For a long time, there has been two distinct route for former professional footballers to go down if they wanted to stay involved in the game.
The first of those was a move into coaching. That involved taking your coaching badges, before usually starting out at a low level position at a team down the footballing pyramid. If things went well, you might eventually get the opportunity to manage a club. The other option was punditry, where former players would give their opinions on the current game via various media platforms.
Outside of that, there were not many other avenues that could be explored. That is now changing.
Since hanging up his boots in 2022, Stephen Ward has opted to pursue a career that was not always available to players in his position in the past.
Stephen Ward hoping to excel in emerging field for former pros
As a 36-year old playing at Walsall, he realised that his time as a professional players was coming to an end. He was keen to continue a career in football, although he was not that enamoured by the options mentioned above.
He took plenty of time to consider his next move during that final campaign. After visiting a number of clubs and speaking to people in the game, it quickly became apparent that the director route was something he was keen to pursue.
After undertaking a masters degree in sports and directorship, he stepped into his first job this past summer. Now the Director of Football at English fifth-tier club Solihull Moors, he recalled to Balls how the move came about.
I live close enough to the area. I spoke to a few people that I knew through friends and they'd asked me what my plan was. I explained my situation, spoke about certain things I'd like to do in a club.
Someone knew the chairman, someone who's become a close friend of mine now since coming into the club was actually involved in the club, knew the chairman.
He just said ‘listen, I think it'd be worth you having to sit down with him’. I probably had seven or eight meetings presented to him and thankfully from there I ended up getting, getting the job and started on the first day of preseason.
Stephen Ward took his coaching badges during his playing career, spending time coaching youth sides at Burton Albion (where his son was in the academy) before having a spell as assistant manager under former teammate Roger Johnson at Brackley Town.
However, he knew that the director route was the one he wanted to pursue.
It is not something you would necessarily associate with recent retired pro, but it is becoming an increasingly popular one. Stephen Ward explained to us why that is the case.
I think the growth of the game, the global scale and the size now of the actual operation side of a football club, I think there has probably been a want for a mix of business and footballing people within these roles. There probably hasn't been as many taken up, especially not in the UK.
This role had become quite prevalent in Europe before it came into the leagues over here. If you look at the big clubs - AC Milan, Juventus, Paris Saint Germain, Bayern Munich just to name a few - a lot of people within these roles were ex-players, players that have played for the club, lived and breathed the game, but obviously gone off and done the business acumen and on the education side.
There's a good mix of that in terms of the role now with ex-players having that business acumen and being able to provide something in terms of experience on the pitch as well.
That works for certain clubs, others will want to go in a different way, but I think that kind of thing has probably opened up the door a little bit more for ex-players to come into these roles.
Things have started well for him at Solihull Moors. 19 games into the National League campaign, they sit third in the table and are very much in the promotion race. That is quite the improvement on their 15th-placed finish last season.
Of course, the Irishman is still very much learning on the job.
His duties are not limited to just signing players and negotiating contracts. He has a say in everything from the operations around the ground on a match day, to sorting out travel arrangements, and even attracting new fans in order to increase attendances.
Having spent the majority of his career playing in the top two divisions of English football, he is now operating in a very different environment, albeit one that now has more exposure than ever as a result of the interest in Wrexham over the last couple of years.
As well as that, a playing career does not necessarily prepare you all that well for a role as a director of football.
That is one major difference in comparison to those who might choose to pursue coaching. Professional footballers would encounter countless coaches over the course of their careers, meaning they could learn from each of them and take that into their their own coaching journey. However, they are largely shielded from the work that goes on behind the scenes.
Stephen Ward did his best to prepare himself for his job by undertaking that masters degree and visiting numerous clubs to pick the brains of those in the game, but even he was not quite prepared for what awaited him at Solihull Moors.
When asked if there were any aspects of the job that took him by surprise, he was very forthright in his response. He also summed up the club's goals for the coming seasons.
Absolutely loads! A number of things.
A lot of it is in terms of the operational side, which at the level I'm at you are involved in because there isn’t the staff and structure that you have at the top level where potentially you're involved in first team football, recruitment, and academy, the football side only.
Everyone at Solihull Moors will get involved in all different areas. We work as a small group but we have to get involved in different areas to help the club progress...
Ultimately, the goal for us is to become a sustainable EFL club.
We're not naive enough to think that's gonna happen overnight and you just need to change certain things, it’s got to be a process. One thing I'm very keen on is strategic planning and having processes in place to take the club forward. The National League is tough enough to get out of it as it is, there's only one automatic promotion and one team up from the playoffs.
It's a very difficult league and sometimes a disparity in budgets can make it even more difficult, as the teams found out last year with Wrexham and Notts County.
The best angle in the ground 😲 pic.twitter.com/QZBk98Fove
— Solihull Moors FC (@SolihullMoors) November 12, 2023
A number of high profile Ireland players have become coaches in recent times, including the likes of Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, John O'Shea, and Keith Andrews.
A few have also joined Stephen Ward in the going down this particular route. Jonathan Walters held a similar role at Fleetwood Town and Waterford, while Aiden McGeady has stated his desire to become a director when he hangs up his boots at the end of the season.
In the future, it is not out of the question that some of those names become involved in the FAI in some capacity.
Stephen Ward has spoken to FAI CEO Jonathan Hill and FAI Director of Football Marc Canham and is largely impressed with the work that has been done to improve the game in this country in recent times. Looking at it from a director's point of view, he feels that the foundations of success have been laid both on and off the pitch over the last few years.
From what I've seen in terms of the infrastructure and how the football's running back home in terms the League of Ireland and the academy system there, I think it's a massive change. It's only gonna benefit the senior team.
It will take time. It's something that will really take its due course in five, six, seven years...
I think we were very lucky in terms of the success we had in the 2000s when we were qualifying for tournaments. I look at countries of a similar size to us and and teams that will be in and around us, the likes of Scotland and Wales.
These teams didn't always have the success that they're having now, they had long periods where they were rebuilding and there was a transition period. That's a little bit like what's happening to us at the minute.
There's so many good young players that are finding their feet now and a lot of them are in the Premier League. It's not gonna happen overnight.
There is a bright future, not only with the infrastructure that that's been in place within the League of Ireland, but I think these young lads will only get better from experiences like they've had in the groups that we've had so far.
Having successful Ireland internationals go down this route is certainly something that could benefit Irish football in the future.
Still making the first steps in his new career, Stephen Ward already cuts the figure of someone who can be successful in what is ruthlessly cutthroat business.
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