From part-time Everton Academy coach and PE teacher to being within touching distance of the Premier League having just replaced a former England management team at Watford.
When people talk about rising up the football pyramid few will have taken a better journey than Richie Kyle. In the space of 10 years, he’s done it all at all levels of the game.
But as Kyle reflects on his rise in the world of football coaching, he can’t help but look back on one phone call from a Liverpool and Manchester United great that changed everything for him.
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“It has been a long journey. Back in the day when I first started at Archbishop Beck, I was only 21 because I came straight from university,” he recalls in an exclusive chat with the ECHO.
“I had always been coaching on the side. Part-time at Everton and part-time at Blackburn Rovers as well as working at Archbishop Beck as a PE teacher.
“But coaching was what I always wanted to do. However, full-time in football isn’t easy and I knew being a PE teacher was a secure career and that is the reason I went into it.
“But I had always done my coaching badges, starting them when I went to university. So I always had a plan of hopefully one day getting into it.
“Then I remember one day I was in the tennis centre actually and my phone went off and it was Paul Ince, who was manager at Blackpool at the time.
“I knew him because I met him when doing my UEFA A licence. We got friendly with each other and he was the one who offered me my first break really.
“Initially I went in as Under-18 coach and Head of Coaching and it was full-time, but it was a massive risk because my teaching position was secure and the money was okay.
“I took a massive pay cut to go to Blackpool as at the time it was next to nothing, but I didn’t have any kids at the time and it was the only opportunity to get in full-time.
“I took the jump and from there the journey has been incredible. Went from Blackpool U18s to the first-team, and in my first year in full-time mens football we got relegated.
“But then Gary Bowyer came in and I knew him from Blackburn and we got promoted from League Two. So I had a relegation and a promotion on my CV in two years.”
Kyle then headed to the FA after leaving Blackpool to work with the next generation of stars. Working within the England set-up, Kyle would take on a new role created by former Technical Director Dan Ashworth, known as an out of possession specialist.
Here, he found himself working across England’s youth age groups, and the chance to work with the likes of Gareth Southgate, Steve Holland, Jude Bellingham and Conor Gallagher soon came along.
“I was in League One for half a season and then I went to England for three-and-a-half years, which for me was like a three-year degree really," Kyle recalls.
“It was working with the U16s and 17s, working with some of the best players. Jude Bellingham is one, Jamal Musiala, Levi Colwill, Louie Barry and Conor Gallagher a little bit.
“I was also working with Gareth Southgate and Steve Holland, some of the best coaches in the game, and it was a great experience.
“It was also when the out of possession and in possession model emerged and I got introduced to it by Matt Crocker, who employed me at the FA and is now director of football at Southampton.
“He put faith in me to lead the out of possession model and I got responsibility to lead that for all the England teams from aged 15 to 20."
Kyle, however, has a long history of working with elite-level players. Having studied Sports Development and Physical Education at John Moores University he soon landed himself a job at Archbishop Beck after graduating. The school in Walton is well-known for producing stars of the future in the world of sport.
And in Kyle’s second school team he had the honour of managing Jordan Rossiter and Jonjoe Kenny. Two national titles in three years followed for Beck, and for Kyle, managing a side that was, at the time, made up of youngsters at professional clubs, gave him the perfect grounding for what was to come.
“I still keep in touch with Jordan and Jonjoe. We are in the game and the same industry and I still speak to them,” he revealed to the ECHO. “But what I would say is the team I had at Archbishop Beck I was extremely lucky because they were a talented group.
“I remember in year 7 every single one of them was at a club. So it gave me an early taste of working with top players at an early age. I know it was only a school team, but it was probably the best school team around, if not ever because of the quality that they had.
“Teaching gave me a really good grounding to become the type of person I am now. They were a credit to work with. PE teaching also helps you develop many skills.
"If I was speaking to a young coach now, or a young Richie Kyle now, I’d say go and work in a school. Go and be a PE teacher because it gives you a grounding and more of a rounded coach.”
After a restructuring at the FA following the Covid-19 pandemic, and a brief spell with the Canadian Women’s national team as an assistant coach, Kyle got the opportunity to link up with Rob Edwards, someone who he knew from his time at Blackpool, at Forest Green, where he took on the role of assistant manager.
Despite being one of the outsiders for promotion, a thrilling 2-2 draw at Mansfield Town on the first Saturday of May sparked joy all round as Green were crowned Sky Bet League Two champions. It was quite the achievement for the small village club based in based in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire.
“It’s 46 games, not including cup games and it is relentless in terms of your Tuesday and Saturday,” Kyle said on the achievement.
“Your resources are not as good as you would have at the top of the game. I was travelling to Forest Green and only staying over once or twice a week. Doing the journey from Liverpool took its toll.
“And then we were top of the league from August and people might say that is great, but we were top from August to the second to last game of the season.
“The pressure and expectation of you staying there and getting promoted and getting over the line was mentally and physically tiring, but we managed to do it in the end.
“It was an incredible season. How well we did and how relentless we were for a little village club is something I will never forget.”
But despite promotion, the chance to move to recently relegated Watford was too good to turn down for Kyle and Edwards - but their departure was far from low key or amicable. Forest Green Rovers accused Watford of 'giving football a bad name' and claimed Edwards was holding negotiations with the Hornets behind their back.
But Kyle, who again took up the role of assistant manager at Vicarage Road, would much rather focus on the history he and Edwards made during their time at The New Lawn.
“We created history, we won the league and we set records all over the place, in terms of football records, and I would like to think me, Rob and all the staff have helped Forest Green achieve something they never thought they could dream of,” he said.
“I can’t comment on what has come out after it. It is not really anything to do with me. I would have loved for it to finish slightly differently, but it is the nature of football and sometimes in football it happens.
“It is unfortunate that it happened in the end, but if there is one thing for sure, the players, the fans, will never forget it, us staff will never forget it and no one can ever take that away from us.”
Before he continued: “It is mad because I probably haven’t had this conversation I am having with you, because this is probably the only time I’ve had to reflect on everything that has gone.
“Everything has been so fast paced and changed so quickly, I suppose it is only when I go on holiday I’ll think about what has actually happened.
“But to get the opportunity to go and work at Championship level was an opportunity both me and Rob couldn’t turn down - and I don’t think many people would!
“A massive club like Watford who have come down from the Premier League and expecting to go straight back up, it is a challenge we both want to do and we are looking forward to.
“I back us to do it (secure promotion back to Premier League). We have done it before, although it might be League Two, but I back us to go and do it again in the Championship because we both have different experiences, but good experiences.
“I think we are ready for the challenge and we can’t wait to get going. We want to try and emulate the success we have had at Forest Green.
“And to do it at Watford would be an incredible journey, but first and foremost we feel privileged to get this opportunity to work at such a big club.”
The next aim for Kyle is a clear one: try and take Watford back to the Premier League. And given the way his career has gone, you wouldn’t bet against him securing what he describes as his 'ideal scenario' come May next year.
“I’m ambitious like every coach in the country. If you ask any coach they want to work at the top level. I want to work with the best players at the top end of the game,” he said.
“I want to be at the Premier League level and to get that opportunity is very few and far between, but I wouldn’t be in it if I didn’t think I could work at that level.
“That’s the level I want to be at and hopefully we can get Watford to the Premier League and now all of a sudden we are 12 months away from possibly doing that. That’s the aim.
“I started off trying to work in the Premier League. Like players who want to play in the Premier League, people take different paths to go there.
“Some people never get there. But I have an opportunity to get there and it is an exciting one to have. Whether we do or whether we don't (gain promotion) it is going to be an incredible experience.
“Hopefully we do get it right though and in 12 months time I am speaking to you and we are in the Premier League. That would be the ideal scenario.”
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