JUST two years ago, former Mount Gambier resident Andy Costin was a PE teacher, but now he is an integral part of a top-flight English soccer team.
Less than 12 months after moving to the Northern Hemisphere the 31-year-old Australian joined Bristol City during the 2019-20 English Football League Championship – the tier below the Premier League.
Costin is the Robins’ physical performance analyst and works closely alongside star players such as Nahki Wells and Tomas Kalas.
The promotion marked the end of a challenging, but rewarding chapter of his life.
In 2018, Costin was a familiar face at St Martins Lutheran College in Mount Gambier after being a PE teacher for seven years.
However, outside interests started to play bigger roles in his life.
He was the lead performance coach at the Limestone Coast Regional Sporting Academy and also began studying an online masters degree in high performance sport.
Costin said these activities helped him discover where his passion lied, so he made an unexpected life-changing decision.
“I had a tough year personally in 2018 and I needed a change,” he said.
“I had been at St Martins for seven years and was getting to the age where I thought if I do not do something now, I am never going to do it.
“When I was working with budding athletes hoping to come professionals in the academy, there was a real drive there to succeed and I wanted to move into that.
“So I started studying a masters degree online and thought now is the time.
“A lot of people thought I was crazy giving up a good job at a good school, but you follow your dreams.”
The dual Australian and British citizen flew half way around the world and arrived in the spiritual home of soccer in December 2018.
He started approaching clubs around the country to be offered an intern, but after contacting around 40 teams, not one showed any interest.
Costin said this was a steep learning curve as he jumped around house sitting for seven months.
“It was daunting moving to England,” he said.
“But if you do not face your fears and go head on into the unknown, you are just going to stay in your comfort zone and not challenge yourself, so I decided to go.
“I was rejected by 30 to 40 clubs, which makes your ego take a hit, especially for unpaid work.”
However, his perseverance paid off when the Stevenage Football Club asked the Australian for his services.
Costin said the experience gave him an idea of what he wanted to focus on in the future and it did not take long to be promoted at the small club.
“I was an intern for about a month and the assistant Mark Sampson – who was a former England women’s national team manager – saw what I was doing and gave me a full-time job,” he said.
“It made me feel valued and because it is a small club with only six or seven people, I was doing a range of things.
“I really liked it because I learnt many things and worked out what I wanted to specialise in later on.”
Having settled in at Stevenage, Costin’s next lucky break materialised during a holiday.
He said a short trip to the Czech Republic provided the stepping stone for the next phase of his career.
“Stevenage gave me leave for three days in November 2019 and I flew to Prague to meet with Ben Ashworth,” Costin said.
“Ben was Arsenal’s head physio for seven years and did online lectures in the masters course I studied, so I approached him and spent three days with AC Sparta Prague, which was a really good experience.
“I kept in contact with him and he was approached to write a short-list for Bristol, who were looking for someone and he just put my name forward and said give this guy a call.
“It is not what you know, it is who you know and I am very grateful for that.”
After working at Stevenage for seven months with a handful of staff, Costin found himself as a full-time employee surrounded by around 40 people at Bristol in the middle of a season.
The former North Gambier football and Blue Lake soccer player works in the performance team alongside physios, sports scientists and analysts.
His workload throughout the week includes regular meetings, analysis of a player’s physical performance during training and matches, planning drills, watching game videos and player recruitment.
Costin said he is making the most of every moment in the high-pressure environment.
“It is full on,” he said.
“Inside a club it is like a business, you have your structures and meetings, but with a lot of stuff on the soccer pitch.
“The guys working at championship level are there for a reason, so it is a great learning environment.”
Due to COVID-19, the English Football League Championship has been suspended with just seven weeks left in the season.
Despite returning to Australia to see his family, Costin has continued to work for the Robins and has been participating in online meetings during the late hours of night.
After enjoying a rapid rise in the competitive industry, Costin is not sure what the future holds and is happy at Ashton Gate Stadium.
“I would not say I am living the dream because there are still things I want to achieve and do,” he said.
“But I am just really happy at Bristol at the moment.”
