Academy staff member Greg Irvin provides an in-depth look into the work that goes on behind the scenes at the Academy of Light.
Experience and the role itself. . .
I’m the lead academy sports psychologist and I head up the sport psychology programme we deliver to all the different stakeholders associated to the Academy, including; players, parents and staff.
For the players, we cover pretty much everything from the development team right down to the under-9s. Within that, I work alongside James Maurice who leads on delivery up to the under-16s, whilst my remit sees me cover the youth team as well as the under-23s.
My background in sport stems from professional rugby. I had enjoyed a couple of years at Newcastle Falcons and that was quite an important stepping stone for my career. I had a couple of significant injuries and it was while I was injured that I decided to look into the psychological side of sport performance. I then went back to university to do my masters in sport and exercise psychology. Following the completion of that I then came straight into the academy, originally on an internship to deliver education sessions to first-year scholars. From there the former academy manager Ged McNamee took the position on as a full-time role and that was four-and-half years ago.
An ever changing landscape. . .
The role has grown massively over time, and the fundamental objective of the programme now is to seek to help develop resilient footballers who are able to adapt to the demands of any situation, and therefore maintain a high level of performance.
One of the significant hurdles we try to get the players to overcome is feeling comfortable when performing in front of an audience. The presence of other people brings a level of pressure to anything we find ourselves doing, and so we strive on the programme to give players the tools to be able to cope when performing in front of a crowd. Obviously this starts off small, but ultimately my role is to mentally prepare the players so that if they ever get their chance in a first-team match then they will be ready to step up and play to their potential in front of 45,000.
As well as that, we look to try and help players cope with the demand to reach high levels of performance day in day out. There will always be situations when they can’t be a perfect 10/10, but we like to talk about the 100% mindset, whereby if they can’t be a 10/10, then they are a 9/9, or an 8/8 etc. That way, players are always striving to give everything they can on any given day, and if we get this right, then the guys can perform at a consistently good level, which is vital for any aspiring elite athlete.
A season to learn from. . .
I travel to home and away games with Sunderland under-18s and it has been a season for the players to learn from. I think it has been a case of short term pain for long term gain. When the heavy defeats have happened it has been really difficult and the players have found it challenging to stay as motivated to try and perform. At times, we have had to help pick them up and try and keep them focused on their long term development. However, I firmly believe that whilst the challenges the boys have faced have been difficult, in the long term it is going to massively benefit their development because they haven’t just had a smooth ride. They have had to deal with setbacks, and regularly problem solve as to how to change what they do to perform a little bit more effectively. Ultimately, the development of this type of flexible thinking will stand them in good stead to go on and cope more effectively with the challenges and demands they will face later in their footballing careers.
