Sir Clive Woodward HARDtalk


Sir Clive Woodward

Similar Content

Browse content similar to Sir Clive Woodward. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

What's the key to world-class sporting performance? Top coaches

:00:14.:00:17.

will tell you the biggest prizes don't necessarily go to the best

:00:17.:00:23.

natural athletes but to those best prepared. Science, technology and

:00:23.:00:28.

psychology - all are used to gain a competitive edge. My guest today is

:00:28.:00:30.

Sir Clive Woodward, coach of England's World Cup-winning rugby

:00:31.:00:33.

team in 2003, and now performance director for the British Olympic

:00:33.:00:43.
:00:43.:01:10.

Team preparing for London 2012. Are Sir Clive Woodward, welcome to

:01:10.:01:17.

HARDtalk. Thank you. You are in the hot seat this year - Director of

:01:17.:01:22.

sport for the GB team. Are you beginning to feel the pressure?

:01:23.:01:26.

just excitement. We are bringing the team together

:01:26.:01:36.
:01:36.:01:40.

and looking forward to what will be As Director of Sport, you know you

:01:40.:01:48.

will be judged on results. In this case it is going to be top, because

:01:48.:01:54.

in Beijing the British team did so well. 19 gold medals. It is going

:01:54.:02:00.

to be tough to top that. Beijing was a fantastic games.

:02:00.:02:06.

Seeing what happened in China, the team performed fantastically well.

:02:06.:02:10.

You have to look at the 19 gold medals. Eight of them came from

:02:10.:02:16.

cycling. We came up well. We pushed the Australians down the medal

:02:16.:02:26.
:02:26.:02:30.

table. We have confidence of doing well on the medal table. More gold

:02:30.:02:38.

medals from all sports. If we can get a similar mix of medals in more

:02:38.:02:43.

sports, that will surely be great progression. Sport in this country

:02:43.:02:53.
:02:53.:02:54.

is going very well. I want to talk about it. You have been involved in

:02:54.:02:57.

many different sports. Before we get there, let us stick with the

:02:57.:03:00.

Olympics. You have a grand title, director of sport. Does it concern

:03:00.:03:06.

you that you are not directly coaching any of the top athletes?

:03:06.:03:09.

My job is to ensure when the athletes arrive, because the 26

:03:09.:03:19.
:03:19.:03:23.

sports operate independently. It is my job to make sure when all these

:03:23.:03:33.
:03:33.:03:37.

athletes arrive, it is seamless. It's like their normal preparation.

:03:37.:03:44.

I am very clear that I am there for A lot of it is creating the right

:03:44.:03:51.

mentality. Diverse disciplines and diverse sets of athletes. You made

:03:51.:03:56.

a great play of discipline. You say you want a set of rules for the

:03:56.:04:06.
:04:06.:04:14.

team to adhere to. It seems almost Not at all. This is done with

:04:14.:04:24.

complete consultation with all the athletes. We spoke to the

:04:24.:04:27.

successful ones. You want to know how the rest of your team-mates are

:04:27.:04:31.

going to operate. I say with the rugby team, how do you want to be

:04:31.:04:34.

remembered? I cannot think of anything worse than you put on

:04:34.:04:38.

something that affects the performance of your fellow athlete.

:04:38.:04:41.

You are living so close together. Coming home late at night, making

:04:41.:04:49.

some noise and affecting someone's performance. These are basic

:04:49.:04:53.

standards. This is speaking to all the athletes. You talk about

:04:53.:04:55.

keeping your accommodation clean and tidy, no irresponsible

:04:55.:04:58.

Twittering, no swearing in public. No late-night noise. It smacks of

:04:59.:05:04.

treating these top athletes like children. We could have gone a lot

:05:04.:05:14.
:05:14.:05:15.

further. The last thing you want is having everyone do what they want.

:05:15.:05:20.

Taking pictures of you. You have 26 teams coming together from a

:05:20.:05:27.

complete dichotomy of different sports. Sports where this is new to

:05:27.:05:37.
:05:37.:05:37.

them. As I said before, I cannot speak with the athletes. It maybe

:05:38.:05:42.

inadvertent. This is crucial to the performance of the team. This is

:05:42.:05:52.
:05:52.:05:53.

Here are the words of Darren Campbell, a former sprint champion.

:05:53.:05:56.

He says, it is totally different when you're competing as an

:05:56.:06:01.

individual. He is talking about the fact that much of your experience

:06:01.:06:04.

is in team sports. For example, Phillips Idowu, the great a triple

:06:04.:06:14.
:06:14.:06:16.

jumper, he knows what works for him. You cannot put rules down like this.

:06:16.:06:19.

The way we have done this, we have done this across the 26 team

:06:19.:06:26.

leaders. They go back to their athletes. They feed back to us if

:06:26.:06:35.

there is anything that has caused some problem. By the time they are

:06:35.:06:38.

right at the Games, someone like Phillips, he wants to know

:06:38.:06:48.
:06:48.:06:51.

everything around him will be normal. Nothing can happen that may

:06:51.:06:53.

affect his performance. The point that Darren Campbell was making,

:06:53.:07:03.
:07:03.:07:03.

you can't treat individuals like Bolt or Idowu the same as you have.

:07:03.:07:13.
:07:13.:07:15.

Like in rugby or your brief career I disagree. The secret is to treat

:07:15.:07:17.

them more as individuals. Coaching a rugby team, you are approaching

:07:17.:07:22.

individual people. To coach a rugby team, it is no different to a

:07:22.:07:27.

coaching Darren Campbell or Usain Bolt. A lot of stuff we did in

:07:27.:07:32.

rugby, it will work with individual athletes to make them better. That

:07:32.:07:41.

is how I actually describe it. I would run a rugby team no different

:07:41.:07:50.

to coaching an individual athlete. The Olympic Games is about bringing

:07:50.:07:54.

people together and unless you know how to operate, this could all go

:07:54.:07:56.

wrong and things could happen outside the actual performance side

:07:56.:08:01.

of things. It could affect their ability to operate at the optimum

:08:01.:08:06.

level. This is just sheer common sense. There is not an athlete I

:08:06.:08:11.

have spoken to who is not willing to do this. They come back with

:08:11.:08:18.

more ideas. I say, let us keep it to the bare minimum. Sheer common

:08:19.:08:26.

sense. It is the common sense things that do not get used. That's

:08:26.:08:30.

all I am trying to do. Another point about your background.

:08:30.:08:39.

Intense effort put into preparation. Minute attention to detail. That's

:08:39.:08:42.

a mark of your preparation. The England rugby team. There are some

:08:42.:08:44.

suggestions, such as Tom Daley, the diver, they're not necessarily

:08:44.:08:48.

quite putting in the hard work and the commitment that might have been

:08:48.:08:55.

expected by sports directors like you. His own diving coach has said

:08:55.:09:02.

he is being sort of distracted by media work. He sees the Chinese

:09:02.:09:10.

work much harder. They restrict the Chinese. I support Do you see a

:09:10.:09:19.

problem here? I do not see a problem. We have 26 sports. In each

:09:19.:09:23.

sport, everyone is different. thought your sporting philosophy,

:09:23.:09:27.

that applies across sport. There is a lot of common DNA, as you call it.

:09:27.:09:29.

If I was coaching any sport, football, rugby, cricket, diving,

:09:29.:09:37.

it is about, for me, being absolutely passionate to detail.

:09:37.:09:43.

The higher up you go, Beijing was my first games. You were taking on

:09:43.:09:53.
:09:53.:09:54.

the whole world there. It needed to be very special. To get there, you

:09:54.:10:00.

have a talented athlete. You don't have detailed preparation. That is

:10:00.:10:05.

what I try to do. All I can do is coach, I can think, what else can

:10:05.:10:14.

You are employing science and technology and psychology as well.

:10:14.:10:16.

You are employing all these different disciplines to get that

:10:16.:10:26.
:10:26.:10:27.

edge. The sports do this anyway. I'm surprised what was said about

:10:27.:10:31.

Tom Daley, I went to see him in Shanghai, he did remarkably well.

:10:31.:10:34.

This is an incredibly talented athlete. He may be a bit different

:10:34.:10:37.

and operates as an individual but the way he has prepared himself,

:10:37.:10:47.

people should be quite proud of him. There's maybe just a few things.

:10:47.:10:50.

His coach is comparing him with the Chinese, it is different. These are

:10:50.:10:53.

very positive comments that his coach is making because he will

:10:53.:10:57.

have a very good games. Another aspect of the unity you want in the

:10:57.:11:00.

team might be affected by a ruling in the Court of Arbitration for

:11:00.:11:08.

Sport. They need to decide this. Upholding the determination to ban

:11:08.:11:11.

from the team athletes who have been convicted of serious doping

:11:11.:11:14.

offences. It could mean that key figures in cycling, like David

:11:14.:11:24.
:11:24.:11:25.

Miller, would be back on the team. Dwayne Chambers as well. Would that

:11:25.:11:35.
:11:35.:11:38.

We will go with what the court says. The sports are already preparing

:11:38.:11:43.

that. Whichever way this goes. We will go with what arbitration says.

:11:43.:11:51.

I wonder what psychological affect These are very top people and very

:11:51.:11:57.

top teams. It will be very tough. Whichever way it goes, we would

:11:57.:12:01.

just adhere to that. It seems the overwhelming majority believe the

:12:01.:12:11.
:12:11.:12:16.

Most of the athletes believe that to stick with the lifetime ban. If

:12:16.:12:23.

it is overturned, surely many of At the end of this day, like this

:12:23.:12:27.

interview, you are asked to comment on things and I agree with it. 90%

:12:27.:12:33.

of athletes agree with the stance on it. You will find people will

:12:33.:12:39.

move on. If it does not go that way, I do not think it will affect the

:12:39.:12:49.
:12:49.:12:50.

team. I don't think so. You move on very quickly. These are tough

:12:50.:12:55.

people. You don't say, I did not win a medal because the Court of

:12:55.:13:03.

Arbitration went to this way. It is nonsense. This is an interesting

:13:03.:13:06.

topic. In terms of a debate in the performance of the team, I do not

:13:06.:13:10.

think so. As you look at the sport today and I'm not just talking

:13:10.:13:13.

about your role in the Olympic team, do you believe that money is

:13:13.:13:16.

increasingly becoming a corrosive factor at the top of professional

:13:16.:13:23.

No I don't. I think it is the opposite. I think in a way, what I

:13:23.:13:28.

do state is the money is not the prerequisite for winning. I see

:13:28.:13:34.

people getting grants and money and still not go well. You need a

:13:34.:13:38.

certain amount of money, there is no doubt about that. You might need

:13:38.:13:47.

several things. It's about the coaches and the athletes. A certain

:13:47.:13:51.

amount of funding to compete at that level. That is the sort of

:13:51.:13:54.

funding that is put into resources. I was thinking in a different way.

:13:54.:13:57.

Like professional football, the astronomical sums that are paid to

:13:57.:13:59.

individual footballers and which some would argue changes the

:13:59.:14:01.

relationship between the footballer, the team and in particular, the

:14:01.:14:07.

manager or coach. The footballer holds so many of the cards because

:14:08.:14:11.

of his economic power, earning maybe 5 or 6 or �7 million a year,

:14:11.:14:20.

that it changes the dynamic and it No, to me, the great managers, they

:14:20.:14:24.

will come up with this perfectly well. But Alex Ferguson has said

:14:24.:14:26.

his relationship with players has changed as the economics of

:14:27.:14:36.
:14:37.:14:44.

football has changed, so it is the He is, to me, a complete role model.

:14:44.:14:47.

He has been up there so long, he would have changed his management

:14:47.:14:57.
:14:57.:14:58.

style as circumstances change. One is the financial reward. I'm sure

:14:58.:15:02.

he has changed since that but he is still the boss and he manages

:15:02.:15:12.
:15:12.:15:12.

Look at Carlos Tevez. He is paid so much, but during a Champions League

:15:12.:15:16.

game, he was called by his manager to warm up and go on and play, and

:15:16.:15:23.

it seems he refused. That kind of thing may have happened in a whole

:15:23.:15:28.

lot of sports. I have never seen football more popular. The Premier

:15:28.:15:31.

League is the best in the world. In China, you have the Premier League

:15:31.:15:38.

on television. It is the most popular game. That kind of thing

:15:38.:15:41.

could happen in any other sport, but they might not be as high

:15:41.:15:47.

profile. But you believe that athletes should be given roles,

:15:47.:15:56.

guidelines and that is important for building a team and unity. Do

:15:56.:16:05.

you think that would work in professional football today? Yes.

:16:05.:16:08.

From my experience with professional football, I have been

:16:08.:16:13.

to Arsenal and have seen the way it is run. It is a military operation.

:16:13.:16:17.

That is why they are so successful. They have incredible team rules in

:16:17.:16:23.

terms of how they operate. It is fantastic. It gave me many new

:16:23.:16:29.

ideas. Right down to dressing-gowns and showering in certain showers if

:16:29.:16:37.

you have got mud on you. It is amazing. It sets an incredible

:16:37.:16:40.

culture of discipline for the team. I think you'll find most top

:16:40.:16:45.

football clubs have this in place. That brings me to your own home

:16:45.:16:49.

sport, rugby. If all that is achievable and possible, even in

:16:49.:16:52.

the most lucrative of sports, what on earth went wrong in the World

:16:52.:17:02.
:17:02.:17:07.

Cup for the England rugby team? Their discipline clearly was

:17:07.:17:11.

lacking. I'm still a bit perplexed by that. When you know the

:17:11.:17:16.

characters involved, Martin Johnson, Mike Tindall, these are people...

:17:16.:17:20.

Martin Johnson became the coach having led England in 2003. There

:17:20.:17:24.

he was last year in the World Cup campaign and we saw England players

:17:24.:17:27.

going out late at night drinking after matches, we saw a bizarre

:17:27.:17:31.

bungee-jumping trip during the World Cup campaign. How could that

:17:31.:17:41.
:17:41.:17:41.

have happened? To be fair, I will not defend them because I went to

:17:41.:17:46.

New Zealand for the final two weeks. They got it wrong. I think they had

:17:46.:17:56.
:17:56.:17:59.

of control. The most questionable thing was the bungee-jumping. To

:17:59.:18:02.

see the players with management approval go off on a bungee-jumping

:18:02.:18:10.

trip was amazing to me. Can you imagine in the Olympics, Chris Hoy

:18:10.:18:16.

bungee-jumping a week before his race? You would just laugh. That

:18:16.:18:23.

almost summed the trip up for me. I do not know what went on. I had

:18:23.:18:29.

never spoken to them about it. I do not think it is quite as bad as it

:18:29.:18:36.

has been portrayed. It was one bad night out. It got out of control.

:18:36.:18:45.

But I would not even have thought about bungee-jumping. I sense your

:18:45.:18:48.

bemusement, but given that, does it strike you as strange that there

:18:48.:18:51.

are senior people who are still involved with England rugby who did

:18:51.:18:54.

not feel the need to walk away, like Martin Johnson did after that

:18:54.:19:04.
:19:04.:19:05.

disastrous campaign? That is not my call. Martin did the right thing.

:19:05.:19:13.

He knew he had a very bad World Cup. What other people do, that is out

:19:13.:19:21.

of my jurisdiction. England has a caretaker coach at the moment. It

:19:21.:19:25.

has an elite rugby director who has been around for a long time. Would

:19:25.:19:33.

you like either of those positions? I have not thought about it.

:19:33.:19:37.

Everybody else has been talking about it! It has not crossed my

:19:37.:19:45.

mind. The job is not available. yet. All I can say is I have never

:19:45.:19:50.

planned my career. The job I have now kind of came across my desk.

:19:50.:20:00.

You do not know what will happen. I'm very happy with my position.

:20:00.:20:02.

I'm not even thinking about rugby, because there are no interesting

:20:02.:20:11.

jobs in rugby at the moment. I was wondering, if you were to take

:20:11.:20:15.

charge of England, would you try to change the culture? The

:20:15.:20:17.

investigation after the World Cup, players were asked to give their

:20:17.:20:24.

opinion. One player described how after losing to France, a team-mate

:20:24.:20:28.

came in and said, that is �35,000 gone down the toilet. It went back

:20:28.:20:32.

to money. Do you think there is a problem with the mindset of English

:20:32.:20:38.

rugby players? I do not think there is a problem. That is almost like

:20:38.:20:45.

dressing room humour. I could see someone saying that. Sometimes

:20:45.:20:48.

you're absolutely on the floor and when you're looking at it in black

:20:48.:20:53.

and white, out of context, it can take a new meaning. Given the

:20:53.:21:02.

disappointment, that is something I can see a player saying. But it is

:21:02.:21:12.

not such a high-paid sport. When you see what they do and the way

:21:12.:21:15.

they condition themselves and the dangers they put themselves in.

:21:15.:21:19.

This is a highly dangerous game. I think they deserve every single

:21:19.:21:24.

penny they get. You have said that you will not rule anything out, I

:21:24.:21:32.

am wondering, what about football? You worked with Southampton for a

:21:32.:21:38.

short time, which didn't work out so well. You have also said that

:21:38.:21:42.

you would love a crack at full-time football management. Will you look

:21:42.:21:49.

at that? It is interesting that you say it did not work out well. I had

:21:49.:21:55.

a fantastic time. Southampton did not do very well. Harry Redknapp

:21:55.:22:00.

left and you left soon after. I was going to be there for a year,

:22:00.:22:07.

maximum. I was behind the scenes looking at the whole structure. I

:22:07.:22:16.

was offered two jobs in football and was about to go into management.

:22:16.:22:20.

They were two leagues below Southampton. I was going to do it.

:22:20.:22:24.

I have learned enough and I was about to start at the bottom. But

:22:24.:22:28.

then I got a call from Colin Moynihan about the Olympics. It was

:22:28.:22:38.
:22:38.:22:41.

fantastic. I had a great year with Southampton. I sense your

:22:41.:22:46.

excitement about football, but here is what one sports writer said.

:22:46.:22:50.

Richard Williams said: "Clive Woodward's is the story of an

:22:50.:22:53.

energetic and imaginative man who has failed to find another vehicle

:22:53.:22:59.

for his gifts." Do you think that is fair? Not at all. I'm incredibly

:22:59.:23:05.

happy. I have had a great time since 2006, a great year at

:23:05.:23:10.

Southampton. But you have written a book called, Winning'. A lot of

:23:10.:23:18.

your life has been devoted to finding ways to win. I have not put

:23:18.:23:24.

myself in that position. Are you shying away from that? I am

:23:24.:23:27.

committed to the BOA, to Colin Moynihan, and I'm looking forward

:23:27.:23:37.
:23:37.:23:38.

to 2012. I did a huge amount of learning in those six years. People

:23:38.:23:41.

are far more open in Olympic sports than I was in rugby, certainly. The

:23:41.:23:46.

amount of learning I have done has been fantastic. I hope I can pass

:23:46.:23:56.

that onto other coaches. But I have not stopped. I have had a great

:23:56.:23:59.

time doing what I'm doing. Hopefully I can pass on my

:23:59.:24:06.

experience to other people. And a final thought. Do you get as much

:24:06.:24:11.

joy from sport today as you did ten years ago? Totally. In a different

:24:11.:24:15.

way. When I was coaching, there is one sort of joy when you're in the

:24:15.:24:20.

changing room and there is a lot at stake. What I do now is a bit

:24:20.:24:25.

different. I enjoy it in a different way. People might look at

:24:25.:24:29.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS