Nino presents at Wembley Stadium
Features and News by Nino Severino
My past sporting life has been full of incredible memories, working at some of the greatest arena’s in the World was part of this journey across the globe. The most famous tennis courts of them all, such as No.1 at The All England Club, Wimbledon, Philippe Chatrier at The Paris Open, Roland Garros and The Rod Laver Arena at The Australian Open, Melbourne, the largest tennis arena in the World. This weekend gone, was an opportunity to add another arena experience to my list, the most well-known football stadium in the World, Wembley, the story that took me there, has many twists and turns!
Wez Pooley, Nino Severino and Dr Stuart McErlain-Naylor
Since the launch of The Hub and the development of the incredible team I have built, we have been attracting a lot of attention, not only local entities, but also on a global level, SportScientia, a sports technology company being one of them. The great work of the team including top professionals such as Dr Stuart McErlain-Naylor, who learnt his craft at one of the World’s most famous sporting Universities, Loughborough, heads up our Bio-mechanics department, Stuart has an incredible skill for understanding movement, and has become one of our most valued team members, Wez Pooley from the World of football, himself, working at the highest level in strength and conditioning, recently leaving a Premiership football club to base himself in Ipswich, and Dr Alex Latinjak, Sports Psychologist, who presents internationally and is a Lead researcher on cognitive self-regulation skills in sport. These are only a few of the top professionals who make The Hub, the great success it is, and why, we attracting an awful lot of attention. There are many positives to The Hub, not only to the many hundreds of athletes it supports, but the way it collaborates with others from the sporting fraternity in a very integrated fashion. Its one of these special relationships that have helped us prepare for this Wembley Stadium event. As part of the presentation, we needed to shoot a portfolio of movement drills, thanks to Bryan Klug and Lee Oneil, we had the first class professional ITFC indoor dome at Playford Road Training Ground at our disposal, Bryan and Lee are committed supporters of the Hub, and never refuse a request of help and support.
Wembley Stadium
SportScientia, a Milan based company who have developed a “Super Smart Sporting Insole” which is capable of collecting incredible data and information at foot level, from an insole placed in the football boots, information such as the forces that a player produces through the ground. As part of the SportScientia international team, which include top technology professors from Wold recognised universities such as Liverpool John Moores, we are all adding our specialist skills to the ongoing development of this potential ground breaking product, which has the potential of changing the way footballers, train, develop, avoid injury’s and spend less time in rehabilitation programmes.
Dr Stuart, Dr Alex, Wez and myself have invested months in building the reputation of The Hub, and its recognition through SportScientia, placed us on the World stage of football medicine this weekend at Wembley. As part of the international SportScientia development team, we presented at The Isokinetic’s Medical Group Conference, in association with FIFA, it was attended by representatives from most of the major football clubs around the world. All together 3,000 professionals attended, including surgeons, physiotherapists, strength and conditioning and sport scientists. Everyone travelling in from every corner of the world to visit this incredible conference to discover a piece of equipment that could make a major difference to their club, or a training system that might just provide them with the marginal gains, that at the highest level could mean winning a major footballing tournament.
Preparation for this incredible stage of opportunity, and a chance to present to the world of football was a significant investment, in one of the major suites over looking the hallowed ground of Wembley, we all prepared ourselves for what was to be an incredible experience. We prepared so well I can’t say any of us where nervous, but to be told that representatives of some of the biggest clubs in the world were sitting in the audience, including The Premier League, I must admit, did add a bit of an edge! Scanning across the audience, knowing who was sitting in front of us, with the affect of the Wembley pitch in full view, was for all of us an incredible experience, but we were there to do a job, and we needed to stay fully focused. We were there to present on performance movement in football, and how, in combination with the technology of the Smart Sole, a significant difference could be made to the footballing world.
Wembley Stadium
When ever I have delivered a presentation, I suppose the biggest fear is that you lose your audience, that they are not interested in what you are presenting or showing them, our presentation was an hour and a half, a very long time, if you lose the attention of the attendees! We covered every unique element of the training programme and the Smart Insole and its technology, I am very pleased to say that at the end, the audience actually clapped with appreciation, I must admit, knowing the calibre of the individuals that were present, did make us all feel very proud. At the end of the presentation, the audience were offered the opportunity to ask questions, this is the phase of the presentation I really enjoy, and I was not disappointed, theses professionals, really knew their speciality areas, and there were some incredible questions, which we all enjoyed answering. It was very satisfying knowing that representatives from some of the most famous clubs in the world, were offering us, a massive level of respect, after everyone left, I looked at The Hub members, and I said, hey, not bad for a bunch of boys from Ipswich!
Wez Pooley, Nino Severino and Dr Stuart McErlain-Naylor