OBITUARY: Jeff Coulshed, September 28, 1941 – July 4, 2017

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 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 shrinking violet, but they often thought they knew everything, and for him women were a bit of a revelation because, well, the sport was so new for us, and we just soaked up every word, and he loved it. He was huge for women’s football, especially in the Waikato.”

Anne, also a coach, said spectators had to be careful when standing next to Jeff, a close analyst of the game.

“He would nudge you, nearly tip you off your feet, to point out an aspect of the game. Then he would nudge you again. And again. We always said you got bruised standing next to him.”

Kerry once asked her father if he had always been passionate about football.

“He said some of his earliest memories, when he was about three, were of kicking a football about. Punishment for him was when his parents threatened to ban him from practising. He was one of that small percentage of people who have a lifelong passion for something and just get totally focused on it.”

The esteem in which Jeff was held by players and their families was a revelation for daughter Kerry, who met about 30 of them at the Cock and Bull, where her father would enjoy a pint of Boddington’s.

“I didn’t grasp how influential he was. The way they were talking about him was quite overwhelming, it was heart-warming.”

Kerry says her father was one of those larger-than-life characters who won a hat trick of football “Personality of the Year” awards three years running.

“He was such a unique character, and something common among those that knew and loved him, was how he made people laugh. From the comments I heard after he died, it seems this was a massive part of what will be remembered. Dad took up a huge amount of space with his personality. Our home was always filled with lots of laughter but he also gave sage advice when we needed it.”

Jeff died just days after his 51st wedding anniversary, after a short illness.

“I asked mum on their wedding anniversary,” said Kerry, “what it was that had kept them together for so long. She said, ‘He made me laugh every day.”‘

Jeff was the best friend and husband to Judy; loved dad of Karen and Kerry; grandpa to Harley, Neo, and Max; great-grandpa to Lachlan.