I’m delighted to speak with Johnny Gorman this week. Johnny is a trainee clinical psychologist and former professional footballer.

We speak about the experiences of footballers who were released from clubs at a young age and the impact this had on them, a topic Johnny has recently published a paper on entitled “Inside the football factory: young players’ reflections on being ‘released’”.

There is considerable research on senior players’ mental health outcomes following retirement. However, less attention has been paid to the greater numbers of young players who are deselected each year. Growing research attests to their increased risk of psychological distress including anxiety and depression.

Every year, most young football players experience deselection and for some, this has profound consequences including drug addiction and even death. Yet little is known about these young hopefuls whose careers are abruptly cut short and who are released into a world they are ill-prepared for. This study brings a social psychological lens to examine how social identity processes underpin these consequences.

The paper’s findings contribute to calls for deeper consideration and action around football club culture, and clubs’ responsibility to player welfare, including when players are released.

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Thomas Simpson this week. Thomas is a lecturer in Motor Learning and Skill Acquisition at Edge Hill University. He is interested in how motor learning and motor skill acquisition in children can be optimised through attentional and motivational factors. Thomas obtained his BSc in Sport and Exercise Science and his PhD at Edge Hill University.

In this episode we discuss a paper Thomas co-wrote which examined the use of OPTIMAL Instructions and Feedback in Physical Education Settings. Here, OPTIMAL stands for Optimizing Performance through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning. It is a theory of motor learning developed by Gabriele Wulf and Rebecca Lewthwaite.

The paper investigates how PE teachers can use instruction and feedback which promote OPTIMAL theory motor learning factors (e.g., an external focus of attention, enhanced expectancies and autonomy support) to enhance children’s motor learning.

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Scott McLean this week. Scott is a Senior Research Fellow and the theme leader for Sport and Outdoor Recreation at the Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems (CHFSTS) at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

Scott has a background in Exercise Science (MSc, BExSc) and obtained his PhD applying Human Factors and Ergonomics methods in sport, in which he received the David Ferguson Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia for the best PhD thesis.

His research spans a broad range of domains including sport science, safety science, and systems thinking. During his PhD and current Post-Doctoral research, Scott has made a number of significant research contributions which have advanced knowledge in the areas of team performance analysis, coaching, sports system modelling, applying Human Factors and Ergonomics in sport, incident reporting systems in outdoor recreation, and complex system modelling of the road safety system.

Scott has experience working with and conducting research with industry i.e. professional sporting clubs and an international football team, government agencies, as well as international collaborators. Scott is also a successful and award-winning football coach, which ensures that his research has a focus on delivering practice implications.