JOHN NAPIER is still coaching youngsters in America as he approaches his 76th birthday. NICK TURRELL’s In Parallel Lines blog caught up with him for a trip down memory lane. Here, he talks about getting into coaching.
GOING right back to his days at Brighton, John Napier has always been interested in helping young footballers to develop.
“When I stopped playing, I really wanted to get into the coaching side,” he explained. “I had worked in the youth system at Brighton and in Bradford, and I just loved being around young players.”
Testimony to that comes from two former Brighton youngsters who enjoyed the opening article in this five-part series. Ken Blackburn said via Facebook: “I was an apprentice and pro during part of his career with Brighton. I saw on a daily basis how good he was, but just as important a lovely human being and top bloke.”
And Gary Croydon added: “I was a youth team player at the time, and he often came to watch our games, offering advice.”
It was at Bradford City, where he’d been transferred from Brighton in 1972, that Napier got his first official coaching job.
After his playing days had ended, he returned to Valley Parade in November 1975, working with manager Bobby Kennedy, the former Manchester City player who had taken over from Bryan Edwards in January of that year.
A seven-game losing streak saw Kennedy sacked in February 1978, and Napier took over the hotseat. Unfortunately, his tenure was brief and unpopular. He was in charge when City were relegated from the Third Division to the Fourth.
“It only lasted a year, but I learned so much about what it takes to be in charge and making decisions,” he said.
Fascinatingly, he revealed: “One of the first things I did as a young manager at the age of 32 was to drive over to Elland Road and sit down with the great Don Revie.
“We had a great conversation about management; what a gentleman he was. I also made the trip down the motorway to meet with Brian Clough and Peter Taylor at Nottingham: another great experience.
“I was determined to hear from the best. It was important that I try to get better in all areas.”
One of his dealings in the transfer market was to secure the services of Mick Bates, who had played under Revie at Leeds. Napier agreed a £20,000 fee to sign the midfielder from Walsall, where he had been captain. Bates died aged 73 in July 2021.
The young manager wasn’t afraid to impose discipline, as the Bradford Telegraph & Argus reported on 25 September 1978: “Bradford City manager John Napier today imposed a new strict disciplinary code for his players following the recent disappointing 3-1 home defeat by lowly Newport County.
“Days off have been cancelled, training sessions will be held in the afternoon as well as in the morning, all privileges will be taken away and discipline will be ‘very strict’, said Napier.”
Sadly, it didn’t pay off and after just 34 games in charge (11 wins, five draws and 18 defeats) he was sacked and replaced by George Mulhall, the former Halifax Town manager (incidentally, Mulhall was the manager who reluctantly sold Lammie Robertson to Brighton and got Napier’s former Irish teammate Willie Irvine in exchange).
In December 1979, Napier intended to turn his back on coaching and management to start a new football-related venture in America, taking his young family to settle in San Diego.
As he explained to soccertoday.com in a January 2015 article: “My new venture was to be a successful businessman, and with the help of friends in Escondido we opened a soccer store, named The Soccer Locker. This was to be my future in the game, so I thought.
“Well, things don’t always go the way you want them to, as I found out the hard way. There was not too much interest in soccer in 1979.”
The article charts the difficulties the business underwent and how Napier contemplated packing it in and returning to England.
“It was very frustrating as a business person to spend long hours waiting for a customer to walk through the door,” he told soccertoday.com. The business was eventually liquidated in 1985, but, before then, Irish eyes started smiling when opportunity knocked.
Award-winning sportswriter and columnist for The Times-Advocate, Bob Gaines, invited Napier to write a regular column for a start-up football magazine and, having penned some pieces for the Bradford Telegraph & Argus during his time in Bradford, Napier took on the opportunity.
“This was promotion we needed, and it did help, but not a lot. We were still struggling to get by each month and walk-in customers were non-existent,” he said.
Good fortune was round the corner, though, when one of the shop’s customers invited him to start coaching a high school football team. It was way below the level he wanted to be at, but it was work.
“I was really ready to return to England and the professional game after a not very prosperous outlook in California for the first six months,” he admitted.
Nevertheless, he got to know Ron Newman, a former Portsmouth and Gillingham player, who was the head coach of the local professional side, San Diego Sockers (Napier had played for the forerunner of the Sockers – San Diego Jaws – after that franchise had replaced the Baltimore Comets).
Newman offered Napier a one-year contract as the Sockers’ youth coordinator. “Each day I would come to the office and set up events at local elementary and middle schools,” he recalled. “The players would visit and talk to the kids and do some exhibition stuff on the playgrounds and school fields. It was a lot of fun, and the players liked it.”
He also began coaching an under-23 team called the Escondido Royals, who played decent level opposition in and around Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. After that, he didn’t look back.
“I got my top US soccer coaching licence many years ago and have worked for US soccer as a coaching educator in my area (southern California), getting thousands of young coaches their licence on their pathway to their future in the game,” he said. “It has been a rewarding experience.”
In another 2015 soccertoday.com article, Napier said: “I have been fortunate to see the growth of youth soccer in this country since 1979. What an incredible experience to be part of and to have helped youth soccer grow and flourish in America.
“Anybody who was around in soccer during the early eighties and was able to watch it develop to where the sport is today has to have an inner satisfaction. I know I certainly do.
“Soccer, internationally and domestically, both at the higher professional level as well as at the youth levels, has grown tremendously. In fact, I am very, very proud.”
The genial Irishman told me: “I have coached many levels in my time in the USA and have seen the growth of the game take off, especially in the last 25 years or so.
“There are now more kids playing soccer than any other youth sport, such as baseball and American football. The girls’ programs especially have seen an enormous growth, the success of the national women’s team has raised the roof for girls’ soccer.
“I have been fortunate to have had some good really good players in the past and, even now, I see some former pupils in the US national teams.
“At the present, Aaron Long is playing in the national team and another, Bobby Wood, was in Germany and played for the US team.
“On the girls’ side, Catarina Macario, who plays in the present US women’s national team, and in Lyon (France) for their women’s team.
“Many others are playing in the national youth teams – boys and girls – so I am proud of my work in youth soccer. It is very rewarding to be able to give back to the game that gave me so much.”
When I interviewed Napier in the early Spring of 2022, he revealed: “I will be 76 in a few months, and I coach regularly for my club, San Diego Soccer Club Surf.
“My week consists of four weekday sessions of three to four hours daily and, at the weekend, I coach my teams both Saturday and Sunday.”
The weekend after our interview he was heading off to Phoenix Arizona for back-to-back games before returning home, to Monday practice again – a round trip of about 800 miles.
“As long as I have the passion and desire to enjoy the game and the energy to be involved, I will keep at the game that gave me everything,” he said.
In a blog for San Diego Soccer Club Surf, Napier details his football career and concludes: “My life journey in soccer has been amazing. I often dreamed as a young boy growing up in a far-off land of being a ‘soccer player’.
“Never did I think that I would have the career that I have had – the places I have been, representing my country, the players I had the honour to play with and against, the amazing people and wonderful coaches I have met. It has been a wonderful soccer life and still is.”
• Ever the gentleman, John ended our interview by saying: “I want to thank all the Brighton fans that may read these articles.
“It seems like yesterday when I was driving up to the Goldstone from my home on Shoreham Beach.
“They were good days, and to any of my ex-team mates out there drop me an email, I am easily found on the internet.”
In parallel lines 