Paul Rideout (born 14 August 1964) is an English former professional footballer and youth team coach of Major League Soccer side Sporting Kansas City.
[1] As a player, he was a striker from 1980 until 2002, notably in the Premier League with Everton where he scored the winning goal in the 1995 FA Cup final against Manchester United at Wembley Stadium.
He established himself as a first team player in 1981–82 by playing 35 games and scoring 14 goals, though it was not enough to save Swindon from relegation to the Fourth Division he initially decided to remain at the County Ground to help them win promotion.
Rideout was initially a regular first team player at The Dell, but the arrival of Iain Dowie in March 1991 cost him his place in the side after 71 league games and 19 goals, and he then dropped down a division with a nine-game loan spell at Swindon Town, where he scored once, before returning to Southampton for the 1991–92 season.
However, they were already struggling to avoid relegation from the First Division and manager Neil Warnock saw Rideout as the man to help County preserve their top flight status and gain a place in the new FA Premier League which would begin the following season.
[4][5] With Beardsley, Cottee and Johnston now gone, Rideout now had an effective strike partner in the shape of Duncan Ferguson and a capable deputy in Daniel Amokachi.
They were relegated in bottom place at the end of his first season after a decade of second-tier football, which had seen manager John Aldridge forced out of his job after five years at the helm.
At international level he scored over thirty goals, including a hat-trick for England schoolboys in a match lost 5–4 to Scotland at Wembley Stadium.