Charlton Athletic’s medical team have been nominated for the League One Medicine and Performance Team of the Year award. The award acknowledges outstanding contribution from a clubs Medicine and Performance Association.
The Addicks medical team will be going up against Bristol Rovers, Peterborough United and Portsmouth at the awards evening later this month.
The club's Head of Medical Services, Alastair Thrush explained: “It’s an award that’s nominated on behalf of the Football Medics and Performance Association. They’re a body similar to the PFA or the LMA’s for the managers. It’s a recognition for the work that the sports science and medicine people do behind the scenes at the clubs. Each division has nominations and the eventual winner is then announced at the conference and awards dinner which is in a couple of weeks time.”
Thrush also explained how the nominees are chosen. He said: “They look at injury statistics and how well the team have been operating. They’ll take into account clubs that are working under known restrictions, whether that be financial or otherwise, so it is just a sort of peer nominated award based on overall performance over the course of the season.
“I’m really proud of the team, we’ve all been together for a couple of years now and the work that they do really does go on behind closed doors and a lot of people don’t really see the hours that get put in by the medical and sports science team. We’re often the first to arrive in the building in the morning and the last to leave in the evening. It’s only when the players are injured that they start to understand the actual hours that go into this.”
Thrush also took the opportunity to thank both the players and the coaching staff for helping them to achieve their success. He said “It’s testament again to the players this season. Those players that have gone through the rehabilitation process, they’ve worked really hard to get back out there and this season each player’s been fighting for their spot and Lee Bowyer creates a really professional atmosphere in the training ground. I think that the players know that they have to be in at a certain time and they have to stay in to get all their rehab done until a certain time and I think that’s in part the reason for the success, because of the discipline that’s been instilled by the manager.”
