NUAFC 1968-2018

It was one of life's misfortunes that saw west
Lancashire lad Jeff Coulshed finally end up leaning
against the bar of The Riverina pub in Hamilton East.
He was a couple of years into his decision to
immigrate to New Zealand following a broken ankle that
stopped his soccer career with his local team,
Skelmersdale.
The loss of his playing days had so depressed
the young Jeff that his father, Arthur, told him to
emigrate.
He had taken the advice, and, a panel beater by
trade, he had spent two years in Wellington before
deciding to head for Auckland – stopping off for a jug on
his way through Hamilton.
In the mid-1960s in Hamilton you needed only
an English accent in the Riverina to get an invitation to
play soccer on Saturday.
As Jeff later told football writer Bruce
Holloway, his game restarted after he was approached
by Hamilton AFC life member Harold Robinson who had
picked up his accent in the pub, and asked Jeff if he
played the beautiful
game.
Jeff, a striker,
said he did, and he
turned out for
Hamilton AFC in 1964,
the club's debut
season after taking
over from Technical
Old Boys. His ankle
held up and he found
himself selected as a
Waikato
representative and
played in every one of
Waikato's games that
year.
Needless to
say, he never made it
to Auckland, although
he did cross the ditch
to spend two seasons as a professional with Hakoah
Sydney City East FC. He married Judy in Sydney in 1966.
The couple returned to the Waikato, where
Holloway notes that, for many, Jeff is best remembered
as a player for scoring the late winner in Hamilton's
thrilling 3-2 home win against a strong North Shore
team in the Chatham Cup in 1975.
But it was as a coach that Jeff made his mark on
the Waikato, and the New Zealand, football scene.
Former deputy editor and sports writer for the
Waikato Times Roy Pilott said Jeff was a reluctant coach
– he wanted to play until his body said no more.
But he was thrown into the fray with a
relegated National League side, Hamilton, as Kevin
Fallon's successor, at Muir Park in the late 70s. It kept
him off the park for two years.
"He got Hamilton back up, but missed playing.
So in order to play on Saturday and coach, he took over
the Waikato women's team in 1982 – because they
played on a Sunday."
That year, while in Auckland with the women's
team, Jeff suffered a brain haemorrhage. Daughter Kerry
said her mother Judy was told he would not survive the
night.
"Some of the players told me it was just lucky
he was in Auckland at the time and that he was sent to
Greenlane Hospital as he would not have made it
otherwise. The next 33 years were when he really made
his mark in the Waikato. So it was lucky that he
survived."
Jeff was first introduced to female football in
1975 when Hamilton AFC decided to have a women's
team, comprised of the wives of all the male players. It
was an
association that would run for decades.
In between he took on the men's Ngaruawahia
team in the late 90s, making the semifinals of the
Chatham Cup – a huge achievement for an unknown
squad.
By the time he finished playing, and was tapped
to coach Ngaruawahia, he had taken Waikato to the
national women's title twice, much to the chagrin of
Auckland and Wellington, who had
come to consider the trophy as
theirs to compete for. Never one
to rest on his laurels, he also had
been around the world with the
under-19 and under-21 sides, and
coached the full national women's
squad.
Waikato midfielder Jo
Fisher gives Jeff the credit for the
team's back-to-back successes. "He
knew how much we wanted it, his
belief in the team made him stay
with us."
He told Roy he got more
enjoyment out of coaching
Waikato to a top four place, and
then two titles, than from any
other soccer he had played. "I
Playing in the #7 shirt at Newmarket Park, 1966
don't see that ever being
surpassed," he said, "because the
players were so dedicated."
New Zealand 1988 women's squad striker Joy
Howland says Jeff was well ahead of his time and what
he did for female football was legendary.
"He was the pioneer of Waikato women's
football, we were part of history. Nowadays, NZ
women's football is competitive on the world stage, and
he was in the forefront of building that.
"As a coach he was tough as nails, he expected
nothing less than 110 per cent, two or three nights a
week out at Horotiu. He expected you to be there, no
excuses. He trained the under-17s, under-19s, and the
seniors. He would go scouting at the schools. That is a
lot of coaching, unpaid, it was all time away from his
business and family. He was football through and
through."
Former New Zealand women's goalkeeper
Anne Smith, who said she played for the national side
because of Jeff, described his coaching as intense.
"He liked coaching women because we wanted
to learn. He battled with blokes, and he was no
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