Steve Gardner (footballer born 1958)
David Stephen "Steve" Gardner ( born October 7, 1958) is a former English footballer. The attacking players played during his career in England, Sweden and the United States.
Career
Gardner played in youth at Ipswich Town. After he had there not able to enforce, he joined in 1977 the second division side Oldham Athletic in the Second Division at. There, he scored in the following four seasons two goals in 53 games.
In January 1981, Gardner joined the league for the second Swedish Karlskrona AIF, with whom he missed promotion to the Allsvenskan at the end of his first season as a table in fourth. According to a ninth place at the end of the following season, he joined as a successor to the exchanged to Germany Dan Corneliusson in the summer of 1983 the IFK Gothenburg in the first division at. As a regular scorer in the championship final, he led the team to Glenn Hysén, Tord Holmgren, Glenn Schiller and Thomas Wernerson to the final against Östers IF and successful title defense. In parallel, he was next to Tommy Holmgren also scorer for the club in the first round of the European Champions' Cup 1983/84 in a 2-1 home win against the Italian representative AS Roma after a 0-3 first-leg defeat of the club, however, different from the competition. In the following season, he played only 16 games season, because he had moved on in the summer in the United States to the Dallas Sidekicks in the Major Soccer League. At the time of his highest American League he scored by the end of three goals in 16 games. In November 1984 he suffered facial injuries in a car accident.
Beginning of 1985, Gardner moved into the second Swedish league for local rivals GAIS Gothenburg. Although temporarily handicapped in the course of the season with a foot injury, he led the club with twelve goals this season in the play-offs against the Stockholm Djurgårdens IF. After a 0-0 draw in the first leg, the second leg ended in extra time after goals from Lenna Kreivis for GAIS and Teddy Sheringham for Djurgårdens IF also draw on penalties missed the Gothenburg team the rise. Ranking third he missed the club the following year also the rise before the year 1987 was extremely successful. On one hand, managed end of the season to return to the top flight for him were seven goals in 26 matches to book. On the other hand, he reached the final of the National Cup, which, however, ended with a 0-2 defeat against Kalmar FF on the side of Ulf Johansson, Magnus Gustafsson and Tony Persson. In the first league season in 1988, he was next to the Tunisians Samir Bakaou, the American Thomas Phillips and his compatriot Allan Dodd one of the first foreign players of the club in Allsvenskan. For the club he played 19 games in the Elite series, before the club after 24 goals in 83 games left in late 1988 after an eighth place in the table.