Eddie Newton’s success as a coach in Turkey, where he led Trabzonspor to their first trophy in a decade is a big boost for Black coaches in the era of the “Black lives matter” movement. It also comes hard on the heels of a win by former Nigerian international, Emmanuel Ndubuisi Egbo, of the Albanian league with KF Tirana. Newton was born in Hammersmith, England and like Egbo is also of Nigerian descent.
Newton is a Chelsea legend from his time as a player. He then spent nine years as a coach at Stanford Bridge, achieving success as assistant coach to Roberto Di Matteo when they won the Uefa Champions League in 2012. He also worked as assistant to Guus Hiddink in 2015.
Newton has had to deal with the frustration of being overlooked for several opportunities at Chelsea and elsewhere in either the Premier League or with Championship Clubs. That led to him moving to Europe and earning his first job as head coach. The big win came while on caretaker duty so it remains to be seen if he gets the nod to lead Trabzonspor into the Uefa Champions League next season on a permanent basis.
Newton arrived in Turkey in February as assistant to Trabzonspor head coach Huseyin Cimsir, before being promoted. After two games in charge, the team won the Turkish Cup.
“I’ve been trying to become a No 1 for a while and just didn’t see it happening”, he told SkySports.
“The fact is that I’ve moved to another country and it’s taken six months to become caretaker manager so… I’ve been working in football all my life so that’s why I felt there was more opportunity over here, so I had to take the chance, basically…”
“I think I got to the point where I thought I have to take this opportunity, I have to take this chance now or maybe it will never happen for me”
Newton also reflected on not being considered for the Chelsea job.
“You would have liked to think so but I don’t see that was ever going to happen,” Newton continues.
“There was a big clamour for Frank [Lampard] even when he took the Derby job. Even if he’d done a half-decent job it was almost written in the stars that he was going to come to Chelsea so I never saw that coming”.
