Birmingham City Women's manager Carla Ward joins the Women's Football Show this week
Watch the Women's Football Show on Sky Sports Football, with Birmingham City manager Carla Ward; Tottenham's Alanna Kennedy also discusses the club's potential for big things in the not-so-distant future
Friday 5 March 2021 20:33, UK
Birmingham City manager Carla Ward and Tottenham's Australian star Alanna Kennedy join Jess Creighton and Sue Smith on the Women's Football Show this week.
It has been a quick rise for Ward from being a player to adjusting to life in the dugout, first with Sheffield United and now at Birmingham having replaced Marta Tejedor last summer.
The 37-year-old discusses that transition from playing to coaching and says it was always on her radar once she retired.
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"Naturally I was always a leader in my playing days and it was always something I used to think about," Ward said.
"I had a spinal operation which put me out for a number of months and that was probably a reality of, how long have I got left to play? I remember the surgeon saying 'you're probably not going to play again' which I didn't take too lightly.
"I did come back, but albeit for one more season. I think during that period I started to think that football wasn't going to last forever, so how could I stay in the game?
"I absolutely loved the game, I lived and breathed every moment of it, so I started to do my badges after my first operation and then the more I got into it, and particularly when I got my 'B-Licence', it gave me a real hunger to want to continue that.
"From that moment on, I really saw myself as going into management."
Ward also discusses how she took little bits of inspiration from the coaches she played under as she embarked upon her own managerial career.
Those early lessons have helped her to shape her own managerial identity, despite admitting the settling in period after shifting from a player to a coach took time.
"My first job at Sheffield United probably taught me more than anything if I am honest," Ward added, having led United to a second-placed finish in the Women's Championship last season.
"I went into that coming off the back of being a player, and that was tough because naturally you go from being the joker in the dressing room to then having to have a fine line.
"I must admit it took me a while to grasp that and like I said you have to learn quickly.
"That was tough, but I learnt an awful lot there, took a lot from different coaches that I played under, and ultimately developed my own identity so I feel what I always wanted as a player, I try and deliver as a coach."
Watch the Women's Football Show on Sky Sports Football.
