00:00I'm just going to start by this question. Please tell me and walk me through your journey, your professional journey
00:08from where you first loved or fell in love with football to where you are now.
00:14Well, right back from the back garden as a youngster and Sunday League, that familiar route for lots and lots
00:22of boys, young boys in this country,
00:23which is playing with your friends at school and Sunday League football and then fortunate enough to be in that
00:29sort of district county set up,
00:32finding your way through to my first opportunities were at Watford Football Club as a young player in their centre
00:39of excellence,
00:40which then sort of dwindled away and waned. And then it was a bit of time with rugby and basketball
00:45and athletics and all the other sports.
00:47And then right at the death, really, right at the end where most boys have already been signed and finding
00:54their feet in the game at 15 and 16,
00:57I was one of the sort of last ones in the door and managed to secure that all important contract
01:03at Derby County.
01:04And that began my sort of footballing journey proper, really. So straight from school, straight into that.
01:10And that's been my life. My professional journey has been football, football, football.
01:13So 20 plus years as a player and with no breather, straight into coaching and again, rolling straight into management
01:23and now head coach here at this wonderful football club.
01:26How do you find the job of a head coach? You know, you look very calm.
01:31You always look very calm and composed during matches. But what's going on inside at every single game?
01:40Well, yeah, I'm not I'm not so sure on the inside. I'm as calm as perhaps I appear.
01:45And certainly I would say there's probably times where I don't appear that calm.
01:49Certainly there's a few of our players would attest to that.
01:53But look, it's really very much on a game day.
01:57You are in the game. You're in the moment. So how can I help the team?
02:01And there's a lot of responsibility as head coach as well, isn't there?
02:04Because you are the leader of almost like a family of men.
02:09I think if you can treat it like that as a family, you can it can be something quite special
02:14and something quite nice.
02:15And I think when you are working with lots of young men that are early on in their stages of
02:20life,
02:21let alone their professional journey, I think it's important to recognise exactly that, as you've just put it.
02:27Can we make this place a nice place for them to come?
02:31Can we do that with having it as a challenging environment, but also somewhere that they feel comfortable to be
02:37themselves?
02:38And to be honest, that's where I spend a lot of my time thinking and challenging myself is am I
02:46ticking all those boxes?
02:47Have I challenged the players today? Have I improved anybody today?
02:50Have I helped my staff? Have I given good guidance? Have I given good clarity to the organisation?
02:56If I feel like I've done those things, I'm OK.
02:59That's awesome.
