Do not let his background fool you.

While Mathew Pears, the newly-appointed Specialist Conditioning Coach for The Football Association of Hong Kong, China, might have honed his craft through distinguished English university and sports teams, including a seven-year stint with prominent English football side Leeds United. The personable Yorkshireman is ready to roll up his sleeves, get back to the basics and help Hong Kong football to sustain its recent upswing in the world stage.  

Pears was excelling in his position with traditional-laden Leeds United back home a while ago, until a sudden turn of events saw the Englishman searching for a fresh start in the football world. “I first saw the Hong Kong job opening online when I was going through a rather unique period of time with Leeds United. I then recall how I first came out here in 2014 and quite enjoyed the city. So when the opportunity arose, I just went for it,” Pears explained his trek from England to Hong Kong. “I knew very little about Hong Kong football and I honestly could not name you any player before I got the job. However, the more research that I did, the more excited I got about being part of Hong Kong’s football revolution, the Project Phoenix and all the excitement surrounding the Hong Kong team.”

It is an understatement to say the HKFA’s office in Ho Man Tin is vastly different to Leeds United’s state of the art training facilities in Thorp Arch. Yet that does not seem to faze the ever-positive Pears one bit. “This job is certainly a challenge and I need to stay positive,” the energetic Pears insisted. “I can see that everyone in town is trying their best to contribute to Hong Kong football but I am also starting to see some of the hurdles in the city’s football development. The environmental constraints, limited training time available, artificial turf pitches and all that are quite new to me. But the rawness of the project really excites me. I will try to maximize on what we have got and get the most out of the current situation.”

With a Masters degree in Sport and Exercise Science in his back pocket, Pears can be seen as a lab coat-wearing, number-crunching sports scientist but that is from the truth. “I will be the first one to admit that sometimes, we dwell on numbers too much, as we monitor the exact number of turns that players made in training, the distance they ran, how they slept, how much they slept, what they ate for meals and was it good food or bad food,” Pears, dressed in tee shirt and shorts in the middle of Hong Kong’s record-breaking winter, offered. “However, we need to find a balance and let scientific data guide us to prepare and train the players. From what I have seen so far during my short time in Hong Kong football, I believe there is certainly a capacity that I can contribute towards Hong Kong football and hopefully, I can assist and help teams, not only the Hong Kong representative teams but the clubs as well, from a sports science and conditioning stand-point.”

The former Strength and Conditioning Coach of Leeds United also offered a brief introduction on what he is ready to offer Hong Kong football. “I want to focus on getting the fundamentals right and look into players’ movement literacy and skills. Then block by block, layer by layer, add to what they already know. I also want to educate the players and make sure they ask questions, so that they will know why they are doing certain things in training and they will have the will to continue to do so even when I am not around,” Pears explained in detail. “Given the training conditions and the artificial turf pitches in town, I also want to insert a level of robustness into the players, so that they can withstand the playing conditions that they find themselves in week in and week out.”

The personable Pears reveals he is acutely aware of Hong Kong’s banner year in 2015 and jokingly mentions that he hopes to avoid ruining Hong Kong’s good run on the international stage. “2015 was a terrific year for Hong Kong football. The representative team did very well in both games against China, as well as the World Cup qualifying campaign. Coach Kim and his team did a superb job and I certainly do not want to apply a radical change upon my arrival,” said the one-time Doncaster Rovers youth team player. “I have gone through eight managers during my seven years with Leeds United and from what I have seen, players do not like radical changes. I need to take my time, gain the trust from the players, build up relationships with them before we can gradually apply what changes that might be needed, one step at a time.”

Taking things one step at a time starting right from the fundamentals. There is little doubt that Hong Kong players and supporters are all eager to see how the experienced Pears might help thrust the Hong Kong representative team to a new level in the football world.