An opinion on Accountability and Support: Part Two

Sir Alex Ferguson and Cristiano Ronaldo. A classic example of the coach-athlete relationship, through accountability and support.

This is the second part of my article where I introduce the concepts of accountability and support in a professional sporting culture. In part one, I included my views on accountability in professional football, the positive and negative impacts on players’ well being of applying accountability, and how I applied accountability in my own personal journey to become something more than when I was. In part two, I will discuss my perspective on the concept of support in professional football, how it can positively buffer the harsh nature of accountability, and how it has the potential to leave players in their comfort zones, resulting in them not extracting their potential. 

In 2001, I was starting to become good at football for my age and spent an eight-week trial at Reading Football Club. It was amazing to be offered a trial in the first place and to be told by my then agent, Andy Bernal I had two weeks before I would be flying over. I obviously left somewhat of an impression, as Reading offered me a scholarship with the hope of signing a coveted professional contract if I was competent enough. This meant that I had to drop out of school in grade 11 and pack up to fly around the world. Up until this time, my parents plunged my brother and myself into sports and school activities, which meant there was no time for socialising and girls. In fact, I wasn’t even allowed to go to house parties, and was only allowed to go to school socials. This meant that encountering high school and girls was a tricky road at the best of times. Lets just say and I had no idea what I was doing and leave it at that! So when I dropped out of school and flew to the other side of the world to chase football, the world just got a bit bigger!

In 2001, I started my scholarship at Reading FC. The day I flew into London, I was picked up by Nicky Hammond (now director of football at Celtic FC) and taken to the house I would be staying. No choosing a family after several viewings, it was take it, I didn’t even get leave it. My experience of that family was one that profoundly hit me. I felt isolated, not really cared for, and misunderstood. I didn’t feel like I belonged and felt that I was an outsider living as a hindrance in someone’s house so they could earn an extra £85 a week. Even worse, I didn’t think anyone at the club cared about this. I felt alone.

At that time, I was very much sheltered and now I had to make decisions about whether I wanted to go out at night, or go to night clubs (yes at 15). There was no Mum and Dad to guide me or have control over my choices, or to give me perspective. I once flew to Glasgow to trial with the Scotland U/17 team with no money in my bank account because I decided to buy a pair of Armani jeans to make a good impression! At Reading FC, I had to walk 4.5 miles everyday (~45mins as I remember it) each way to training or catch 2 buses home from the stadium if I ended up there after training. I relied on lifts of others, such as Chris Davies (now assistant manager to Brendan Rogers at Leicester) to get about in between. At training I had to clean boots (I spent one Christmas Day cleaning boots), make tea or coffees for older pros and I was very much the outsider in the dressing room because I was Australian, and lets be honest, I was a nice sheltered boy who couldn’t relate to my teammates who had grown up in tough neighbourhoods.

Making my debut for Reading FC vs Stoke City circa 2004. My time at Reading was a learning experience into life and football. I learnt very early to stand on my own two feet and support myself. It was a sink or swim environment.

While these huge changes were happening, I received very little emotional support from anyone. It was literally a case of you’re in the water now, it’s up to you to swim, or die and go back to Australia, and so I had to. The upside to this was, I was falling in love with “real football culture,” I fell in love with Reading FC and the supporters’ passion for the game and I really enjoyed training with “real professionals”. With that said, I was underperforming and I was going through periods where I would concede a goal a game that was my fault and my teammates let me know it when I would come in from training to find my clothes chopped up, taped to the ceiling, or just missing. One instance I remember playing a preseason game vs Loughborough University when the then coach Kevin Dillon said that I “came off the bench like a bag of shit” in front of the whole team. Kevin would later sign me as his first choice keeper for Aldershot Town and I still have fond memories of him. So no, I didn’t take that personally and to this day I still speak to him. It’s just the way things were.

As mentioned, I hated the family that I lived with which meant that I would stay out till all hours training. That was the one thing I really loved, the game of football itself. I’d stay till dark kicking balls at the training ground. If it wasn’t extras at the training ground, I didn’t want to go home so I’d go back to Madejski stadium and go to the gym there. I'd play foot tennis for hours with whoever else was there. I’d have conversations with physios about strength and conditioning if they were there, or even observe senior pro’s if they were injured and doing their rehab. It was an education and a way of life. The more I hated living at home, the more I’d plunge myself into football culture, into football training, and as a result I became fairly reliant on myself. I was learning how to support myself. It wasn’t until after 6 months that I started performing, so much so that Ray Clemence (England senior goalkeeping coach) came to watch me and asked me to trial for the England U/17 team, where I would eventually represen.

At that time, I’d bumped into this coach at the Madejski stadium and every time I’d speak to him, he’d treat me like a human being. I could see he had compassion for me and had time for me as a person first. I never forgot that. That man is now manager of Leicester City, Brendan Rogers. Outside of Nicky Hammond (and even he was tough on me), Brendan was the first real source of support that I had at Reading FC. Somehow I went from having a terrible 6 months, to be getting picked for England at the of that season. I had a sense of identification to the club, and Brendan inspired me because I felt that he genuinely cared for me as a human being and not just as a player. I ended up spending Christmas with Brendan and his family, and to this day I speak to his family, such wonderful and humble people. I will never forget how they opened their door to me. 

With former striker Nick D'Agostino. Helping younger players through deploying accountability and support has been something I've tried to develop from my footballing experiences and academic study. Deploying empathy has been one strategy I use to provide support to the next generation.

Now at the age of 35 I think about how I might help younger players on their journey. I’ve had 20 years of experience in the game, I’ve studied for the last 12 years in related fields, constantly evolving my understanding of the science of human performance. Not a lot of people know this, but I’ve worked with people with special needs in hydrotherapy when time permits (cats out of the bag), I’ve travelled to visit refugees in Brisbane and even sponsor Suroj, a boy who lives in the international school established with World Youth International, and one day I hope he grows up to live a life of purpose and meaning .

I feel that all this life experience has allowed me to become more rounded. To have more empathy for others. To appreciate and be aware that people are doing it really fucking tough out there, I once met a girl at hydrotherapy who would come once a week just to walk and by the end of it her feet would be bleeding, dragging on the floor of the pool. Bleeding just to walk! If she can still put a smile on her face and be grateful, then we all have the capacity to perceive the things that we do have, versus the things that we don’t and this what it is to be grateful. So when Covid-19 hit and we went into the hub to finish off the 2019/2020 season, I was mindful of the players’ mental well-being where we lived out of a hotel for 8 weeks. There were definitely going to be low times, and those guys were going to need someone at some point to be there for them as a friend first. 

I tried to make myself available to the younger players, or those who weren’t in the starting line-up, because having been in that position myself in the past, I felt isolated and excluded. I didn’t want that for those players, I wanted them to know that they are part of the group because of who they are regardless if they were in the starting lineup or not. So on days off, I’d spend hours at a time talking to certain players who were in those vulnerable positions and just listening what they had to say. The purpose wasn’t to solve anything, more so to give them an outlet, to be heard, and to be understood, to show that I cared about them first. I realised through these experiences, the key to lending support is deploying empathy, that is to understand someone’s truth without judgement of it. Empathic people are able to sit with someone in their darkness without judgement to just let them know that they aren’t alone. That they still belong, that they are still accepted. That they are enough.

Broadly speaking, I think the biggest fear that I have had as footballer is the shame and judgement of coaches and fellow players relating to underperformance, for not being competent, and for not being accepted. I found out at Reading FC and Wycombe Wanderers that if I underperformed, those people hid my possessions, cut my clothes, or even physically grabbed me by the throat at training or at games. It was already hard enough being an Aussie with questionable fashion sense, but those were the cards that I had been dealt. Survive or die. Reflecting on this, the biggest take away from these experiences were such that I had to ask myself everyday what I was willing to do to make it, I had to support myself when I needed to, because I didn’t have my mum or dad. 

When I look back at my career and think about the best people who I felt supported me, I think about those who accepted me as I am but also let me know where I needed improve and they certainly let me know that and that is where accountability comes in. It’s a dance between accountability and support. I have had great experiences with coaches and other senior players who took the time to accept me as I am, however let me know where I needed to improve in my game. A great mentor of mine Marcus Hahnemann (Fulham, Reading, Wolverhampton, and Everton) did an incredible amount for me, so much so that when I didn’t have a club at one point in my career he invited me to live with him and his family and train with Wolverhampton Wanderers. I cleaned his boots at Reading, and he gave me an education in football and in life. 

He supported me during my career such as letting me live with him and his family, however he cut me down quickly in training giving me clear critique of flaws in my game such as “so you’re not taking crosses off one foot anymore”. And that is accountability, no ego, no bullshit, just a direct way of identifying a problem and providing a solution. I respected that so much, where other pro’s in the past would mock me for not being good enough through judgement and shame, Marcus would support me by taking the time to hold me to account and teach me how to be competent. It showed me he cared about me and I have learned that young males need to know their leaders care about them before they are willing to give them their trust and respect. So in a sense, holding someone to account with care, can be providing support.

In my opinion, support really relates to providing a safe environment to someone regardless of their abilities or competencies. It is the ability to accept someone and sit with them in their suffering and to let them know that no matter how bad things are, they are enough. Regardless if someone drops a ball or misses a goal scoring opportunity they are human, they are unique. This takes great empathy and consideration and what I had found is that this has nothing to do with football, it is humanistic, it’s interpersonal relationships. As I have grown in football, I believe effective leadership is not always about giving orders, it’s a lot about building relationships through understanding and relating to people. To be empathetic. It’s about showing people that you genuinely and honestly care about them with real integral authenticity, despite their competencies or inadequacies. 

Providing support is a vehicle to improving interpersonal relationships as per Sophia Jowett’s 3+1Cs framework within Interdependence Theory. The constructs of this theory include: commitment, co-orientation, closeness, and complementarity. Closeness relates to the emotional tone of the relationship and reflects the degree to which the coach and athlete are connected. Expressions of tone include trust, respect, and appreciation. Commitment relates to the desire to maintain the relationship over time. Complementarity describes the interaction in a relationship that is perceived as cooperative and effective. Finally, co-orientation reflects the perceptions of both parties in relation to the 3Cs +1. In other words, how do both parties perceive the relationship? Are they in alignment. Do they both believe the relationship is positive or negative. Without getting too technical again, the general gist is to satisfy the constructs to yield robust relationships in which people feel safe, accept, and ultimately flourish. I believe providing support is one of the facets that go as far to satisfy the needs of these contracts. 

In contrast, the downside to over supporting players is that players have the potential to not realise their potential and even regress into their comfort zones and become “soft”. This is because it can leave players “off the hook” from attaining a standard or outcome (accountability). It can leave players “molly coddled” and I believe this is all too common in Australian sporting culture, that coaches aren’t tough enough like the years gone by. Just my opinion. Providing support can allow players to accept that they are enough as a human being despite how they perform, however accountability holds players to strive to attain a standard and this is how accountability and support can work in conjunction effectively to help players realise their potential and ultimately become something more then what they are. In my opinion, life is all about becoming something more. It’s about evolving, and embracing change. To be malleable, to be like water. To live in the present. It’s up to us to understand what change can be, and that is opportunity. I think that’s what accountability and support can do for us all, to help us become something more.

In summary, this article has introduced the concept of accountability and support, it’s dualistic relationship in elite football, as well as its positive and negative impacts on athlete well being and my experiences of receiving and giving support. The people of influence who largely are responsible for applying accountability and support can be parents/family, peers, and coaches. How they deliver these principles is an art and a science and requires great emotional intelligence. It requires empathy but it often requires those people to be comfortable with being disliked. You only have to look at the plethora of examples in sports where athletes did not like their coaches, however respected them because their coaches held them to account.

Ultimately, being a leader in the elite context is about driving people to perform at a high level but we cannot forget that athletes are also human beings, and from that point of view they need support to guide them through their suffering. Only then will organisations create real meaningful relationships of authenticity. I have included experiences in my life where the people who held me to account also had the ability to support me in my times in suffering, as well as early in my career where I only had myself to provide my own support. At the end of the day, overcoming our challenges through accountability and support allow us to develop out ability to become resilient, to become something more.

”All that we are is the result of what we thought”