Matthew Digwood

Duties:

• Leading foundation football courses across the Sunshine Coast and mentoring a range of coaches in the local area in line with the FA coach development model.

Duties:

• Creating a positive learning environment for players and coaches to develop their skills, assessing areas for improvement and nurturing super strengths.
• Coordinating over 800 players at the club into correctly graded teams with over 60 volunteer coaches.
• Providing our volunteer coaches with structure such as a clear philosophy, curriculum & training cycles while also establishing clear and individualised coach development plans to improve the standard of coaching.
• Dealing and mediating safeguarding issues for a wide range of issues.
• Creating, leading and fulfilling a talent ID programme for the clubs academy and community pathways which involves over 700 players.
• Initiated clear individual player development strategies e.g. player evaluation meetings.
• Fulfilled audit requirements for NPL academy license which mirrors the EPPP and academy structure in UK & Europe.

Achievements:

• Record member numbers at the club, surpassing 800.
• Increased female participation at the club by 84%.
• Directed the clubs vision with clear philosophy and long-term athlete development framework in line with the clubs 3-5 year plan.
• Coordinated over 60 junior coaches at the club – equipping them with the skills and information required to provide an excellent service to our players through elite coach education.
• Undefeated U23 men’s league campaign 2023 & 2024, 2nd place finish in the 2025 season with the premier men.

Duties & Responsibilities:

My time as a trainee and full qualified PE teacher has taught me an abundance of valuable skills. My responsibilities included:

• Contributing to the wider ethos of the schools through sporting activities, matches and through music (brass) lessons.
• Meticulous lesson planning.
• Self-evaluation and assessment.
• Accurate marking and constructive feedback.
• Pastoral duties such as form tutoring and report writing.
• Dealing with behavioural issues and utilising behaviour management techniques.
• Ensuring quality teaching always.
• Providing a stimulating curriculum.
• Contributing in departmental meetings.

Achievements:

• Created stimulating curriculum.
• Developed effective behaviour management strategies.
• Attended numerous fixtures and sport tournaments with the schools.
• Set up after school club and extra-curricular activities.

Duties:

• Detailed session planning.
• Leading and setting standards by demonstrating respect, punctuality and commitment.
• Ensuring high levels of enthusiasm to drive sessions.
• Nurturing a guided discovery learning process and environment for younger age groups.
• Designing innovative sessions and practices.
• Committing to professional development always by researching philosophies and ideologies.
• Using a range of methods to deliver key and concise information to players and other coaching staff.
• Dealing with individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures (people management).
• Organising off field events to develop comradery and culture.

Achievements:

• 2nd in the league and club's first trophy in 8 years with local Welsh side (1st year in senior coaching age 23). 74% win ratio.
• Developed numerous players who went on to play for Welsh academies from my local grass-roots club.
• 2X players from my Wrexham team were signed by EPL clubs.

Duties:

• Shadowing elite coaches.
• Attending team meetings.
• Contributing to discussions.
• Making connections with players and staff.
• Learning and soaking in knowledge and experiences from some of the leading coaches in Europe.

Duties:

• Improving the club’s social media profile.
• Refining the social media content with a variety of innovative strategies.
• Revamping the clubs branding through creative and dynamic match-day posters on the website and social media sites.
• Conducting regular interviews with players and staff.
• Management of non-match day events (pro week).

Achievements:

• Increased post reach and engagement by 40%.
• Improved the clubs branding through creative and dynamic match-day posters.
• Generated significant income for the club through both match day and non-match day events.

Duties:

• Leading staff and players.
• Planning events such as tournaments and ID events.
• Managing finances.
• The organisation impacted over 150 pupils and benefited sport greatly in the local community.
• Utilising a variety of social media strategies and leaflets/posters to maximise reach and exposure.

Achievements:

• Grew from 20 customers to over 200 (weekly);
• Positively impacted the lives of children in the local area.
• Generated consistent turnover and profit.
• Grew to a team of 9 staff.
• Created an exciting social media platform with high engagement.
• With numbers growing from 20 (weekly) to 200 (weekly), the marketing campaigns were clearly successful.
• Other work experience includes bartending, printing assistant, data input assistant.