Nino Severino presents at La Manga sports resort centre
Create Life Opportunities for Yourself – Team Work
Features and news by Nino Severino
A major part of my working life has been focused on developing and working with a sports support team of the very highest level. I had the privilege of working with one of worlds most talented physiologists for a period of over 5 years, his name was Leo Faulman and he supported Sir Steve Redgraves through many of his Olympic performances and gold medal achievements. I often talk about my life pathway, but the sequence of events that led me to Leo was different to say the least.
I had a telephone call from a Spanish agent who wanted me to present at the world famous sports resort, La Manga, I’d heard a lot of things about this mecca of sports training, and I knew many of the worlds best tennis players and premier football teams elected to use the venue for preparation, so it was an opportunity I was not going to miss. I arranged for all my equipment to be transported over to Spain, booked my tickets and took the very exciting trip over to present.
While I was presenting on a tennis court, I noticed someone watching, but he looked slightly different in terms of the way he was concentrating on the drills I was showing and what I was saying, I really did not think too much about it, and just carried on presenting. When I finished, the man approached me, he said “I’m a London based physio, and I really liked what I was hearing and seeing, its different”. We had a really interesting discussion about movement, speed, power and injury prevention and rehab, his final words as he was walking away, were “keep doing what you are doing”. This one little conversation was going to completely change my life!
The next day, there was a knock on the door of the villa I was staying in, I answered the door and the person introduced himself as a representative of Stephen Marks, owner of FCuk Tennis, he was sent over by Jo Durie and her coach. For the older members of the reading audience, if you are a tennis fan, you would know who Jo Durie is, she was one of our greatest tennis players, ranked in the top 5 in the world, representing Britain over many years in the 80’s and 90’s, making Grand Slam semi-finals and winning the massive Premier WTA tournament in Miami. The representative asked if I would deliver a session for Jo Durie’s players who were based at La Manga that week for a training session.
The players turned up, and with them was the physio who watched my presentation, and it all linked up! I delivered the session, two weeks later I was driving around the M25, and received a call, it was an invitation to join the FCuk Tennis Academy permanently. I spent the next 5 years as a member of a massively talented London based team, including Leo Faulman and Jo Durie, we all worked as part of Stephen’s Marks team, the owner of French connection who was heavily investing in British tennis.
Working in the rehab space, as well as the performance area led to several roles within a team set up, one of them was locally, at Ipswich Town Football Club. I worked with academy players and also 1st team players. I found myself working more and more with the physio teams, and was asked to join Matt Byard’s physiotherapy backroom set up. This was an incredible opportunity and continued my professional pathway in the area of movement and biomechanics.
Matt Byard was the senior physio at ITFC at the time and had been with the club for over 20 years, offering players his skill and knowledge, through periods of injury, which can be very challenging for an athlete. I had a very interesting chat with Matt, and he made a point of talking about team work, and how many members of the team, achieve the ultimate result, which of course is getting the ITFC players back on the pitch and performing.
Alex Chapman was also a member of the ITFC physio team, and Matt wanted to highlight, that its individuals such Alex who are very important members of the team, he has had a major input into the complex business of injury treatment and rehabilitation. But getting a player back on the pitch can involve international application as well, with Alex at the time utilising specific work through first hand education from Bill Knowles in the USA
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