NICKY’S KNOCKING
Nicky Eaden is back in the hotseat at Hednesford Town – but he doesn’t expect an easy ride
NICKY EADEN is used to tough baptisms in football. Take the new Hednesford Town manager’s full debut for hometown club Barnsley against an already-promoted Swindon Town when he was handed the task of man-marking former England international Glenn Hoddle.
“I’ve never been Cruyff-turned so many times in one game,” Eaden, 45, laughs. “He’d be on his right and I’d think, ‘I can’t let him spray a pass with his right’. He’d Cruyff out of it and I’d think, ‘I’m alright now’. But then he’d zing it the other way with his left foot – his passing was unbelievable. That was a tough baptism.”
Not that it would get easier when he played in the Premier League for the Tykes and regularly go up against some of the best left wingers in the world. The toughest?
“David Ginola,” he says. “You’re thinking, ‘How do I deal with this fella?’ He was about 6ft 2ins, big broad shoulders so he was strong so you can’t boot him. He was twofooted so if you show him on his left he’ll go down the line and cross it, if you show him on his right he’ll go inside have a shot.
“Every time he got the ball you’d think, ‘For f***’s sake!’ You’re kind of hoping for the best and that you can time your tackle.
“Ryan Giggs as well. We got done 7-0 at Old Trafford. I remember getting a b ******** g off Danny Wilson at half-time because we were three or four down. He said, ‘You haven’t laid a finger on Giggs!’ I was thinking, ‘I can’t get near him!’
“He was that quick and he worked his nuts off. First thing I did second half was just followed through on him. Next time I got the ball, I laid it off and he did the exact same thing to me. He came straight through and split my shin pad. Fair play.”
But Eaden could play himself and was part of a Barnsley team that will forever be in the Yorkshire town’s folklore for its promotion to football’s top flight in 1996-97, recently immortalised in the documentary Daydream Believers. “It’s about how it affected and lifted the town,” Eaden says. “We had the miners’ strike up in Barnsley, I grew up through all of that so you know what it means to people. “The pitch invasion at the end of the game, there were lads you’d been to school with. You could see what it meant to them and, it did, it lifted the town – especially bar takings! They went up!” It was where he played under his most influential manager in Wilson. “He drilled into me – and I never lost it throughout my career – that you’ve got to be brave,” Eaden says. “He hated players who hid. I remember being four or five down at Middlesbrough’s Ayresome Park. Danny had the ball, I went on the overlap for him, he delayed his pass and got tackled. I turned and sprinted back past him and I might not have even got a tackle in on the kid who robbed it. “He pulled me the next day and said, ‘That’s what I want to see. We’re being battered, but you never stop doing the right things’. That sticks with you. I’d have run through a brick wall for Danny.” Eaden would go on to win further promotions to the Premier League with Birmingham City, where he was also a League Cup finalist, and Wigan Athletic. Eventually his career path led to Non-League where, after a game at Halesowen to help out former Brum teammate Martin O’Connor and a brief spell at Solihull Moors, a chance meeting with Mark Cooper took him to Kettering Town. “He lives in the same as me,” Eaden says. “I was walking up to Tesco’s and he said, ‘What are you up to?’
“Coops said, ‘I’m at Kettering, it’s Conference North, I can give you this a week’. It wasn’t great but because they were full-time and had some good ex pros I thought, ‘Do you know what, I’ll have a go’.
“Coops would pick me up so I had no petrol to pay for and we had a good craic. We got promoted into the Conference Prem and had a couple of good seasons with a couple of good FA Cup runs. Plus I was doing my coaching badges at the time.”
Eaden eventually went onto Cooper’s staff and, with the Poppies top of the Conference, made the move to Peterborough when the now Forest Green manager landed the Posh job. Throughout his career, Eaden was thinking with a coaches head. Had he been released as planned – the management changed – by Barnsley, he was all set up to go to University and expected to become a PE teacher. His playing career fulfilled itself in the end but since hanging up the boots it’s been about preparing for management. Cliches
Three years in charge of Leicester City’s U21s was followed by a brief stay as assistant to Neil Redfearn – the best player he’s played with and the man who took him under his wing at the Tykes making sure they would get in the opposition players’ lounge on away games to get a few beers for the bus journey home – at Rotherham.
In the summer he took over at Nuneaton Borough but with all their off-field problems it was like pushvillage ing water up a hill from the word go. Another tough baptism.
Now he’s been handed the reins at Step 3 Hednesford ready to put all his experience into a fresh start.
“What I didn’t want to be was one of those ex-pros who goes straight into management at 35,” he says. “Some lads do and make a success of it, but I think it’s a bit of a toss of the coin because you’ve got no real back-up. I had my A Licence by the time I’d finished playing, I did the LMA course in management and then got on the Pro Licence.
“If you’ve got no qualifications then people can throw that at you. Some ex-pros who go straight in just become a clone of the manager they’ve just had. They spout a load of clichés and, like I say, it’s a toss of a coin. If they drop on a good group of players, they’ll probably be a success and then automatically they are a good manager.
“If they don’t drop on a good group of players, then they’ll probably fail. I don’t want to fail because I haven’t prepared myself.”