We’re currently in the midst of a(nother) international break, meaning there isn’t a lot of club-level football available for us to watch.
Reading’s game against Wigan Athletic, originally planned for November 15, has been postponed, so the next time the Royals will take to the field is November 22, at home to Rotherham United. This is a full SIXTEEN days since Reading will have last played: the 1-0 win over Stevenage.
However, unlike most international breaks, this gap is a good thing. It gives the
side valuable time with the new manager and his coaching team to get some hours on the training ground to work on the tactical stuff, and presumably fitness levels too, given Leam Richardson’s previous comments.
Who are the new coaching team then? This article delves into the wardrobe to reclaim, once more, the deerstalker hat and monocle, and investigate.
The changes
It’s best to start off with what has actually changed. As we know, Noel Hunt departed as first-team manager on October 26. His backroom team were assistant manager Scott Marshall, coach Mikele Leigertwood and head of goalkeeping Rob Shay.
Richardson was appointed manager two days later, with two of his coaches being Danny Schofield and James Beattie. Not long after that, a quiet announcement on the club website also informed us that Marshall had departed. However, both Leigertwood and Shay have remained. This was an impressively quick turnover of personnel from Reading.
Lastly, Rob Kelly was brought in as assistant manager on November 3, completing the set. The changes are notable because not only are the incoming coaches already well known, but the size of the backroom staff overall has increased. It seems Rob Couhig and the board are really willing to back their new man.
Rob Kelly
Kelly is a vastly experienced assistant manager – indeed, you wonder why he wasn’t considered as an alternative option to Marshall’s appointment earlier in the season.
He had a very short career as a footballer, starting at Leicester City and having a few loan spells away from the club, and even receiving a call-up for Ireland at youth level (though he was born in England). However, a back injury at 24 put an end to his playing career and brought about the start of a nearly 40-year coaching career.
" data-portal-copyright="" />
His first coaching role came with Wolverhampton Wanderers, before heading to to Watford as a youth-team coach. Then he went to Blackburn Rovers as academy director (this is possibly where he came across Richardson for the first time), subsequently moving into first-team coaching at Leicester City, where he sampled his first time in charge of a first team, as a caretaker manager, back in 2006.
This led to him being given a one-year, rolling contract at Leicester, but he was soon sent packing after a bad run of results. Then started a somewhat journeyman run of clubs, moving to join the coaching staff at teams such as Preston North End, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, West Bromwich Albion, Leeds United and Blackburn again.
He also rejoined Wigan, as part of Richardson’s coaching staff there. During these various spells, he has also had a number of spells as a caretaker manager.
Prior to joining Reading, Kelly was working as an assistant manager at non-league Barrow. However, he clearly joins with a huge amount of experience and fits the profile of what fans were asking for: more know-how in the back room.
James Beattie
He’s possibly the most familiar name on this list – certainly the most successful in terms of playing experience. Beattie started out life at Blackburn Rovers, around the same time as Richardson. This may also be where they first crossed paths.
Of course, those of us old enough will remember Beattie coming into significance during his time as a prolific goalscorer at Southampton in the early 2000s.
Beattie broke through into the England squad in 2003, making a total of five appearances, but often being overlooked for other strikers. Again, for those who remember, it never made sense that Emile Heskey was getting picked ahead of him and, 20 years on, it’s still confusing. Anyway, during this time, Beattie earned earn a somewhat injury-plagued move to Everton, where he didn’t quite hit those same heights.
He picked up some form again at Sheffield United, becoming their record signing at the time for £4 million (simpler times…) though his career was on the downturn by this stage. After a few more years, he ended up retiring at Accrington Stanley (another Richardson connection there), which he had joined in November 2012 as a player/coach.
When Richardson departed the club in May 2013, Beattie was appointed first-team manager, his first and only time in such a role, lasting for 16 months with a win percentage of around 27%. From here, Beattie worked as a coach with Garry Monk between 2015 and 2020 at Swansea City, Leeds United, Middlesbrough, Birmingham City and Sheffield Wednesday, helping to build up quite a solid portfolio of experience.
Beattie and Richardson, and indeed Kelly, crossed paths again at Wigan, when Beattie was appointed to the coaching team as part of their League One title campaign. After Richardson left Wigan, Beattie soon followed and was most recently director of football for non-league AFC Totton.
I was surprised at how much coaching Beattie has done over the years since retiring, and he brings a real body of work at both League One and Championship levels. I’m sure the hope for the fanbase is that he can help oversee improvements in the attacking elements of Reading’s game, given our issues at getting the ball in the back of the net and his experience of doing just that in his playing career.
Danny Schofield
Schofield is another footballer-turned-coach to have dabbled in first-team management.
He started out life as a striker, eventually moving over to the right side of midfield, but then switched to the left. Schofield’s playing career hasn’t quite hit the heights of some others in the coaching team, but he was most successful as a player during his 10-year spell at Huddersfield Town, a club he would later go on to manage.
Unlike the rest of the coaching team that has been brought in, Schofield has never previously worked with Richardson. Schofield began coaching at Barnsley’s youth team, while still playing for Rotherham United. He also spent a season at the end of his playing career as a player/coach with Bradford Park Avenue.
" data-portal-copyright="" />
Schofield’s first full-time coaching role came as part of Leeds’ youth set-up in 2015, working with Carlos Corberan. Schofield spent a brief amount of time at Middlesbrough in 2019 but returned to Huddersfield as a youth coach in early 2020.
Editor’s note: To really bring things full circle, you’ll never guess who Corberan studied alongside for five years.
He had a caretaker manager stint at Huddersfield in 2020 and was reunited with Corberan when the Spaniard joined as the Terriers’ first-team manager, leading Schofield to be promoted to coaching in the first team, as well as being tasked to set up and lead Huddersfield’s B Team initiative.
When Corberan left Huddersfield, Schofield was appointed first-team manager, his first time taking such a role on a permanent basis. However, after just 69 days in the job and only one win in eight games, he departed the club and became their shortest-serving manager ever. Schofield then took over as Doncaster Rovers manager in October 2022, but left in May 2023 after an unsuccessful stint.
Schofield’s last role was as an assistant coach at Central Coast Mariners, all the way over in Australia. Schofield joins Reading with a body of good coaching work, having worked with some good managers in his time and experience of youth-level coaching.
Mikele Leigertwood
Well, we know all about this fella, don’t we? Having rescued Leigertwood from the Fake Hoops in 2010, he became something of a cult hero at Reading for five-ish years, known for his hard work in the middle of the park and then eventually retiring with us.
His first move into coaching came in 2015, when he took on a coaching role at Barnet-based Maccabi London Lions. No, me either. In 2016, Leigertwood joined Reading, initially as a loan manager for the academy before later moving into coaching roles, most notably leading the under-18s.
At some point in 2021, Leigertwood was given the opportunity to manage his national side, Antigua and Barbuda, who he represented at international level on 11 occasions.
There isn’t much information on this, but seemingly he was involved with the side until taking on his permanent role in Hunt’s coaching set-up in Reading’s first team at the end of 2024. His role with the national side saw him involved with nine games, five of which were wins.
Leigertwood, having played with Hunt at Reading, also worked with him as part of his backroom team for around 10 months. Rather surprisingly, after Hunt left, Leigertwood has stayed to become part of Richardson’s coaching set-up. That’s surprising in the sense that coaches tend to bring in their own people, but this presents Leigertwood the opportunity to continue his development in a more experienced coaching set-up.
Rob Shay
Last but not least, Shay, who was also part of Hunt’s back-room set-up. He joined the first-team coaching staff in the summer of 2025 after goalkeeping coach Tony Warner departed for Wigan.
There is not much available to find online about Shay. However, it seems the majority (if not all) of his coaching career has been spent at Reading, working his way through the rankings since 2017 and coaching through the academy levels.
