During the busy playing season, West Ham Women’s first-team coach Myles Smith took time out of his day to talk to Rising East Reporter Paddy Wilkins.
West Ham are currently sat 11th out of 12 in the Women’s Super League and are involved in the fight to avoid the drop, down to the FA Women’s Championship. Playing their home games in Dagenham and Redbridge stadium, a well-known team for many locals of East London.
Early Days At The Club
After originally not studying coaching Myles started working at West Ham and slowly became involved with the coaching aspect of the team as well. “I think all of the things that come with interacting with others and helping and supporting others. Trying to get the best out of people and it’s all gone on to a sort of stepping stone into something that I really enjoyed. It’s obviously something I studied at uni but I always had one eye on the coaching side of things at the club”.
University Of East London Coaching Experiences
Myles also has had other experiences of coaching. One such example was the time that he spent at The University Of East London coaching the women’s football team:
“It was a really good role Actually, I was in. I was at UEL at the same time that I first my first year at West Ham Women’s.
“I oversaw the women’s football department at the University of East London we had a very successful year. What I deem is successful is different from everybody else, we had a lot of players who got given a lot of opportunities, high-level football. Huge aspirations of mine are more around the development side is where I think that we’ve got the best out of those players giving players further opportunities to play at major clubs such as West Ham as an example.”
Developing New UEL Players
Myles also explained how he made the time playing for UEL memorable for the players by doing little things for the players that made a major impact. Improving the relationship between the coaching staff and the players is an important aspect of making the players feel like players as Myles goes on to explain:
“In coaching a professional team such as West Ham, and a university team, at the time West Ham were deemed as a professional team. So at the time, it was very similar if I’m honest. It was a couple of training sessions a week it was a match on a Wednesday and I remember me and my coaching assistant used to go to Hackney Marshes and put up the nets, and the players could not believe that we were doing that for them.
We think it should be a given if that makes sense you know players shouldn’t have to go and put up their own nets, I remember we used to laugh and say that this character-building myself and my assistant. We used to make sure that when the players arrived in the changing room, it was coathangers all with all the shirts all the socks and shorts were folded how you’d want the dressing room to look if you would play in a high-level football team. We used to make sure that happened but now I am working in the professional environment within the women’s team since they’ve come through in the Super League.”
West Ham’s Response To Covid-19
During the last year, the world came to a standstill due to the Corona Virus and sport has been no exception. The Women’s Super League came to a complete standstill which was a huge blow to football fans across the country. This change impacted many teams and West Ham is no exception: “Our biggest focus area was around mental health and ensuring that players were still being stimulated as much as they possibly could be. In the first lockdown, we’d speak to players at two o’clock in the afternoon and some of them have only just woken up. There was no school and obviously, they’re teenagers and that’s what you do when you’re a teenager. We had to find ways to make sure that we were stimulating them and not just putting things on for the sake of putting things on but things, that they would actually engage and take part in and want to take part.”
Cup Games and Semi-Finals Progress
West Ham are no strangers to cup success, seeing them win the Women’s FA cup back in the 18/19 season. Myles reflected on that historic win but also their cup performance this year; when the team won all three of their group stages and defeated Durham before being beaten by Chelsea in the semi-finals 6-0:
“If we rewind a couple of years ago we actually made the FA Cup final at Wembley, which was a great achievement for the club. It was something that will always be remembered, playing at Wembley in front of the 40,000 plus fans inside the stadium and we put on a good show for the majority of the game. That journey within the FA Cup was a great one to be a part of.
“You get through the group stage and you get a draw that you’d think you’d be favourites in the semi-finals, you started to think the same thing when she started to think maybe we can get to another final here. It was good, it was an exciting journey.”
