Austin Harris (Class of 2001) returned to Bolton School Boys’ Division to deliver a fascinating World of Work talk that charted his football coaching career. His takeaway messages for boys were to make yourself trainable, teachable and coachable, to follow your dreams and to have a Plan B.
Austin, who now trains football coaches for the FA, told the boys of his unique journey. He said it is quite okay to be sat there and to not know what you want to do – he said that if in 2001, when he was leaving school, if somebody had presented him with the silde he was showing today tracing his career, he would not have believed it. Reflecting on his time at Bolton School, from the Junior Boys’ School through to Sixth Form, he said that although he enjoyed it, what he did not realise at the time was that these really are the best days of your life. He recalled how, academically, he went down the languages route and fondly remembered his teachers, Mr Freem and Mr Hiepko.
He moved on to university, telling how he spent five years at St Andrew’s, studying for a BA in German before undertaking a Masters and a PGCE. He recalled how, during this time, he also enjoyed living in Austria for six months and Berlin for six months. During the summer holiday period, Austin went to the US and worked for British Soccer, visiting summer camps such as Camp America and coaching football. He told how, after graduating in 2006, he moved to London and worked in a private school on the edge of the city as a German teacher. Whilst there, Portsmouth Football Club set up some development coaching at his school for young children and he got a job helping out. From there, he became full-time FDA Academy Lead Coach (U7-12) at Portsmouth. Austin recalled how it was a a bit of a shock to him – he had always been a big Leeds fan and had played football at Bolton School but he never thought he’d work in the sport. Unfortunately, when Portsmouth went bust in 2011, he was made redundant. Luckily, he said, he has always had a fall-back position, which is teaching.
Austin informed the captivated audience how he then secured a position at Aldershot Town, who were then in the football league, as their U16 Academy Head Coach. He recalled how he had some brilliant years and referred to it as his apprenticeship. He said you had to do a bit of everything, including driving the mini-bus. In 2012, he said he became an FA Coach Developer and U10 Academy Head Coach at Crystal Palace. He admitted to this not being an easy time because of the travelling and it was his first experience of having to deal with street-wise inner city children – he realised he was no longer in leafy Hampshire and Surrey! Whilst he said it was an eye-opener, he developed as a person, finessing his comms skills particularly. After he got married and had a family, he started to look for work that was not 7 days a week. He told how he spent six wonderful years from 2013-19 at Brighton & Hove Albion FC, first as U13 and then as U14 Academy Head Coach.
Since 2019, Austin has worked as an FA National Coach Developer in the South East - for the Premier League and League Football Education SEP Education, supporting coaches on their education programmes.
After his presentation, Austin fielded a number of questions, including how do you move up from grassroots level coaching to something higher, have you worked with any premier league players, what is your best advice for making yourself stand out and did you ever want to be a first team manager?
