Sian Osmond: The coaching craft

Osmond on her professional journey

Football was always going to be my career path. I got a job at Barnet, working for the boys’ academy, and I started to get involved with the women’s side there, London Bees. I got a bursary for my UEFA B Licence, and year on year, I shifted roles and got closer to coaching with the first team. I started off with the development team, becoming their manager, then I was assisting with the first team, and eventually ended up as first-team manager.

During this time, I met Lee Burch, who’s the manager I currently work under at Rugby Borough. He really nurtured me and got me through the UEFA A Licence process. He moved on from London Bees and I had a year and a bit leading the side, and then he got a new opportunity at Coventry United, which is when I decided to leave. It was a move that I thought was the right thing for me, to go back into the Women’s Championship. Coventry United were later relegated into the National League South, and now as Rugby Borough we are in the National League North for this coming season. 

Osmond on shifting from manager to assistant

The large deciding factor was my experience working with Lee. He was a mentor for me at London Bees, and gave me the opportunity on the grass to coach and give me ownership on sessions that really started to help me grow and develop my own craft. 

I was really grateful for that, and having the opportunity to work with him again was a bit of a no-brainer. I’d had a bit of experience as manager, which I did enjoy, and I think it’s something that I’d like to do further down the line. But I still feel like I’ve got more learning to do, so being supported and owning parts of what we do day to day is helping me. 

Osmond on being an assistant

Football is a game of opinions. We don’t have the exact same mindset on everything. It’s just developing that relationship so that you can have that healthy conversation about decisions that need to be made. Over the course of the years that we’ve worked together, I think we do that well. It’s helped that we’ve set the parameters in terms of what our expectations of each other are every season. We’ve always sat down, had those conversations: “This is what I want you to focus on and potentially challenge.”

Osmond on the differences across the game

The football is the same. The Xs and the Os and the tactics and everything else will remain relatively consistent. It’s the players’ needs that slightly shift and adjust, what they need from you. But that’s not a difference between, say, the men’s and women’s game: it’s from player to player. What every player needs from you as an individual will vary quite drastically at times within your squad. Understanding what each of them really needs from you and how they need your information to come across is the art of coaching. That’s how you actually impact the individual. In the women’s game, perhaps a few more questions are asked; it’s brilliant, it’s a way of checking, challenging, and understanding. The biggest difference is now I’m working with professional athletes, so they need different information, game by game, and session by session.

Osmond on the learning process

I don’t think that the learning ever stops, because the game will constantly evolve and change. It tends to go in cycles, I feel, in terms of what’s fashionable, in terms of formation and styles of play. There’s always someone trying to counteract what you’re doing on a matchday, so you’re constantly learning to perfect your game plan as well. It sometimes feels like a bit of a game of chess that you’re always in with your opponent, but while you’re playing that, you’re learning so much about what you’re teaching your players as well. The game is always changing and progressing and growing. Particularly as the women’s game professionalises, I think there’s more to make sure that we’re supporting the athletes in the best possible way we can. From that perspective, I still think there’s loads to learn.

Osmond on what she loves about coaching

Some of the best moments that I’ve experienced is being able to support players, whether it’s coming back from injury or just developing players, from development centre into the first team, from first team into international football, that’s probably the most rewarding stuff. Obviously, winning is also really great! But the biggest thing for me is just working with people on a day-to-day basis, and watching them grow.