Albion's players will be hoping to see more of the ball tomorrow than some of their predecessors under the experienced and knowledgeable coach instrumental in Nottingham Forest's early leadership of the Championship.

Brian Eastick is a key contributor at the City Ground for manager Stuart Pearce, who was known as 'Psycho' during his playing career.

That nickname might have been apt for Eastick back in the early 1980's as far as members of the Albion squad were concerned.

Eastick, an England under-18 international while at Crystal Palace, was just beginning to carve out a career in coaching in those days.

He had been abroad to study techniques and tried to implement one of them at Albion when youth team coach during the reign of Mike Bailey.

The players were left bemused - and Eastick left himself open to ridicule - when Bailey allowed him to take a first team training session.

Former striker Gordon Smith, writing in his autobiography 'And Smith Did Score', explained: "'Right lads,’ he has just told us, 'We're going to have a game of football, so pick two sides.

"'But what's different about this game – and if you take this seriously it will be a great help to you – is that we’ll be playing with an imaginary ball.

"'It's twenty minutes each way – a practice game with a pretend ball.'

"He senses a reluctance from the players and nobody moves. 'Look,' says Brian, 'the boss is watching and it's either this or he'll have you running all morning -what's it to be?'

"Since anything’s better than running round a track for a couple of hours, we decide to go along with this rather unconventional training method. We're about to start the 1982-83 season and this is undoubtedly the weirdest training session I have ever taken part in and that would go for the rest of the Brighton players as well.

"We get ourselves into teams and line up to kick off. The former Arsenal star, Charlie George, has joined Brighton on a month's loan and he's in my team. I kick off by touching the imaginary ball to Charlie who makes an imaginary pass to our winger, ex-Manchester United player, Mickey Thomas, Mickey then makes a 20-yard run at full pace, slides along the touchline and jumps up to shout, ‘For f*** sake, Charlie, play it to my feet, will you?’ "The players can hardly stand up for laughing and that's the end of the game. Brian Eastick is not happy and, since we're not taking his game with the imaginary football seriously, it's back to running round the track."

The last laugh since that pioneering era, attempting to innovate with players older than he was, is with Eastick.

The 63-year-old Londoner has compiled a formidable CV working with big names at both club and international level.

After leaving Albion he had spells as manager of Newport County for five months, assistant manager of Leyton Orient and with Coventry, Crewe and Sheffield United before his first involvement in the England set-up, working part-time for seven years at the FA's former national school at Lilleshall.

He became No. 2 to Northern Ireland manager Bryan Hamilton for three years, then developed a youth system from scratch at Birmingham under Trevor Francis and spent two years as academy manager and head coach of Newcastle during the late Sir Bobby Robson's reign.

Following a brief stint as assistant manager of Republic of Ireland's under-21s, Eastick returned to the England set-up as a national coach, filling a wide variety of roles for eight years.

He forged a strong relationship with Pearce, assisting him at three European under-21 Championships and with the GB team at the London Olympics.

 

Now they are together again at Forest plotting the downfall of Albion, where 30 years ago Eastick's methods were mocked.