Scottish Cup. He returned south of the border in December 2000 when he signed for Division Three strugglers York City. 14 months later he signed for his final club Oxford United. At Oxford he scored once against Stoke City. International career Patterson was capped once by the Northern Ireland national under-21 team, starting in a 0–0 home draw with Romania on 22 March 1994. He played for the Northern Ireland national team, earning 17 caps. Managerial and coaching career After retiring from the game Patterson remained at Oxford as youth team coach. He served as caretaker manager of the club following the departure of Graham Rix, although he was ultimately overlooked for the job in favour of Ramón Díaz. He was finally appointed manager of the club on a full-time basis in March 2006 following the departure of Brian Talbot. However, no sooner had Patterson been appointed than he lost the job to Jim Smith following the sale of the club by Firoz Kassam to Nick Merry. Patterson managed the club for only eight days, and in doing so became perhaps the shortest-serving manager in the history of the English league. While Bill Lambton and Tim Ward both had periods in charge of a club that lasted three and seven days respectively, but neither man actually signed a contract to manage the club, whereas Patterson did. Leroy Rosenior later managed an even shorter stint at Torquay United in 2007, being fired only 10 minutes after signing his contract, but Torquay were no longer a League club by that point. In December 2006, Patterson was offered the vacant manager's job at Brentford; however, caretaker manager Scott Fitzgerald was appointed on a permanent basis after Patterson declined their terms. After becoming first team coach in April 2007, he was appointed Oxford's manager once again on 9 November 2007 after Jim Smith resigned. He was sacked on 30 November 2008 following a poor start to the 2008–09 season. In May 2009 Patterson was appointed Head of Youth at League One side Bristol Rovers, looking after all young players from eight to 18 years of age. Following the sacking of Lennie Lawrence he took over as assistant manager to Paul Trollope in May 2010. He was appointed caretaker manager on 15 December following Trollope's sacking and he lasted in this position until 10 January 2011 when Dave Penney was appointed manager. Patterson became the