Life at Leek Town Elite Football Academy: Q&A with Mathew Knight-Burton

As Operations Manager, I look after the day to day running of the football club. My role includes everything from match day operations for home games, overseeing the Leek Town Elite Football Academy, managing the workforce and building relationships with corporate sponsors. 

I also lead on community engagement for the football club through our Active Community Engagement (ACE) programmes, such as walking football, casual football, soccer schools, holiday clubs and lunch clubs.

Since leaving college, I’ve had a long career in sales, working across industries from car insurances and exhibition stands to wooden windows and mobiles phones. I made the move to Leek Town FC in 2024 and I’ve loved every minute of it. As a football mad, local lad, working at the football club is an absolute dream. I started off as Community Engagement Manager for the club and have recently taken on the role as Operations Manager.

Students can expect to work hard and play harder. Academically, they’ll be challenged to stay focused on their studies, hit their targets and keep their education at the forefront of everything they do. 

From a footballing point of view, we’ll push them to play harder. Our head coach Alex Hurst knows what it takes to play football professionally and he instils his knowledge and experience into the players who represent us. The result is the perfect balance of professionalism, learning and fun.

I love working for a football club. I genuinely enjoy my job and get so much satisfaction from what I do, whether it’s securing a new corporate sponsor or watching our academy team play their college matches. I’ve been football obsessed since the age of three, so being able to work for a great club like Leek Town feels like a dream come true.

I’m excited to see how our partnership with NSCG develops from an academic perspective. Over the next couple of years I want build our programme up to the point where we’re running at least two men’s college teams and a women’s team. The collaboration between Leek Town FC and NSCG Leek College is great for both the young people of Leek, the Staffordshire Moorlands and the wider community. I can’t wait for this group of students to take to the pitch and represent the new partnership.

Discipline! Without it, athletes will find it very hard to make it to an elite level. Playing football is easy, anyone can do it. However, as with any sport, those that rise to the top are the ones that maintain discipline in all elements of their life. Fitness, practice, sleep, diet and recovery are all elements of sport that require discipline. I always look at Cristiano Ronaldo as the utmost role model for youngsters on how discipline in various aspects of life can have such a major impact on an athlete’s career.

There are two quotes that always come to mind when I think about advice – not just in sport, but in life too. 

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.” – Henry Ford

“Hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard.” – Tim Notke

I think that these really bear down on the fact that not everything is going to be given to you and that hard work will always stand you in good stead.

I love Stranger Things and I’m eagerly awaiting the latest instalment later this year. I would also 100% recommend Orphan Black to anyone with Netflix, it’s amazing. 

I also really love sports documentaries, especially around football and the NFL. Series like Hard Knocks, All or Nothing, QB1/Quarterback and Full Swing are favourites. I love seeing behind the scenes of sport at the very highest level.

I am stroke survivor. In 2017, I suffered a broken and dislocated spine that required emergency surgery and, unfortunately, led to a stroke. As a result, I’m now partially sighted with a condition called Homonymous Hemianopia. Although I still suffer with neck and back pain, I try not to let my injuries or ailments define who I am.

If I could give my younger self advice, it would be to study harder. The two years at college fly by and that freedom doesn’t come back once you enter adulthood and the working world. I spent 14 years in jobs that I just didn’t find satisfying and it wasn’t until my mid-30s that I found something that I really enjoy doing. Put in the groundwork now to create a career for yourself that you will love.