David Chadwick, the former technical director of coaching for AFC Lightning who was inducted into the Georgia Soccer Hall of Fame in 2001, is stepping away from the game he loves. Chadwick announced his retirement recently and is in the process of moving to Cumming, Ga. to be closer to his children and grandchildren.

As a boy in Lymington, England, Chadwick always knew he wanted to be a “footballer.” At a recent ceremony honoring him as he enters a self-imposed retirement from the game, the man everyone knows as “Chaddy” stated that as he was growing up he wanted to play the game and “be somebody.”

Lymington is a small village known mostly for its fishing, but early on Chadwick knew he had a passion for the sport Americans know as soccer.
“I was good at all sports, but it is the dream for a lot of kids in England to play football and I started to realize that I was very good at it,” Chadwick said. “I told my mother that’s what I want to do.”

Chadwick started moving up the ranks and by the age of 17, Southampton signed him to a professional contract. He played his first league game in 1961 and the team enjoyed a lot of success, moving up from the third to the first division in three years.

“I never had a regular spot in that time and was on the bench a lot, but it was a very good time,” Chadwick reflected. As a player, he was known for terrific ball handling skills and his quickness. He was a great passer and good at crossing the ball to his teammates. He often played wide as a forward or a midfielder and enjoyed setting up goals.

“I loved to set up goals as a player, but later on, as a coach, I just hated to give up a goal,” Chadwick said, musing that great offensive players often become defensive-minded coaches.
In 1966, Chadwick was transferred from Southampton to Middlesbrough, a team that had gone in the opposite direction of Southampton, falling from the first to the third division. Chadwick was one of four new players added to the team and the new blood soon had the team moving up.

“We were like kings then,” said Chadwick. “Everyone knew who we were, we had 50,000 people at our games and England won the World Cup that year. “

Chadwick played over 100 games for Middlesbrough before being traded to Halifax Town and later Bornemouth, where he spent two years.
At the age of 30, Chadwick was a free agent. Bournemouth wanted him to oversee their youth team and Academy teams, but he felt fit and still wanted to play. Out of the blue, he got a phone call from America.

Ron Newman, the coach of the Dallas Tornado of the North American Soccer League (NASL) team, called and asked him to come over and play. Once again, Chaddy was one of four new players joining the team and Dallas made the semifinals that year.

The highlight of Chaddy’s playing career had to be playing against Pele’ in Pele’s first game in the United States. In that game, Chadwick scored a goal and recorded an assist, but just meeting “the greatest player of all time” was enough for Chadwick, who has a framed photo of Pele’ with himself and his son.

In his playing career, Chadwick made over 350 appearances for nine teams. Though his playing career spanned 19 years, his involvement with the game has lasted a lifetime, thanks in part to a love of coaching.

As he spent his time playing for Dallas, Chaddy got his first taste of coaching. The players all had to give clinics and lessons twice a week in the area and Chadwick was able to see the talent level around him and thrive on the willingness to learn among players of all ages.

While playing in England and America, Chadwick got the highest coaching badges and licenses, but it was always to just learn more about the game that he loved. He coached a youth team while in Dallas and as his professional playing career, which took him to Tacoma and Fort Lauderdale, drew to a close, he started to think that there were more opportunities to become an assistant coach with a professional team in the states rather than in England.

Chaddy worked under Newman in Fort Lauderdale for a while and moved on to become an assistant for the Atlanta Chiefs in 1980. Halfway through that first season with the team, his head coach was fired and Chadwick was offered the position. He knew he couldn’t turn it around right away, but he asked for a one-year deal, got it, and started making the changes that would take the Chiefs from the basement to a division title.

“We played indoors at the old Omni, went 18-3 and won the division,” said Chadwick, remembering that the team outdrew the Hawks and had an average of over 8,500 people a game. When the team moved to Atlanta Fulton County stadium for their outdoor season, Chadwick brought in Brian Kidd, a top player from England, and the Chiefs won another division title.

The team, owned by Ted Turner, folded as Turner turned his attention and finances to a new project called CNN. Chadwick coached a small team known as the Georgia Generals but that team folded soon afterwards, too.

There were offers on the table from a few NASL teams, but Chadwick chose to return to Fort Lauderdale, again making the playoffs but getting knocked out before winning a championship. The NASL started to crumble and in 1984 the league folded.

Chadwick and his family moved back to Georgia. He had his custom uniform business, a clothing line called Chaddy, and tried to get investors for an indoor soccer league, but to no avail. He started working for a company called Spacewall and was surviving on what he called “a nip” of soccer. He coached an amateur team named Datagraphic to the USSF Men’s National Championship, where the team lost in the finals.

In 1989, the family, which had been living in Stone Mountain, moved to Peachtree City and Chadwick fell in love with a home that put him next to a golf course.

While living in a rental house near the Glenloch Recreation Center while his home was being built, Chadwick encountered two boys kicking a soccer ball against a wall. The ball rolled to his feet and Chaddy volleyed the ball towards the wall with a velocity that impressed the boys. The boys talked with Chadwick a little bit about their team and went home. The next day, Steve Weeman, the father of one of the boys, came to Chadwick’s house and asked him to serve as the club’s fist ever director of coaching.

“I agreed to a part-time position and would oversee the club,” said Chadwick, who eventually served as the head coach for the Lightning Gold 74 team. The team went on to win the first state championship for the club and, as Chadwick stated, “everything fell into place.”

The club grew from seven teams to over 30, top coaches were brought in and the club enjoyed a tremendous amount of success. Chadwick also coached the AFC Lightning Team, the U-18 1990 Boys team club, to a USYSA National Championship. This was the first team ever in Georgia State Soccer Association’s history to win a National Championship.

For someone who had come so close to titles in the past, the big wins and titles he won as a member of AFC Lightning were significant. They served as a reminder of what he loved about the game, but also what he had grown to love with coaching. He was a witness to the growth of area youth, not only as players but also as people, and his admiration for all his players and their admiration and respect for him has been evident in all his time with the club.

It was also clear in a recent surprise ceremony honoring “Chaddy” on his retirement. There were a number of players from that first state championship team who spoke about the lessons they learned under his guidance. Their continued closeness as a team is a testimony to the types of players and young men they became in the AFC Lightning organization.

“It’s been a fun ride,” said Chadwick, after an afternoon long reflection on his career. Chadwick and his wife, Judy, who retired from teaching at Braelinn Elementary School this year, are currently packing boxes and closing on their new home.

He can’t say for certain if his involvement with soccer is completely over, but he feels he owes it to his family and himself to spend some time away from the fields and possibly do some non-soccer related traveling.

With a career that saw him play professionally on both sides of the ocean, achieve great success as a coach and touch the lives of thousands of young players as a coach and a technical director of coaching for the AFC Lightning Club in Fayette County, he has most certainly reached his goal of being somebody.

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