A deep-dive into one of the North East’s biggest coaching prospects
Thomas Kelly-Hansford could be considered one of the biggest coaching prospects in England given his age, but where and when did it all start for him?
Up until the age of 16, Kelly-Hansford was playing football, wanting to become a professional footballer, but an unlucky injury caused him to step back from his dream. His passion for the sport led him to consider coaching and during lockdown he started studying coaches, tactics, methods.
He started coaching junior football for Sunderland RCA and last year made the step up to their first team. He is still working within that and is also the assistant manager of Gateshead Ladies.
Kelly-Hansford has worked under several different managers already, with some of them speaking very highly for him personally and tactically.
Mark Forrest, Sunderland RCA manager spoke very highly about his personality and character:
“Tom is a forward-thinking coach who has a proactive mindset when it comes to delivering sessions. He is meticulous in his planning and his sessions are well thought out and the enjoyment levels are high. Tom is also developing the ‘personal management’ skills of coaching. He is very adaptable and can come up with solutions to in-game problems and formation/system changes very efficiently.”
Kelly-Hansford is a very forward thinking coach who epitomises the modern brand of football. In a recent interview he did with the SportsByte journalists he was asked which manager would he resemble his coaching style with:
“Mourinho, for his passionate character and winning mentality. I think he is one of the best in the game. Tactically, I think Thomas Tuchel is brilliant. His ideas and way of working is something I find incredibly interesting.”
The 20-year old is also the current assistant manager of Gateshead Ladies. He praised the women’s game and gave credit for how it’s improved him as a coach and Kelly-Hansford appeared optimistic about the future of Gateshead Ladies.
He was asked what was the main differences to when it came to manage the men’s and the women’s team at the same time: “You’ve got to adapt how you approach certain situations. When you’re working in the Northern League you can probably be a bit more brutally honest and they can take that, that’s normal. You’ve got to pick your moments and tone a lot more carefully within the ladies game.”
Thomas also spoke about the importance of working with and developing young talents, especially for a team that has a small budget.
“If you find hidden gems somewhere and they start playing well you know it’s not unusual for you to get approaches from other clubs. We had a lad called James Sloan. Come in from South Shields academy. Centre half, 17 year old, but he’s about 6 foot six. He’s an unbelievable footballer. Our manager knew someone who knew someone and we got him in.
“In the 12 games or so we had him we had two approaches and now he is playing in the division above, but you just have to move on and continue to look for the next player who can improve you.”
The Gateshead Ladies assistant manager also expressed his future dream to manage his boyhood club Sunderland. Kelly-Hansford is definitely one to watch and the 20-year-old appears to have a big future ahead in football.