Life's a Ball': Ian Liversedge: The Highs and Lows of a Football Physio

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This is how it works. On Tuesday, the players are brought in for a double training session. If there is no game on Wednesday, they are given the day off. That means that, following training, they are left to their own devices. At many clubs up and down the country, groups of four or five players take the opportunity for a bit of team bonding, and head to the pub for the afternoon. At Oldham, that group numbers as many as 17. Everything is different now with diet and fitness regimes, Arsene Wenger changed it but your eyes still tell you whether a player is ready for it for or not. We must also remember it is still a game, not a science. Stephen Hunt of Reading was running into the box and as goalkeeper Petr Cech went down to collect the ball, Hunt’s leg collided with Cech’s head. was full, full-on. It’s like it is now in the Premier League, it’s a full-on job. Except the difference is, now, there’s three or four of them doing it, I was the only one doing it.”

There is an argument that there is no point in suddenly changing routines that players are comfortable with. Speaking exclusively to The Football Pink, he said: “My dad was a sports journalist – Stan Liversedge – he was assistant sports editor of The People in Manchester. Inevitably though, these decisions always end up laying bare the flip side of the beautiful game, the one where people get hurt and heartbreak is only a result away.In 2014, Fred Street was given a lifetime achievement by the Football Medical Association. As well as providing the accolades, chief executive and former Manchester City physio Eamonn Salmon had already gone on record to recall how the role of physio had changed over the years. Life’s a Ball is good fun, unpretentious and gives the reader a gossipy insight into what goes on at a football club. Cech played with a rugby-style head guard ever since and that protected the areas of his skull weakened by the collision. Ian explained: “Relegation is not nice. This relegation is not like a normal relegation, they’ve relegated us. To be honest, we would have got out of it.

This is very much against the tradition, certainly in English football, of the ‘manager-physio-players’ model where good working relationships were traditionally built. think I’ve had eight or nine promotions, but you don’t get those promotions if you’re not a team. You’re a team on the pitch and you’re a team off the pitch. Robson for instance is one who wants to carry on and play no matter what the injury is – Peter Storey used to be the same when he was playing for either Arsenal or England. I started at Arsenal in 1986, the full-time staff was the manager George Graham, the assistant manager Theo Foley and the kit man Tony Donnelly as well as myself. The manager and centre of excellence director’s opinion was eventually changed by the requests of players to be allowed to see Doctor Waller earlier if they needed to discuss a medical issue and a talk with him about preventative treatment – and so began a fruitful and amicable partnership with the management of the club.For manager Joe Royle, he did eventually win the FA Cup with Everton and one of the few who did win it as a player and a manager. Manchester United went on to great success dominating the domestic honours just like Liverpool did in the ’80s. Special interests: Non specialist airway management, complex patient management and clinical education He said: “I went in July 1982 to Newcastle and I started on the Tuesday and they said, ‘Bring your passport because we’re going to Madeira on a pre-season tour on Friday.’ discussion went along the lines of, ‘He is fit to start but not confident he will finish and he may do further damage to his knee.’ He was later cleared at an FA hearing of being verbally abusive to her in his native Portuguese language.

When Terry Venables was appointed England manager he agreed that long serving physios Fred Street and Norman Medhurst had done a very good job and were both utterly dedicated to England, but in this department, it was time for a change. “We needed a new dash of enthusiasm and fresh ideas.” He recounts: “I was just about to wipe the floor with the kitchen staff when I heard a familiar voice coming from the other side of the room. are bound to be rifts along the way – one party standing their ground over a point of discipline, perhaps, or the other claiming they know how to handle the youngsters- but a sound partnership will help them to ride the storm. Does the name ring a bell? It might to supporters of a certain vintage whose Mastermind speciality subject is Newcastle United of the early 1980s.

Following his departure from Boundary Park, Liversedge would work for clubs such as Manchester United, Stoke City, Burnley and Huddersfield Town. Almost 40 years on from the beginning of his journey, Ian finds himself having come full circle by being Tranmere Rovers’ current club physio. The two years Liversedge spent at Newcastle ended with the club winning promotion to the old First Division, the first Keegan era if you will.

I can recall at breakfast the following morning asking Alan Smith, former England and Sheffield Wednesday sponge man, who those people were. He informed me his own son was one of three medical staff shown the door by the manager at Hillsborough.

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Understanding the dynamics of a football club environment are an essential aspect, discipline and organisation are also important factors in successful teams. A famous incident occurred in 1989, when Michael Thomas injured his knee in the Wimbledon game 10 days before Arsenal played Liverpool in the first division title decider at Anfield. I placed discipline above all else and it might have cost us several titles. If I had to repeat things, I’d do precisely the same, because once you bid farewell to discipline, you say goodbye to success and set the stage for anarchy.”– Sir Alex Ferguson.