Steven Naismith - TheSportsDB.com

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Name
Steven Naismith

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Complete

60%

Born
1986 (37 years old)

Birth Place

Irvine, Scotland

Position
Manager

Status
Active

Ethnicity

Team Number

Height
178 cm

Weight
71 kg

Outfitter

Kit

Side

Agent

Wage Year

Player Manager ID
5204964

Player Cutout

Player Action Render

Sport

Soccer

Team
Hearts

2nd Team

League
Scottish Premier League

Creative Commons Artwork
No

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Steven John Naismith (born 14 September 1986) is a Scottish professional football coach and former player, who is currently the head coach of Scottish Premiership club Heart of Midlothian.

Naismith began his career with Kilmarnock in 2004. He spent four years with the Ayrshire side where he won the SFWA Young Player of the Year award in 2006 and the SPFA Young Player of the Year award the following season. Naismith joined Rangers in the summer of 2007 for £1.9 million. While with the club he won three consecutive league titles, the Scottish Cup in 2009 and the League Cup twice. He signed for Premier League club Everton in 2012, and then joined Norwich City in 2016. Naismith had two separate loan spells with Heart of Midlothian, and he signed permanently with Hearts after he was released by Norwich in 2019. Naismith won 51 caps for the Scotland national team after making his senior international debut in 2007, and scored ten international goals. He mainly played as a forward during his career, but was also used as a midfielder.

He retired from playing in 2021 and took a coaching position at Hearts. He was made their interim manager in April 2023 and then permanently, two months later.

Naismith, whose father was born in Wales, was approached by the Wales national under-21 football team, but he decided to play for his homeland instead. One of his grandmothers was born in England. Naismith scored on his debut for the Scotland national under-21 football team, in a 4–0 victory against Iceland U21s in March 2006. In the same month he scored on his debut for the Scotland B team, against Turkey B in a 3–2 defeat. Naismith captained the Scotland U21 team in late 2007, and scored a winning goal against the Czech Republic.

Naismith was called up to the Scotland squad for the first time in June 2007, for a friendly away to the Faroe Islands; he came on as a substitute for Kris Boyd for the final seven minutes of a 2–0 win on the 6th. He scored his first goal for Scotland in the 3–2 loss to Spain at Hampden Park on 12 October 2010, in the Euro 2012 qualifiers. He was selected for all three of Scotland's matches in the 2011 Nations Cup when they reached the final but were defeated by the hosts Republic of Ireland. He scored the winning goal in the home match against Lithuania on 6 September 2011, in an eventually unsuccessful qualification campaign.

Naismith was recalled to the squad in September 2018, having scored seven goals for Hearts in the initial phase of the 2018–19 season. He earned his 50th cap for Scotland on 16 November 2019, in a Euro 2020 qualifier against Cyprus.

After Naismith retired from playing in June 2021, he was appointed player development manager by Hearts. Naismith also joined the coaching staff of the Scotland national team. He became manager of the Hearts 'B' team in 2022, and was appointed interim manager of their first team in April 2023. Naismith was appointed on a permanent basis in June 2023, but was given the job title of technical director as he had not yet achieved the required UEFA coaching licences in order to represent the club in European competition (this role was taken by Frankie McAvoy). In September 2023, a week after Hearts had been eliminated from the Europa Conference League, Naismith was made head coach and McAvoy his assistant.

Naismith is an ambassador for Dyslexia Scotland. He has also launched a scheme to help ease the progress of injured ex-service personnel back into work, and supports centres for homeless people in Glasgow and in Liverpool (notably the city's Whitechapel Centre). In August 2014, he donated tickets for Everton matches to be distributed via Liverpool jobcentres to unemployed people actively looking for work.