Back in the game
Injuries forced former Ireland player Kevin Foley to call time on his career, but he wasn’t ready to quit entirely
Kevin Foley talks about his move into coaching at Wolves
EVERY Tuesday is the same for the Wolverhampton Wanderers players. They gather for breakfast in the canteen at the training ground for 8.30am and begin the first of two, two-hour football sessions not long afterwards.
GPS tracking devices will be attached to each of their chests in order to glean all the data required. There is video analysis of the most recent game as individuals will have their performance pored over with coaches in an open environment. The desired outcome is continued improvement and development.
Having received their personal data and recommended schedules from the club’s sports scientists, there will be some lunch before the second football session of the day.
Once completed, that is when the strength and conditioning coaches take over. For those carrying a knock, the medical team will be on hand.
Before their work is done at 5.30pm, there will also be time for some studies in one of the three classrooms. This is, after all, a typical Tuesday for Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Under-13s.
‘It’s their school relief day with us,’ explains part-time coach and former Wolves and Republic of Ireland utility man Kevin Foley.
‘It’s scary how far it’s come on. Even I didn’t realise coming in they would have all that. It’s better than a lot of first team facilities. It’s incredible really but football is a changing game, isn’t it? The money involved now is ridiculous and everyone is trying to get the new talent to bring them through.’
The rest of the week isn’t quite as hectic, yet the demands are consuming. There are two-hour training sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, with another on Saturday morning, before a game on a Sunday. This weekend is slightly different, however, as Wolves are putting on trials. Yesterday there was a fixture with Northampton Town while, today, with the first team in action away to Newcastle United in the Premier League, another batch of 12-yearold hopefuls will face Barnsley.
Wolves is one of 24 clubs in England and Wales with Category One status for its academy, as laid out as part of the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP). The guidelines recommend £2.5 million is to be set aside to operate a top-grade academy – £500,000 for the lowest Category 3 – and a minimum of 18 full-time staff are required.
Foley, with just shy of 200 appearances for the club over nearly a decade, works predominantly with the Under-13s while continuing his coaching education with the Under14s, 18s and 23s on an ad hoc basis. He completed a combined UEFA A and B licence through the FAI over a four-year period in the summer of 2017, studying alongside fellow former internationals such as John O’Shea, Glenn Whelan, Paul McShane, Stephen Kelly, Keith Andrews, Gary Kelly, Darren O’Dea and Alan Quinn. Foley sympathises with another former international and current Shamrock Rovers Under-15 manager, Damien Duff, who has been vocal about how League of Ireland clubs operate their underage structures and the amount of time spent in training.
‘You’ve always got to be mindful because if you ask a young kid if they are tired, they will say no and want to play,’ Foley begins. ‘We’ll have sports scientists telling us they’re struggling so there will always be that conflict. You’ve got to be careful.
‘I know exactly what Damien is saying. You just want them to get as many touches of the ball as possible during your session. Sometimes I would say, the kids, in all academies in the Premier League and Championship, the facilities are so good sometimes that they don’t realise the opportunity they have.
‘I’ve reiterated how good a chance they have of doing well if they work hard and get the head down.’
Foley has only recently stepped into this new world with his old club after accepting that his 34year-old body could no longer deal with the rigours of professional football.
For many in this country, he will be remembered solely for Giovanni Trapattoni’s decision to axe him from Euro 2012 during a pre-tournament training camp, hours before the final squad had to be submitted to UEFA.
The problems which would eventually lead to retirement started the summer before, however, as the defender-cum-midfielder needed the first of two ankle surgeries which ultimately led to his career petering out, having played 74 times in the English top flight for Wolves.
There were spells at Blackpool, Copenhagen, Ipswich Town, Charlton Athletic, Coventry and, most recently, Billericay Town, a semiprofessional outfit in the the Isthmian League – the seventh tier of English football.
‘There is a reason why players don’t go on forever, no matter who you are,’ Foley accepts. ‘You hit a certain point where you just can’t keep taking the setbacks and the injuries. This season I was still half wanting to play. Wolves let me watch a few sessions, I trained with their Under-18s and after three or four days, I knew I was back to square one.’
Even starring performances in the five-a-side games on astro turf with friends made him think he still had something left in the tank.
‘But then I tore my calf this week jumping for a ball,’ he laughs. ‘In the back of my head before the game I was thinking maybe I could still play non-league. The injury is almost another blessing, it confirms what you were feeling. For six weeks you’re running rings around a few of the lads and you start kidding yourself.’
The hardest times of all, though, came when he should have been in the prime of his career from 26 onwards. Instead, his body would continually broke down.
‘Going from club to club, it’s not nice. You sign and you think: “I’ll get it right, I hope it will be fine”. It’s that feeling of letting people down when you go to clubs. They’ve signed you and that was the worst feeling I had towards the end.
‘You go with the right intentions, but then you’re injured or can’t perform, and you feel like you’re letting people down all the time. It’s horrible. My left big toe, I had trouble with it for years,’ Foley continues. ‘It sounds innocuous, but it would just flare up. It’s hard to explain, it’s amazing how much you need a big toe for things. That got worse and worse.
‘You have your self-pride as well, I know I’ve played at the highest level and done well, I always felt like I got to a club and people judge you, “he’s awful”, I always felt like I was nowhere near my best. I set high standards and it’s so frustrating knowing what you want to do and not being able to do it.’
‘I did everything I could to get to the Euros and get back fit that season,’ he recalls. ‘I was always a bit-part player up to that point, and it wasn’t meant to be. It was just frustrating, but you can’t live only thinking about these things.’
Of course, Trapattoni was replaced by Martin O’Neill and despite his success in getting to Euro 2016, Foley believes it was correct to replace the Derry man.
He worked with Mick McCarthy at Wolves, as well as a short time at Ipswich Town, and he reckons his former boss is the ideal man to take over from O’Neill.
‘It’s probably what Ireland need. They won’t sit off teams. Watching the last few years, they have sat back waiting to be attacked. Mick will take the fight to other teams.’
A busy time ahead for McCarthy and Foley, too.