Nigel Philip Spink (born 8 August 1958) is an English football coach and former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugb ...

. He played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting ...

from 1976 until 2001. He made his name at

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park, ...

and also made one appearance for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

at international level on the tour of Australia in 1983. He also played in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...

for

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pl ...

and

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, eas ...

, and at non-league level for Chelmsford City and Forest Green Rovers, the latter he would go on to manage between 2000 and 2002. Spink later worked as a goalkeeping coach for

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, ...

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

and

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

Playing career

Spink began his career with Writtle Minors F.C. at junior level before going as a school boy to

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...

, but soon moved to Chelmsford City and then, at the age of just 18, to

. It was almost five years before his big break in the first team came along, and it came on the biggest stage of all – the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

Final. Ten minutes into the 1982 final against

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...

, Villa's first choice goalkeeper, Jimmy Rimmer, was injured and substitute keeper Spink was called into action, having only made one previous appearance in the first team. Spink performed superbly, keeping a clean sheet, and Villa won the game 1–0. By curious coincidence, Spink and Rimmer are two of the four England goalkeepers with the shortest international career (45 minutes). He went on to make 460 appearances for Villa before moving to neighbouring club

in 1996, almost two decades after first joining Villa. Spink made 24 appearances in all for Albion, and became the oldest goalkeeper to appear for the club when, at the age of 39 years and 19 days, he kept goal in a League Cup tie against Cambridge United on 27 August 1997, a record since broken by

Dean Kiely Dean Laurence Kiely (born 10 October 1970) is a former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is the goalkeeping coach at Premier League club Crystal Palace and the Republic of Ireland national team. Born in England, he won ele ...

at . A £50,000 move in September 1997 took him down a division to

in Division Two, and he continued playing at The Den for another three seasons until he finally retired in June 2000, just before his 42nd birthday.

Coaching career

After retiring as a player, Spink had a two-year spell as manager of Forest Green Rovers in the

Conference National The National League, known as the Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of the National League System and fifth-highest of the overall English football league system. It is the highest league that is semi-professi ...

. He led Forest Green to the 2001

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The com ...

final but they lost 1–0 against

Canvey Island Canvey Island is a town, civil parish and reclaimed island in the Thames estuary, near Southend-on-Sea, in the Castle Point district, in the county of Essex, England. It has an area of and a population of 38,170.Office for National Statistics ...

Villa Park Villa Park is a football stadium in Aston, Birmingham, England, with a seating capacity of 42,682. It has been the home of Premier League side Aston Villa since 1897. The ground is less than a mile from both Witton and Aston railway station ...

. He was eventually sacked in September 2002. He then worked under

Steve Bruce Stephen Roger Bruce (born 31 December 1960) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a centre-back. He most recently managed West Bromwich Albion. Born in Corbridge, Northumberland, he was a promising scho ...

and

as a goalkeeping coach. He left Sunderland on 6 December 2011, following Bruce's dismissal a few days earlier. Spink was goalkeeping coach at

from February 2012

Personal life

After the end of the 2012–13 season, Spink left the game and started his own courier business.

Honours

Aston Villa: *

: 1982 *

European Super Cup The UEFA Super Cup is an annual super cup football match organised by UEFA and contested by the winners of the two main European club competitions; the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The competition's official name was originall ...

: 1983 *

Football League Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by t ...

: 1994

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spink, Nigel 1958 births Living people Sportspeople from Chelmsford Aston Villa F.C. players West Bromwich Albion F.C. players Millwall F.C. players Forest Green Rovers F.C. players Forest Green Rovers F.C. managers Association football goalkeepers English footballers English football managers England international footballers England B international footballers Premier League players Birmingham City F.C. non-playing staff Wigan Athletic F.C. non-playing staff Bristol City F.C. non-playing staff Swindon Town F.C. non-playing staff Sunderland A.F.C. non-playing staff Chelmsford City F.C. players Association football goalkeeping coaches