From sofa to Stonehouse - Nash enjoying life at Oldends Lane

After leaving Dursley Town at the back end of last season, Karl Nash hadn’t planned for such a swift return to football but he has been settling into life at Stonehouse Town as both Assistant Manager and a player.

Nash has found himself on the team sheet on a number of occasions and even played a crucial role off the bench, scoring one and creating the other, in his side’s 2-2 draw at FC Stratford.

The former Dursley Town Manager joined Butler on this weekend’s Buttee’s For Breakfast to discuss how the move to Stonehouse came about.

“Big Karl Nash, number 9? I’m not sure about that,” joked Nash. “Anyway, we had a laugh and a joke about it. He [Coyle] said, well, Player/Assistant is probably available for you.

I’ll go and speak back to the committee, so he went back and spoke to the committee and they said ‘get Karl Nash here at all costs.’ So I was like, that’s it, let’s go for it.

So between literally sitting on the sofa for three weeks to have an interview on the Stonehouse on the Saturday, to a conversation with Coyley on the Tuesday, I was back going again.

And it wasn’t pre-planned or anything like that. It was literally, let’s go, fancy it? And I thought, yeah, why not?” Nash added.

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And with a handful of performances under his belt for the campaign, Nash admits on the show that after training as a player again, he is started to get the bug for helping out on the pitch.

“The sort of plan was be a Player/Assistant and if we have a dropout I can just put my kit on and be number 16, no problem at all. Get myself 10 minutes here and there.

And then I find myself in the first month, I think, I played eight minutes scored one, and assisted one away at Stratford and I was thinking what is going on here?” said Nash.

“I’ve been training a bit, I’ve completed like the last four or five sessions, I’ve got myself a half hour in the week, so I’ll be knocking on the door for a start at the a minute or I should be pulling the manager over,” Nash added.

Stonehouse have had an inconsistent start, winning four and losing four of their opening eleven league games, but having won their last two in cup competitions and already going on a six game unbeaten run earlier in the campaign, Nash admits that whilst they have lost a couple of players, he still believes his side are capable of a play-off finish.

“The club really want to get out of Hellenic One, into the Hellenic Prem and you get the perks alongside that like the FA Cup, being a Step 5 side and all that.

But personally, if we can get into that play-off spot it will be massive, really good. A top four finish and play-offs would be a great achievement.

[When asked if the squad are good enough to do that] If you had asked me that question about seven weeks ago I’d have said ‘Yeah!’ but the squad has been a little depleted as of late and we have lost a couple of numbers.

We had a squad of about 20/21 at the start but that’s now down to about 17/18, which isn’t massive, but we could if we play our cards right pick up a couple more down the road – so yes is the answer,” added Nash.

Stonehouse Town are on the road this weekend, as they head to Ludlow Town in Hellenic League Division One – kick off: 15:00

You can hear Nash’s full interview on Saturday morning’s Buttee’s For Breakfast programme, live from 9am as he also discusses Dursley’s Reg Davis Cup win and Ash Caldwell’s gig as an ABBA tribute act.

Cover photo taken by and copyright to Brian Rossiter. Check out his Flickr account for all of his pictures by clicking here