"Understand The DNA" - Former Liverpool Coach & Executive On What Makes A Strong Sporting Director

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Dan Club (2:39)

Hello everybody. Welcome to The Redmen TV and your latest episode of Expert Insight. My name is Dan Club. I'm delighted to be joined by David Platt. David, first and foremost, how are you? You're good?

David Platt (2:49)

I'm good, thanks. Yeah, very good, Dan. How are you?

Dan Club (2:51)

Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks, mate. I'm all good. Appreciate you coming in. Appreciate the time. Always a pleasure. We don't do tons of expert insights in studio. It's very much a remote thing that we tend to do online, but I'd much rather do it in person. So I appreciate you coming in. I know you're not a million miles away from here, which is why it's happened. No, not far, yeah. Good, good. When you said that, I was like, oh, brilliant, music to my ears. Because honestly, the amount of these I've done, listen, sometimes they're all people worldwide, so there's no way of doing it otherwise. But yeah, expert insight in person. This is good. This is new. This is happy days.

Before we do dive into, often I would introduce the guest and do a bit of a rundown on their career. But I'm going to be honest with you, it needs to be you because there's so much to it, and it's so wide-ranging. It's high performance in a nutshell, really, but the jobs and the experiences and the places that you've been whilst doing, again, a wide range of different and a variety of different roles, is fascinating and interesting. If you don't mind briefly summarizing your career to date, just so everybody has a bit more of an understanding, is that okay?

David Platt (3:52)

Yeah, sure, Dan, no problem. Basically, I've been in football about 35 years in professional football in one way or another. I played as a youth player at Plymouth Argyle. Sadly, I didn't make it. I wasn't good enough, and I got released when I was 16 years old. So, straight away, I started coaching at 16, coached for Torquay United, which was my local club, in their community scheme, and then spent the next 35 years working various roles, going through the education at university, sports science degree, science and football, did a masters, ended up doing an MBA as well to understand more about the business and finance side of the game as well, and then did various jobs, coaching jobs, sports science, etc, etc. And then eventually, I was fortunate enough to land at Liverpool, at the academy. So, that was many moons ago, that was when Steve Highway was in charge of the academy. And I had two jobs there. I was full time in the day with the under 18s and the scholars, working on a wide range of things, but mainly player development and psychology and performance education. I also managed the relationship with Liverpool John Moores University and the academy. So, in terms of sports science and medicine and support and research, et cetera, and getting students in from the university to support us in the processes at the academy.