David "Harry" Bassett born 4 September 1944, Stanmore, London is an English football manager. He is currently unemployed, after leaving Southampton F.C. due to the appointment of George Burley. As a player he was a defensive midfielder at semi-professional level, playing for Hayes, Wycombe Wanderers, Walton & Hersham FC and later Wimbledon FC. He was a member of the Wimbledon team who forced a famous draw in the 4th round of the FA Cup against reigning League Champions Leeds United F.C. in 1975. He retired from playing soon after Wimbledon entered the Football League in 1977, and became a coach with the club.

Promoted to first team manager following the departure of Dario Gradi, Bassett guided Wimbledon's rise up through the Football League during the 1980's. The team won promotion from the Fourth Division in 1982-83. In June 1984, Bassett had agreed to take charge of Crystal Palace but never signed the contract. Within 72 hours after accepting Palace's offer, he changed his mind and returned to Wimbledon.

In 1985-86, they finished third in the Second Division and were promoted to the First Division after just a mere nine seasons of league football. They briefly topped the league in September 1986, and although their stay at the top of the division was short-lived they still managed to finish in an impressive sixth place.

The team's style of muscular, direct "long ball" play, termed by Bassett as "route one football" (as in the most direct route to goal) was disliked by the footballing press and pundits but brought great success and was difficult to play against. Whilst hugely popular with both the club's fans and his players, Bassett nevertheless felt that he had taken the club as far as he could and resigned as manager in 1987 to take up an offer from Watford, handing over the reins to Bobby Gould - who promptly guided Wimbledon to a famous FA Cup victory over Liverpool the following season.

Bassett's reign as Watford manager was short-lived. The team had just finished ninth in 1986-87 under the management of Graham Taylor, who had left to take charge of relegated Aston Villa. Before Bassett's arrival, Watford also sold John Barnes to Liverpool but, instead of retaining the nucleus of the successful side of the mid-80s, Bassett was in too much of a hurry to mould the side as he wanted. He sold several other first-team regulars including Kevin Richardson (who went on to be a member of Arsenal's championship-winning side in 1989), David Bardsley, Lee Sinnott and Mark Falco, without bringing in adequate replacements. Unsurprisingly, Watford started the 1987-88 season terribly and the blame was placed squarely on Bassett, who was sacked in January 1988 when relegation to the Second Division looked certain.

In 1987-88, Dave Bassett became one of the few managers to have the dubious honour of being involved with two relegated clubs in the same season. On January 21, 1988, just days after leaving Watford, he took over at Sheffield United. Despite bringing many new players, he was unable to prevent a weak team from sliding into the Third Division after losing the double-legged play-off with Bristol City 2-1.

However, with the Bassett bringing his own backroom staff during the close season and more new players brought in, he took them back up at the first attempt in 1988-89. A second successive promotion following in 1989-90, and First Division football returned to Bramall Lane in the 1990-91 season for the first time since the 1970's. The most influential player in this team was striker Brian Deane, who was capped three times by England.

Sheffield United failed to win any of their first 16 league games in 1990-91, and went into the new year at the bottom of the First Division. But a rousing resurgence in the second half of the season saw the Blades climb up to a secure 13th place in the final table. They did even better in 1991-92, finishing ninth in the First Division and securing a place in the new FA Premier League.

Sheffield United's Premier League debut was reasonable. They finished 14th in the final table, reached the semi finals of the FA Cup, and condemned Nottingham Forest to relegation by winning the penultimate game of the season. But Brian Deane was sold to Leeds United during the 1993 close season, and without him the Blades struggled. Bassett's luck finally ran out on the last day of the 1993-94 season when they lost 3-2 at Chelsea, having led 2-1 with 5 minutes remaining, when a single point would have kept them in the Premiership. An eighth place finish in the 1994-95 Division One campaign was not enough for a playoff place, and Bassett resigned the following December with relegation looking more likely than promotion and protests against the board mounting.

Dave Bassett took over at Crystal Palace in early February, taking charge of a club which was standing in 16th place in Division One and had lost most of its players the previous summer. Dave Bassett set about rejuvenating the side, and a storming run meant that automatic promotion was still a possibility until the last-but-one game of the season. In the end, they finished third in the table and reached the playoff final where they lost 2-1 to Leicester City.

In March 1997, Dave Bassett left Crystal Palace (who went on to win promotion under new manager Steve Coppell with the side Bassett had built) to take charge of Premiership strugglers Nottingham Forest. He was unable to prevent them from being relegated, but they were promoted back to the Premiership at the first attempt after winning the 1997-98 Division One championship with some ease. But Forest kicked off a terrible start to the 1998-99 Premiership, and Bassett was sacked in October after 19 months at the helm. Forest were unable to avoid the drop under Bassett's successor Ron Atkinson, and have remained outside the Premiership ever since.

Dave Bassett's next job was at Barnsley. He succeeded John Hendrie as manager in May 1999, and rounded out a good job in his first season at the helm. The team reached the Division One playoff final but missed out of promotion to the Premiership after losing to Ipswich Town. Bassett left in December 2000 after failing to mount another promotion challenge, and Barnsley slipped into Division Two (now Football League One) in 2002.

Dave Bassett's next job was perhaps his least successful. He was named as Leicester City manager in October 2001 and took charge of a club which 12 months earlier had established a two-week lead at the top of the Premiership. For a while it looked as though Bassett could save Leicester's Premiership status, but a four-month winless run from December condemned the team to relegation from the Premiership after a six-year tenancy. After a 1-0 defeat to Manchester United which confirmed Leicester City's relegation, Bassett became Director of Football (a role which he left when Craig Levein took over as Leicester City manager) and handed over his managerial duties to assistant Micky Adams. Dave Bassett took over as manager again on October 11 2004 after Micky Adams resignation.

Bassett was appointed as assistant manager to Harry Redknapp at Southampton in the summer of 2005, after the departure of Jim Smith. When Redknapp left in December 2005, Bassett became the caretaker manager, in a shared role with Dennis Wise. He left the club with some acrimony after George Burley was eventually appointed full-time manager of the Saints, stating that he had been led to believe by the chairman that he was the players' choice as next manager.

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