Justin Walley: The travelling coach

SCW: What was your coaching involvement with the club and how did that develop over time? What other coaching opportunities have you taken on?

JW: "I started off as assistant men’s coach under Jeffrey Young, who had the USSF A licence. At the same time, I was coaching in schools.

“When Jeff went to coach in China, the lads wanted me to take over, but I’d just created the ladies team and was coaching them at the time.

"I couldn’t do both so I turned down the men’s team, and focused on the ladies, because I thought there was the potential for us to really go far.

"If you won the league, you go into the [Uefa Women’s] Champions League and I thought we were capable of getting there. “We didn’t, we were the third best team in the country. But in terms of resources, we were competing with the leading club, which had maybe €250,000 a year in finance, whereas we had none. The fact we even pushed those teams was a big accomplishment.

“We had the women’s national player of the year in our team, so that was a very proud moment, and three of the girls played regularly for the national team.

“It got to the point where I was both coaching and helping to run many aspects of the club. I just got burnt out - I ended up in hospital. I don’t know how much of that was stress-related, or to do with how much I had on my plate.

“I made a decision at that point to walk away the following season. So my main involvement with Riga United kind of finished after I was ill.

"I made the decision to have a break from football in the back end of 2016, early 2017."

SCW: How long did the break last? What reflection did you do on your involvement with soccer and how intense it can be?

JW: "Me and my girlfriend at the time went off to the Indian Ocean and did some backpacking, in Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Madagascar. It was amazing.

"I just thought, ’I don’t want to work in football anymore. It’s causing me too much stress. I love the game but I’m not wanting to watch on television, because I’m sick of it’.

“I tried to get involved in other things - I was trying to volunteer with elephants. It didn’t quite happen. I hit a few dead ends.

“Within four or five months, I decided I wanted to get back in football, but I wanted to have new ambitions in it.

"I came up with the crazy idea that I wanted to be a national team coach, despite not having the badges to be one. This is how I ended up being the national team manager of Matebeleland in 2017."

SCW: What was what was that like?

JW: "I’d been to Africa before, so that wasn’t so strange in itself, but going to live in Zimbabwe was - all the crazy stuff that was going on at the time.

"We had a military coup with [Robert] Mugabe taken out of power and I had a lockdown of sorts, lying low in somebody’s house for a few days, not knowing whether it was going to end up in civil war.

"I wanted to be a national team coach, despite not having the badges to be one..."

“There was a period where it was all about awareness and trying to raise money. That’s when we got CNN to do a documentary about us and [gambling company] Paddy Power help us with the kits. I got [former Liverpool and Zimbabwe goalkeeper] Bruce Grobbelaar involved.

“Then of course there was going to the tournament [the CONIFA World Cup, for non-Fifa states] - getting the money and the visas and ending up in [host city] London, which was just extraordinary.

"Once we got there, we knew we had succeeded. It wasn’t about winning the tournament, it was getting the lads to the CONIFA World Cup and sharing Matabele and Zimbabwean culture with the rest of the world.”

SCW: What would you be saying to anyone else starting out on their journey in coaching about where it can take them?

JW: "Badges are important. If you can, get them under your belt early.

“Take gambles, move abroad. A friend of mine, Tony McMullen, moved to Latvia a few years ago and now he’s the goalkeeper coach of Spartaks Jūrmala in the Latvian Premier League.

“I know three or four coaches who have gone abroad on a whim - they’ve turned up with a bag and are taking a huge risk, but they end up in an interesting little job and exciting opportunities come.

"The main thing is to be authentic and to enjoy it. The reality is that we just get pleasure and enjoyment out of the game.

"If that’s scoring a brilliant overhead kick down the park with your mates, that’s fantastic. If that’s coaching a Sunday League team and winning the league, that’s fantastic.

"Just enjoy it for what it is."