Postgraduate Students Hear from Performance Experts at Major Sports Clubs

Masters level students at the University of Worcester have benefitted from the expertise of performance analysts from major professional sports clubs across the Midlands.

As part of their MSc Sport (Applied Performance Analysis) course, around 40 students attended an intensive week of sessions at the University of Worcester’s Severn Campus to kickstart their degree.

Guest speakers, who joined online, included experts in performance analysis from Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, MK Dons FC and Nottingham Forest FC who each gave their insights to the students.  This was alongside experts from a leading performance analysis data provider (StatsPerform) and elite-level coaches (MagicAcademy).  The speakers gave real-life examples as to how coaches, players and support staff use information to enhance performance and showed how research or theory can connect to practice.

Students took part in a series of lectures, seminars and interactive workshops during the week, all socially distanced and adhering to the latest Government Covid-19 guidelines, using the latest performance analysis industry software (Hudl SportsCode and Angles by Fulcrum Technologies).  These focused on key topics related to applied performance analysis, including learning about capturing meaningful information and data that can be used to impact performance, and the role of a performance analyst. 

The course incorporates two such intensive weeks during the year, which form an essential part of getting to know students, as well as students getting to know one another, understanding what postgraduate study involves and building a community of future performance analysts.

The students now return to a number of professional and semi-professional clubs around the country, where the University has established successful funded placement opportunities, including Birmingham City FC, Rangers FC, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, Crystal Palace FC, Reading FC and Kidderminster Harriers FC.

Course leader and lecturer in Performance Analysis, Dr John Francis, said: “We are really fortunate to work with a range of leading professionals from a number of elite level clubs around the country to ensure the content that we deliver is at the forefront of the industry.  It was great to be back to face-to-face teaching engaging with students in an environment that both staff and students felt safe in.  Whilst we had to make changes to our traditional intensive weeks, the facilities around the Severn campus enable us to maintain our student-centred teaching approach while complying with Covid guidelines.”