Burton Albion head coach Mark Robinson has revealed he started a business to fund the beginning of his coaching career.
Before joining boyhood club Chelsea, Robinson spent 17 years in charge of the youth teams at AFC Wimbledon, funding his own costs at the beginning of his stay after leaving a full-time job.
“It was tough then because I was doing well at work,” he told BBC Radio Derby on Tuesday evening.
“It was a big decision to make because I had to end up giving up my job. I opened a business with my wife, invested a lot of money.
“The thinking behind that was if that goes well then it would allow me to coach more and fortunately it did.”
The 57-year-old was a part of Fulham‘s academy as a player before forcing to retire at 16 due to injury and admitted he “didn’t want to be involved in football in any way” following the setback.
Robinson’s path to coaching was inspired by his career before football management when he worked at music copyright collective, the Performing Right Society (PRS).
One year, he coached the company’s team that annually played the Dutch equivalent of PRS in the Netherlands, which ignited his return to the game.
“They asked me to do some coaching sessions in Regent’s Park so, I did five or six.
“We played in the old Ajax stadium and they won. I saw the elation from them and then the buzz came back.
“Then I thought wow… this is exciting, this could actually replace playing.”
Robinson was appointed head coach of Wimbledon’s senior team in 2021 replacing Glen Hodges at the Cherry Red Records Stadium and left by mutual consent a year later.
After spending two years in charge of Chelsea’s development squad, Robinson returned to senior football management this summer, becoming Burton Albion’s new head coach.
His arrival has been a part of a wave of change at the Pirelli Stadium with long-serving chairman Ben Robinson selling his majority stake at the club to the Swedish-based Nordic Football Group.
Robinson said he made the decision to move into the Midlands after a near two-and-a-half hour Zoom call with Burton’s new owners.
“I went onto that call intrigued and went off that call thinking ‘wow’. This is just too exciting an opportunity to turn down,” he said.
“It also aligned in terms of how we saw things in the future – in football but life as well.”
Boss pleased with ‘cohesive’ Burton
The Brewers concluded their pre-season last Saturday in a 2-2 draw against Morecambe.
Despite the many squad changes this summer which has seen 20 new arrivals, including deals for Terence Vancooten from Stevenage and Charlie Webster from Chelsea, Robinson is pleased with how Burton’s new look squad has gelled.
“We’re really pleased with how cohesive we’ve been,” said the ex-Fulham player.
“There are little areas to improve but we feel that is more based around player relationships.
“To be as effective as you want to be, players need to form relationships and they need to be on the same wavelength but obviously we’ve only had two pre-season games.”
Burton open their League One campaign this Saturday at home to Lincoln City.
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