When we picture success, we often imagine the big moments: the medal ceremony, the promotion, the breakthrough.

But behind every big win lies a series of small, consistent actions—habits that seem almost too simple to matter… until they change everything.

There are many books and features written by or about high performance athletes, but little is known about the ‘behind the scenes’ in professional sport. There are lots of people who make up the wider team in professional sport, off the pitch, not just those who run out on match day, or compete at the games, but who work towards the common goal of success often unseen and unrecognised.

They are the little-known secret behind every professional sporting team or athlete who put in the grind day after day and hour after hour. Most of the time, you never hear about them, could walk past them in the street and have no idea who they were or what they had been doing that day, but they are absolutely integral to that’s team success.

And what is so interesting about the role of the ‘behind the scener’, is that they have access to a world that thrives on and is centred around success, tapping into a culture that is unparalleled in any other sector. Whether that is winning trophies, having the best players on the best teams, it all comes down to a formula for success.

When I was in my early 20’s, my dad took me to have lunch with a lovely chap called Bob Jones. Dad thought it was a good idea because I was working for a well-known University ‘marketing’ a Management Diploma that was slowly destroying my soul. You see, I had left Uni with a First in English and Drama and had grand designs on becoming an actress or a journalist! However, fate had other ideas…

I have to let you into a little secret here. I have never been a 100% sure about the phrase ‘fake it until you make it’, because it suggests that you don’t already have the ability in the first place or that the end goal is something tangible that you can hang your hat on and say, “Look here, I achieved that lofty goal and now I can sit down and rest”. Life isn’t like that, because no one ever really hits their goal and then thinks ‘that’s it, it’s all done,’ do they?  I prefer - ‘just sodding go for it until you are confident you are doing it to the best of your ability and then you can enjoy the ride.’

On my first away trip, I had understood that I travelled with the team. I think we went to France, but that’s irrelevant. I had to travel on the coach and the plane with the players. There was only one other woman on this trip and she had been there for one thousand, five hundred years, so we can safely assume she had already proved why she was there. My predecessor had told me that I would have to do it, I knew all the other club press officers did it and, if I didn’t do it, who would a) write the bleeding match report and b) who would sort out the pre and post-match press conferences. However, we got there the day prior to the match and all settled into the hotel. I hadn’t been given a squad number (which meant I took my own luggage, unlike everyone else with branded luggage) and I only had one branded T-Shirt. I stuck out like a sore and achy thumb, but I swallowed it down and got on with it. After the evening meal I went to go to my room. I had had enough of being the sticky-outy-billy no mates for one evening, but just as I went to head up the stairs the club captain pulled me aside.