If Joe’s Jurgen then I want to be Pep!
Jon Newcombe talks to Jacob Ford, youngest of the great rugby family, about his coaching job
THE Ford family will soon have more moves than Jagger. While head of the house Mike Ford is busy cutting attacking shapes in a bid to turn around the fortunes of Leicester Tigers, his three sons are throwing themselves into new and demanding roles.
England playmaker George’s willingness to take himself out of his comfort zone to cover scrum-half at the Rugby World Cup is well-documented as is Joe’s baptism of fire as player/head coach of Yorkshire Carnegie.
The youngest of the lot though, Jacob, is not standing by in the shadows, the 21-year-old having been appointed head coach of National 2 South outfit Westcliff RFC.
This is a rugby-mad family where a rolling stone definitely doesn’t gather any moss.
Jacob says: “Obviously, we live and breathe rugby in this family. I’ve always watched my dad coach and my brothers play and being around that period at Bath when we started playing rugby a bit differently (the diamond formation), it was exciting, and I wanted to be a part of that and replicate that wherever I went. I kept my head down and learnt and now I’ve got a chance to do it for myself.”
Westcliff are about to embark on their first season at level four and are now the foremost club in Essex, operating above their better-known neighbours Southend Saxons.
From the outside, appointing someone so young and inexperienced at such a key time in the club’s history would appear to be a very bold move, but Ford junior has an old head on young shoulders and after speaking with him, you’re left in no doubt that he’s both up to, and up for, the job.
“Westcliff have just got promoted and they are very fresh and new to it all. They have a model of not paying players, they’re probably the only team in the league that doesn’t, and I have bought into that. We look after them in other ways in terms of feeding them and giving them kit. The lads have bought into it and if we can keep that going, we’ll have a good chance of staying up.
“The most exciting thing for me down there is that they are very open-minded and forward-thinking as a club. They’re moving into a new clubhouse next month which has taken years to build, they have got new, state-of-the-art pitches, and that is all exciting in itself as well as playing in the highest league that the club has ever played at before. It is a really good opportunity to build something special over the next few years.”
Handing out instructions to players much older than himself, in some cases nearly twice his age, would
daunt a lot of 21-year-old’s but not Ford.
“Last year, I was a full-time performance coach at Loughborough, predominantly working with the BUCS Super Rugby team. That was an experience, for sure. It was tough because Loughborough Students were in National One and all the emphasis and energy was on them and we were like the second team. But we stayed up which was our objective and we played some good stuff at times.
“As soon as I went there I was conscious about coaching people older than me especially students because they can be hard to manage at times. But I kept my head down and earned their respect by showing them the way I coach is a little bit different and, more importantly, treating players the way they should be treated, having good conversations with them and being very open about things.
“I have done the same at Westcliff and the buy-in has been excellent.”
The youngest person to pass an RFU Level 3 course by some years, Ford says his dad’s sacking at Bath in May 2016 contributed to him going down the coaching route instead of pressing on with a professional playing career like his older brothers.
“I was at Wasps’ academy originally for a year but then my dad got the Bath job and it was easier for me to go there because that’s where we were living. I got an ankle injury but played the last year in the academy and was all set to go to Bath Uni, who had a link with the club, but that all fell through when my dad left the club,” he explains.
“That’s how I got into coaching because I set up a rugby programme at Rishworth School (where the Fords were educated), as well as working with the different age groups at Yorkshire Carnegie academy.
“I loved playing, I was a 10 who played a fair bit at full-back and sometimes at centre but first and foremost I felt I was better at coaching. I understood the game and what I needed to do as a player but sometimes I couldn’t actually do it, or I was more interested in the analysis side of things and standing back and looking at the bigger picture. You can’t do that when you are playing.”
Brother Joe will attempt to do both when Yorkshire Carnegie kick off their season in a month’s time, making an already difficult job that much harder.
However, Jacob is confident Joe will be successful and come through smiling like one of his coaching idols, Jurgen Klopp.
“Joe has a hell of a challenge in the Champ. He’s got to get a team together by the end of August which, by all accounts, is going well.
“He’ll be a fantastic coach. I have been coached by him before (at Old Rishworthians), and I always compare him to Jurgen Klopp because he always brings energy to a team which is good. He’s a Liverpool fan and I am a City fan so there is a bit of rivalry there. I’d like to think I’d be Pep (Guardiola) but he hasn’t said that to me yet!”
“This is a rugbymad family where a rolling stone definitely doesn’t gather any moss”