BARNSLEY HEYDAY
Nicky Eaden reflects on the Tykes’ glory days
NICKY Eaden didn’t need telling what promotion to the Premier League meant to the people of Barnsley.
He was, after all, one of them. A hometown kid living out the dream. It could have been so different. He was due to be released and was looking at going to university to become a PE teacher before youth team coach Eric Winstanley became caretaker-boss and persuaded the club to give the defender another deal.
A few years later Eaden was part of a Barnsley team that will forever be in the Yorkshire town’s folklore for their 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 and you could see what it meant to them and, it did, it lifted the town – especially bar takings! They went up!”
Barnsley was where he spent time under his most influential manager, Danny Wilson. Having played alongside him and looked up to him, the former Sheffield Wednesday manager had a big impact on the whole of Eaden’s career.
Impact
“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, pictured below, 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 recalls how the successful squad was built on some good young talent. The likes of himself, Dave Watson, Andy Liddell, Adi Moses, while Wilson brought in Neil Thompson and Paul Wilkinson to add to the strong core of Steve Davis and quality of Neil Redfearn.
“They go on about players with technique these days – Redders could shoot right foot, left foot, volleys, half-volleys, strike off the ground,” Eaden says. “I used to watch him in training. We got brought up that, bare minimum, you work your socks off – training and matches. Redders was like that. He took me under his wing. He always made sure me and him went in the opposition players’ lounge. He’d say, ‘Make sure you bring a bag to away games’. We’d go in the bar and get a few beers for the bus. It was my job to go on the bus chinking away with the bag. Danny used to turn a blind eye!
“A lot of those Barnsley players were underrated. We had players who could whip in a cross, Redders and little Shez (Darren Sheridan) could pick a pass, our centre-halves could head it but they could play a bit as well, Watto in goal would pull off saves out of the top corner.”
Eaden would go on to win promotion to English football’s top flight two more times with Birmingham City, where he was also a League Cup finalist, and Wigan Athletic.
He was recently appointed Hednesford Town manager at Step 3 of the Non-League Pyramid as he looks to embark on a long managerial career having spent time as assistant at Kettering Town, Peterborough United and Tamworth before a stint as Leicester City’s U23 manager and a brief spell in charge of National League North Nuneaton Borough this season.
“When you’re in your mid-30s, if you’re that way inclined, you’re looking at what managers do,” Eaden says. “I was that way for a long time. I would always ask the coaches what we were doing and why we were doing it. Not like some lads who do it just to wind the coaches up, but I was genuinely interested.
“My thing was always, how is this going to help us on Saturday? Or how is this going to help us improve as a team?
“What I didn’t want to be was one of those ex-pros who goes straight into management at 35. 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 backup.”
Background
Eaden certainly has all the tools and background to succeed and he no doubt leans on his Barnsley days. Even the times he was tortured by some of the best wingers around.
“David Ginola,” he says on his toughest opponent. “You’re thinking, ‘How do I deal with this fella?’ He was about 6ft 2ins, big broad shoulders so he was strong and you couldn’t just boot him. He was two-footed 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 and 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. I just thought, ‘Fair play’.”