Coach, Manager And Everything In Between

Isabelle Westbury explains how the role of coach has evolved in modern-day sport as a whole

In January this year, Durham-born John Herdman was appointed head coach of the Canada men’s football team. In doing so he became the first person to take charge of a men’s national team having previously been the women’s head coach. In fact, almost his entire coaching experience has been in the women’s game.

While women’s sport continues to make strides on the field, it is the off-field roles – in its administration, media coverage, coaching – which are often viewed as inferior to those in the men’s game. A stepping stone, if we’re being diplomatic. Herdman’s move, from coaching the world’s fourth-best women’s team to the 80th best men’s team, might be seen as supporting that notion.

Not according to Herdman. He believes instead that this fluidity across teams, across genders, shows that women’s sport is being taken seriously. “I don’t think it’s a massive difference (between genders),” said Herdman in an interview with The Independent. “These millennials, this young generation of players, don’t see a huge difference between male and female.”

Most switches have been in the other direction; Phil Neville was appointed coach of the England women’s football team with no experience of the women’s game, but a lifetime in men’s football. Neville’s cricketing counterpart, Mark Robinson, is also a product of the men’s game, having previously been head coach of Sussex men. Robinson’s experience of professional men’s sport is credited for much of his success, alongside his ability to transfer those skills to the only fully professional women’s team in the country.