Adams retired from Arsenal, the club at which he spent his entire career and where he amassed a staggering number of medals as club captain (see Arseweb's Tony Adams page, at the end of the 2001-02 season. His managerial career got off to something of a false start with a year at Wycombe Wanderers which didn't go too well (despite them naming their stadium after after him), and he left them "for personal reasons" in November 2004.

Many Gooners have been wondering where he'd pop up next, apart from the odd appearance on Match of the Day (where, so far, his knowledge has been a little let down by his delivery). Well, it turns out that he's been travelling round Europe, gaining experience and knowledge of the game with spells in Italy, France and Belgium.

He spent some time at Feyenoord recently, and now he's joined Utrecht's technical staff on a kind of work experience basis.

(Very) amusingly-named Utrecht manager Foeke Booy is quoted on the Dutch club's website as saying,

"He wants to see how we work. We had a good conversation with him and he'll join us for a month and then we'll see if we'll extend his stay".

See Utrecht site for full story, in Dutch (the English version is unfortunately a bit out-of-date.

Can anyone translate the rest? I reckon I can work out,

"Adams is een grote naam in het Engelse voetbal. Bij Arsenal wordt hij ook wel 'The legend' genoemd. "

But the rest of it's a bit tricky.

Rupe adds...
Many thanks to Steffan Jarman for the following full translation...

"As of Monday Tony Adams will be on secondment/work experience (loose translation) with FC Utrecht. The ex-player of Arsenal will organising running the first team and the reserves (they mention 'Jong' which means 'young' but is the equivalent of our reserves) Adams is a great name in English football; he's called 'The Legend' at Arsenal where the 39 year old ex-international played for over 20 seasons and managed to play nearly 700 games for the Gunners."

"Until recently Adams was at Feyenoord but for the foreseeable period he'll be joining FC Utrecht's technical staff. Adams had already visited the Galgenwaard stadium this season for the practice game against Villa and the match against Feyenoord. Foeke Booy explains that 'He was impressed with the atmosphere/ambiance here and our style of play'. During the 99/00 season Foeke Booy spent 10 days with Arsenal whilst Adams was still playing there."

"Booy continues, 'He spent some time at Feyenoord en wanted to gain some work experience with us. That tells you something about FC Utrecht's current standing. We had a good conversation with him, he'll join us initially for a month and after that we'll see if we extend the work experience'."

Steffan adds,

"I know what you mean about Foeke Booy's naam :-) I used to watch him play in Belgium, he's a bit of a legend himself and a great bloke to boot."