Portsmouth title-winner and ex-Manchester United, Swindon and Oxford man hangs up boots to launch managerial career

Danny Rose has been unveiled as assistant manager at former club Darlington, working alongside boss Josh Gowling.

The pair have joined a club presently bottom of National League North after taking six points from their opening nine matches.

Rose was formerly player-coach at the Quakers, making 46 appearances, before leaving this summer and moving to Cleethorpes.

He has now quit the Northern Premier League East Division strugglers and retired from football to focus solely on coaching and management.

At the age of 35, it brings an end to a career which saw him win promotion five times and represent 11 clubs, as well as England C.

The former Manchester United apprentice, of course, memorably won League Two with Pompey in May 2017.

And now, more than six years later, he has called time on his playing days in a bid to steer Darlington away from relegation trouble.

Rose told Darlington’s official website: ‘I’ve now got this opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do for a long time and that is stepping into a senior coaching role.

‘I believe coaching was the next natural step. I recognised quite early on in my playing career – probably the late 20s – that coaching was the route I wanted to go down post-playing.

‘Of course you don’t know when that opportunity is going to come along – and it has come along now.

‘Obviously I had the player-coach role (at Darlington) which was sort of a nice transition for me on both sides of the fence, but now I’m stepping onto the other side, or the dark side as the players call it!

‘I’m really, really looking forward to using the experiences that I’ve had.’

Rose joined Pompey in June 2016 after turning down a new deal at Northampton – and celebrated promotion in his first Fratton Park season.

He went on to total 64 games and five goals during two-and-a-half years on the south coast, before leaving for Swindon in January 2019.

During that time, he was sidelined by a broken leg sustained in a drop ball with Northampton’s John-Joe O’Toole in December 2017.

Although the midfielder fully recovered from the injury, he would make just five more appearances for the Blues under Kenny Jackett.

He later won the League Two title with Swindon in 2019-20, before turning out for Grimsby, Darlington and Cleethorpes.