Background
He is the son of former Scottish international football player Archie Gemmill, and was born in Paisley.
He is the son of former Scottish international football player Archie Gemmill, and was born in Paisley.
He is currently the manager of the Scotland Under 17 Team. He played as a midfielder, most recently for the New Zealand Knights. He started his career at as an apprentice on leaving school in the summer of 1987 and two years later he was given a professional contract by manager Brian Clough, who then gave him his first team debut on 30 March 1991 in a 3–1 defeat by Wimbledon at Plough Lane.
He remained a regular first team player until he was sold to Everton for £250,000 on 25 March 1999.
By the end of the 2002-2003 season, he had played 97 Premier League games for Everton but his first team chances had become increasingly limited since David Moyes replaced Walter Smith as manager in March 2002. He did not make a single league appearances for the Toffees in the 2003-2004 season, during which he spent seven games on loan at Preston North End and scored once against Bradford, and at the start of 2004-2005 he ended more than five years at Goodison Park when he signed for Leicester City on a free transfer.
He played 17 games in two years at the Walkers Stadium before a one-game spell at Oxford United, before he finished his career with a one-year spell at the New Zealand Knights. Gemmill was part of the Scotland squads for the 1996 European Championships and 1998 World Cup but failed to make an appearance in either, a situation he described for the latter as "bittersweet" and "heartbreaking".
Gemmill played his last game for Scotland in April 2003, in a 2–0 home friendly defeat to Austria, as a half-time substitute.
First steps in to coaching were as a player coach under Jim Smith at Oxford United He became player coach at the New Zealand Knights in the Australian Hyundai A-League. He is now working with Billy Stark coaching the Scotland Under 19 National Team. He is currently enrolled on the highly regarded League Managers Applied Management for Football Course.
In March 2014, he was appointed as manager/coach of the Scotland U17 team for the 2014 Union of European Football Associations European Under-17 Championship.