Save Your Nicholls [Part 2/3]
Who around here does Terry Nicholl have to kick to get on the first team???
Read Part 1 here…
Roy Turner managed to build something unique: four distinct, successful careers. As a player, he was a Second Team NASL All-Star and earned two caps with the U.S. National Team. Despite some of the lowest budgets in the league, as head coach, he would take the Wings to four semifinal playoff appearances in a row from 1981 to 1984. As a front office executive with the team, he signed former Manchester United and Chelsea pro Mickey Thomas and led the Wings through the disintegration of the MISL in 1992. Then, in 1999, he took on something entirely different: running the Wichita Open, a professional golf tournament on the Korn Ferry PGA Tour.
“Many of the things I learned in the soccer industry by being a salesman for the game and getting butts in stands; I transferred that into the golf business,” Turner said, “No disrespect to golf, but it’s a mundane game, so I made sure that people went out there and enjoyed it. … People at first raised their eyebrows, but we are an event, not just a GOLF event.”
And it worked. The event hosts 50,000 spectators and the 17th Hole is the can’t-miss party of the year.
For a modestly talented member of a team’s supporting cast, active measures had to be taken to avoid the ignominy of a mundane second career. While Turner watched some of the lads gamble away their paychecks during road-trip hotel room poker games or the racetrack, there was one player that stood out: Terry “The General” Nicholl.
When sweat-soaked Wings players finished practice, they would head off to take a nap, or maybe get a massage, or possibly imbibe a few at a local watering hole. But Terry Nicholl could be found in Kentling or Turner’s office, peppering them with questions.
“‘Why do you this?’ ‘How do you do that?’ ‘How did you get that done, Steve?’ Terry had a thirst for information,” said Steve Shaad, Wings PR director.
Nicholl had grown accustomed to making do with what he had. The midfielder from Cheshire started from the literal bottom at the age of 15. His first team, Crewe Alexandra, stood just below the bottom rung of English soccer, in the subfloor, just under the dirty floor. He played on their reserve team.
“I think there were 92 professional teams in England, and most years we ended up 91st and 92nd,” Nicholl said.
Despite his older brother Chris excelling as a first division pro at Aston Villa, Luton Town and Southampton, expectations for Terry were lower.
“When I was 15, they told me I needed to be an engineer. So, I started an apprenticeship at Hans Reynolds, who made chain for bikes and any kind of machine. I went to night school at the same time and got my associate degree in mechanical engineering,” Nicholl said.
Those low sporting expectations would benefit Nicholl later. His talent level did not justify a sense of preordained stardom on the pitch. It was a slippery road to success, and he needed to be sure he stayed on his feet. That meant training for a career.
But a flu epidemic thrust Nicholl onto the first team. He said the call came on a Friday night, with the game only hours away.
“I listen to these tennis players when they say they go into this Zen state where they see the ball in slow motion and know where to run and can forecast what’s going to happen. I experienced that in that game. I was so high; it was like people were talking and I could hear echoes. I was in some other place. But I did well enough that they offered me a contract after the game,” Nicholl said.
Nicholl stayed on working as an engineer during the day and taking classes at night until a call came from Sheffield United, a team in what is now called the Premier League. He had made the big time. Well, the reserves at least.
“I couldn’t go to the manager at Sheffield United and say, ‘I’ve got to leave training early today.’ ‘Why’s that, Nicholl?’ ‘I’ve got to go do some math and some sums.’ He’d have laughed at me,” Nicholl said.
He was away from his parents and siblings for the first time, living on his own, and it was fantastic, Nicholl said. For three-quarters of a year, he played on the reserve team, practicing regularly against the first team. In those scrimmages, Tony Currie, the greatest player in the history of Sheffield, who scored three goals in his 17 games for the English national team, mercilessly tormented Nicholl by kicking the ball between his legs, or as soccer players call it: being “nutmegged.”
“It was the worst. He would do it on a consistent basis and laugh about it,” Nicholl said.
Nicholl began to wonder if maybe he was OK with just being in the reserves. But he got sicker and sicker of being nutmegged by Tony Currie in practice. And on one particular day, Nicholl’s frustration level exceeded his good sense. It was Currie’s misfortune that he attempted to nutmeg Nicholl that day. Nicholl strategically “mistimed” a tackle and kicked the shit out of Tony Currie.
“He got up and tried to fight me. He was a big lad, but I started the windmill impersonation because I was sick and tired of it. I was swinging my arms, trying to keep him away from me and they pulled me back. ‘You can’t fucking kick him; he’s our best fucking player!’ I got sent off,” Nicholl said.
Nobody would come near Nicholl in the locker room. He went home and called his brother Chris. He told a surprised Nicholl that he had been waiting for him to do something like that.
“[Chris] said, ‘Make a statement. Don’t say anything, just go around and kick somebody else. Who else don’t you like on the first team?’” Nicholl related, chuckling.
During the next scrimmage, Nicholl did, in fact, try to fight someone else. When the two players were pulled apart, Nicholl told the reserve coach, legendary Sheffield goalkeeper Alan Hodgkinson, he was sick and tired of being unimportant and wanted to do something about it. Hodgkinson told him to come to his office after the game. When Nicholl arrived, he asked him to shut the door.
“He said, ‘Well done. Keep it up.’”
“I said, ‘Keep what up?’”
“‘Keep the battle going.’”
“I said, ‘What, fighting and creating fuss?’”
“‘Whatever you gotta do.’”
Tony Currie did not nutmeg Nicholl at the following scrimmage. Instead, he jumped away when Nicholl approached.
“The next thing I knew, my name was on the first team squad,” Nicholl said.
Next Week: The conclusion (Part 3) of “Save Your Nicholls.”