Blast from the Past no.13: Darren Eadie

Reviving the Premier League players you forgot existed…

Le Tournoi 1997 was a magical tournament. The scene of that Roberto Carlos free-kick against France, the emergence of a 22-year-old Italian starlet called Alessandro del Piero and – most thrillingly – an unexpected England triumph against the world’s best teams. It was also a momentous event for Darren Eadie, the 21-year-old Norwich City winger who received his first international call-up for the four-team competition.

For anyone who doesn’t remember it, Le Tournoi was a pre-Confederations Cup warm-up event for the France 98 World Cup where they invited whoever they wanted and all the teams were good – especially England, who won it. It seemed like the precursor to something special for Glenn Hoddle’s side, but it wasn’t really, and it also proved a false dawn for Eadie. Shortly after being named in the squad, the Canaries wide man was injured in training and forced to pull out. For a man of Eadie’s tender age and precocious talent, there was no reason to believe similarly glittering opportunities wouldn’t come along. But they never did.

“There’s a treatment table in the NCFC physio’s room with a plaque for Darren Eadie to commemorate all the happy hours he spent there,” quipped one Norwich fan summarising the player’s career on the Pink’un website.

“Great player when he wasn’t injured, which was far too often,” said another.

Left-footed, skilful and devastatingly fast, Eadie was the natural solution to England’s infamous “left-sided problem”, but he was also one of the most injury prone players in Premier League history.

Eadie played 45 times for Norwich in the season leading up to Le Tournoi – bagging 17 goals in the process, an outstanding return for a midfielder – but he never matched that goals or appearance tally again.

Despite playing in England’s second tier, for a Canaries side ensconced in mid-table obscurity following their 1995 relegation from the top flight, Eadie continued to get international recognition. He made several England B squads in the run-up to France 98, but pulled out injured every time.

“He would have been a regular left-winger for England if he stayed fit,” opined another Norwich fan.

Eadie’s inevitable return to the Premiership came in 1999 when Leicester manager Martin O’Neill paid Norwich £3m for him - a calculated risk on a player whose fitness issues had so far stifled his huge potential.

Foxes fans are glowing in their recollections of Eadie’s ability, variously describing him as “probably the quickest player in the country when fully fit” and “always a standout performer when on the pitch”, but the clue is in the caveats. In three and a half years at Filbert Street, Eadie managed just 40 games.

“Of all the players that we have signed over the years, he has probably been the biggest disappointment in terms of signing a genuinely good player with potential to take us to another level and it ultimately going nowhere,” said one fan on the Foxes Talk website, while another described him as “a player who was robbed of showing his true talent”.

In April 2001, Eadie was on the receiving end of a fierce challenge from Charlton’s Scott Parker, triggering a spell on the sidelines from which he never returned. Eadie retired from football aged just 28, leaving fans with only fleeting memories of his prowess. Like the time he outsprinted Arsenal’s Thierry Henry.

“Henry had a 10-yard head start on him from the halfway line and was through on goal; Eadie not only managed to catch him but overtook him and pinched the ball. Frightening pace,” recalled another Leicester fan, adding, “I put his dodgy knees down to the fact that he was abnormally fast and no knees in the world would have coped.”

Coping was difficult for Eadie away from the game too, as he suffered depression and panic attacks while trying to pick up the pieces of a life that had always been geared solely towards football. Nowadays, a happier Eadie works as a local broadcaster in the Norfolk area, a bit like Alan Partridge.

Just as Partridge never got his second TV series, Eadie never got another chance like Le Tournoi. Their taste of glory was all too brief, but both can console themselves with being bona-fide Norwich legends.

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