For Paudie Roche at Arsenal, helping develop human beings is as important as developing footballers

Paudie Roche recalls running his first aerobics class at Cork Institute of Technology and the terror of turning around to see “50 ladies expecting their money’s worth”. It prepared him well for the challenges ahead, though.

These days when he turns around, he sees 20-plus members of the Arsenal women’s squad, several of them among the best players in the world, expecting no little expertise from him either.

The 42-year-old native of Cahir, Co Tipperary is closing in on his 10th year working for the London club, the first nine of those in the role of lead strength and conditioning coach in its academy where fellow Irishman Des Ryan, who Roche also worked with in Irish Rugby, was initially his boss.

Among the youngsters Roche helped develop at the academy were Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, both of whom have gone on to become senior England internationals. Both of whom, he says, are “fine human beings”, something that impresses him as much as their progress in football. For Roche, helping develop fine human beings is as important as developing fine footballers.

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Now he’s working with a squad jammed with internationals from more than a dozen countries, among them Irish captain Katie McCabe, having taken on a new challenge at the club last summer, becoming the physical performance lead for the women’s side of the operation.

If evidence was needed of the quality of player he’s now working with, 19 of them were away on international duty in the last week, leaving just three of the squad behind.

Roche was a natural pick for the job. While working through the years in the boys’ academy, he looked on in fascination at the rapid growth of the women’s game. He had been a supportive voice for the club’s women players too.

I gave her a big hug, told her how proud I was of her, but then had to say, ‘right, we’re back now in club mode’

“When I was running the youth academy programme at Arsenal, a new million pound gym was built, a performance centre. The women’s team turned professional around the same time, so it was a case of ‘how do we fit them in here?’, ‘they can’t be in at the same time as the men’, all that b***ocks. I said ‘if they’re wearing an Arsenal jersey, they’re Arsenal players’, and that was that.”

Sport was at the centre of the young Roche’s life – hurling, Gaelic football, soccer, athletics, mountain-biking, he did the lot. But when he was 19 years old he suffered from compartment syndrome in both his shins, a condition caused by insufficient blood supply to tissue, and one that can result in extreme pain. As a consequence, Roche gave up the sports that had been his passions, but found a new one – weightlifting.

And, ultimately, it was weightlifting that set him on his career path, introducing him to strength and conditioning. After working as the gym manager at Cork Institute of Technology, where he earned a business degree in leisure management, he became the first strength and conditioning coach employed by University College Cork, having already worked as a volunteer with their hockey, rugby and sailing academies.

From there he moved to Munster Rugby where he became a fitness coach in their academy, a role that led to later opportunities with the senior and under-20 national rugby teams. One of his career highlights was working at the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand as an assistant to Ireland’s head of strength and conditioning.

While working with Munster, where Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray were among the young hopefuls he helped guide, he volunteered with the Munster women’s team.

“Munster were European champions then, the absolute elite, but the women’s team – and the Irish women’s team too – had no strength and conditioning contracts, not even for physiotherapy. And at the time Munster had some of the best players in Ireland,” Roche says.

Yeah, there are so many theories, lots of them unsupported, lots of them bulls**t, especially on the impact of the menstrual cycle

“So I used to be a volunteer with them, helping them out, all the time wondering why were they not having the same quality training as the men. I became fascinated by women’s sport and its potential if its athletes received the same level of support.

“When the Arsenal women’s job came up, I just thought ‘that’s for me’. And I’m loving every minute of it. It’s fascinating working with this group of players.

“They’re not only top international players, they are top human beings. They’re probably some of the best professionals I’ve ever worked with. And this despite the fact they’ve only been professionals for four or five years.

“With the women, I’m finding their thirst for knowledge and their acceptance of methods is huge,” Roche says. “They’re like, ‘why are we doing this?’ So I’ll tell them why we’re doing it. They question everything and I love that. Boys won’t. They’re like, ‘okay, let’s do that’. If I tell the girls they have to do 10 laps, I’ll have to justify it. But when they buy in to it, their application is incredible.”

Speaking of application, “Katie McCabe’s is incredible,” Roche says, struggling to hide his emotion when he recalls her return to Arsenal after helping Ireland qualify for the World Cup. “I gave her a big hug, told her how proud I was of her, but then had to say, ‘right, we’re back now in club mode’. But Jesus, it was massive. She is a very proud Irish woman, I was so happy for her.”

As well as McCabe’s application, Roche praises her commitment. “I remember when she joined the club she wasn’t in the same shape as she is right now. Look at her physique – she’s powerful, she’s strong, she’s got muscle tone, that’s down to her application, which is second to none.

“She has worked very hard, it’s her mindset. And when she’s not playing, she’s very hard to be with,” he laughs, referring to her being dropped of late by Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall. “And I love that.”

While McCabe has avoided serious injury for the bulk of her career, two of her Arsenal team-mates – Viv Miedema and Beth Mead – have both been struck down by ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries in the last few months, like so many other women players of late. All of which has led to a debate about the prevalence of that injury in the women’s game, theories abounding.

I was rattled when I saw him. I said to him ‘you won’t remember but I played Kennedy Cup football, we lost to Cherry Orchard’

“Yeah, there are so many theories, lots of them unsupported, lots of them bulls**t, especially on the impact of the menstrual cycle,” says Roche.

“I believe one of the factors is that young male players, certainly at Arsenal, come from a background of having three strength and conditioning sessions and three nutrition sessions a week.

“Girls in the same age group had no sessions, they had no access to a structured training plan. That has changed now, they get the exact same, and that will stand to them in the long-run.

“More research needs to be done, but women are predisposed to ACL injuries – that’s a fact, full-stop. It’s partly down to the biomechanics of your skeleton – women’s hips are wider than men’s, the angle of the thigh bone in to the knee is much sharper, which is definitely a factor,” Roche explains.

“Then there’s the oestrogen versus testosterone issue which needs to be studied more. And Arsenal are involved in a project looking in to this, the research is too loose so far.”

The first time Roche applied for a job at Arsenal he got down to the last four, but missed out. One of the people interviewing him, though, rang him to tell him how impressive he was, and to keep at it.

“I was rattled when I saw him. I said to him ‘you won’t remember but I played Kennedy Cup football, we lost to Cherry Orchard, I was captain of Tipperary, I was 14, you presented us with our losers’ medals’. He said, ‘Paudie, you still have the same hair-cut’.”

Liam Brady, Roche’s first boss in the Arsenal academy. Small world.