Ipswich Town assistant kitman Lee Owen - a former AFC Sudbury FA Vase finalist – reflects on his journey to the Portman Road dressing room
Performing a system reboot under new owners after twice failing to achieve a swift exit out of the third tier, an unprecedented number of new signings flooded into Ipswich Town during the last 12 months.
Yet arguably one of their most interesting backroom staff appointments, given his pathway into the club, slipped in virtually unnoticed to the outside world.
And his integration from late November completed a remarkable transformation in his career.
Entering the Covid-19 pandemic, when matches up and down the country at all levels were halted, Lee Owen was a car salesman with more than four years under his belt at Volkswagen in Bury St Edmunds. That itself came after a jump from an eight-year spell as a postman in Sudbury.
But in the coming days he is about to become one of the busiest members of staff at Ipswich’s Playford Road training ground.
For Owen, who had a successful non-league career with AFC Sudbury – reaching three successful FA Vase finals from 2003 – and others, will be working flat out to prepare the new full range of yet-to-be-unveiled training and match day kits. It will include putting initials or names and numbering on them for manager Kieran McKenna, his players and wider staff.
He was an extra addition to the kit department at the Portman Road club, working under former goalkeeper James Pullen and arriving shortly before Paul Cook was relieved of his duties in early December.
But with no experience to speak of, other than coming across kitmen as a player, how did he come to make it into football’s seemingly most secretive society?
“Yeah, it’s quite a strange one really,” admits the Great Cornard resident.
“For the last 10 or so years I’ve had a weird obsession with kit and wanting to see and learn how a kitman works.
“It’s one of those jobs that unless you’re within the club or you know someone very well, it’s hard to get involved in.
“I was working for Volkswagen as a salesman and it came to a time when I kind of made a decision off my own back to see how I could get involved in becoming a kitman.
“I did a lot of digging around on the internet and watching clips on YouTube and I was quite fortunate to know a chap called Will Jones, who some people may know from his days at Sudbury.
“He’s now a kitman at Arsenal so I picked his brains and went and saw him for a chat, asking 1,001 questions about what’s involved and how easy is to get in.”
It was a conversation that was to provide a dream entry point into the industry as it did not involve having to leave the county.
“Will is good friends with Andy Rolls (Ipswich’s performance director) at the club,” he explained with the latter having formerly worked as a physio at the Gunners.
“Andy spoke to Will about the possibility of him coming over to help or if Will knew anybody. And Will was Ekind and good enough to put my name and number across to Andy.”
It led to an advertised full-time job that Owen emerged from as the successful candidate, with his role in the kit department also including taking care of the under-23s set-up as well as the first team.
Working around training, he then shares driving duties with Pullen in their kit van that travels the length and breadth of the country in a job where being organised and planning ahead is vital.
Reflecting on his whirlwind first five months in his new career, Owen said: “It’s been amazing to be in and around the professional game.
“Everybody at club has been great at welcoming me and helping me.
“Massive, massive credit goes to James Pullen though, who is my boss, in teaching me what players need and what coaches need for their requirements.”
There is certainly a lot more to the job than meets the eye though.
“When I first told people what I was doing for a job, generally the first answers were okay, so you’re doing some washing,” he said.
“Yes, we do that and we also have a couple of laundry ladies that help us out massively with that, but no two days are the same.
“Generally, in the morning you’re making sure the kit is all ready for the players to come in so they’re just got to grab it. Different players have different requirements or different clothing that they need.
“You need to remember things like that to make their life a lot easier because they need to be performing at a very high level.
“You need a good memory in this job because if you do forget anything you’ll only do it once, in the nicest possible way.”
Just as he started to get his head around how things needed to work under Cook’s management, there was soon new requirements to be met under the detailed methods of Northern Irishman McKenna.
“The new management team that has come in have been great,” he said.
“They would like us out on the training pitch so it’s nice to get a pair of boots on again and help them in any way that they need.”
That has included utilising both Pullen and his own backgrounds by feeding in balls during coaching drills.
But he said the next minute they can be darting to the changing rooms to get a different set of boots if a player is not comfortable after experiencing the ground conditions.
Owen said: “There is so many different things that you do.
“Yes, they’re not huge things but again they make players’ and coaching staff’s lives a lot easier and that’s what we are there for really, to make it easier for them to perform at the top level.”
While the Premier League is the American-funded Gamechanger 20 group’s big aim, ending their Championship exile in 2022/23 is the immediate almost ‘must-do’ goal.
If McKenna and his team do successfully hit their target, a very much driven former car salesman and Sudbury postie will certainly have played his part in helping to finally deliver it.