The Rise Of Accrington Stanley, The Art Of Diving & Man Marking Adama Traore! | Sean McConville

I Had Trials Once...

Sports, Comedy, Soccer

4.8 • 647 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2026

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We're back with another episode of I Had Trials Once and this time we're joined by former Accrington Stanley, Stockport, Rochdale, Barrow, Stalybridge, Chester and Clitheroe midfielder...Sean McConville Sean sits down with Gaz & Jord as he discusses his football career from life in Liverpool's academy to becoming an Accrington Stanley legend The lads start the pod talking about Sean's decision to step into management and how he's finding still balancing being a gaffer and occasionally playing himself. They then talk in depth about his early career at Liverpool with the likes of Jay Spearing, struggling with his height before immediately dropping into non-league football to gain experience in men's football. The trio then chat about Sean's first stint at Accrington Stanley before opting for a big money move to Stockport which ultimately turned into a disaster thanks to Jim Gannon and then continuing his career at Rochdale, Barrow, Stalybridge & Chester. Sean then speaks about his decision to rejoin Accrington Stanley, his relationship with John Coleman, the incredible job owner Andy Holt has done to transform the club from Northern Prem to having a 6-7 year stint in League One. Sean continues with his relationship with star striker Billy Kee and why he ultimately struggled with the pressures of League One football before discussing his incredible 10 years at the club and how he ended up being one of the leading assist maker’s in the whole EFL. Finally, he discusses the best players he's ever played against including the incredible Adel Taraabt at QPR and having to man mark Adama Traore at Middlesbrough. 🔗 Join our Patreon below for as little as £3 a month and get access to all of the best unfiltered and unedited stories that normally have to be cut! 👇 / membership A HUGE shout out to CAPO for sponsoring this weeks episode of the podcast - Check them out 👇 https://capouk.com/ Get 15% off your CAPO order when you use code: IHADTRIALS 🎧 You can listen to the full episode wherever you normally get your podcasts via the link below! https://podfollow.com/i-had-trials-once 📳 Make sure you Like, Comment & Subscribe & turn on notifications so it lets you know when a new episode drops. Let us know in the comments who you want to see on a future episode of the Podcast! 👇 📲 Follow us on social! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Twitter: / ihadtrialsonce Instagram: / ihadtrialsonce TikTok: / ihadtrialsonce Facebook: / ihadtrialsoncepodcast ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by the British Army recruitment.
0:04.0	So this is a big one for me.
0:06.0	As obviously you know, I was in the Armed Forces, and it helped me a lot when I came out of football
0:10.0	and didn't really know what I was doing and trying to find a purpose.
0:14.0	So as well as this, you might not know how exciting and challenging a career can be in the Army.
0:20.0	When I was in the Armed Forces, we used to play a lot of military football
0:24.4	and every Wednesday we'd meet up and play against other bases around the country,
0:29.0	and it was brilliant.
0:30.6	And there's thousands of registered players across all levels,
0:34.1	from local league style matches right through to international matches. So I remember
0:40.0	playing against like the Thailand military base and flying out there and it was brilliant.
0:45.3	The army is also part FA affiliated with its own teams competing across the country. They'll
0:51.9	even fund your qualifications and courses to the highest
0:55.0	level. If you want to become a professional coach, do your badges, be a referee. What they'll do
1:00.9	if you want to play football as well is build it around your everyday life. So I used to be a
1:06.8	PTI. So I'd have an everyday job. And then at the weekends, I'd play in the National League,
1:12.1	and I'd get paid to play football as well.
1:14.3	And the military helped structure that as well.
1:17.7	So I was getting my education, my qualifications, doing my job,
1:21.3	but also they were helping me play football as well at the weekends,
1:24.7	which was brilliant.
1:25.9	And obviously you don't just need to
	...

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