Nigel Spink

Nigel Spink

Personal information
Full name	Nigel Philip Spink
Date of birth	8 August 1958 (1958-08-08) (age 53)
Place of birth	Chelmsford, England
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Youth career
0000–1976	West Ham United
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1976–1977	Chelmsford City
1977–1996	Aston Villa	361	(0)
1996–1997	West Bromwich Albion	19	(0)
1997–2000	Millwall	44	(0)
2000–2001	Forest Green Rovers	14	(0)
National team
1983	England	1	(0)
1991	England B	2	(0)
Teams managed
2000–2002	Forest Green Rovers
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Nigel Philip Spink^[1] (born 8 August 1958) is a former football goalkeeper who made his name at Aston Villa and also made one appearance for England at international level on the tour of Australia in 1983.

Career

Spink began his career at Writtle Minors moving up to the Senior side Writtle Football Club^[2] before going as an apprentice to West Ham United, but soon moved to Chelmsford City and then, at the age of just 18, to Aston Villa. 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 Final. Ten minutes into the 1982 final against Bayern Munich, 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.

He went on to make 460 appearances for Villa before moving to neighbouring club West Bromwich Albion in 1996, almost two decades after first joining Villa. Spink became the oldest goalkeeper to appear for Albion 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.^[1] The record still stands as of 27 August 2007. In all he made 24 appearances for the Black Country club.

A £50,000 move in September 1997 took him down a division to Millwall in Division Two, and he continued playing at The New Den for another three seasons until he finally retired in June 2000, just before his 42nd birthday.

After retiring as a player, Spink worked as a coach at West Bromwich Albion, and after a brief spell as manager of Forest Green Rovers, has worked under Steve Bruce at Birmingham City and Wigan Athletic as a goalkeeping coach. Nigel Spink followed Steve Bruce to Sunderland A.F.C. as a goalkeeper coach on 3 June 2009.

Honours

• European Cup: 1982
• European Super Cup: 1983
• Football League Cup: 1994

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Matthews, Tony (2005). The Who's Who of West Bromwich Albion. Breedon Books. pp. 220–221. ISBN 1-85983-474-4. 
2. ^ Gallacher, Eric. Writtle Football Club Centenary Book 1902/03 to 2002/03.

External links

• Nigel Spink career stats at Soccerbase

Persondata
Name	Spink, Nigel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	8 August 1958
Place of birth	Chelmsford, England
Date of death
Place of death