Born in Fleetwood in March 1942, John Adshead moved to Western Australia in 1970 and to New Zealand in 1976 where he successfully managed Manurewa, a club from the Auckland area. Appointed national team manager in 1979 he navigated New Zealand through a fifteen-game qualifying campaign to face Scotland (2-5), Soviet Union (0-3) and Brazil (0-4) in the finals in Spain. Leaving the job soon after, he was to have a second stint in charge of the national team between 1989 and 1990 before coaching in Oman and Australia ahead of working in club football in New Zealand.

Press coverage in Britain at the time of the 1982 World Cup invariably mentioned that John's playing career finished at the age of twenty-two with various reports suggesting he had played for Exeter City and Hartlepool United although there is no evidence of him appearing in a competitive first-team game for either club. Nor were dates ever quoted although footballdatabase.eu states that he was registered with Exeter City in 1963/64 with a AI-generated suggestion on Grokipedia that his professional career ended because of injury in July 1964. There are also indications that he played for Fleetwood Town earlier in his career.

Tying the story together using pre-internet sources is another matter. John certainly had a connection with the Exeter area and was featured in the local press around the time of the 1982 World Cup. One such article speaks of him having played for Sidmouth Town (where Wikipedia states he started his career) as well as for Exeter City Transport in midweek football. The article describes him as a 'former Exeter man', perhaps in the sense that he had once lived in the area with only a passing reference to him having been at Exeter City. Again there is no detail of his Grecians' association although, rather than Hartlepool United, it was stated that he had instead been with Blackpool. Public records certainly show a John Adshead marrying in Exeter in 1963 with children born in 1963 and 1966.

There is no indication what might have brought John from Lancashire to Devon be it for a chance of a career in professional football, a move for work or study or because of a family move when he was still of school age. Yet there is clarity behind John's decision to move to Australia in the form of England international Frank Broome who was manager of Exeter City between 1957 and 1959 (when John would have been a possible teenage trialist or amateur) and again between 1967 and 1969 (shortly after John had taken up coaching in 1966). 

With Frank Broome living in Ottery St Mary, and recently returned from six or seven years coaching in the Sydney area, he appears to have enthusiastically spoken of the opportunities in Australia for British coaches at the time. Taking heed of this advice, and gaining additional coaching qualifications along the way, John Adshead was to soon start a six-year stint coaching in the West Australian State League that was to take him to a World Cup just twelve years later.

Any further information relating to John's association with Exeter City would be welcomed.