Why Kelly Cousins departed longtime home Reading FC for 'new challenge' with Utah Royals
Why Kelly Cousins departed longtime home Reading FC for 'new challenge' with Utah Royals
The 37-year-old manager and Reading FC icon left the club after relegation to the Women's Championship in England, and finds a new challenge in the NWSL.
Over a month ago, when Kelly Cousins posted a message to supporters of Reading Football Club and Reading Women, a club she’s known for nearly 20 years as a player, executive and manager through two different promotions along the English women’s football pyramid, she ended the message with a simple refrain.
“Once a Royal, always a Royal,” she said in her bittersweet goodbye to the club of her childhood.
The next step proved that refrain to be true.
Cousins (née Chambers) will be the first sporting director at the newly relaunched Utah Royals FC, where she’ll join the National Women’s Soccer League with one of two expansion sides for the 2024 season.
Coming to the NWSL was often a thought for Cousins, who called the league the pinnacle of the women’s game. But that her first chance to join the league came in a front-office role with a club called the Royals — the same nickname as her beloved Reading FC Women — was coincidental but no less “magical” as Cousins begins the next chapter of her career on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
“I’m a true believer that everything happens for a reason,” she said during an exclusive interview with the Salt City FC podcast shortly after her hiring. “It’s probably a magical thing that really happened, going from one royalty to another royalty. For. me, that makes it even better.
“I’m just so excited now to start with a different Royals team, and to make sure I can make them as successful as they can be, as well.”
Cousins’ time with Reading FC Women was nothing but a success, even if the club finished at the bottom of the FA WSL last year. The former Reading player until an ACL injury forced early retirement in 2012, Cousins was named the manager of the club as it rose from the third division to the FA Women’s Premier League National division (then the second-highest league, following the formation of the Women’s Super League).
Reading earned license to play in the newly formed FA Women’s Super League 2 in 2014, and after winning the division a year later, were promoted to the FA WSL to play against the biggest franchises in the women’s game in England with affiliations with the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton and so forth.
Leaving that project — even amid relegation and a number of rumors surrounding the long-term health of the club — was bittersweet for Cousins, even if it did come as the Royals confirmed a move from full-time to part-time status before the 2023-24 season that coincides with the men’s teams relegation to League One.
“It was definitely a really hard decision to leave Reading,” she said. “But I think it was something that was very comfortable for me, something that I knew; I could probably do that job at Reading with my eyes closed. It was a hard decision to step away, but it’s bittersweet because I’m stepping into something that is just as excited as when I first started at Reading.
“It feels like I’m stepping into the first day of school, where I’ve got to learn everything from scratch. That’s the bit that really excites me.”
The next few weeks will involve Cousins drinking from a firehose of new names, terminology and geography as she embarks on the move to Utah and puts together a roster of 22-24 players to compete in the soon-to-be 14-team top division in North American women’s soccer. Not the least of the questions she’ll be asking involves “what is a draft?” as the 37 year old navigates a new country, new sporting culture, new league and new role for the first time.
Though Cousins comes most recently from a managerial background at Reading, she also plans to let first-time manager Amy Rodriguez own her job. Of course, she’ll be around if needed, able to consult on the job.
But her job isn’t to coach the team. It’s to assemble the roster of the club and the organization to find success as quickly as possible. For that, she’ll also need Rodriguez, as well as team president Michelle Hyncik.
“I want to use my experiences to support her as much as possible. We’re in this together,” Cousins said. “I want her to be able to use me as much as possible, if that’s support on the pitch, if that’s support on game days, I want to be there and I want to make her as successful as I can be.
“For me, it’s about using my experiences I’ve got already and her being able to lean on me whenever she needs it, and for her to know that I am there to support her and I’m there to help her succeed as much as possible.”
How Rodriguez taps on Cousins’ shoulder and uses her experience will be up to the first-time manager. But what is clear is that the duo, while working with Hyncik, are tasked with the same responsibilities of building a roster and an organization.
The run-up to the NWSL’s 2024 season is short, but it’s also a lot longer than the 100 days when the original Utah Royals FC launched and field a complete roster. Back then, the club was able to inherit the contracts of most of the now-defunct FC Kansas City as it ceased operations.
Most of the team moved to Utah, and then-coach Laura Harvey (who is back in the league with Seattle-based OL Reign) put together a side in her image.
This time, the Royals will go through a much different — and frankly, more professional — expansion roster that includes the No. 2 pick in the two-team expansion draft with San Francisco-based Bay FC, as well as the No. 1 selection in the upcoming NWSL entry draft (formerly the college draft).
That likely means a lot of young players as the all-women front office build a squad that the community can support. It may mean taking some early lumps while that squad comes together and jells.
But it certainly mean squaring Rodriguez and Cousins on the same page. For that, both plan to bring in “humble players, players that work hard … players that really matched the players that she wants and that I want, as well,” the new sporting director said.
“The first thing for me was to have that conversation with Amy about the style of play, the philosophy, and joining that with what Utah Royals is going to be about,” she added “We’re making sure we have the players that suit her philosophy and playing style, but also suit the club terms of philosophy and wanting to push the club in the right direction.
“For us, now is the time that we can go find those players. That’s the lengthy bit of time that it takes, to go and find those players. We want the best players that we can get, we want to be successful on the pitch, and it’s about us being diligent with our work to make sure that we have the right attributes of players coming in to suit our style of player. Whether that is center backs that can play out of the back or more defensive players in certain areas, that’s going to be the lengthiest bit of work we’ve got to do now. We’ve got a few months now where we can actually do that, but it’s not a lot of time to do that, either.”