The magic of Nick Barmby

Nick Barmby was handed his first coaching role last summer when Nigel Pearson arrived as manger at Hull City, with the intention of tapping into the ex-England forward ‘s experience and expertise on the training ground. James McMath highlights how 37-year-old Barmby is showing he still has plenty to offer when Saturday comes.

Isn’t Nick Barmby getting a bit old to be reinventing himself as a supersub?

Hull City are not complaining. Barmby is keeping their season alive. He is their Peter Pan – and keeps getting them off the hook.

His equaliser against Norwich, an instinctive second-half prod from Matty Fryatt’s cross, was his seventh of the season and took him level at the top of the Tigers’ goalscoring chart for the season.

The most recent five of that tally have come as a substitute. These are not typical antics of a veteran in his 20^th season as a professional. He has been making the sort of impact substitute appearances you might expect of a green, energetic youngster – a Marvin Sordell or Connor Wickham for example.

Aside from a few grey hairs near the temples, Barmby retains the cheeky, boyish appearance of when he broke into the first team at Tottenham Hotspur.

After a couple of seasons establishing himself at White Hart Lane, his rise to prominence came under Ossie Ardiles, during the embryonic stages of the Premier League era, when Barmby was the young gun in The Famous Five – Spurs’ flamboyant forward line featuring Jurgen Klinsmann, Teddy Sheringham, Darren Anderton and Ille Dumitrescu.

Almost by definition, that could not last and Gerry Francis sold Barmby to Middlesbrough in the summer of 1995. His move to Teesside for £5.75m was a club record at the time for Boro and subsequent transfers to at Everton, Liverpool and Leeds saw Barmby amass nearly £20m in cumulative fees.

With Barmby often hit by injury, those spells varied in success, with perhaps his time at Goodison Park – where he made over 100 starts in four years – his most fruitful.

Between 1995 and 2002, Barmby won 23 England caps and was in the squads for the 1996 and 2000 European Championships.

Sporadically deployed on either wing, as an attacking midfielder or a second striker, plenty of respected managers admired what Barmby could offer.

He scored in both Glenn Hoddle’s and Sven Goran Eriksson’s first games in charge of the national side and featured in two of the Swede’s most memorable matches  – the 5-1 win in Germany in September 2001 and the 2-2 draw against Greece at Old Trafford a few weeks later that sealed a place in the 2002 World Cup.

That was the last hurrah on the international scene for Barmby who, in 2004, moved on a free transfer from Leeds to his hometown club Hull City.

Some seven years later, Barmby is still making a significant contribution to the fortunes of the Tigers. As a player-coach his role is to pass on his know-how and technical knowledge to Hull’s emerging talent, the likes of Jay Devitt and Mark Cullen. But, perhaps more pertinently at this time of year, his timely goals are keeping Nigel Pearson’s side in with a shout of reaching the Championship play-offs.

Barmby has already been part of two promotion-winning Tigers teams – in 2005 and 2008 – and is every bit as excited now as he was as a 17-year-old.

After his goal against Norwich, Barmby said: “I still have the enthusiasm to train and to play. “I love playing here in front of the home fans and still love football.”

Barmby’s presence as a coach is good for the Tigers’ future, the gift of his goals is great for their present.

James McMath is a regular contributor to Just Football and can be found on Twitter @MrJamesMcMath.

(Photo credit: sk83964 on Flickr)

English Championship, Football League, Hull City, Nick Barmby