from the original on 7 March 2010.
7. "Maurice Ross defends his switch to Motherwell". BBC Sport. 1 April 2011. Retrieved 1 April 2011.
8. "Craigan and Jennings offered new deals at Motherwell". BBC Sport. 1 June 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2011.
9. "Maurice Ross and Mark Fotheringham join Livingston". BBC Sport. 13 October 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
10. "Ex-Rangers, Millwall and Beijing defender Ross coaching in Norway". Tribalfootball.com. 9 April 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
11. Kvendseth, Kristian Oftedal (22 November 2015). "Maurice Ross ny EIK-trener" [Maurice Ross new EIK trainer]. Aftenposten (in Norwegian). Retrieved 1 February 2016.
12. Arge, Tróndur (30 January 2017). "Maurice Ross krevur hart arbeiði" (in Faroese). in.fo. Archived from the original on 13 January 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
13. "MAURICE ROSS JOINS 'WELL COACHING STAFF". motherwellfc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
14. "Ian Burchnall named new boss less than a day after Neal Ardley was dismissed". Sky Sports. 25 March 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
15. Dorsett, Rob (5 May 2021). "Maurice Ross resigned from Notts County role after making racist remark". Sky Sports. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
16. Macintyre, Kenny (5 May 2021). "Maurice Ross apologises over 'flippant' & racially 'insensitive' comment to Notts County player". BBC Sport . Retrieved 7 May 2021.
17. "Maurice Ross: Cowdenbeath appoint former Scotland defender as team boss". BBC Sport. 2 November 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
18. Crawford, Kenny (14 May 2022). "Cowdenbeath 0-1 Bonnyrigg Rose". BBC Sport . Retrieved 10 August 2022.
19. "Charlie Adam: Fleetwood Town name ex-Scotland midfielder as new head coach". BBC Sport. 31 December 2023.
20. Maurice Ross at Soccerbase
21. "Ross, Maurice". vikingfotball.no (in Norwegian). Viking FK. 28 February 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
22. "MAURICE ROSS JOINS 'WELL COACHING STAFF". Motherwell.net. 24 January 2019. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
23. "Former Rangers star leaves coaching role at Motherwell". Daily Record . Faroes Soccer. 22 February 2021. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
    "MAURICE ROSS DEPARTS MOTHERWELL". Motherwell.net. 22 February 2021. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
24. "2018 FISC: Viking v NSL" (in Faroese). Faroes Soccer. Retrieved 31 March 2021.

External links

• Maurice Ross at National-Football-Teams.com
• Maurice Ross at Soccerbase