Who was the first manager to be sacked from the English Premier League?

Ian Porterfield (11 February 1946 – 11 September 2007) was a Scottish professional footballer, and an experienced football coach who worked at both club and international level for almost 30 years. At the time of his death, he was the coach of the Armenian national team.

As a player, Porterfield scored the only goal of the 1973 FA Cup Final as Sunderland memorably overcame the odds to beat Leeds United. As a manager, he has the dubious honour of being the very first manager to be sacked in the FA Premier League era, when he was fired by Chelsea. He had earlier succeeded Alex Ferguson as manager of Aberdeen in 1986.

He died, aged 61, on 11 September 2007, as a result of colon cancer, which had been diagnosed earlier that year. A minute's silence was held before Sunderland's next home game, by coincidence against another of his former clubs, Reading. A pub named The Porterfield is named in his honour in Sunderland.