As a player, he made more than 500 appearances in the Football League playing as a central defender for Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton Athletic, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Barnsley and Carlisle United.
He began his football career with Sheffield Wednesday, where in two spells with the club he achieved promotion from the Second Division in 1983–84,[3] a third-place finish in the First Division in the 1991–92 season,[4] and a League Cup-winners' medal in 1991,[5] but missed the 1993 League Cup and FA Cup finals with a broken arm.
[6] After his first spell with Wednesday, he joined Charlton Athletic, where his two goals in the last 10 minutes of extra time in the 1986–87 playoff final replay[7] against Leeds kept the club in the First Division.
[1] Shirtliff retired from the game in 1997, shortly after helping Barnsley reach the Premier League,[9] after 18 years as a professional footballer.
He became the manager of Mansfield following the dismissal of Carlton Palmer in September 2005,[5] and lasted 15 months in the job before getting sacked in December 2006 following a poor run of results.