EHL 2023/24 Premier Division: Young Coach Rob Foxall-Smith Shares his Ambitions at Reading Women

Rod Gilmour of The Hockey Paper speaks to a young Premier Division coach with big ambitions at Reading women

When Rob Foxall-Smith joined Reading women in the summer, the newly-installed head coach said that the two-time champions had “all the tools to be a force at the top of the game again.”

Two games in and Reading duly sit atop the Vitality Women’s Premier Division following an opening day win over Surbiton (only their second ever) and an away victory over Loughborough Students. 

At 28, Foxall-Smith is one of the youngest to take the helm of a Premier Division across the men’s and women’s game. Yet the Cambridge academic and career-long goalkeeper already has an outlook of a seasoned campaigner.

“Performance in my view is about consistency, we have made a great start and now we have to deliver week on week. We are buoyant but focused,” he says.

“We are really pleased to have picked up six points. The feeling is really positive but grounded in terms of how much work there is left to do with two games into the 11 before the split.”

Having beaten seasoned champions Surbiton at Sonning Lane, Foxall-Smith admits that the challenges will come thick and fast across the league spectrum now the season is in full swing.

“It would be silly not to acknowledge that both squads were missing the England players and can only play what’s in front of you,” he adds. “Surbiton played really nicely but to beat them for the second time in Reading’s history is always a big scalp."

After a five-year hiatus, Reading were promoted back to the Women’s Premier Division in 2022. And Foxall-Smith believes that Reading can maintain their fine start to the season.

“Any side operating at any level in my opinion, you shouldn't have time to be overawed about what’s in front of you,” he says.

“You go into battle, you’ve got to believe you can win.  We certainly do - we certainly believe there is no team in the league we can’t beat.

“But we are aware of the challenges and anyone can beat anyone really. We sat down before the season to discuss our goals and I’m a big performance over results person. The results come when we hit our performance levels.”

Foxall-Smith picked five debutants for their opening weekend success, including England under-16 Ruby Butterfield deputising for Amy Tennant in goal and Sophia Clark, 18, scoring the winner.

Foxall-Smith says that if players have the right qualities, then age is of no concern. “If you want to be a realistic coach in terms of reaching high performance levels, when someone’s ready you play them,” he believes.

“Provided they’re meeting the behavioural and cultural standards and if they are in the top 16 players  then it doesn’t matter if they are 13 or 45. 

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for players in our country to get access for young players to step up and face Olympians, it is a great challenge, but also for the development journey for the 1s and 2s pushing for that competition.”

Foxall-Smith’s own hockey career saw him don goalkeeping gear from an early age. “I’m not sure my mum was thrilled about it,” he admits. He had success at national age group and representational hockey with the West of England but “never really set the world alight”.

When he was 23, he took club hockey more seriously and was a No.2 at Wimbledon, played in the New Zealand Premier League before playing for Brooklands and Bath Buccaneers over the last six years. “I was never a vintage player, I tried to push it at one stage but I enjoyed it alot,” he adds.

“Coaching is now a way of living the game at the highest levels. I’d like to think I can still compete but this is the first season in my life where I haven’t played, which is an interesting one to get used to, but nice to dress up warm rather than freeze on a pitch sometimes!"

Foxall-Smith joined Reading having been Head of Ladies’ Performance at Team Bath Buccaneers last season, as well as at the University of Bath.

He is continuing as performance coach at Bath, which means his weekly planner is hockey packed.

“It’s mornings in Bath and afternoons and evenings in Reading most days of the week before weekend matches, out of bed at 7am and in bed at 1am quite a lot.”

Meanwhile, he is also coach of the England women over-35s squad, which features the evergreen Emma Thomas, still an important cog in Reading’s XI.

England women won silver at the European Masters Championships in the summer, falling to Ireland on a shoot-out in Nottingham.

“We played some seriously nice hockey,” admits Foxall-Smith, who cites Simon Mason as one of his goalkeeping heroes growing up.

“We came out in the final and played like a house on fire but the final touch just didn’t fall for us.

“The whole Nottingham event was just a great exhibition of what masters hockey can be. Sometimes it gets a bit of bad rep. There is a real channel for it to be a true performance part of our game. There are some serious players putting on an England shirt.”

Saturday: Reading women v Hampstead & Westminster, 4:30pm