Tributes to Boro’s most successful manager
NUNEATON is preparing to bid farewell to a man who will forever hold a special place in the records of a proud sporting town.
Tributes are being paid to Dudley Kernick - dubbed the most successful manager in the history of Nuneaton Borough Football Club - who has died at the age of 98.
His passing has severed yet another link with a golden age in the mid-1960s when he was the innovator and inspiration behind an era during which Borough reigned supreme as giants of semi-professional soccer.
Their attendance figures were the envy of the nonleague world - and many of the lower Football League cubs - peaking in the 1966-67 season when 18,000 spectators and then 22,000 packed their old and much-missed Manor Park ground for the FA Cup ties against Swansea and Rotherham.
The average attendance that season, which ended with Borough as runners up behind champions Romford in the old Southern League Premier Division, was almost 5,000.
Fellow Borough legend Paul Cutler, who scored in the 1-1 draw against Rotherham, then in the old second tier of the Football League, recalled those glorious days in a tribute to the man who signed him.
Cutler was 20 years old and playing with Crystal Palace when Kernick persuaded him to join Borough.
“I had never heard of Nuneaton when I met Dudley and I had offers from other clubs like Leyton Orient and Bournemouth as well as several in non-league, at the time,” he explained.
“But Dudley sold Nuneaton to me. He was very persuasive and convincing. He told me exactly what his plans were and what he intended to do and everything turned as he said they would.
“Dudley was an excellent coach. He knew what he was talking about and was very clear in his objectives and very astute. He knew exactly how he wanted us to play and could be very abrupt if we didn’t respond. He picked up players from higher divisions because that is where he wanted to be.”
Kernick signed Cutler as an attacking midfield and he went on to repay his manager’s faith by scoring more than 100 goals in 250 appearances.
“I was happy to play for him. I understood what he wanted me to do - I had confidence in him and he had confidence in me,” he added. “I will always be grateful to Dudley for that.”
Cutler lived at Sevenoaks in Kent all the time he played for Nuneaton where some of his fondest memories lie.
“I remember getting off the train from Euston at 12.35pm on a Saturday and walking up the road to the ground chatting to the supporters. Then they would go into the Cock and Bear or the Clubhouse and I would go into the dressing room,” he recalled.
Journalist Mort Birch, who covered Borough’s matches for the Nuneaton Evening Tribune in those days, said: “I learned one hell of a lot from him - we all did- and I was privileged to call him a friend.
“Dudley was far more futuristic and ambitious than the club’s directors.
“To my mind he was the ‘Jimmy Hill ‘of non-league football.
“To his dying day, he hated the idea of clubs like Burton Albion and Cheltenham being in the Football League and not Borough.
“He once told me that noone would take Borough higher up the league table or further in the FA Cup - and no-one has.”
A proud Cornishman, Kernick played for Torquay, Exeter, Birmingham City, Northampton Town and Shrewsbury and for Borough in their FA Cup ties against Watford, Queens Park Rangers and Brentford in the early 1950s. After his managerial spell at Manor Park, he became a successful commercial manager of Stoke City before retiring to Florida.
He returned to Nuneaton in 2015 and then moved to Solihull where he had lived while he was Borough manager and where he died with his beloved daughter Deborah at his side.
But his final journey will bring him back to Nuneaton and to the town where he became a sporting legend.
His funeral is to take place at the Heart of England Crematorium in Attleborough Fields at 12.30pm on Friday, January 3 followed by a reception at Nuneaton Borough Football Club.