An Outstanding Football Coach Wednesday, 2nd Jul 2025 14:29 Legendary academy coach Bryan Klug left Town last week having brought through countless young players over the past few decades and TWTD spoke to a handful - Kieron Dyer, James Scowcroft, Ian Westlake and Tristan Nydam - to find out the secrets of his success. Klug, 64, who a club statement said had decided to move on to pursue other interests, joined the Blues as a young player in 1977 during Sir Bobby Robson’s time as manager and won England caps as a young midfielder before serious injury prevented his playing career from hitting the heights it might otherwise have done. After spells with Chesterfield and Peterborough and in non-league, he returned to Portman Road as a coach in 1987 and, aside from a two-year spell working in Tottenham’s academy, he has spent the intervening seasons working in Town’s youth set-up in a variety of roles bringing through young players. Perhaps the highest profile was Kieron Dyer, who went on to win 33 full England caps and play in the Champions League under Robson at Newcastle United. “I probably came across Bryan when I joined the club at 10,” he recalled. “Tony Dable brought me to the club and Bryan was the reserve team manager at the time, but he always helped the youth side.” Dyer says Klug was the best coach he worked with during his career: “I would say so. When you get into the first team environment it’s more about the team. It’s all team emphasis, all about developing the team, you learn the tactical element more than the technical element. “When you’re in the youth development phase, you have individual development plans, so you get a lot more one-on-one coaching just for your benefit rather than the team. “I always say that the most influential coach that I had in my career was Bryan, that’s how important he was. I’ve had a lot of coaches and he was the most influential for where I got in my career.” Dyer says Klug was able to adapt as football has changed over the course of his time in the game. “One of the great skills he had was when we were coming through was that he was proper hard,” the one-time Town U21s and U18s coach, now on Paul Cook’s staff at Chesterfield, continued. “He was a sore loser, he used to join in in training and when I used to nutmeg him and play one-twos, I’d have to run back to Portman Road from Playford Road while he was beeping his horn behind me! He was proper tough on us because that was the way it was. “But then you see the way football’s evolved, the way the kids are today, he’s evolved to where he’s the gentle giant now. Again, it’s a great skill that you’re adaptable. “I used to watch him on the training pitch and think, ‘You have chilled! You are mellow now’. But it’s the sign of a good man, a good coach, a good teacher that they adapt to the students and the environment.”  Although he had a spell as first-team assistant under Jim Magilton, Klug was always happier working with younger players. “If you look at Bryan’s career, he’s probably done every phase of coaching,” Dyer added. “He’s done the youth team, he’s done the reserve team, he’s been academy manager, he’s been assistant manager to Jim Magilton. He’s been caretaker-manager numerous times. “If you asked him when he was most comfortable or most uncomfortable it was probably with the young players rather than when he was Jim’s assistant or he had to take the caretaker’s job. “His passion was the kids and developing. How many youth players actually make it to the first team? So for Bryan, in that golden stage of myself, Scowy, Richard Wright, Titus Bramble, Darren Bent and Jordan Rhodes coming through he had a real purple patch. “That was because he recognised very early the talents and the strengths of his ‘A’ players and worked towards making them better. “And not just developing kids, developing coaches. If you look at [Norwich manager] Liam Manning now and [his assistant] Chris Hogg, I’d say they’d say the biggest influence on their coaching and development was Bryan. “People talk about how many players Bobby Robson managed went on to be great managers, that’s the effect Bryan is going to have as more coaches come through. “When players finished football, he really encouraged them to get back into the system. Lee Norfolk’s been a coach at Ipswich, Alan Lee, David Wright’s back there, Scowy was a coach there, me, Titus, Mick Stockwell, George Williams. “One of the big things he wanted was to bring in ex-players to keep the family club tradition going on and as those players gave a lot to the club as players, he wanted to give back by opening the door with coaching.”  Forward James Scowcroft came through around the same time as Dyer, winning England U21s caps and helping the Blues to win promotion to the Premier League in 2000 and also featured for Leicester in the top flight. “He was an outstanding coach,” Bury St Edmunds-born Scowcroft said. “I had him in the late nineties and early noughties, all the way through my development really. “He took me to the Centre of Excellence at 13 and I think he grew and by the turn of the millennium - and I was fortunate, I went through the England set-up and different clubs - he was as good a coach as there was in the country. He was an outstanding football coach. “He had a really nice manner about him, his attention to detail was very, very good and I think back in that day when Ipswich had an extremely strong academy, most people would say the same, he was as good a coach as you could come across.” While Klug was a youth coach during Scowcroft’s time in the first team, he says he and his fellow academy alumni would still seek out his thoughts. “That was his skillset but all of us as we became senior players would turn to him and listen to him,” Scowcroft, now a European scout at Crystal Palace, continued. “What he was when we were younger, he was a very good coach, but he was exceptionally hard on us well, he suffered no fools. “I had him as my reserve team manager playing against men and he was as hard as nails as well, which I don’t think everybody knows about. “He was into his fitness, you knew his presence. An all-round good guy that you could trust. “At one stage he was making international footballers and we were local people from Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire. “He’s made the club a lot of money in his time. He was an exceptional coach but he was as hard as they come as well. And you need that to be in the world of professional football, he really set you up for the harsh reality of it.”  A few years later, Ian Westlake was part of the U17s squad which won the FA Premier Academy League in 2000/01 and reached the semi-final of the FA Youth Cup in the same season, then played for Joe Royle’s first-team before moving on to Leeds United. The midfielder, now a co-commentator on TownTV, says Klug played a significant role in his development, both as a player and now coaching. “A huge part,” he said. “He always oversaw everything. When I was there, he was very hands-on. We’d have coaches for each age group but if they were ever off or for some reason weren’t doing it and Bryan took a session, everyone was buzzing. “He’s very different from other coaches. He’s very calm, I could count on one hand the number of times I saw him cross, and he just loves football and he wants football to be played in a really creative way which is fun. “When he coached you, he’d give you loads of problems that other coaches probably didn’t. And it wasn’t until after I finished playing that I realised that - until you’ve had more coaches, you don’t see it. “I was fortunate enough to call him when I started doing my coaching badges and I came in and worked with him and he did sessions where the outcome wasn’t as simple as getting it from A to B, it was more tactical. That you can get it there, but however you want to get it there, whereas other drills are often set and go from A to B and it’s quite simple. “He wants you to see things yourself, see patterns and as a coach people are really quick to just give you the answer and I think his biggest skill is that he’d never give you the answer, he’d always want you to get there yourself. “I think if you go on that journey and he sets you a session and you slowly get it, ‘Ah, that’s what he wanted from me’ and then you get a well done, that means a bit more than if you just get told, ‘Do this’. “I guess it’s probably from the coaching manual, if you learn it yourself and you’ve gone through those steps, it sticks with you and then you have that lesson a lot longer. “I think he was a really powerful coach without being the loudest of coaches and just fun to work with. For me, he really pushed me and got the best out of me. “We won the FA Premier Academy League, which wasn’t around for many years. We went up to St James’ Park. “You played in your own area, played teams like Arsenal and then the top ones went to a national thing and the final was two legs against Newcastle home and away and we won at Portman Road and we won at St James’. That was a brilliant occasion and he was a big part of that.” Westlake says Klug was always keen to move players up a level once he believed they were ready, his teammates Darren Bent and Darren Ambrose making their senior debuts at 17 and 18 respectively. “He also loved to push players on as soon as possible,” he continued. “Like Benty and Ambrose, who were the thrivers in our age group, although most times they take on about six from an age group, they took on 12 in ours, they took the whole team and I think most of them ended up playing professionally. “We just had this brilliant age group. But he wasn’t like, ‘We’re going to win the league, we’re going to do this’, as soon as he thought they were good enough, he’d move them on, so Benty and Ambrose were straight in the U19s when we were playing U17s or straight in the reserves as soon as he could get them there. “He was keen to see people progress. It was all about being good enough, not old enough. He never had any barriers with age. As soon as Ambrose could get there, he wanted Ambrose in the first team. He knew his role was development. “And there were times when we weren’t winning a game but we were doing something we’d practiced in training and he’d be just as happy as if we’d won a game. He wanted us to improve and churned out loads of players, so he was doing something really right!”  Tristan Nydam came through towards the end of the last decade, making England U18s and U19s appearances and breaking into the Town first team before injury ended his career prematurely aged only 22. “He was so important to me,” said Nydam, who these days is also working in coaching. “An unbelievable coach and an even better person. Helped me from when I was 12 until I retired. Still helps me to this day if I need anything. Just an unbelievable person.” “I think he can be tough but not in a mean way, he was never too harsh to me, maybe because he loved me! “I think he knows which individuals can cope with certain things and who couldn’t cope with certain things. I think that’s what’s made him so good. “He knew players’ strengths and he knew players’ weaknesses and he identified ways to work on them, not just individually but during team sessions and during games.” Klug rejoined the club following his spell at Tottenham in 2012 as academy manager before moving in 2016 to the less administrative head of player coaching and development role in which he remained until last week. Nydam disputes the suggestion that the academy was less productive during that later spell, indeed in terms of numbers he believes it was among its more prolific eras. “I can’t think of a more successful period,” he said. “We had two play in the Premier League last year [Luke Woolfenden and Flynn Downes, now at Southampton] and then you have players scattered all over, high-level National League and then League One and League Two. “Two years above me to two or three years below me, it was a really successful period for the academy. “Woolfy, Flynn, Andre [Dozzell], Jack Lankester, Brett McGavin, Charlie Brown, Ben Knight, Iddy El Mizounui, Ben Morris out in Detroit, Dobs [Armando Dobra] at Chesterfield, Corrie [Ndaba] in the SPL [at Kilmarnock], Tyreece [Simpson] at Colchester, an unbelievable crop, Bish [Teddy Bishop], Myles Kenlock, Josh Emmanuel and me before I retired. “I think that is a big success because I don’t think the academy has ever produced as many kids playing at those levels in a long time. “I know some people will say it’s not been successful because they haven’t had many play in the first team. If Flynn and Woolfy had still been in the same team, then they probably would look at it as a successful period. Plus you’ve got Cam Humphreys and Elkan Baggott, so I’d say it was pretty successful. I think he was unbelievable and he’ll be a huge loss.” TWTD reported last month that Norwich City have targeted Klug to become a member of their academy staff, although there’s no confirmation of that move as yet. “I still speak to him, I still play golf with him. But I saw you reported there were links with Norwich and I’ve told him if he goes to Norwich I don’t think I can be friends with him anymore!,” Dyer joked. “If you take out his little sabbatical at Tottenham, Bryan gave the club nearly 50 years of service. Wow! Not many people do that in football.”
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