2nd not 1st: Essex 1899-1914 (6th ed)

Perrin and Charles McGahey, but in 1902 for the cricket club as its professional. The Middlesex Gazette noted: ‘J. Nie, the assistant trainer to the Spurs, was formerly on the ground staff of Essex County. He is a very smart bowler.’ Searches on British National Archive are imperfect, but August 1907 finds Nie playing for Tottenham CC against Upper Clapton and for Spurs against Tottenham CC. Jack Nie (top left) was only 21 in 1901, when Spurs appointed him assistant trainer and they became the only non-League side ever to win the FA Cup. Clearly he was exceptionally gifted, for by 1909 he had been promoted to chief trainer and the shareholders’ AGM was told no friction had arisen amongst [the players]. They had almost been like one happy family, and a great deal of that was owing to the splendid happy family, and a great deal of that was owing to the splendid management of their trainer Jack Nie, than whom the club has never been blessed with a more whole-hearted servant. In 1910 they were told that the players ‘were helped in every possible way by their trainer, Jack Nie. (Hear, hear.) The club had never had a trainer who had paid such attention to the ailments of his men as Jack Nie’. During the summer he was coach at Highgate Grammar School, and by August the players were back in training and Jack had been ‘giving the men in his charge a fair amount of work’. In 1912 came a less happy episode. The centre forward James Cantrell was transferred from Notts County to Spurs, and suggested to Nie that his former team-mate Isaac Waterall might further strengthen the Spurs attack. Notts were about to play at Spurs so Nie told Cantrell ‘Tell him to put his best foot forward when he comes here’. Cantrell wrote to Waterall encouraging him to come to Spurs and telling him to burn the letter, although he didn’t mention Nie’s comment. Somehow the letter came into the hands of the police and Cantrell was accused of an illegal approach. The Nottingham Post commented: Jack Nie ‘meant no harm, bless you’. His knowledge of football law is not profound. It is not his business, and he only intended to advise Waterall, through Cantrell, to show what he could do. He had no idea that he was doing any wrong, because that was not his intention.