Canberra's Andrew Young talks Fulham FC

Andrew Young in the Fulham FC gym with Diomansy Kamara the Senegalese International

Fulham FC's Fitness and Conditioning Coach Andrew Young writes THE WEEKENDER this week.

Please note The Weekender is a 450-700 word article written by Canberrans or others with a particular focus on Australian/Canberra football. Where else can you get football in Canberra on a Saturday? Feel free to suggest an article and let the increasing number of blog readers hear your thoughts.

This week former Canberran Andrew Young gives us an update on life in the English Premier League.

More Beckham, Lucas Neill, Inter Milan, and Old Trafford than you could want in one post.

It's a great read.

Can Fulham FC avoid the dreaded drop?

With only 7 games to go in the Premier League, survival is the name of the game for the players and staff here at Fulham FC.

Having already played the Big 4 teams home & away, we now face some critical '6 pointer' games against the likes of Birmingham, Derby, Reading & Sunderland in upcoming games. A couple of good results in these games could turn a poor season into a good one.

Given the club's relegation threatened status at present, you could be forgiven for thinking that the mood of the club and players is quite low.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Fulham manager Roy Hodgson includes Inter Milan in his CV.

Manager Roy Hodgson is very experienced having been in the game now for 32 years including 2 stints at Inter Milan. Nothing seems to faze him and he passes on his infectious positive outlook to players and staff every day.

That is not to say that he does not take the club's predicament very seriously, which he does. He just knows from experience that the best way to overcome such adversity is to be positive in your outlook and to continue to work hard on the training pitch every day.

Socceroo Lucas Neill gives relegation advice

I also recently had the chance to chat to the West Ham & Socceroo's captain Lucas Neill when we played them recently. Discussing Fulham's relegation fight, Lucas recalled how the key to West Ham's amazing premier league survival last season was the players self belief and positive attitude. It certainly worked for them!

Fulham FC flying in the “fitness league.”

Professional sport is all about accountability nowadays for both players and staff. Everyone is under scrutiny including the fitness staff, particularly given our lowly league position and habit of conceding late goals.

Fortunately for us, the Premier League publishes a 'fitness league' garnered from all the Prozone match statistics collected each week. They analyse fitness indicators such as the amount of high intensity running & number of sprints performed by each team.

Last season Fulham finished 2nd in the league and are currently ranked 3rd so Roy is very happy with our work. I guess that this is one of the reasons that I have managed to work under 4 different managers without them bringing in their own new staff.

But the league table does not lie so Roy and the management are concentrating on working on things like team shape, tactics and mental preparation as priorities.

Finnish Legend Jari Litmanen joins Fulham FC

The club was quite active in the January transfer window bringing in the likes of Brede Hangeland (Norway), Leon Andreasen (Denmark), Eddie Johnson (USA) and the legendary Jari Litmanen (Finland).

In fact, Jari spent his first week at the club doing individual ball training sessions with myself whilst overcoming an old injury.

Having played for Ajax, Barcelona and Liverpool it was not a surprise to see that his level of professionalism, first touch and finishing were superb! Here's hoping that he can score a few critical goals in the upcoming weeks.

International Week: 15 Fulham FC players represent their countries.

This week see's another FIFA International game window when many of the players leave the club to go and play for their National Teams.

Here at Fulham we have 15 international players including the current captains of Wales (Simon Davies), USA (Carlos Bocanegra), Russia (Alexei Smertin), Finland (Jari Litmanen) and Northern Ireland (Aaron Hughes).

Essentially we lose the guys for up to 4 days and they usually arrive back tired and fatigued 24 to 36 hours before our weekend game.

Preparing a Premier League team under such circumstances can be very difficult but fortunately Roy has much experience as an International Manager and is not too fazed by it all.

Socceroos World Cup campaign

Very pleased to see the Socceroo's campaign get off to a good start. Fulham's Korean midfielder Seol Ki-Hyeon has experience of playing under Socceroo's coach Pim Verbeek when he was the Assistant Coach of Korea to Guus Hiddink.

Seol spoke quite highly of him and felt that he had the makings of a good International Manager. Seol also mentioned that he was quietly hoping that Korea did not have to meet the Socceroo's in their World Cup qualification campaign!

Personal highlights at Fulham FC: Drinking with David Beckham.

I have been asked what the highlights for me were during the past 3 seasons with Fulham FC.

They would include playing Real Madrid in a pre-season friendly in 2006 and getting to have a chat and a drink with David Beckham.

Warming the team up and sitting on the bench at grounds such as Anfield & Old Trafford and definitely walking out onto Craven Cottage with the Socceroo's boys last November when we beat Nigeria 1-0 in London.

All wonderful memories I am privileged to have experienced.

There is life beyond football.

Unfortunately, this will probably be my final blog from Fulham for a while.

On a personal note, my wife Samantha and I are expecting our first child in May and will shortly be returning home to Adelaide, her home town. It will be sad to leave Fulham before the end of the season, but we felt that it was important to be around family & friends at such a time.

Fulham have been really supportive and Roy has let it be known that I am welcome back anytime when we return to Europe.

I will use the time in Adelaide to complete my Masters Degree studies in Exercise Science & Performance in between changing nappies! Hopefully I will get the chance to get up to Canberra every now and then to visit my family and friends.

Andrew Young
Fitness and Conditioning Coach
Fulham FC

Eamonn adds:

And a thank you to Andrew. I have had many comments from readers who’ve enjoyed a Canberran insight into the Premier League.

Thanks again Andrew and best wishes to yourself and Samantha for the birth of your child. Happy days.

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Andrew Young on Ronaldo, Adrian Leijer, the EPL and AFL!

Canberra's Andrew Young is the Strength and Conditioning Coach at Fulham in the English Premier League. Which means he gets to sit on the bench at all the grounds in the EPL.

On Tuesday it was Old Trafford.

Read Andrew's excellent update below on life in the Premiership with Fulham



As I write, we are between games having just returned from a 0-2 loss away at Old Trafford on Monday night and awaiting another tough game away to Tim Cahill's Everton this coming Saturday afternoon.

Currently sitting 14th on the table, it has been an interesting season for us here at Fulham FC. Whilst putting in some good performances at home, our nemesis has again been our away form.

Although it should be noted that we played the big 4 in our first 7 games away from home, the highlight of which was nearly snatching a win at Stamford Bridge in a 1-1 draw with Chelsea in October.


Travelling up on plane up to Manchester at the weekend, I must admit that I was quite hopeful of getting something out of the game. Especially as I was sitting next to Danny Murphy (ex Liverpool & England international) who was a 3 times 1-0 winner away at Old Trafford. He politely reminded me that he scored the winning goal there on all 3 occasions!

Warming the boys up in front of the 75,000 Old Trafford faithful was quite a surreal moment in the context of being a former Canberran playing in front of a 2000 people at Bruce Stadium in the old NSL!

But in the end, it was really just another game and there was not really any time to lose focus away from preparing the team properly. I have to say that United were superb with the likes of Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney and Giggs always a threat in one on one situations and so solid at the back with Vidic, Evra and co.

In the end, a Ronaldo brace either side of half time killed us off. On the way back to London after the game, I found out that it was my 100th Premier League game on the bench. Nice ....... but not quite the same as 3 points!


The hectic traditional Christmas program awaits us later this month when we have games against Wigan (22 December), Spurs (26th), Birmingham (28th) and the Chelsea home derby on New Years day.

This is a time when club's with smaller playing squads, like ourselves, are really tested to the limit by the big clubs in terms of the effect of injuries, suspensions and fatigue on our squad.

And yes, we do have to train on Christmas day! Most of the Premier League clubs then enter the FA Cup 3rd round played in early January. We have drawn Bristol Rovers at home which will be a far from easy encounter as any Premier League scalp is highly prized by lower league clubs.


Olyroo's boy, Adrian Leijer, has settled in really well at Fulham after his transfer from Melbourne Victory earlier in the year. He has obviously been doing a fair bit of travelling helping the Olyroo's to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, even scoring a goal he tells me!

Although he has not made his Premier League debut yet, he was on the bench last month at Anfield and travelled with the squad to Old Trafford. He is a great lad and is highly thought of by the coaching staff and is learning his trade every day training alongside the likes of international centre back's Dejan Stefanovic and Carlos Bocanegra.

Like me though, he is starting to miss the Aussie sunshine especially as it currently goes dark at about 3.30pm in the afternoon on training days!


In recent weeks, our Performance & Sports Science department have received benchmarking and research visits from several Australian professional sporting organisations such as the AIS and AFL clubs Carlton and the Western Bulldogs.

It was great to spend some time with coaches Rodney Eade and Brett Rattin and the exchange of ideas was very beneficial to both parties. It is great to know that they consider Fulham to be a leader in this field and I am really looking forward to making return visits when I get back to Australia at the end of the season.


In other news, I was fortunate enough to be involved in the Socceroo's camp and match against Nigeria in London last month. It was great to catch up with all the boys and hear those familiar Aussie accents.

Acting National Coach Rob Baan did a great job preparing the team at very short notice and despite missing several key players, we were very happy with the 1-0 win against the No 1 ranked team in Africa.

It was a thrill for me to take the team out onto Craven Cottage, my home ground at Fulham, although I must admit some of the groundsmen were a bit confused when they saw me!

Rob Baan proudly announced after the game that he was now the only undefeated National Team manager in 2 countries ...... apparently he also once caretaker managed Holland for one game and won that game as well!


Anyway, that's my news from London for now. Wishing everyone back home a very happy and warm christmas!


Andrew

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