ARTICLES

CONSIGLIERI AND VICE-CAPTAINS

Last year, Mike Atherton wrote a fascinating article in the Times about how Ollie Pope might have three weeks, in Ben Stokes absence through injury, to prove himself a worthy successor as captain in due course. Pope went on to score only thirty runs in his first two tests as stand-in captain against Sri Lanka but ended the international season with a century. Captaincy, as well as playing at the highest level, might take time to settle in.

Mike Atherton’s piece was largely about the role of the vice-captain, something which has rarely, if ever, been taken very seriously. What does a vice-captain do? In rugby, it has become quite fashionable to have two or three. Team sports nowadays often have leadership groups. Atherton remarked that “there is remarkably little literature on the role of the deputy, the number 2 or the vice-captain’”. He went on to discuss a wonderful book ‘Consiglieri - Leading from the shadows’, written by Richard Hytner. This is a book that has interested me enormously.

Richard is a fellow director of the ‘Foundation for Leadership through Sport’, a charity we set up a decade ago. Richard was a CEO and a number 2 and felt best suited to being the latter. He suggests that there are two types of consiglieri - the genuine deputy, happy with the role in the shadows, but often hugely important, not seeking any limelight. The second is the ‘leader-in-waiting’. In sport, vice-captains have usually been of this sort. They are ready to lead, as Pope did, but they may not be seen to be the right person when the captaincy role is available. Atherton proposes that in modern professional sport, the number of coaches and backroom staff, a mix of specialists of all sorts, has led to a lesser role for the vice-captain. Some would say that the decision-making skills of captains and other players have been eroded by the presence and influence of so many others in the background.

It may be that coaches, ever mindful of their influence and status, prefer the captain AND the vice-captain to be in the shadows. Am I the only person who is opposed to the ‘technical area’ alongside the pitch, prowled around by screeching managers in soccer, or rugby coaches going on the field with ‘WATER’ on their bibs?

In sport, we should be developing leadership skills and decision-making capability, so that captains and their deputies can do their jobs unencumbered, but collaboratively. Cricket, with its’ complex mix of bowling changes, field placing, attack and defence, is a sport, more than any other, that requires leaders out on the field. Not, as in other sports perhaps, to lead by example, but to manage the tactical and strategic elements of the game. There remains a place for the consiglieri to work with the leader.

In the coming year, FLS will hold a conference on leadership, captaincy and the role of the consiglieri, all worryingly neglected in modern professional sport.

Bob Reeves

Richard Hytner - FLS Director

Kevin Bowring

Our FLS Associate, Kevin Bowring, sadly passed away in October. Kevin had a distinguished career and he was involved in many of our FLS activities. Initially a schoolteacher, he went on to excel in elite sport, becoming the Wales Senior national coach before going on to work for the Rugby Football Union for 14 years, where he was in charge of Elite Coach Development. His funeral, in a packed Malmesbury Abbey, demonstrated how much he was respected by so many people, a large number of whom he taught and mentored. Kevin was a loving and kind family man, and our sympathies go out to his Wendy and family.

Liz Reeves

I have some very sad news to report to members and others interested in FLS.  My wife Liz passed away in April after a brave three year fight against cancer.  Liz was a wonderful person as well as a marvellous partner in life.  She was also, almost from the outset, my main support in FLS, doing the admin so well for the charity for many years.

Bob Reeves

Nigel Wray

FLS would never have come into being without Nigel. He told me over a decade ago that he would support FLS with annual funding of £25k for ten years, and that is what he did. It all started when I was in a meeting with Sue (now Baroness) Sue Campbell, who was then the Chair of UK Sport. We were bemoaning the failure of British sport to explicitly set out to develop leaders. There had always been a ‘leaders are born not made’ mentality. I suggested to her that we ought to do something about it. A week later, I was with Nigel Wray, and I told him of the conversation with Sue. Nigel immediately said ‘Get something going, and I will support you’. So it was that within a couple of months, the Foundation for Leadership through Sport charity was born. We never had ambitions to be anything more than a smallish charity, doing useful things and developing tentacles going out into sport at all levels. This I believe we have done, very much thanks to Nigel’s help from the very beginning.

Having supported us for just over a decade, Nigel has now stepped away and we are on the look out for another Nigel!!. 

Those of us involved in FLS thank Nigel for his backing from the start and his active involvement in our activities.

Bob Reeves

December 2023

Sir Dave Brailsford and the role of a Performance Director

Team Sky cycling Manager Dave Brailsford and riders

The news that Dave Brailsford was to take up a position at Manchester United has been met with quite a lot of critical comment, but it makes total sense to me. Understanding high-level performance and the pressures that abound in elite sport is crucial for any person involved in the delivery of sustained success in any sport. If you can deliver the goods in one, it is very likely to mean that you can do it in others.

Sport performance is complex, and we are right when we try to keep it simple, up to a point. Simple that is, for the players. Coaches and fitness specialists may need to study performance in detail, but their task is to make sure that players understand their functions in the simplest possible terms so as not to be overwhelmed by too much ‘thinking’. Many people do the thinking for the players, and we should leave the players to make decisions on the field of play. Those behind the scenes can ensure that the environment is as it should be for training, recovery, travel, accommodation etc.

Consideration of many of these elements does not require technical knowledge of any one given sport.

The person who can make sure that all factors are considered in a balanced way is the performance director. I can remember in the early '80s when Frank Dick, then one of the top running coaches in the world, was invited to take a session for RFU Senior rugby coaches at Bisham Abbey. The purpose was to show how to improve running skills, particularly speed. Several of the coaches present were heard mumbling, “What has this got to do with rugby”? How things have changed since then, with the role of Performance Director increasingly regarded as of great importance. In recent years Sarah Symington, an Olympic cyclist herself, has had key performance roles with British Archery, Athletics and England netball, achieving significant success with all of them. She is now back with British Cycling. Chris Spice, a former Australian hockey International and coach, was the performance director at British Basketball and then England Rugby before moving to British Swimming, where he has been working successfully since 2013.

Dave Brailsford was the Performance Director at British Cycling, then Team Sky and finally Ineos. He has also helped Nice this season who are now sitting 2nd in the top French soccer division, somewhere they are not used to being.

Despite this, there have apparently been many United fans asking what a cycling man can bring to their club. It should be obvious - he can bring a knowledge of sustained high-level performance. There is more to it than the ‘marginal gains’ philosophy that brought Brailsford’s approach to Cycling into the public domain, though this alone might suffice if it is understood properly.

Six months before the 2012 London Olympics I spent a day at the Manchester Velodrome, the home of British Cycling, and had a couple of hours with Dave Brailsford. At the time I was on the council of the Rugby Football Union and was quite involved in the performance of the England team. I asked him straight:

“If you were the Performance Director of England Rugby, would you win us the World Cup?”

With no element of boastfulness, he said “Yes, but there are two provisos. First, don’t expect me to be the coach. I am not the coach of Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins, but I am responsible for their programme. I am also responsible for who coaches them.

Secondly, I would want something I don’t think you could give me - control of the players.”

The latter point was a telling one, as England and France are the only two leading rugby nations where the top players are not primarily under the control / management of the National Governing Body. I believe that he could have steered England to the World Cup, it is unfortunate that he never had the chance!

On my visit to the Velodrome I saw something remarkable that provided a terrific example of what world-class performance, including marginal gains, is all about. I was looking down on the track, above the bend. The team pursuit team were being put through their paces. Suddenly, when it was his turn to take the lead, Geraint Thomas made a rare mistake and clipped the back wheel of the team-mate in front of him. He went flying and slid perhaps 20 metres round the track, burning his lycra suit, coming to a stop sprawled across the track and holding his shoulder. The head of communications, who was showing me round, said immediately that this could be the end of Thomas’s Olympic aspirations, as such falls usually result in a broken collarbone or at the very least, a dislocated shoulder (which is what happened in this case).

What happened next, and within seconds of the fall, was astonishing. A doctor appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and knelt by the side of the cyclist, immediately followed by a paramedic with a stretcher. Thomas was taken to hospital, where he was seen within less than 30 minutes of his accident. Having immediate attention meant that his recovery was swift, and less than 6 months later, the pursuit team of Burke, Clancy, Kennaugh and Thomas won the Olympic Gold in a new world record time.

I asked if this was a regular occurrence as they seemed so ready for it. The response - “No. It is the first accident like that I have seen here for a couple of years. We just have to be ready for the next one, whenever it is”. Marginal gains is attention to detail, and there are many details involved in elite performance. I am pretty sure that if Dave Brailsford goes to Manchester United, he will make changes, and they will lead to improved performance. I hope he has the chance this time!

January 2022

Sporting Leaders - Claire Tomlinson- A pioneer in a male environment

Our events in recent years have been supported by leading figures from the Hurlingham Polo Association. Our FLS links with the HPA stem back 25 years to when Bob Reeves became acquainted with Claire Tomlinson, the most prominent female in the world of polo. Claire recently passed away. The story of how she changed women’s participation in the very male-dominated sport of polo compares with what many other leading female figures have had to endure in sport is worth knowing.

CULTURE & CLIMATE

Please click here to see Bob Reeves’ thoughts on Culture and Climate based on recent news events.

Our next conference will be in November on the subject which reflects the purpose of FLS, ‘Developing leaders in, through and of sport’. This will focus significantly, though not exclusively, on women sporting leaders. Sporting leaders, whether coaches or administrators, still tend to be largely male and in many sports there are perhaps too many fromoverseas. I hope we can host this conference in November. All FLS members will be provided with information in due course.

We think we should start inserting more material on our website. I have attached here something I wrote a short while ago, and posted on Linked-In. If you have any thoughts on the subject, please respond and we will include items of interest.

Also, you may be interested in writing something original for our FLS Forum here on the website. Please contact me here if you have any ideas.

Bob Reeves - Director

NEW LEADERS IN SPORT

What have we learned about sporting leadership in the past few months?

We cannot go far without considering how Gareth Southgate has calmly and quietly changed the culture around our national soccer team. His young charges displayed maturity and composure beyond their years - let’s not diminish this because of the penalty shoot-out.

Briefly - on the shoot-out, did you notice Southgate going round each of his selected penalty takers and quietly asking them if they were OK to do it? They all said they were. The fact that three missed has dominated the headlines but I was impressed by the obvious support given by colleagues and how it was made clear that it was a team-effort with no individuals singled out for blame. The individual players will all have gained enormously from the experience and there is little doubt that this will be a very competitive team on the world stage in the coming years.

Southgate’s rather splendid piece, ‘Dear England’, that he wrote prior to the European games gave an inkling as to how he has created the change in our national side. If you haven’t read it, please do so at:

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/dear-england-gareth-southgate-euros-soccer

A couple of lines extracted from this article give an indication of modern leadership and the importance of developing people and not just players -

‘This is a special group. Humble, proud and liberated in being their true selves’.

He goes on -‘I have never believed we should just stick to football. ------- It’s their duty to continue to interact with the public on matters such as equality, inclusivity and racial injustice, while using the power of their voices to help put debates on the table, raise awareness and educate.’

‘—the reality is that the result is just a small part of it. When England play, there is much more at stake than that. It’s about how we conduct themselves on and off the pitch, how we bring people together, how we inspire and unite, how we create memories that last beyond the 90 minutes. That last beyond the summer. That last forever’.

Gareth Southgate - Alamy

England Team - Alamy

What interests me is how much effect this focus on ‘people development’ has on playing performance. It appears that it is highly significant. Danny Kerry, coach of the Olympic gold winning GB womens hockey team, has spoken of the importance of having an appropriate culture within sporting groups, and described how over time this can be created. Currently, New Zealand are ranked first in the world at cricket and men’s and women’s rugby. How come this small nation can be so successful in sports played worldwide? It is probably because they understand what Gareth Southgate has learned. Individuals are, as Southgate wrote- ‘Humble, proud and liberated in themselves’. Team performance is so often greater than the sum of the individual parts.

How is this high-performance culture created? One way it is not created is by way of traditional transactional leadership, whereby players are told what to do and are expected to do what they are told. Successful modern coaches ask the right questions rather than giving all the answers. They encourage decision-making and responsibility. Respect is important. Other people are important.

I have been doing some work with young sporting leaders, and they are wonderful ambassadors for their sport and for themselves. In the recent past, many talented young people have, despite their total commitment to their sport, found time to visit schools, show an interest in the community around them and support those more needy than themselves. They show that they care.

Several politicians in the past few weeks have publicly stated our sporting stars should keep out of politics. How ironic, when some of the very same political leaders have endeavoured to ingratiate themselves with sport. The Prime Minister was going to invite the England footballers to Downing Street if they won the final. Losing as they did should have made it even more appropriate to invite them. Withholding the invitation tells us more about leadership in the political arena.

Beliefs on what makes great leaders have changed in recent times. They have changed for the better. I will pursue this hugely important topic in the coming weeks.

Bob Reeves LLD FRGS