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