“IT’S AN IMPORTANT WEEK TO BOND & INTEGRATE NEW LADS INTO THE GROUP”

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First Team Player Care Lead chats the importance of pre-season

2025-07-17T12:00:00.000Z

“IT’S AN IMPORTANT WEEK TO BOND & INTEGRATE NEW LADS INTO THE GROUP”

First Team Player Care Lead chats the importance of pre-season

2025-07-17T12:00:00.000Z

First Team Player Care Lead chats the importance of pre-season

For First Team Player Care Lead Jack Tebbutt pre-season is Portugal is an important week for many reasons including integrating new players into the squad and strengthening relationships with existing players.

With wellbeing well and truly at the heart of everything he does, Jack has a passion for having a positive impact on the players he works with, from the academy through to the men’s first team.

“From a personal point of view pre-season is a really important week for me, especially with the new lads coming in. First of all, it's about integrating the new boys into the group. We're really big on the onboarding process, so making sure when they arrive at the Club, that they're really welcomed into our culture and welcomed into the team.

“I think if you speak to anyone in football, the best week for that is being away on pre-season, being away from the training ground environment and being in a place like this because you spend so much time together, you’re literally with them morning until the evening, so you really get to know the kind of personalities, get to know them as people and they get to know us.

“I find it really important for the new lads to really understand what my role at the football club is, because I always say that I think we probably do Player Care, a little bit differently here. I think a lot of clubs will have a Player Care that does a bit of operational, some wellbeing. Whereas I’m really fortunate here that the Club allow me to really focus on the wellbeing and the welfare, and to be able to best support people in that way, you've got to have a relationship.

“So, for the new lads that’s really important and for the lads that were already here, just spending time with them, little conversations away from the football, using the time we have at the hotel and they're around the pool, just lose conversations. And I always say that I'm not always fixing problems, but I'm building a relationship so if there are any incidents that happen across the season or situations arise, I've already done all the graft, I’ve already got the foundations in place, and I can then just step in and support them. People know that they can come and see me, I’m a bit of a problem solver, a bit of a fixer but it’s all the groundwork that you do here.”

“IT’S AN IMPORTANT WEEK TO BOND & INTEGRATE NEW LADS INTO THE GROUP” - Image 1

As Player Care Lead Jack spends a lot of time with the group back home but spending that additional time, especially off the pitch out in Portugal away from distractions can reap big rewards down the line then?

“Yes, of course, there's less distractions in that sense and of course, when you're back home, I always say, these boys are just normal people. They’re really fortunate that they’ve got really good feet and they’re really talented! But they are normal people.

“Like anyone, life happens, some of them have really young children, some have families to look after. You don't get to spend every minute of every day with them in the season and then games get in the way and the schedule is relentless. But for us this week, it's just really good to be together.

“The social side of it as well, they’ve grafted this week and if you look around, they’re grafting hard in the heat. But when you have the downtime in the evening, like when we had the big game of Wolf, that really brings out personalities. You’re getting a group of people who are competitive together. It’s invaluable, you can’t measure how successful these weeks are. From a football perspective you can because you see the rewards on a football pitch. But for us from a social point of view, it’s invaluable.”

Integrating into a new group can be challenging and an additional factor can be if English isn’t a player’s first language, which has been the case with some of the new members of the squad. However, Jack’s happy with how the Club and the players themselves have adapted to this.

“We’re really fortunate that we’re really diverse in terms of nationalities, so you can always bank on someone to speak a language, whether that be a member of staff or a player. There's always someone that can help you out.

“I also think credit to the boys who have come into this football club that they've brought into the English culture, they've brought into the English way. Maxime’s a really good example. I remember meeting Maxime at the airport for his medical when he signed and his English was very limited. We supported him with English lessons; the boys around supported him and now he speaks English amongst the boys. His English is great.

“You try and help them that way. We’ve had Loum arrive, his English is limited but it’s progressing because it’s about again, including him in conversations, making sure that he’s part of things. He played Wolf, he understood that.

“You've got to take these lads out their comfort zone and really push them, but equally on the other side of that, really support them because not just the diversity of nationalities, but the ages, if you look at the age of our group, it's a very, very young group. And if you think about a young lad, 21, 22 years of age, if people step away from the emotion of football and think what they were doing at that age. You’re having to navigate that and be a Premier League footballer which is very rewarding but it’s also tough. It’s a high pressure, high performing environment, always under the spotlight.

“IT’S AN IMPORTANT WEEK TO BOND & INTEGRATE NEW LADS INTO THE GROUP” - Image 2

“Sometimes I underestimate how recognisable some of the boys are, we’ll go for a coffee or you’re driving with them, and you see people gravitate towards them. I think it’s great, as a football fan myself, growing up I was one of those people stood at the gates of Charlton, for probably about ten years in a row. I think the players knew me by first name. Young boys and girls here wanting to see them, I think it’s really important that we spend time with people that want to speak to them, it’s so important for them to have a good relationship with supporters.”

Whilst rewarded with many benefits there’s several things that can have an impact on a players’ feelings and welfare and that’s something Jack is keen to highlight through his work in this area.

“I always say I never want to lose sight of how privileged we are to be in the football club. I’m fortunate, I’ll never take that for granted as there’s probably hundreds of people who would love this role. But equally these players are normal, and they navigate the same problems, they navigate the same issues.

“I’ve never met a footballer that doesn’t love playing football. I think sometimes people have that narrative that they're not in the team or they're not in the squad, but they're earning X amount of money. It still doesn’t change that they have problems too. They still sit in traffic which stresses them out as they think they’re going to be late for work. They’re not invincible, they don’t have their own rules or their own laws. They just happen to be really talented at their job and there's lots of talented people in the world that have really good, successful jobs that are just not in the spotlight. So, that’s a tough thing for them really, that they’re in the spotlight 24/7, whether it be social media, walking down the street, in their car.

“They understand with a footballer’s role comes responsibilities and it’s my job to remind them of that. I always go back to my previous role working in a school, going into teacher mode, making sure they know about accountability and responsibilities. That’s probably why they respect me as well because I just treat them like normal people, put them in their place when it’s needed but put an arm round them when they need an arm round them.”

This is something Jack’s passionate about, especially with players transitioning from the academy to the first team environment.

“That’s really important to me, being a familiar face to the academy lads, supporting them through the transition to being involved in the first team and getting them settled. We’ve got some of the lads here at the camp, Joe Bauress, Murray Campbell and Charlie Casper.

“It can be daunting so I’m there to help as I have the relationships with them from working closely with the academy groups at the Club.”

The Player Welfare role is also an integral link between the players and the coaching staff, including Head Coach Scott Parker.

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“I’m really fortunate that my relationship with the Gaffer and Jono [Jonathan Hill], is really, really strong. They trust me to do my job, and they know that I'm not going to hold information back from them that’s going to be of detriment to or undermine them. Also, the players know that there's a trust element there, that they can come and speak to me and it’s not going to be shared with the manager or coaching staff. Without making it about me, I think that’s one of the strong things I’ve always had. I learnt from working in secondary schools at the age of 19 with 16-year-olds, I've always been good at finding that line and I know where that is. I know when I need to share information, but equally, it's about bringing the players on that journey. It’s not about player tells me something and it goes straight to the staff, it’s about a player tells me something, what’s the best form of moving forward, is it including staff, would that help. Or is it a case of we spend a few weeks trying to work out what we want staff to know, then we can share that information.

“Sometimes players are emotional, after a game if they’ve been subbed or they've not been picked, telling me their frustrations, I’d be a fool to go and tell the manager that. Because it’s in the heat of the moment and the next day we’ll go back to a level playing field.

“There are certain things you want the manager to be aware of and certain things you don’t want him to be aware of. He’s a football manager and his sole focus is to win games and the team. I don’t want to keep knocking on his office saying this is what’s going on. Credit to the manager he really believes in and values the player care role though. He sees that my role can add value to him and his team. The Club as well, they’ve been so good in that aspect, they’ve allowed me to grow the Player Care role into a wellbeing role.”

With the Player Care role changing over time, Jack’s pleased to see more focus placed on wellbeing - as he says what spurs him on most is making a positive impact.

“I think when the Gaffer was playing, they had Player Liaison, which was the people who sort out the logistics or book restaurants but I’m really clear that that’s not what I do. I’ll help players do something, but I have a rule now that if they want help with something on a laptop they have to come into my office and sit and talk to me while I do it. That’s a really good way to get them talking and you find out so much information doing that.

“My focus is to make an impact. I did that in schools. There’s no better feeling than seeing you’ve made a real difference to someone’s day or week. Seeing the progression. There are so many players here who I can see a difference in because of the input that we’ve had or the Gaffer’s had.

“The first season that I was in the role, it was tough because you’re trying to convince people to be open minded and come on a journey with me. It takes time but I think last year and this year, there’s a real understanding now of what the role is and there’s support for that from the top of the Club in terms of the ownership group, Matt Williams, to the Gaffer, coaching and support staff. And most of all the players, which is the most important thing. For new players they come into the group, ask what Tebbs is like, and I want the references to be good, so they’ll come and open up to me. Ultimately, I’m here to problem solve and make their life as easy as possible whilst also teaching them some independence.”

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