Bishop Auckland In 1964, McMenemy was appointed manager of non-league
Bishop Auckland and transformed them from a struggling side into
Northern League champions and also took them to the second round of the
FA Cup.
Sheffield Wednesday and Doncaster Rovers McMenemy then moved to
Sheffield Wednesday where he spent two years as a coach before he got his big break as manager of
Doncaster Rovers where he remained until May 1971, winning the Fourth Division Championship in 1968–69.
Grimsby Town McMenemy then became manager of
Grimsby Town, where he won a Fourth Division championship. In July 1973 he left
Blundell Park to become assistant manager at
Southampton.
Southampton In November 1973, four months after joining the Saints as assistant manager, McMenemy was promoted to the role of manager, replacing
Ted Bates. He was unable to keep them in the First Division that season, but the board kept faith in him to lift the club back out of the Second Division. In 1976, McMenemy guided Southampton, then in the Second Division, to an
FA Cup final victory over
Manchester United. It was widely predicted before the game that United would easily win (one pundit said the score would go into double figures). They were the second club from outside the First Division of English football in four seasons to win the FA Cup after
Sunderland in
1973 and only one more side from outside the top flight (
West Ham United in
1980) has won the trophy. These, as of 2025, are the only three instances in the post-
Second World War era when the trophy has been won by a team outside the top division. In 1978, the Saints won promotion to the
First Division and in 1979 reached the
League Cup final where they lost 3–2 to
Nottingham Forest. McMenemy was linked with the vacant Manchester United manager's job at the end of the
1980–81 season, but he ruled himself out of the running and the job went to
Ron Atkinson instead. McMenemy had signed
1966 World Cup winner
Alan Ball to aid his side, later adding serving England captain
Kevin Keegan when he returned from Germany in 1980. Southampton emerged as title challengers in the
1981–82 season, regularly topping the table, before they finished seventh and the title went to Liverpool. Keegan was sold to
Newcastle United that summer, but McMenemy made another big name signing when he captured England goalkeeper
Peter Shilton. In 1984, he guided the club to second place in the First Division – their highest ever finish.
Sunderland McMenemy left Southampton on 1 June 1985, but returned to football five days later when he was named manager of
Sunderland, who had just been relegated to the Second Division. At the time he was the highest-paid manager in English football, but his time on Wearside was not a success and he quit in March 1987 – just weeks before Sunderland fell into the Third Division for the first time in their history.
England In July 1990, McMenemy ended a three-year break from football when he was appointed assistant to England manager
Graham Taylor, managing the Under-21 side, and picking out future talents like
Darren Anderton and
Steve McManaman. In November 1993, after England failed to qualify for
USA 94, Taylor and McMenemy both resigned. They had reached the
1992 European Championships in Sweden, but failed to progress beyond the group stages.
Return to Southampton McMenemy soon bounced back and was offered the new position of Director of Football by Southampton within weeks of leaving his role with the England team. Fans and the local media were delighted when he accepted the role, which made him the first man to be employed as a Director of Football in the English game. In McMenemy's first season back at Southampton, the Saints finished 10th in the
Premiership. However, it did not last long and in 1997, when
Rupert Lowe arrived as the new
chairman, neither McMenemy nor then-manager
Graeme Souness got on with him and promptly resigned, publicly denouncing the new board in the process.
Northern Ireland A year later, in 1998 McMenemy was appointed
Northern Ireland manager, but he was not successful and he resigned two years later after they failed to qualify for the
2000 European Championships. ==Other football work==