John Alexander Beck (born 25 May 1954) is an English former footballer and manager. As a player, he made nearly 500 English Football League appearances for five clubs between 1972 and 1989. As a manager, he had a highly successful spell in charge of Cambridge United in the early 1990s, when he guided the club to two successive promotions and two successive quarter-final appearances in the FA Cup. Beck took the club from the Fourth Division to the Second and very nearly to the new Premier League at the end of the 1991–92 season, where they ended their campaign fifth in the Second Division, their highest ever league finish..