One of the best known Hereford United legends celebrates his 85th birthday today.
Colin Addison played for and managed the club from 1971 to 1974 and had a second stint as manager in 1990. He was a director of the club for a short period in 2014.
An interesting article about him was published by the Independent in 1999. At that time he had just been appointed manager of Scarborough.
COLIN ADDISON
flicked through the yellowing pages of the Newcastle United programme on
his desk until he came to the pen pictures. "The manager of Hereford
United is Mr Colin Addison, aged 31," he read aloud. "He is a young,
progressive manager who has the qualifications, drive, and the
determination of many of the managers in the Football League."
"It's
funny," Scarborough's new manager said, removing his spectacles and
casting his mind back to the night he first tested his qualifications,
drive and determination against Football League opposition. "People tend
to forget that game at St James' Park.
"They think it was a
one-off game at Hereford. But we went up there one wet and windy January
night, in front of 39,000 people, and came away with a tremendous 2-2
result. In fact, I thought we played better that night, in terms of
football and application, than we did in the replay."
Mr Colin Addison's first success as a young, progressive manager was indeed no one-off. It was a three-off.
The
team of part-time Southern Leaguers he guided from both sides of the
Edgar Street fence, as player as well as manager of Hereford United,
held Newcastle and West Ham to draws as well as shooting down the not-
quite-so-mighty Magpies in the FA Cup in 1972.
Indeed, the 2-1
third-round replay win at Edgar Street - Ronnie Radford's wonder goal,
the invasion of the Parkas and all - would not have been possible had
Addison himself not equalised in the original tie on Tyneside.
"One
of the best goals I scored in my career," he maintained. "Never gets a
mention. People also forget that after we beat Newcastle in the replay
we drew 0-0 with West Ham four days later before we went out 3- 1 at
Upton Park to a Geoff Hurst hat-trick.
"Yeah, it was a magnificent cup run. I mean, that Newcastle team wasn't a bad one, you know."
It
was good enough to beat a Manchester United side featuring Best, Law
and Charlton at Old Trafford the following Saturday. And Addison's
Hereford heroes were good enough to gain election to the Football League
at the end of that season, his first as a manager, and to win promotion
the following year.
At 58 going on 31 again, the impossibly
young looking, youthfully exuberant Addison still has his eyes cast
upwards in the football management game. Since responding to an urgent
SOS call two weeks ago (Save Our Scarborough), he has been looking up at
all 71 teams above his from the bottom rung of the Football League
ladder.
His career has come full circle: from trying to get into
the League with Hereford to trying to stay in it with Scarborough.
"There is an irony in it," he said. "But I've never ducked a challenge
and when the call came, asking if I was interested in I decided to go
for it.
"A lot of friends said, "What the hell are you going to Scarborough for? To get an early holiday in? To do a bit of paddling?"
"But
I've come here for the challenge. I've got clubs out of similar
situations before: Newport in the late Seventies and Cadiz seven or
eight years ago.
"It's not as if it's new for me. But this one is a big challenge. It could be the biggest of the lot."
The
chips are certainly down at the McCain Stadium. Scarborough are six
points adrift at the foot of the Third Division, though with two games
in hand of the clubs directly above them, Hull and Hartlepool.
For
Addison, it is a coming home as well as a challenge. He was brought up
in nearby York and launched his playing career as an attacking
inside-forward with York City.
He went on to make his mark in the
old First Division with Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United
and he has returned to North Yorkshire with a managerial CV which
includes five months in the scorchingly hot seat at the Vicente
Calderon. Like Arrigo Sacchi, and some 20 other coaches in the past 13
years, Addison endured an uncomfortably brief working relationship with
Jesus Gil, the president-cum- autocrat of Atletico Madrid.
"It was an experience, to say the least," he reflected. "The man was completely irrational. You never knew what was coming next.
"I
went there as Ron Atkinson's assistant six games into the 1989-90
season, took over in the January when Ron moved on and was sacked at the
end of May. Atletico were fourth bottom when we went there and they
were fourth top when I got the sack.
"We were in the semi-final
of the Spanish Cup - 2-0 down to Real Madrid from the first leg - and we
needed three points from our last three league games to qualify for the
Uefa Cup. We could have won the cup. We could have still got into
Europe.
"But that was the man. That was Jesus Gil. If I had been
in the same position in England I probably would have got a new two-year
contract.
"It was very disappointing, one of the biggest
disappointments of my career, not having the chance just to finish off
that season."
Addison may have left unfinished business at the
Calderon in Madrid, but he has a mission to complete at the McCain in
Scarborough. "What's the difference ?" he said, echoing the question.
"About 48,000 spectators.
"Obviously at a big club like Atletico
you've got money to spend. There's not much to spend here, if any. But
the principles are the same.
"The systems, the tactics, the
attitude, the application... They're all the same, whether you're at
Atletico Madrid or at Scarborough." Or whether you're a young,
progressive manager at Hereford United, for that matter.