Pittodrie People | Adam Stokes

As part of RedMatchday’s Pittodrie People feature, Adam Stokes took time out from his very busy schedule to speak with AFC Media. You will also be able to watch the full interview with Adam on RedTV.

Over the summer, Adam Stokes joined Aberdeen FC to become the Club's Head of Medical & Sports Science.
 
Adam, who had the same role at Motherwell, will be responsible for overseeing all medical and sport science activity at Pittodrie. Adam spent five years at Fir Park after graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University, and is clearly settling in well to his new job.

“It has been great so far. It was very much a whirlwind the way it all came about, it was a very quick turnaround in the summer but I managed to get up here about 10 days after the boys had arrived back for pre-season. I was straight into the European trips and from there on in it has been very busy. The club have been fantastic with me and it has been an easy settling in process.

“The relationship between the players and the medical side of things is very important. You have to get their trust. Once you start working with the boys who pick up little niggles, then you start to build a relationship with them. The job is all about working with them. You have to listen to what they are telling you.

“Every player is different and has to be treated as an individual. Some think they have a better grasp of anatomy and physiotherapy issues better than you, but there are a few big words you can use to put them in their place!

“I’m from Glasgow and studied there. During my four years at University, I did voluntary work with John Porteous at Motherwell. I built a really good relationship with him over three and a half years and learnt a lot as he is highly regarded. A lot of life is about being in the right place at the right time and when someone moved on, I got offered a role full-time.  

“John then moved to Hibs so I got the head physio role at Motherwell and did that for two years. They are a really good club who helped me out massively. It was a great place to work and it was a good time to be there as they were fairly successful.

“My role at Aberdeen is a new one that has been developed. It is very much clinically led, so I am very much hands on with the players, travelling with the squad. The other side of it is very management based. The club wanted to get more structure into the medical set up, so we are trying to bring in a few new things here and there and update a few practices. We have a wide remit as we are not just working with the first team. We are working with all the players throughout the club, including the U20s and the boys in the Youth Academy, so it is an exciting role.

“The Academy is very important because the step from youth football to full-time football from a medical point of view is a tough one, and really important to get right as we are trying to reduce the number of overload injuries. I am working with the sport scientists and phyisos in the Academy to try and make the journey a lot smoother for the ones who come through.

“Medical teams at football clubs all work very hard. The phyisos are working seven days a week most weeks. Very often it is not just working with players who are injured and trying to get them back to full fitness, it is working with injuries that the fans don’t hear about, players who are carrying little knocks or nursing the ones who have just returned from injury.  

“All the medical staff have been brilliant and have really helped me settle in. As a department we have a wide range of strengths. John Sharp and Aimee Clark in the physio side have different branches that they are strong in so we are finding that we all complement each other.

“We have Sport Scientists Graham Kirk and Paddy Maughan who do a great job. As a department, we are all working together to put strategies in place for injury prevention, which is also filtering down to the academy as well. Then we have three great Doctors who between them offer a full time service to the boys. It is a team in every sense.

“Having worked in football for five years you do have the traditional contact injuries, but you speak to physios who have worked in the game for 30 years and they will tell you that during a season, they can get three or four things they have never seen before. That certainly keeps you on your toes and you don’t get too many injuries that are the same. I don’t believe you get two ankle injuries the same. There is always some kind of different presentation. There is always something to make you think twice.

“The hardest part of the job is dealing with the guys who pick up a significant injury and are out for a long time. The worst part is telling them the prognosis, telling them they have a bad one and the timescales involved. Conversely, when you get to the end of that stage and you have worked with them for every day for months at time and you get them back, that is very rewarding.   

“If you compare the game here with what is happening down south, the big difference is the physicality of the players in England. There are ways we can tap into that. Again it is an example of why working with the Youth Academy is so important, doing that with kids in their teens is a good age.

“Every player is completely different and some might get to the end of their growth cycle early and they are not going to change much, so again, that is why you want to hit them in the Youth Academy and work with the ones who can improve that side.

“I think it is only over the last ten years that the sport science side of things have been brought in, but over that time, attitudes have changed massively. There have been the changes in medical world too and there is now a lot more information that we can glean and pass onto the players that has a bit of evidence behind it. It is the same with anything in life, if you see something working, you will be encouraged to use it. The players recognise that basically the more time they can stay fit, the more time they will stay in the team.

“I find it quite exciting to keep on top of the latest developments in sports medicine. I am actually coming to an end of a distance learning Masters Degree in Sports Physiotherapy. I have done two years of that and I am now in a research phase. I have 13 full time clubs in Scotland involved, looking at a specific type of injury.

“A huge part of the job is keeping up with the latest developments. There is a lot of evidence based practice and as long as it has a relevant and proven scientific understanding, then trying to adapt that into your practice and seeing what works and what does not, what complements old practices, is quite exciting. For example, with an injury there might have been a way that we always treated it, but there might be new ways we can treat it.

“Everything we do is aimed at giving the players the highest practice of care”.