Despite his reputation as a disciplined, conservative defender, Chris Nicholl’s story includes some famous goals – his 40-yarder for Aston Villa in the second replay of the 1977 League Cup Final v Everton; and, a year earlier, his scoring all four goals in Villa’s 2-2 draw with Leicester City. When Lawrie McMenemy was negotiating to obtain his signature a few months after that League Cup Final, Chris traded on his record of being instantly promoted with every team he’d ever signed for: he asked to be put on double the bonus that was on offer for promotion back to Division I. He pointed out to McMenemy that his international stars – the likes of Alan Ball, Peter Osgood and Mick Channon – “haven’t got you promotion, but I will.”

The deal was done and Nicholl was as good as his word, missing only three League games as the Saints duly made an instant return to the top flight. Chris would now have five seasons at that level for Southampton, with whom he would win 37 caps – out of an eventual total of 51 – though not for England. Although born in Cheshire, Chris spent most of his pre-school years in Belfast, his father’s birth-place – by virtue of which he was eligible to represent Northern Ireland, the country to which he would later return as the U-21 manager, under McMenemy. Yet as a player, he felt that he “wasn’t on the same wave-length as Lawrie” or, indeed, his star forwards. He was especially at odds with Mick Channon, whose “great imagination” induced a false trust, he reasoned, in “all-out attack,” whereas Chris felt himself to be “a bit more in the real world,” as he “tried to get the back-four a bit more organised and together.”

He is the first to admit, however, that he fell below his own standards of defensive discipline in 1979, at Wembley, in his third – and only losing – League Cup Final, when he was “much too confident”, as he neglected his “job” of clearing his lines, by opting to “control” a ball and thereby setting up Gary Birtles to score. During all of which, there was one man with whom Chris discussed the way the game should be played: Ted Bates, who, as Chief Executive, had watched him, as a player, for McMenemy.

And it was Bates who brokered his return, from his spell at Grimsby, to succeed McMenemy as manager (see scrapbook section) and who was then a “huge influence” on how he went about the job. There are those who feel that he was unduly cautious as a manager – shades of that conflict with Channon – when compared with McMenemy. He has confessed to perhaps being a little too inexperienced to handle what was, when he arrived, a dressing-room loaded with big personalities, with matters even getting physical on occasions.

But it was he who brought through, from the Youth team, virtually by-passing the Reserves, the exciting front three of Alan Shearer, flanked by Matt Le Tissier and Rod Wallace. With Jimmy Case, McMenemy’s last signing, as the supply line, Nicholl developed an unusual formation, of whose success he enthused in Le Tissier’s testimonial programme, using words such as “mobile”, “freedom” and “freshness”, descriptions that would surely be endorsed by grateful fans of that era and which question suggestions of undue caution. However you view his six seasons, he was sacked in June 1991 and remained out of the game for three years, before returning to management with Walsall. In the meantime, he had concentrated on another passion – tennis – at which he was good enough to become ranked just outside the world’s Top 50 on the seniors’ circuit.In January 2011, he began a third spell at Walsall, when one of his ex-players, Dean Smith, recently installed as their manager, recruited him as his unpaid part-time adviser and defensive coach. But the job was keeping him off the golf-course and his handicap crept up from 5 to 7. Which is why he quit after 18 months to spend more time with his golf clubs.

He died in February 2024 having falling victim to C.T.E. a brain condition thought to be linked to repeated head injuries which leads to dementia. Despite this, Chris maintained a visible and happy presence at charity events, some of which were held for him by Saints fans who had not forgotten the service he gave to the club both as a player and as a manager.