TWTD understands former Bristol City head of sports science Andy Costin is set to be appointed to a similar role at Town.
Costin left Ashton Gate last month having joined the Robins as head of sports science and analysis in March last year. Prior to that he spent seven months at Stevenage as head of sports science.
Born in Gawler, South Australia, Costin was teaching PE before taking his career in its current direction in his late 20s.
He gained a degree in Education and in Health Services at Flinders University, he studied for a post-graduate qualification in Educational Leadership and then a Master’s in High Performance Sport from the Australian Catholic University. Costin then went about looking for a position in English football.
"I got turned down by 35-40 clubs for an internship,” Costin said in an interview with The World Game. "I couldn’t get anyone to give me an internship for the 2018/19 season. Then into the 2019/20 season I couldn’t get anyone to give me a go either. Eventually Stevenage gave me a go and I managed to get an internship there.
"And then, after four weeks, I got made head of sports science. I’m a believer in life-long learning, coming from an education background, so I was always trying to better myself and better my learning. So that took me to Brentford just for a visit.
"And then my real break came, I went to Sparta Prague for a couple of days while I was working at Stevenage. I spent time with Ben Ashworth over there who was a physio at Arsenal for many years and now he’s the director of performance at Sparta Prague.
"It was basically that connection, so after Christmas I got a call from Andrew Rolls [then-head of performance at Bristol City, now director of performance at Town].
"He said, 'I’ve love to have a chat with you', and it kind of went from there. We met up for a coffee and he said, 'show me what you do', so I showed him everything and he was impressed. We just clicked and I started over at Bristol in March [2020].”
Costin, who we understand has already been at the club, joins Rolls at Portman Road with CEO Mark Ashton set to start his job on June 1st when Robins head of operations/club secretary Luke Werhun is also set to move to the Blues.