A budding young shot-stopper at grassroots level, Conor Manderson made his first move into a professional environment at 15 years old, signing for Portsmouth and moving away from his home in Brighton. “I moved away from home at 16 and into digs. Leaving my family and friends at that age was difficult,” Conor told LFE. “It was a big learning curve, and very quickly I had to become self-sufficient.”
After a year at under-16s level, he signed a scholarship with the south coast side. Reflecting on his time as an apprentice, Conor looks back on his two years on the programme with fondness and gratitude. “The apprenticeship was great for me. It’s an amazing opportunity to play lots of football and begin getting used to a full-time football schedule. You’ve also got the education side of it as well, which again is fantastic, and I felt really fortunate to have been exposed to all of the support you receive as an apprentice. It was also a great opportunity to meet new people.
“I remember first meeting Troy Townsend during one of his LFE Life Skills sessions, and I still keep in regular contact with him now. Those sessions were great for meeting people from all walks of life, and I learnt a lot from them.”
Despite admitting that education and personal development were a slight afterthought at the time, Conor is adamant that the level of support apprentices receive can’t be overlooked. “I think it’s so crucial. At the time, because you’re so fixated on becoming a footballer, you don’t really realise how important all of the sessions and help you’re exposed to are. It’s not until you get a bit older that you realise just how much support you received. You gain so many skills through the apprenticeship as a whole.”
Whilst part of the under-18s side at Pompey, Conor was called up to represent Northern Ireland on the international stage – an experience he will never forget. “I played a few times, and it was an amazing experience. I played in and won the Victory Shield, which was probably the highlight of my youth football career. I also played in European qualifiers, and it was just brilliant to be part of such a professional environment. International football is a whole different level; even the small details, like walking into the changing room and seeing all your training kit folded and laid out, along with your drinks and energy gels, were things I’d never experienced before.”
With all the highs that come with football, there are also lows. At the end of his apprenticeship, Conor was not offered a professional contract. However, unlike many, he was able to accept the decision and move on to the next chapter swiftly. “I’d say I half-expected it, to be honest,” he admits. “Being at a lower-league club, the margins are so fine, and if you’re offered a professional contract then you’re expected to be ready for first-team football, because not many sides have an under-21s team. At the time, I probably wasn’t ready for League One football. It didn’t really affect me too much, though, because I always had an idea that I wanted to be a coach and managed to get into it fairly quickly due to the coaching badges I’d earned during my apprenticeship, as well as some of the connections I had made in football. I was quite fortunate in that sense.”
Even though Conor’s transition out of the academy system was fairly seamless, he credits the aftercare provided by LFE. “I was definitely supported during that period. Even to this day, I still receive catch-up calls from LFE to check in on how I’m doing. I think it’s brilliant and such an important thing to do, because a lot of young players struggle after they’ve left a football club. Thankfully for me, I was okay, because I had my mind set on becoming a coach immediately after leaving Portsmouth.”
The former Portsmouth goalkeeper’s tunnel-vision approach to his next steps led to his first break in the coaching world almost instantaneously, as he joined the Brighton & Hove Albion Foundation. “I first started working within the foundation programme as a pathways coach, leading activities such as lunch clubs and after-school clubs. This gave me a really good understanding of how to work with and manage young people, and I think it was the perfect starting point for me, as it taught me a lot about planning and delivering sessions with large groups.”
After a period of finding his feet within the foundation set-up, opportunities to move into the academy began to arise. “I was also doing one night a week in the pre-academy thanks to a link I had with one of the coaches there, so that was how I first got my foot in the door. I worked my way through the pre-academy until an opportunity arose to become a goalkeeper coach within the academy. Since last year, I’ve been fortunate enough to be in a full-time role after gaining a position through the Premier League’s CIDS (Coach Inclusion & Diversity Scheme). I now lead on the goalkeepers from under-7s to under-12s, and I’m absolutely loving it.”
Discussing his time as an apprentice in further detail, Conor insists that the experiences he was exposed to as a young player have benefited his coaching career. “Coming through the academy system myself has definitely helped me on my coaching journey here at Brighton – 100%. With those experiences, I already had a strong understanding of how an academy environment works, and I think that’s a strength of my coaching as well. I can connect with the young goalkeepers because I was in their shoes not too long ago. That’s one of the big positives of being a young coach like me, fresh out of the academy system.”
Looking ahead to the future, Conor is taking each day as it comes, recognising the fortuitous nature of his situation given his rapid development within the coaching world. “My goal within coaching is to just be better than the previous day and show up as the best version of myself. Every day I’m here in the building; I’m just trying to learn more. I’m not looking too far ahead; I’m really happy with how much I’ve achieved so far. I’m very aware that being full-time in an academy at 21 years old is very young, but I’ve got great people around me every day, and I’m just soaking up every bit of information and advice.”