My Matchday Role: Oscar Peverley

To celebrate the hard work of our staff and volunteers at Blyth Spartans, this new series gives the dedicated individuals of our football club a platform to talk about their roles. Phil Castiaux spoke to Club Physio Oscar Peverley about recently joining the Club, graduating from university, and how he got his position at Blyth Spartans.

Speaking on where his passion grew from to be involved in physiotherapy:

"I remember watching the 'All or Nothing' Manchester City documentary and from there it made me really want to pursue a career in physiotherapy in the sports industry, especially in football. Seeing the relationships and the dynamics between the players, coaches and other back-room staff was something that I really wanted to be a part of and see myself doing.

"From there, I tried looking into who the back-room staff were at Manchester City to reach out to them and researched other clubs who had their staff names or contacts available for me to get in touch with.

"I must've sent over 100 emails to practitioners and staff members who worked for football clubs up and down the country for advice or any potential opportunities to get involved. I got some good responses and pieces of advice to help guide me into the direction that I wanted to go."

When discussing study life, comparing his role at the Club, and how he landed the job, Oscar said:

"I graduated recently from Teesside University with a first-class honour in physiotherapy and starting this month I'll be studying part-time doing my masters degree in sports and exercise medicine. However, anyone who's done this role before will tell you that you'll never know everything, so you've got to focus on your development and understanding of the subject in your own time.

"So, with doing physiotherapy it's a little bit different to sport physiotherapy as you would cover topics about working with elderly, amputees and cardiovascular and raspatory patients. A lot of that is worlds away from my day-to-day role at Blyth, it's not really where my passion is because of my love for sport but I must still learn about it because I need to know it to get to the position that I am in now.

"Before I got the Spartans role, I worked alongside Gary Neasham previously during his role at Park View Academy in Sport where I done some voluntary work alongside my university studies. Speaking to Gary at the Senior Cup final he mentioned to me about a potential role coming up.

"We spoke a lot during the summer regarding the role and I was initially worried that my studies for my masters degree down in Nottingham would get in the way of my role at Blyth, so I ended up coming in during pre-season to help while they were looking for someone to bring in for the physio role full-time.

"Thankfully, speaking to the university I was able to move a few things around on the degree programme so that it meant that I was able to do both. So, what came around as trying to help the club out in some capacity turned into a bit of luck!"

Oscar concluded with comments on the contemporary extended additional time on fixtures as well as his views on the lads' ethics within preparing and recovering pre- and post-matchdays:

"In regard to what is happening in football right now with the extended periods in added time some upwards to reaching 100 minutes of football played. It's something that I think is very worrying.

"But I think although this is worrying time for every football club up and down the footballing pyramid, we've got a good group of lads here who know how to look after themselves and recover well so as long as we keep doing what we're doing now and helping each other we will be fine."