Giving The Game Away

As an established member of the crop of young, attacking, English full-backs, there was perhaps no better place to for Kane Vincent-Young to learn his trade than in Tottenham Hotspur's academy – particularly at a time when the first team was filled with Danny Rose, Kyle Walker and Benoît Assou-Ekotto.

At 18, Kane found himself released from the Spurs academy and, like many in the game, it may have been all too easy to fall through the net and not go on to achieve the heights he has so far. A recent article in the Athletic highlighted the severity and impact that an academy release can have upon the lives of young footballers. Devonte Redmond for example, spent 13 years at Manchester United’s academy all to be notified by a tweet that he would no longer be a part of the club. As Redmond says, he was cast astray “with no real support network.”  

Luckily for Kane, the presence of a strong support network has always been there and in our giveaway session, he credits his family for always giving him incredible support. Along with his family, a key member of that network is good mate Harry Winks, the England and Tottenham Midfielder.  After a four year spell at Colchester United, Kane now finds himself at Ipswich Town, where the challenge of playing in front of big crowds and for a club with such an esteemed history is something he’s relishing. 

Before the pandemic, his formed earned him League One player of the Month in his first month, earning the respect of former players and fans alike. Kane has been using the time provided by lockdown to call local season ticket holders like 73-year-old John Hassey. Its Hassey’s analysis of Kane, describing him as “so grounded”, that adds further evidence against the argument that modern footballers are becoming increasingly disengaged from their clubs’ fans. Kane is therefore a sportsman in touch with so many more aspects of life aside from the sport and as a socially conscious footballer, with an interest in reading and music, and an ability to talk openly about mental health, he is deserving of all success.

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Having spent the last fifteen years advising and getting inside the minds of champions, including the likes of Frank Lampard, Shane Warne, Stuart Broad and Boris Becker, there is perhaps no one who is better qualified to make sense of elite-sporting performance than Jeremy Snape.

Jeremy had an incredibly successful 16 year cricket career, in which he went on to receive 10 caps for the England team. However, he is a firm believer though that failure was often his most powerful teacher and when he under-performed in front of 120,000 people against India in a One Day International in 2002, a life lesson was learnt. As he refers to in his podcast, named ‘Inside the Mind of Champions’, it wasn’t the opposition who caused him to fail that day, it was himself. In that moment he realised that for anyone to thrive in their careers, they need to win their own mental battle first and this is where Jeremy’s journey, to becoming one of the most respected and trusted names in sports psychology, ultimately began. ⠀ ⠀

In 2005, having qualified with a degree in Sports Psychology, Jeremy was enlisted by the Rajasthan Royals to help Shane Warne’s side win their first IPL Trophy. With Warne having famously said that “the only coach should be the one that takes us to and from the ground”, the hardest part of the job for Snape was opening Warne’s eyes to the benefits he could bring. Once he was able to do so and prove the impact that his methods had on the side’s performance, his services would be in-demand from the world’s top sporting sides for the next 13 years.

Jeremy has since held roles at Crystal Palace, as well as advising England Rugby under Eddie Jones during their record 18 wins in a row. He has taken these learnings, alongside insights from the All Blacks and F1 teams, to help understand how to build the strongest and most agile teams in elite sport. Jeremy is a great inspiration to us, and we're so grateful for the conversation we were able to have with him.

If you enjoyed this episode, check out Jeremy's podcast 'Inside the Mind of Champions' which delves into the mindset of elite performers.

Follow Giving The Game Away on social media:

Instagram - @givingthegameaway

Twitter - @GTGAMedia

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU_-ZyEHfjr8OImFRWJQD8A

Website - www.givingthegameaway.co.uk

Tanni Grey-Thompson was born with spina bifida and subsequently became paralysed at the age of 7. Six years later, inspired by Paralympic legend Chris Hallam, Tanni began wheelchair racing and instantly fell in love with the sport. Tanni had won her first race within three years of starting, and just two years after that, Tanni won the London Wheelchair Marathon. This was the first in a long list of competitive wheelchair successes, and a testament to the mental strength required to overcome hardship and to compete at the very highest level of sport.

At the age of just 19, Tanni competed at the Seoul Paralympic Games and took bronze for the 200m. From that point onwards, having had a taste for the Games and the intense training process it demands, Tanni set her sights on achieving more success; which she certainly did.

In 1992 at the Barcelona Games, Tanni elevated herself to the world sporting elite with four gold medals, a feat she would subsequently repeat in true elite fashion at the Atlanta Paralympics in 1996. The Barcelona olympics were especially important though for Tanni as it marked a change in coverage by the media. Helen Rollason, one of the main broadcasters in the UK at the time, gave greater coverage to the Paralympics than there had been previously.

This made things more emotional when in 2000, Tanni won the Helen Rollason award at Sports Personality of the Year award. Somewhat disappointingly though, the BBC had failed to provide a ramp up to the awards stage, denying Tanni the deserved opportunity to celebrate her award at what is one of the biggest nights in the British sporting calendar. In typical fashion, Tanni reframed the mistake as an opportunity to suggest a number of changes in the BBC, and indeed across the country, with regards to their attitudes towards disability rights.

Tanni retired from sport in 2007, ending her career with 30 World Records, 11 gold medals and 6 London Marathon wins. Since retiring, Tanni has gone on to become Chancellor of Northumbria University, and in 2010, became an Independent Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords. As a working peer, Tanni uses her experience and knowledge during debates in the House and has spoken on a range of issues including welfare reform, disability rights and sport.

To share over an hour with Tanni was an incredible honour and a real privilege. Tanni spoke to us about her belief that hardship is crucial in allowing us to achieve our full potential, that the hardest part of our journey is often getting started and the opportunity we all have in our own lives to make real, long-lasting change for others.

Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu's most famous moment on the football pitch came in 2016 when, against all odds, Wales reached the Semi-Final of the Euros. In the quarter-final, Hal Robson-Kanu scored one of the most memorable goals in modern football history, beating three defenders with one Cruyff turn and putting it past Thibaut Courtois, one of the best keepers in the world at the time. The individual brilliance of the goal warranted it being awarded a Puskas award and to all football fans, it perfectly encapsulated the exciting journey the Welsh side had been on that tournament.

Since that tournament, Hal has continued to play at the highest level of football, playing internationally for Wales and in the Premier League with West Brom. As if this wasn’t enough, he’s also managed to launch a global e-commerce brand at the same time. As Hal says in the pod, some footballers play golf in their free time, some play call of duty, instead he’s decided to use his free time and mental energy to enter the world of entrepreneurship. Since beginning in January 2018, the Turmeric Co has grown to become a leading e-commerce brand in the world, now distributing 300’000 shots each month to over 50’000 consumers. Whilst these figures are impressive and help to paint a picture of how successful the brand has been in a short space of time, Hal says real success for the company will depend on the amount of lives he manages to change.

This opportunity to build a community of wellness, and to help habit-form healthy behaviours in people’s lives, is what stands as his main motivation now. Although the motivation to play in the Premier League was the focus for Hal throughout his teens and twenties, it is now the opportunity to change people’s lives that “goes beyond scoring goals in the premier league and the adulation that comes with it” which we found really interesting. Hal’s experiences in getting to the top of his sport, as well as leading a start-up, have led him to gain an incredibly detailed understanding of the psychology of performance, whether that’s techniques that allowed him to perform in the semi-final of a euros watched by billions of fans, or maintaining positive mental wellbeing when starting a dynamic and ever-evolving business.

In our podcast, Hal’s understanding of the awareness of mental health is clear – in a revealing way, which many sportspeople would shy away from doing, Hal helps paint a picture of the hugely under-reported mental health crisis currently taking place in professional football and the structural reasons behind this. In his words, if it came out “you would not believe it”. For Hal, one of the main reasons for this is fear; players and managers fear under-performing, they fear social media abuse, they fear losing their livelihoods and what this creates is a hush culture, which needs to change.

This podcast was aimed to help display athletes as more than their on-field personalities and we feel this episode is a perfect example of this. It also marks a cool milestone in the podcast journey we’ve been on in the last year. We thank Hal so much again for his time and the ability to meet him in person – we encourage you all to check out the Turmeric co and appreciate the amazing work he’s doing in that space.

Amy Williams was propelled to stardom in 2010 after winning Britain’s first individual gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games in 30 years. Having only started Skeleton Racing at 19 years old, eight years prior to the Games, Amy’s story is one of dreaming big and following an ambition with focus and disciplined day-to-day habits. The topics we cover in this episode are:

How a lack of resources can often be your biggest unfair advantage

The importance of consistently getting your thoughts down on paper

How true enjoyment of your craft leads you to unlocking your potential

Controlling the controllables

How discipline is more important than motivation

The moment Amy knew she’d won Gold

Amy has written about all of her experiences and learnings in a book called Talent to Triumph, and we highly recommend it. Check out more of Amy's work at https://www.amywilliams.com/.