Nigel came to the club with new manager Steve Bruce after Gary Walsh left for Derby with former Latics boss Paul Jewell. He enjoyed a long playing career, spending almost 20 years at Aston Villa where he had a debut to remember…the European Cup final…..
GF: Nigel, thanks for speaking to us. Firstly, as a player you played in a European Cup final with Aston Villa, what are your recollections of that game?
NS: I didn't think I would take part. From my point of view I probably did too much warming up before the game, not knowing I would go on so early in the game. To actually go on was absolutely fantastic. European Cup finals are what schoolboys dreams are made of.
GF: You must have been incredibly nervous…
NS: Like I said, we just believed we wouldn't get any part in the games the subs, so we didn't get nervous, we didn't even sort of think about the fact we might go on so really there weren't any nerves because it happened so quickly. I literally had to take my sweatshirt off and I was on from the point the Goalkeeper decided he couldn't carry on.
GF: You seem to have almost moved effortlessly into the coaching side of the game but do you believe the players have enough opportunities outside of their careers if you look at the likes of Paul Gascoigne and his current situation?
NS: A modern day player doesn't really need to worry so much about whats going to happen when his careers over or when a bad injury finishes his career because of the financial rewards these days. Average players earn enough money in their careers to set them up for life. It's changed a little bit from that point of view from when I was playing, then you did have to think about what you were going to do when you finish because you needed to carry on working. You didn't earn as much by far because Sky wasn't there in those days so the money didn't fire up as much as it has now so yeah I always wanted to believe I had something to offer as a coach and it was always the way I wanted to go, to stay in football.
GF: Having played for Aston Villa for the vast majority of your career, did you have any reservations about coaching for Birmingham City?
NS: It felt strange going to the other club in Birmingham yeah, It was strange but once I'd been there a few weeks and things had settled down a bit. Because they weren't in the same division we didn't have to deal with the big derby games so it felt strange when I had to face up to my first big derby in the Premier League but yeah it was strange to start with but you quickly adapt and I realised that's where I wanted to be.
GF: You have no doubt work with some top class goalkeepers in your time. How does Wigan's current number 1 compare?
NS: Well Kirky certainly ticks all the boxes for all the attributes for being a top, top goalkeeper. Really now it's down to him to keep his focus, to keep his work ethic and the main one for Chris is, touch wood, we can keep him out on the training field and playing games rather than being in the treatment room because he's spent quite a bit of his career being injured. The main thing now is get him a spell out on the football pitch.
GF: In your opinion, who do you think should be the England number one goalkeeper?
NS: I think that it's really difficult at the moment because David James is coming into the twilight of his career, he's probably got 3 or 4 more seasons to go. I think that Scott Carson and Chris (Kirkland) are the ones we should be nurturing really and the likes of Joe Hart at Man City should be the goalkeepers for years to come. But you need that experience as well and obviously the new England manager decided he wanted to go with James's experience plus his current form is very good.
GF: Finally, you lie 14th in the table at the moment, can you beat the drop?
NS: Absolutely, there'll be a lot of factors in that as well. Because it's confidence, once you start winning a few games and confidence comes up, results start going for you. If you don't win those games and results go against you then confidence drops and every game then become a struggle, certainly the next 3 or 4 games will be vitally important for us and if we can pick up points like we have in the last 10 games or so then we'll be well on our way but we certainly have the capabilities. A little bit will be down to luck and confidence but we have the ability.
GF: Thanks for speaking to us Nigel.