Fred Eyre

Fred Eyre

Personal information
Full name	Frederick Eyre
Date of birth	3 February 1944
Place of birth	Manchester, England
Playing position	Wing half
Youth career
1959–1961	Manchester City
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1961–1963	Manchester City	0	(0)
1963–1964	Lincoln City	0	(0)
1964–1965	Crewe Alexandra	0	(0)
	Oswestry Town
	Rossendale United
	New Brighton
	Ellesmere Port
	Radcliffe Borough
	Chadderton
1969–1970	Bradford Park Avenue	1	(0)
	Oswestry Town
	Wigan Athletic
Teams managed
1981	Wigan Athletic (caretaker)
1998	Sheffield United (assistant)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Frederick "Fred" Eyre (born 3 February 1944) is an English former professional football player and coach. After retiring from the sport, Eyre became a successful businessman, author, after-dinner speaker and radio pundit. He is the father of former Rochdale manager Steve Eyre.

Career

Playing career

Born in Manchester, Eyre played as a wing half and began his early career as an apprentice at Football League club Manchester City, where he cleaned boots for players including Bert Trautmann and Denis Law, his playing heroes.^[1] Eyre was Manchester City's first ever apprentice.^[2] Failing to make the grade at Manchester City, he signed with Lincoln City in 1963 and then had a trial with Huddersfield Town before signing for Crewe Alexandra at the start of the 1964–65 season, but he never made a first-team appearance for either team. After leaving Crewe Alexandra in 1965, Eyre played in the English non-League system with a total of twenty clubs, including Oswestry Town, Rossendale United, New Brighton, Ellesmere Port, Radcliffe Borough and Chadderton.^[1] Eyre returned to League football briefly during the 1969–70 season with Bradford Park Avenue, making one appearance, before returning to Oswestry Town; he later played for Wigan Athletic.^[3]

Coaching career

Eyre worked on the coaching staff of both Bradford Park Avenue and Southport,^[4] and had a brief spell as caretaker manager of Wigan Athletic in 1981, winning one game and drawing a second.^[1] He was also Assistant Manager of Sheffield United in 1998,^[1] as well as being Chief Scout at the same club.^[2]

After football

Eyre started his own office supply company, became an after-dinner speaker, and published a book called Kicked into Touch, which had sold over a million copies as of April 2005.^[1] One story that Eyre told involved Hungarian player Ferenc Puskás; on holiday in Australia, Eyre found himself on the same pitch as Puskás, who was coaching South Melbourne at the time:

Then came a masterstroke, a touch of genius, a lifetime spent playing, studying and reading about the game all came together in the next glorious second. Ocsi! I shouted, the nickname meaning 'Little Brother' he'd been given as a child in Hungary. He spun round with a look of astonishment as I fired a peach of a pass which he sizzled into the roof of the net with that trusty old left foot. Scorer Ferenc Puskas, assist Fred Eyre, the stuff of dreams. We walked off the pitch arm in arm.^[5]

— Fred Eyre

As of 2009, Eyre co-commentates on Manchester City matches for BBC Radio Manchester.^[6]

References

General

• Official website
• Post War English & Scottish Football League A – Z Player's Database

Specific

1. Robert Philip (20 April 2005). "Eyre's life short on graces". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
2. "Football: Sidelines". The Independent. 21 March 1998. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
3. Neil Barker (12 October 2009). "Old-boy Eyre warns City to expect a backlash". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
4. "Eyre picks his pen up again". Manchester Evening News. 20 May 2005. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
5. Robert Philip (22 December 2006). "The day Fred Eyre laid on a goal for mighty Puskas". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
6. Patrick Barclay (14 December 2009). "Idea of British players cheating is foreign to domestic fans". The Times. Retrieved 15 December 2009.