Chris Whalley proving to be the perfect fit for Shrewsbury

Just over a year later, he has settled into life in Shropshire well and is enjoying helping Salop to success by keeping the Town players in tip-top condition.

As part of his role, he helps the players to recover after games, works with the coaching staff as they plan training sessions, builds the players’ fitness back up as they recover from injury and gives them advice on what to eat, explaining why they need it and the best times for them to do it.

“My job is that come Saturday they have everything they need to do whatever they can,” Whalley said, when asked about his role.

“I don’t have much, if any, input on the technical side of the football.

“I am separate from that – I just need to prepare the players to be able to do anything the gaffer wants them to do.

“I enjoy that, I see the players when they are high and when they are low and it is your job to keep them on an even keel and be that guy they can talk to.

“You are working with grown men and sometimes they just want loving, but you will not get them to do something they do not want to do.

“When it comes to a game, first and foremost my thought is let’s get through this game without any problems and that is one part of the job done – and then it is let’s hope we get three points.

“I want the team to do well while, but at the same time I want the lads to be alright because my job is having the players ready to perform.

“So when an injury happens, the first reaction is ‘what have I done wrong?’ And ‘can we change something?’”

The 26-year-old was a season ticket holder at Blackpool with his father as a youngster and working in football was always an ambition of his while growing up.

He went to Edge Hill University near Liverpool to study sports science and in his final year of that course, he started working at Fleetwood Town on placement near where he grew up.

Upon completion of his degree, he did a research masters on the effects of injuries on the output of other members of the team, before he moved to Blackpool.

There, the former Sunderland and Leeds manager Simon Grayson awarded him with his first full-time contract working in professional football as an assistant sports scientist.

And he explains how much he learnt during the early days of his career.

He continued: “When I was working at Blackpool, I covered for Ross (Jones, his former boss, who was the lead sports scientist at the time) because he had Covid, and we went to Hartlepool in the FA Cup, and we had two hamstring injuries in the first half and I could have thrown up on the spot.

“You end up questioning everything you have done, at any part of the week. Could I have done this or that differently? But my head was going into overdrive, I was sat on the bench, head in hands.

“I don’t even remember the result – every time someone moved or landed funny or started sprinting I was sat there thinking ‘please no, not another one’.

“Ross reminded me that could have happened at any point with anyone and that it was nothing I had done.”

His former boss at Blackpool, Jones – who played an instrumental part in the Whalley’s development – knew Aaron Wilbraham, which is how he heard about the job at Shrewsbury.

Whalley revealed he had not even made it to the Battlefield Roundabout in Shrewsbury before he had a phone call from David Longwell offering him the role as the lead sports scientist following the interview process.

And Shrewsbury’s 0-0 draw at Exeter a few weeks back marked a year since he took the role on.

He says Shrewsbury’s players generally run between nine and 12 kilometres during a match depending on the position they play – and it is Whalley’s job to help the players recover.

He spends time with the substitutes to make sure they get their workloads up so that when they get their chance they are sharp enough to be able to take it.

He says the whole staff do a ‘great job’ to make sure the players who are not in the starting XI are ready to perform.

Impact from the bench is something that has brought a lot of success to Salop in recent times.

Ryan Bowman has been introduced late in games by Steve Cotterill to score vital goals, and Rekeil Pyke had a similar effect with his strike against Wycombe last weekend.

“In fairness, their fitness is all down to them,” said Whalley, when asked if he feels proud of the number of late goals the team have scored. “We program it. Me, the gaffer, Dave and Alby keep an eye on it all but the players are the ones who have got to apply themselves and the only person who can do that is them.

“I can’t make them train better, only they can do that. We just give them the tools and when the rewards are there and they see them it is great as it drives them on to do it again.”

Whalley smiles when asked about what he does away from football, before replying: “Sport, sport and a bit more sport.” And then adding: “I am the cliché of a fitness coach that likes doing fitness.”