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Michael Coulson (footballer)

English association football player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ6829498 ↗
Source-derived summary

Michael James Coulson (born 4 April 1988) is an English professional footballer who plays as a striker or winger for Northern Premier League Division One East club Bridlington Town, where he is also the clubs manager.

He has played in the Football League for Barnsley, Grimsby Town and York City and in the Scottish Premiership for St Johnstone. Coulson started his career with hometown club Scarborough, making his first-team debut in a Conference National match in 2004. His first goal for Scarborough, scored later that year, made him the youngest goalscorer in the club's history. He signed for Championship club Barnsley in 2006, before making a return to Conference Premier football with a loan at Northwich Victoria in 2007. Coulson suffered two cruciate ligament injuries in the space of a year before being loaned to Chester City of the Conference Premier in 2009. Coulson joined League Two club Grimsby Town on loan later that year, signing for the club permanently in 2010 after their relegation to the Conference Premier. He left Grimsby in 2012, signing for League Two club York City. In 2016, after four years with York, Coulson signed for Scottish Premiership club St Johnstone.

Early and personal life

Coulson was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire and attended Graham School in the town.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Michael Coulson (footballer)” as english association football player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michael, Coulson and footballer.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1988, 2004, 2006, 2007—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1988-04-04. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Michael, Coulson and footballer providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Michael Coulson (footballer)”, the useful work is to connect “english association football player” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6829498. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 2004, 2006 and 2007.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Michael Coulson (footballer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Michael Coulson (footballer) primary sources, Michael Coulson (footballer) archive and Michael research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Michael Coulson (footballer)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Michael Coulson (footballer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.