Leatherhead
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Leatherhead
FOOTBALL CLUB
Leatherhead FC is a fine example of a well-run, superbly administered
club that works together to achieve its goals. Football Focus Magazine
recently caught up with Club Representative Martin McCarthy to find
out more about the good work the club has been doing lately.
He told us, “I joined the club at the
start of the 2018/19 season (May 2018)
so have been at the club for 10 months
currently. What attracted me to the club
was the community of people that work
tirelessly to maintain their club to the
best standards it can be. I am currently
doing my UEFA A licence and so I
needed to be coaching at a club that was
at a certain level.
I was approached by Leatherhead to
come to the football club via its Chairman
Richard Brady, who works at The FA and
was aware of my current journey and the
levels that I wished to reach. Since Day 1,
it was obvious that this great club needed
some new direction and so the challenge
for myself and Nikki Bull was to invest
some time and ideas to regenerate this
‘sleeping giant’.” feel at the club. No club is perfect and
anyone who says it is, is not listening
to each and every individual involved
supporting the club. What’s good for
one person, may not be good for another
however one thing is for sure and that
is that all at the club know we are doing
everything we can to bring a ‘one club’
feel back to it.
We have involved supporters
everywhere we can, in both the club set
up and the team set up so that they have
complete transparency with what we do.
Due to this, the feedback is brilliant and
the supporters are aware of what goes on
behind the scenes and so they feel a part
of the decisions made at the club and
the direction we wish to take the club
forward. Doing this, our success is based
on a togetherness that may not have been
there in the past and keeps everyone
playing their part every Saturday.”
Atmosphere This Season
“The atmosphere at the club at the
moment is brilliant. There’s a real united This season has been better than
we would have envisaged on the first
Involvement
56 Issue 84
day when we walked in. When we
joined in the summer, we only had two
players that had committed to the club.
Therefore, we had the task of rebuilding
a whole new squad.
In addition, there was no identity at
the club, in regards to a direction that the
club wanted and so we had to sit down
and discuss exactly what we all wanted
to achieve. Our aim was to bring in
young, hungry players and allow them
a platform to impress and show exactly
what we felt young players would bring
to the table, and I truly believe we have
done this.
‘What is classed as success?’ was a
question we continually ask those at
the club and to each other. The answers
differ from club to club, however ours
was to build a foundation on which to
build. ‘Rome isn’t built in a day’ is a
quote we stand by and so block by block,
piece by piece we are looking to build a
platform from which we can put pieces of
the jigsaw together to generate hopefully
a team and a club that its supporters are
proud to be associated with.