Ian Scott Holloway (born 12 March 1963) is an English professional football manager and former player who is currently the manager of EFL League Two club Swindon Town.
A midfielder, he notably played in the Premier League with Queens Park Rangers, where he made just under 150 league appearances in a five-year spell. He spent most of his career at boyhood club Bristol Rovers, where he had three spells, which included the start and finish of his playing career. He was part of the Wimbledon team that won promotion to the top flight in 1986, a place they would remain for the next fourteen seasons. He also played in the Football League with Brentford and Torquay United.
During his third spell back at Bristol Rovers, he became player-manager before ending his playing career in 1999. He has also managed Queens Park Rangers (where he won promotion from Division Two in 2003–04), Plymouth Argyle, Leicester City, Blackpool, Crystal Palace and Millwall. As he did with Blackpool three years earlier, Holloway managed Crystal Palace to promotion to the Premier League in May 2013, but after the club had won only one of their opening eight games he left, by mutual consent, on 23 October 2013 after less than a year in charge. On 6 January 2014, Holloway signed a two-and-a-half-year deal with Millwall; this was terminated in March 2015. He rejoined Queens Park Rangers as manager on 11 November 2016. In December 2019, he joined Grimsby Town as a manager and club director after committing to purchase shares in the club. He resigned just under a year later.
He is known by the nickname "Ollie", which is also the title of his autobiography. Holloway has a reputation amongst football fans for his West Country accent, off-the-wall interviews and amusing answers to questions from the media, with a wide selection of quotes and soundbites being printed.
A native of Kingswood, Gloucestershire, near Bristol, Holloway grew up in Cadbury Heath, where his mother, Jean, lived in the same council house until her death in April 2018. Holloway went to Sir Bernard Lovell School in Oldland Common at the same time that Gary Penrice was at Chase School for Boys in Mangotsfield. They still remain close friends today. His father Bill – an amateur footballer – worked as a seaman and a factory worker.
Holloway began his playing career as an apprentice with his hometown team Bristol Rovers, turning professional in March 1981 and making his league debut the same year. He usually played on the right side of midfield, and made his name as one of the more promising players in the Third Division (now League One). After four seasons at Rovers, he was transferred to Wimbledon in July 1985 for £35,000.
Holloway's stay at Wimbledon was a short one. In March 1986, after less than one year at the club, he was sold to Brentford for £25,000, where he also spent just a little over a year. In January 1987 he joined Torquay United on loan, playing five times. In August 1987, after two years in London, Holloway returned to Bristol Rovers for a fee of £10,000.
Back at Rovers, who were now playing "home" games at Twerton Park in Bath, and under the wing of new Rovers manager Gerry Francis, Holloway flourished. In four seasons, he missed only five games. When Francis was appointed manager of First Division side QPR in 1991, one of his first signings was Holloway, for a fee of £230,000 in August 1991. Holloway spent five seasons at QPR, playing more than 150 games for the club, before returning to Bristol Rovers for the third time in August 1996, this time as player-manager.
Holloway took over a club that was struggling both on and off the pitch. In his first season in charge of Rovers, he led the club to 17th place in Division Two (now League One). The next season, however, Bristol Rovers gained fifth place and made the playoffs. Despite taking a first-leg advantage of 3–1 against Northampton Town, Rovers subsequently lost 3–0 in the second leg and went out 4–3 on aggregate in the semi-finals. The 1998–99 season ended with a somewhat disappointing 13th place. Holloway retired as a player following that season, having played more than 400 matches for Bristol Rovers, to concentrate fully on management. In 1999–2000, his last full season at the club, Rovers finished 7th, narrowly missing out on the play-offs.
In February 2001, midway through the 2000–01 season, Holloway was appointed manager of QPR, where he was given the task of keeping the team in Division One. He failed to do so, as QPR finished second from bottom and were relegated to the third level for the first time in 34 years. Despite the relegation, Holloway stayed on and rebuilt the side. After steadying the ship in 2001–02, and a near miss in 2002–03, Holloway and QPR were promoted back to the second level in 2004, finishing second behind Plymouth Argyle.
Holloway's first full season in The Championship ended with a respectable 11th place, and during the following season 2005–06, the club continued to hover around mid-table.
Holloway was suspended (sent on gardening leave) as manager by Queens Park Rangers on 6 February 2006. The reason given by the QPR board was that the constant rumours linking Holloway to the vacant managerial position at Leicester City were causing too many problems for the club. As it turned out, the Leicester job went to Rob Kelly, and QPR went on to finish 21st, just one place above the relegation positions.
On 28 June 2006, Holloway became the manager of Plymouth Argyle, and promised to take the club to the Premier League. On 12 August, after Plymouth beat Sunderland away 2–3, in celebration of his first away win as manager, Holloway offered to buy every one of the 700 fans who made the 805-mile (1,296 km) round trip a drink.
Following press speculation, on 21 November 2007, Holloway submitted his resignation to the Plymouth Argyle board, with speculation that he was about to be offered the vacant managerial position at Leicester City. The Plymouth board issued a statement saying he was still employed by Plymouth and tied legally to his contract, and the board's decision on whether or not to accept his resignation would be made on Friday, 23 November. Having agreed a compensation package for his services, he was announced in a press conference by Milan Mandarić as Leicester manager on 22 November, signing a 3+1⁄2-year contract. His departure, however, was met with negativity from Argyle fans.
After an open top bus tour in Blackpool, after his Blackpool side won promotion to the Premier League some three years later, Holloway said:
I had a year out of football and had to think about what went wrong in my life. I was given some decent values from my mum and dad in our council house, and one of them was honesty and trust and loyalty. And I forgot to do all that at Plymouth. I left them, and I made the biggest mistake of my life.
Holloway made history when he became the first Leicester manager in over 50 years to win his first league game in charge, beating Bristol City 2–0.
On 7 February 2008, in a buildup to a match against Plymouth at the Walkers Stadium, Argyle chairman Paul Stapleton spoke negatively of Holloway for allowing several high-profile players to leave the club before joining Leicester. A total of five players left Plymouth in the January transfer window, which he claimed was all Holloway's fault. Holloway, stunned by the claims, had his lawyers look at the statements, while Mandarić accused Stapleton of "sour grapes" over Holloway's move to Leicester, saying Plymouth Argyle should be thankful for what he had achieved during his time there. Plymouth won the match 1–0 as Holloway's former charges came back to haunt him. Winning just nine out of 32 games, Leicester were relegated from the Championship on 4 May 2008 entering the third tier of English football for the first time in their history.