PAUL’S LIKE THE CADD THAT’S GOT THE CREAM
WHEN Paul Caddis found himself without a club last November there was only one place the experienced defender wanted to be.
The 32-year-old began training with Swindon – the club which he captained to the League Two title in 2012 – but while the Robins were desperate to sign him, they had no money.
Full-back Caddis stalled on offers from elsewhere while Swindon finally found some cash.
How the move has paid off, the club romping to another League Two crown making him the only double title winner in County Ground history, and Swindon head for Peterborough tomorrow having won two of their first three games at a higher level.
On his time out of work, Caddis says: ‘I was doing 5k runs in the morning, a treadmill session in the afternoon and sprints before going to bed.
‘Managers don’t want to give you three or four weeks to get fit. If you sign outside the window it is to go and play. I had to be ready and I was.’
It helped that he found a kindred spirit in Town boss Richie Wellens.
‘I had been brought up at Celtic to pass the ball and that is exactly what Richie Wellens is all about,’ adds Caddis, who sees similarities with Italian firebrand Paolo Di Canio, his title-winning manager first time around.
‘Richie knows the game inside out. Knows a lot about the opposition. He is probably a bit calmer (than Di Canio) – but he can have a go.’
Caddis, unsurprisingly, will not forget Di Canio in a hurry. The perfectionist would slaughter his players by video analysis after games.
‘We understood very quickly that his standards were as high as in the Premier League,’ says Caddis of a manager who did not believe in giving his players too many days off.
‘He was only doing it for our own good. There were a lot of long Sundays there, especially if we had lost.
‘We were in for 85-86 days constant which is unusual in football.
‘He changed the whole mindset of the club. We weren’t allowed milk in our coffee or tomato sauce on food.
‘Di Canio could tell you everything about where you were and what you had for your dinner the night before. Whether he had a deal with the nightclub owners of Swindon, I don’t know.’
As captain Caddis had to make sure the whole squad was assembled before anyone ate. ‘No one could leave until I had seen the last person had finished eating,’ he adds of a man whose touchline histrionics were the stuff of legend.
‘Fans would say “did you see Di Canio when you played this pass?”. You would think “were you not watching the game?”.’
Caddis was shunted out to Birmingham when he relayed player complaints about exhausting training to his hypersensitive boss.
’He must have thought I was coming directly at him,’ he says. ‘It got sour
quite quickly. But I genuinely don’t hold any grudges. If I saw him tomorrow I would happily say “hi”.’ Caddis loved his spell in the Midlands. ‘I scored the goal which kept the club up in the last game of the 2014 season at Bolton. It’s a working man’s club where if you work hard and run about they will take
to you and accept you having a bad game. That was instilled in me at a very young age – leave it all on the pitch and the fans will take to you.’
He also helped Bury stay in League One on the final day in 2017 before spells at Blackburn and Bradford, but the Scot is thrilled to be back at Swindon, even if the ban on supporters meant for more muted title celebrations this time around.
‘In 2012 we won the league and all the supporters had a party on the 101APPEARANCES
pitch,’ he recalls. ‘It was unbelievable compared to 20 players standing one metre apart. “Don’t do this, don’t do that”. I enjoyed it because we were successful but I didn’t enjoy it because the memories are always about when the fans are there.’
Town have lost goal-machine Eoin Doyle and playmaker Michael Doughty but Caddis still expects them to thrive.
‘We still have a great core group,’ he says. ‘I don’t think we’re a million miles away from getting in the play-offs’.