Nia Davies: FAW Trust's ex-Swansea City coach says gender should not matter
- Published
Nia Davies secured completed her A Licence with the Football Association of Wales in 2020
Nia Davies has become used to people wrongly assuming she is a physiotherapist.
It comes with the territory, it seems, when you are a female football coach breaking new ground.
Davies, 31, became Swansea City's first full-time female coach when she joined the then Premier League club's academy set-up in 2014.
She was also one of the first in the top flight, alongside Natalie Henderson at Newcastle United.
In 2019, Davies became the first - and to date only - female to land a head of coaching role in the Cymru Premier when she joined Penybont.
Davies, from mid-Wales, has now moved on to the FAW Trust, where she is an academy age group manager working with Wales' under-15 girls.
Davies gained her A Licence last year having been on the same course as former Everton midfielder Tim Cahill and ex-Wales internationals Simon Davies and David Vaughan.
She hopes to study for her Pro Licence - the highest coaching qualification available - further down the line.
That would be another notable achievement for a coach who has broken down barriers to get this far in her career.
"It's commonly thought that you are the physio when you go in somewhere," Davies says.
"That's the stereotype that people have, that physios are female."
Davies' first challenge came at Swansea, where she was initially appointed to focus on developing women's football at the club but ended up coaching boys from under-7 level through to the under-12s.
"I didn't want to be seen as ticking a box, which some people did (think). I know for a fact that that was some people's thoughts on it," Davies adds.
"But what I wanted to get out of it was that it's not about your gender, it's about how good are you as a coach.
"Do you tick the boxes as a coach, regardless of whether you are male or female?
"I think hopefully we are starting to see an era where it doesn't matter about your gender. It's about are you capable of doing that job and have you got the skillset to progress players through their development to be good people and also good footballers?"
Davies felt the need to prove herself in her early days at Swansea.
That was partly because it was her first role in professional football, but gender was also a factor.
"Sometimes you probably do put a bit more pressure on yourself because you're a female," she says.
"You think people think things - maybe they don't, maybe they do - but sometimes you can overthink things.
"By the end, by the time I got used to that environment, it didn't really affect how I worked."
A footballer since she was seven, Davies spent time playing in America before coming home to do a sports science degree while studying for her coaching badges, which eventually led her to Swansea.
At Penybont she worked with under-9 boys right through to the under-19s, but her focus for now is girls' football.
Davies says she would not be fazed by working at senior level - whether in the women's or men's game - because the same skills are required.
"You are coaching individuals at the end of the day," she says.
One challenge, Davies acknowledges, is social media.
Nia Davies spent five years working in Swansea City's academy
"It can be very positive but it can be very negative as well," she adds.
"That's the scary part of it. You see so many horrible and unnecessary comments sometimes because it's people behind a screen.
"That's not just around gender, it can be about race and everything like that.
"I think it's more of a culture thing that we need to keep spreading the word. It's not going to change overnight.
"Everyone has the right to an opportunity if they have the credentials to do that job."
Davies' hope is that at some point not too far down the line, there will be so many female coaches working in football that their presence no longer becomes a talking point.
As for her own future, she is reluctant to make predictions having joined the FAW Trust on a 12-month contract in November 2020.
Wherever Davies ends up, she is likely to have a ball at her feet and a whistle in her hand.
"I find that a difficult question because if I think back seven years to before I started at Swansea, I never thought I would be in that sort of environment," she says.
"I just try to be the best I can be at that stage and progress with the job I am in.
"I just want to improve the players, make sure they are developing, and hopefully get something long-term within Welsh football.
"That's the aim. That's what I'm passionate about, Welsh football and wanting to see males or females progress as much as they can."