other. ‘What people need is social support, and they need to know who to ask for help,’ she says. ‘Companies don’t have ideas; only people do. And what motivates people are the bonds and loyalty and trust they develop between each other. What matters is the mortar, not just the bricks.’
When you put all of this together, you get just what Athletic have achieved in Bilbao: social capital. ‘Social capital is the reliance and interdependency that builds trust,’ says Heffernan. ‘The term comes from sociologists who were studying communities that proved particularly resilient in times of stress. Social capital is what gives companies momentum, and social capital is what makes companies robust. What does this mean in practical terms? It means that time is everything, because social capital compounds with time. So teams that work together longer get better, because it takes time to develop the trust you need for real candour and openness. And time is what builds value.’
The Athletic directors Amorrortu and Palacios-Huerta agree with Heffernan’s hypothesis. Social capital builds trust: that’s the Athletic way. Then there is that term ‘culture’. If something is happening in a group and we can’t see the explanation, it’s often put down to the culture. ‘Culture is an ambiguous word that can refer to many intangibles in sport,’ Darwin adds. But don’t confuse it with cohesion. For Darwin, culture cannot be measured; cohesion can.
HOW TO GET AN EDGE – by BEN DARWIN
1 Understand the state of an organisation so that decisions can be made (and expectations understood) in context.
2 The knowledge of success or failure must be held in the organisation, not in an individual.
3 Decisions with the short term in mind will impact long after in ways not envisaged.
ÖSTERSUNDS FK
Find your USP
The Solidarity Gala rap / Dangers of blame culture / Swap stress for bravery / Create your own distinction / Swan Lake and reindeer lasso / The Privilege Walk / What is art?
As one of the oldest clubs in Spain, it makes sense for Athletic Club de Bilbao to make tradition, history and community such a critical part of its USP. But what about the clubs who don’t have that kind of history, or a start-up looking to create an edge in the market: they cannot rely on a past, or even a point of distinction, that doesn’t yet exist. That was the conundrum that faced a genial young Englishman who found himself in a freezing part of northern Sweden with his wife and new-born son and a team that was under-achieving at all levels. As we will see, he worked on an identity. He developed cohesion. He found an edge. And the results followed.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you have just seen the football-playing, music-making, love-making, heart-breaking, booty-shaking, fist-pumping, legendary UHHH-EFFF-KOE!’
In September 2016, in Frösö Convention Centre, a former aircraft hangar in a small city in northern Sweden was packed to the rafters. Graham Potter, dressed all in black, was on the stage addressing a crowd of over 1,600 people. The audience was going wild. They had just seen players from their local football club, Östersunds FK, known as ÖFK, put on a show like no other. Potter was ÖFK coach.
This was the Solidarity Gala, and it was raising money for people driven from their homes by war. It began with Iraqi striker Brwa Nouri addressing the venue with a plea for community. ‘Solidarity is a collective that takes responsibility for something, without having any self-interest in it to look after the well-being of a group.’
Former ÖFK player and now marketing executive Jimi Eiremo then played a haunting tune on the näverhorn, a traditional Swedish instrument similar to a didgeridoo, made out of birch-bark. Around him, the team sang the melancholy regional anthem ‘Jämtlandssången’. Potter even sang a solo verse, as did Christine, one of the club cooks. Christine is a refugee from Congo who settled in Östersunds and is one of the most popular figures at the club. Her performance, given the context, was poignant.
Nouri, Sotte Papagianipolous (Greek/Swedish) and Saman Ghoddos (Swedish) then stepped forward to perform a brilliant rap based on Ison & Fille’s hit ‘Jag skrattar idag’ (I laugh now). The song is about living for the moment and not having regrets. Next up was youth coach Andreas Paulsson, who shouted into the mic, ‘Let’s speed this up!’ and after an impressive beat-box session, sang Justin Bieber’s ‘Love Yourself’ in perfect tune. Curtis Edwards, a former Middlesbrough academy player, then belted out the George Michael song ‘Freedom’.
The first-team squad joined together in singing ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’, ‘Human’ and ‘We Are the World’. This one was an emotional one, as drawings from children saying ‘Tack ÖFK’ – thanks ÖFK – were shown on a giant screen behind the stage. The kids weren’t the only ones giving thanks. ‘Football was my saviour, and by that I don’t mean the actual kicking of a ball, but more about what this club stands for and the values it has,’ said Nouri.
Every member of the squad, including the coach and his assistants, performed during the show. It ended with a burst of red-and-black confetti and the first-team players and youth players wildly dancing to ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling’. The mood was joyous. Relief was mixed with pride. The show was sensational.
‘It was a wonderful night,’ Potter tells me a few months later, as he prepares for a pre-season training camp in warmer climes than northern Sweden. Potter has guided ÖFK from Sweden’s fourth division to the first division, and survival in the top flight, in the space of six years. In 2017, ÖFK also won the Swedish Cup, the first major trophy in their history. Potter is a hero in the ‘Winter City’, which until recently was more famous for its Nordic sports.
Östersunds has a cross-country ski stadium and a snow piste. It has hosted several Nordic Games and ski orienteering world championships. But now it has another source of pride. One journalist who visited Potter’s house saw a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table and a note from AnnSofie Andersson, the mayor, saying, ‘Congratulations, you are amazing. We are so glad you live in Östersunds.’
Potter was an average player (his words), who considers himself fortunate to have been a professional for 13 years. He played in the top flight, for Southampton and Stoke, but most of his career was in the lower leagues. He always had a thirst for knowledge. One afternoon he was idly skimming a newspaper when he realised how much time he had on his hands. He signed up to an Open University degree in social sciences and studied American and European Union politics. When he retired from playing, he wanted to combine his continuing education with some coaching. So he became a football development coach at the University of Hull and continued his early coaching career at Leeds Metropolitan University, where he enrolled in a Masters course in leadership and emotional intelligence.
He explored leadership theory and how success is related to overall environments. He wrote a thesis on the importance of reflection and self-determination in individual development. Potter learned that self-awareness was the foundation of emotional intelligence; it’s a lesson that remains with him today. He was the only sports coach on the course. His course leader was a former military man, and everyone else was either in the army or a surgeon. ‘They were all highly technically gifted but needed support around emotional management and particularly when mistakes happen and their responses to that.’ It was fascinating for Potter, whose own environment had been based heavily on a blame culture, where coaches would tell him to cut out silly mistakes, and players were castigated for individual errors. Potter decided he wanted to be different.
That’s when he met ÖFK chairman Daniel Kindberg, who was then the club’s sports director.15 Potter was offered the job of academy head. He turned it down. Over a year later, Kindberg
