study for an MBA at Sheffield Business School. But he was keen to remain involved with cycling, and his path crossed Herety’s in 1993, when he answered another plea: to act as soigneur to a small professional team managed by Herety (and sponsored by a Rotherham nightclub).
Brailsford’s qualifications as a soigneur – the main responsibility being to massage the riders’ legs – were unclear, though Herety admits he adopted, by necessity, a beggars-can’t-be-choosers approach to staff recruitment. ‘If you had a massage table and a tub of baby oil, you were in,’ he jokes. But he must have made a good impression. Later that season, Brailsford was invited to act as soigneur to the British team at the World Championships in Norway.
Herety also recommended Brailsford for a job with an Essex-based bike manufacturer, Muddy Fox. ‘He went for an interview for the job of UK sales manager,’ says Herety. ‘And he walked out of that interview as European sales manager. I’m not sure they were even interviewing for that position. But Dave talked himself into it. And he went from there …’
As performance director at British Cycling, Brailsford strived to create a supportive environment, in which people – coaches, athletes – felt they could have a say, and influence decisions. That didn’t mean there were no rules or discipline; but his approach, he explained, was ‘more carrot than stick’. As he said in 2007: ‘I don’t believe in stick, but that doesn’t mean to say we’re soft. If our lads walk into training five minutes late, we say, “Sorry, thanks for coming but off you go, home.” But bawling at people creates a sense of fear and I don’t believe that brings the best out of people.’
The Academy, under Ellingworth’s stewardship, but with Brailsford taking a very close interest, was run along similar lines, though perhaps, as Ellingworth acknowledges, with a greater emphasis on ‘strong leadership’. He says that most of the riders thrived in an environment in which rules were rigidly applied. ‘Cav kind of liked it, I think,’ says Ellingworth. ‘Some are like that. It was a dictatorship style, that first year or two, I suppose. But I like that too. Look at my boss, Dave Brailsford. He can be a hard bastard; he can be real ruthless. But I like that sort of leadership, as long as you’re fair. As Brailsford said to me: our job as coaches is to make these guys better, not to eliminate them. But it had to be tough. It’s like being in the army; okay, they’re not going to war, but they’re out there racing flat out against every nation in the world, pushing and shoving and competing. You don’t want guys wimping out.
‘I was strict with some of the rules’, Ellingworth continues. ‘Punctuality was a big one. “The wheels are turning at 9am” is what I’d always say. If they were late, I said, “Right, you’re cleaning all the bikes after.” So after 160, 170km, they had to clean the bikes. The mechanics [whose normal job it was] loved it.’
In the early years of the Academy – before the setting up of the base in Quarrata – the riders were based in two houses in Manchester, one near the city’s university, the other in the grittier area of Fallowfield. As members of the Academy they had an allowance of £6,000, the money coming from lottery funding, but half went straight back to the governing body, to cover the rent on the houses. Managing their money – they lived on £58 a week – was part of the education, says Ellingworth.
As Cavendish wrote in his 2009 book, Boy Racer, the Academy provided a University of Life type experience: ‘In that first year we learned a hell of a lot about bike racing, but more about ourselves and, I suppose, even more about life in general.’ When asked if he feels he ‘missed out’ by not attending a proper university, Cavendish responds: ‘If university life was about booze and drugs and skipping lectures, then, yeah, I missed out. If it was about having a laugh and living with two mates who cooked bad food and turned the place into a shit-hole on a daily basis, then, no, I think life with Bruce and Ed [in the Fallowfield house] was a fairly decent substitute.’ (It’s unlikely that the rooms were as much of a ‘shit-hole’ as Cavendish claims. Ellingworth conducted random ‘room tests’: ‘I wanted them to learn that, if they’d been away racing, it was nicer to come back to a place that was neat and tidy.’)
Though the first six Academy riders had been offered a two-year berth, not all survived. ‘One rider left because he wouldn’t listen to instructions,’ says Ellingworth. ‘It could be the smallest thing: handlebar tape dragging off his bars. I kept telling him: “Sort your bar tape out – you’re representing Britain, look neat and tidy.” He also punctured three or four times in a few days and never went to the velodrome to get new inner tubes. He’d get up in the morning, the ride would be going at 9am, and he’d be sorting it then.
‘Some didn’t make it, but that’s normal,’ continues Ellingworth breezily. ‘You’d expect that with a group of 19- or 20-year-olds. But I think that if someone stops at that age it proves they don’t want to be cyclists. If you really want to be a cyclist, if you really believe you can do it, you’ll keep at it. It’s not about money; it’s about whether they want to do it. And the guys who really want to make it can recognise a good opportunity when it comes along. Cav recognised it was a dream situation for him to be in, so he and I hit it off pretty soon. But I take my hat off to someone like Matt Brammeier, who has stuck at it.’ (Brammeier moved on from the Academy but continued racing until he suffered a horrific crash in 2007, when he was struck by a cement lorry and broke both legs. He returned to join a Belgian team, switched his allegiance to Ireland and completed a remarkable comeback by signing with Cavendish’s HTC team for the 2011 season.)
The Academy didn’t work for some, but, as Ellingworth notes, it worked spectacularly for Cavendish. Had it not existed then he would have taken the only possible road to a career as a professional road cyclist; the old road to Europe, as followed by such British luminaries as Brian Robinson, Tom Simpson, Barry Hoban, Graham Jones, Robert Millar and Sean Yates (a road that Ellingworth and Brailsford, when they were cyclists, also followed, with less spectacular results). Fully intending to take that road, Cavendish was working in Barclays Bank on the Isle of Man to save enough money to live abroad and pursue his dream of turning professional. ‘I’d always intended to leave Barclays at the end of 2003 to dedicate myself full-time to cycling, hoping that a pro contract would be waiting for me at the end of two or three seasons in the under-23 or amateur category,’ he writes in his book. ‘Belgium, Holland, Italy, France: they all had a sprawling network of amateur clubs, many with six-figure budgets, top-notch bikes and back-up, international race programmes and often feeder agreements with the best pro teams in the world.’
Cavendish knew how tough that would be: ‘In the past, any British youngster who aspired to turn pro had relied on contacts and their own initiative; they’d had to overcome homesickness, loneliness and a language barrier, not to mention the bias foreign teams usually show towards their own riders. A few, really resilient souls had even made it, but they’d done so in spite of, rather than because of, the system.’
With the inevitable turnover of riders there was a new Academy intake at the end of the first year, including a young Welshman, Geraint Thomas. And in year two, says Ellingworth, it became blindingly obvious to him which riders had the attributes to make it as professionals. ‘Cav, Gee [Thomas] and Ed [Clancy] were just different,’ he says. ‘They stood out.’
‘It was something I definitely could only do at that age,’ admits Geraint Thomas of life in the Academy. ‘I couldn’t do it now. But it gave me so much. It taught me about living away from home and looking after myself. It was as much about lifestyle, really. It wasn’t about results, it was about learning. Even the guys who didn’t make it – I still speak to some of them, and they say that it gave them so much, whatever they ended up doing. One rider, Ross Sander, packed in cycling and moved to America to be with his dad. But I still speak to him once in a while; he’ll say the same. We owe a lot to Rod and the Academy.’ (It’s interesting to note that Sander, like Brammeier, changed nationality, in his case taking out American citizenship. Another talented young rider who didn’t appear to fit in to the British system, Dan Martin,
