Market Research - Club Structure.

[RavenBish]

Hello League 1 fans.

We're fucking terrible. There's been a lot of talk about structure - i.e. sporting director, manager, head coach, coaches, director of football. So instead of researching and guessing using FM and Wiki, I was just intrigued by the set-up of fellow clubs at this level. It's also crossed my mind that maybe we overthink things, maybe some teams just have a traditional chairman > CEO > manager type thing.

If you could answer these questions it would be greatly appreciated.

1) Basic structure - i.e. director > manager > coaches or just a manager - who signs the players? How much stuff is 'on' the manager?
2) Size of the operation - do you have big backroom teams or small ones? Brief description
3) How is your first team connected to the development/youth side. Is there an overarching position that oversees stuff or is the responsibility purely on the manager to watch the youth team and occasionally call someone up.

Thankyou for your time. Together we can do better and achieve more.

 

[JJ1532]

We have a first team manager in Steve Davis. His immediate superior is Dario Gradi, who is the director of football. Although I'm not sure how much influence Dario holds. I don't know whether Davis has to have his signings approved by Dario, any new deals for academy players or who to release and so on. I think that is entirely down to him. The tactics and selection of the first team certainly is! I think Dario holds the DoF title in title alone really, don't think he has that much say on first team matters. Might advise on which academy players are worth deals etc.

As for the size, the back room team is standard size I think. Got a manager, an assistant manager, first team coach, fitness coach, goalie coach, the usual etc. However, with our sizeable academy, we have more youth team coaches than most I'd imagine. Also, with us operating a tier 2 EPPP academy, we need extra supporting staff to fill the roles set out in the requirements for a Cat 2 status. So I'd imagine our academy operates with a fair number of staff. Hard to know the exact numbers because we don't disclose much info about thats sort of thing.

As for the connection, i've kinda answered that one. We have the first team squad which is made up of academy grads of differing ages(From Matt Tootle who is 6 years out of the academy, or the likes of Jamie Jones and James Baillie who are 1st year grads), free agent signings(Haber, Atkinson etc), loanees(Ajose, Tate, Leigh etc) with the odd couple of lower league punts like Jon Guthrie. Our official first team squad currently sits at 27, of which 2 are out on loan and 5 are loanees in to the club. So the number we have at the moment is 25, of which a few are injured obviously. Then we have the U21s, which is obviously a mix of those players who aren't regulars in the first team and sometimes players from the U18 youth team to make up the numbers.

Then we have the U18s, which is run much in the same way as every youth team is I'd imagine. A mixture of 1st and 2nd year scholars, with the 2nd years aiming to be awarded professional contracts at the end of the season. As we are big on youth, we obviously have a very close relationship between the youth teams and the first team, with gradual transitions made between the youth team, U21s team and first team. Unless of course you are an amazing talent and you get fast tracked.

The likes of Dario and the coaches at the U18, U21 and first team level oversee the movement between the youth teams and first team, as well as their development. Davis will no doubt have the say on whether he selects an impressive youth teamer or not, but I'd imagine there is significant pressure given our business model for him to play a decent number of academy grads in a season, if they are good enough obviously.

Hope that answers your questions.

 

[SkyBlueElephant]

Tim Fisher (chairman) > Steve Waggot (CEO) > Tony Mowbray (manager) > Neil Mcfarlane (Assistant, brought in with Pressley but still here) > Dave Hockaday (1st team coach and U21 manager) > Steve Ogrizovic (GK coach) > Jason Farndon (U18 manager)
Fisher doesn't really do anything now, the official line is that he is working on planning our new stadium. It's now 18 months since we were told the announcement of the site for the stadium would be 3 weeks away (which is now a recurring joke on skybluestalk)
Waggott deals primarily with the business side of football matters I believe so dealing with player agents, drawing up contracts, dialogue with ACL/Wasps on rental matters and that sort of stuff.
I believe the manager still has the final say on signing players, problem is we have no scouting network in place. So we often end up signing players whose agents have been touting around to every club, so even though the manager has given the go ahead for the signing its not really a player the manager has wanted or identified.

Integrating the youth is something Pressley had to do, he often talked about making the transition from youth to first team easier and creating a pathway to the first team. That the academy has to play with the same philosopy as the first team, he talked about little things like the youth team using the same canteen as the first team during lunch breaks in training and using the same changing rooms as the first team to integrate and make them feel part of the club. Mowbray has been watching the U21 and U18s play a fair bit since he arrived, I'm not sure if that is just to get familiar with the players or will be a regular thing.

One other thing, Pressley struck me as the type of man who wanted to micromanage every aspect of the football club, he often talked about the german model of fan ownership/ticket prices and all that stuff and the Barcelona model of the academy whereas Mowbray seems to be a lot more focused on just getting results but that could just be because of the situation we are in.

 

[SkyBlueElephant]

We have a good club shop though, I'm only joking here was the official merchandise stall on Wednesday at the Ricoh

We do have an actual club shop but it isn't at the Ricoh anymore, we haven't been able to buy a home shirt since about September unless you wear XXXXL but we have loads of this available

And looks like we are recycling old Leicester City tops as well

 

[Ninety Per Cent]

Peter Swann - Chairman/Owner
Jim Rodwell - CEO (new position, used to just be Chief Exec/General Manager)
Mark Robins - Manager
David Kelly - Assistant Manager

Mark/Ned say what players they want, if Swanny/Rodwell ok it we go for them.

Not sure who the youth coach is now, but we've a poor record of bringing them through. Most defenders are slated/bombed out by the manager of the day and the strikers don't get a chance.

 

[RavenBish]

This is good, thankyou so far, I'm making notes.

Mark/Ned say what players they want, if Swanny/Rodwell ok it we go for them.

Oh, we'll see how long that lasts...

 

[The Hand of Dom]

Darragh MacAnthony - Owner/Chairman
Bob Symms - Chief Executive
Barry Fry - Director of Football
Dave Robertson - Interim manager
Grant McCann/Aaron McLean - Interim support for Robertson

Robertson was previously our Head of Youth Development and took control of the U18s/U21s which I now believe Kieran Scarff is doing whilst we sort ourselves out.

 

[GloverGing]

As far as I know it is

John Fry/Norman Hayward - Co-owners/Chairmen
Terry Skiverton - Interim Manager
Darren Way - Interim Assistant Manager

The rest of our backroom staff are Gareth Stewart (player/goalkeeping coach), Stuart Housley (Football Analyst), 2 physios, and Dan the Kit Man

We don't have any youth teams, but it seems like the board are looking to re-establish a youth system.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

President: Francesco Becchetti
CEO: Alessandro Angelieri
Manager: Fabio Liverani
Assistant Manager: Marcello Donatelli
Youth Manager: Andy Edwards
Chief Scout: Gianluca Romano

They're the main ones. We also have goalkeeping coach/ interpretor in Rob Gagliardi and fitness coach Maurizio Cantarelli. Kevin Nugent is still at the club and can be seen in the dugout on a match day - fuck knows what his role is though. We also have a first team liaison officer (what?) Vito Miceli.

For the first half of the season Mauro Milanese was sporting director, however from what I gather him and Liverani fell out (possibly over Baudry moving to Peterborough), Liverani wanted complete control over first team matters, so Milanese was sacked.

There have been talks about a wider scouting network across Europe, which I guess falls under scout (and agent) Romano's remit.

That as far as I am aware is our structure.

 

[GFCSludge]

Chairman - Paul Scally
Manager - Justin Edinburgh
Assistant manager - Andy Hessenthaler
First team coach - Steve Lovell
Goalkeeping coach - Tony Burns
Development coach - Mark Patterson
Youth team manager - Darren Hare

Scally is king and what he says goes.

Hess has in the past been just a player as well as manager, player/manager, assistant, player/assistant manager and Director of Football. He was part of the "Gang of Four" appointed post-Taylor this season along with Lovell (my boyhood hero), Patterson and Hare.

Hess and Hare are brother-in-laws and both Hess Jnr and Hare Jnr are players in our squad which often attracts cries of nepotism from mongier members of the Gills fan base.

 

[Fandemonium]

Check out this lot!

http://www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk/global/contact.aspx

Chiefs and Indians?

Some would have us believe >adopts Kenneth Williams 'Carry On Doctor' style posture< they're all doing a magnificent job, we're lucky to have such talent at the Club and their only motivation is a desire to see CFC succeed.

Others reckon Chesterfield FC's staffed by money-grabbing hangers-on and we could get rid of half of 'em and probably be better off.

 

[Ciderup]

Blimey, that's a question and a half for us.
We are part of the Bristol Sport brand, owned by Billionaire Steve Lansdown. This also incorporates Bristol rugby, a f2 racing driver (Dino Zamparelli), the Bristol Vixens ladies football team, the Bristol flyers (basketball) and there are noises being made about Gloucesterhire cricket as well.
Bristol sport now own Ashton Gate so the redevelopment costs have no effect on the two clubs using it (us and the rugby boys).
All finance raised (including the soon to be corporate £££) goes directly into Bristol sport and is used to fund the clubs.
The football club still have Steve Lansdown as the majority shareholder (owner in effect) with his son John as CEO. We also have a multi Millionaire Keith Dawe as Chairman.
Under Keith we have a plethora of Bristol sport suits fulfilling various roles re the stadium and corporate management and on the football side we have Keith Burt as DoF and Cotts as first team Manager. We also have Gareth Conner as academy director, Brian Tinnion as head of academy recruitment and loads of specialist academy coaches all reporting directly to Gareth Conner who in turn reports to Keith Burt.
Burt has an active role in player recruitment working alongside Steve Cotterill.

It sounds very complicated but it actually works quite well as the football club is a separate entity to the academy AFAIK all linked under the Bristol sport brand.
I think that's pretty much it but stand to be corrected by one of my fellow reds.

 

[Scumarmy.]

 

[TimeyWimey]

We have a first team manager in Steve Davis. His immediate superior is Dario Gradi, who is the director of football. Although I'm not sure how much influence Dario holds. I don't know whether Davis has to have his signings approved by Dario, any new deals for academy players or who to release and so on. I think that is entirely down to him. The tactics and selection of the first team certainly is! I think Dario holds the DoF title in title alone really, don't think he has that much say on first team matters. Might advise on which academy players are worth deals etc.

+ John Bowler as Chairman on a fairly close knit board containing one or two bad eggs.

Dario is probably more of what a DoF should be. He does oversee everything on the football side, from the U-8s to the first team, he's not there to meddle in the first team, as seems to be the role of the modern day DoF. His schtick now seems to be coaching the coaches and it's paying off as much as setting up the academy.

Got to respect just how much he's backed off and let Steve Davis do his thing but I do think if Dario went to Bowler and said it was time for Davis to go, Davis would be gone.

I like our set up. It's steady, full of respectable individuals who work their arse off for the club. Obviously still one or two bad'uns at board level but otherwise we have individuals who have been at the club or connected with the club for the majority of their lives and have basically built this club. There's no massive egos, or being dicks on Twitter, which is often confused with us lacking ambition, just a lot of hard work keeping the ship above the water.

 

[Ninety Per Cent]

If it all goes wrong, as Boston and Notts supporting mates are predicting, it will be interesting to see what the various supporter groups do. The Iron Trust and SULSESC(London Based Fans) seem to be in a strop about them having no say around the club, if we go into Admin would they stand up?

 

[Chris]

Some people think Andy Pilley chucks a load of money at the club but there's a lot more to it and it would be foolish to tell you the secret to our success