{"id":4801,"date":"2016-05-19T18:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T08:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playerdevelopmentproject.com\/?p=4801"},"modified":"2024-01-22T14:19:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T03:19:52","slug":"interview-sean-reed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playerdevelopmentproject.com\/interview-sean-reed\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Sean Reed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Reed<\/a> is a coach who epitomizes a lot of people working in professional football in England. Sean is a man who has quietly gone about his work over the last 16 years in two of London\u2019s top clubs from academy to first team level resulting in a wealth of knowledge and experience. We caught up with Sean to discuss his experiences in football fitness, cognitive development and coaching in the Championship.<\/h2>\n

Sean grew up playing locally and at the school of excellence of Wimbledon FC. He concedes that \u201csize was never on his side\u201d and he ended up playing for a semi-professional conference team. So when an opportunity to go to America, get an education and play football on scholarship came up, it was too good to turn down. After four years at Rollins College in Orlando, Florida, Sean returned to England still hungry to play but with a newfound enthusiasm for coaching.<\/p>\n

So where did it all begin? Sean explains, \u201cI started off in 2000 at Crystal Palace in the academy foundation phase (8-11 year-olds) whilst still playing semi-professionally and completing my Masters. I\u2019d initially spent some time observing until a role came up, which I jumped on. I was quite young at the time and one thing that I learned early on (and has stuck with me ever since) was when one of the senior coaches approached me as I was setting up my session and said, \u2018Just to let you know, if the Academy Director sees you doing a \u2018drill\u2019 he\u2019ll sack you.\u2019 Immediately I learned that I would have to be creative in how I worked. The focus was on decision-making within sessions, multi-directional movement and teaching players to be independent.\u201d He continues, \u201cThere were times when I would turn up having planned my session to then only be told that the numbers had changed, there was limited equipment available and the space I could work in had been dramatically reduced so this taught me to be adaptable. There were some great people at the club. Working at Palace was a great experience, a fantastic education for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2004 the opportunity arose to move to South-West London club, Fulham FC. Sean suggests \u201ca few things had changed at Palace\u201d so he took his chance and moved to London\u2019s oldest professional club. Given his Masters was in Sports Science in Coaching, Sean brought a unique skillset. I asked him to elaborate in more detail on his work in football fitness and rehabilitation. He explains, \u201cI came into the club coaching in the academy. Then after about 2 years along with my coaching, I began implementing and delivering a movement programme working with other players and teams (in the warm ups or within the session). As time went on I started working with specific groups which included position specific. I looked to continually develop this and eventually this would become part of the work I did with the senior players\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sean moved from the academy to the first team in 2008. \u201cI was brought in to bridge the gap between the football and the fitness. From that opportunity after a couple of years I created a bit of a niche for myself working with players returning from injury. Instead of just getting them fit I was coaching them back. Making it position specific and inline with the Managers playing philosophy. Going into the rehab work, it was about making the work specific to the players\u2019 individual needs and working with the sports science department and the coaching department.\u201d<\/p>\n

With some high caliber staff at the club at the time, there were \u201ca few changes\u201d according to Sean. \u201cI got asked to coach the U21s,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat role basically took over from the previous rehab work with the first team. I initially worked alongside Ray Lewington before he went off to work with England. I then worked with Kit Symons for a couple of years with the U21s. When Kit got promoted to the first team manager role, I went with him and became first team coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

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