The Manager - Issue 22

THE MAGAZINE OF THE LEAGUE MANAGERS ASSOCIATION

ISSUE 22 £7.50

IN REMEMBRANCE MAJOR FRANK BUCKLEY AND THE WWI FOOTBALLERS’ BATTALION

LEADERSHIP · INSIGHT · INSPIRATION

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FROM THE

EDITOR The walk to my leisure centre takes me past the local football ground and multiple playing fields, which I’m always encouraged to see are packed out every weekend, rain or shine. Recently, as I passed one of the many coaches attempting to whip their charges into shape, I observed a tirade that set me on edge.

“YOUR VALUES AND CHARACTER SHOULD REMAIN CONSTANT, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHO YOU'RE WORKING FOR”

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t wasn’t the anger in the coach’s voice that jarred – we’ve all lost our cool in sheer frustration – but what he was saying. "I’ve got enough trouble at home without having to deal with the likes of you", he spluttered at the trembling player, "Do you think I need this extra stress?"

It is, at times, incredibly hard to roll up at work and leave everything else at the door, but it is essential if we are to give our very best performances and get the very best from our people.

We all know the consequences of a lack of focus – how easily the mind can wander onto unresolved issues or impending challenges and the double fault, missed putt or miscalculation that follows soon afterwards.

The ability to focus entirely on the here and now is what separates great leaders and world champion athletes from the rest of us mere mortals.

– STUART PEARCE, PAGE 18

In this edition we commemorate some true world champions, the players-turned-soldiers who fought in WWI, many losing their lives in the process. On page 14, war historian Andrew Riddoch shares the incredible story of the Footballers’ Battalion, and in particular the remarkable life of Major Frank Buckley.

Elsewhere, we speak to Nottingham Forest manager Stuart Pearce, who has shown remarkable strength of

The League Managers Association, St George’s Park, National Football Centre, Newborough Road, Needwood, Burton upon Trent, DE13 9PD The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and not necessarily those of the League Managers Association, its members, officers or employees. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Editor Alice Hoey alicehoey1@gmail.com Editor for LMA Sue McKellar sue.mckellar@lmasecure.com Editorial contributor for LMA Matthew Amos Publishers Jim Souter jim.souter@lmasecure.com

character throughout his career to date, and we examine how to successfully implement change on page 24. Among those passing on their wisdom are Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and former Castrol CEO Michael Johnson, who remarks, “Don’t wait until the ship is sinking before you fix the hole, but don’t change for change’s sake either.”

Happy Christmas and good luck over the tricky festive period.

Art direction Trinorth www.trinorth.co.uk Photography Action Images unless stated Senior Commercial Manager Alex Smith alex.smith@lmasecure.com

www.leaguemanagers.com

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BBC May 2014

FROM THE

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

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he final months of 2014 have offered us the opportunity to reflect on events 100 years ago – the start of the Great War. The ceramic poppy installation at the Tower of London was a poignant and powerful reminder of the tragic loss of nearly one million British lives during the war. Every city, town and village was affected by loss, and up and down the country special commemorative services were held to honour the dead. Football, as ever, paid its respects, with a one-minute silence at all league games.

The LMA, Howard Wilkinson, Graham Mackrell and myself were honoured to be invited, alongside representatives from The FA, Premier League, Football League and PFA, to visit Longueval, Northern France, where we paid tribute to those in football who sacrificed

their lives, most notably the 17th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment – the Footballers’ Battalion. We have dedicated this issue of the Manager to those men.

To many, sport is just a form of recreation and for the thousands of children, amateur players and fans in all sports across the country that is exactly what it should be. However, sport is also an industry and, in the main, a vibrant, entertaining and successful one. With many thousands of people dedicating their lives and careers to sport, those who run, own and control sport have a duty to act responsibly and demonstrate a duty of care to their employees. Everyone from the managers, coaches and players to administrators, event staff and groundsmen should be treated with respect, the world over.

Their careers are not disposable.

Over 60 football managers and coaches have been dismissed so far this season. That is 60 families, many of which will have lost their major source of income. For many of those that means mortgages cannot be paid and tough times lie ahead. The route back into employment is also often not easy.

We at the LMA continue to do everything we can to prepare, develop and guide young managers and coaches for the realities and challenges that lie ahead. However, clubs must also take a more professional approach to hiring and developing talent. Short-termism simply doesn’t work. Success is only delivered consistently with a longterm vision and a plan that builds an environment with the right people, given the right support.

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CONTENTS LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

18 IN PROFILE:

STUART PEARCE Back at City Ground after coaching at domestic and international level, Pearce's career has come full circle

40 A STUDY IN SUCCESS We meet Rasmus Ankersen, who has dedicated himself to cracking the code of high performance

6 KICKING OFF News and numbers

10 COLUMN: HOWARD WILKINSON 12 LMA CONFERENCE 24 PERSPECTIVES: IMPLEMENTING CHANGE How do you make changes with the minimum of resistance? ExCastrol boss Michael Johnson and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink are among our panel of experts

30 GOT YOUR BACK

48 THE BAND THAT'S ON BRAND

We join MK Dons manager Karl Robinson and his staff to explore the importance of a great support team

Introducing Barclaycard's bPay Band

50 REMARKABLE: CONFIDENCE

36 HOW TO... BUILD TEAM COHESION 38 10 IDEAS: DISCIPLINE 44 IN PROFILE: SIR TREVOR BROOKING Looking back over an incredible career in football

51 WELCOME TO THE FUTURE The Telegraph on evolving leadership skills

52 ELITE PERFORMANCE Interview with former Australia cricket coach John Buchanan

56 HAVE YOU TRIED... LOSING THE EGO?

HEALTH & WELLBEING 62 CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL Dorian Dugmore on their impact on health and performance

64 THE ESSENTIALS See what's caught our eye this month

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58 HEADSTRONG: WHO'S IN CHARGE? Jeremy Snape reveals the biology behind our responses and behaviours

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COVER STORY: A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN Andrew Riddoch shares the incredible story of the Footballers' Battalion

PITCH SIDE 68 TRUE GRIT How did coach Dylan Kerr find success in Vietnam?

70 BIG EVENT, BIG DATA Lessons from Prozone's World Cup analysis

72 ALL BETS ARE OFF The FA's new rules explained

73 INTERNATIONAL CUP LAUNCHED The lowdown on the new competition

74 PARK LIFE The latest from St George's Park

76 PERFORM Celebrating a welldeserved award

78 A SPORTING CHANCE Why Nike is passionate about active kids

84 JUST A MOMENT

81 INSIDE THE LMA

Highlights from the last quarter

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Newsbites

HOW ARE LEADERS DIFFERENT?

According to research coming out of the book Real Leaders For The Real World (Karen Meager & John McLachlan 2014), there are key differences in the way that leaders and non-leaders think.

HIGH PERFORMERS COACH While most managers understand the value of coaching their sales teams, many are failing to do so and those that do coach often do it badly. A global survey by Forum EMEA and the Sales Management Association found that time pressures and a lack of know-how are often to blame for poor or non-existent coaching.

It found that coaching tends to

be given to under-performers, new starters or those that specifically request it, rather than being used proactively to achieve set objectives across the team.

Interestingly, the report also revealed that high-performing companies provide 15-20 per cent more coaching than under-performing organisations.

FORUM EMEA’S TOP TIPS

75%

40%

of leaders are focused on what they want in life

of the general population are driven by avoiding what they don’t want 87 per cent of leaders have a preference for looking at the big picture 67 per cent say they need the big picture first and the details later 20 per cent of leaders are only interested in the big picture Only 60 per cent of the general population are big-picture people

40%

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Leaders are more likely to assess their own performance using internal indicators, rather than relying on external validation from colleagues or reports. Meanwhile, only 40 per cent of nonleaders have the confidence to use internal indicators to assess their own performance.

• Coach and train your managers to be better coaches • Invest in both high-performers and under-achievers • Direct coaching towards specific behaviours, competencies and performance objectives • Establish a coaching culture and provide structure, accountability and support

BLIND AMBITION

The Royal National College for the Blind (RNC), the UK’s leading specialist college for people with a visual impairment, is to host the IBSA Blind Football European Championships in August 2015. The RNC, based in Hereford, is a major centre of excellence for visually impaired sport in the UK and overseas.

England need a top-two finish at the games to qualify for the Rio Paralympic Games, but after coming second to Brazil in a Quad Nations tournament in the summer, the team are confident in their chances.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for England to benefit from home advantage to qualify for Rio,” said Tony Larkin, RNC director and former Great

Britain head coach. “The team trains regularly at the RNC’s fully accessible sports centre, thePoint4, which has outstanding facilities and acted as a training base for a number of teams in the lead up to the London 2012 Paralympic Games.”

Dave Clarke, England’s longest serving blind footballer and the team’s most prolific goal scorer, said: “I was part of the first British team to compete in a Paralympic Games in Beijing 2008 and the experience will live with me forever. If England finish in the top two next summer they’re going to Rio – that’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I hope the England supporters get behind their team.”

Newsbites

STAKES ARE UP

Deloitte’s survey of chief financial officers in the last quarter of 2014 has revealed that their appetite for risk is at a seven-year high.

While the UK economic situation remains uncertain, improved credit conditions, a positive response to government policy and a rebound in the US economy appear to be conducive to greater risk-taking in large UK companies.

72 per cent of CFOs say now is a good time to take risk onto their balance sheets, three times the level seen two years ago.

UPWARDLY MOBILE Are you evolving your working practices, incentives and culture to meet the needs of the future bright young things? According to Aruba Networks, the next generation of talent has quite different expectations and behaviours to its forebears and so will need careful management.

Known as GenMobile, this group of employees is defined by a preference for mobility, in more ways than one. In a study, Aruba found that people in GenMobile tend to work outside the conventional nine to five, will prioritise flexible working locations over higher salaries and demand reliable internet, ideally Wi-Fi rather than 4G, 3G or

wired connections. 62 per cent own three or more connected devices and 57 per cent feel most productive when working from home.

AND NOW FOR THE SCIENCE BIT...

RISKY BUSINESS R

esearch by an undergraduate at the University of Huddersfield has discovered a possible reason for the higher rate of psychopaths in senior level managerial positions.

Carolyn Bate found that people with high IQs can fake their emotional response, thereby manipulating tests designed to reveal their personalities.

This means that many people with psychopathic tendencies could be concealing traits like ruthless risktaking en route to the top.

While one per cent of the population are categorised as psychopathic, the figure is three per cent among business

managers. “I thought that intelligence could be an explanation for this, and it could be a problem if there are increased numbers of psychopaths at a high level in business,” says Bate. “The figure could be more than three per cent, because if people are aware they are psychopathic they can also lie – they are quite manipulative and lack empathy.”

In some spheres of business, traits such as risk-taking, ruthlessness, a lack of emotion and hyper-confidence may be essential to survive at the top. However others have suggested that the high number of psychopaths among decisionmakers could be responsible for business disasters such as the Wall Street crash.

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Infographics

FIGURE IT OUT

The role of data analytics in big business is growing, but many leaders still prefer to trust their gut instincts when it comes to decision making, says a new PwC report.

MAJOR DECISIONS ARE MADE BASED ON: 41% YANN BONDUELLE, PwC CONSULTING DATA ANALYTICS PARTNER

“AS DATA BECOME MORE PERVASIVE, ALGORITHMS BECOME MORE ACCURATE AND VISUALISATION MORE INTUITIVE, BUSINESS LEADERS ARE REALISING THEY CAN MAKE BETTER DECISIONS THROUGH USING DATA AND ANALYTICS MORE SYSTEMATICALLY” 8

OWN INTUITION AND EXPERIENCE

31% 23% THE EXPERIENCE OF OTHERS

DATA AND ANALYTICS

"THE YOUTH TODAY EXPECT FACTS AND FIGURES, THEY LIKE IT. IT MAKES IT EASIER TO GIVE FEEDBACK ON PERFORMANCE AND ALSO TO COMMUNICATE THINGS TO FOREIGN PLAYERS" Steve McClaren

Infographics

OTHERS HAVE HAD BAD EXPERIENCES IN THE PAST:

83%

Relying on data analysis has been detrimental to the business:

of senior UK executives say big decision-making has improved in the past two years

40% USE OF INTERNAL

of these say the biggest change in their decisionmaking has been the

AND EXTERNAL 24%

For , the most important decision they expect to make in the next year will be choosing to grow the business

21%

NUMBER-CRUNCHERS

data and analytics

52%

expect to make big decisions to collaborate with their competitors in the next year

will choose to enter a new industry or start a brand new business

61% - UK 34% - WESTERN EUROPE 46% - WORLDWIDE

81%

87%

41%

41%

recognise that familiarity have with data analysis will be a enough of the right prerequisite for senior leadership in people to analyse the future collected data

are concerned about find it quality, accuracy and difficult to completeness of access useful data data

Source: The ‘Guts & Gigabytes’ report, published by PwC and written by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

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Leadership & Management

HOWARD WILKINSON

2014 presented some in the UK with a difficult and important choice in the run up to the referendum on Scottish independence. Another such vote looms in 2015, this time regarding the UK’s relationship with the EU. If I could, I’d hold a referendum on football, asking two very fundamental questions.

he first question on the voting card would be, ‘Do you think successful England teams matter to the welfare of the game in this country?’

The answer to this question is crucial to the future of all football in England and to the direction of any potential subsequent debate.

If the vote came back a resounding ‘no’ then it’s better that we know so we can move on. We would carry on doing what we have been doing and continue to enjoy the benefits of our massively successful, ever-improving league system. We would simply leave future England teams to look after themselves.

On the other hand, should the answer be a ‘yes’ – and I have faith this would be the overwhelming response – it would be a galvanising moment for UK football, enabling us to really come together and change things for the better.

It is vital that we understand the importance of a successful England team to our national game, or risk the rest of the structure falling apart, particularly at the base. There would also be wider economic, health and wellbeing implications for the rest of the country, particularly for our children.

Imperceptibly, there would be a slow decline in the English talent pool, eventually beyond repair. Clubs lower down the pyramid may well decide to give up on developing players and there would be fewer young players at grassroots level, year on year.

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We are already seeing some of these effects. Over the last 20 years, the number of English players starting in the Barclays Premier League has dropped by over half. In the ‘top six’ clubs this figure has already dropped below last season’s 28 per cent. In real terms, this means that across the four English clubs in the Champions League group stage, around 16 players are currently in contention for the national team. A truly alarming fact.

The second question on the card would be: ‘Do children coming into the elite development system deserve the very best chance to succeed?’

“IT IS VITAL THAT WE UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF A SUCCESSFUL ENGLAND TEAM TO OUR NATIONAL GAME” Surely to this there would be a unanimous ‘yes’. It is a given that in any elite development system providing opportunities is a priority. Whether you are at the Royal Academy of Music, training to be a racing cyclist or studying to become a top surgeon, there is an intrinsic promise that you will be given every chance to succeed, provided you

have the talent and the determination.

In my view, that is no longer the case with English football. We have a new and determined commitment to coaching and facilities – and both will improve dramatically in the next three-to-five years with forthcoming new measures ­– but when it comes to the player pathway our best young footballers are not getting enough opportunities in first-team football.

A ‘no’ vote would represent a huge negative for England. While there are enough players for the national manager to put a squad together, not enough of these are seeing regular top-grade competitive football, including Champions League experience.

It is naïve to expect managers to take these issues into consideration when selecting their teams, as increasingly all but a handful are potentially only a few defeats away from dismissal.

Tinkering will not solve the problem.

What will is all parties in the game – including the governing bodies, leagues, clubs, officials and fans – coming together with a genuine commitment, and that needs to happen now.

The last time we were brave enough to have radical change was the introduction of the, at the time controversial, Premier League. Ironically, although some may see the global success of the league as part of the current problem, I believe that it offers the best opportunity to deliver an effective solution.

FROM THE POST ROOM TO THE BOARD ROOM, EVERYONE THINKS THEY CAN BE

THE MANAGER OUT NOW IN PAPERBACK

‘peerless insights’ – Observer ‘a trove of interesting material’ – Independent on Sunday Book of the Week ‘its depth of shared knowledge is huge’ – FourFourTwo

The biggest names in football management reveal the secrets to successful leadership and surviving under pressure Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook Published with the support of the LMA, Barclays and Deloitte

Leadership & Management

LMA ANNUAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE 2014 SPONSORED BY BARCLAYS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE PREMIER LEAGUE

Sir Alex Ferguson "I've no problem with big egos; they're there to win. Big egos spend more time training, because when you're a great player you have to work harder than the rest. The only problems I had were with complacency."

Dr Lee Rice: "Probably as much as anything, our relationships with other people are critically important."

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Rasmus Ankersen: "When we're successful we don't ask questions, we just cruise along. I think we should treat success with as much scepticism as we do failure."

Leadership & Management

Michael Johnson: "How can you be a leader if you don't have courage? Sometimes in life you just have to stand by what you believe in."

Lord Herman Ouseley: "In this world we see, we think, we assume, but the problem is what you see isn't always what you get."

Ged Roddy: "There will always be dips and plateaus in success, but what we must never do is stop trying to drive forward."

Steve McClaren: "There is too much information coming at the manager. The thing we focus on now is keeping it simple; figuring out the three things that will help us win a football match."

Alec Stewart: "It's important that the coaches have all the data at their disposal, but you don't fill the players' heads with it - they need to go out there and express their talents."

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Leadership & Management

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

At the end of this anniversary year, 100 years since the outbreak of WWI, author and battlefield guide Andrew Riddoch shares his insight into the role that football played in the wartime era. lmost as soon as war broke out in August 1914 questions were being asked about whether it would be appropriate for the football season to start as normal. It was widely believed that the continuance of professional football was discouraging young men from enlisting, while footballers were labelled ‘shirkers’ and ‘rotters’. The debate, largely conducted through the letter pages of the

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newspapers, became increasingly vitriolic and the issue was raised in the House of Commons. It was even suggested to King George that he should withdraw his patronage of the Football Association.

By the end of November 1914 the professional game was under severe pressure to listen to public opinion. The FA and the War Office decided to set up a Footballers’ Battalion, officially named the 17th (Service) Battalion (Football), Middlesex Regiment, the aim of which would be to assist with recruitment and prove to the country at large that professional footballers were prepared to ‘do their bit’.

SOLDIERS IN TRAINING By the time the ranks of the 17th Middlesex were full, around 200 professionals with connections to over 60 current Premier League and Football League clubs had enlisted. Alongside professionals – such as Chelsea’s Vivian Woodward, Nottingham Forest’s Tim Coleman and Northampton Town’s Walter Tull – were amateur players, club staff, officials and supporters.

While undergoing military training, the footballers continued to turn out for their respective clubs until the suspension of professional football at the end of the 1914/15 season.

Leadership & Management

THE DECORATED FEW

It is often the medals won by football players that define their careers. The Great War, however, put that firmly in context. The professional footballers below were honoured with medals - medals for their bravery during WWI.

Battalion teams also played matches against league and non-league clubs in order to assist with recruitment.

The 17th Middlesex arrived on the Western Front in November 1915 and within weeks took part in a divisional football tournament, the final being played on 11 April 1916 against 34th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, at Hersin.

In July 1916, the 17th Middlesex moved south to the Somme, where the battalion was involved in heavy fighting at Delville Wood, Guillemont and Serre. By November, the battalion had lost over 800 officers and men: killed, wounded or missing. Several footballers were among the dead, including Richard McFadden (Clapton Orient), Norman Wood (Stockport County) and Allen Foster (Reading). Many others, such as Sheffield Wednesday’s John Lamb,

Fred Bullock of Huddersfield Town and Manchester City’s Ted Hanney were among the wounded.

On 28 April 1917, the 17th Middlesex attacked the village of Oppy during the Arras offensive. Casualties were heavy: 11 officers and 451 other ranks killed, wounded and missing. Later that year, the battalion faced the German counter-attacks at Cambrai, for which

JIMMY SPEIRS (MILITARY MEDAL) Rangers, Clyde, Bradford City, Leeds United

TIM COLEMAN (MILITARY MEDAL) Arsenal, Everton, Sunderland, Fulham, Nottingham Forest

DAVID GLEN (MILITARY MEDAL) Brechin City, Dundee Utd, Millwall

LEIGH RICHMOND ROOSE (MILITARY MEDAL) Stoke City, Everton, Sunderland, Celtic, Port Vale, Huddersfield Town, Aston Villa, Arsenal

PHILIP F FULLARD (MILITARY CROSS AND AIR FORCE CROSS) Norwich City

BERNARD VANN (MILITARY CROSS AND VICTORIA CROSS) Northampton Town, Burton Albion, Derby County

DONALD SIMPSON (VICTORIA CROSS) Bradford Park Avenue

WILLIAM ANGUS (VICTORIA CROSS) Celtic

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Leadership & Management

one of its officers, Captain Allastair McReady-Diarmid, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

POST-WAR LEADERS At the time of the battalion’s disbandment in February 1918 there were only 30 or so professional footballers left in its ranks. After the war, several former members of the 17th Middlesex became respected managers and coaches. Charles Bunyan had made a successful transition from player to coach before the war, becoming one of the first Englishmen to coach overseas when he was appointed as football and cricket coach at Racing Club de Bruxelles in 1909.

Stranded in Belgium at the outbreak of war, Bunyan disguised himself and his sons as refugees and enlisted the help of a local poacher to guide them through German lines. Arriving back in the UK, the 46-year-old enlisted in the 17th Middlesex, giving his age as 38 to secure a place in the battalion. After a few months in the trenches, his health broke down and Lance Corporal Bunyan was discharged from the army. He died in Brussels in 1922.

Another recruit was Angus Seed, formerly of Reading and Leicester Fosse. While serving with the 17th Middlesex, he distinguished himself on Vimy Ridge by carrying wounded men to safety over a 36-hour period. He was awarded a Military Medal for his actions. After the war, Seed became Aldershot Town’s first-ever manager, winning the Southern League (Eastern Section) in 1929/30. He took over at Barnsley in 1937, the club winning promotion to Division Two as Division Three (North) Champions two years later. Seed remained in charge at Oakwell until his death in 1953, only a few months before he was due to be presented with the long-service medal of the Football League after 21 years with a league club in executive office.

Other future managers in the battalion included Haydn Green, who went on to manage clubs such as Hull, Swansea Town and Watford, and Fred Keenor, who acted as player-manager

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“I WOULD GO ANYWHERE WITH SUCH MEN. THEIR ESPRIT DE CORPS WAS AMAZING. THIS FEELING WAS MAINLY DUE TO FOOTBALL – THE LINK OF FELLOWSHIP THAT BOUND THEM TOGETHER” of Tunbridge Wells Rangers before his retirement from the game. There was also Charles Bell, who coached abroad in Italy, Portugal and France, and managed Mansfield Town and Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic.

While serving with the 17th Middlesex, Bell had been custodian of the battalion mascot, a sheepdog called Jock, and was for a time the officer’s servant of a

man who would become one of the most famous managers in the history of the game – Major Frank Buckley.

MAJOR FRANK BUCKLEY Known throughout his managerial career as ‘The Major’, Frank Buckley enlisted in the King’s Regiment in 1900 at the age of 18, the same regiment in which his father had been a musketry

Leadership & Management

and gymnastics instructor. When he was spotted by an Aston Villa scout three years later, he bought himself out of the army for the sum of £18.

Unable to break into the Villa first team, however, Buckley moved to Brighton and Hove Albion, with later spells at Manchester United, Manchester City and Birmingham City. In 1911 Buckley signed for Derby County, winning a Division Two championship medal (191112) and an England cap.

Buckley was one of the first men to join the 17th Middlesex and later became second-in-command of the battalion. The commanding officer, Col Henry Fenwick, recalled: “If I was walking down the lines with Major Buckley – no matter where we were – the men would salute in the ordinary way, but they took no further notice of me. Their eyes were for Buckley. They whispered, ‘That’s Buckley – the footballer’”. In July 1916, Buckley was so badly wounded in the fighting for Delville Wood that it seemed he would not survive, but he recovered from his injuries.

After the war he ventured into management. He spent the 1919/20 season with Norwich City, where he advertised for former members of the 17th Middlesex to join him. After a short stint out of the game he became manager of Blackpool in 1923, before taking over four years later at Wolverhampton Wanderers, a side then languishing in Division Two. The team, which he subsequently built and restored to Division One, was notable for the speed and energy of its play. Buckley had a phenomenal ability to unearth young talent, numbering players such as Bryn Jones, Stan Cullis and Billy Wright among his finds.

Known as a strict disciplinarian, Buckley was also a pioneer of modern training methods and possessed a natural flair for PR that proved very useful in the transfer market.

Under his guidance, Wolverhampton Wanderers became one of the leading club sides in England in the years leading up to the Second World War, twice runners-up in Division One and losing finalists in the 1939 FA Cup

THE STORY OF WALTER TULL A memorial to Footballers’ Battalion member Walter Tull can be found at Northampton’s ground, Sixfields.

Here’s why.

In December 1914, three years after his move to Northampton from Tottenham, inside forward Walter Tull enlisted in the army.

Tull, who was only the second black/mixedheritage professional footballer in the football league, would go on to become the first black/mixed-heritage person to reach the rank of officer in the British Army, despite there being rules in place to prevent “any negro or person of colour” doing so.

His rise in professional football had been rapid. From his local amateur team, Clapton FC, he moved to

Tottenham in 1909, where he received sustained racial abuse – Arthur Wharton was the only black player to grace the top division of the Football League before him – and in October 1911 moved to Northampton Town, where he earned 111 caps.

A natural leader, Tull was a hugely popular figure in the army and he rose through the ranks to become officer. In March 1918, he led his men in an attack on German trenches at Favreuil. He was hit by a bullet in No Man’s Land and, despite attempts to bring him back to the British trenches, his body was never found.

He was 29 years old. Since his death, there have been campaigns for Tull to be posthumously awarded a medal for his bravery.

Final. Leaving Molineux in 1944, Buckley went on to manage Notts County, Hull, Leeds Utd and Walsall. He retired from the game in 1955 and died in 1964.

Frank Buckley was always very proud to have been part of the Footballers’ Battalion, as indeed were all who served in it. The spirit of the professional players, amateurs and club enthusiasts in its ranks made a lasting impression on everyone who encountered it. As

Col Fenwick commented only a few months after the battalion arrived on the Western Front: “I knew nothing of professional footballers when I took over this battalion, but I have learnt to value them. I would go anywhere with such men. Their esprit de corps was amazing.

This feeling was mainly due to football – the link of fellowship that bound them together. Football has a wonderful grip on these men and on the army generally.”

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Leadership & Management

FULL CIRCLE

Having managed at domestic and international level, Stuart Pearce is back at Nottingham Forest where, under Brian Clough, he first experienced the power of passion and strength of character.

Words: Alice Hoey Interview: Sue McKellar Photography: Carl Recine

tuart Pearce didn’t take a traditional route into professional football and it is not all he has ever known. In fact, as avid biography readers may know, before Stuart Pearce the professional footballer and manager came Pearce the electrician.

And even before that opportunity arose, the young Pearce spent a year lugging crates around a cold warehouse.

This is not just trivia. It goes some way to explaining how a man who has experienced all the fame and trappings of a successful international footballing career and the power and responsibility of management has remained entirely grounded.

“There’s no doubt that those years in a working environment helped me appreciate just how precious it was to be able to play professional football,” says Pearce. “It also influenced how I treat people; how I empathise with them and the situations they are in. I don't think my personality has changed throughout my career as a player, coach and manager; I have always remained very constant. Perhaps that's why I've always been able to return to the clubs I've worked at and be well received by the fans and staff there.”

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CROSSING THE LINE Pearce was in his early 30s and still playing professionally when he first started to consider a career in management. “Thoughts of retirement were far from my mind, but I knew that when I did stop playing I'd want to stay in the game because I enjoyed making decisions and shouldering responsibility,” he says.

While Pearce didn't hang up his boots and move into management until he was 40, he had been working towards his coaching qualifications while playing for West Ham and Newcastle.

“It never crossed my mind that I was owed anything or deserved special treatment just because I had been a player. I was determined to prepare as fully as possible for management and really threw myself into it; taking every available course on coaching, leadership and psychology,” he says. "When I was working at The FA and Fabio Capello was appointed England manager I even started to learn Italian as another avenue of self-improvement.”

Pearce also lapped up the experience presented by two spells as interim manager, first at Nottingham Forest and later at Manchester City.

Leadership & Management

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Leadership & Management

“I was still playing for Forest when the call came to say that Frank Clark had left and the club wanted me to be caretaker manager for a month,” recalls Pearce. “I agreed to do it, but wondered how it would work with me as captain and manager of the team; should I move out of the dressing room, for example?” He decided to stay put with his fellow teammates. “After all, I was a senior player who had always acted professionally and many of the players treated me with a lot of respect,” he says.

Pearce was surprised, however, by how quickly he stopped being just one of the boys. “They say that when you become a manager you change a bit, but I didn’t,”

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"IT GIVES ME SUCH A SENSE OF PRIDE TO BE MANAGING FOREST. IF YOU CAN FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT YOUR EMPLOYER THEN YOU ARE ALREADY AT AN ADVANTAGE"

he says. “What did change drastically, however, was the attitude of the team towards me; how they spoke in front of me and reacted to me. These were people who had been my friends in and out of work.”

EARNING HIS STRIPES But while his six months as playermanager was an interesting 'no pressure' introduction into management, it was his time at Manchester City under Kevin Keegan and Arthur Cox that presented the steepest and most valuable learning curve.

“When I told Kevin I wanted to go into management he was incredibly

Leadership & Management

supportive. He said I could stay with City and gain some experience on the coaching staff while applying for jobs,” says Pearce. “As well as assisting in coaching the first team, I got to see what was going on in the academy, attend board meetings and observe and learn.”

When Keegan left the club in 2005, Pearce was appointed caretaker manager and later accepted the permanent role. While with the club, he also began to work part-time as manager of the England U21s and when his spell with City came to an end two years later, he turned his attention fully to this FA role.

While the environment and targets were different, Pearce says his approach did not waver. “I believe your values and character should remain constant, irrespective of the organisation that you're working for,” he says. “The way I have approached managing clubs and the England U21s has been the same. For each team, I have set targets at the start of the season and I've given plenty of feedback to all concerned, whether things are going well or are not quite on track.”

After his tenure with the U21s ended, and having already immersed himself in learning and travel during his previous working years, Pearce took the opportunity to have a proper break and recharge his batteries.

Then, in July 2014, his career came full circle when he took the manager's job at Nottingham Forest, the club where he had spent eight years as a player. Taking with him a team of people he knew and trusted helped him hit the ground running.

“I know my own limitations and so always try to appoint professional and experienced people who complement my own skills and who I know I can trust explicitly. I don’t try to dominate them; instead I trust in their knowledge and empower them to get on with their work. I think the fact I'm not a domineering or power-hungry person serves me quite well as a football manager, because you can't be hands on with everything all of the time in modern management; there are so many issues to deal with that you have to be able to delegate.”

Pearce works closely with

CAREER TIMELINE 2002 When his playing career came to an end, Pearce stayed with Manchester City as a coach.

2005 Appointed caretaker manager of Manchester City after Kevin Keegan's departure, later accepting the permanent role.

2007 Despite his efforts to effect a turnaround, City came close to relegation and Pearce left the club at the end of the season. Having already been appointed manager of the England U21s on a parttime basis, Pearce was now free to take up the position full-time.

JANUARY 2008 Then England manager Fabio Capello appointed Pearce as a coach for the senior England team. He acted as caretaker when Capello resigned in February 2012.

JUNE 2009 Pearce guided the England U21s to the final of the 2009 UEFA U21 Championships and the 2013 UEFA U21 Championships.

Pearce managed the Great Britain Olympic football team for the London 2012 Olympics matches.

JUNE 2013 The FA announced his U21s contract would not be extended.

JULY 2014 Appointed manager of Nottingham Forest, Pearce made an immediate impact, taking 13 out of 15 available points at the start of the season.

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Leadership & Management

eight key staff at Forest, all of whom are passionate about the club and know it inside out. “There are also 10 or so people working at Forest who were there when I played for the club 17 years ago,” he adds. “That and the fact the fans know I care about them and the club have made it easy to settle into the role.”

THE PRIDE ADVANTAGE During his year out of management Pearce gave a lot of thought to where he would like to work next. “I didn’t want just any job,” he says. “I wanted something that would really inspire me; something that might give me the same buzz I used to get walking up Wembley Way with the England crest on my jacket. It gives me such a sense of pride to be managing Forest. If you can feel that way about your employer then you are already at an advantage.”

The inspiration that Forest gives Pearce is largely down to everything that playing for the side represented; the ethos that Brian Clough brought to the club and how much Pearce valued his time playing under him.

“Anyone who was lucky enough to work for or with Brian Clough for any length of time knows the strength of his personality,” says Pearce. “I’ve met

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royalty, politicians and many people of note in my life, but Clough was off the chart in terms of character.”

Just being in his presence and watching him work was, says Pearce, an education. “He had a strong football philosophy and that never buckled, no matter how the results were going or what public opinion was. His mentality was strong and the trophy cabinet certainly supported his approach.”

Having spent eight years under Clough's wing, it is unsurprising that Pearce considers him his greatest influence, and he works hard to maintain a similarly strong ethos.

“I went to Afghanistan three years ago as an FA ambassador and I was asked if I would address a group of soldiers who were training to be leaders. I’d never spoken directly with anyone about leadership before or articulated my thoughts on the subject and it really made me think about what a leader needs to do and be.

“I realised that a leader’s words and actions have to tally; you have to walk the talk. It is also essential that your people know you care about them, that you are prepared to make tough decisions and are honest,” says Pearce. “When I was appointed Forest manager I had to take

some players into my office and tell them that they didn't have a future at the club. But I did what I could to reassure them that while they found new clubs I would continue to coach them and would do whatever I could to help them. It is important that everyone knows where, if at all, they fit into your plans and I know they appreciated that.”

But Pearce believes it is equally important to have an open and honest relationship with the supporters and on a number of occasions this season he could be seen at the away end chatting with the Forest fans.

“I don’t do it for good publicity,” he says. “I do it because those fans have travelled a long way to watch us play and I care about them and value their opinion. If you want to find out who the best player in a team is go and ask the supporters.”

Pearce has never sat in an ivory tower; he has stayed grounded, knowing he is no different at heart from all the other passionate football fans in the stands. He has dedicated himself to lifelong learning and improvement, and is open minded enough to realise that no one person has all the answers. He is, just as he started out, one bright spark.

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Leadership & Management

PERSPECTIVES:

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE

Change is an inevitable part of progress and improvement and yet is often met with resistance, suspicion and even fear by those on the receiving end.

Our panel of experts share their thoughts on how to implement change with the minimum of pain.

MEGAN LUEDERS

VICE PRESIDENT OF GLOBAL MARKETING, LIFESIZE s John F Kennedy famously once said, change is the law of life. However true that may be, change can also be scary.

Nowhere is change more frequently resisted than in business. Large organisations, generally conservative by nature, tend to stick with what they know and what has served them in the past.

With billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on the line, it’s no wonder that organisational inertia sometimes sets in. If the structures and culture in place have been successful in the past, it’s difficult to convince people to move away from them. When implementing change, it’s not just practices and systems that need to transform, it’s mindsets, too.

Like it or not, change is inevitable and when significant changes need to take place within an organisation, communication is perhaps the singlemost important factor for success. It’s crucial to involve all stakeholders from the outset. If people feel excluded from

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the process, the project will fail before it has got off the ground.

How to do this will vary from one company to another. Brainstorms and company surveys can all help to gauge how open and enthusiastic staff are towards planned changes, while away days provide an opportunity to get staff feedback away from the office when they feel more open.

Once the initial consultation phase has been completed and decisions are made, communication remains essential.

Where a vacuum of information exists, rumours will thrive and panic can take hold. Video can be a fantastic tool here, allowing messages about goals and strategies to be communicated across the organisation globally, with less chance of being misinterpreted.

A division of Logitech, Lifesize aims to provide a truly connected experience for people and companies around the world through video-conferencing.

Leadership & Management

MICHAEL JOHNSON FORMER CEO OF CASTROL n 2005, I was asked to come back from Asia Pacific to run Castrol’s largest region, Europe, which was at that point in serious decline. Two years later, following a massive programme of change, we had halted the decline and doubled profits. I was asked to take over as global CEO and over the next three years we increased operating profit five-fold to become the most profitable lubricants company globally.

Managing that change taught me some valuable lessons. The first is that it’s often easier to get people to accept change when things are really bad, because they can see it’s either change or fail. Of course, no business or organisation wants to get to that point.

Change, therefore, should be an ongoing process in which leaders at every level understand, embrace and develop tools and techniques that will result in positive outcomes.

Any kind of change is likely to be met with resistance, even at the most senior levels, because we all like what we know and can be scared of the unknown.

People also tend to believe that with change come winners and losers, which is true to some degree, and no one wants to be the latter.

It is therefore essential to articulate a clear and unambiguous case for change, and to do so by engaging with the whole team rather than just telling people what is going to happen.

Messages should be simple and easy to communicate through to every level.

In our case, we likened our goal to a mountain and the things we needed to change – we were too complicated, with too many products and channels – to a sackful of rocks on our backs. They were slowing us down and we knew we would need to shed them to make the climb easier. People could relate to this idea and engaged with it.

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“ANY KIND OF CHANGE IS LIKELY TO BE MET WITH RESISTANCE, EVEN AT THE MOST SENIOR LEVELS” Also important, and often missing from organisations' change management programmes, is to provide a light at the end of the tunnel. People need a reason to go through all the pain that comes with change, whether that be better career prospects or the chance to perform at a higher level.

The process for change must be transparent and clearly set out, as when people understand what is going to happen and can see that it is being done fairly they are far more likely to stick with it to the end. That is essential, because when people start jumping ship it can seriously destabilise the process and the organisation.

Communication and engagement are key here and people respect leaders who

are prepared to face feedback in person, to listen and adjust. While you don't have to chop and change your plans at everyone's request, by uniting the people who are most affected by the changes it can provide useful insight into how things could be done better.

Change is inevitable, but it needs to be managed carefully. Don’t wait until the ship is sinking before you fix the hole, but don’t change for change's sake either. If change is managed well, you can emerge a hero; if not, you may become part of the next change programme.

Mike Johnson is now CEO of Emergence Global Consulting and visiting professor of business, marketing and innovation at the University of Sunderland. He is also on the LMA advisory board.

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Leadership & Management

JIMMY FLOYD HASSELBAINK MANAGER, BURTON ALBION rior to my recent appointment as Burton Albion manager I spent a season in charge of Royal Antwerp. When I joined the club, I wanted to implement a totally new playing style, one that would be more attractive for the supporters. The fact that some of the team were coming to the ends of their contracts made it easier to bring in new players and get them to gel together as a squad. I was also fortunate to have the support of the board, which is especially important when you're just starting out in management.

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“IT WAS IMPORTANT THAT THEY UNDERSTOOD MY VISION FOR THE CLUB AND THAT THEY COULD BED IN WELL WITH THE NEW PLAYING STYLE” While I normally wouldn’t advise changing players en masse, I brought in 20 new people, all of whom I recruited carefully. It was important that they understood my vision for the club and that they could bed in well with the new playing style. It meant we could hit the ground running and see instant improvement.

In the two seasons prior to my appointment, the club had finished 12th and 10th, which for a side like Royal Antwerp wasn’t good enough. During my season with the club, attendance increased from 5,000 to 8,000 and we finished seventh in the table and just outside the play-offs – positive progress,

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especially given my budget had been cut by 15 per cent.

The changes I implemented reenergised the club, but there are dangers in making changes too quickly.

These can be minimised by taking time to assess and understand the mindset and needs of your people before making any changes. This is especially true if you are joining a club midseason, when you need to take a more gradual approach.

It is also essential to explain your reasoning behind any planned changes

to your players. You have to make them believe in what you are trying to do; honesty is key if you want everyone on board.

Hasselbaink gained coaching experience with Woking, Chelsea's U16 squad and at the Nike Academy before joining the coaching staff at Nottingham Forest. In May 2013, he accepted the role of manager of Antwerp, where he stayed until September 2014. He was appointed manager of Burton Albion in November 2014.

Leadership & Management

ALAN STUBBS

HEAD COACH, HIBERNIAN

hen I joined Hibernian, the chief executive, Leeann Dempster, wanted to introduce a different approach and vision to the club and a more European structure, with me as head coach rather than manager. She and the board were very clear and open about the changes they wanted to make, which was important to me and beneficial to the club.

I needed to make many changes very quickly in order to improve the club's situation as soon as possible, but how quickly you implement change and how radically you change things depends on the situation.

Managers rarely have the luxury of time these days, so you have to weigh up what changes you can make without it having an adverse effect on the pitch. It can often take a while for any

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“HONEST AND OPEN COMMUNICATION IS ESSENTIAL” changes to have an impact on match results, so you need to ensure you can see your plans through while still getting results.

Honest and open communication is essential. At Hibernian, I spoke initially with the more senior players to get their view of the club's situation. While it would have been easy to blame the previous manager, they accepted their part in the side's problems and also gave their opinion on how they felt we should play.

While you must be careful not to let the players dictate to you, it is important to listen to them, especially if you want them to understand and buy in to your vision and plans. I needed the players to be confident that the changes I was making were not about me or particular individuals, but about the success of the team.

When implementing change or making a decision, you have to be confident that you're doing it for the right reasons, while also being prepared to adjust your approach if need be.

The most important thing, however, is having the confidence and vision to make a decision in the first place.

Having coached for five years at Everton, Stubbs was appointed head coach of Scottish side Hibernian in June 2014.

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Leadership & Management

SIMON COOPER

THE CHEMISTRY GROUP

t’s critical to consider not just what’s said and written when you're asking people to change their work patterns, but also the symbols around them. Cultural change is all about the habits people have and getting them to shift those to better the entire organisation.

Change usually comes for one of three reasons: to drive growth and value, to adapt to market demands or because of a change in management.

A big mistake in change management, however, is that people are generally told what’s going to happen, there are some visions outlined, then there’s some cheerleading. The problem with this is that people have heard it all before. They need to be taken along for the ride with the leaders, which makes communication essential.

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“PEOPLE HAVE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE. THEY NEED TO BE TAKEN ALONG FOR THE RIDE WITH THE LEADERS” I recall one company that needed to up its game when the industry matured.

Management put their money where their mouths were by removing all power-based symbols from the workplace.

Whereas the first five spaces in the car park had been reserved for the directors, that was changed; and office walls were removed so that sales and service teams could talk to each other easily about customer needs.

A red phone was put in reception

and guests were greeted not just by a receptionist, but with a sign by the phone saying ‘we respect our suppliers and customers, so if your contact doesn’t meet you in five minutes, call our chairman. He’ll give them a call for you’.

I don’t know if that phone was ever used, but the symbol was powerful.

Prior to joining the Chemistry Group's consulting business Cooper was marketing director of Cable & Wireless.

Leadership & Management

GOT YOUR BACK

“We are like a band and everyone plays their part.”

Manager Karl Robinson and his team at MK Dons unlock the importance of support staff. hen the IT guy works through the night to ensure the network is back up and running by morning, he does so without the prospect of a six-figure bonus.

When the production manager clocks in at 6am on the morning of a conference to check that every name card and coffee cup is in its proper place, she knows her effort will go largely unnoticed. They are simply doing their jobs.

While support staff such as these may not be directly responsible for the champagne moments or for shifting the top line, without their

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hard work, professionalism and specialist skills most organisations would grind to a halt.

For the men and women on the frontline – the footballers, actors and traders of this world ­– to perform at their peak, a host of other cogs need to turn in perfect harmony, says Simon Cooper, managing partner in the sports practice of executive search firm Odgers Berndtson.

“Support staff are the engine room of the operation and no matter how talented someone is on the frontline, they will only be as good as that engine room,” he says. “That makes identifying

Karl Robinson and Richie Barker

Damien Doyle and Tom Bromley

the best support staff as important as finding the most talented star players,” he adds. “Indeed, those frontline performers will often demand to work only with teams of people they know and trust – people they have either worked with before or who they have seen deliver to the highest standards under pressure.”

LEAVE IT WITH ME Trust features high among the qualities that managers and leaders seek in their support teams – trust that they can do the job in hand, but also discretion. “It’s likely they’ll

Leadership & Management

need to know about everything that needs to be printed, delivered, closed, quoted, booked, sold and organised,” says Cooper. “High performers will trust their closest support staff with their competitive information as well as their personal lives, as either may require intervention.”

Trust also stems from the knowledge that an individual has the qualifications and experience as well as the proactive attitude to deliver their workload without constant supervision and management. “I don’t look over the shoulders of my team or tell them what to do, because I know that in

their respective fields they know more than me,” says MK Dons manager Karl Robinson. “Providing them with that autonomy also helps them to perform at their best.”

Among Robinson’s highly qualified team at the club is Simon Edwards, a behavioural strategist who brings to the role a wealth of experience from his private Harley St practice. “While Karl is the expert in team dynamics,” says Edwards, “I am here to work with individuals; to help them feel fantastic about themselves, motivated and focused so that we can release their natural talent. Karl has given me great

“SUPPORT STAFF ARE THE ENGINE ROOM OF THE OPERATION” opportunities here and the trust and freedom to open every door and I repay that by being at the very top of my game.”

Then there is head of sports medicine Simon Crampton, who applies a host of skills each day, from his

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Leadership & Management

“WE ALL BELIEVE IN THE SAME PHILOSOPHY AND WHILE EACH OF US WORKS IN OUR OWN AREA, WE FIT TOGETHER LIKE A JIGSAW” knowledge of anatomy and physiology to treat and rehabilitate injuries to the personal skills required to deal with a squad of players, particularly those with long-term injuries.

“Communication is also key in my role,” he says. “We hold regular meetings where it is my responsibility to inform the manager which players can’t play, why and for how long they’ll be out.”

Goalkeeping coach Paul Heald adds,“We all believe in the same philosophy and while each of us works in our own area, we fit together like a jigsaw. Karl knows what we can do and lets us get on with it. The result is that, should a situation arise that needs his urgent attention, he can be confident that we will all continue to deliver.”

HAPPY IN THE SHADE Qualities such as a hard-work ethic and being a team-player are, of course, essential in any new recruit, but the challenge when identifying great

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Leadership & Management

Paul Heald, Simon Crampton and Karl Robinson

support staff can lie elsewhere. As Cooper explains, you want people who are motivated, ambitious and teamorientated, but who are also happy to work in the shadows without trying to muscle in on the limelight.

“It takes a particular type of person to continue working hard to support those on the frontline with minimal public recognition,” he says. “It requires someone who gets immense satisfaction from their role, regardless of whether people know about it.”

After his own goalkeeping career ended, Heald wasn’t initially interested in going into coaching. “I doubted it would offer the same buzz, but when your goalkeepers play well, the experience you get, although different, is very rewarding,” he says. “I don’t think you can ever replicate the excitement of playing in front of a crowd, but helping someone to perform and seeing the things you do each day bear fruit on the pitch is a great feeling.”

Edwards, meanwhile, gets his motivation from seeing everyone else driven to improve and succeed. “I am watching people reach the pinnacle of their own individual success,” he says.

“That’s the biggest buzz I could ever ask for.”

Not everyone wants a place in the limelight. Indeed, some back-office positions have risen to prominence in recent years – think IT, performance psychology or music DJs – becoming as sought after and respected as higher-profile roles. However, provided the individual can focus on achieving the team’s overall goal a certain amount of ambition is healthy.

Head of coaching Richie Barker, for example, is keen to gain more opportunities to improve as a coach and to work with the club at a higher level. “We all have to understand and acknowledge that we are extremely fortunate to be involved in something we are so passionate about,” he says.

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Leadership & Management

“But the most important motivation for me is that I want us to win promotion and get the opportunity to work in the Sky Bet Championship.”

SHARED RESPONSIBILITY AND REWARD When the media, fans and stakeholders are so heavily focused on the main players in the organisation, it’s easy to lose sight of just how important the work of those behind the scenes is. It also tends to be more difficult to set support staff targets, especially when their work is ongoing and feeds into larger organisational goals rather than producing immediate results. But setting targets, incentivising towards them and providing feedback are essential if you are to unlock the true potential of your staff.

The first step is to ensure everyone in the front and back office fully understands and appreciates what each other does and why it is important in achieving the short and long-term objectives. Regular meetings, both one-to-one and as a group, can help to reaffirm everyone’s goals and gel people together as a cohesive unit.

The leader has a central role here, especially in recruiting people who will buy

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“IF WE DIDN’T SHARE THE SAME VALUES AND ATTITUDE IT WOULD ALL BREAK DOWN” into the organisation’s culture and ethos and actively contribute to it.

“If we didn’t share the same values and attitude it would all break down. We would spend more time debating what we should and shouldn’t be doing and less time getting on with the work in hand, but we are all pulling in the same direction,” says head of sport science and fitness Damien Doyle, part of whose job it is to bridge the gap for football players between the gym and football pitch. “It is a real strength of this club and Karl that talents are allowed to grow and new ideas are embraced with the aim of continual improvement.

Because you get to see your work being

implemented it reinforces the buy-in of everyone involved.”

Rewarding hard work, innovation and proactivity is also a must. “Employers can reward loyal and hardworking support staff by recognising their effort in more ways than one,” says Cooper. “While financial reward is always appreciated, the effects of letters of recognition and acknowledgement can far outlast a small financial reward. Employers can ensure they listen to support staff feedback on processes and systems and try their best to implement such feedback where reasonable. One-to-one lunches and regular personal appraisal sessions are also key to helping staff feel valued and motivated.”

As a conduit between the manager and the backroom staff, and having stood in the manager’s shoes himself, Barker understands more than most what a great support team looks like.

“Each of us at MK Dons knows our own stuff, but we also understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” he says. “As a group, we have an energy and drive that make it a thoroughly enjoyable and exciting place to be.”

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Leadership & Management

HOW TO

BUILD COHESION

All the technical skill in the world can go to waste if your players don’t gel, so strengthening that team bond is an essential leadership skill. Here’s our guide.

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ind your feet Everyone is more comfortable in their own shoes when they know what they have to do and why. And when people are at ease in their roles there is greater harmony and coordination and less chance of apathy within the team. Make sure everyone – from the star performer to the sub or trainee – is clear about what is required of them, what their role entails and why that matters to the success of the team as a whole.

Clear the air Pent up frustration, jealousy, confusion or doubt can eat away at morale and impact on performance day to day.

Provide ample opportunities for teammembers to air their problems or ask questions without fear of retribution or ridicule, whether that be scheduled oneto-one sessions, regular team meetings or an open-doors policy coupled with a culture of open communication. It’s also important to encourage team-members to talk to each other and lend each other support. People who understand and care about one another are more likely to go the extra mile for them.

Strategise together Provide some structure to their goals. Identify a

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problem, weakness or specific area that could be improved and then agree on a solution and plan of action as a team. Set goals for each person so that everyone has a tangible goal to work towards to achieve the team’s overall objective.

Set them apart Teams with strong cohesion tend to view themselves as different or believe they have something special that other teams do not, and as a leader it is important to foster this. Make them feel special or unique, whether through communicating the club’s ethos, bolstering their selfbelief or organising activities that enable them to strengthen their belief in one another.

Ask for sacrifices When team-members see the people they look up to and try to emulate making personal sacrifices for the good of the team it enhances team cohesion. Ask high-status or experienced individuals to go the extra mile and demonstrate some altruism for the team, whether that be prioritising extra training over personal engagements or treating his or her team-mates to something special. It is important that

less experienced team-members see that to find success the team must come first.

Break it up When a clique forms within a team it provides a feeling of security and identity to those who are in it, but a feeling of being ostracised to those who are not. This us and them atmosphere damages team cohesion, so try to break cliques up by encouraging those within the circle to train and engage in social activities with those outside of it.

Get personal Taking time to get to know each individual in your team, their family situation, background, personal challenges and achievements, helps you to understand how they tick, but also demonstrates that you value them as a person rather than a commodity. When people feel truly valued they commit more deeply to working hard towards the team’s objectives.

Spot the signs It can be easier to identify poor cohesion than good, if you know the warning signs. These include personality clashes, conflicting roles and responsibilities, power struggles and high turnover.

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Leadership & Management

RECOGNISE AND REWARD

10 IDEAS:

DISCIPLINE LOSE THE POWER TRIP

1.

Discipline is not the same thing as punishment. It is about encouraging people to follow a particular set of behaviours or code of conduct, the ultimate aim of which is to help them perform at their best, individually and as a team. Discipline as a process of punishment will inevitably involve negative controls and actions, which research finds is ineffective. People rarely change their behaviours in the long-term just because they have been instructed to.

Instead, discipline should be a positive process where everyone works together towards clear and accepted behaviours and practices.

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NIP IT IN THE BUD

2.

Few managers get any pleasure or satisfaction from dealing with disciplinary problems, and some will avoid conflict at all costs.

However, burying your head in the sand for the sake of harmony can be counterproductive and often stores up bigger problems for later. Respond too slowly to an unproductive or disruptive behaviour and people will think it is either acceptable or has gone unnoticed. As a result, it is likely to continue, worsen and even be copied by other team-members.

It is often far less painful to deal with problems as soon as you have identified them, and when they are still relatively minor, than if you sit on your hands and wait.

3.

Behaviour is motivated primarily by either the desire for some kind of reward (positive reinforcement) or to avoid a punishment or unpleasant repercussion (negative reinforcement).

While both can work, various studies have shown that positive reinforcement gets results more quickly and the resulting behaviour is more consistent and sustainable.

Providing someone with positive reinforcement, whether in the form of simple praise or a more tangible incentive can improve their self-worth and let them see what they are doing well, while using negative reinforcement such as a threat can arouse feelings of fear and hinder learning.

Whereas negative reinforcement tends to be reactive and spur of the moment, positive reinforcement takes a little more planning. Think about how you will reward good behaviour and make sure everyone understands the systems at play.

DOS AND DON’TS

4.

Punishment should be administered sparingly, but if you have told your team that there will be repercussions for breaking the rules, it is important to enforce them. Make sure you are consistent in which behaviours or actions you punish and how you go about it. Be clear that it is the behaviour that you are punishing and that needs to change, not the person involved.

Consider giving your team-members a say in how poor behaviour or rulebreaking is dealt with. Don’t punish people for errors while they are still working or training or embarrass them in front of their colleagues or team-mates.

Leadership & Management

LOOK INWARDS

OPEN THEIR EYES

9.

5.

Sometimes the easiest way to put an end to someone’s unproductive behaviour – whether due to undesirable interpersonal skills, aggression or a disrespect of the rules – is simply to tell them. Many of us don’t realise we’re doing anything wrong, or that our actions are causing a problem, and so carry on oblivious. Diplomacy is vital here, as is focusing explicitly on the behavioural issue in question.

Don’t allow the conversation to veer off into the other person’s performance in general. Keep things casual in the first instance, but be careful to document and record the conversation and outcome where necessary and then monitor the situation thereafter. Just because you’ve had that important initial chat does not mean the issue is dealt with; ensure something constructive comes from it.

HELP THEM TO IMPROVE

6.

Sometimes more formal coaching or training can help individuals or groups to change their behaviours and attitudes for the better. While it is likely to mean an investment of time and resources, it may well pale in comparison to the benefits in terms of improved performance, time spent on disciplinary issues and recruitment further down the line.

NO EXCUSES

7.

Good discipline starts with a clear understanding of what behaviour is expected from everyone, why that conduct is important to the overall culture and vision of the organisation and how each person fits into the bigger picture. People like to know where the lines are drawn and what the consequences are if they cross them, both to them as an individual and to the success of the team as a whole.

And they need to see what can come from positive behaviour. As George Washington said: “Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.”

GET THE RIGHT FIT

8.

Recruit carelessly and the most talented member of your team can end up being the most disruptive. That’s why assessing the cultural fit of any potential recruits is so important.

Communicate to them your organisation’s culture and ethos and assess whether they would naturally fall in step or could be managed effectively in the context of your team, or if they would simply upset the equilibrium. If you knowingly recruit a star talent with a disruptive personality don’t expect a smooth ride and be prepared to deal with the aftermath.

Disciplining ourselves is often even harder than trying to steer or control the behaviour of others. Buddha said: “To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”

DON’T STIFLE

10.

According to Professor Graham Jones, managing director of Top Performance Consulting, discipline and creativity work best when they work together.

The challenge for managers is getting the balance right.

“Discipline at its best drives high standards and confidence within a team,” he says. “Too much of it can mean a reluctance to take risks, perhaps when you most need to change your approach, while too little results in chaos and uncertainty, to the detriment of all. Similarly, creativity at its best allows people the freedom to take risks in making progress, while allowing a few mistakes along the way. Again, it’s a question of balance.

Too much creativity can mean a lack of focus, while too little leads to complacency and stagnation.”

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A STUDY IN SUCCESS

Having started out as a professional footballer and then head coach of Scandinavia’s first football academy at the age of only 22, Rasmus Ankersen knows first-hand how tough it can be to spot and develop talent. nkersen has dedicated himself to cracking the code of high performance in sport and business, and has approached conventional questions about how to back a winner and nurture their skills in far from conventional ways. Now a bestselling author, speaker and advisor on performance development, Ankersen has travelled the world in search of insight from the coaches and athletes who have succeeded where others have failed. More recently, he has turned his attention to the divide between individuals, teams and organisations that constantly strive for improvement and those for whom success is followed by complacency and stagnation.

Ankersen pressed pause on his travels to speak with the Manager.

A

For those who haven’t read your first book yet, can you sum up the main idea behind The Goldmine Effect?

Many of the world’s best athletes have tended to come from the same small places and I wanted to explore why that might be. For example, 35 per cent of the world’s top 100 female golfers come from South Korea, while the best sprinters on the planet originate from

the same athletics club in Kingston, Jamaica. A big portion of the world’s best marathon runners turn out to have grown up in one village in Ethiopia, while up in Sweden there is a tiny village of only 500 people that has somehow managed to produce some of the best alpine skiers in history. In an effort to understand what is going on, I travelled around the world for six months, living with coaches and athletes in six apparent ‘talent goldmines’.

In some of these places you witnessed incredible performance being nurtured in relatively basic environments. If realising someone’s potential isn’t down to the facilities available, what is the key?

What makes someone successful is not the facilities they have, but their mindset and desire. Too often we make the mistake of building big, fancy training centres and trying to make life as comfortable as possible for athletes. But a real performance environment should not be designed for comfort; it should be designed for hard work. If you make life too easy for people you never get to see who really wants it the most.

You admit in the book that you and your colleagues failed to foresee the successful career of Simon Kjaer.

Could it be that nature only accounts for a small part of someone’s potential, and the rest is down to nurture?

World-class performance is always a combination of nature and nurture.

I believe that genetics and innate talent play a role, but it is the entry ticket to the game, rather than the decisive factor. For example, if you are not predisposed to many slow muscle fibres you will never become an accomplished sprinter. If you don’t have enough stretch in your foot joints and rotation in your hips at the age of seven you will never become a great ballet dancer. Likewise, you are never going to become a competent psychologist if you do not possess a certain amount of emotional intelligence, and if you score less than 100 in an IQ test you will never be admitted to Harvard.

That is not to say that you cannot become faster, a better dancer, more empathetic or wiser. But you will never be among the very best at what you do.

On the other hand, because you have an innate talent doesn’t guarantee

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that you are going to be among the best. You have to work really, really hard, no matter how gifted you are.

Do you think there is too much focus in organisations on recruiting the right people – the war for talent – and not enough on developing people they already have?

Many organisations are far too conservative in their thinking when it comes to recruitment. They almost always go for the candidate who has done the job before, who has the right certificate and the right education. I am convinced that there is a huge competitive edge to be found in thinking smarter about talent-spotting, widening your view of candidates and trying to identify talent pools that nobody else has yet looked at.

There are big opportunities in identifying skills that could be transferred, for example, but the first step is to understand the critical success factor. Let me give an example. I have a friend in Malaysia who owns a service security company with 900 employees. He found his own talent goldmine: he hires taxi drivers.

He spotted that the critical success factor – the willingness to go the extra mile for the customer – is the same in both roles. Our focus is often too narrow when we’re looking for talent.

We should widen it, because what we are searching for can be found in unusual places and industries.

Your second book, Hunger in Paradise, talks about the dangers of complacency. What drew you to this topic; is complacency something you see as rife in business and sport?

My interest in this began a few years ago when I was at a conference in Finland. After my presentation I met with three employees from Nokia who all turned out to have iPhones in their pockets. I found that pretty

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“WHEN WE FAIL, WE ASK QUESTIONS: WHY DID WE FAIL? HOW CAN WE IMPROVE? BUT WHEN WE WIN WE JUST CRUISE ON” thought provoking and it made me look more deeply into the Nokia story. As a company that went from 50 per cent global market share to just three per cent in five years, it is a good example of the fact that it is often harder to stay successful than to become successful.

Successful organisations tend to lose their edge and willingness to innovate.

They become obsessed by protecting what has worked in the past. It is like when a football manager substitutes a striker for a defender when the side is 2-1 up with 20 minutes to go. It’s a big mistake, because the worst way to defend is to stop attacking. The same is true in business.

One of the problems that follows success is that we don’t ask enough questions. When we fail, we ask questions: why did we fail and how can we improve? But when we win we just cruise on. That’s very dangerous, because if we don’t know what made us successful, how are we going to be able to consciously repeat the success? Studying success is what keeps great companies at the top.

Rasmus Ankersen is also chairman of Danish SuperLiga side FC Midtjylland and co-founder of the 21st Club, a Londonbased firm specialising in interpreting big data in the football industry.

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Leadership & Management

GAME CHANGER

Nearly 50 years after he first embarked on a career in football, Sir Trevor Brooking has seen the industry from many angles. After a professional playing career that included 47 caps for England, Brooking sat on the board of West Ham and twice stood in as the club’s caretaker manager. He went on to assert his authority on the game and his passion for its development in important roles with the Sports Council and at The FA. His dedication was recognised in 2004 when he was knighted for his services to sport. ecently retired from his role as FA director of football development, Brooking shared his thoughts on the evolution of football and the changing roles within it.

R

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the game over your career?

Since my days as a player there has been a meteoric rise in the profile of the industry and in its financial status. When I was young, football was fun and exciting, but there wasn’t the money in the game to make it the attractive career prospect it is today. In fact, I remember my school careers officer advising me against pursuing a job in football; I was told it was precarious and that I would get paid more if I continued in my academic studies.

Today, of course, things are very different and more kids aspire to play football and at a much earlier age. What’s more, football players are now on a par with pop stars and actors, both in terms of their celebrity status and their financial situation.

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But while players might get greater financial reward than when I was on the field, they also face many new challenges.

If successful, they may find it difficult to cope with the money and high profile and that can, in turn, affect their performance, behaviour and development.

It can also make it difficult to have normal relationships with family and friends. If success comes too early it can also mean players are not hungry enough, again preventing them from fulfilling their potential. There is also the tough realisation that how long you get to stay in that bubble depends on how good your performance is, week in, week out.

What impact have these changes had on the job of the manager?

The challenges facing players, on top of all the distractions that modern society has brought – multiple TV channels, computers, smartphones, etc – make the job of the manager that bit harder.

Coaches now have to focus not only on the technical side of player

management and development but also on the psychological and social aspects.

They will examine how well a player deals with all the distractions, the knock-backs, injuries, the fast pace of the game, the successes and failures and with the life of a football player.

The power used to be with the club and the manager, but now it has shifted towards the players. Some will say that means you have to tiptoe around them, while others will argue you can’t; that you have to be tough with them.

The approach taken by a manager will depend to some degree on how well they are supported by their club, because players can be destructive in more ways than just not performing on the pitch.

Leadership & Management

clubs, knowing it probably won’t affect their own positions, don’t give youth development the focus it needs.

They are also less likely to give valuable first-team opportunities to young players. In my time as a player, if you were mid-table towards the end of the season you might try out some youngsters to give them first-team experience. If you did that these days and lost, you could drop four places and risk losing millions in prize money. Younger, less experienced players are a bit more inconsistent, so managers are often, understandably, unwilling to take the risk.

“SOME CLUBS, KNOWING IT PROBABLY WON’T AFFECT THEIR OWN POSITION, DON’T GIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT THE FOCUS IT NEEDS” The fact that managers get less time in their roles to work with players must compound the problem.

The number of managerial changes in football today is ridiculous and it levers instability in the development of individuals and playing units. During my 19 years with West Ham we had only two managers, Ron Greenwood and John Lyall, and they would hold coaching sessions with the youth team players and get to

know them. Now clubs transfer players in from everywhere, so managers don’t know them well and have to make quick judgements. That makes dealing with the players individually and as a team difficult and you have to get people to gel together in the short space of time that many owners give you.

The short-termism in football also has an impact on youth development, which in turn affects English football. Some

Other than more first-team opportunities, what will need to happen for England to win the next World Cup? There are around half a dozen young players out there at the moment that are capable of going on into the U21s and perhaps even the men’s senior England football teams. But that will depend on whether they are given a chance to play first-team football; to get stretched to bring them up to the necessary level.

Calum Chambers is a good example. He was captain of the U19s in May and is now in the senior team some four months later. There are many young players that don’t get the chances he was given, but who if they did would surprise their coaches. I’d like to think more will get the opportunities they need over the next 5-10 years.

I would also like to see clubs focus more on developing home-grown talent in the 16 and 17-21 age groups rather than importing very young players and their families. We’re one of the only countries that brings in youngsters to a new culture and lifestyle, and many of them don’t make the grade. With a better structure in place and better guidance we can help English youngsters fulfil their potential.

Important in achieving this will be affording greater recognition to the vital role of youth coaches and paying a wage that reflects this. At the moment, many good coaches feel it isn’t worth the money to work in either the 5-11 or 12-16 age groups, so they go into 17-21 coaching. However, once there they have to work with the players they are given.

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“MY PASSION HAS ALWAYS BEEN GRASSROOTS LEVEL FOOTBALL AND THIS WAS AN IMPORTANT PART OF MY REMIT AT THE FA”

It doesn’t matter how good you are as a coach if the talent isn’t there. If we focus on keeping good quality coaches in the younger age groups we can improve the quality of players capable of breaking into the 17-21 age groups. The longer-term changes will then follow.

Despite being what some called ‘the best manager West Ham never had’ you chose to stay out of club management, instead taking up your role at The FA. What are you most proud of having achieved there?

My family were never keen on me pursuing a career in management – the uncertainty and pressure of the role being among their reasons - and after Alan Pardew took the helm at West Ham I didn’t want to be there, hovering in the background. When the position at

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The FA came along I felt it was a good opportunity to get back into football and sports administration. Having already spent 15 years with the Sports Council I was well prepared for the politics involved and my 14 games as caretaker manager at West Ham provided a priceless insight into the issues facing managers day to day.

My 10-year stint with The FA was a fascinating experience and I’m proud of what I achieved as director of football development. My passion has always been grassroots level football and this was an important part of my remit at The FA, in particular the importance of improving technical skills at primary school age.

I knew from my time with the Sports Council that many youngsters were not getting taught those basic skills, so I

introduced the Skills coaching scheme for the 5-to-11 age group. There are now 160 coaches across the country helping children with their physical education and movement, and we have received a lot of kudos from the government for our work in encouraging children to take more exercise.

With SGP, we now have the centre and foundation to build on the coaching infrastructure and to work with the younger teams much more. With the solid management team in place, we can now work on creating an English football DNA, which will run through all of the teams. I see their work going from strength to strength over the coming years and, by 2020, I think our national coaches will have a very good pool of talent to choose from.

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Leadership & Management

THE BAND THAT’S ON BRAND

Passion and loyalty are often seen as being intertwined when it comes to football, but while most fans are loyal to their teams, there is more that clubs can do to build brand loyalty, says Barclays.

or a sports club, the most valuable customers are those who don’t just attend matches, but whose whole lifestyles are built around their clubs’ identities.

Clubs that understand their supporters and use that knowledge to interact and engage with them are able to deliver far more for themselves and their fans. bPay band is a brand new payments proposition from Barclaycard that can help sports clubs develop a far greater understanding and insight into their customers, helping them to grow loyalty and maximise revenues.

At its heart is a wearable wristband that contains a contactless chip. This

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“CLUBS THAT UNDERSTAND THEIR SUPPORTERS AND USE THAT KNOWLEDGE TO INTERACT AND ENGAGE WITH THEM ARE ABLE TO DELIVER FAR MORE FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR FANS” chip can be topped up with money from any UK debit or credit card and used to make quick, easy and secure payments for purchases of up to £20, wherever the contactless symbol is displayed. There are over 300,000 payment terminals across the country, including at some of the most well-known high-street names, such as McDonald’s, Eat, Boots, M&S, Greggs and Starbucks.

Fans therefore get a convenient, quick and easy way to pay wherever they see the contactless symbol, while clubs get to cut queuing times, speed up transactions and serve more customers.

However, there is an additional benefit in that clubs can also brand the bands, which are then used on matchdays and throughout the week.

This means fans can proudly display

Leadership & Management

their team colours, strengthening the affiliation and ongoing engagement with their clubs.

For the clubs, meanwhile, the bands also provide information on the spending patterns of their fans on matchdays and throughout the week, which allows them to better tailor their offering to their fans’ needs.

The insight enables them to improve their matchday experiences, such as the food and drink available, their corporate facilities and the merchandise on sale in their shops. It means they can offer more tailored loyalty offers, special experiences and prize draws for supporters, improving engagement and involvement.

bPay band is an open-market product that is linked to an account that is topped up with money either manually or automatically when funds are running low. The technology in the band also allows the functionality to be expanded to incorporate fans’ season tickets and stadium access, creating an all-in-one device that allows football fans to attend games with just a bPay band.

Mike Saunders, managing director for digital consumer payments at Barclaycard, sees real potential, saying: “Wearable payment devices are becoming increasingly popular as they’re a fast, secure and easy way to pay. Consumers tell us they want

more than one function from their wearables; payment capability is just one ingredient, there is a wide range of potential applications, such as access, loyalty, branding, affiliation and recognition.

“We can help sports clubs access new data sources to gain valuable insights into their customers’ behaviour by providing an integrated payment and ticketing solution. This will help venues looking to understand their customers better, enhance the matchday experience, grow loyalty and maximise revenues through a joinedup approach to technology.”

For more information visit www.bpayband.co.uk

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* Quotes are taken from “The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football’s leaders” by Mike Carson and the LMA. Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.

Nothing can be done without hope and confidence

HELEN KELLER You must manage every club as if you are going to be there the rest of your life, but don’t be surprised if you get the sack tomorrow

ARSÈNE WENGER I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure.

Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins

CHARLES STANLEY

We gain strength and courage and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT How do I shoot the parrot?

I rely on past experiences. I think, ‘I’ve got presence in this game; I’ve been successful; I’ve solved problems before – I can do it again *

ALEX MCLEISH There’s nothing more impressive than a great attitude, which you can wear on your sleeve

REMARKABLE: VIRAT KOHLI

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership

COLIN POWELL As down as I might be at home or when I’m driving to the training ground, once I walk in there if I’m down then we have no chance. It soon transmits to the players. You just can’t do that *

HARRY REDKNAPP With confidence, you have won before you have started

MARCUS GARVEY

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WELCOME TO THE FUTURE

The traits that define strong leaders are evolving. 50 years ago, strength and confidence were prized above many other qualities. Today, the ability to take advice and be agile – even change one’s mind if the situation requires it – is seen as the greater strength.

Words: Rebecca Burn-Callander, Telegraph Enterprise Editor his evolution is set to continue into 2015 and beyond. There are a number of factors that are contributing to the trend towards softer, more collaborative leadership. The first is that technology has made it easier to communicate than ever before. Now that it is possible to consult your colleagues at the touch of a button – to brainstorm live in Google Docs or thrash out a problem via Skype – decisions no longer have to be made on the spot or in a silo.

The fear factor is also out. After a long and hard recession, employees have had enough anxiety to last a lifetime and are no longer motivated by threats. Instead, constructive criticism, positive feedback and reinforcement, and building people's strengths and skills will be crucial to successful managers in the future.

According to Brian Bacon, founder of international consultancy Oxford Leadership Academy, “A leader will influence rather than instruct.

Effective leaders need to communicate their visions and excite people by enabling them to see the benefits.

This will help employees commit and overcome barriers.”

Honesty is now a prized asset in the modern manager. With websites like Glassdoor growing in prominence and

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the proliferation of social media, it has never been easier to find out whether a manager has taken credit for someone else’s work or made a bad call.

Rather than be caught out, leaders need to embrace the new era of transparency. According to Dale Carnegie Training, if you admit your mistakes quickly and emphatically, your team will too, and that’s a key step towards improvement.

The latest leadership buzzword is mindfulness – living in the moment rather than focusing too closely on the past or future. Being able to understand and communicate priorities and deal with pertinent tasks first will be even more important next year, as the proliferation of technology

creates even more noise in the workplace.

It has also never been more important to create a mission and sell a dream to your staff.

According to a recent survey by Net Impact, 58 per cent of respondents said they would take a 15 per cent pay cut to work for a business that communicated its values clearly and had a mission that chimed with their own goals and ambitions.

The successful leaders of tomorrow will have a clear strategy for success, with clearly defined goals.

If you have a strong company culture, it also becomes much easier to find the right people. There is currently a chronic skills shortage in the UK, especially across key areas such as software development and marketing. If you can’t find people with the right skills the only solution is to hire for attitude and offer a brilliant training programme.

This comes back to the notion of agile leadership: the ability to adapt to the changing needs of the workplace.

Whether this means introducing new technologies to your organisation, opening up new lines of communication or building a team that will give you the edge over the coming years, the most successful managers will be fast-moving, unafraid to accept their mistakes and bold enough to try something new.

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INSIDE OUT

The Australian cricket team that John Buchanan coached from 1999 to 2007 is among the greatest sports teams ever. Unrelenting consistency, unprecedented success and numerous trophies: how do you coach that?

Words: Henry Cowen

uiet and meticulous, John Buchanan doesn’t immediately strike you as a leader. Yet he was in charge of a cricket team that boasted big personalities like Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne over an immensely successful period: two World Cup trophies, 16 consecutive Test match victories and three Ashes series wins.

Now running his own leadership business, Buchanan is clear about what he believes makes a good coach: “You’ve got to understand yourself inside out and with that you do not compromise yourself. You can change the order of your principles, but you never sacrifice or compromise a principle,” he says.

“The essence of coaching is about relationships – with athletes, support staff, administrative staff and the board. In particular, your relationship with the players has to be solid. For that

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reason, if you know what your principles and philosophies are, and you stick by them, what you deliver to that athlete is consistency, and consistency is what an athlete seeks in a coach. The coach is that person an athlete might not agree with or like all the time, but they clearly understand who they are and what they stand for.”

SOMETHING TO PROVE While Buchanan’s background is in cricket, the importance he places on relationships is relevant to coaches and leaders in all sports and indeed other fields of work. Also relevant is the distinction between earning and expecting respect and the difficulty in proving yourself as a coach if you haven’t excelled as a player. When Buchanan went to interview for his first coaching job, at the Queensland Bulls in 1994, he was attempting to

“YOU NEVER SACRIFICE A PRINCIPLE, YOU NEVER COMPROMISE A PRINCIPLE” take over from Jeff Thomson, an Australian Test cricketer who had played over 100 times for his country; Buchanan had played only seven firstclass matches and averaged 12.30. The gulf was huge.

Leadership & Management

1978/79 Plays seven first-class games for Queensland

1994 Becomes coach of the Queensland Bulls

1994/95 Leads Queensland Bulls to the Sheffield Shield trophy, their first for 69 years

1998 Coaches Middlesex in the English County Championship

1999 Appointed coach of the Australian national side

2001 Wins the Ashes 4-1 and achieves 16 consecutive Test match victories with Australia: a world record

2002/03 Wins the Ashes on home soil

2003 Helps his team towards winning the World Cup, their second consecutive win as a side

2004 Leads Australia to a 2-1 victory in India, their first win in India for 36 years “I knew there would be questions over my experience,” he says. “I had to draw on the experience I did have – the good and bad memories from life, relationships, past competitors, teachers and coaches, my peers, parents and so on, as well as the experiences from my one year playing Sheffield Shield cricket.

“It was also about trying to work out what my team philosophy and principles were, my cornerstones and what I really believed in, and when I went in for the interview I shared that. I wanted to try to change the game, be in front of the

game and believed that if it ain’t broke, break it and start again.

“When I was asked 'how are you going to win the Sheffield Shield', I replied, ‘That’s not my role,’ because my goal was to look at the bigger picture; how we could dominate domestic cricket for the next 10 years. I needed to look at improving our systems and processes to be on target to win the Sheffield Shield.”

One year later and Queensland won the Sheffield Shield trophy – the club’s first success in 69 years. Five years later he was coach of the national team.

2005 Loses the Ashes for the first time, succumbing 2-1 to England in a famous series

2006 Australia win their firstever ICC Champions Trophy

2006/07 Regains the Ashes in Australia in some style, winning 5-0

2007 Australia win their third consecutive World Cup trophy, Buchanan’s second as coach

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BIG QUESTIONS The question that Buchanan’s success throws up is if being a successful player in your sport isn’t required then what is needed to be a coach, and is it something anyone can do? “I think coaching is within everybody,” Buchanan explains, “but I think like any occupation that’s built on science and art – the science being everything from sports science to the hard performance measurements around individuals and the art being the skill of communicating and really trying to understand a human being – some will be better than others.

“Woven into that is the idea of trying to find your fundamental purpose in life: and why would you be a coach? It’s a big question for everyone involved in coaching, particularly when you consider that you will be under the gaze of so many people who want results day-in, day-out. One of the key fundamental purposes of coaching is helping people and if you enjoy that then it helps. I think that while a coach who is very focused on results alone can have success, they may not have longevity and may move from club to club.”

Among his other achievements, longevity and consistency were a big part of what John Buchanan did for Australian cricket. During his years at the helm they were unimpeachable. The pressure to get results is probably

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greater for coaches now than it was when he left his post in 2007, so does he think that pressure has made being a coach even tougher?

“Most definitely. It’s one of the biggest things that’s changed since I finished coaching, largely down to social media. Sport has always been resultsdriven, but it just seems now that the investment in sport by media, sponsors and supporters really drives the need to win today.

“It makes coaches think less about winning tomorrow, so they try to produce immediate results when I think most really want to build a club. Unfortunately, that time element seems to be a real luxury – a precious commodity that is not afforded to many people – and coaches are tested constantly.

“When you work in that kind of environment, hope is really important to you: you can change somebody’s life, you can find tactics for tomorrow’s game that haven’t been used before, you can find a way to use sports science that another club hasn’t used before. I suppose you also hope that your board and owners understand, see what you are doing and believe that you’re the best person to do the job, irrespective of how things might go for a few weeks. To some degree, all coaches deal in hope, but they have to deal in reality as well.”

Visit www.buchanancoaching.com for further information on coaching high-performance teams and for links to John Buchanan's YouTube channel and LinkedIn.

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GuestPath® is an ongoing process that enables us to continuously improve our customer experience in all areas of our stadium operations. We focus our development on clear operating procedures, guest interaction, product knowledge, team work and service recovery. Using standards, training, measurement, reward and recognition, we develop teams who anticipate customer needs; ‘Creating special experiences, one guest at a time’.

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T: 020 8453 5060 E: uk@dncinc.com @DelawareNorthUK A Global Leader in Hospitality & Food Service

Health & Wellbeing

HAVE YOU TRIED...

LOSING THE EGO?

Self-interest might seem common among those with leadership or management responsibility, but it can have damaging consequences, says leading UK chartered psychologist Steven Sylvester.

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former professional cricketer and ex-academy footballer, Sylvester has helped leaders in business and professional sport to fulfil their potential by stimulating open and honest debate using what he calls the ‘withoutEGO' philosophy. Through his research with world champion sportsmen and women, Sylvester has found that when people are driven by self-interest or ego it can increase their levels of fear, defensiveness and self-absorption.

“Ego gets in the way of good decision making and the ability to work well with teams and prevents people from performing well under pressure,” he says.

“In contrast, when people perform in a selfless way and without fear, as world champions do, it can lead to an increase in openness and an ability to express their skills freely. They tend to be more inspirational and selfless and build more innovative and collaborative teams.”

WithoutEGO is a set of attitudes, behaviours, values and beliefs that enables a person to see how their ego is negatively impacting on others.

Each individual or team is invited to explore and assess where they sit on The withoutEGO philosophy works on: LEADERSHIP HOW? In-depth interviews with leaders WHY? To shift it from transactional to transformational CULTURE HOW? A culture audit or ‘planned change’ WHY? To win hearts and minds PERFORMANCE HOW? Facilitation of the alignment of leaders, managers and staff WHY? The process helps build high performance teams

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a continuum with selfishness at one end and selflessness at the other. “For football managers this is difficult as the win-at-all-costs culture pushes players and managers to avoid uncomfortable truths,” says Sylvester. “I will ask them in-depth questions, collect data and assess how they operate against the philosophy, which provides an insight into the club’s level of fear, defensiveness and self-absorption. We can also see where inconsistencies lie between their values and beliefs and their actual attitudes and behaviours.

“This is a rigorous and relentless process,” he adds, “enabling the manager to build his self regard by understanding his blind spots in the same way an elite athlete would when striving to be the best in the world.” Although much of his work is confidential, Alex Rae, now assistant manager to Alex McLeish at Belgian club Genk, is happy to share his experience.

“Even though Rae won many trophies over his playing career, his obsession with winning often sent him over the edge and led to reckless challenges and physical altercations,” says Sylvester.

“But his openness to pressing the pause button and reflecting on where his inner rage came from is a great strength. Once he was able to talk it through with me and became aware of the deep-seated need that drove his anger and need to win, he was in a better position to make the necessary self-correction. He has progressed from being labelled a bad boy to potentially an inspirational leader with a greater purpose beyond himself.”

Managers in football and business should stop, look and listen to how they are building their personal brands with all vested parties, says Sylvester. “They will

need to carefully understand and manage their emotional world if they are going to sustain success over many years.”

Steven Sylvester, founder of the withoutEGO® philosophy, can be contacted at steven@withoutego.com or www.withoutego.com

YOUR PERSONAL

We all know English football is super-competitive.

Every coach is under intense pressure to deliver results – every week.

Coaches are always on the look-out for sessions that give them an edge. Not many people know that the same coaches share this knowledge freely – to help others.

Elite Soccer is the professional’s choice that helps thousands of ambitious coaches across the globe achieve new levels of success – all for the good of the game.

To contribute, or to secure your personal copy of Elite Soccer call Duncan Heard on 01483 892 894

helps “ This is a fantastic magazine that r thei of out t mos the get s coache ches players. I encourage all my coa to read it.”

Arsène Wenger Manager, Arsenal FC

VISIT US ONLINE:

r, Elite Socce r reader of la u g y re m a f o s “A one d to share I’m delighte time.” st fir e th r sessions fo ho José Mourin FC a se el h Manager, C

WWW.ELITESOCCERCOACHING.NET

Health & Wellbeing

WHO’S IN CHARGE?

While as coaches and leaders we understand the importance of team chemistry, our own internal chemistry goes unnoticed. Jeremy Snape reveals some of the biological processes behind our responses and behaviours. port, and especially football, is an emotional business to work in and the ability to remain calm and balanced is as important for leaders and managers as it is for players and athletes.

Understanding the extent to which body chemistry governs our performance under pressure is therefore key.

There is now scientific evidence of the near perfect partnership between mind and body, a non-stop conversation of micro-messages that governs everything we do.

While you are busy directing the team under pressure or presenting a corporate sales strategy, your body and brain are working in complete harmony to regulate your performance.

The body’s main function is to maintain what we call ‘homeostasis’ – the balance of everything from temperature and oxygen levels to blood pressure, all of which must remain within narrow ranges. So how does it keep these lifesaving processes constant in the face of the stress and emotion of modern life?

within seconds. These fall into two groups: some are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system and serve to rev us up, while others are governed by the parasympathetic nervous system and bring us back down again.

A constant feedback loop between the brain and body allows their levels to be increased or decreased.

When faced with a situation that the brain perceives as threatening or dangerous – albeit anything from public-speaking to an email sent to the wrong person – it triggers the stress response. This powerful, primitive warning system kicks in at incredible speed. The brain sends a signal to the adrenal glands, ordering the release of adrenaline, which provides the energy needed to respond to the perceived threat – to fight or flee.

Adrenaline also has various physiological effects, including increasing heart rate and blood pressure, causing the air passages of the lungs to expand, enlarging the pupils of the eyes (narrowing vision), and redistributing blood from the digestive organs to the muscles for flight.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS The nervous system is linked to a secret armoury of neurotransmitters and hormones, which can be deployed

FROM RISK TO REALITY While this mechanism is necessary in certain situations, there are dangers in allowing our response to be entirely

S

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Health & Wellbeing

“THE FEELING OF INVINCIBILITY AND DESIRE FOR SUCCESS LEADS US TO TAKE BIGGER RISKS THAN WE NORMALLY WOULD” automatic and it is important that we get involved at a cognitive level if we are to remain in control.

Left to its own devices our natural chemical cocktail can lead, for example, to what neurobiologist and former Wall Street trader John Coates calls ‘irrational exuberance’.

This is where the feeling of invincibility and desire for success leads us to take bigger risks than we normally would consider acceptable.

In his book, The Hour between Dog and Wolf, Coates explains the evolutionary backstory to this behaviour. When wild animals overcome a successful challenge they get an extra shot of dopamine, which has a role in motivation, reward and addictive behaviours, and testosterone, which is linked to aggression, dominance and competitiveness. This ‘winner effect’ shapes the animals’ behaviour; they start to graze in more exposed areas, for example, or take on more dominant rivals to expand their territories. So we produce chemicals as a result of

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Health & Wellbeing

success and these in turn encourage us to take more risks.

This chemical overdose, Coates postulates, could be how we get brought back down to earth after a purple patch; our decision-making is blinded for a while, until we take things too far and failure gives us a reality check.

REST AND DIGEST Thanks to the parasympathetic nervous system we are able to return to a more sustainable state, the shortterm ‘fight and flight’ system subsiding and the longer-term ‘rest and digest’ systems taking over.

The vagus nerve plays a key role in this process, slowing the heart rate

“PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO STRESS HORMONES SUCH AS CORTISOL CAN HAVE A HARMFUL IMPACT ON OUR LONGER-TERM IMMUNITY AND HEALTH” Another longer-term danger can result when we face regular or sustained periods of stress. As the body requires a more constant increase in energy supply, the steroid hormone cortisol takes over from adrenaline. However, prolonged exposure to stress hormones such as cortisol can have a harmful impact on our longer-term immunity and health, pushing these vital systems down the pecking order.

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down and bringing the processes of repair, immune function and digestion back online. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter thought to help regulate mood, appetite and sleep, is also released, assisting in returning the body to a more restful and measured state.

However, there are also things we can do to help deactivate the effects of the stress response. For example, try 30 seconds of very slow, deep

breathing. With nerve endings picking up signals from the diaphragm, signals of slower, deeper breaths reinforce the feedback loop to deactivate the physical effects of stress.

It is also important to ensure you are fuelled for a day of highperformance thinking as, while your stomach can wait until dinner time, your brain continues to use up 20 per cent of your blood glucose. Keeping it waiting can lead to impulsive and biasdriven decisions.

Your brain also needs oxygen, and the best way to provide this is through exercise, which also has the benefit of providing a dopamine and serotonin uplift. While getting out of the front door may be a short-term challenge, the benefits will set you up for the rest of the day.

With a new era of leadership emerging, people are looking to work smarter, not just harder, and with increased awareness of what drives our moods and motivations on the inside, we are more likely to make the right decisions on the outside.

Find out more about Sporting Edge at www.sportingedge.com or follow Jeremy Snape on Twitter @thesportingedge

Health & Wellbeing

CIGARETTES

Moderating your alcohol intake and quitting smoking can improve your performance, help you live longer and improve the quality of your life and the lives of those around you, says Dr Dorian Dugmore. t will come as little surprise to most people that smoking presents a serious danger to health, but many still underestimate the risks. Smoking is one of the primary causes of heart disease and cancer, with heavy smokers 14 times more likely to die from lung, throat and mouth cancers than non-smokers. As the damage is often difficult to detect until the advanced stages, up to 90 per cent of such cases result in death.

Passive smoking has been identified as a significant cause of lung cancer in non-smokers, as well as a wide range of respiratory disorders in children. A 1994 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that those exposed to a moderate amount of smoke increased their lung cancer risk by 30 per cent, while for those living with a heavy smoker it was an 80 per cent increase.

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STOP NOW The good news is that when you stop smoking the changes can be felt quite quickly. After around 48 hours the

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“AFTER AROUND 48 HOURS THE LUNGS START TO CLEAR AND BREATHING GETS EASIER, AND AFTER ONE WEEK APPETITE IMPROVES” lungs start to clear and breathing gets easier and after one week appetite improves. It can take anything from five to 10 years to regain the kind of health enjoyed by a non-smoker, however, so the sooner you stop the better.

There are various aids now available to help people quit the habit, from patches and e-cigarettes that provide a small nicotine hit to chewing gum and other medications that help deal with the craving.

Specialist professionals can help to find healthy behaviours to replace the desire to smoke, such as taking a break outside or eating a piece of

fruit. This is important, as when craving a cigarette or an alcoholic drink it is often the first 10-15 seconds that are most crucial; this is when you need to break the habit. It can also help to share the challenges you’re facing with a trusted friend.

Health & Wellbeing

AND ALCOHOL cohol is probably the most widely used of all drugs and, when taken in excess, acts as a toxic agent with short and long-term effects on the user.

Alcohol is toxic to the liver and sustained or excessive use can cause serious damage, but while the links to liver disease are widely reported, there are other less well known consequences of drinking, many of which are irreversible.

These include damage to the inner ear and tooth enamel, reduced sense of taste and an increase in body odour, especially during a hangover when the body sweats more to flush out the booze. Alcohol can negatively affect the absorption of nutrients into the gut, especially vitamins and minerals, and contains twice as many calories per gram as sugar, so will contribute to weight gain.

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As up to 80 per cent of alcohol is absorbed through the intestine, it loosens stools and may cause diarrhoea, and because it dehydrates the body, energy levels are often reduced. It can disrupt the normal patterns of sleepiness and dreaming and lower sex drive for up to two days.

Alcohol also acts as a diuretic, stimulating the kidneys to pass more water than is being consumed, which puts a strain on these organs in the long term. Excessive alcohol consumption can also cause the brain to shrink and the cavities in the brain to enlarge and may even result in cardiac arrhythmias.

Finally, in combination with other addictions such as smoking, alcohol is linked to cancers of the mouth, larynx and throat and has been cited as potentially playing a part in stomach, colorectal and liver cancer.

Then there are the effects on dayto-day performance and behaviour, and so on the ability to form and maintain healthy relationships.

Alcohol impairs judgement, memory and sensory

perception, causes thoughts to get jumbled, inhibition to be affected and concentration and insight to be dulled. It can also lead to feelings of depression or anger and so result in violent behaviour.

MODERATE YOUR DRINKING There is evidence of some benefits of moderate drinking, with studies showing that it can be cardio-protective, as it boosts good cholesterol in the body and protects against clogging of the arteries, even dilating the blood vessels.

Wine, and red wine in particular, may have particular benefits, as it contains antioxidants, which have a protective effect and may extend life.

However, these positive effects are lost the more alcohol you drink and it is important to balance the potential benefits with the possible long-term impact on liver health, memory and cognitive function.

To help moderate your drinking it is always best to drink with food, as this will help fill you up and lower your desire to drink excessively. Drink a glass of still water with every unit of alcohol to dilute it and its effects and to rehydrate, and count your units to avoid binge-drinking – considered to be over eight units for men, six for women. When drinking pints, try topping up your glass when it is half-empty rather than draining it and buying another pint. Finally, make sure you allow your liver time to recover by having at least two dry days a week and regular weekly or fortnightly periods without alcohol.

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Health & Wellbeing

THE ESSENTIALS 01 BLAST FROM

THE PAST

soccerattic.com

Scouring the web for old magazines takes the time and dedication of a serious collector. But if you are feeling nostalgic for the football magazines of yesteryear there is another way.

The Shoot in the 70s app makes it possible to read electronic editions of the classic Shoot magazine from 1969 through to 1973, including the very first edition ever made.

As well as preserving the archive for years to come, the SoccerAttic project provides a valuable window into how the game has evolved since the 70s and how events back then might have influenced the game we know today.

POWER 02 POCKET wowthem.com There are now so many gadgets available to charge one's mobile devices that there's no excuse to run out of power. With new releases such as the Power Wallet, it is now even possible to recharge when you're out and about. The classic-looking wallet features an integrated rechargeable battery capable of fully powering up most smartphones one and a half times, as well as a charging cable and port. It also does everything you want a wallet to do, with compartments for cards, notes and coins and a durable, scratch-resistant and easy-to-clean leather exterior.

The Filan Battery Sleeve follows the same concept, but packs even more charge within its protective casing. Its hidden battery can charge most smartphones three-to-four times. Made from a shock-absorption material to help protect devices from impact, it is perfect for travel, holding everything from credit cards and cash to a mobile device, passport, documents and a notebook.

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Health & Wellbeing

HAPPY 03 SNAP www.olloclip.com Smartphone cameras have changed how we take, use and share photographs, and new add-on technology is now enhancing the quality and possibilities of the end products.

Olloclip's multi-functional lenses clip onto Samsung S4 and S5 phones, iPhones and iPads, enabling them to take digital SLR-quality images. Weighing only one ounce, the 4-in-1 system features a fisheye lens, which captures a 180 field-of-view, a wide-angle lens and both 10x and 15x macro lenses.

THE ONE 04 JUST coravin.co.uk Wine, and especially the really good stuff, is something to be enjoyed in moderation, but that has always presented a problem. Once the cork is popped, what is left in the bottle starts to deteriorate, putting pressure on us to drink it quicker than we otherwise might.

Using the new Wine Access System from Coravin, however, wine can be poured from any naturally corked bottle without actually opening it, avoiding oxidation and leaving the remaining wine to age naturally. As wine-lovers do not have to commit to using the whole bottle, it frees them up to pair wines by the glass to each meal or occasion and enables them to moderate their drinking without wasting good wine.

The system inserts a thin, hollow needle through the foil and cork before pressurising with argon, an inert gas that winemakers have used for many years. This pressurisation forces the wine through the needle and into the glass without allowing oxygen into the bottle. Once the needle is removed, the cork naturally reseals itself.

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Health & Wellbeing

ESSENTIAL READ

Legacy by James Kerr In Legacy, storyteller and best-selling author James Kerr goes deep into the heart of one of the world’s most successful sporting teams, the All Blacks. Compelling reading, with a plethora of memorable insights, mantras, rituals, candid quotes, and irrefutable wisdom, Legacy provides unique access into the team’s inner sanctum. It offers a powerful yet practical codification of high performance through 15 lessons for leadership and business, including: CHARACTER - FOLLOW THE SPEARHEAD The All Blacks select on character, not just talent. They know that for their spearhead to work, all the force must move in the same direction.

ADAPT - GO FOR THE GAP When you're on top of your game, change your game. Adaptation is not a reaction, but an everyday action. Build

PGA TIPS

Stop slicing wood Most slicers have the golf ball too far forward – outside of their front foot – and their hands in the wrong place, says Simon Wordsworth, chief executive of the Aspiration Group, fellow of the PGA and an R&A-qualified referee.

W

hen hitting off a tee with a wood, Wordsworth advises starting with your feet together, opposite the ball. Move your front foot an inch towards the target and your back foot to shoulder width.

Then simply point the top of the grip at the navel and give it rip.

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the ability to change into your cultural and commercial processes.

LEAVE A LEGACY If you play a bigger game, you play a better game. Higher purpose delivers higher performance. The All Blacks seek to 'leave the jersey in a better place'.

New Zealand has only 137,184 registered rugby players compared to 2.5m in England - their success against the odds is of Spartan proportions. However, following a disappointing 2003 World Cup, there was a relative crisis within the All Blacks and as with any organisational ecosystem a phase of renewal became the sobering antidote. Head coach Graham Henry and his staff set out to regenerate the team’s 'core story' and aligned everything around a powerful central organising narrative.

The resulting clarity of purpose shaped and inspired the All Blacks and propelled their win percentage

from an unparalleled 75 per cent to an unbelievable 86 per cent between 2004 and 2011. Evidence that team culture, character and empowerment are key drivers of success and offer significant competitive advantages.

For anyone remotely interested, curious and responsible for leadership and culture this is a must read.

Barry McNeill

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Pitch Side

TRUE GRIT

When his side, Hai Phong, lifted the 2014 Vietnamese Cup, Dylan Kerr proved himself to be a great coach in a notoriously difficult part of the world. But reaching this stage of his career has been a long and difficult journey, beset with disappointment. We speak to Kerr about perseverance and determination. mascot at six and a schoolfield striker at 11, it was always Dylan Kerr’s ambition to play football. It cut deep, then, when at the age of 15 a youth manager told him he simply wasn’t good enough for the team.

It was to be the first of many setbacks, none of which would deter Kerr from chasing his dream.

When at 17 he was spotted by a retired scout for Sheffield Wednesday, it was the chance he had been waiting for. He grafted hard on the training field for a year under the watchful eye of manager Howard Wilkinson, but his confidence was to receive another knock when he was told there were better players waiting in the wings and he was released from the club.

Undeterred, Kerr fought hard to get his dream back on track, attending countless club trials and eventually accepting an offer to play in South Africa, where he stayed for three years before returning to the UK. Back on home soil he wasted no time in picking up the phone to his old manager, who was then manager of

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Leeds United, to ask if he could train with the squad. Wilkinson took him under his wing again and later offered him a contract at the club.

After four years at Leeds as a squad player, Kerr moved to Reading, where he experienced the high of reaching the promotion play-offs and the low of a serious hamstring injury that would see his gradual exit from the professional game. In 2003, after three years playing for a succession of lower league clubs, he finally hung up his boots.

STEPPING UP It was then that Kerr set his sights on a career in coaching. Now fully qualified, he spent four years as a football development officer at the SFA, all the while applying for club coaching positions worldwide. Once again, it was in South Africa that an opportunity arose, and Kerr went on to work for a number of clubs in the country before he found himself fighting to get back into the game once more. A fresh spate

A TASTE OF VIETNAM This is an amazing country. Three years ago I moved to the beach resort of Nha Trang, but when the club I was with was sold to Hai Phong, the players and I had to move. Hai Phong is a busy port city and the climate and culture here are quite different, but it is still an amazing place to live and work in.

While I know many ex-pats, most of my friends are Vietnamese and they work hard but also enjoy life to the full. Everyone works very hard here in Vietnam, regardless of whether they have $1 or $1m.

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On a typical day I will wake early to the sound of motorbikes beeping their horns, then go for an amazing iced coffee before leaving for training.

Hai Phong is one of the best clubs in the country, but the stadium is very old. Most evenings are spent eating with the locals, anything from fish and chicken to strange local delicacies.

These have included snake heart, cow’s eye, bull’s penis, goat’s blood sprinkled with nuts and even fox. It’s all been good, but I tend not to ask what it is until I’ve finished.

of applications and he found his feet yet again, this time in Vietnam where he has coached at club and national level, and is currently manager of League One side Hai Phong.

The fact that Kerr has had such success in Asia in his first ever role as head coach – winning the national cup in 2014 – suggests there is value in taking time to find your feet. Does he think it is a case of the harder the journey, the stronger you are on arrival?

“That’s a great point and I think my recent success backs it up,” he says.

“But I haven’t arrived yet; I’m still on the journey and with every new experience and each new country I work in I become a better coach. I always wanted to be a footballer and a coach and I’ve worked hard towards achieving that goal. Even those times when I didn’t make the first team or was left on the bench, I have always made sure I never let my manager or team-mates down.”

FOREIGN EXCHANGE Kerr has applied this hard-work ethic both to his coaching jobs and his own professional development, travelling to different continents in order to gain experience. His move to Vietnam meant facing a whole new set of challenges, including working in very different social and football cultures.

Compared with the UK, things in Vietnamese football are, he says, very old school. “We have a head coach, an assistant, a goalkeeping coach and a physio, but no sports scientists or analysts. I therefore keep regular contact with coaches in the UK so that I can stay abreast of developments in everything from sports science to gym equipment. I can use that information

Pitch Side

country,” he says, “because people assume that they will come in with an arrogant, superior approach and try to change everything. Having spent two seasons here as assistant coach, I understood how the side played, thought and worked.”

to make improvements not only in my team, but also in Vietnamese football as a whole,” says Kerr.

Some of the biggest challenges he has faced, though, have been to do with the players. “While they watch all the big teams and try to emulate them, they lack the basic training and discipline,” he says. The latter, in particular, had to be changed, but he had to tread carefully.

“Trying to teach players in their 30s the basics isn’t easy,” says Kerr. “What’s

more, they are motivated primarily by financial reward rather than a love of the game and respect for their jobs.

Some players even threatened not to play in the national cup final if there was no bonus in it for them.”

He attributes his success in Vietnam largely to hard work and the fact that he took on board the club’s culture and didn’t try to change it or the players’ style of play too radically. “Foreign coaches are not always popular in this

MASTER CLASS While he has his own distinct style, Kerr has taken inspiration and learned from all of the managers he has worked with or under. “They all had their strengths and individual styles,” he says. “For example, Mark McGhee was a great motivator, Colin Lee was very methodical and Bobby Williamson gave me the confidence to enjoy playing. But Howard Wilkinson was my mentor and it was my time playing under him and his assistant, Michael Hennigan, that most inspired me to coach. Their work ethic, how they coached and trained the players, and the discipline and mentality that they instilled were fantastic.

“At Sheffield and Leeds there were no egos in the team or players who thought they were superior to others; everyone played for the Gaffer.”

While Kerr doesn’t mirror his mentor’s past methods and approach, important given the many changes in the game over the years, his philosophy is similar. “It has always remained the same – plan, prepare and make it so the players enjoy training and playing, but with real purpose and team spirit.”

And, at the heart, is the hard work ethic and persistence that Kerr has demonstrated since he first donned a football strip and throughout his journey to the dugout.

“You have to continue to seek advice and to educate yourself everyday at whatever level or country you are in,” he adds. “To be the best you have to learn from the best and take in everything that might make you better, but you have to remain true to your own style, ethics and philosophy.

And most of all, never give up on your dream,” says Kerr. “Mine is to be the best I can be at the very highest level; that’s what keeps me motivated and ambitious.”

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Pitch Side

BIG EVENT, BIG DATA

It was widely regarded as one of the most entertaining international tournaments in many years, but the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil also provided an insight into the evolution of football, says Prozone.

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PLAYING STYLES One of the major focuses of the Performance.LAB research has been the identification and definition of key team playing styles. This work has enabled Prozone to track football’s technical evolution over time, charting the rise and fall of significant trends and styles within the game.

Taking team possession as the basic unit of time, Prozone’s Data Scientists were able to use raw events, such as passes, shots and crosses, and key performance indicators, such as shots on target and pass success rate, to define intermediate variables, such as tempo and offensive pressure. From this point, they could group certain traits in order

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to construct empirical definitions of the 10 playing styles that were identified as being common to the 2006, 2010 and 2014 World Cups: possession, direct play, counter-attack, maintenance, build up, sustained threat, fast tempo, crossing, high press and offensiveness.

When we assess the playing styles analysis of the 2014 World Cup, it becomes clear that the tournament’s four key playing styles were fast tempo, maintenance, crossing and high press. In the context of the 2006 and 2010 competitions, this signals a significant move towards the use of more attacking-oriented styles in the international game. With direct and pragmatic systems having decreased in favour of quick tempo, attacking styles, this analysis supports the common perception of the 2014 World Cup as a particularly offensiveminded tournament.

Underpinning this shift towards more attacking styles have been improvements Win ball quickly but don't maintain possession

in terms of chance creation and shot quality. While World Cup 2010 saw 108 more shots taken than in 2014, the greater number of goals scored this summer indicates that shot quality was far higher in Brazil. With an average shot quality of 9.7 per cent and 11.28 shots per goal compared to 8.6 per cent and 12.29 four years ago, the numbers would suggest that teams were more focused and intelligent in terms of their attacking play in 2014.

Segmenting playing styles to gain a better understanding of the relationship between certain strategic approaches and success, it is evident that teams that won the ball quickly and sustained their attacks tended to progress to the latter stages of the 2014 World Cup. Argentina, Brazil and Germany (three of the four semi-finalists) all fall into this bracket, while Argentina were the only one of the same quartet not to fall in line with the definition of a counter-attacking team.

A key development in the growth of Win ball quickly and attack

3

Australia 2 Portugal

Spain

France

England

1 Korea Republic

High press

elivering more goals (171) than the 2006 and 2010 tournaments (147 and 145 respectively), the 2014 World Cup was more open than the two previous competitions. With 16 per cent of goals scored from fast breaks (a seven per cent increase on 2010), it was fast, counter-attacking football that emerged as the dominant tactical approach.

The headline statistics, however, don’t tell the full story. The 2014 World Cup provides valuable information about the evolution of football at international level from a technical and tactical perspective. The data scientists in Prozone’s Performance.

LAB have analysed every minute of the action in great detail, assessing the relative prevalence and superiority of different playing styles as well as quantifying team connectivity.

This research provides us with a comprehensive understanding of the tournament and its place in the wider context of football’s technical development.

-3

-2 Honduras Costa Rica Algeria Iran

Japan

Germany Brazil Argentina Uruguay 1 Ivory Coast 2 Cameroon

-1 Switzerland Ecuador Netherlands Chile Croatia Ghana Mexico Belgium Italy Bosnia-Herzegovina Nigeria -1 Russia Greece

3

Columbia -2 United States

Short attacks and low block defence

-3

Sustained threat

Long attacks and low block defence

% of players connected

70%

Responsibility shared

Highly reliant on individual players

60% 50% 40% 30%

Final 4

Final 16

Final 8

Group Stage

20% Ge Ch rm ile a Br ny Fr azi an l Ne c th Jap e er an la Ur nd ug s R ua Au uss y Ar str ia ge ali Ko nt a in re a Sp a R Ivo ep ain r ub Co y Co lic st as a t Be Ric l a En gium Un P gla ite or nd Bo d tug sn St a ia -H E ate l er cua s ze d o Ho gov r nd ina ur Sw Ni as itz ger er ia l Gr and ee ce I Al taly ge M ri Co exi a lo co m bi a Ira G Ca h n a m n er a Cr oo oa n tia

% of players connected

Pitch Side

70% 60% 50%

Winners Losers +5%

DIFFERENCE IN CONNECTIVITY BETWEEN WINNING AND LOSING TEAM: +10% +6%

+9% -1%

40%

Group Stage

Last 16

new ways of scrutinising performance, the work on playing styles conducted by the Prozone Performance.LAB facilitates invaluable data comparison work and longitudinal analysis. Helping managers and coaches to systematically detect where their side’s play matched up with specific styles, the analysis supports teams in strategic planning and opposition scouting, as well as helping analysts to identify long-term technical and tactical trends across a wide range of competitions.

TEAM CONNECTIVITY Another key area of World Cup research for the Performance.LAB has been team connectivity, an aspect of advanced analysis that enables a better understanding of the importance of specific players to their teams. Identifying key passing relationships and team patterns, this work tells us which teams are the most highly connected and which are the most reliant on individuals.

Quarter Final

Semi Final

Final

By looking at pass combinations by position for every national side at the 2014 World Cup, our data scientists were able to quantify the connectivity of each team. The results indicate a strong link between connectedness and success, with all four of the semi-finalists featuring in the top 10 best-connected teams. At the other end of the scale, five of the 10 least-connected sides dropped out in the group stage, with just one (Colombia) progressing beyond the last 16.

As we can see in the figure (above, bottom) the average level of connectivity between players in teams increased from round to round, with the exception of the semi-finals. Such a pattern indicates how important it is for teams to be dynamic and able to interchange players within a multifaceted system. Individual brilliance may be an asset, but the numbers show that it is all but redundant if not successfully integrated into a highly connected system.

Establishing an objective measure of team cohesion, this sort of analysis

enables teams to better understand their own balance and identify areas that may need improvement.

CONSTANT EVOLUTION Following the detailed analysis carried out by the Prozone Performance.LAB, it is clear that the 2014 World Cup was outstanding in terms of the attacking nature and general quality of the football it produced. Where the 2010 tournament was dominated by relatively direct and reactive football, 2014 signalled a seachange in the way football is being played at international level.

The days of Spain’s domination through possession have, for the time being, been replaced by the efficient counterattacking play of teams such as Germany and the Netherlands. Rather than suffocating opposition through sheer weight of possession, teams are now finding success with higher-tempo styles that take advantage of disorganised opponents on fast breaks and enable a higher quality of chance creation.

Technical and tactical trends will continue to shift and evolve over the seasons, but advanced analytics is making it possible to track these subtle changes at an unprecedented level of detail. Giving teams, analysts and observers the ability to monitor the nature of performance over time in the appropriate context, developments such as playing styles analysis and team connectivity represent an exciting new approach to the use of analytics in football.

Working with over 350 clubs and organisations worldwide, Prozone empowers data with meaning to deliver performance advantage. To find out what Prozone can do for you, visit www. prozonesports.com or email enquiries@ prozonesports.com

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Pitch Side

ALL BETS ARE OFF

The rise in popularity of betting on sport generally, but specifically football on a global scale, has seen The FA draw a new line in the sand for participants within the English game. lthough the laws of association football have changed little since they were drafted in 1863, the Founding Fathers would not recognise the game today. Social media, anti-doping and the critique of the media are all things that modern day footballers and managers must contend with on a regular basis. The growing demands and pressures of modern society require all national governing bodies to constantly evolve their rule books in order to keep pace.

In particular, following a recent change to FA rules, it is now no longer possible for anyone involved professionally in the top eight tiers of English football – from the Premier League to the Northern, Southern and Isthmian Leagues – to bet on any football, worldwide.

Players, managers, club employees and officials, and match officials are not permitted to make wagers on the results of games, competitions or events that take place within them, or other football events, such as manager appointments and player transfers.

This includes placing a bet in person, online, on the telephone or even with friends. Participants are also not allowed to instruct any third party to place any bet on their behalf.

For participants involved with clubs playing below Step 4 of the National

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League system, three levels below the Conference, and match officials participating below Level 3, the previous rule, which prohibited them from betting on a match or competition in which their club is involved or which they could influence, still applies. Using inside information to bet is also prohibited at these levels.

STAKEHOLDER CONSENSUS The worldwide betting ban, introduced on 1 August 2014, followed consultation across the game with the Premier League, Football League, Professional Footballers’ Association, League Managers Association and the Football Conference.

The FA’s director of football governance and regulation Darren Bailey was keen to ensure that the messages around education and awareness were clearly communicated as far and wide as possible.

The FA even enlisted the support of former Italian footballer and now Aston Villa academy coach Simone Farina – who played a key role in stopping a matchfixing attempt in 2011 while playing for Serie B club Gubbio – to help get the message across.

COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY “This betting rule provides everyone, both inside and outside the game, with

a simple, clear and straightforward message on where the line is drawn,” said Bailey. “Further to that was the importance of making clear the collective responsibility that all those involved have in upholding the integrity of football in England and keeping our game special.

“It was vitally important that we, as The FA’s governance department, were visible in the weeks and months leading up to and after the introduction of the rule change. Members of my team visited clubs across the country to talk players, management and employees through the changes. The FA produced educational films on betting, inside information and match fixing along with literature, from posters to leaflets, to help remove any ambiguity and ensure the message was understood.”

“We continue to stress that the rules form only one part of our overall framework for the regulation of betting and maintaining the integrity of the English game,” added Bailey. “In addition to the monitoring of betting markets throughout the world, we continue to build on previous education programmes and to work with all of the game’s stakeholders.

“We believe that all those involved in the domestic game must work collectively to ensure that the integrity of English football is maintained and that its unique character is preserved.”

Pitch Side

INTERNATIONAL CUP LAUNCHED

A new competition featuring eight English and eight foreign sides promises to put clubs’ academy talent to the test. he Premier League has launched a four-group tournament involving some of the top Premier League under-21 and elite development teams from England and other European leagues.

The Premier League International Cup kicked off on 15 October with an exciting match between West Ham United and Athletic Club Bilbao at the Boleyn Ground, which saw the Spanish side win 5-3.

Group-stage matches will be played between 15 October 2014 and 31 January 2015, with a full fixture programme to be published shortly. All matches will be organised by the Premier League.

Clubs will play each team in their group once and all matches, including those between international teams, will be played in England. Upon completion of the group stages, the winners and runners-up from each group will progress to the quarter-finals, semifinals and final, all to be played as singleleg ties in England.

“When we launched the Elite Player Performance Plan in 2012 we recognised that providing competitive opportunities for the 18-21 age group – against English and international opposition – was a key objective in order to prepare academy players for Barclays Premier League football,” said Premier League director of youth Ged Roddy.

“We are now two seasons into a Barclays Under-21 Premier League that sees each club play at least three matches at their main stadium, crowds in the thousands watching matches – including more than 10,000 at Norwich v Spurs – and several games broadcast live on Sky Sports and BT Sport.

“The Premier League International Cup will see some of the best young players in this country able to test themselves in competitive matches against some of most talented young players in Europe.”

T

Clubs involved in the tournament and their groups. All English sides have category one youth academies.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Chelsea

Fulham

Leicester City

Everton

Norwich City

West Ham United

Manchester City

Sunderland

Porto

Athletic Club Bilbao

Benfica

Celtic

Borussia Monchengladbach

PSV Eindhoven

Schalke

Villarreal

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Pitch Side

PARK LIFE 1

2 1.

England coaching staff joined members of the armed forces in a two-minute silence on Armistice Day

2.

England captain Wayne Rooney with members of the armed forces on Armistice Day

3-4. Over 300 cricket coaches and sports scientists attended an ECB coaching conference at St George’s Park 5.

The England Women’s team work hard to prepare for their match against Germany at Wembley

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Images 3-5 - Thomas Coupland, FA Learning.

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FITNESS = PERFORMANCE = RESULTS.

SO HOW FITARE YOUR FINANCES? You know that to get the best results from your players, they need to be at the peak of their fitness. Well the same thing applies to your finances, which is why you should be asking the question - just how fit are they?

■ Are you making use of tax efficient investments?

Make sure you’re getting the best performance by trying our financial health check:

■ Do you have adequate private healthcare or a

■ Have you made a Will or protected your family’s

financial security in the event of your own death including covering your loans?

■ Have you recently reviewed your pensions to make

sure they are on target for your retirement goals?

What about reducing your inheritance tax liability?

■ If you or a spouse/partner suffer a long-term

illness or disability, is your income, mortgage or business protected? cash fund available for emergencies and periods of ill health? Is your family protected?

■ Have you recently reviewed your existing mortgage

and insurances to make sure they are adequate for your current situation and you are getting the best deal?

■ Will you be able to afford school/college fees?

Just call Kingsland on 01743 231 954 and we’ll make sure you’re match fit all year round!

Levels and bases of, and relief from, taxation are subject to change and their value depends on the individual circumstances of the investor. Not all areas of tax or estate planning are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. The value of your investment and any income from it may go down as well as up. You may not get back the original amount you invested.

Kingsland Wealth Management Ltd is an appointed representative of pi financial ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England & Wales. Registered office address as opposite.

Registered number 4414865.

kingsland-ifa.co.uk Kingsland Wealth Management Ltd 1 Brassey Road, Old Potts Way, Shrewsbury SY3 7FA Telephone 01743 231954 Fax 01743 235794

Pitch Side

PERFORM WINS FOOTBALL BUSINESS AWARD

LMA partner Perform at St George’s Park has been named ‘Best Business Serving Football’ at the 2015 Football Business Awards. Perform is the official healthcare partner at St George’s Park and last year gained the F-Marc accreditation to became the first FIFA Centre of Medical Excellence in England. ver the last two years, Perform has provided an innovative, essential service helping the football industry to improve physical performance and aid better health among players, coaches, managers and referees.

This has ranged from providing medical support for 90 visits from the 24 England teams training at St George’s Park to access for visiting professional teams using SGP for away games, training camps or fitness testing, such as FC Barcelona in July 2014.

Perform has offered a bespoke accelerated recovery programme for PFA members, delivering 444 weeks of treatment, with 78 clubs sending 247 players, providing a 1:2 player:physio service. This ensured 247 players returned to play more quickly for their clubs. The accelerated recovery programme has now been opened up to the general public, for example, for those wishing to return to work early or to an active life following hip replacements or knee surgery.

Perform is also the LMA’s official healthcare partner, providing the Fit to Perform health screening programme for LMA members at St George’s Park. Perform recently announced a partnership with the Centre of Health

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and Human Performance at 76 Harley Street to offer the health screens in a central London location.

It was for these services that Perform was honoured at the Football Business Awards alongside notable winners such as FIFA, Barclays and Firstkind Ltd. Perform director Phil Horton commented, “Perform at St George’s Park is absolutely delighted to be named Best Business Serving Football up to £2m turnover. This Football Business Award is recognition for all the hard work the Perform team puts in to offer an excellent service to all our clients from the footballing industry.

“I’d like to thank the Perform and wider St George’s Park teams as well as our partners in football – The FA, the League Managers Association, the Players Football Association and Professional Game Match Officials Limited.”

David Sheepshanks CBE, chairman of St George’s Park, added, "These Football Business Awards are so important to the industry and the recognition that they bring to the leading operators in their various fields, like Perform at St George’s Park, is invaluable.

"It is not only the many, diverse elements that comprise the business

of football that make it so compelling, but also the constant need to adapt and change, to embrace the continual advances in sports science and technology that keep it so vibrant."

Based at St George’s Park, Perform offers a range of sports medicine and fitness services at its state-of-the-art facility. There are also a range of off-site activities that can be provided at clubs' or corporate headquarters.

Last year, Perform also delivered The Football Association’s Scholar Cardiac Screening programme for 597 scholars through mobile imaging at 38 professional clubs and for 336 England players to detect any heart abnormalities, which has become front of mind after footballer Fabrice Muamba’s heart attack. Perform’s parent company, Spire Healthcare, was able to offer secondary care pathways such as screening or surgery at its network of 39 hospitals for any players who were shown to have abnormalities.

For more information, visit www. spireperform.com, call 01283 576333 or contact Emma Woodings on 01283 576 364 if you want to book your LMA member Fit to Perform screening.

Perform for Life The health and wellbeing of employees is an essential part of supporting the longterm success of a company and coping with the demands of a professional career in a corporate environment.

Perform for Life is a state-of-the-art health screening programme led by Director of Corporate Wellbeing and Founder of the League Manager Health Screening Programme, Dr Dorian Dugmore. The inter-disciplinary team of doctors, specialist physiotherapists, physiologists, sports scientists, nutritionists and cardiologists work together to identify how you can improve your overall levels of health and fitness.

What’s included » Consultation with a Sport and Exercise Medicine Doctor – including medical history check, urine analysis and blood sampling

» In-depth heart analysis – both an ECG and ECHO scan with our specialist Cardiac Physiologist to provide a thorough insight into how your heart is functioning

To book an appointment or for more information: LMA Members – please contact Ali Betson on: T: 01283 576363 E: ali.betson@lmasecure.com All other enquiries – please call the Perform team on: T: 01283 576333 E: stgeorgespark@spireperform.com

www.spireperform.com/st-georges-park @PerformSGP

» Detailed nutrition consultation – how you fuel your body with an expert Nutritionist

» Dynamic fitness testing, blood pressure assessment and respiratory function

» Functional movement screening and much more

Dr Dorian Dugmore Perform Director of Corporate Wellbeing and Founder of The League Manager Health Screening Programme

Pitch Side

A SPORTING CHANCE

Unsurprisingly, at Nike we’re passionate about sport. We live it and breathe it every day. Sport has the power to create change, especially for children. ctive kids do better. It’s as simple as that. If every child had an early positive experience in sport, we would see a lot of happy children with higher test scores, better attendance and improved behaviour. In the future, when those active children have active kids of their own, whole populations will be healthier, happier and more successful.

There is a turning point in children’s lives at around the age of 10, before which they have the chance to lock in on a lifetime of benefits that come from physical activity. These include developing teamwork skills, determination, self-confidence, creativity, resilience, and physical and emotional health. Once that window closes, however, it becomes much harder to influence their behaviour.

Unfortunately, each generation of children is moving less. Research shows that children today don’t get as much

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physical activity as they have in the past. They have fewer opportunities to be active and many more alternatives competing for their time. As they get older, the problem only gets worse.

Although we at Nike believe sport and physical activity are solutions to many of the hurdles that children face, today’s youth are turning away from both.

For every eight-year-old playing for a national championship there are a hundred others wishing they could afford to play. When a bigger, stronger player is chosen first, one more kid stops having fun. Every time a lap is taken as punishment, someone learns that movement is a bad thing.

Experts tell us it doesn’t matter if the kid is a future Olympian, professional athlete or a backyard basketball player.

The best chance of success, however you define it, is for kids to have early positive experiences in sport and physical activity.

For kids to love being active, experts agree that they need options for physical activity that are age-appropriate, wellrun, motivational, readily available and fun.

Kids have said the same. Once we add in at least 60 minutes of activity per day it becomes an early positive experience.

That’s where the true value of coaching comes into play. Coaches can make or break a child’s experience of sport. They are among the most influential people in a child’s life, and they are likely to be the single biggest factor in a child’s chance of growing up to love physical activity.

Coaches don’t just build skills. They help build confidence, character, better health and educational outcomes. They help kids to realise their potential.

When youth sports programmes are designed with creating early positive experiences in mind, and delivered by effective coaches, this combination will keep kids coming back for more and keep them active for life.

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Pitch Side

INSIDE THE LMA

LMA lead partner Barclays chose St George’s Park as the venue for the final selection day of ball boys and girls for the upcoming Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. 100 boys and girls, who reached the final stage following a nationwide search

by Barclays, were put through their paces to determine the final 32.

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Pitch Side

The LMA hosted a private dinner for Hays Recruitment in the elegant and intimate surroundings of Brown’s Hotel in London.

Bolton Wanderers manager Neil Lennon and Everton’s Roberto Martinez, both LMA ambassadors, were the guests of honour and took part in an illuminating Q&A session hosted by Sky Sports presenter David Jones.

The LMA honoured Len Ashurst for becoming one of a select group of managers in English football to have managed over 1,000 first class games. Ashurst was presented with a specially commissioned, inscribed crystal trophy by fellow 1,000 club member Arsène Wenger before his Arsenal team faced Sunderland, the team for which Ashurst still holds the record number of appearances. Ashurst took charge of 1,089 professional matches at nine different clubs, domestically and abroad.

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Pitch Side

The LMA held a coaching clinic for over 60 managers and coaches from the LMA and Professional Football Coaches Association at the home of West Bromwich Albion, The Hawthorns. Southampton FC’s technical director, Martin Hunter, delivered a practical session on the ‘Principles of Defending in the Modern Game’. LMA partners Scout7 and Polar also presented to the group on their developments for the season.

LMA members Chris Hughton, Barry Fry and Martin Allen all gave the thumbs up to NonLeague Day. The activity was led by Football Conference sponsors Vanarama to raise funds for LMA partner Prostate Cancer UK, raise the profile of the illness and highlight non-league football in general. On the day, international fixtures meant thousands of fans had the opportunity to attend a non-league fixture.

Vanarama co-ordinated the call to arms across social media, asking people to show their support by giving the thumbs up and donated 20p for every fan that attended a match, raising £7,735 for Prostate Cancer UK.

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Just A Moment

Teams at all levels of English football pay their respects on Armistice Day.

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Just A Moment

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Thank you To John, whose passion and loyalty can only be measured in miles, years and tears.

To Jane and her family, whose love for their team keeps them connected across three continents.

To the Mums and the Dads who’ve raised the hopes, lifted the spirits, stood in the rain and washed the socks.

To Geoff, the groundsman, who plays his part in keeping the pitch as beautiful as the game.

To Arthur, who’s woken at 5am for 30 years to inspire the next generation of future heroes.

To the players who create the magic, add the spark and make the Barclays Premier League the most exciting league in the world.

To everyone who champions the true spirit of the game.

Thank you from Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League.

@BarclaysFooty

Barclays Football

Barclays Bank PLC is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority (Financial Services Register No. 122702). Barclays Bank PLC. Registered in England. Registered No. 1026167. Registered Office: 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP. Terms and conditions apply. You must be over 16 to enter.