Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks tells all about the ‘life-altering’ neo-Nazi coward punch that knocked him out cold and left his nose ‘spread across HIS face’
Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks has opened up about the terrifying moment he was knocked out cold as a group of neo-Nazi thugs rampaged through the streets of Adelaide.
The Crows boss revealed to Seven News he was one of the innocent bystanders that found themselves under attack from a neo-Nazi gang in Adelaide’s CBD on March 26, 1994.
Nicks, who was 18 at the time, was out with a group of friends in Hindley Street when he was attacked and lost consciousness.
‘The first thing you remember is coming to [your senses] with friends around you,’ he said in an exclusive interview with Seven on Monday night.
‘I had blood and my nose spread all over my face.
The Adelaide Advertisers reported at the time that a group of approximately 20 people dressed in skinhead-style uniforms tore through the city during ’15 minutes of terror’.
The group, carrying Nazi insignias including swastikas, fought bouncers outside a Rundle Street pub, before making their way up Rundle Mall and then Hindley Street.
At least 15 people were injured by the rampage, including Nicks, who was playing football for SANFL club West Adelaide at the time.
The 48-year-old still has no clear recollection of what unfolded, but admitted he felt the incident was ‘life-altering’ when he woke up with serious facial injuries at Flinders Medical Centre.
The physical scars healed reasonably quickly, allowing Nicks to be selected by the Sydney Swans in the AFL Draft just months after the incident.
From a mental standpoint, however, the ordeal took a far heavier toll on Nicks.
He admitted the attack changed his perspective on strangers and made him reluctant to socialise in public in the immediate aftermath.
The Crows boss played 175 games for the Swans in 10 seasons, before retiring in 2005 and eventually taking up his current job in 2019 after serving as an assistant coach at Port Adelaide and GWS.
And Nicks has now become an ambassador for the Sammy D foundation – which was set up in 2008 in memory of one-punch victim Sam Davis, who died at 17.
The former AFL star wants to use his personal experience to raise awareness among young people on the danger of drug and alcohol-fuelled violence as well as bullying.
‘Matthew Nicks sharing this message with young people can only assist with the anti-violence message,’ said Labor Cabinet Minister Nat Cook – Davis’s mother and the founder of the Sammy D foundation.
‘The foundation has an amazing team working to provide skills and give young people the strength to understand that violence is never the answer.’
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