Jake Simpson has been appointed to the role of head of performance with Carlisle United.
The 32-year-old links-up with his father, Blues boss Paul Simpson, after being on opposite sides at Wembley!
Jake previously worked in a similar role at Stockport County who were beaten on penalties by Carlisle in the League Two play-off final in May.
He previously had worked with Stockport boss Dave Challinor at Hartlepool and Fylde as head of sports science and lead strength and conditioning coach respectively.
Having come through the ranks with Blackburn Rovers he played for both Shrewsbury Town and Stockport, and on the non-league circuit with Hyde, Lancaster City, Celtic Nation and finally at Workington.
He graduated with a degree in sports rehabilitation following his retirement, and also completed a masters in strength and conditioning whilst working at Brunton Park as a fitness coach.
Manager Paul Simpson told the United website: “Jake is coming in to oversee the running of the performance department.
“That will include him putting in place our physical loading and strength and conditioning plans as he also brings his valuable experience of working within football in these areas to our club, and to the fitness department specifically.
“We’re expanding the department, and I think people are aware that our current strength and conditioning coach Jamie Roper is moving on. We’ve advertised his position recently because Jamie will be leaving us shortly.
“That means we will also be appointing a new S&C coach, and that will be a shared role with Jake also looking after some of the requirements from within that area.
“At home games we will see both of them involved, but we have a situation at the moment where we have players who don’t travel to away games with us, and we don’t have a member of staff who can actually take a supervised session with them.
“We’re trusting them to do their work at home, and that’s something I’ve wanted to improve for a while now because we need to make sure that everybody is on top of their fitness levels, even if they aren’t in the match day squad.
“Once we have both new coaches in the building one will stay behind and one will travel with the first team. That may be a shared responsibility but, until we get that replacement in, it’ll be Jake who does it.
“I’m delighted that we’ve got him in. He has all of the relevant and current qualifications, with the sports rehab knowledge meaning that he can have an input with Chris Brunskill on the medical side as well as specialising in the strength side of it.
“Once we’d finalised our promotion we looked at the structure we had in place, and at what had gone on last season in terms of fitness and our injury record, and I realised that we needed to improve things in that department.
“We had a conversation with the directors and with Nigel [Clibbens] and it was agreed that we could make this change. I spoke to Jake about it, I knew that I wanted him to come in and do the job because of the experience and solid reputation that he’s built up.”
