The sports psychologist making a difference with a dog and a bench at Brentford

“Any chance?” asks Michael Caulfield, Brentford’s sports psychologist, and with that Paisley, a lurcher-whippet with a marble-cake coat, hops out of the boot of his car at the training ground. He stops for a chat with the groundstaff, on their hands and knees repairing black netting chewed by urban foxes in this part of west London.

Michael Caulfield with his dog Paisley at Brentford's Jersey Road training ground: ‘I’ve got time and I create time for others to have time.’ Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Observer

“When a fox sees Paisley, they scarper off to Surbiton,” Caulfield says, walking past the place he calls Augusta, by which he means the immaculate pitches in front of the Robert Rowan Performance Centre named after their technical director who died six years ago. “It sounds pathetic but I walked past his portrait this morning and went: ‘1-1 last night [against Sheffield Wednesday], penalties, you wouldn’t believe it, but we got there. Hope we get a home draw.’”

Soon Caulfield is talking about his unique, open-air office. “There are four benches here now, two – for the academy – are having an official opening next week,” he says. The first spot, he adds, was a “crappy tin bench” outside the original training pavilion. He sought an upgrade, ordering a wooden one, adding a plaque that reads: ‘Michael’s Bench; Just sit and talk, or just sit.’

“The most moving thing was Robert’s widow, Suzanne, rang and said: ‘Can we come and sit on the bench?’ I could have filled the ground up with tears. We had 15 minutes in the sunshine. Some days no one comes near me but the next day you can’t get on there. That was the whole point of it, to create a space where you can just sit there and go: ‘It’s shit.’ Or: ‘Wasn’t that amazing?’”

Sir AP McCoy, who led Caulfield to retrain as a psychologist while he was chief executive of the Professional Jockeys Association, has visited. The All Blacks, too. “They nearly broke it,” he smiles. It is on those benches where he gets to work, chatting with players and staff, usually with a light touch. Sometimes they walk and talk, Paisley in tow; Keane Lewis-Potter and Aaron Hickey found it beneficial when injured. Mads Roerslev took Paisley for a walk the day after Brentford’s 4-3 win over Ipswich. A replica bench followed at the request of the B team.

“I told them they could decide what would be on the plaque. They came back with something brilliant: ‘Michael’s Other Bench.’ I could have gone to Saatchi and Saatchi, Google, Elon Musk, AI, all the gurus of the world and they would have come up with something as dull as flu.”

In a way, that speaks to the simplicity of Caulfield’s work. “Myself and Thomas [Frank] often sit down and have a bit of lunch. After he signed his new contract [as manager in 2022], he said: ‘I’m jealous of you, Michael. You don’t understand, you’ve got one thing I’ll never, ever have and, by the way, that goes for most people in this building.’ I said: ‘Go on then’ … ‘Time.’ And that’s my innovation.

“I’ve got time and I create time for others to have time. I’m always working towards that moment when the music stops, so for Monday, when it’s red and white stripes v Fulham’s white and black shorts, 11 v 11. I’m trying to keep that joy and soul in football.”

Read the full article on The Guardian, here >