Life's a Ball': Ian Liversedge: The Highs and Lows of a Football Physio

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ve got to be in harmony as well. If the team on the pitch is at loggerheads with the team off the pitch, then the players won’t play for you. You’re all in it together and the lower down you go, the more important that is.” In football you work as part of a team, as Dave Butler described in 1996: “I love the day-to-day involvement with the players, the atmosphere, the humour and camaraderie. But if things change for whatever reason, you can’t blend in for whatever reason, you’re finished.”

After a tempestuous year working at Burnley, Lake completed his Chartered Physiotherapy course at Salford University and went onto serve Altrincham, Oldham and Macclesfield Town. is important to let the manager have the facts as you see them, and not say what he would like to hear, and give your views as advice upon which he may act or not.s manager is the leading edge of a group of staff which frequently consists of assistant managers, coaches, goalkeeping coach, physio and a kit man as well as players and they are expected to build teams – in the pleural – rather than just a team. For veteran physios like Dave Butler, Roy Bailey (twice) and Ian Liversedge (four times) that experience remains raw. sitting alone at a corner table was Stan, mopping up a pool of orange egg yolk with a slice of fried bread.

He contrasts that with the ‘boss from hell’ who treats the appliance of science with contempt and attempts to cheat nature by demanding that unfit players are returned in the shortest possible time, regardless of the ramifications. was discussed with the player and he wanted to play. It was also discussed with the manager and he wanted to take the risk. Graham wanted to stamp his own authority on the club and that was his prerogative,”‘I know you wouldn’t want to be a number two’”. He was a special player. They were all good at that time, but Kevin was a cut above. He was also larger than life, a real character and easy to get on with.” Athletic and Liversedge would enjoy top-flight football for another two years before their zenith had been reached and a decline, which some would argue has not yet halted, began.

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What I will say is that players haven’t changed. They are still full of fun and I still love the game. Footballers are a lively bunch to be around and there are some stories that didn’t make the book. It’s not unusual for a manager to take his physio with him when he moves club. Liversedge spent a long time at Oldham with Joe Royle, who contributed the book’s Foreword, when they club made it to two FA Cup semi-finals. were qualified physios but not many of them worked in football. So, if I got injured, I went to see qualified physios and I thought, ‘I could do this, it’s quite interesting this’.”

After five-and-a-half years with Huddersfield, Liversedge moved to Macclesfield Town in January 2014. [7] Radio broadcast [ edit ] One chapter, ‘Out on the Toon’ begins with the sentence: “I was at Newcastle when I developed my passion for having a good time with the booze and partying.” I started at Arsenal in 1986, the full-time staff was the manager George Graham, the assistant manager Theo Foley and the kit man Tony Donnelly as well as myself. When then-Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho became embroiled in an internal row with club doctor Eva Carneiro in the club’s first game of the 2015-16 season, played out in front of millions of television viewers, it had repercussions for the whole football industry. Fred gives a good example of how he had to use his judgement during a game between England and Yugoslavia when Steve Hodge and Glenn Hoddle clashed heads, with manager Bobby Robson trusting his judgement.After taking advice from a number of physios, he kept the menu heavy with carbs and proteins, cereal, wholemeal toast and fresh fruit.

In 2014, Fred Street was given a lifetime achievement by the Football Medical Association. As well as providing the accolades, chief executive and former Manchester City physio Eamonn Salmon had already gone on record to recall how the role of physio had changed over the years.We haven’t quite reached the end of the club season and again we see mass culls of staff effecting people’s livelihoods. Every now and again we get the bolt out the blue departures when physios, like managers, are dispensed with. Liversedge would leave the Toon for Oldham Athletic in 1984 and remain at Boundary Park until the mid-90s. During this period, under the stewardship of the legendary Joe Royle, Latics enjoyed their heyday and several moments in the sun. Adam Hirst remains on the medical side, with the club keen to tap into his specialist skills in massage and sports nutrition. He said: “At smaller lower league clubs, there may be only one physio and they will have a very close working relationship with the manager.