Before this, he had spells in non-League with Woolley Miners Welfare, Shepshed Charterhouse, Matlock Town and Gainsborough Trinity.

Following his retirement, Schofield held various coaching roles back with Lincoln City, where he eventually became manager and led the club to the League Two play-offs during the 2006–07 season.

[1] A hard-working and combative midfielder, he began his career in non-League football, combining this with his job as an apprentice-trained motor mechanic.

[3] As a teenager, he had spent a season with Huddersfield Town's reserve team before joining Northern Counties East League side Woolley Miners Welfare.

[2] He played 48 games in the 1992–93 campaign, with Lincoln now in the Third Division due to the creation of the Premier League; he again wore the number seven shirt, aside from a period in mid-season where he was restricted to appearances from the substitute bench.

[6] With Lincoln beginning to struggle financially, Schofield was also called upon as a player, making a further 24 appearances in the 2000–01 campaign, before he finally wound his playing career down.

[2] Schofield, a UEFA Pro Licence holder,[7] made impressive progress with Lincoln's youth team set-up.

[11] The 2006–07 season started promisingly for Lincoln with a new-found commitment to attacking passing football, which saw them top the table in October 2006 and be amongst the leading scorers in the league.

[12] However, Lincoln's form fell away in 2007 and rather than pushing for automatic promotion they were, for the fifth season running, forced to settle for a place in the play-offs.

[15] Schofield began coaching at Scunthorpe United in February 2008,[16] where he helped carried out extra training sessions for players not involved in the first-team, before he departed at the end of the 2007–08 season.

[19] He took charge for just one match, a 1–0 defeat away to Peterborough United, but left the club ten days later[20] ahead of the appointment of manager Chris Hutchings, who brought in his own right-hand man in former Walsall player Martin O'Connor.

[21] On 20 March 2009, Cheltenham Town's manager Martin Allen appointed Schofield as his assistant on an initial expenses-only basis.

[28] A restructuring of the backroom team at the end of the 2009–10 season saw Schofield depart Whaddon Road after fifteen months at the club.

[29] On 6 July 2010, he joined Cambridge United on a trial basis to assist manager Martin Ling with the club's pre-season preparations.

[43] He had played with the club's manager Russ Wilcox at Doncaster whilst the two also completed their coaching badges and pro-licence on the same courses.

[52] He stepped down from the role on 1 February 2023 after Northern Ireland finished third in their group for 2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification, having won two and drawn one of his ten games in charge.