Background
Vickers was born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, and played football for local non-League club Spennymoor United.
Vickers was born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, and played football for local non-League club Spennymoor United.
He made nearly 600 appearances in the Football League and the Premier League, the majority of which were for Tranmere Rovers and Middlesbrough. He began his professional career at Tranmere Rovers, where he forged a reputation as one of the classiest defenders in England"s lower leagues. He was loaned to Crystal Palace in 2001, then to Birmingham City later that year.
This deal was then made permanent for £400,000, and Vickers helped Birmingham gain promotion to the Premier League in the 2001-2002 season.
He scored his only goal for the club that season, against Stockport County. Vickers retired from playing at the end of an injury-plagued 2002-2003 season, which included a knee operation before the start of the season, a broken rib in his first game back, a badly-gashed ankle following a two-footed challenge from Everton"s Wayne Rooney which resulted in Rooney"s first senior red card, and a succession of minor problems.
After his retirement from playing, he went into property development in his native north-east of England. In 2010, he was employed as head of youth recruitment for the sports management division of a north-east-based law firm.