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WORKING WITH FIELD GUNNERS ARTICLE 2019

A Sports Therapists Working with Field Gun Crews

This is my personal experience working with Field Gun crews, the ultimate military team sport, and why it’s important to understand the individuals in their sports in order to give them the best care. So, I ask you this question! Do you truly know the people that you are supporting? Have you ever worked beyond the confines of your clinic?

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I first encountered Command Field Gun back in the 1980s, whilst I was competing at the Royal Tournament’s inter-service Fencing Championships as both the team therapist and as an Army Fencer. For therapists to work with elite athletes, I feel that they must have some understanding of the individual athlete and their mindset. They can do this by taking time to understand the sport - whether it be Field Gun, Fencing, Martial Arts or Gymnast - and getting to know the athlete on a personal level.

The History of Field Gun
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Field Gun is a sport that was widely known for its teamwork, leadership, moral and physical courage, until it ended in 1999 due to lack of funding and personnel. The competition, which was originally contested by crews from the Royal Naval Bases of Devonport, Portsmouth, and Chatham, originated when Queen Victoria gave the sailors of the Naval Brigade in 1907 on their return home from the 2nd boar war the privilege of marching through London with their guns on display to appear at the Royal Naval and Military Tournament at the Agricultural Hall Isling, This was to commemorating the relief of the British army at the siege of Ladysmith during the 2nd Boar war where the army had been surrounded under siege for 119 days.  Over time, the format evolved, and the location changed to Earls Court, but it remained the centerpiece of Britain’s annual Royal Military Tournament.

In the same year, 1907, two months after the Royal Tournament started, Brickwoods Brewery donated a silver trophy to the Royal Navy which saw the start of the Brickwoods competition. This is run on a flat concrete track and involved no obstacles with a stipulation that it could only be competed for by Portsmouth based units. In 1975, this was changed to enable all Royal navy units to compete for the Brickwoods Field Gun Competition. 

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It is still run each year at HMS Collingwood as part of HMS Collingwood Open Day and is now named the Royal Navy Royal Marines Charity (RNRMC) Field Gun Competition. It is now open to all Her Majesties Armed Forces, but it still controlled, organised and administered by the Royal Navy & Royal Marines Charity

 I think it would be relevant to give you some information on what Field Gun entails. Each crew consists of 18 highly disciplined, motivated, and physically fit field gunners, they race to assemble the gun and limber to run with it along a set track, disassembling and reassembling as the competition requires, before dramatically running the gun home, maintaining the spirit of the Royal Navy’s contribution to the relief of Ladysmith. The guns that are being hurled about at the tournaments weigh in at 2075lbs or 941.20kg when complete. For those who like breakdowns, here it is for you: The Field Gun comprises of 4 wheels, each of which weigh 120lbs, the barrel is 900lbs, the gun carriage is 350lbs and the limber (that is the box where the shells are stored that connects to the gun whilst being pulled) weight 345lbs when empty.

Field Gun crews are all volunteers, who generally train in their own time - early mornings, lunchtimes and evenings - and Gun crew operates in a relatively flat structure without rank normally under the guidance of a No.1 trainer and a crew Captain within an organisation managed by the Field Gun Officer.

What it takes for 18 to become 1

There are no ranks in field gun. Both men and women compete on equal footing against each other for their position on the crew. The crew members are unaware of who will actually be running in the actual competition until the night before when the final selections are made, and they are presented their prestigious Track Shirts.

Individuals carry out their own personal training of strength and conditioning to the peak of military fighting fitness in their own time, building up to field gun training camp where they can be training daily from 8am until 6pm. Once they move down to HMS Collingwood for track week, it can start as early as 6am and finish at 7pm, or sometimes later.

My experience adapting to the crew

In 2010, I was asked to work as a sports therapist with the Royal Navy and the crew of HMS Campbell town as their crew therapist. However, the career was short-lived due to them being decommissioned a few months later.

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My next invite came from MoD Corsham in 2014 where, because of previous commitments, I could not join them at start of the season and joined instead at track-week, where my abilities were quickly put to the test. I was still setting up having just arrived when my attention was first needed; I found skipper, Andy (the crew captain), lying out cold on the track after slipping on the run home - which is a flat-out sprint - and the whole weight of the gun had gone over both of his legs. The crew had no reserves left, due to injuries sustained in training, and as I ascertained that Andy had no fractures it was up to me to get him back on his feet…and quickly. With a lot of work, involving ice massages, strapping, taping, the full use of the cryo-cuffs and mechanical massage in between every run and at the start and end of the day, MoD Corsham were still able to fully compete on both days of the Brickwoods Trophy Competition finals.

The most important lesson I learned from that first season was that I needed to be with the crews at start of their training camp prior to track-week, in order to give them the best care and personalised attention that I possibly could. The next year, along with expanding my crew for the 2015 and 2016 seasons - consisting of myself, Gillian Aghajan (Sports Therapist) and Ian Padget (a placement from UCL completing his Sports and Remedial degree and masters) whom had both worked at other sporting events with me previously.

Field Gun training pushes the athlete’s body to their limits, to that point where it feels that it can take no more, and then digs deeper pushing themselves further past any pain body barrier that might have been there. That is where the sports therapists come in, treating these super-fit athletes in order to prevent injuries. We help with their stretching regimes, make sure that they stay hydrated and massage them to break down and remove lactic acid build up. The nature of field gun and the need to stop the heavy equipment on a sixpence puts immense pressure on the body’s joints such as, back, neck, arms, elbows and knees, to name but a few of the joints and that is without the rest of the body parts meaning my cryo-cuffs come into play along with ice packs and wet towels to help control inflammation in between their runs and drills.

I find that most sports therapist that I have been in contact with are aware of cryotherapy but only know how to use the large machines that require electricity for working in a clinical situation and are unaware of portable cryo-cuff equipment.

For both Gillian and Ian, the MoD Cosham group were a far cry from the comfort-zones they had been used to in other civilian sports events; they had very different mind-sets, humour and banter. It meant that they had to modify their practice to suit the needs of their subjects, to make them feel more comfortable, and to adapt to the surroundings.

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The use of towels when working with Field Gunners is virtually a non-existent exercise - they are far too fast-paced and you can’t carry enough for a day's work, much less a week’s worth. Crews eat, drink and rest together 24/7 throughout the season, they are in each other's company more than their own. They have no compunction of stripping in front of one another, that is both men and women or being worked on in our shared 3m x 4.5m tent. When working with personnel within this kind of environment, you have to be able to use their surroundings to the best of your ability.

The tent is where we call home during track-week, which needs to be respected. When the weather is bad, you have the added obstacles with the whole crew, the guns, and the limber being beside and all around you while trying to treat. This would sometimes mean minimising to just one table and treating crew members from a sitting or standing position or even outside on the grass sometimes behind the tent.

It is up to us, as trained therapists, to spot and deal with problems before they arise. You don’t wait for them to come to you (because they won’t). If you see they need sorting, you tell them to get on the table or you pass them on to your assistant therapists. One thing to keep in mind is that you’re not only there to look after the crews, but to impart your knowledge and experience, so that when we treat the crews, we can do so to the best of our ability and the treatment can be continued afterwards.

Working With a Team

In 2017, I chose two new placements who had both attended the Birmingham international fencing tournament and the WIKF National karate championships with me before supporting me at MoD Corsham

They both stayed as part of my team until the end of the 2019 season. They were Amy Day and Becky Jacob-Harris, who were both in their first year of study at Mar Jon University in Plymouth. Thankfully, after the fear of being ‘just students’ was set-aside and replaced with the confidence of ‘Yes, I can do this, as I am a competent sports therapist in training’, they were fully accepted into the crew family.

I did not have to worry about bringing them into the military mindset, as they already had experience having both come from service families. I find it is important to make sure that your team feels assured, so they treat to their highest standard. Each season my two ladies and I shared a house at the MoD Corsham training camps for the two weeks before heading to HMS Collingwood for track week. In this time, I made sure to turn them from first-year students into competent sports therapists, bringing them up to a standard that I required to give my crew the best-service possible.

 It was the same year that my proudest moment in Field Gun came about; as I listened to the names being called for the crew that would be running in the competition to receive their track-shirts for the next day, I heard my name – followed by my two assistants - and we were also presented with our own crew track-shirts. It’s times like this, when you put in the hard work to understand your personnel, that you get rewarded with such an honour. As a veteran myself, it meant more to me than what could ever be put into words - to say I was choked up would be an understatement!

With the respect that I and my Teams have earned knowing the crew’s needs, came the invites and opportunity to help out other crews when not needed by 0ur own crews. With the permission of our No.1 and Skipper, we loaned our aid to those crews like the Royal Engineers, who most deem ‘the new kids on the block’, the ARRC (Allied Rapid Reaction Corps) and Naples (Allied Joint Forces Command Naples) who, as the name implies, are a multinational crew, among others who don’t have the sponsors to be able to employ their own sports therapists.

 

Working alongside Field Gun Crews was no small feat. When I first started at HMS Collingwood in 2014, all treatments was predominantly run by physiotherapists, and as a complimentary therapist, I was not exactly received with open arms. Another Sports Massage Therapist, working in the tent next door with RAF Cosford was Emma Hopkinson, who was also a FHT member. I offered my experience in helping her by running small workshops to cover areas she felt she needed to better support her crew.

Also in the following years other qualified and insured therapists not only for FHT members but any other insured sports therapist supporting field gun crews

With my years of experience working with many sport teams both at home and internationally, I feel it will take traditionally trained therapists’ way outside of any box that they feel comfortable working in. Whether for long-term or short spurts, it allows a new form of education that you may not get in an ordinary therapy clinic, so dive in and get your feet wet.

 

A note to any student or newly qualified therapist looking for a placement!

Both Amy and Becky were 1st year students who earned their placements over other students that had more experience with me by being able to write honest straight forward and respectful letters and CV’s.

I will leave you with an incite from Amy Day:

“I was fortunate enough to undertake several placements with Herman, which provided me with a great insight into different ways of practising and applying the knowledge I had learned at university. It also helped me to gain a better understanding of how different the scope of practice could be, for example being the main first aid provider at a sporting event, to simply encouraging the athletes to hydrate properly. Herman has a very impressively stocked kit bag for event days, which certainly gave me a better working idea of what is useful beyond a basic first aid kit and why. Being able to attend placements at a variety of settings, with different types of patients was extremely useful in expanding my learning.”

The End Of Season

FHT Sports Therapists Represented at Field Gun

Herman Fenton - MoD Corsham 2014 to date

Gillian Aghajan – 2015 & 2016 MoD Corsham

Amy Day – MoD Corsham 2017 to 2019 seasons completed masters now studying Physiotherapy after working with rehabilitation units in the Plymouth area during covid-19 pandemic

Rebecca Jacob-Harris – MoD Corsham 2017 to 2019 has put studies on hold whilst working as a Care support worker 

Emma Hopkinson – 2013 to date Supporting RAF Cosford leaving the services shortly to set up in the Brize Norton area but hoping to continue supporting her RAF COSFORD Crew as a civilian

Helen Sweeney – 2015 worked with HMS Devonport and then she supported HMS NEPTUNE in the 2016 to 2018 seasons. Helen has her own practice in Manchester area

Nikkita Goddard –supported HMS Devonport in 2016 (as a MarJon student) – and HMS Sultan 2017 to date. Nikkita is teaching sports therapy at city college Plymouth and also has her own practice in Chivenor.

Ian Padgett - supported MoD Corsham 2015 &2016 has his own practice in east Sussex area 

A none FHT Sports Therapist Represented at Field Gun

 

Memories

Herman,

reading this article about your work with the field gun crews, brought back so many memories of my teenage years when my friend and I were supporting the Field Gun Crews at HMS Areal (as it was called then) near Lee-on-Solent in the late 1950's early 1960's. Regularly Travelling by bus to their practice ground, watching them assemble, run and lift those huge extremely heavy pieces of equipment in preparation for the Royal Tournament at Earls Court. The crews were extremely fit but had many injuries between them and back then as as young teenagers, we knew nothing of Sports Therapy's.

The Field Gun Crew from HMS Areal were also supporters' of the St Dunston blind veterans and would hold social events for the blind veterans, to which we were also invited to take part in Ballroom dancing along with the blind veterans in the mess.

by Hazel Tudor

FHT Local Support Group Coordinator for Waterlooville

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